Israeli attack kills 7 fighters in Damascus

BEIRUT: Israeli strikes on Damascus airport killed seven fighters, a war monitor said on Friday, the latest in a string of attacks targeting Iran’s military presence in Syria.

Syrian state media said only that its air defences intercepted missiles over the capital overnight while Israel did not immediately comment on the strikes. Israel routinely fires missiles at what it says are Iranian targets in Syria, where elite Iranian forces and allied militia play a key role.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the strikes launched late on Thursday hit military targets in the area of the international airport. Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of the Britain-based Observatory, said the dead were three Syrian soldiers and four members of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard. A Syrian army source quoted by SANA said the attack took place at 11:45 pm (2145 GMT), when an AFP correspondent in Damascus heard loud blasts.