Middle East | Israel says its jets struck Iranian military sites in Syria

Missiles flying into the sky near the international airport, in Damascus, Syria, yesterday

The Israeli military said its jets struck a series of Iranian military targets in Syria yesterday, an announcement that was a rare departure from Israel’s years-
long policy of ambiguity regarding activities in neighboring war-torn Syria.

The military said the targets included munition storage facilities, an intelligence site and a military training camp.

The strikes were in response to a surface-to-surface rocket that Iranian forces fired toward Israel on Sunday that was intercepted by Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system over a ski resort in the Golan Heights. That followed a rare Israeli daylight air raid near the Damascus International Airport.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said yesterday’s pre-dawn strikes lasted for nearly an hour and were the most intense Israeli attacks since May. It said 11 were killed in the strikes. The Russian military said four Syrian troops were among those killed in airstrikes that targeted three different locations and damaged unspecified infrastructure at Damascus airport. There were no further details on the casualties or their nationalities.

Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, said the Iranian missile attack that prompted the strong Israeli response was “premeditated.” Iranian forces in Syria fired the mid-
range surface-to-surface missile toward Israel from the Damascus area — a missile he said had been smuggled into Syria specifically for that purpose. Conricus declined to further identify the type of missile but said it hadn’t been used in any of the internal fighting of the civil war and had “no business” being in Syria.

In Iran, the chief of Iran’s air force, Gen. Aziz Nassirzadeh, said his forces are “impatient and ready for a fight against the Zionist regime to wipe it off the Earth,” according to a news website affiliated with Iran’s state television, YJC.ir.

Iranian officials have repeatedly threatened to annihilate Israel.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel “pounded” the Iranian sites in response to the missile attack and would not hesitate to respond again.

“We don’t allow such acts of aggression to go unanswered as Iran attempts to establish itself militarily in Syria and in the face of Iran’s explicit statements that it intends to destroy Israel,” he said at a ceremony dedicating a new airport in southern Israel.

“Whoever tries to harm us, we will harm them. Whoever threatens to destroy us will bear the full responsibility,” Netanyahu added.

Israel has only recently acknowledged carrying out hundreds of strikes against Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria in recent years. It previously typically offered only general warnings against allowing Iran to establish a military foothold in Syria and refrained from commenting directly for fear of triggering a reaction and being drawn into the deadly fighting.

Israeli political and military leaders have been far more verbose of late, and Monday’s announcement went a step further, reporting the strikes in real time and detailing the targets.

Conricus would not confirm whether the measures marked an official abandonment of the policy of ambiguity, merely saying that it was a “retaliatory strike against active aggression by Iran.”Aron Heller, Jerusalem, AP