SYRIAN air defences shot down one of four Israeli warplanes targeting a military site near Palmyra on Friday, the General Command of the Syrian Army has announced.
The incident happened when Israeli warplanes violated Syrian airspace in the eastern countryside of Homs near Palmyra in an overnight raid. The latest incident is the third time that Israel has bombed targets in Syrian territory this year. In mid-January, Israeli forces hit the Mezzeh Military Airport west of Damascus, with the facility rocked by several explosions. On December 7, multiple surface-to-surface missiles were fired by the Israeli army from the Golan Heights.
The Syrian Command said in a statement: ‘This blatant Israeli act of aggression came as part of the Zionist enemy’s persistence with supporting ISIS terrorist gangs and in a desperate attempt to raise their deteriorating morale and divert attention away from the victories which Syrian Arab Army is making in the face of the terrorist organisations.’
It stressed the Army Command’s resolve to repel any attempt by the Zionist enemy to attack any part of the Syrian territory, affirming that any such attempt will be directly confronted with all possible means. The Syrian Command is absolutely correct. They have every right to defend themselves against any attempt by Israel or the US to invade their territory, as the President of Syria Assad has rightly insisted.
He has stressed that all forces that have entered Syria without the invitation of the Syrian government are aggressors and will be treated as such. In fact, the US has begun bombing Syrian targets, as part of its ‘war against terror’, killing Syrian civilians in the process.
On Thursday evening, between 7pm and 7:30pm, US warplanes targeted and attacked a mosque in the western countryside of Aleppo. The mosque was in the al-Jinah village, southwest of Atareb town. It was completely destroyed and 42 people were killed in a massacre of the innocents. The death toll is expected to rise as there are many missing, and a search for both dead bodies and survivors under the rubble is under way.
Around 500 US troops are already on the ground in Syria. The US military has drawn up plans that would deploy up to 1,000 more troops into northern Syria in the coming weeks. Meanwhile, the US-led military coalition has been raining bombs down dangerously close to the Euphrates and Tishrin dams.
Syria’s Deputy UN Ambassador Mounzer warned: ‘The total destruction of these dams that are being targeted by the airstrikes will wash away and flood cities, towns and villages, endangering the lives of hundreds of thousands of people living in those areas.’
It has become obvious to all those who care to look an inch beyond the capitalist press propaganda that the only reason that the US-led coalition is in Syria now, on the orders of President Trump, alongside Turkey and accompanied by Israeli air raids, is that all three powers are frightened of the consequences of the Syrian people and government winning, with the help of their Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah allies, and then winning the peace with the reconstruction of the country.
President Assad has already said that only the Syrian people can decide who is to lead them, who is to form their government and what kind of society there is to be. He has said that he is in favour of a referendum of all of the Syrian people on these issues.
The response of the imperialist powers, their military allies such as Israel and the various Islamist movements, is to either bomb Syria from the air, or to engage in terror attacks in cities like Damascus. They are fearful that a revolutionary Syria will encourage all of the Arab and oppressed masses of the region to rise up, especially the masses of occupied Palestine and the occupied Golan Heights.
This is the reason for the Israeli air attacks on Syria and the US bombing raids killing people as they pray. The working people of the US and the UK must give their full support to the Syrian government, army and masses. Their victory will be our victory. The best way to give them our support is to bring down the May government and to bring in a workers government in the UK that will give its fullest support to Syria and
Palestine!
