By YAAKOV LAPPIN

Israel Air Force fighter jets struck Syrian military bases housing long-range missiles on Friday, the Qatari Al-Jazeera satellite television network said on Saturday.

IAF F-16 fighter jet – Photo: IDF SPOKESMAN’S OFFICE

According to the report, the bases, near the Syrian-Lebanese border, belong to Assad regime brigades that possess weapons such as Scud missiles. The attacks allegedly targeted multiple targets in the area.

The IDF Spokesman said, “We do not comment on foreign reports.”

International media reports have said that Israel intercepted attempts by Syria and Iran to smuggle advanced weapons to Hezbollah in Lebanon on multiple occasions throughout 2013 and 2014.

In January 2015, according to foreign media reports, an IAF aircraft fired missiles at a military convoy in the Syrian town of Quneitra, near Israeli border in the Golan Heights.

Six senior Hezbollah operatives, including Jihad Mughniyah, son of the late Hezbollah operations chief Imad Mughniyah, and six senior Iranian IRGC officials, including Brigadier General Muhammad Ali Allahdadi, were killed in the attack.

A Western intelligence source said after the attack that Mughniyah was “the head of a major terrorist entity” who was setting up a base Syrian side of the Golan Heights with Iranian help, and was planning deadly cross-border attacks against Israel, including infiltrations, rockets, and border bombings.

retaliated for the attack days later, by firing five Kornet missiles at an IDF convoy traveling two kilometers away from the Lebanese borders, striking an Isuzu D-Max vehicle, and killing two IDF personnel inside.

According to international media reports, in December 2014, Israel struck targets in Damascus, reportedly hitting advanced weapons that were destined for Hezbollah depots in southern Lebanon.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee after those reports, “Iran is also continuing to support terror and to arm our enemies – both Hezbollah and terror groups in Gaza. The Middle East has not stabilized and, in fact, suffers from chronic instability. We have set red lines before the various actors in Syria.” In January 2014, foreign reports claimed that Israeli fighter jets flying over northern Lebanon struck a target Latakia. Some reports speculated that the targets were S-300 air defense systems destined for Hezbollah.

In February 2014, Lebanese media reported that the IAF struck a Hezbollah weapons base in eastern Lebanon, killing several operatives of the Shi’ite Iranian-backed organization. Hezbollah retaliated to the latter alleged strike by planting two bombs on the Lebanese – Israeli border, wounding two IDF soldiers.

According to international media reports, Israel bombed shipments of advanced weapons, including Fateh-110 missiles, in Syria heading for Hezbollah five times in 2013.

In August 2013, unnamed US officials told The New York Times that a July 5 IAF strike on a Syrian warehouse near Latakia targeted Russian-made Yakhont missiles destined for Hezbollah.

View original The Jerusalem Post publication at: http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/IAF-struck-missile-bases-in-Syria-Al-Jazeera-report-says-399126