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Russia condemns 'Israeli' air strikes on Syria | |
(about 13 hours later) | |
Russia has branded as "provocative" an alleged Israeli air strike on Syria late on Tuesday. | |
Reports from Syria said an arms depot in Qatifah, about 40km (25 miles) north-east of Damascus, was hit, injuring three soldiers. | |
Israel has not commented, but after the reported strikes it said it had fired at a Syrian anti-aircraft missile. It did not report any damage or injuries. | |
Israel has carried out dozens of strikes on Syria in recent years. | |
It says it is acting to thwart advanced weapons transfers from Iran to the Lebanese pro-Iranian Hezbollah movement and the strengthening of Iran's military presence in Syria. | |
Israel considers Iran and Hezbollah to pose a particularly dangerous threat. | |
'Launched from Lebanon' | |
The foreign ministry of Russia, a key Syrian ally, said it was "very concerned" by the alleged Israeli air strikes. | |
"The provocative actions of the Israeli air force... directly threatened two airliners," it said. | |
The statement said the unidentified airliners "not from Russia, were preparing to land at the airports of Beirut and Damascus". | |
The Syrian military said the attacks were carried out from within Lebanese air space. Syrian state news agency, Sana, said most of the missiles were intercepted. | |
Video footage posted on social media shows an object moving over Damascus. Then the sound of a loud explosion is heard, followed by a burst of artillery shelling. | |
Newsweek magazine quoted an unnamed US defence department source as saying several Hezbollah leaders had just boarded a flight to Iran and were injured in the strikes. | |
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) later tweeted that its air defence systems had been "activated in response to an anti-aircraft missile launched from Syria". | |
Israel rarely admits carrying out attacks on targets in Syria. | |
But in May, Israel said it had struck almost all of Iran's military infrastructure there in its such biggest assault since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011. | |
Those strikes came after rockets were fired at Israeli military positions in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights. |
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