Israeli Jets Hit Targets In Homs And Damascus: Powder Keg Could Blow With One Of These Attacks

Syria says four killed as Israeli jets hit targets in Homs and Damascus

Syria said Israeli jets attacked several military sites near the capital Damascus and the central city of Homs early Monday, killing four civilians, including a small infant.

State news agency SANA said that Syrian air defense had intercepted several of the incoming missiles that were fired from Lebanese airspace.

The report said four civilians, including a “month-old baby,” were killed and 21 people injured in explosions in Sahnaya, a neighborhood of Damascus. It blamed the deaths on “Zionist aggression.”

SANA gave no further details on the sites targeted.

However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the strikes had targeted a research center and a military airport west of the city of Homs where the Hezbollah Shiite terror group and Iranians are deployed.

Rami Abdel Rahman, the observatory chief, said the strikes injured some of these forces.

The targets near Damascus were still unclear.

There was no response from the Israel Defense Forces, which rarely comments on reported strikes.

Israel accuses Iran of seeking to set up a military presence in Syria that could be used to threaten the Jewish state.

The Israeli military has acknowledged carrying out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria in recent years on targets linked to Iran, which is backing President Bashar Assad’s regime in the Syrian civil war.

The reported strikes came just hours after an Israeli satellite imagery analysis company said Syria’s entire S-300 air defense system appeared to be operational, indicating a greater threat to Israel’s ability to conduct airstrikes against Iranian and pro-Iranian forces in the country.

Until now, only three of the country’s four surface-to-air missile launchers had been seen fully erected at the Masyaf base in northwestern Syria.

Israel has threatened to destroy the S-300 system if it is used against its fighter jets, regardless of the potential blowback from Russia.




Satellite intel firm: Syria's entire S-300 air defenses likely operational

An Israeli satellite imagery analysis company on Sunday said Syria’s entire S-300 air defense system appeared to be operational, indicating a greater threat to Israel’s ability to conduct airstrikes against Iranian and pro-Iranian forces in the country.

Until now, only three of the country’s four surface-to-air missile launchers had been seen fully erected at the Masyaf base in northwestern Syria.

But satellite photographs released on Sunday showed the fourth in position as well, some nine months after Russia gave the air defense system to Syria, according to Israel’s ImageSat International.

On February 19, the firm said the system generally appeared to be operational, based on multiple satellite images of the battery, other than the fourth launcher.

“The images of the three erected launchers at various times in Syria indicate that they are probably operational,” the firm wrote on its website at the time.

ImageSat said at the time that the fourth launcher, which has now been seen erected, was “possibly an invalid, dummy or a different element that serves as deception.”