SOHR: Eleven Dead In Drone Attacks In Syria

According to activists, eleven people died in drone attacks in eastern Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the attacks were aimed at truck convoys allegedly loaded with Iranian weapons.

According to activists, a total of eleven people have been killed in a series of drone attacks on truck convoys in eastern Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the vehicles were allegedly loaded with Iranian weapons.

Drivers, their companions and a pro-Iranian commander were killed in the attacks on Sunday evening and Monday in the Abu Kamal region in Deir Essor province on the border with Iraq.

“The trucks were loaded with Iranian weapons and they were destroyed,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. The dead were therefore not Syrians. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights obtains its information from a network of different sources in Syria. The information provided by the organization can often hardly be verified by an independent party.

Observatory: Pro-Iranian militias were the target

According to the Observatory, the first convoy attacked consisted of six refrigerated trucks and had traveled to Syria via Iraq. Initially, seven people were killed in attacks on these trucks, and then three more people on Monday morning. A third drone attack on Monday afternoon was aimed at “a tanker truck loaded with weapons and ammunition for pro-Iranian militias,” according to the observatory. One person was killed when the truck exploded.

In addition to the convoy, “the headquarters of pro-Iranian militias” were also attacked on Sunday, said the activist and operator of the local news site “Deir Ezzor 24”, Omar Abu Leila. A Syrian official told AFP the convoy attacked on Sunday consisted of 25 trucks and had been attacked three times in 24 hours. He contradicted the statements of the human rights organization, which spoke of arms deliveries. The convoy had an “entry permit to Syria” and transported relief supplies from Iran.

Activist: Militias on high alert

The Syrian state media have so far not reported on the incident. The militias in the area are on high alert, an activist in the region told the dpa news agency. With several people seriously injured, the death toll is likely to rise, he said.

According to the Observatory, at least two similar convoys entered Syria from Iraq last week and unloaded their cargo at pro-Iranian groups in the eastern city of Al-Majadeen. Pro-Iranian militias, including the Lebanese Hezbollah, have a strong presence on the Iraqi-Syrian border. Similar attacks have repeatedly taken place in the region in recent months.

It is unclear who is behind the attacks

It was initially unclear who was behind the attacks. However, suspicion was directed at Israel, which regularly attacks targets in neighboring civil war-torn Syria. In December, Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said that the month before, Israel had orchestrated an attack on a weapons convoy and fuel tankers belonging to pro-Iranian militias in the region. Kochavi recently denounced “the armies that Iran is trying to build across the Middle East” as a threat to Israel.

Israel wants to prevent its arch-enemy Iran and militias allied with it, such as Hezbollah, from further expanding their military influence there. As usual, the Israeli military did not comment on the attacks. Along with Russia, Iran is the most important ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war.