In what is being called “a rare daytime bombardment,” surface-to-surface precision guided missiles struck multiple targets in a suburb of Damascus in a latest attack Syria has attributed to Israel.
By Jonathan Hessen and Erin Viner
Syrian military sources cited by the regime-run SANA news agency said “a number of missiles” were fired by “the Israeli enemy” from “the northern side of occupied Palestine” at 11.17 Saturday morning at rural areas outside Damascus.
The source further claimed that Syrian Armed Forces deployed air defense systems that intercepted some of the missiles, while adding that “the aggression injured two soldiers and caused some material damage.”
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported, however, that “at least 5 pro-Iranian fighters were killed and several injured” when multiple incoming projectiles “destroyed a Hezbollah convoy” of “Iranian weapons and ammunition heading for Lebanon.”
The targeted area houses arms depots belonging to Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies, as well as Syrian army bases, said SOHR.
The Lebanon-based Al Mayadeen news channel reported that the attack was carried out by the IDF near the town of Al-Dimass west of the Syrian capital.
While Jerusalem has acknowledged near-weekly attacks on Iranian targets to prevent its military entrenchment in Syria, Lebanon and elsewhere throughout the region, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit stopped short from confirming or denying involvement in the weekend strike in response to TV7’s request for comment.
Iran-backed forces in Syria vowed a forceful response to an alleged Israeli strike on Syria’s Homs Province on 13 October, in the second such attack within a week. At least 1 Syrian soldier and 3 others wounded when unidentified aircraft struck multiple Iranian-proxy installations west of Palmyra city.