Four missiles fired by Israeli warplanes in Syria’s Homs province early on Thursday were shot down by the Syrian army using Russian-made “Buk” air defence systems, RT has reported. According to the report, two Israeli F-16 jets fired the guided missiles from Lebanese airspace.
This follows the shooting down of seven out of eight missiles launched by Israeli warplanes during a raid that targeted the Syrian province of Aleppo on Tuesday. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that its monitors on the ground in Syria reported that the Israeli strikes targeted weapons depots that belong to an Iranian-backed militia operating in Aleppo.
Russia has been involved in Syria since 2015 by supporting President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime militarily and diplomatically. The civil war erupted in 2011 after the regime used violence in response to peaceful protests for political change.
The latest estimate of the total number of people killed in Syria since 2011, said the SOHR, varies between just under half a million and 606,000. Millions more have been displaced.