Israeli night raids targeting arms depots and military positions in eastern Syria killed at least nine Syrian soldiers and 31 allied fighters, in the deadliest raids since 2018, a war monitor said yesterday.
The Israeli air force carried out more than 18 strikes against multiple targets in an area stretching from the eastern town of Deir Ezzor to the Iraqi border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The raids killed nine Syrian soldiers and 31 foreign militia fighters whose nationalities were not immediately known, the Britain-based monitoring group said.
Paramilitaries belonging to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement and the Fatimid Brigade, which is made up of pro-Iranian Afghan fighters, operate in the region, the observatory said.
The Israeli military did not immediately comment.
Observatory chairman Rami Abdul Rahman called the raids the “deadliest since June 2018,” when strikes on the same region killed at least 55 pro-government fighters, including Iraqis and Syrians.
The latest raids came just hours after separate strikes near the Iraqi border on Tuesday killed at least 12 Iran-backed militia fighters.
The observatory said that it was unable to identify the aircraft responsible for the earlier strikes.
Syrian state news agency SANA reported yesterday’s raids, but gave few details.
“At 1:10am, the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial assault on the town of Deir Ezzor and the Albu Kamal region,” SANA said, citing a military source.
It is less than a week since the last wave of Israeli strikes in Syria.
Israel routinely carries out raids in Syria, mostly against targets linked to Iran in what it says is a bid to prevent its foe from consolidating a foothold on its northern border.
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