BEIRUT: Israeli night raids targeting arms depots and military positions ineastern Syria killed at least seven Syrian soldiers and 16 allied fighters,in the deadliest raids this year, a war monitor said Wednesday.
The Israeli air force carried out more than 18 strikes against multipletargets in an area stretching from the eastern town of Deir Ezzor to theIraqi border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The raids killed seven Syrian soldiers and 16 non-Syrian militia fighterswhose nationalities were not immediately known, the Britain-basedmonitoring group said.
Paramilitaries belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and the FatimidBrigade, which is made up of pro-Iranian Afghan fighters, operate in theregion, the Observatory said.
The Syrian state news agency SANA reported the strikes but gave few details.
“At 1:10 am, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial assault on the town ofDeir Ezzor and the Albu Kamal region,” SANA said, citing a militarysource.”The results of the aggression are currently being verified,” itadded.
It was the second wave of Israeli raids in Syria in less than a week.
The last strikes on January 7 targeted positions in southern Syria and inthe southern outskirts of the capital Damascus, killing three pro-Iranfighters.
Read Top Stories
Israel routinely carries out raids in Syria, mostly against targets linkedto Iran in what it says is a bid to prevent its arch foe from consolidatinga foothold on its northern border.
Israel hit around 50 targets in Syria in 2020, according to an annualreport released in late December by the Israeli military.
Israel has carried out hundreds of air and missile strikes on Syria sincecivil war broke out in 2011, targeting Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollahforces as well as Syrian government troops.
Israel rarely acknowledges individual strikes but has done so whenresponding to what it describes as aggression inside Israeli territory.
The war in Syria has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millionsmore since it erupted after the brutal repression of anti-governmentprotests.
