Syrian air defenses responded late Tuesday night (June 23) to “hostile targets” according to Syria’s state-controlled Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA). Syrian TV reported the army air defenses “confronted an aggression in the air space of Tal al-Sahn in Suweida and Kabajib in Deir Ezzor.”
The Syrian army said two soldiers and four civilians were killed in airstrikes near Sweida, which it attributed to the Israel Air Force.
Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force and Hezbollah targets were destroyed in at least four separate locations, allegedly by at least four IAF F-16 fighter jets.
We now have four known locations, 426 km apart
1. Kobajjep (كباجب), Deir Ezzor, Syria
2.Sakhnah (السخنة), Homs, Syria
3.Tell as-Sahn (تل الصحن), Suwayda, Syria
4.Salkhad (صلخد), Suwayda, Syria— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman)
According to Middle East defense analyst Babak Taghvaee, “Israel Air Force just destroyed IRGC Quds Force and Hezbollah targets in Al-Suwayda and Ghabagheb, southeast of Syria. Buk-M2E, Pantsir S1/2 and S-125 SAM systems Syrian Arab Air Defense Force are trying to shoot down the Delilah cruise missiles launched by IAF’s F-16Is.”
The UK-based ‘Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’ which receives information from activists in the field reported, “Explosions resumed in the eastern countryside of As-Suweida, as a result of Israeli bombing, targeting military sites of Iranian militias in the Tel al-Sahn area and areas near Gbaghb in Dara’a countryside.”
Israel has been blamed for multiple air strikes that have targeted Iranian military sites on Syrian territory over the past months; there has been no denial by military officials of the reports and in fact Israeli defense officials have warned there will be an uptick in attacks against Iranian military sites.
The government of the Jewish State has repeatedly warned it will not tolerate Iran’s military presence in Syria and will actively work to eliminate the threat it presents along Israel’s northern border.
