WarSclerotic

Israeli aircraft attacked a weapons production plant in northwestern Syria on Sunday but caused only material damage, Syrian state television reported.

According to the report, the target of the missile strike was a site in the city of Misyaf, in Syria’s Hama province. Reports from Lebanon noted secondary explosions near the site, suggesting that the location was used to store weapons.

Online images showed heavy smoke billowing from the purported weapons factory . An intelligence source said a major military research center for chemical arms production was located near the city and believed to house a team of Iranian military experts involved in weapons production.

Conflicting reports cited an unspecified number of casualties while social media reports alleged that Hezbollah and Iranian fighters were among the deceased.

An IDF spokeswoman declined to confirm or deny the incident, saying “We do not comment on foreign reports.”

Last week, Syrian state media said Israeli rockets had struck a Syrian military position near Nairab airport, on the outskirts of the city of Aleppo.

Opposition sources said several Iranians were killed at a logistics site used by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards near the airport.

Some of Iran’s military bases in Syria are located next to Syrian military compounds or within army barracks, according to the intelligence source, adding that this complicated the task of singling out Iranian military assets from Syrian army units.

In recent months, driven by concern that Iran’s mounting presence in Syria poses a threat to Israel’s security, the Israeli military has escalated its strikes on suspected Iranian and Iran-backed positions in Syria.

In May, Israel said it attacked nearly all of Iran’s military infrastructure in Syria after Iranian forces fired rockets at Israeli-held territory for the first time in the most extensive military exchange between the two adversaries.

Israel has vowed to hit hard in areas along its border and elsewhere in Syria where it suspects Iranian-backed forces are stationed.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that “we are continuing to act in Syria to prevent Iranian entrenchment there.”

Earlier Sunday, Russian and Syrian jets bombed an Islamic State bastion along the Jordan-Israel border in southwestern Syria, diplomatic and opposition sources said.

Islamic State-affiliated forces entrenched in the Yarmouk Basin, which borders the Israeli Golan Heights and Jordan, also repelled a ground attack by the Syrian army and its allies, the sources said.

The Syrian army said its aerial strikes and shelling of militants in the Yarmouk Basin had killed “tens of terrorists” in a campaign the army described as aiming to “crush militants.”

An intelligence source told Reuters that 1,000-1,500 Islamic State fighters had been holding their ground despite the 10-day bombing campaign that he said had hit villages and caused an “untold number” of civilian casualties.

Another source familiar with the situation said Islamic State had been able to expand its territory recently by seizing at least 18 villages abandoned by other rebels under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.

The Syrian army wants full control over Quneitra province, where Israel has deep concerns over the presence of Iranian-backed militias.

The area is a bastion of Iranian-backed militias including Hezbollah, according to Western intelligence sources.

The Israeli government has signaled it would not impede the Syrian army’s presence in Quneitra as long as Syrian forces steered away from a demilitarized zone along the border.

Also Sunday, the evacuation of hundreds of rebels and their families resumed for a third day from villages along the Golan frontier as part of a Russian-brokered surrender deal, sources said.

The deal brings the area back under government control and lets Syrian army brigades return to where they were stationed before Syria’s seven-year-old conflict – posts near the 1974 demilitarized zone with Israel on the Golan frontier.