Drones attacked a convoy of trucks in eastern Syria Sunday night shortly after it crossed into the country from Iraq, Syrian opposition activists and a pro-government radio station said.
The strike comes amid heightening tension between Iran and its rivals in the region.
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A convoy of Iranian trucks attacked after crossing Iraq Syria border late on Sunday
(Photo: Twitter)
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the convoy in the Syrian border region of Boukamal, which is a stronghold of Iran-backed militias.
According to the Al Arabiya network, the convoy included 25 trucks and the drivers were given warning shots to escape before the trucks were hit.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the drones appear to have been from the U.S.-led coalition, adding that they targeted six refrigerated trucks. The group said there were casualties and ambulances rushed to the area.
In Baghdad, an official with an Iran-backed militia confirmed there was a strike saying it only targeted one truck. He gave no word on casualties.
The attack in eastern Syria came hours after bomb-carrying drones targeted an Iranian defense factory in Isfahan's central city, causing some damage at the plant.
Last month, then military chief of staff Aviv Kochavi suggested that Israel was behind a strike on a truck convoy in Syria in November, giving a rare glimpse of Israel’s shadow war against Iran and its proxies across the region.
Kochavi said Israeli military and intelligence capabilities made it possible to strike specific targets that pose a threat.
Israeli leaders have in the past acknowledged striking hundreds of targets in Syria and elsewhere in what it says is a campaign to thwart Iranian attempts to smuggle weapons to proxies like Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group or to destroy weapons caches.
The November strike hit tanker trucks carrying fuel and other trucks carrying weapons for the militias in Syria’s eastern province of Deir el-Zour, the Observatory reported at the time. It said at least 14 people, most of them militiamen, were killed in the strike.
The strike, along the border with Iraq, targeted Iran-backed militiamen, Syrian opposition activists said at the time. Some of those killed in the attack were Iranian nationals, according to two paramilitary officers in Iraq.
At the time, Israel declined to comment on the strike.
Iran is a main backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad and has sent thousands of Iran-backed fighters to help Syrian troops during the country’s 11-year civil war. Both Iran and Assad’s government are also allied with Hezbollah, which has fought alongside Assad’s forces in the war.