Syria Blames Aleppo Airport Attack on Israel

Syria on Monday blamed Israel for an attack on a military position next to the airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo. Media reports said that nine people were killed in the incident. Israeli officials had no comment on the report.

The report, by the government-controlled Sana news agency, said that “the Zionist enemy continues to support terrorists who are based in Quneitra, and in Islamic State forces. The enemy fired a missile to one of our military positions.” Syrian rebel groups said that the attack was aimed at the headquarters of a private Syrian military manufacturer.

This is the second attack within just a few days that Syria blamed on Israel. Earlier last week, Syria claimed that a Syrian army position in the area of the central Syrian city of Homs had been attacked. Radar that had recently been deployed enabled the Syrian forces to respond in time, and the attack was foiled by antimissile defense systems. Syrian rebel groups reported that several people were killed in that attack, and that a number of the dead were Iranians.

On a tour of the northern border last week Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said that Israel “has identified efforts to develop a terror infrastructure in the Syrian Golan. This is unacceptable, and we will act with all the means available to us to prevent this. The government that is responsible for this will pay a heavy price for cooperating with terror forces.

“The Iranian presence in Syria altogether is unacceptable,” Liberman added. “We are not prepare to accept an Iranian presence anywhere in Syria, and we will act against Iranian entrenchment in the country. It doesn’t matter if they withdraw 40 kilometers from the border or 80 – as soon as we see identify an Iranian presence, we will act, as we have been doing until now.”