Israel strikes Syria after attack near ‘nuke site’
A Syrian officer was killed and three soldiers wounded yesterday in strikes launched by Israel after a missile was fired towards a secretive nuclear site in the Jewish state, a monitor said.
Since the outbreak of Syria's civil war in 2011, Israel has routinely carried out aerial raids on the country, mostly targeting Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces as well as government troops.
Its latest salvo was launched in the early hours of Thursday after a missile was fired from Syria towards southern Israel, where the Dimona nuclear reactor is located.
Sirens sounded in Abu Qrenat, a Bedouin village not far from the nuclear site, the Israeli military said, before it responded by striking multiple defence batteries across the border.
The exchange of fire comes less than two weeks after Iran accused its arch-foe Israel of "terrorism" following an explosion at the Islamic republic's Natanz nuclear facility.
"A surface-to-air missile was fired from Syria to Israel's southern Negev," the Israel Defense Forces tweeted.
"In response, we struck the battery from which the missile was launched and additional surface-to-air batteries in Syria."
Israel is considered the leading military power in the Middle East and is widely believed to possess its sole nuclear arsenal. It has never disclosed its atomic arsenal, but foreign experts say the Jewish state has between 100 to 300 nuclear warheads.
There were no immediate reports of any casualties or damage on the Israeli side.
Israel strongly opposes a landmark 2015 agreement that gave Iran relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its suspect nuclear programme.
US President Joe Biden's administration is trying to revive the accord.
On Wednesday, the US said it has shared with Iran details of the sanctions it is prepared to lift under a return to the accord.
"We have provided Iran with a number of examples of the kind of sanctions that we believe we would need to lift in order to come back into compliance and the sanctions that we believe we would not need to lift," a senior US official said of the latest EU-led talks.
Iran has pressed for US to lift all sanctions imposed under Trump before it rolls back the steps Tehran took away from the 2015 deal in protest.
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