Israeli strike kills 15 in Syrian capital
Beirut, Lebanon — An Israeli air strike killed early Sunday 15 people including two Syrian civilians and badly damaged a building in a Damascus district housing state security agencies, a war monitor said.
The strike targeted a meeting that included Syrian regime officers and was "the deadliest Israeli attack in the Syrian capital" since the civil war began, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The overnight strike cratered a road and wrecked the adjacent 10-storey building in the Kafr Sousa district, which is home to senior state officials and Syrian intelligence headquarters, said the Britain-based Observatory.
A woman was also killed in the Mazraa district, possibly hit when Syrian anti-aircraft munitions crashed down, it added.
It was not immediately clear who was the intended target of the strike, which AFP correspondents reported shook Damascus and left a gaping hole in the street.
Other missiles overnight hit a warehouse used by pro-regime Iranian and Hezbollah fighters near Damascus, said the Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.
Iranian news agency Tasnim said "no Iranian was harmed", adding that the strikes hit "exactly the spot" where Hezbollah's top commander Imad Mughniyeh was killed in a 2008 car bombing that the Lebanese Shiite group blamed on Israel.
Syria's defense ministry gave an initial death toll of five, including one soldier, and 15 wounded civilians, some in critical condition.
Shortly after midnight "the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights targeting several areas in Damascus and its vicinity, including residential neighborhoods", a statement said.