Israeli air strikes hit 8 Syrian targets

JERUSALEM/AMMAN: Israel said it launched air strikes against several Syrian army and Iranian Quds Force targets in Syria yesterday after explosive devices were planted in the Israeliheld Golan Heights.

The Syrian state news agency reported three military personnel were killed and one was wounded in ‘‘Israeli aggression’’.

Lieutenantcolonel Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, said eight targets in areas stretching from the Syriancontrolled side of the Golan Heights to the Damascus periphery were attacked.

They included an Iranian headquarters at Damascus international airport, a ‘‘secret military site’’ that served as a ‘‘hosting facility for senior Iranian delegations when they come to Syria to operate’’ and the 7th Division of the Syrian armed forces, he said.

Syrian advanced surfacetoair missile batteries were also hit ‘‘after they fired at our aircraft and at our ordnance’’, Conricus said.

Israel has repeatedly struck Iranian targets in Syria and those of allied militias, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, saying it would not tolerate Iranian entrenchment in its northern neighbour.

Commenting on the attack yesterday, Conricus said: ‘‘It’s not one of the largest, but it is diverse.’’

Syrian President Bashar alAssad's Government has never publicly acknowledged there are Iranian forces operating on his behalf in Syria's civil war.

Western intelligence sources say Israel’s steppedup strikes on Syria this year are part of a shadow war approved by the United States in a bid to check Iran’s military reach.

Conricus, briefing foreign reporters, said three claymore antipersonnel charges were discovered on Tuesday near an Israeli military position in the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau captured and occupied by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

‘‘The actual planting of the IEDs [improvised explosive devices] was done by Syrian locals but the guidance, instruction and control was by the Iranian Quds Force.

‘‘That is why we decided to retaliate against them in Syria,’’ Conricus said. — Reuters