19 Iran-backed militiamen killed in Israeli attack on eastern Syria
A Syrian monitoring group announced on Thursday, November 27th, that in a possible Israeli air strike on targets in Deir ez-Zor province in eastern Syria, at least 19 Iran-backed militiamen were killed.
The Syria Human Rights Observers group, based in Britain and which publishes information on the Syrian war, stated that on Thursday morning, positions of Iran-backed Shiite militiamen outside Boukamal in Deir ez-Zor province came under Israeli air strikes, and most of the casualties were Pakistani Shiite militiamen.
According to the report, Syrian state media did not publish any information about the Thursday morning air strikes, and Israel rarely claims responsibility for such attacks.
The Syria Human Rights Observers group also stated that in a Wednesday morning air strike by Israeli fighter jets against positions near Damascus, at least eight personnel close to Iran were killed. The group said the targets of last night’s strikes were a weapons warehouse and one of the positions of Iranian forces and their Lebanese allies from Hezbollah, but the nationality of the killed individuals has not yet been determined.
It has also been reported that in Saturday night strikes by Israeli fighter jets on the Boukamal border area in the eastern Deir ez-Zor province, which borders Iraq, “14 Iranian-allied personnel” were killed.
Meanwhile, Gilad Erdan, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, on Tuesday called on the UN Security Council to immediately take steps to expel Iranian military forces from Syria.
Gilad Erdan emphasized in a letter to the President of the Security Council: Israel demands the complete withdrawal of Iran and its proxy groups from Syria and the dismantling of Iranian military infrastructure on Syrian soil.
This came as the Israeli military, in an unprecedented move, formally and quickly accepted responsibility for the November 19th morning strike against the headquarters of the Syrian army’s Seventh Corps, justifying it by saying “Quds Force personnel of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards” had been active there.
Benny Gantz, Israel’s Defense Minister, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, also said on that day that their country’s air strikes against Iran and Syria were carried out with the “message” that bombing on the Syria-Israel border “will not be tolerated.”
France Presse news agency reports that the war in Syria since 2011 has resulted in more than 380,000 deaths and displaced millions of people from their homes.
Source: Radio Farda
