In the evening of August 14, Israel struck a series of strikes on Iranian military targets, in particular near the main Russian bases on the Mediterranean coast.
This was reported by Reuters with reference to sources in regional Intelligence and the Syrian military.
Several missile strikes hit Iranian military facilities — a base, a radar station and an air defense post near the port of Tartus (this is the main base of the Russian Navy in Syria). Earlier, the Syrian army announced that three soldiers were killed as a result of two simultaneous Israeli attacks south of Tartus province and another attack on the capital Damascus.
In recent years, Israel has strucked a hundreds of strikes on Iranian targets, but mostly avoided strikes on the coastal provinces where Russiaʼs main military forces are concentrated.
Russian forces in Syria regularly turn a blind eye to Israeli airstrikes on Iranian targets, but tensions between Israel and Russia have been rising in recent months over condemnation of the war in Ukraine and Russiaʼs increased scrutiny of the Jewish immigration agency.
Israel noted last month that its warplanes had come under fire from Russian air defenses over Syria in May but had not been hit, calling the confrontation a "one-off incident."
- On July 22, Israeli aviation destroyed an Iranian company that assembles drones near Damascus.