Israeli warplanes bombed research center near Damascus - Syrian military

An Israeli F-15 fighter jet (AFP Photo/Jack Guez)

Source: Russia Today

Israeli fighter jets targeted a military research center near Damascus early on Wednesday morning, Syrian state news agency SANA said citing army officials.

The Syrian army’s general command has issued a statement, saying an air strike was launched by the IAF targeting a military research center in Jamraya, rural Damascus.­

“Israeli fighter jets violated our air space at dawn today and carried out a direct strike on a scientific research center in charge of raising our level of resistance and self-defence,” the army statement said as cited by SANA.

The strike caused material damage to the center and a nearby building, killing two workers and wounding five others, the statement added.

The Israeli military has neither confirmed nor denied the reports of attacks on Syrian territory, an IDF spokeswoman said they “do not comment on reports of this kind.”

Earlier there were reports in the media of an attack by Israeli jets on Wednesday morning striking a target on the Syrian-Lebanese border amid repeated violations of Lebanese airspace. A US government official has confirmed reports that Israeli warplanes targeted a convoy headed from Syria to Lebanon, the Associated Press says.

The Syrian military however has denied this, saying there was no Israeli strike on a convoy of trucks on its border. It called the strike a “blatant act of aggression” against Syria and accused Israel of supporting terrorist activity in the country.

It is unclear whether this is the same air raid the Syrian military is now referring to or if there were two separate assaults.

­Although it has not yet been confirmed whether an air strike indeed targeted a military site near Damascus, experts believe that after months of constant rebel attacks on Syrian air defence systems an air strike would make sense.

“It finally makes sense because the rebels or as they like to call themselves the revolutionaries, they have been attacking air defence bases near Damascus for the past seven months,” Dr Ali Mohamad, editor in chief of the Syria Tribune news website told RT. “They’ve managed to attack the S-200 base and over four SM-2 and SM-3 bases. Now this followed by an air strike from Israel. So it all adds up, it makes sense. It only shows that Israel has a great interest in the instability in Syria and that it is being helped by groups of armed rebels in Syria."