Syria claims that three soldiers were killed in an Israeli air strike
Syria reported that three soldiers were killed and another wounded in the missile air strikes launched by the Israeli aviation this morning, according to the official agency SANA.
An Israeli military spokesman had previously reported that during the night fighter planes attacked military targets of the Iranian al-Quds Force and the Syrian armed forces in Syrian territory.
Israeli aircraft bombed "storage facilities, command centres and military compounds", as well as "Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries", the spokesman added, recalling that on Tuesday the authorities had to deactivate several explosive devices placed near the dividing line in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights.
The official agency SANA added that the Syrian Arab Army's air defence resources responded "to an Israeli air attack" in the southern region.
A military source said in a statement to SANA that at around 03.11 this Wednesday Israel "launched an air aggression from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan in the southern region, and our air defences confronted it and launched several missiles". The source added that the aggression "caused the death of three soldiers, injured another and some material losses".
On Tuesday, Israel accused "a Syrian squadron led by Iranian forces" of placing the improvised explosive devices.
According to the Israeli army, the explosives it defused are "another clear proof of Iranian entrenchment in Syria". These were near the Israeli side of the so-called Alpha Line, in the occupied Syrian territory of the Golan Heights and which separates Syrian territory from that controlled by Israel.
"We hold the Syrian regime responsible for all the actions perpetrated from its territory", added the army, which assured that the troops "will continue to act as necessary" against the Iranian presence in Syria, "which threatens regional stability".
Israel intermittently attacks targets of the Syrian government forces and their allies, Lebanese or Iranian Shiite militias, although it rarely reports on these operations.