At least 40 killed in Israeli strikes on Syria: Monitor

ISRAELI AIR FORCE CARRIED OUT MORE THAN 18 STRIKES ON TARGETS FROM DEIR EZZOR TO THE IRAQI BORDER

BEIRUT: Israeli raids targeting arms depots and military positions in eastern Syria killed at least nine Syrian soldiers and 31 allied fighters, in the deadliest such strikes since 2018, a war monitor said on Wednesday.

The Israeli air force carried out more than 18 strikes against multiple targets in an area stretching from the eastern town of Deir Ezzor to the Iraqi border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The overnight raids killed nine Syrian soldiers and 31 foreign militia fighters whose nationalities were not immediately known, the Britain-based monitoring group said.

They wounded at least 37 others. Paramilitaries belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and the Fatimid Brigade, which is made up of proIranian Afghan fighters, operate in the region, the Observatory said.

Days before the strikes, the Fatimid Brigade transported a consignment of Iranian-manufactured weapons to eastern Syria from neighbouring Iraq.

They where stored in the region targeted on Wednesday, the monitor said.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment.

Syrian army said Israel bombed Iranian-backed militia bases near the Iraqi border in the early hours of Wednesday.

Iran holds missile drill in Gulf of Oman

Iran’s navy began a short-range missile drill in the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday and inaugurated its largest military vessel, state TV reported, amid heightened tensions over Tehran’s nuclear programme and a US pressure campaign against the Islamic Republic.

The two-day missile drill was being held in the gulf’s southeastern waters and two new Iranian-made warships joined the exercise: The missile-launching Zereh, or “armour,” and the country’s largest military ship the Makran, a logistics vessel with a helicopter pad named for a coastal region in southern Iran.