Israel blamed for attack on Syrian military base near Golan border

JTA

JERUSALEM (JTA) — An attack on a military base in Syria near the border with Israel has been blamed on the Israeli military.

Three Syrian soldiers were killed in the morning attack on a military base on the outskirts of Qunetria, Al-Jazeera first reported. The strike hit an ammunitions cache, causing it to explode. Two other soldiers were injured. The soldiers were identified by Al-Jazeera as being from the pro-government National Defense Forces, or NDF.

Israel’s military neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the strike.

On Friday, the Israel Defense Forces confirmed that it had targeted with air strikes the military base housing the launch pads of the mortars that struck Israel hours earlier, causing the sounding of the Code Red rocket alert in several towns in the Golan located near the border with Syria.

The mortars were reported to be errant fire from the country’s more than 6-year-old civil war.  No one was injured in the mortar fire.

Israel has remained on the sidelines of the civil war, though it has treated Syrian injured, both government troops and rebels, on the border and responded when rocket and artillery fire from the fighting has landed on Israel’s side of the Golan Heights.