AMMAN (Reuters) – The Syrian army said early on Wednesday that Israeli air strikes hit an area in the southern outskirts of Damascus where military defectors say there is a strong Iranian military presence, in the second such attack within a week.
A Syrian army statement said Israel struck from the occupied Golan Heights and caused only material damages.
Military defectors said the strike targeted a military base in Jabal Mane Heights close to the Syrian Golan Heights along the border with Israel that had been hit earlier.
Israel launched air raids against what it called a wide range of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria last Wednesday.
Israel has frequently attacked what it says are Iranian-linked targets in Syria in recent years, and stepped up such attacks over the past year in what Western intelligence sources describe as a shadow war to reduce Iran’s influence.
(Reporting by Suleiman al Khalidi in Amman and Hesham Abdul Khalek in Cairo; Editing by Leslie Adler and Grant McCool)
