For almost a decade, Israel has carried out hundreds of air attacks in Syria

Damascus, March 12 (RHC)-- At least three soldiers have been wounded in Israeli air attacks targeting locations in central and west Syria.  Syria’s state news agency SANA reported that an attack was carried out on Sunday morning.

“At around 7:15am (04:15 GMT), the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack, firing missiles from the direction of north Lebanon with targets in the Tartus and Hama countryside,” SANA reported, citing a military source.

“The attack wounded three soldiers and caused some material losses,” the report said, adding that Syrian air defences intercepted some of the missiles.

SANA did not say what sites were targeted, but a war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said pro-Iran forces and a “scientific research centre” were present in the areas.  Earlier this week, the news agency reported that Israel had attacked Aleppo airport in northern Syria and put it out of service.

For almost a decade, Israel has carried out hundreds of air attacks against suspected Iranian-sponsored weapons transfers and personnel deployments in neighbouring Syria, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations.

The raids, which in recent months have targeted Syrian airports and air bases, are part of an escalation of what has been a low-intensity conflict with the goal of slowing down Iran’s growing entrenchment in Syria, military analysts say.

Iran, which backs Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has expanded its military presence in Syria in recent years and has a foothold in most state-controlled areas and thousands of members of militias and local paramilitary groups under its command, according to Western intelligence sources.

Iran’s proxy militias, led by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, now hold sway in large areas of eastern, southern and northwestern Syria and in several suburbs around the capital, Damascus.