Beirut | Israeli strikes that hit several targets in Syria overnight to Monday killed at least 11 pro-regime fighters including two Syrians, a war monitor said.
Israel’s military said it had targeted a number of Iranian installations in the country early on Monday, hours after intercepting a rocket fired from Syrian territory.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said they were the deadliest Israeli strikes in Syria since May last year.
“Israeli strikes targeting Iranian and Syrian military positions near and south of Damascus killed at least 11 fighters including two Syrians,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The targets included weapons depots belonging to Lebanese Shiite movement Hezbollah and Iranian fighters, he said.
Air strikes and ground-to-ground missiles hit several targets around the capital including near the Damascus airport, as well as near the Thaala military airport to the south of the capital, the Observatory said.
Israel has pledged to stop its main enemy Iran entrenching itself militarily in neighbouring Syria.
In May, Israeli strikes killed 27 pro-regime fighters including 11 Iranians in strikes on dozens of Iranian targets inside Syria.
Israel said at the time it was responding to a salvo of rockets fired by Iranian forces into the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
More than 360,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the start of Syria’s civil war with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.
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