BEIRUT — An
Israeli air strike hit Syria's Latakia port before dawn on Tuesday, sparking a fire that
lit up the Mediterranean seafront in the second such attack on the key cargo
hub this month, Syrian state media reported.
اضافة اعلان
Since the outbreak of
Syria's civil war in
2011, Israel has routinely carried out air strikes on its strife-torn neighbor,
mostly targeting Syrian government troops as well as allied Iran-backed forces
and Hezbollah fighters.
But it is only the second time it has hit
the port of Latakia, in the heartland of President
Bashar al-Assad's minority
Alawite community.
"At around 3:21 am, the Israeli enemy
carried out an aerial aggression with several missiles from the direction of
the Mediterranean ... targeting the container yard in Latakia port," Syrian
state news agency SANA cited a military source as saying.
The strike caused "significant material
damage", it added.
Asked about the strike, an Israeli army
spokesman said: "We don't comment on reports in foreign media".
Pictures released by SANA showed firefighters
training hoses on stacks of blazing containers that lit up the night sky.
The news agency said the containers were
carrying "engine oil and spare parts for cars and other vehicles".
But Britain-based war monitor, the
Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the cargo was "arms and
munitions," which had detonated in "powerful explosions that were
felt across the city of Latakia and its suburbs".
It said it was unclear whether the arms were
from Iran or some other supplier.
Latakia governor Ismail Hilal said
firefighters had brought the blaze under control by midday and were dousing the
embers, SANA reported.
It is the second time this month that Israel
has attacked the container yard at Latakia port.
The Syrian government's other major ally,
Russia, operates a naval base in the port of Tartus, 85km to the south.
Shadow war
So far this year, Israel has targeted Syria
nearly 30 times, killing 130 people including five civilians and 125 loyalist
fighters, according to Observatory figures.
On December 7, it carried out a strike
targeting an Iranian arms shipment in Latakia, its first on the port since the
start of the civil war.
While Israel rarely comments on individual
strikes it carries out on its northern neighbor, it has acknowledged mounting hundreds
since 2011.
According to a report by the Israeli army,
it hit around 50 targets in Syria in 2020.
In the deadliest operation since the strikes
began, Israel killed 57 government troops and allied fighters in eastern Syria
in January this year.
The Israeli military has defended the
strikes as a necessary measure to prevent its arch-foe Iran from gaining a
foothold on its doorstep.
Israel's head of military intelligence,
Major General Aharon Haliva, has accused Iran of "continuing to promote
subversion and terror" in the Middle East.
In a shadow war, Israel has targeted
suspected Iranian military facilities in Syria and mounted a sabotage campaign
against Iran's nuclear program.
Iran has been a key supporter of the Syrian
government in the decade-old conflict.
It finances, arms and commands a number of
Syrian and foreign militia groups fighting alongside the regular armed forces,
chief among them Lebanon's powerful Hezbollah group.
The conflict in Syria has killed nearly
500,000 people since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful
demonstrations.
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