Israel Attacks Syria for Second Straight Night

Helicopters strike Syrian Golan

Israel went nearly two weeks between attacking Syria, and is now hitting for a second night in a row, with an attack helicopter raid into the Syrian Golan Heights. As with Wednesday night, Israel refused to comment on the attacks.

This makes it tough to determine what happened, as Israeli media tends to exaggerate and Syrian state media tends to downplay what happened. Officially, there are no confirmed casualties of the Thursday attack, and only one civilian killed Wednesday.

The attacks were on opposite sides of the country, with Wednesday’s hit near Latakia in the northwest, and Thursday’s in Quneitra, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. In neither case was it clear what was being attacked, though Wednesday’s missiles hit a plastic factory.

The Syrian Observatory said the Thursday attacks hit Syrian Army positions in north Quneitra. It would not be uncommon for that to be the case, but there is no obvious pretext, as Syria hasn’t appeared to have done anything recently.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.