SOHR: Toll rises from drone strikes on pro-Iran groups in Syria, questions about Israel’s role
All of the 11 people killed in the two attacks were non-Syrians. "The trucks were transporting Iranian weapons," said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
A series of unclaimed drone strikes on pro-Iran factions in war-torn Syria has killed 11 people and destroyed trucks carrying Iranian arms from Iraq, a war monitor said Monday.
The first attack, on Sunday evening, hit six lorries and killed seven people near Syria’s border with Iraq, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
As the toll of recent strikes in Syria rises, no new verifiable information has emerged about the party behind them, although in the past, Israel has carried out air and missile raids against Iran-backed and government forces in Syria. The US-led coalition has also conducted raids in Syria mostly against ISIS-related targets.
Questions about Israel’s endgame, if its is behind the strikes, and the implications for the showdown with Iran, have remained unanswered.
A second strike on Monday morning killed three people, including a pro-Iran commander, as they inspected the attack site in a pickup truck, said the Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
Later, an unidentified drone targeted a fuel tanker which the Observatory said was “likely loaded with weapons and ammunition meant for Iran-backed groups” in the same region. The tanker exploded, killing at least one person.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attacks, which occurred near the Albu Kamal-Al-Qaim border crossing between Syria and Iraq.
Pro-Iran factions, including Iraqi groups and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, have a major presence in the region and are heavily deployed south and west of the Euphrates River in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province.
The Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad receives military support from Iran and its allied armed Shia groups including Hezbollah, which are declared enemies of Israel.
Heavy damage
The Observatory said Sunday’s attack hit a convoy of six refrigerated trucks transporting Iranian weapons to Syria from Iraq, killing the drivers and their assistants.
The second strike killed “a commander in an Iran-backed group and two of his companions”, it said, adding that all of those killed in the two attacks were non-Syrians.
“The trucks were transporting Iranian weapons,” the group’s chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.
A Syrian official working at the crossing denied the trucks had been loaded with weapons, claiming they were carrying foodstuff that Iran had sent to Syria as aid.
The 25-truck convoy had been targeted three times in less than 24 hours, he said, adding it “had obtained permission to cross into Syria”.
But an Iraqi border official said the trucks, which were Iraqi, had crossed illegally into Syria and were not carrying Iraqi goods.
“They probably used Iraqi trucks instead of Iranian ones to avoid being targeted,” the Iraqi official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media, told AFP.
Sunday’s strikes also hit the headquarters of Iran-backed groups in the area, said Omar Abu Layla, an activist who heads the Deir Ezzor 24 media outlet.
“There was heavy damage in the area that was struck,” he said.
Israeli strikes
The Observatory said at least two similar convoys had entered Syria from Iraq in recent days, offloading their cargo to pro-Iran groups in the eastern town of Al-Mayadeen.
Albu Kamal has seen similar strikes in the past, including one that in November which killed at least 14 people when it hit a pro-Iran militia truck convoy carrying arms and fuel, the Britain-based group said.
In December, Israel’s then-military chief Aviv Kochavi said his country had launched the raid, adding the convoy had been carrying weapons bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon.
A US-led coalition fighting the remnants of the Islamic State (ISIS) extremist group in Iraq and Syria has also carried out strikes against pro-Iran fighters in Syria in the past.
The conflict in Syria started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful protests and escalated to pull in foreign powers and global jihadist extremists.
Nearly half a million people have been killed and the conflict has forced around half of the country’s pre-war population from their homes.
The attacks in eastern Syria came after bomb-carrying drones targeted an Iranian defence factory in the central city of Isfahan causing some damage at the plant.
News reports speculated about Israeli and American involvement in the Isfahan drone attack.
Last month, Israel’s military chief of staff strongly 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.
Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi, who finished his military service earlier this month, said Israeli military and intelligence capabilities made it possible to strike specific targets that pose a threat.
Kremlin reaction to strike in Iran
The Kremlin on Monday condemned Sunday’s drone strike on a military factory in Iran and said it was analysing what had happened.
“In any case, one can only condemn such actions against a sovereign state,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
A US official said on Sunday that Israel appeared to have been behind the overnight drone strike. Iran said it had intercepted the strike and that there were no casualties nor serious damage.
Source: The Arab Weekly