Israeli missile strikes against several targets in Syria killed at least six pro-government fighters on Monday, according to a UK-based war monitor, Middle East Eye reports.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “six non-Syrian militia fighters were killed” in the Israeli strike. Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory, said the strikes had targeted arms depots and missiles stores around Damascus.
“Syrian air defences intercepted a sizable number of missiles but many hit their targets and caused material damage,” said Rahman who relies on a network of sources inside Syria for his reports.
Earlier on Monday, Syria’s army said the country’s air defences intercepted “Israeli aggression” over the capital, Damascus, in the latest stepped-up bombing of alleged Iranian targets inside the country over the last two months, Al Jazeera reports. Israeli military planes flew over the Golan Heights to hit targets on the edge of the capital, an army statement said, without mentioning casualties but adding most of the alleged missiles that were fired had been brought down.
“Today, at 01:18 [23:18 GMT on Sunday] the Israeli enemy launched a missile strike from the occupied Syrian Golan Heights and Galilee [in northern Israel] on a number of targets on the outskirts of Damascus, and air defense systems repelled the aggression and shot down most of the enemy missiles,” a military source told SANA.
A Syrian military defector said the bombing raids hit a considerable army division in the town of Kiswa, almost 14 kilometres south of the capital, in a sprawling area where Iranian-backed militias have a dominant presence. Witnesses heard large explosions on the southern edge of Damascus, residents said.
Earlier, senior aide to the Iranian Foreign Minister, Ali Asghar Khaji, warned Tel Aviv against crossing “red lines” in Syria, describing Israeli military actions as “aggressive and hostile towards the region, the Palestinians, and neighboring countries”.
Israel’s armed forces did not immediately comment on the latest raid, but its senior military officials have acknowledged the escalating attacks inside Syria aimed to end Tehran’s military presence in Syria. Israel’s Defence Force Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said at the end of last year that his country’s missile strikes had “slowed down Iran’s entrenchment in Syria,” hitting more than 500 targets in 2020.
Western intelligence sources say Iran’s military influence has expanded in Syria in recent years, prompting Israel to escalate its campaign to prevent its arch-rival from establishing a significant military foothold along its border.
Iran’s proxy militias, led by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, now hold sway over vast areas in eastern, southern and northwestern Syria, as well as several suburbs around Damascus. They also control Lebanese-Syrian border areas. Israel, which in the last two months staged some of its biggest attacks yet inside Syria, has concentrated on al-Bukamal, the Syrian city that controls the border checkpoint on the main Baghdad-Damascus highway.
The widening military campaign is part of a so-called “campaign within wars”, which, according to Israeli generals and regional intelligence sources, has been tacitly approved by the United States. The operations that aim to prevent Tehran from changing the balance of power in Syria in its favour have gradually eroded Iran’s extensive military power without triggering an extensive increase in hostilities, according to regional intelligence sources.