Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Syria says two soldiers killed, 6 wounded in Israeli strike on air defense sites

Syria says two soldiers killed, 6 wounded in Israeli strike on air defense sites



The Israeli military allegedly carried out rare daylight strikes against targets near the northwestern Syrian city of Tartus on Wednesday afternoon, killing two soldiers.

Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing a military source, said, “The Israeli enemy” launched missiles from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea, targeting a number of air defense sites.

The report did not specify if the attack was carried out by warplanes or naval vessels.

Aside from the two soldiers killed, six others were wounded and there were “material losses,” the source said.

In recent years, numerous Syrian soldiers serving in air defense units have been killed or wounded in airstrikes attributed to Israel.

While Israel’s military does not, as a rule, comment on specific strikes in Syria, it has admitted to conducting hundreds of sorties against Iran-backed groups attempting to gain a foothold in the country, over the last decade.

The Israeli military says it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for those groups, chief among them Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Additionally, airstrikes attributed to Israel have repeatedly targeted Syrian air defense systems.

The last alleged Israeli sortie over Syria was carried out on August 28, when fighter jets reportedly carried out strikes against Aleppo International Airport, putting it out of service for two days.


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