Two Hezbollah fighters killed in Israeli strikes on Syria
Israeli strikes in Syria on Monday killed eight people, including pro-Iran fighters, a war monitor said, in the latest such attack in the country against groups loyal to Tehran.
"Three Israeli missiles targeted a base belonging to Hezbollah and Iran's Revolutionary Guards in the Sayyida Zeinab district" south of Damascus, "killing at least eight people," Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.
Two of those killed were Syrian, including a security escort to an Iranian officer, as were two Hezbollah fighters, he said, without specifying if any civilians were killed.
The Syrian defense ministry also reported an "air attack" that it blamed on Israel, saying that strikes around 1:00 pm (1000 GMT) targeted multiple locations south of Damascus.
It said in a statement on social media that "a number of Iranian advisers" were killed, before later revising it to remove any mention of the Iranian advisers.
Iran's Tasnim news agency, meanwhile, reported that "the Zionist regime (Israel) targeted an Iranian advisory centre in the Sayyida Zeinab area".
However, Hossein Akbari, Iran's ambassador to Syria, denied in a social media post that an advisory centre had been struck or that "any Iranian citizens or advisers (were) martyred" in the attack.
Hezbollah announced late Monday that two of its fighters had died "on the road to Jerusalem", its phrase for members killed by Israeli strikes, without further details.
A previous air strike in Sayyida Zeinab in late December, also blamed on Israel, killed a senior Iranian general.
Quds Force commander Razi Moussavi was the highest-ranking Iranian general to be killed outside the country since a January 2020 U.S. drone strike in Baghdad killed the elite force's chief Qasem Soleimani.
And on January 20, a strike on Damascus's Mazzeh neighborhood targeting the Revolutionary Guards' Syria spy chief killed 13 people, the Observatory had said.
The Guards confirmed five members were killed in that attack, which they blamed on regional arch-foe Israel.
During more than a decade of civil war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes in the country, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces as well as Syrian army positions.
But such attacks have intensified since the war between Israel and Hamas began on October 7.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes targeting Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran, which backs President Bashar al-Assad's government, to expand its presence there.
Since 2011, Syria has endured a bloody conflict that has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions.
Iran says it only deploys military advisers in Syria at the invitation of Damascus.
Source: Agence France Presse
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