Middle East

Rockets hit Damascus airport area in probable Israeli attack: report

Two rockets struck near Damascus airport at dawn on Friday, Lebanese TV station al-Mayadeen reported, an attack it said had probably been carried out by Israeli warplanes from outside Syria’s borders.

Al-Mayadeen gave no further details in the report carried in a news flash on screen. An Israeli military spokeswoman declined to comment on the reports of the air strike, saying: “We do not respond to such reports.”

Earlier this month, the Syrian army reported an Israeli air strike on a military site in Syria’s Hama province.

Israel says it has hit arms convoys of the Syrian military and its Iranian-backed ally Hezbollah nearly 100 times in the past five years.

Israel, which fought a 2006 war with Hezbollah, sees red lines in the shipment to the powerful Shi‘ite group of anti-aircraft missiles, precision ground-to-ground missiles and chemical weapons.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors Syria’s civil war, said the attack earlier this month was on a facility of the Scientific Studies and Research Centre, an agency which the United States describes as Syria’s chemical weapons manufacturer.

Syria’s government denies using chemical arms. In 2013 it promised to surrender its chemical weapons, which it says it has done.

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