Syrian air defenses on Wednesday intercepted missiles fired by an Israeli warplane at an air base in central Syria, state news agency SANA said, in the second such Israeli strike this week.
"An aircraft belonging to the Israeli enemy fired this evening a number of missiles... towards the T4 air base and our air defenses intercepted most of them," SANA said citing a military source.
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Syrian air defense missiles launched during Israeli strike in southern Syria on Monday
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the attack on the air base in Homs province saying Israel was "likely" responsible adding that explosions were heard as regime’s air defenses tried to intercept these missiles.
Syrian sources say the attack was launched from the Al-Tanf military near the Syrian border with Iraq which houses U.S. forces.
Wednesday's attack was the second this week, after Israeli strikes on Monday killed one civilian, three government troops and seven allied foreign fighters, according to the Observatory, a war monitor.
Monday's strikes hit Syrian army positions south of Damascus as well as positions belonging to Iran-backed paramilitaries, including fighters of the Lebanese Hezbollah movement, in the southern province of Daraa, the Observatory said.
Israel has carried out hundreds of raids in Syria since the civil war broke out in 2011, targeting Iranian and Hezbollah forces as well as government troops.
The Israeli army rarely acknowledges individual strikes, but said that on August 3 it had used fighter jets, attack helicopters and other warplanes to hit Syrian military targets in southern Syria.
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Damage at the T4 Syrian military base following an attack attributed to Israel in 2018
(Photo: Cournesy)
Hezbollah's leader Hassan Nasrallah warned on Sunday that the group would kill an Israeli soldier for each of its fighters slain by the Jewish state, after one of its combatants was killed in an Israeli strike in Syria on July 20.
First published: 08:08, 09.03.20