Israel is conducting strategically significant strikes in Syria, weakening Turkey’s influence in Al-Sharaa’s new regime. Late Wednesday evening, it became known that the Israeli Air Force had struck targets in Damascus suburbs, followed by a ground operation at specific facilities. However, Thursday afternoon, an Israeli official confirmed to the Arabic news website Al Hadath that soldiers had dismantled espionage devices that had been installed in Syria for ten years. The recovery of secret and dangerous equipment was also reported, with the official sending a message to the Syrian government: “We warned Sharaa’s government not to play with fire and not to listen to Turkish orders.”
Syria: Successive Israeli attacks
As reported by The Times of Israel website, Israeli forces allegedly conducted raids on Syrian army positions near Damascus using helicopters and ground forces. Tel Aviv has not officially confirmed these operations.
Syrian state media report that Israeli troops conducted an aerial landing and operated for two hours.
Israeli ground forces conducted a commando raid during Wednesday night into Thursday at a Syrian location they had already bombed in the previous two days, Syrian state media reported, in a major operation said to involve helicopters and fighter jets, as well as dozens of ground troops.
Israel first struck the location outside Damascus on Tuesday, killing several Syrian soldiers according to Damascus’s Foreign Ministry, and bombed it again on Wednesday, according to state television.
The strike on the former Syrian military base at Tal Manej
A Syrian Defense Ministry official told AFP under condition of anonymity that the location was a former Syrian military base at Tal Manej, near Kisweh.
After the second attack on Wednesday, state media reported that Israeli troops were airlifted to the area to conduct a raid, “the details of which are not yet known, amid ongoing intensive reconnaissance flights.”
According to two Syrian army sources, an Israeli military unit conducted an airborne landing on a strategic hilltop southwest of Damascus and conducted a two-hour operation before abandoning the area.
They said the troops landed near Jabal Manea, which was once a major air defense base operated by Iran before being destroyed by Israel after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
