Israeli airstrikes kill two pro-Iran fighters

BEIRUT: Israeli airstrikes targeting a weapons depot in Syria on Sunday killed two pro-Iran fighters and wounded three soldiers, a war monitor said.

"Israeli strikes targeted a weapons depot belonging to pro-Iran forces located... between Tartus and Hama provinces," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Two pro-Iran fighters were killed and three Syrian soldiers were wounded," he told AFP.

Syrian state news agency SANA, citing a military source, reported that "at around 7:15 am (0415 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 did not specify the target but said the attack "wounded three soldiers and caused some material losses", adding that Syrian air defences intercepted some of the missiles.

The Israeli military said it did not comment "on reports in the foreign media".

Since Syria's civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes against its northern neighbour, targeting government troops as well as allied Iran-backed forces and Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters.

The Israeli military rarely comments on individual strikes against Syria but has vowed repeatedly to keep up its air campaign to stop arch-foe Iran from consolidating its presence.

On Tuesday, Israeli warplanes killed three people in a raid on the airport in Aleppo, Syria's second city, the Observatory said.

On February 19, an Israeli airstrike killed 15 people in a Damascus district that houses state security agencies, according to the war monitor.