Israel targets Iranian advisors in new Syria air strikes
The Syrian army said early on Wednesday that Israel launched air strikes on an area in the southern outskirts of Damascus, where Syrian defectors believe there is a strong Iranian military presence. The air strikes are the second such attack within a week.
The strike, which hit a strategically important area that Israel struck in the past, originated along the disputed Golan Heights along the Israeli-Syrian border. The aerial bombing caused only material damage, the Syrian army said.
Syrian military defectors contacted by Reuters said one air strike hit a military base in Jabal Mane Heights near the town of Kiswa, where the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps has long been entrenched, a rugged area 15 kilometres south of Damascus.
Strikes in July also hit towns near Kiswa, where Hezbollah are deployed with other pro-Tehran militias, according to a senior army defector.
The area is defended by anti-aircraft missiles stationed along the Syrian Golan Heights, the military sources said.
“We don’t comment on these kind of news reports,” an Israeli military spokesman told Reuters. Syrian state TV later broadcast footage it claimed was the most recent aerial attack.
For the past two years, Israeli air strikes have targeted an area that extends from the southern countryside of Damascus to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, where a growing Iranian presence is viewed as a strategic threat by Israel.
Israel launched air raids against what it called a wide range of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria last Wednesday, stating that it would not tolerate an ongoing Iranian military presence near its borders.
In Syria, President Bashar Al Assad’s government has never publicly acknowledged that there are Iranian forces operating on his behalf, saying Tehran only has military advisors on the ground.
Analysts spoken to by The National, including the Long War Journal’s Joe Truzman, say Israel’s escalating air campaign in Syria is part of a deterrence strategy to slowly undermine Iran’s military presence, without triggering a major increase in hostilities.
Israeli defense officials have said in recent months that Israel would step up its campaign against Iran in Syria, where Tehran has expanded its presence with the help of its proxy militias.
source:thenationalnews.com