DAMASCUS: An Israeli attack on a Syrian training camp near the Golan Heights killed three members of a pro-government militia on Sunday.
The Al Fawwar camp in Syria’s south-western Quneitra province is used by the National Defence Forces (NDF), which command some 90,000 fighters across Syria.
The NDF said the attack struck the military camp, which sits near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights – territory that Israel captured from Syria in a 1967 war.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the attack had targeted a “weapons warehouse” in the camp. Israel’s army declined to comment on the attack.
Another Syrian source inside the training camp said that at around 6am, “security guards at the camp saw what looked like three fireballs coming towards the camp”.
On Friday, the Israeli army said it targeted positions inside Syria in retaliation for mortar fire that hit the northern part of the Golan Heights.
Rebel groups fighting president Bashar Al Assad’s government in the Syrian conflict hold swathes of Quneitra, while the army and pro-government forces control another part of the province.
The Syrian government labels rebel groups and extremists fighting the regime as “terrorists” and accuses Israel of backing them.
Around 510 square kilometres of the Golan are under Syrian control.
The two countries are still technically at war, although the border remained largely quiet for decades until 2011, when the Syrian conflict broke out.
The Israeli side is hit sporadically by what are usually deemed to be stray rounds, and Israel has recently taken to opening fire in retaliation.
