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Strike yesterday by Israel reportedly hit near a crude oil processing plant south of Palmyra in Syria and a communications tower nearby
[PUBLISH.TWITTER]

An Nahar adds:
Syrian air defenses responded Wednesday to an Israeli airstrike targeting areas close to the historic Syrian town of Palmyra in the central province of Homs, state television reported.

The reported quoted an unidentified military official as saying the strike occurred shortly before midnight and targeted a telecommunications tower and some posts around it, only causing material damage.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the strikes hit an airbase known as T4, adding that Iran-backed militiamen based in it were targeted.
The Times of Israel adds:
The alleged Israeli strike in central Syria yesterday night killed nine pro-government fighters, four of them Syrians and five of undetermined nationality, a Britain-based war monitor claims.

The Syrian state news agency SANA earlier quoted a military source as saying that the attack near the city of Palmyra had killed a soldier and wounded three others.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, says the attack targeted several Iranian positions, among them a communication tower, near the T4 airbase east of Palmyra.

It reports that the attack killed four Syrians fighting with pro-Iran groups backing the Damascus government including one soldier, as well as five others whose nationality was not immediately clear.

The Observatory is an opposition-linked group with unclear funding and has at times been accused of inflating casualty numbers.
Another Times of Israel article adds:
A Russian general on Thursday said that Syrian air defenses did not engage Israeli jets that reportedly carried out a strike in central Syria because there were two civilian airliners in the air at the time.

Syrian Rear Admiral Vadim Kulit told the Sputnik news site that the strike was carried out by four Israeli F-16 jets.

“The Syrian military leadership decided not to use air defense systems since at the time of the Israeli aviation attack, two civilian passenger aircraft were in the zone of destruction of the anti-aircraft systems,” Kulit said.

Russia has repeatedly accused Israel of using civilian aircraft as a “shield” against Syrian air defenses, amid lingering anger over a case in 2018, when the Syrian military shot down a Russian spy plane while responding to an Israeli strike over Syrian airspace.
And yet a third Israel Times article adds:
Pro-Iran militias vow harsh response against Israel over alleged Syria strike.

‘Syria Allies Operations Room’ says several killed, injured in overnight attack near Palmyra, which it says was conducted by Israel, US; Israel closes Golan airspace as precaution.

“The command of the operations room has taken the decision to respond to this attack in retaliation for the lives of the martyrs and the blood of the wounded, and the response will be very harsh,” the groups said in their statement.

The Syria Allies Operations Room maintained that it is in Syria only to assist dictator Bashar Assad and to fight the Islamic State terror group and accused Israel and the US of trying to “drag us into side battles.”

Iran, a close ally of Assad, both maintains its own military presence in Syria and supports a number of predominantly Shiite militias in the country. These militant groups fight alongside Assad’s troops against the country’s opposition, but Israel maintains they also are used to conduct attacks against Israel and to facilitate the transfer of weapons and other materiel throughout the region.
Posted by: Fred 2021-10-15
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=615084