Syria reported a series of Israeli airstrikes on Feb. 28 targeting Iranian assets near Damascus. The strikes were likely a retaliatory measure following an explosion last week that hit an Israeli-owned cargo ship in the Gulf of Oman, which Israeli officials believe Iran executed. Although no one was injured in the attack, the vessel was damaged and forced to head towards the nearest port.
Israeli news sources reported the strikes in Syria targeted Iranian linked assets. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a United Kingdom-based organization, announced that the airstrikes targeted sites in an area close to Damascus that Iran’s Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) controlled. This air assault followed closely behind a series of strikes the U.S. launched in Syria on Feb. 15 that were also described as a retaliatory measure following a rocket attack in Iraq that killed an American civilian contractor.
The Israeli Defense Forces has launched dozens of assaults on Iranian-linked targets in Syria in recent years to prevent Tehran from gaining a stable foothold in the country. Many of the IDF attacks are retaliatory and preventative. In 2017, a military site in Syria filled with chemical weapons and Iranian bombs were destroyed by Israeli airstrikes. In 2019, Israel launched airstrikes in Syria in retaliation to a surface-to-surface missile that endangered civilian areas in the Golan Heights area. In 2020, IDF Chief of Staff Gen. Aviv Kochavi reported that Israel “had struck more than 500 targets during 2020 on all fronts, including clandestine missions.”
Read the complete article at: Jewish News Syndicate