DAMASCUS – Syrian anti-aircraft defences shot down missiles fired atthe Syrian air base of Shayrat in Homs province late on Monday and anotherbase northeast of the capital, Damascus, Syria’s state television andpro-Iranian Hezbollah media said.
State television showed pictures of a missile that was shot in the airabove the air base only days after a US, British and French attackon Syrian targets in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack on thecity of Douma on the outskirts of Damascus.
State television did not mention three missiles that were fired at Dumairmilitary airport, northeast of Damascus, that pro-Iranian Hezbollah’s mediaservice reported were intercepted by Syrian air defences.
Opposition sources say Dumair airport is a major air base used in alarge-scale military campaign waged by the Syrian army with Russianfirepower that regained eastern Ghouta, a rebel enclave on the outskirts ofDamascus.
A Pentagon spokesman said there was no US military activity in that area atthis time.
Asked about the missile attack, an Israeli military spokesman said: “Wedon’t comment on such reports.”
Shayrat air base was targeted last year in a US cruise missile attack inresponse to a chemical attack that killed at least 70 people, includingchildren, on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.
Israel has struck Syrian army locations many times in the course of theconflict, hitting convoys and bases of Iranian-backed militias that fightalongside Syrian President Bashar al- Assad’s forces.
Israel has long said Iran was expanding its influence in a belt ofterritory that stretches from the Iraqi border to the Lebanese border,where Israel says Iran supplies Hezbollah with arms.
Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias have a large military presencein Syria and are well entrenched in central and eastern areas near theIraqi border.
Deputy Hezbollah leader Sheikh Naim Qassem told pro-Syrian governmenttelevision channel al Maydeen he expected a reaction to the death of atleast seven Iranian military personnel during a missile strike earlier thismonth on the T-4 airfield near Homs, which Iran blamed on Israel
“The deliberate Israeli slaying of Iranians in the T4 base will have aresponse but we don’t know its nature or its details,” Qassem said in thetelevision interview.
The heavily armed and Tehran-backed Shi’ite movement has been a vitalmilitary ally of President Bashar al-Assad in the seven-year-old Syrian war.
Hezbollah, which last fought a major war with Israel in 2006, has howeversaid it would not open a new front against its arch-foe from Lebanon.
Qassem said the powerful militia did not fight in all the main battles inSyria but was present in any area that was needed. He did not elaborate.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said after the US, British, andFrench strikes in Syria his country will continue “to move against Iran inSyria.” – Agencies