Israel Defends Missile Attacks To Early Syria: Damascus Airport Stops Operational, Two People Died

Israeli military illustration. (Wikimedia Commons/IDF Spokesperson's Unit/Amit Agronov)

JAKARTA - The Syrian army said Israel carried out a missile strike against Damascus International Airport and stopped its services, the latest attack targeting assets linked to Iran.

In a statement, the Syrian army said a series of missiles launched from the air had hit the airport at 2 a.m.

The Syrian army said the attack came from the direction of Lake Tiberias d Israel.

The missile also hit a target south of Damascus, killing two members of the Syrian armed forces and causing some damage, the army said.

Earlier, two regional intelligence sources said the attack hit the outpost of Iran's Quds Force and militias it supports near the airport. Their presence has spread in Syria in recent years.

Separately, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) did not immediately comment on the attack.

Last year, Israel intensified attacks on Damascus International Airport and other civilian airports, in order to disrupt the increased use of Tehran's air supply lines to deliver weapons to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.

As a result, Syria halted flights to and from airports in June for nearly two weeks, after an Israeli attack caused severe damage to infrastructure, including runways and terminals.

Israel fired missiles at Damascus International again in September, when it also attacked the country's second-largest civilian airport, in the northern city of Aleppo, keeping it out of service for several days.

Separately, Western and regional intelligence sources said Tehran had adopted civilian air transportation as a more reliable way to transport military equipment to its troops and to allied fighters in Syria, after supplies by land were disrupted by Israel.

Israel's chief armed forces, Lieutenant General Aviv Kohavi, last month claimed responsibility for the airstrikes against a convoy entering Syria from Iraq, saying its target was a truck carrying Iranian weapons.

Israel itself has repeatedly bombed targets of Iran-backed militias in Syria in recent years, saying its goal is to erode Tehran's military presence, which Western intelligence sources say has developed in the war-torn country.

They say Iran has a strong presence in the Sayeda Zainab neighborhood of southern Damascus, where the militia it supports has a underground base.

Meanwhile, Iranian proxy militias, led by Lebanon's Hezbollah, now hold power in large areas of eastern, southern and northwestern Syria as well as in several suburbs around the capital.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's Government has never publicly acknowledged Iranian forces were operating on his behalf in Syria's civil war, saying Tehran only had military advisers on the ground.