Israel launches air strikes near Syrian Capital, destroys Iranian Arms depot

Damascus/Beirut: In the early hours of Thursday morning, Israeli fighter planes launched air strikes on Syria destroying an arms depot under Iran’s possession. The head of the Israeli intelligence agency informed that Israel launched this attack as Hezbollah was being supplied weapons from this depot.

Israeli Minister of Intelligence ‘Israel Katz’ informed this to the Israeli Army Radio. Katz stated that the attacks on Syria was in accordance to Israel’s policy. Prime Minister Benjamin Netyanyahu declared that Iran was taking advantage of the Syrian Conflict and was supplying weapons to Hezbollah, however, Israel would launch attacks to curb the smuggling of these weapons.

Katz informed that the Israeli fighter planes carried out their proceedings near Syrian Capital Damascus’ airport on the basis of the information provided by the Intelligence agency. He also clarified that Israel would continue with such operations even in the future. However, the Israeli army has not made a comment on these attacks on Syria. The Israeli Army Spokesperson avoided making a comment on the matter by saying that the Intelligence Minister was not the spokesperson for the Israeli army.

While Israel has not been providing any further information about the attacks near Damascus, Syria also seems to be unwilling to disclose any information about it. Hezbollah-linked TV channel ‘Al-Manar’ stated that Israeli fighter planes launched airstrikes near the airport on Thursday, early in the morning. Whereas some Syrian administrative officers have claimed that there were no air strikes, but a blast in the gas pipeline.

The Iranian arms depot has been destroyed due to these explosions and there is no doubt that this would certainly affect the Hezbollah. Both the parties are concurrent over the fact that arms are being provided to Hezbollah on a large scale from this depot. Israeli fighter planes had launched air strikes on Syrian arms depot as well as vehicles carrying arms previously too. In the last month, the Israeli fighter planes had carried out a similar operation. After these attacks, the Syrian Air Security forces had launched a missile attack directed towards Israeli planes. Syria had declared that an Israeli plane had crashed due to this attack. However, Israel had rebuffed these claims.

Meanwhile, Russia had criticized the Israeli airstrikes on Syria.