2 ay önce

Israel strikes Syria, killing two civilians in Damascus: regime media

Witnesses heard several back-to-back explosions in the Kafr Sousa district in Syria's capital Damascus, scaring children at a nearby school, as well as ambulances rushing to the scene.

Reuters

Kafr Sousa, a high-security area of the Syrian capital, is home to senior security officials, security branches, intelligence headquarters and an Iranian cultural centre. / Photo: Reuters

An Israeli air strike has hit a residential building in the Kafr Sousa district in Syria's capital Damascus, killing two people, Syrian regime's state media and a security source said.

A military source cited by Syrian state TV said the strike at about 0640GMT on Wednesday, wounded a number of other people, identifying the dead as civilians.

Images published by Syrian regime's state media showed the charred side of a multi-storey building. The security source said the "attack did not achieve its aims".

The neighbourhood hosts residential buildings, schools and Iranian cultural centres, and lies near a large, heavily-guarded complex used by security agencies.

The district was struck in an Israeli attack in February 2023 that killed Iranian military experts.

Witnesses heard several back-to-back explosions. The blasts scared children at a nearby school and ambulances rushed to the area, the witnesses told Reuters.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Israel strikes Syria following rocket fire: Israeli army

Regional tensions

Iran's semi-official Student News Network said no Iranian citizens were killed in the strike.

On Wednesday afternoon, a Reuters witness heard another large blast in the capital that shook the windows of homes. Local Syrian regime outlet Sham FM said several explosions were heard in the capital without specifying the cause.

Iran has been a major backer of the Syrian regime leader Bashar al Assad during Syria's nearly 12-year-old civil war. Its support for Damascus and the Lebanese group Hezbollah has drawn regular Israeli air strikes meant to curb Tehran's extraterritorial military power.

Those strikes have ramped up in line with flaring regional tensions since the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel, with more than half a dozen Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps officers killed in suspected Israeli strikes on Syria since December.

As a result, the IRGC has scaled back deployment of their senior officers in Syria and have planned to rely more on allied Shia militia to preserve their sway there, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters earlier this month.

Iran, a backer of Hamas, has sought to stay out of the conflict itself even as it supports groups that have entered the fray from Lebanon, Yemen, Iraq and Syria — the so-called "Axis of Resistance" that is hostile to Israeli and US interests.