IDF hits Assad assets in northwestern Syria

Syrian media outlets earlier on Thursday night reported that an Israeli strike had hit an “air defense base” belonging to Assad’s former army.

By Akiva Van Koningsveld, JNS

Israeli fighter jets attacked a military site of Syria’s former Assad regime near Qardaha in northwestern Syria on Monday night in response to “recent developments in the area,” the Israel Defense Forces said.

“The IDF continues to monitor developments in the area and will act as necessary in order to defend the citizens of the State of Israel,” the military said, confirming earlier local reports.

The attack targeted “a military site where weapons belonging to the previous Syrian regime were stored,” the statement added. It did not specify which developments prompted the strike.

Syrian media outlets earlier on Thursday night reported that an Israeli strike had hit an “air defense base” belonging to Assad’s former army.

Since the fall of the Iranian- and Russian-backed Assad regime on Dec. 8, Israel has taken up positions inside and beyond the Golan Heights buffer zone, including on the strategic Syrian side of Mount Hermon.

The Israeli Air Force has conducted hundreds of strikes on former Assad military assets to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile forces.

In a series of strikes last week, Israeli jets hit military targets throughout Syria’s southern region, including “command centers and multiple sites containing weapons,” over the course of several hours, according to the IDF.

In an address to new officers at an IDF graduation ceremony last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Sunni jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, whose leaders rule Syria following the collapse of Bashar Assad’s regime in December, that Israel “will not allow forces of HTS or the new Syrian army to enter the territory south of Damascus.”

The IDF “will remain in the Hermon sector and the buffer zone [in the Syrian Golan Heights] indefinitely to protect our communities and thwart any threat,” he said.