The Israeli airstrike on Iranian warehouses in Damascus on Friday was timed to target a meeting of Hezbollah and Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders who were meeting with Syrian military leaders, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Jadira reported on Monday.
Al-Jadira quoted sources in the Revolutionary Guards who said the Syrian, Iranian and Hezbollah commanders had convened to discuss a joint Russian-Turkish plan to attack the Al Qaeda-affiliated jihadist Nusra Front group in Idlib in northwestern Syria.
The sources told the Kuwaiti paper that the strike came moments after the meeting adjourned, and badly wounded two Revolutionary Guard commanders and a number of Hezbollah and Syrian military personnel.
In a highly unusual step, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed on Sunday that Israel was responsible for the strike on the Damascus airport.
“Just in the past 36 hours, the IDF struck Iranian targets in Damascus, proving we are more determined than ever to take action against Iran in Syria,” Netanyahu said in the weekly cabinet meeting.
Syrian state media reported the strike and claimed that air defenses intercepted most of the missiles. Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television reported that the attack covered a wider area than usual, ranging from the eastern Damascus suburb of Dmeir to the village of Dimas in the west near the Lebanon border.
Also on Monday, an Iranian cargo plane crashed in the city of Karaj, near Tehran.
The state-run news agency FARS reported that the Boeing 707 had been carrying 16 crew members and 15 bodies had been recovered. The crew engineer reportedly survived and was evacuated to a hospital.
