Israel carries out strikes on Syrian, Iranian targets

DAMASCUS, SYRIA >> Israel said it carried out “widescale strikes” on “Iranian & Syrian terror targets,” in the early hours of this morning, after explosions were reported around the Syrian capital of Damascus.

The strikes were aimed at targets from the Iranian Quds Force, a force of the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard, and the Syrian military, the Israeli military tweeted.

Israel was responding to rockets it said were fired in its direction by an Iranian force in Syria the previous night.

“We hold the Syrian regime responsible for the actions that take place in Syrian territory and warn them against allowing further attacks against Israel,” the Israel Defense Forces tweeted.

“We will continue operating firmly and for as long as necessary against the Iranian entrenchment in Syria.”

Syria’s air defense system “thwarted the intense attack and intercepted the hostile missiles and downed most of them before they reached their targets,” state news agency SANA reported citing a military source.

According to the source, Israeli warplanes fired missiles at 1:20 a.m. local time from the Golan Heights and Marjayoun in southern Lebanon.

Israel said Syria’s air force fired a rocket in spite of warnings not to do so.

The strikes come a day after the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the Israeli army fired five rockets toward the south of Damascus, several of which were intercepted.

The war monitor said Syrian ground defenses confronted the rockets.