False alarm set off Syrian air defences- pro-Assad commander

BEIRUT: A false alarm led to Syrian air defence missiles being fired overnight and there was no fresh attack on Syria, a commander in the regional military alliance that backs the Syrian government told Reuters.

Syrian state TV reported overnight that anti-aircraft
defences had shot down missiles fired at an air base in the Homs
area, and a media unit run by the Lebanese group Hezbollah said
missiles had also targeted an air base near Damascus.

The commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity,
attributed the malfunction to "a joint electronic attack" by
Israel and the United States targeting the Syrian radar system. The issue had been dealt with by Russian experts, the
commander said.

Syrian anti-aircraft defences shot down missiles fired at the Syrian air base of Shayrat in Homs province late on Monday and another base northeast of the capital, Damascus, Syria's state television and pro-Iranian Hezbollah media said.

State television showed pictures of a missile that was shot in the air above the air base only days after a US, British and French attack on Syrian targets in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack on the city of Douma on the outskirts of Damascus.

State television did not mention three missiles that were
fired at Dumair military airport, northeast of Damascus, that
pro-Iranian Hezbollah's media service reported were intercepted
by Syrian air defences.



Opposition sources say Dumair airport is a major air base used in a large-scale military campaign waged by the Syrian army with Russian firepower that regained eastern Ghouta, a militant enclave on the outskirts of Damascus.

A Pentagon spokesperson said there was no US military
activity in that area at this time. Asked about the missile attack, an Israeli military spokesperson said: "We don't comment on such reports."

Shayrat air base was targeted last year in a US cruise
missile attack in response to a chemical attack that killed at
least 70 people, including children, on the militant-held town of
Khan Sheikhoun.



Israel has struck Syrian army locations many times in the
course of the conflict, hitting convoys and bases of Iranian-backed militias that fight alongside Syrian President Bashar al- Assad's forces.

Israel has long said Iran was expanding its influence in a belt of territory that stretches from the Iraqi border to the Lebanese border, where Israel says Iran supplies Hezbollah with
arms.

Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias have a large
military presence in Syria and are well entrenched in central
and eastern areas near the Iraqi border.