Syria air defenses destroy ‘hostile target’ near Damascus
Syrian air defenses have destroyed a “hostile target” near the capital Damascus, state media say.
“Our air defenses confronted a hostile target and destroyed it west of Damascus,” Syria’s official news agency SANA reported late on Thursday, quoting a military source.
No further details about the incident were immediately available, but Israel has carried out similar attacks over the past months.
Last week, Israeli military forces targeted a Syrian Air Force fighter jet over the Golan Heights as it was flying in Syria’s airspace and conducting a series of airstrikes against the positions of foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants in the occupied territories.
In mid-July, Israel targeted a Syrian military site in the Aleppo countryside in a missile attack causing structural damage. Earlier that month, the Syrian military said it had repelled an Israeli attack on Syrian army positions in the country’s Quneitra province near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Back on May 10, Israel conducted what it called its most intensive airstrikes on Syria in decades. According to Russia’s Defense Ministry, Israel used 28 warplanes in its airstrikes and fired 70 missiles. Both Damascus and Moscow said the Syrian army managed to shoot down over half of the missiles.
The Tel Aviv regime, at the time, claimed that its assault was in response to a barrage of 20 rockets fired from Syria at Israeli military outposts in Golan.
Damascus has on multiple occasions denounced the Israeli regime’s aggression and warned about the “dangerous repercussions” of such assaults on its territory.
Tel Aviv is also widely believed to have been providing weapons to anti-Damascus militants as well as medical treatment to Takfiri elements wounded in Syria inside the occupied Golan Heights.
In recent weeks, the Syrian army has been making significant territorial gains against terrorists in the country’s south. Militants have been handing over their heavy weapons to Syrian government forces and leaving the region in negotiated surrender deals.
