Explosions rocked the area near Damascus International Airport early Thursday morning following the arrival of cargo planes from Iran.
“Hours before the blasts, which took place at 3:25 A.M., two Iranian 747 cargo planes, an Iranian Ilyushin il-76 and a Syrian Ilyushin il-76 landed in Damascus, according to the flight radar tracking site Flightradar24.com,” Haaretz reported.
snapshots of tonight's air traffic between Damascus and Iran: two B-747, two IL-76 and Mahan Air A300. business as usual.. pic.twitter.com/856vRQ8rk3
— Samir (@obretix) April 26, 2017
Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies who has tracked air traffic between Iran and Syria for years, said the planes were most likely delivering weapons.
I counted three Iranian transport planes earlier tonight likely delivering weapons to Damascus: Qeshm Fars Air, Pouya Air, and Mahan Air. https://t.co/M5T8s2gFXC
— Emanuele Ottolenghi (@eottolenghi) April 27, 2017
In September of last year, Ottolenghi observed, “Flight records show that Iran Air’s flight 697 — the Tehran-Damascus route — was operated 66 times over the last year, including three times from Abadan, on Sept. 8, June 9 and May 10. There were at least an additional 20 Iran Air flights to Damascus between Dec. 14, 2015, and the end of August 2016. Not all originated in Tehran, however.”
Syrian state media has attributed the missile strikes to Israel, the BBC reported. While Syrian government sources claim that the strikes targeted a fuel tank and warehouses, rebel groups say that the target was an arms depot operated by the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah.
Without admitting that Israel attacked the airport, Israeli Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said that the “attack is consistent with our policy to prevent Iran’s smuggling of advanced weapons via Syria to Hezbollah by Iran.”
Other Israeli leaders have said that Hezbollah receiving game-changing weapons, such as advanced missiles or chemical weapons, represents a “red line” that Israel will not accept.
#BREAKING: Hezbollah commander and Iranian Revolutionary Guards reportedly killed in Israeli airstrike on Damascus Airport pic.twitter.com/MvIasx89jb
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) April 27, 2017
Other strikes took place inside Syria earlier this year that were attributed to Israel. In February, a number of Hezbollah targets were struck in Damascus. A January strike in Damascus was assessed by military analyst Ron Ben Yishai to have targeted advanced missiles from Iran that were being transferred to Hezbollah.
In December, Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman suggested that an attack on the Mazzeh military airport near Damascus targeted chemical weapons headed to Hezbollah.
[Photo: Associated Press / YouTube]