Israeli Airstrikes Pound Military Posts in Syria’s Aleppo

Attacks claimed to target weapons depots

A new round of airstrikes from Israel hit military posts in and around the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Syrian state media claimed to have shot down most of the missiles before they hit, and casualties are still unclear.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights claimed the strikes were targeting weapons depots belonging to Iranian-backed groups, which is almost always the pretext when Israel comments on what they attacked and why.

This would be a strange place for such strikes, as it’s not clear Shi’ite militias are terribly active in this part of Syria in the first place. This part of Syria is mostly contested between Syria’s government and Turkish-backed rebels.

Militias are not heavily involved in pro-government operations in this area, apart from Kurdish factions that are aligned with the state in resisting Turkish advances.

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.