Syria Strikes Kill 14 Iranian, Allied Fighters

Earlier, Syria said its air defences thwarted an Israeli missile attack on a research centre and a military base in the northern province of Aleppo, in the sixth such attack in two weeks on suspected Iranian targets.

On Friday, Israeli helicopters fired several rockets from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on targets inside southern Syria known to be a base for Lebanon's Hezbollah militia, Syria and intelligence sources said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Tuesday announced it had documented casualties resulting from the Israeli bombing that targeted the Iranian forces and militias loyal to them late Monday night in Deir Al-Zour, the largest city in eastern Syria, located 280 miles northeast of the capital Damascus on the banks of the Euphrates River (See: Capitalizing on the Coronavirus, Israel Intensifying Airstrikes Campaign Against Major Syrian, Iranian Assets).

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria in recent years targeting Iranian forces, Syrian government positions, and allied militias.

In Aleppo province, Iranian forces and allied militia have given crucial support to Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad during the country's almost nine-year civil war.

But he said: "Iran has nothing to do in Syria".

The US military in January struck Iran-backed militia groups in areas in Iraq and Syria along the border area, in what US officials then said was a response to escalating provocations from Iran.

Bennett said Iran is "trying to establish itself on the border with Israel to threaten Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa". "We won't stop before they leave Syria".

"They have enough problems at home with the coronavirus (and) the collapsing economy", he said.

Iran on Tuesday announced that confirmed coronavirus infections had reached nearly 100,000 in the Islamic republic while the overall death toll from COVID-19 topped 6,000.

The defense laboratory is believed by Western intelligence services to be used in the development of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime with help from Iran.

The Syrian army said Israel struck a military barracks in Al-Safirah in the eastern Aleppo countryside.

That strike came a day after Germany designated Hezbollah a "Shiite terrorist organisation", winning applause from the Israeli government.

Commenting on the apparent intensification of Israeli raids, Yoram Schweitzer of Israel's Institute for National Security Studies told AFP the Jewish state might be reacting to increased hostile action from Iran and Hezbollah.

"I don't know which one of the two it is, but it might be a combination of the two", Schweitzer said.