The Iranian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that “Israel’s allegations about the attack on Iranian forces in Syria are unfounded.” It expressed its support of the Assad regime while commenting on Israeli raids that were said to have targeted the attempt to land an Iranian plane at the airports of Aleppo and Damascus.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanaani explained: “The Zionist entity’s allegations about the attack on Iranian forces in Syria are unfounded, and Iran’s presence in Syria is an advisory presence.”
Kanaani considered that “the illegal practices of the Zionist entity towards the infrastructure in Syria continue with American support, and are completely illegitimate.” He stressed that “as long as the Syrian government requests help from Iran, it will not hesitate to do so.”
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Earlier, the Russian Foreign Ministry belatedly condemned the Israeli raids on the international airports of Aleppo and Damascus in Syria, which took place last Wednesday. This comes amid information that Russia is aware of all Israeli strikes in Syria in advance according to joint coordination.
Reuters said in a report that Iran has adopted air transport as a more reliable means of transferring military equipment to militias in Syria, after the disruption of land transport operations. It expects civilian airports and other infrastructure in regime-controlled areas to become a permanent target of Israeli raids.
According to regional diplomatic and intelligence sources quoted by Reuters, Israel has intensified its strikes on Syrian airports to disrupt Iran’s increasing use of airlines as an arms supply route to its allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.
Assad’s Foreign Ministry sent a letter to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the President of the United Nations Security Council about the recent Israeli strikes on the airports of Damascus and Aleppo. The letter demanded to condemn the Israeli attacks on Syrian territory as “a violation of sovereignty and a direct threat to regional and international peace and security.”
The regime’s foreign ministry said that the missile strikes that targeted the airports of Aleppo and Damascus led to the decommissioning of Aleppo airport, in addition to the decommissioning of stations at Damascus airport. It added that Israel launched an air aggression on Aleppo International Commercial Airport “that led to serious damage to the airstrip which caused the airport to be out of service, the destruction of the navigation aid station and its equipment, and its decommissioning.”
Oleg Yegorov, deputy head of the so-called Russian Center for Reconciliation in Syria, said that the Syrian air defence forces destroyed three Israeli missiles that targeted airports in Aleppo and Damascus. He spoke of the dispatch of five Syrian soldiers, the destruction of a radar of the Syrian air defence system S-125, a warehouse of military equipment, and damage to the runway of Nayrab airport.
During a press conference, Yegorov said: “Six F-16 tactical fighter jets of the Israeli Air Force, without entering Syrian airspace, bombarded with eight guided missiles the airport of Nayrab in Aleppo and the Damascus International Airport. Syrian air defences destroyed three missiles.”
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
