Israeli strikes on Syria kill 40: monitor

LONDON: Israeli night raids targeting arms depots and military positions in eastern Syria killed at least nine Syrian soldiers and 31 allied fighters, in the deadliest raids since 2018, a war monitor said yesterday.

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

Paramilitaries belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and the Fatimid Brigade, which is made up of pro-Iranian Afghan fighters, operate in the region, the Observatory said in its statement.

The raids also wounded 28 troops and militiamen, some of them critically.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment.

Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman called the Israeli raids the “deadliest since June 2018” when strikes on the same region killed at least 55 progovernment fighters, including Iraqis as well as Syrians.

In November, similar raids on eastern Syria killed at least 19 pro-Iran militia fighters, the monitor said. The Syrian state news agency SANA reported the latest strikes but gave few details.

“At 1:10 am, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial assault on the town of Deir Ezzor and the Albu Kamal region,” SANA said, citing a military source.

“The results of the aggression are currently being verified,” it added.

It was the second wave of Israeli raids in Syria in less than a week. The last strikes on Jan 7 killed three pro-Iran fighters.