BEIRUT – Israeli missile strikes targeted Iranian military positions in theSyrian provinces of Hama and Tartus on Tuesday, killing three Syriansoldiers, a monitoring group said.

Syria s state news agency SANA said its air defence systems downed severalmissiles launched from Israeli warplanes.

The Observatory said missiles struck Wadi al-Oyoun in the central provinceof Hama, near a scientific research centre which was already targeted byIsraeli strikes in July and last year.

Iranian military positions in the coastal region of Banias, in the provinceof Tartus, were also targeted, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory forHuman Rights monitoring group said.

Three Syrian soldiers were killed and 23 people injured — 14 Syrian andnine Iranians, according to the Observatory.

“The air defence system responded to an Israeli aggression carried out byaircraft… that targeted some of our military positions in the provincesof Tartus and Hama,” SANA said, quoting a military source.

“Some of the missiles” were downed, the agency said, reporting an initialcasualty toll of one dead and four wounded.

A spokesman for the Israeli army refused to comment on the new raids, butan Israeli military official, in a rare confirmation, said the army hadcarried out some 200 strikes in Syria over the past 18 months againstmainly Iranian targets.

Israel has pledged to prevent its main enemy Iran from entrenching itselfmilitarily in Syria, where Tehran is backing President Bashar al-Assad inthe ongoing civil war.

A series of strikes that have killed Iranians in Syria have been attributedto Israel in recent months, but the Israeli military rarely confirms them.- APP/AFP