East Syria air raids kill 12 pro-Iran fighters
BEIRUT: At least 12 pro-Iranian fighters died in strikes by unidentified aircraft on eastern Syria late Saturday evening, a war monitor said. “Eight air strikes before midnight on Saturday night targeted a base of proIranian forces in rural eastern Deir Ezzor (province), killing 12 Iraqi and Afghan fighters and destroying equipment and ammunition,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Observatory did not identify the aircraft responsible, but its head Rami Abdul Rahman told AFP that Israel was likely responsible. The Jewish state has carried out hundreds of strikes targeting regime and Iranian-backed forces, notably in Deir Ezzor.
The Israeli military rarely claims responsibility for such attacks but has vowed to prevent Iran gaining a foothold in the war-torn country or delivering advanced weaponry to Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.
Iranian and Iraqi armed groups backing the regime of Bashar Al-Assad have deployed across swathes of Deir Ezzor, a large desert province bordering on Iraq.
The Observatory said the latest strikes came after Afghan forces brought in reinforcements from near the Iraqi border to a large Iranian base near the town of AlMayadin on the Euphrates river. Two waves of similar strikes in May killed 12 pro-Iranian fighters, according to the Observatory.
Syria’s complex, almost decade-long war has killed over 380,000 people, devastated the country’s infrastructure and forced millions of people to flee their homes.
Meanwhile, a Turkish soldier was killed in Syria’s Idlib region after an attack on an armored ambulance, the defence ministry said. Two other soldiers were injured, it said in a statement, adding the army retaliated by hitting specified targets. The ministry did not give further information.
A Russian-backed Damascus offensive on the last rebel bastion in the country has killed hundreds of civilians since December and displaced close to a million people. A ceasefire between rebel-backer Turkey and regime-ally Russia was agreed for Idlib and came into force on March 6.