Overnight Syria Strike Kills 3 Hizbullah-Linked Fighters
Three Iran-backed paramilitary fighters were killed in an overnight Israeli strike that hit Syria's southern province of Quneitra, a war monitor said Wednesday.
The three were from the Syrian Resistance to Liberate the Golan, a group linked to Lebanon's Hizbullah, said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The group was formed more than six years ago to launch attacks in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
At least one of the killed fighters was Syrian, the Observatory said, but the nationalities of the other two remained unclear.
The official SANA news agency reported the Israeli strike on a "school" in Quneitra's northern countryside shortly after midnight, but did not mention casualties.
Abdul Rahman said that Iran-backed fighters were staying inside the facility the night of the attack.
Along with Russia, Israel's nemesis Iran has been a key backer of the Damascus regime in its nine-year-long civil war.
Israel has carried out hundreds of air and missile strikes on Syria since the civil war broke out in 2011, targeting Iranian and Lebanese Hizbullah forces as well as government troops.
The Israeli army rarely acknowledges individual strikes.
Syria's war has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced millions more since starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Source: Agence France Presse
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