JERUSALEM (AP) – Israeli fighters attacked targets linked to Iran in Syria overnight after soldiers found roadside bombs near the border in the Golan Heights, the Israeli military said Wednesday. Syrian state media said the strike had killed three Syrian soldiers.
The Syrian war monitoring group said the attack killed 10 people, including three Syrian soldiers and at least five Iranians. The report could not be independently verified and there was no immediate comment from Iran.
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes over the years against military targets linked to Iran in Syria but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations. This time, the military appeared eager to reveal the placement of the bomb and its retaliatory strikes.
It may partly reflect Israel’s concerns that Biden would take a more conciliatory approach to Iran if elected president. Biden has said he hopes the US will return to Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which was strongly opposed by Israel.
Israel’s shadow war against Iran and its allies has escalated in recent months with cyberattacks and occasional firing with terrorists in Syria and Lebanon. Moreover, Israel and the United States worked together to assassinate a senior al-Qaeda operative in Iran earlier this year.
The Israeli military said the anti-personnel mines were placed near a site in the Golan Heights by an Iranian-led Syrian detachment. He said a similar incident took place in the same area in August, which was also followed by a retaliatory strike.
Israel said the latest strikes targeted Iran’s elite Kuds Force and Syrian military sites, including “storage facilities, headquarters and military installations” as well as Syrian anti-aircraft missile batteries.
“It is clear that the message we were supposed to convey last time is not clear enough, not for the Iranians and not for the Syrian regime,” said Lt. Col. Jonathan Conrix, a spokesman for the Israeli military. “We hope the message is clear now.”
Conrix said the strikes targeted Iranian military headquarters at Damascus airport on the border, a secret facility visited by Iranian military officials and the 7th Division of the Syrian army, which oversees the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. He added that Iran’s Kuds Force is attached to the 7th Division.
Syrian state media quoted an unnamed military official as saying that three soldiers were killed, a fourth wounded and materials damaged in the strike. The report added that the Syrian air defenses shot down some Israeli missiles before hitting their targets.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike hit air defense centers, outposts and ammunition depots for the Iranian-allied forces in and around Damascus airport, as well as other targets south of the capital.
A total of 10 people were killed, including at least five Iranians believed to be associated with the Kuds Force, the Observatory said.
Israel considers Iran its biggest threat and says it will not tolerate the establishment of a permanent Iranian military presence in Syria, especially near its borders. Iran is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s civil war and has sent military advisers and allied troops to help his army.
Israel captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 war and later joined it in a movement that is not internationally recognized.
On October 21, Syrian state media reported a suspicious Israeli rocket attack in the southern province of Kunitra. The observatory said three people were killed in the strike, which targeted a school used by the Lebanese Hezbollah terrorist group and Iranian groups. There was no immediate comment from Israel.
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The report was contributed by associate press writers Sara Al Deeb and Bassem Muro in Beirut.
