Israeli jets hit Iranian military assets in Damascus strikes

Beirut/Occupied Jerusalem - Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the air raid had mostly targeted Iranian forces.

Israel struck in Syria early on Monday, the latest salvo in its increasingly open assault on Iran's presence there, shaking the night sky over Damascus with an hour of loud explosions in a second consecutive night of military action.
Damascus did not say what damage or casualties resulted from the strikes. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said 11 people were killed. Syria's ally Russia said four Syrian soldiers had died and six were wounded.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the air raid had mostly targeted Iranian forces, but also hit Syrians helping them. "We will strike at anyone who tried to harm us," he said.
The threat of direct confrontation between arch-enemies Israel and Iran has long simmered in Syria, where the Iranian military built a presence early in the nearly eight year civil war to help President Bashar Al Assad's government.
Israel, regarding Iran as its biggest threat, has repeatedly attacked Iranian targets in Syria and those of allied militia, including Lebanon's Hezbollah.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets had attacked Iranian "Quds Force" targets early on Monday, including munition stores, a position in the Damascus International Airport, an intelligence site and a military training camp.
Its jets then targeted Syrian defence batteries after coming under fire.
It followed a previous night of cross-border fire, which Israel said began when Iranian troops fired an Iranian-made surface-to-surface missile from an area near Damascus at a ski resort in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Syria said it was Israel that had attacked and its air defences had repelled the assault. Syria had endured "intense attack through consecutive waves of guided missiles", but had destroyed most "hostile targets", state media quoted a military source as saying.
The Russian defence ministry said Syrian air defences, supplied by Russia, had destroyed more than 30 cruise missiles and guided bombs, according to RIA news agency.
In Tehran, airforce chief Brigadier General Aziz Nasirzadeh said Iran was "fully ready and impatient to confront the Zionist regime and eliminate it from the earth", according to the Young Journalist Club, a website supervised by state television.
Assad has said Iranian forces are welcome to stay in Syria after years of military victories that have brought most of the country back under his control. Just two big enclaves are still outside Assad's grip, including the area Trump plans to exit. 

• MENA