Syrian regime forces downed and dismantled an “attack drone” on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights on Saturday, according to the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA).
The news agency said the incident occurred “in the outskirts of the al-Sheikh Mountain (Mount Hermon) in the northern countryside of Quneitra” over the town of Erneh, southwest of Damascus.
Although it wasn’t immediately clear where the drone originated, the IDF hinted in a statement Saturday night that Israel had no connection to the drone attack, implying instead that the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) had been Iranian.
“Today we saw the Syrians prove that [Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem] Soleimani does what he wants in Syria and definitely doesn’t tell the Assad regime what he is up to,” IDF Arabic spokesperson Avichai Adraee wrote in a tweet.
هل يعقل أن لا تعلم اليد اليمنى ما تفعله اليد اليسرى؟!
اليوم رأينا إثباتًا عند السوريين أن يفعل في ما يشاء، وبالطبع لا يُخبر بذلك . pic.twitter.com/73T2eeoisY— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee)
The statement was not tweeted in English or Hebrew.
“Competent engineering units dismantled the drone which was loaded with bombs and with a highly explosive C4 amount to prevent dismantling it,” SANA reported.
Syrian military forces also found quantities of weapons, ammunition, food stuffs and Israeli-made vehicles left behind by “terrorists” in the village of Briqah in the southern countryside of Quneitra, SANA reported.
A source told a reporter from the news agency the items were found during a search of the villages and towns “liberated” by regime forces in the southern countryside of Quneitra in the village of Briqah.
The source added that the weapons included rifles, ammo, RPG rounds, tank rounds, medium-size machine guns, shells, satellite communication devices, in addition to food stuffs and medicines from Israel as well as a number of Israeli cars.
Photos of the items were posted on the SANA English-language website and included several showing packages rice and beans produced by popular Israeli food manufacturers.