Israeli strikes kill seven in Damascus

Three were Syrian soldiers and the rest were members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard

Israeli strikes on Damascus airport killed seven fighters, a war monitor said on Friday, the latest in a string of attacks targeting Iran’s military presence in Syria.

Syrian State media said only that its air defences intercepted missiles over the capital overnight while Israel did not immediately comment on the strikes.

Israel routinely fires missiles at what it says are Iranian targets in Syria, where elite Iranian forces and allied militia play a key role.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the strikes launched late on Thursday hit military targets in the area of the international airport.

Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Britain-based Observatory, said the dead were three Syrian soldiers and four members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.

“Our air defences intercepted hostile targets over the skies of Damascus,” SANA said. It said the “missiles were launched from over the occupied Golan Heights”.

Missiles intercepted

Several missiles were intercepted before they could reach their targets, said the agency, which rarely admits to casualties among Army or Iranian ranks.

The Observatory said the targets in the airport area, which has been repeatedly hit in similar strikes, included an arms depot.

The strikes on the airport came just after the arrival of a cargo plane, according to Abdel Rahman, who could not specify where the aircraft had flown in from.