Israeli Aircraft Reportedly Pound Military Outposts in Syria

• Israeli Aircraft Reportedly Pound Military Outposts in Syria
  by https://www.aljazeera.com/
  A series of cross-border air strikes in Syria killed more than a dozen Iran-backed militiamen, war monitor says. Israel was accused on Tuesday of launching a series of attacks on Iran-backed militia targets inside Syria as it reportedly intensifies cross-border raids.
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  The Syrian army said in a statement Israeli aircraft hit military barracks in al-Safirah in the eastern Aleppo countryside. Earlier, state television said a research centre was targetted. The army said it was now assessing the damage caused by the raids.
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  The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said air attacks killed 14 Iranian and Iraqi fighters in the desert near the town of Mayadin. Syrian Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman said it was “likely” that Israel mounted the operation. A spokesman for the US-led coalition battling the armed group ISIL (ISIS) said it was not responsible for the air strikes.
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  Iranian-backed militias and their allies command a significant presence in eastern Syria south of the Euphrates Valley. The region lies close to the Iraqi border. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes in Syria since the start of the civil war in 2011, targeting government troops, allied Iranian forces, and Hezbollah fighters.
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  It rarely confirms details of its operations in Syria but says Iran’s presence in support of President Bashar al-Assad is a threat and it will continue its strikes. An Israeli diplomatic official, who asked that their name be withheld, did not comment on the strikes but said, “Iran was only country still shipping missiles and missiles technologies to their proxies in the region” amid the global health crisis.
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  A regional intelligence source said Israel was stepping up raids in Syria at a time when world attention and the region, including Syria, were distracted by the coronavirus pandemic. An Israeli army spokeswoman declined to comment.
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  Western intelligence sources say Iranian-backed militias have long been entrenched in Aleppo province where they have bases and a command centre and installed advanced weapons, part of a growing presence across government-controlled Syria.
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