Israeli helicopter fires at ‘terrorists’ in Syria

An Israeli security source on Sunday confirmed Lebanese media reports that an Israeli helicopter fired two missiles at ground targets in the Syrian Golan Heights near the town of Quneitra.

The security source said the strike targeted terrorists preparing an attack on Israel, but could not provide details about the identities of the targets or the nature of the attack they were allegedly preparing.

The IDF would not comment.

According to the source, Israeli drones were present in the area during the attack. Last month, the Syrian army said it shot down an Israeli reconnaissance drone flying over Quneitra province.

Al-Mayadeen, a Hezbollah-linked news outlet, reported that two Israeli reconnaissance aircraft were patrolling the area at the time of the airstrike Sunday.

There were no immediate reports of casualties or details on what the alleged targets may have been.

“An Israeli helicopter fired two missiles on Amal Farms in Quneitra,” the Lebanese news channel said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based activist group monitoring the civil war, said the missiles fired Sunday targeted armed vehicles, citing local sources.

It said it did not know if the vehicles belonged to the army, Hezbollah or anti-Assad insurgents.

Earlier in the day, Lebanese state media reported that three Lebanese soldiers suffered respiratory problems after Israeli soldiers threw tear gas grenades over the border.

On December 7 last year two airstrikes near Damascus were attributed to the Israeli air force.

Jets hit military sites at Damascus’s main airport and at the town of Dimas on a key road near the Syrian-Lebanese border, the reports stated.

The alleged attack was reported by Syria’s official SANA news agency and by Shiite terror group Hezbollah’s official television station al-Manar, as well as the the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict in Syria.

Later in the month the state-run SANA news agency said an unmanned Israeli drone was doing reconnaissance over Quneitra, just over the Syrian side of the border from Israel, when it was downed.

It was not clear if the UAV was shot down or crashed.

The report described the drone as a Skylark. There were no other details or confirmation of the report.

The IDF said it had no knowledge of losing any drone in Syria.

Quneitra is located in the demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria patrolled by UN peacekeeping troops. The area has seen heavy fighting at times over the course of Syria’s four-year civil war, including several cases of fire spilling over into Israel.

Israel has carried out several airstrikes in Syria since the revolt against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011. Most of the strikes have targeted sophisticated weapons systems, including Russian-made anti-aircraft missiles and Iranian-made missiles, believed to be destined for Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorist group.

Other strikes have been attributed to the IDF, though officials in Jerusalem have not confirmed them.