ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Damascus International Airport went out of service following Israeli airstrikes in the early hours of Monday, in which at least two soldiers were killed, according to Syrian state media.
The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) quoted an anonymous military official and said around 2:00 a.m. a barrage of missiles targeted the airport and the surrounding areas, but did not elaborate on the extent of the damage caused to the airport. The official blamed Israel for the strikes.
Israel has not commented on the attack.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that the strikes on Damascus, including the airport, were extensive and targeted locations belonging to Lebanon's Hezbollah group and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
IRGC affiliated outlets reported the strike on Monday quoting SANA, but did not mention if any guards were killed in the offensive.
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Iran’s state-owned Arabic channel Alalam said that some of the missiles were intercepted by the Syrian air defenses, and that engineers were assessing the damage caused by the strikes.
Israel targeted IRGC and other militias affiliated with Iran 32 times in 2022 across Syria and Monday’s strike is the first known strike in the New Year. The last Israeli strike on Damascus was on December 19 in which two soldiers were wounded.
Tehran and Tel Aviv have been involved in a shadow war for years, targeting each other in several countries including in Syria. Israel has been blamed for the assassination of a number of Iranian nuclear scientists as well as for attacks on nuclear facilities.
Iran on the other hand avoids being dragged into a direct confrontation with Israel despite the IRGC threatening to wipe them out, instead opting for its proxies in Syria and Lebanon to attack Israeli interests.
In November the IRGC blamed Israel for the killing of Colonel Davoud Jafari, an aerospace officer in the guards, in a roadside bomb in Damascus.
The attack on Damascus airport comes one day before the third anniversary of the killing of General Qasem Soleimani of the IRGC Quds Force in January 2020 by the US. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei praised Soleimani on Sunday when he met with his family and said that the slain general gave a new lease of life to resistance against Israel and the US in the world.
