The Syrian air defenses were alerted on Sunday afternoon as a Mahan Air flight from Tehran to Damascus was about to make its approach to Damascus. At 1:30 p.m. the flight turned around and headed away from the city. A Syrian L-76 cargo lifter from Tehran was also en route to Damascus on Sunday morning. These kinds of flights have been seen as suspicious over the last year amid allegations that Iran delivers weapons to Syria and Hezbollah using different airlines as cover.There was no comment on the strikes by Israel, which rarely comments on alleged Israel Air Force operations on the northern front, but Israeli officials have repeatedly voiced concerns over Iran’s presence in Syria and the smuggling of sophisticated weaponry to Hezbollah in Lebanon from Tehran via Syria, stressing that both are red-lines for the Jewish State.With the presence of Iranian and Hezbollah forces, Israel’s northern front has become the IDF’s number one priority with former IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. (res.) Gadi Eisenkot admitting that Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes against Iranian targets in Syria.Israel “operated under a certain threshold until two-and-a-half years ago,” when he got “unanimous consent” from the government to change the rules of the game and dropped some 2,000 missiles against Iranian and Hezbollah targets in 2018 alone, he said.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that Israel conducted airstrikes on Iranian weapons near Damascus airport on January 13 and Russia warned Israel against further strikes near the airport. Syria is therefore on high alert for any potential airstrikes.Nevertheless, daytime strikes by Israel against targets in the war-torn country are extremely rare with the IAF operating during the night.Earlier on Sunday SANA reported that a bomb exploded near a highway at the southern edge of Syria's capital Damascus. According to the report, an attacker was arrested and no one was injured.Video footage from #Israel’s Mount Hermon showing launch of two Iron Dome missiles against a #Syrian projectile. pic.twitter.com/mCXJCUgfSc
— Anna Ahronheim (@AAhronheim) January 20, 2019
Report: Israel strikes Syria in rare daytime attack; Syria fires at Golan
“Our air defenses had successfully engaged an Israeli aerial attack targeting the southern region and prevented it from achieving any of its objectives," a source told Syrian media.
