Israel Attacks Syrian Army Base Near Capital of Damascus

Syrian military says most missiles intercepted

Explosions echoed through the Syrian capital of Damascus overnight on Thursday, as for the second time this week, Israel carried out missile strikes, this time attacking sites including an army base on the outskirts of the city.

Details are still emerging on the attacks, with Israeli media suggesting they were targeting Hezbollah arms depots. Israel is not commenting, as usual, while Syrian state media is quoting military officials as saying most of the missiles were intercepted by air defenses.

These new strikes came from Lebanese airspace. This is not unusual as Israel routinely violates Lebanese airspace to carry out attacks. The earlier strikes this week were fired from Israeli-occupied Golan.

This week’s attacks are the first since late July, an unusual period of calm that began when Russia was reportedly interested in curtailing the rate of Israeli strikes. There was no indication of a Russian reaction to the first strike, and this may reflect that, and a return to Israel attacking several times a week, consequence-free.

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.