The Israeli military targeted Iranian and Syrian military assets near Damascus in the early hours of Wednesday morning in response to explosives placed on the Israel-Syria border, the IDF has confirmed, in a rare statement claiming such a strike.
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Reports of casualties in the strike were conflicting. Syria's SANA network claimed three soldiers in Assad's army were killed, while other Arab media reports cited no casualties.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 10 people were killed in the strike, including three Syrian army officers and five Iranians Quds Force officials.
Video: IDF Spokesperson's Unit
"IDF warplanes attacked military targets belonging to the Iranian Quds Force and the Syrian army tonight in Syria. The attack damaged warehouses, command posts and military complexes, and batteries of surface-to-air missiles," the IDF said in a statement.
"The attack was carried out in response to the placement of explosive charges next to the border fence between Syrian and Israeli territory by a Syrian squad acting under Iranian instruction."
The Quds Force is Iran's notorious extraterritorial black-ops arm, used to export terrorism worldwide. Its forces have been heavily involved in the Syrian civil war and Iran is largely credited for keeping Syrian President Bashar Assad in power throughout the bloody, near-decade-long conflict.
The IDF's claiming responsibility for a strike in Syrian in real-time, let alone providing details about the targets, was highly irregular.
Commenting on the strike, IDF Spokesperson Brig. Gen. Hidai Zilberman said, "The IDF stuck targets from the [northern] front to Damascus, including warehouses, command posts, and [missile] batteries. We also targeted an Iranian based used as the headquarters of the Iranian forces in Damascus, near the airport, as well as a classified military installation southeast of Damascus used for by high-ranking Quds Force officers as barracks."
The latter, he explained, is where Iranian officers stay when visiting Syria.
Israel and Iran don't share a border.
In fact, Tehran is 1,000 miles from Jerusalem.
So why did an Iranian-led Syrian squad plant this IED on the Israel-Syria border?
Because Iran's terror knows no border.
Luckily, we're here to stop them. pic.twitter.com/7yb2TuScRo
— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) November 18, 2020
Zilberman further said that the IDF targeted "the headquarters of the 7th Division in the southern sector of the Golan Heights, which is uses by the Quds Force to launch terrorist attacks against Israel. other targets included anti-tank missile batteries, which fired at our planes."
Elaborating on the reason behind the attack, the military spokesperson said, "The Iranians are based in this area. The Syrian regime allows Iran to increasingly entrench itself in the area, which undermines the region's stability."
The Israeli military has mounted hundreds of strikes against Iranian assets in Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011, but rarely acknowledges them immediately.
The military did not elaborate on the exact location of Wednesday's airstrikes, but shortly before it released its statement, Syrian state media reported attacks in the area of the capital of Damascus.
SANA state news agency said Syrian air defenses intercepted "Israeli aggression" in the skies over Damascus.
Middle East analysts often dismiss such claims as hollow boasts.
On Tuesday, IDF troops patrolling the northern border discovered and defused a number of explosive devices that had been planted on the border in the Golan Heights.
Though Iranian proxies were suspected of being behind the attempted attack, Defense Minister Benny Gantz and the military said they held Syria responsible for the incident.
The last reported Israeli airstrikes in Syria were in the area of Aleppo in September and the southern Quneitra province in October.
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