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News ID: 53328
Publish Date : 25 May 2018 - 21:28

Syrian Air Defense Intercepts Missile Attack on Airport


DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – A military airport near the Syrian city of Homs came under missile attack which was repelled by its air defense systems on Thursday, the country’s state media said.
"One of our military airports in the central region was exposed to a hostile missile attack, and our air defense systems confronted the attack and prevented it from achieving its aim,” state news agency SANA said.
SANA earlier reported sounds of explosions heard near the Dabaa airport, about 20 km (12 miles) southwest of the central Syrian city of Homs and 10 km (6 miles) from the Lebanese border.
Syrian state media did not comment on the origin of the missile attack.
There have been no immediate reports of possible casualties, but Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said "six missiles” had targeted the Syrian military airport, which it said stationed fighters from popular defense groups allied with government forces.
"The missiles would have been fired by Israel," the so-called monitoring group added.
AFP quoted a source close to the Lebanese-Syrian border as saying that warplanes had flown over Lebanese airspace and "some people are still expecting new strikes".
Earlier in the day, SANA reported that a number of Syrian military positions between Albu Kamal and Hmeimeh were hit "in an aggression by American coalition warplanes."
Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Kone Faulkner claimed the strike was not carried out by U.S. forces.
The attacks come amid reports of the full liberation of neighborhoods south of the Syrian capital Damascus from the clutches of the Daesh terrorist group.
Syrian army troops and pro-government fighters had been fighting since April 19 to recapture the area covering Yarmouk camp and the adjacent districts of Qadam, Tadamun and al-Hajar al-Aswad.

Members of the Syrian pro-government forces stand in front of a destroyed tank in the al-Hajar al-Aswad neighborhood on the southern outskirts of the capital Damascus on May 22, 2018.