Israel: 'no comment' on Syrian airstrike claims

The accusation came in a statement issued by the Syrian military via the country's official SANA news agency on Sunday (07.12.2014).

"This afternoon, the Israeli enemy targeted two safe areas in Damascus province, namely the Dimas area and the Damascus International Airport," the statement said.

"This aggression demonstrates Israel's direct involvement in supporting terrorism in Syria along with well-known regional and Western countries to raise the morale of terrorist groups, mainly the Nusra Front," it added.

The general command of the Syrian armed forces said the "flagrant attack" had caused material damage but declined to provide any details. It also said there were no casualties.

There was no immediate reaction from the Israeli government and a spokesman for the country's military said it did not comment on "reports in the foreign media."

Israel is reported to have carried out a number of airstrikes in Syria since civil war broke out there in 2011, though Israeli officials have never confirmed this.

'Military targets'

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict using a network of activists on the ground, reported that Sunday's strikes was on sites used for military purposes.

"Both were military sites and weapons were being stored there," the director of the Observatory Rami Abdel Raman told the AFP news agency.

Damascus International Airport is used for both civilian and military purposes.

Later in the day, SANA reported that the Syrian foreign ministry had asked United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council to imposed sanctions on the Jewish state. The statement quoted by Syria's state news agency described the alleged Israeli air strikes as "a heinous crime against Syria's sovereignty."

More than 200,000 people are believed to have been killed and around half of Syria's population has been displaced since the conflict broke out in the first half of 2011.

This year, the conflict also drew in the United States and some of its allies, with US and other forces launching airstrikes on "Islamic State" militants who have taken large swathes of territory in both Syria and northern Iraq.

pfd/bk (AFP, dpa, AP)