Israeli strikes in Syria kill 8 pro-Iran fighters — monitor

BEIRUT — Israeli air strikes in Syria overnight killed at least eight fighters operating in pro-Iran militias, a war monitoring group said on Wednesday.

The strikes targeted an arms depot and a position held by Iranian forces and their Lebanese ally Hizbollah near the capital Damascus, and a pro-Iran militia position in southern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The nationalities of the dead fighters was not immediately know, the Britain-based monitor said.

Syrian state media SANA earlier said an air strike by "the Zionist enemy" had hit an area "south of Damascus" just before midnight local time.

SANA also reported another strike against the village of Rwihinah in the southern province of Quneitra near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, without reporting any casualties from either attack.

The Israeli forces  rarely acknowledge individual strikes and refused to comment when contacted by AFP on Wednesday.

Israel has carried out hundreds of air and missile strikes on Syria, targeting government troops as well as Iranian and Lebanese Hizbollah forces which support President Bashar Assad’s regime.

Last week, Israeli warplanes struck Iranian targets in Syria, in what the Israeli forces called a retaliatory attack for what it said were explosive devices found near one of its bases on the Golan Heights.

SANA said those strikes had killed three Syrian soldiers, while the observatory said seven allied foreign fighters also died.

On Saturday night, air strikes killed 14 pro-Iran militia fighters from Iraq and Afghanistan in eastern Syria, the observatory said, adding they were likely Israeli air raids.

Syria’s war has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions more since starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.