Missile strikes overnight in central Syria killed at least 26 pro-regime fighters, most of them Iranians, a monitor said on Monday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the missiles struck a military base in the province of Hama late yesterday, in an assault it said bore the hallmarks of an Israeli operation.
“At least 26 fighters were killed, including four Syrians,” the monitor said, adding that the main target of the missile strike was the base of the regime’s 47th Brigade.
“The others are foreign fighters, a vast majority of them Iranians,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based war monitor.
“Given the nature of the target, it is likely to have been an Israeli strike,” he said, adding that strikes also hit an air base in nearby Aleppo province where surface-to-surface missiles were stored.
Syrian state media late yesterday had denounced a “fresh aggression” following reported raids by “enemy missiles”.
Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz told army radio on Monday morning that he was “not aware” of the latest strikes.
But, he said, “all the violence and instability in Syria is the result of Iran’s attempts to establish a military
presence there. Israel will not allow the opening of a northern front in Syria.”
The latest strikes came amid heightened tensions in Syria after Damascus and its ally Iran accused Israel on April 9 of conducting deadly strikes against a military base in the centre of the country.
At least 14 soldiers, including seven Iranians, were killed in the strike on a military base in Homs province.