Israel Attacks Syrian Capital, Killing Nine

Five soldiers reportedly among the slain

Early Wednesday, Israel carried out a flurry of airstrikes against the Syrian capital of Damascus, hitting an apparent ammunition depot and several other sites and killing nine people.

Details are still emerging and as usual, Israel is not offering its own report on what happened. Of the nine killed, five were reportedly soldiers.

Israeli attacks are nominally aimed at Iran in Syria, though a lot of the deaths are just bystanders. Killing soldiers is also fairly rare, though hitting military sites is not so unusual.

UN special envoy Geir Pederson warned that the attacks shouldn’t distract from the already dire situation in Syria, noting the country is not in a frozen conflict yet.

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.