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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran | |||
| Israeli military strikes Iranian targets in Syria, kills | |||
| 2019-01-22 | |||
Israeli air strikes and ground-to-ground missiles killed at least 11 fighters including two Syrians, a Britannia-based war monitor said. The bombardment hit Iranian and Syrian targets around Damascus as well as near a military airport to the south of the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Syrian military air defenses also destroyed more than 30 cruise missiles and guided bombs during Israeli air strikes on Sunday, Russia’s defense control center was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying. Israeli air strikes targeting an airport in southeastern Damascus killed four Syrian soldiers and maimed six, the military center was quoted by RIA news agency as saying on Monday. Syrian state news agency Sana said its military air defenses had thwarted "hostile targets" and shot down several of them, without elaborating. Witnesses in Damascus said loud kabooms rang out in the night sky. "We have started striking Iranian Quds targets in Syrian territory. We warn the Syrian Armed Forces against attempting to harm Israeli forces or territory," Israel’s military said in a statement. The overnight strikes followed cross-border attacks on Sunday in which Syria said it repelled an Israeli air attack. Israel said it intercepted a rocket fired at the Golan Heights. "We have a permanent policy, to strike at the Iranian entrenchment in Syria and hurt whoever tries to hurt us," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said earlier. The Israeli army also said a popular winter tourist site on Mount Hermon in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights would be shut for the day. It added that otherwise things remained "routine" along the frontier with Syria. Netanyahu last week acknowledged an Israeli attack on what he called an Iranian arms cache in Syria, where Tehran provides Damascus with vital support. He told his cabinet Israel had carried out "hundreds" of attacks over the past years of Syria’s war to curtail Iran and its ally Leb’s Hezbollah. Usually silent about its attacks on Iranian targets near its frontier, Israel has lifted the veil this month, a sign of confidence in a campaign waged amid occasional tensions with Syria’s big-power backer Russia.
In addition, the Israeli Air Force bombed a number of Syrian air defense systems that fired on the attacking fighter jets, including a Russian-made Pansir S-1 battery, the military said. "During the attack, dozens of Syrian surface-to-air missiles were fired, despite the clear warnings expressed [by Israel] to refrain from attacking. As a result, a number of Syrian air defense batteries were also attacked," the IDF said in a statement acknowledging the attack. According to Russia, four Syrian servicemen were killed in the Israeli strikes. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said at least seven other pro-regime fighters were killed, likely Iranian or Shiite militia troops. The Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper reported Monday that the Syrian surface-to-surface missile, fired by an Iranian militia at the Golan Heights a day earlier and intercepted by an Iron Dome anti-missile battery, carried a nearly half-ton warhead. In response to the missile attack, according to the IDF, jets bombed weapons warehouses, including at least one at the Damascus airport, an intelligence facility and a training camp, all belonging to Iran’s Quds Force, the expeditionary arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which Israel and the West accuse of trying to gain a military foothold in Syria. All of the targets, including the Syrian air defense batteries, were located around Damascus, according to the IDF.
According to SOHR, 12 of those killed were members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps; six were Syrian military fighters; and the other three were other non-Syrian nationals. On Monday morning, the IDF also released video footage of its airstrikes on Syrian air defenses, including on social media. According to Conricus, the Iranian retaliatory strike aimed at the northern Golan was “not a spur-of-the-moment” response, but had been planned months in advance, based on intelligence collected by the IDF. The spokesman said Iran was directly responsible for the launch, and disputed reports that the projectile had been fired by pro-Iranian militias or by the Syrian regime. Conricus said the location from which the missile was fired was “an area that we have been promised that the Iranians would not be in.” That assurance appeared to have been made by Russia — Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s prime ally in the civil war — but Conricus said he “won’t go into who made the promise.” Israel has reached a number of understandings with Russia about the permitted location of Iranian troops in Syria, mostly about their deployment along the Golan border with Syria. | |||
| Posted by:Fred |