SOHR: Israel accused of carrying out air strikes on Syria

ISRAEL was accused of carrying out air raids on a number of targets surrounding the Syrian capital Damascus on Saturday.

The attack occurred in the afternoon, injuring two Syrian soldiers and causing material damage, according to local reports.

Quoting an unnamed military official, Syrian state media outlet Sana said: “The Israeli enemy fired a salvo of surface-to-surface missiles from northern occupied Palestine targeting positions near Damascus.

“Our anti-aircraft defences were activated and were able to hit some of the enemy missiles.”

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed that the strikes were targeting Hezbollah positions and that at least five people were killed.

Israel maintained silence over the attack, with a military spokesman saying it would not report on comments in the foreign media.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes inside Syria since war began there in 2011.

Syria has all but defeated the foreign-backed intervention aimed at overthrowing the government of  Bashar al-Assad, including a jihadist insurrection in which Islamists seized control of large swathes of the country.

The Islamist groups are now largely contained in the northern Idlib province, a so-called de-escalation zone occupied by neighbouring Turkey.

Al- Assad has called for the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops from Syria, deeming them, along with the United States, an occupying force.

On Saturday, the Syrian government “condemned in the strongest terms” a recent vote taken in the Turkish parliament granting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan authority to extend his wars in both Iraq and Syria.

It branded Turkey “a direct threat to peace and security in the region and the world” and accused Ankara of violating UN security council resolutions on Syria.

A Syrian government source said the continued silence of the UN encourages Mr Erdogan “to persist with his crimes and aggressions, to occupy Syrian lands and impose demographic change and Turkification.”

Syria has repeatedly called on the UN to act and says Damascus has the right to “repel Turkish aggression” and defend its sovereignty.

The international community must hold Turkey to account for is war crimes and “compensate the Syrian state for all the losses it caused against the Syrian civilians, the country’s infrastructure, private and public properties, natural resources and its historical heritage,” the source said.

 

 

SOURCE: MORNING STAR