Israel strikes Syria again, targets missiles, security source says

PanARMENIAN.Net - Israel carried out its second air strikes in days on Syria early on Sunday, May 5 a Western intelligence source said, in an attack that shook Damascus with a series of powerful blasts and drove columns of fire into the night sky, Reuters reported.

Israel declined to comment, but explosions hit the city a day after an Israeli official said his country had carried out an air strike targeting a consignment of missiles in Syria intended for the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.

The target of Sunday's attack, according to Syrian media, was the same Jamraya military research center which was hit by Israel in January. Jamraya, on the northern approaches to Damascus, is just 15 km (10 miles) from the Lebanese border.

The Western intelligence source said Israel carried out the attack and the operation hit Iranian-supplied missiles which were en route to Hezbollah.

Syria's state television said the strikes were a response to recent military gains by President Bashar al-Assad's forces against rebels.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the scale of the attack meant it was beyond the military capability of Syrian rebels, and quoted eyewitnesses in the area as saying they saw jets in the sky at the time of the blasts.

The Observatory said the blasts hit Jamraya as well as a nearby ammunition depot. Other activists said a missile brigade and two Republican Guard battalions may also have been targeted in the heavily militarized area just north of Damascus.

If confirmed, Sunday's attack would be Israel's third strike inside Syria since late January, but there was no immediate comment from Israeli officials. "We don't respond to this kind of report," an Israeli military spokeswoman told Reuters.