Unnamed Iranian officials were quoted in the Tasnim news agency denying reports earlier Monday that an overnight Israeli attack on Syria hit Iranian bases and killed “mostly” Iranians. They said the claims were “baseless” and no Iranians were killed at all.
The Israeli attacks began Sunday night, with “bunker-busting” missiles hitting arms depots in Hama and Aleppo Provinces. The strikes destroyed some 200 missiles, and killed between 16 and 26 people, according to various accounts.
Those accounts all claimed the majority of the slain were Iranians. This discrepancy may be because Iran and the Western media have different definitions of what constitutes an Iranian. Tasnim’s comments appeared to make clear none of the slain were Iranian military advisers, who are deployed in Syria.
Israel claims Iran has 80,000 fighters in Syria though, and the vast majority of them aren’t really Iranians. Rather, the habit has been to portray Shi’ite militia members supporting the Assad government as “Iranians,” even though large numbers are from Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. It may be that militia members were killed in the strikes.
The Israeli strikes were so big and caused such an explosion that they actually registered as an earthquake of 2.6 magnitude near Hama. Israel has yet to officially comment on the attack, which isn’t unusual. Syrian state media accused US and British missiles of being fired during the salvo, from Jordan. That appears not to have been the case, however.
The Israeli strike may be less about targeting anything in particular, than about testing their ability to keep attacking Syria. After the US-led attack on April 13, there was growing expectation that Russia would limit everyone’s ability to strike Syria, including Israel.
Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said over the weekend that “freedom of action” in attacking Syria was vital to Israel, and would be maintained at any cost. This attack may amount to Israel attacking just to see what reaction, if any, they get from Russia.
Russia is in the process of delivering S-300 missiles to Syria, which will greatly enhance their air defense capabilities. In addition to testing reaction, Israel may also be hitting a site they believe will be harder to hit when the S-300 arrives.