Israeli strikes in Syria kill eight pro-Iran fighters -report

Israeli strikes in Syria kill eight pro-Iran fighters -report
Overnight Israeli strikes near the Syrian capital Damascus have killed eight fighters from pro-Iran militias, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights
2 min read
25 November, 2020
The strikes hit near Damascus [Getty Archive Image]

Israeli air strikes in Syria overnight reportedly killed at least eight fighters from pro-Iran militias, a war monitoring group said on Wednesday.

The strikes targeted an arms depot and a position held by Iranian forces and their Lebanese ally Hezbollah near the Syrian capital Damascus, and a pro-Iran militia position in southern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

The nationalities of the dead fighters was not immediately apparent, SOHR said.

Syrian regime news agency SANA earlier said that an air strike by "the Zionist enemy" had hit an area "south of Damascus" just before midnight local time.

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SANA also reported another strike against the village of Rwihinah in the southern province of Quneitra near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, without reporting any casualties from either attack.

The Israeli army rarely acknowledges individual strikes and refused to comment when contacted by AFP on Wednesday.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air and missile strikes on Syria, targeting government troops as well as Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces which support President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Last week, Israeli warplanes struck Iranian targets in Syria, in what the Israeli army called a retaliatory attack for what it said were explosive devices found near one of its bases on the Golan Heights.

SANA said those strikes had killed three Syrian regime soldiers, while SOHR said seven regime-allied foreign fighters also died.

On Saturday night, SOHR said that air strikes killed 14 pro-Iran militia fighters from Iraq and Afghanistan in eastern Syria, adding they were likely Israeli air raids.

This claim, however, was disputed by other sources.

The Syrian conflict began in 2011 when the Assad regime brutally suppressed peaceful pro-democracy protests.

More than 500,000 people have been killed and millions more displaced since then, mostly as a result of Assad regime bombardment of civilian areas.

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