Israel carried out airstrikes targeting Syria’s main air defense base in southern Syria on Thursday, Syrian military and intelligence sources said.
Citing a source from the Syrian army, state media reported that rocket attacks coming from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights targeted several locations they did not identify.
“Our air defenses faced the aggressor’s missiles and shot down some of them with only material losses,” a Syrian military source said. The Syrian news agency SANA added that no one was injured in the attack.
Reuters could not independently verify the report, and there was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
A Syrian army air defense base and radar station in the Tel al-Sahn area of Sweida province in southwestern Syria is believed to have been targeted.
Last month, another air defense system at Tel Qulaib and Tel Maseeh in southern Syria was hit in what senior intelligence sources said was Israel’s intensified campaign to disrupt Syrian air defense systems that Iran was involved in expanding.
“Tehran is stepping up its efforts to supply Syria with air defense systems that can potentially reduce the effectiveness of Israeli attacks,” said another regional military source who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“It is related to the war calculations in Gaza in the event of an escalation of the conflict,” he added.
The airstrikes came just days after Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ senior military adviser, Sayyed Razi Mousavi, was killed in an Israeli airstrike near the Syrian capital of Damascus on Monday, Hina news agency writes.
