Cairo: Israel mounted a missile attack earlier today on an Iran-allied militia position in the vicinity of the Syrian capital Damascus, killing at least three people, a monitoring group said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added that the Israeli bombardment had destroyed a weaponry warehouses believed to be manned by militias from the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah group. The nationality of the fatalities were not immediately established.
Syria’s state media, meanwhile, said the Syrian defences had repulsed Israeli missiles targeting some positions on the edges of Damascus and downed most of the missiles.
“The aggression injured four soldiers and caused some material damage,” Syria’s official SANA news agency quoted a military source as saying.
Air strikes
The Britain-based Observatory reported that the outskirts of Damascus were rocked by explosions on March 16 resulting from Israeli air strikes that targeted two arms depots belonging to pro-Iranian militias, located a few kilometres from the Damascus airport.
Israel has stepped up its attacks in war-wracked Syria in recent months, targeting pro-Iranian militias.
On January 13, at least 57 military personnel were killed in a series of Israeli attacks in east Syria, the highest toll from such attacks in the country, the Observatory reported at the time.
