Israeli Air Force F-16 D fighter jet taking off at the Ramat David Air Force Base located in the Jezreel Valley

Damascus, August 15 (RHC)-- Israeli air strikes on Syria killed three soldiers and wounded three others in Israel’s latest attack on the war-torn country.  State media said air defense forces were confronting what it said were Israeli bombing raids aimed at targets in the vicinity of the Syrian coastal province of Tartus.

“The aggression led to the death of three soldiers, the wounding of three others,” Syria’s official news agency SANA said, quoting an unnamed military source.  Since civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes inside the country, targeting government positions as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters.

Its forces were also confronting “hostile targets” over the Qalamoun mountains near the border with Lebanon, SANA reported.  A Syrian military statement said there were two simultaneous Israeli attacks – one a missile attack targeting the countryside near the capital, Damascus, carried out from the direction of southeast of the Lebanese capital, Beirut.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor also gave the same toll of killed and wounded from the second strikes near an air defence base in Tartus province, where Iranian-backed groups are active.

The targeted site in Tartus is located 8km (5 miles) from a Russian base, said the monitor, which has a wide network of sources in Syria.  It said ambulances had rushed to the scene of the strikes in Tartus.

In early July, Syria’s defense ministry said an Israeli raid conducted from the Mediterranean Sea near the town of Al-Hamadiyah, south of Tartus town, had wounded two civilians.