Israel strikes former Assad regime bases in southern Syria
IDF confirms bombing radar and aerial intelligence installations that it says pose a potential threat to the country; Syrian sources count at least 14 strikes north of Daraa
Israeli jets conducted several strikes on Syrian military assets in the southern Daraa province Monday, the latest string of strikes targeting the ousted Assad regime’s infrastructure since the country was taken over by Islamist insurgents.
The Israel Defense Forces said it hit assets in southern Syria whose “presence… poses a threat to the State of Israel and to IDF operations,” in order to “eliminate future threats.”
Two Syrian security sources told Reuters that at least six strikes hit a base in the town of Jbab, while at least another eight hit a former army base in the city of Izraa. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
According to the Israeli military, fighter jets hit “radar systems and detection equipment used to build an aerial intelligence picture,” along with “headquarters and military sites containing weapons and military equipment belonging to the Syrian regime in southern Syria.”
The strikes on Jbab and Ezraa, which are north of the main southern city of Daraa, were confirmed by Syria’s SANA state news agency.
Israeli officials have vowed to demilitarize the southern Syria area close to Israel’s border following the fall of Bashar al-Assad.
Syrian government control is weak in the region, and Israel has threatened to target interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s forces if they deploy there.
Israel dispatched troops into a UN-patrolled buffer zone separating Israeli and Syrian forces on the strategic Golan Heights, where it maintains a military presence, following the Assad regime’s collapse late last year.
Last week Defense Minister Israel Katz called Sharaa “a jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school who is committing horrifying acts against a civilian population.”
Earlier Monday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called the transitional regime “pure evil.” That came a day after he warned European nations against dropping their guard against the Islamists now running Damascus.
Syria’s Islamist-led government on Monday said it had completed a military operation against a nascent insurgency, following reports of mass ethnic killings amid clashes. The violence had been centered around coastal provinces where most of Syria’s Alawite minority live.
Assad is an Alawite, an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam, whose family for decades ruled over the Sunni Muslim majority.
British-based war monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said that 973 civilians were killed by government forces and allied fighters in reprisal killings. More than 250 Alawite fighters were killed and more than 230 members of government security forces were also killed, the group said.
Sharaa dismissed the Israeli comments as “nonsense.”
“They are the last ones who can talk,” he said, noting the high death toll in Israel’s 17 months of war against Hamas in Gaza.
