Israel claims responsibility for military strikes on Iranian targets in Syria

Israel has claimed responsibility for a series of airstrikes early Monday on Iranian military targets in Syria, drifting further away from its longstanding policy of playing down or covering up its military activities in the war-torn country.

For years, Israel has remained largely silent about its attacks against Iran and its Shiite proxies operating in neighbouring Syria. But in recent weeks, military and political leaders have become increasingly outspoken about these activities.

This policy appears to be aimed at sending a message to key players in Syria, including President Bashar al-Assad and Russia, that Iran's continued presence there risks triggering even tougher and potentially destabilizing Israeli action.

"Whoever tries to harm us, we will harm them. Whoever threatens to destroy us will bear the full responsibility," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday.

Israel struck in Syria as part of 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, but a war monitor said 11 people were killed and Syria's ally, Russia, said four Syrian soldiers died.

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 civil war to help Assad fight Sunni Muslim rebels seeking to oust him.

Israel, regarding Iran as its biggest threat, has repeatedly attacked Iranian targets in Syria and those of allied militia, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, without claiming responsibility for the attacks.

But with an election approaching and the U.S. vowing more action on Iran, Israel's government has lifted the lid on strikes that it once preferred to keep quiet, and has also taken a tougher stance towards Hezbollah on the border with Lebanon.

It said a rocket attack on Sunday was Iran's work.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Lt.-Col. Jonathan Conricus, an Israeli military spokesman, said the Israeli use of ambiguity hadn't changed. He said that the Iranian missile strike, aimed at Israeli civilian areas, was a special case that required a public and powerful response, and that Israel had reacted similarly to previous Iranian provocations in February and May.

He also said that Israel had sent warnings to Syria ahead of the attack to refrain from attacking Israeli warplanes, but that Syria ignored those warnings and fired anti-aircraft missiles. He said Israel responded by destroying Syrian anti-aircraft batteries.

In Tehran, airforce chief Brig.-Gen. 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.

April election

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, though two large enclaves are still held by other forces.

His other main ally, Russia, worried about the consequences of Israeli strikes for the wider pursuit of a war that is now entering its ninth year, has provided Syria with air defence systems.

Netanyahu, who hopes to win a fifth term in the April 9 election, last week told his cabinet that Israel has carried out "hundreds" of attacks over recent years to curtail Iran and Hezbollah.

"We have a permanent policy, to strike at the Iranian entrenchment in Syria and hurt whoever tries to hurt us," Netanyahu said.

In a highly publicized operation last month, the Israeli military uncovered and destroyed cross-border tunnels from Lebanon that it said were dug by Hezbollah to launch attacks during any future war between them.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has vowed to expel "every last Iranian boot" from Syria, and a senior U.S. official in Lebanon last week criticized Hezbollah over the tunnels.

Israel last fought a war with Hezbollah, on Lebanese soil, in 2006. It fears Hezbollah has used its own role fighting alongside Iran and Assad in Syria to bolster its military capabilities, including an arsenal of rockets aimed at Israel.

Tensions have also risen with Israel's construction of a frontier barrier that Lebanon says passes through its territory along the contested border.

Night attack

The Israeli military said its fighter jets had attacked Iranian 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, the Israeli military said, and the Defence Ministry of Russia, Assad's strongest ally, said four Syrian soldiers were killed and six wounded.

Syrian air defences, supplied by Russia, had destroyed more than 30 cruise missiles and guided bombs, the Russian Defence Ministry said, according to RIA news agency.

Syrian state media, citing a military source, said the country had endured "intense attack" through consecutive waves of guided missiles, but had destroyed most "hostile targets."

Israel's target was the Iranian Quds Force, a special unit in charge of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps overseas operations, the Israeli military said.

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 packed ski resort in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.