Reuters reports<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cSyrian state media said that loud blasts coming from an airbase early on Sunday were from an explosion at an ammunition dump caused by an electrical problem, but an official in the regional alliance backing Damascus said they were from Israeli strikes.<\/p>\n\u201cA war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also attributed the blasts to Israeli strikes, which it said caused deaths and injuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cIsrael has previously acknowledged having carried out air strikes in Syria aimed at degrading the capacity of Iran and its allies, including Lebanon\u2019s Shi\u2019ite Hezbollah group, which are backing Assad in the country\u2019s seven-year civil war.\u00a0There was no immediate comment from Israel on reports of Sunday\u2019s blasts or that it was behind them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn May, it said it attacked nearly all of Iran\u2019s military infrastructure in Syria after Iranian forces fired rockets at Israeli-held territory for the first time in the most extensive military exchange ever between the two adversaries.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sky News TV network quoted eyewitness saying a number of other explosions were also seen taking place at the site. Following these explosions, with the cause still unknown, a large fire was seen raging in this airbase.<\/p>\n
Local sources also say Assad\u2019s air defense units began responding to this incident with undetermined attacks.\u00a0The Al-Mayadeen news network reported a number of explosions taking place some 15 kilometers from the city of Damascus.<\/p>\n
Sky News Arabic network added, \u201cAn official in the regional alliance supporting the Assad regime says a missile strike targeted the Mezzeh airbase and Assad\u2019s air defense units responded to this attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported a number of deaths and injuries resulting from these explosions. Assad\u2019s 4th<\/sup>\u00a0Division units have reportedly launched surface-to-surface missiles in response.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A variety of reports indicate massive explosions occurred at the Mezzeh airbase near Damascus, Syria, early Sunday morning local time causing a number of casualties […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":11819,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11820,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11818\/revisions\/11820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}