Syria: ‘Israeli attack’ in Lattakia, second in December

LAST UPDATE: 13.34

Israeli warplanes today fired several rockets at the port of Latakia in western Syria, launching a second offensive against the strategic facility in December, according to Syrian state media.

The raid caused a fire in containers and “great material damage”, according to the Syrian Ministry of Defense. No casualties were reported.

Syrian firefighters put the blaze under control a few hours later at a container dump at the port, the Lattakia governor’s office said.

“At around 03:21, the Israeli enemy launched an air strike, (launching) several missiles in the direction of the Mediterranean (…) against a container dump in the port of Lattakia,” the Syrian state news agency SANA reported. in the armed forces.

The attack caused “great material damage” and fires, the agency clarified. According to the information of the Syrian state television, the facade of a hospital, houses, shops were also damaged.

Russia, the main ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has a strategic air base just 20km from the port of Latakia, Hamaim.

Since the outbreak of war in Syria in 2011, Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes, almost entirely from the air, against positions of Syrian government forces and their allies, Iranian and pro-Iranian militias, particularly the Shiite militant group Hezbollah.

On December 7, Israel struck a consignment of Iranian weapons in the port of Latakia, with no casualties reported.

It was the first time an attack on the port had been reported since the outbreak of war, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based non-governmental organization based on a vast network of sources in the war-torn country.

The bombing also set fire to “commercial containers”, SANA reported.

Asked about today’s attack, an Israeli spokesman limited himself to giving the standard answer “we do not comment on foreign media reports”.

The Israeli military rarely acknowledges publicly conducting operations in Syria, but confirmed this year that it had hit at least 50 targets in the war-torn country last year. The Israeli authorities often say that they will not allow Iran, a sworn enemy of the Jewish state, to build a bridgehead on Syrian territory.

Tehran has provided political, economic and military support to Damascus since the start of the war.

Israel has recently escalated its blows in Syria. Three Hezbollah militants and two Syrian paramilitaries were killed on November 24 in a series of strikes in areas where Lebanese-wing Lebanese militant units are based, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

On November 3, an airstrike targeted weapons and ammunition depots near Iran in the Damascus region, according to the same NGO. In late October, five pro-Iranian fighters were also killed in a bombing raid on the outskirts of Damascus, while nine others were killed last month in strikes in Homs. Damascus had then spoken of a dead Syrian soldier.

The deadliest Israeli attack was recorded on the night of January 13, 2021, when at least 57 fighters of the Syrian regime were killed in the eastern part of the country.

SOURCE: AMPE

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Source From: Capital

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