IAF bombs Iranian weapons shipment at Lattakia Port, Syria’s State Media reports
The Israeli Air Force (IAF) bombed several targets in the Syrian commercial port of Lattakia on Monday night, causing extensive damage, Syria’s state media reported.
Syria official SANA news agency quoted a military source who said that the attack was carried out from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea and that the bombing led to the igniting of a number of commercial containers in the port.
Lattakia Governor Amer Ismail Hilal told SANA that firefighting teams were able to put out the fires that broke out in the port’s container yard.
Photos published online of the site of the attack show multiple containers on fire.
Lattakia is the largest seaport in the country. This is the first time Israel has conducted a strike there, according to foreign reports.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) quoted its sources in the country who said that the IAF’s target was a shipment of weapons belonging to the Iranian militias, and the explosions were violent and caused heavy material losses. There was no information about human losses so far.
The IDF has remained silent on the reports, as it usually does in these cases.
Iran and Hezbollah have in recent years been working to build up a military presence in Syria, a threat that remains a red line for Israel.
Iran routinely attempts to arm the Lebanon-based Hezbollah with advanced weapons. Israel has exposed and thwarted multiple attempts by Iran to transfer game-changing weapons to Hezbollah, including by air shipments from Iran, through Damascus Airport.
Over the years, the IAF has carried out thousands of attacks to thwart the Iranian entrenchment in the war-torn country and to prevent Hezbollah from accumulating advanced game-changing weapons.
