The Syrian army said in a statement on Sunday that the rockets fired by Israel hit some parts of Damascus. Meanwhile, the regional intelligence officials stated that the recent attack aimed at Tehran-backed assets. The statement further added that the army downed almost all the rockets launched from Golan heights, in the second such attack on Damascus in less than a month.
On the other hand, the Israeli Defense Ministry gave no immediate comment on the situation. Since last year, the Israeli security forces have struck a wider range of targets than usual, including a major operation at the Iraqi border on the Iran-backed militia groups. On Friday, the Israeli defense minister Benny Gantz said that the authorities were taking weekly actions to prevent Tehran’s entrenchment in war-torn Syria.
More:
- Israel Strikes Syrian Army Bases After Golan Heights Attack
- Syria’s Air Defences ‘Intercept Barrage of Israeli Missiles
In recent years, Israel has regularly attacked what it claims are Iran-backed targets in Syria. Meanwhile, the analysts and western countries have described it as a shadow war to decrease Tehran’s influence in Syria. Earlier in December, Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi, Israeli Chief of Staff, said that the country had struck as many as 500 targets last year.
So far, Assad’s regime in Syria has never publicly accepted that Iranian forces are operating in the country on the president’s behalf in the civil war. It has only acknowledged that Tehran has sent military advisors. Besides that, the entry of thousands of Shia militias from Lebanon to Afghanistan to fight along the Syrian forces has helped the incumbent ruler to survive the armed rebellion has begun in 2011 following a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
Meanwhile, the security experts have argued the increased action by the Israeli has undermined Iran’s influence in the region, without a significant increase in hostilities. On the other hand, the Syrian military defectors have maintained that Iran has built a flurry of underground tunnels and spread decoys to mitigate the effects of Israeli strikes.
