CAIRO/AMMAN: An Israeli air strike targeted the vicinity of Syria’s Aleppo airport causing some “material damage” to it on Wednesday, the Syrian defence ministry said, while regional intelligence sources said it was a direct hit on an Iranian arms depot.
Israel has for years been carrying out attacks against what it has described as Iran-linked targets in Syria, where Tehran’s influence has grown since it began supporting President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war that started in 2011.
In the third attack on Aleppo airport in six months, Israel launched “a number of missiles from the Mediterranean Sea, west of the coastal city of Latakia, at 3:55 a.m.”, the Syrian defence ministry said in a statement on state media. An Israeli military spokesperson was not immediately available to comment.
Two regional intelligence sources said the strike hit an underground munitions depot linked to the nearby Nairab military airport, where missile-guided systems delivered onboard several Iranian military planes had been stored.
Iran has increased the use of Aleppo airport to deliver more arms over the past month, taking advantage of heavy air traffic as cargo planes offload relief aid in the wake of the February’s deadly earthquake, Western intelligence sources say.
An Israeli strike on March 7 that knocked Aleppo airport out of service had blown up an Iranian arms cargo shipment hours after it was delivered by an Iranian plane that Damascus said was carrying aid, the Western intelligence sources say.
Israel has in recent months intensified strikes on Syrian airports and air bases to disrupt Iran’s use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah.
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The strikes are part of an escalation of what has been a low-intensity conflict termed a “war between wars”, the goal of which has been to slow Iran’s entrenchment in Syria, Israeli military experts say.
Iran’s proxy militias, led by Hezbollah, now hold sway in vast areas in eastern, southern, and northwestern Syria and in several suburbs around the capital.
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