(Beirut) Five pro-Iranian fighters in Syria were killed in an Israeli strike on Saturday against targets near Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH).
In Damascus, the official Syrian agency Sana reported two Syrian soldiers injured by firing “a salvo of surface-to-surface missiles”, accusing Israel, a country neighboring Syria at war.
According to the OSDH, the targeted region is home to arms and ammunition depots of Lebanese Hezbollah and other pro-Iranian militias, as well as positions of the army of the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.
Sworn enemies of Israel, Hezbollah and Iran militarily support the Assad regime in the conflict.
The strike “targeted and destroyed a shipment of arms and ammunition belonging to Hezbollah and Iranians,” according to OSDH, which has a vast network of sources in Syria. It caused the death of five fighters of pro-Iranian militias, and left several wounded.
This information could not be confirmed from an independent source.
AFP correspondents in Damascus heard repeated explosions in the middle of the day. Rarely do Israeli raids target positions in Syria in broad daylight.
Since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, the IDF has carried out regular raids in that country mainly targeting Iranian forces, Hezbollah forces and Syrian government troops.
The Israeli army very rarely confirms its raids.
Israel regularly asserts that it will not allow Syria to become the foothold for Iran’s forces.
On October 14, an Israeli airstrike on Iranian positions in Syria left nine dead among fighters allied to the Syrian government.