IDF hits Syrian targets after mortar shell lands in Israel
Precision artillery strike launched on Assad military positions after errant mortar fire lands on Israeli side of Golan Heights near Quneitra; 'The IDF sees the Syrian civil regime as responsible for all that happens on its territory,' says IDF statement.
No one was hurt in the stray mortar fire, which landed east of the border fence near Quneitra. “The IDF sees the Syrian civil regime as responsible for all that happens on its territory and will not tolerate any attempt to harm the sovereignty of the State of Israel or the security of its citizens,” an IDF statement read after the retaliatory strike.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's’s army has been seeking in recent weeks to create a logistical disconnect between areas in his war-torn country controlled by the rebels near the border with Israel in a possible preparatory move to stage a major maneuver to regain control of the Syrian Golan Heights.
Three months ago, Assad’s army scored a victory with the capture of the Syrian Hermon and regained control over the Syrian town of Beit Jann by, inter alia, dropping explosives from helicopters flying a few kilometers from the Israeli border.
Around 80 percent of the territory adjacent to the Israeli border is controlled by a combination of fighters from various Syrian rebel groups and the Free Syria Army, with ISIS being pushed to the the southern end of the Hermon. Assad controls the northern Hermon.
The attack took place a day after Iranian Foreign Affairs Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Sunday that Tehran saw no possibility of widespread military conflict.
"I do not believe that we are headed towards regional war," Zarif told CBS's Face the Nation in the full interview released Sunday afternoon. He did, however, qualify his statement by saying that "Israel has continued its violations with international law, hoping to be able to do it with impunity because of US support and trying to find smokescreens to hide behind."
