Rockets Hit Airbase Outside Capital, Army Warns Israel of ‘Repercussions’

The Syrian army threatened Israel with “repercussions” on Friday after rockets hit the Mazzeh military airport outside Damascus, Al Jazeera reported.

Rockets were fired from northern Israel early Friday morning, landing in the Mazzeh airbase compound southwest of the capital, according to official Syrian state TV.

“Syrian army command and armed forces warn Israel of the repercussions of the flagrant attack and stresses its continued fight against [this] terrorism and [to] amputate the arms of the perpetrators,” the military said in a statement.

It is not clear whether any casualties were left by the attack. The Mazzeh compound is used by the president’s elite Republican Guard, and is only a few kilometers away from the presidential palace.

Israeli surface-to-surface missiles also hit the Mazzeh airport last month , according to the Syrian government. The military has also accused Israel of using Lebanese airspace to bomb areas outside the capital and on the highway with Beirut earlier in December and November. The Israeli military has not commented.

The Syrian army’s threats of retaliation are likely empty, former United States assistant secretary of defense Lawrence Korb told Al Jazeera.

“Meanwhile, the Israelis are sending a message that they don’t want Hezbollah to have weapons that they can use against Israel,” he said.

Israel does not want to get involved in the six-year conflict in Syria, its defense minister Avigdor Lieberman recently stated, but defense officials have voiced their concern over Hezbollah’s involvement in the war-torn country.

Suicide Attack Kills Eight in High-Security Area of Capital

At least eight people were killed in an alleged suicide-bomb attack in a high-security area of Damascus, BBC News reported.

The attack targeted the Kafr Sousa neighborhood, killing members of the government forces including a colonel, according to the United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The death toll – initially reported as seven, but since increased to eight – is expected to rise, SOHR said, with several people critically injured and others missing.

A number of important security compounds are located in the Kafr Sousa neighborhood. The government controls the capital, and has recently reclaimed several suburbs formerly held by rebels.

No Aid Getting in Despite Cease-Fire Largely Holding, U.N. Says

A nationwide cease-fire brokered by Turkey and Russia on Dec. 30 has been “largely holding with some exceptions,” according to the United Nations envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, Reuters reported.

However, no humanitarian aid has made its way to besieged areas running out of food, de Mistura warned. Armed groups also stopped 23 buses and their drivers from leaving the rebel-held towns of Fou’a and Kafraya in Idlib province, he said.

“These are not U.N. officials, these are Syrian buses with Syrian drivers. And that is not to happen because this complicates the tit-for-tat approaches,” de Mistura told reporters in Geneva.

Ongoing clashes between government and rebel forces outside the capital are threatening the water supplies for more than 5 million people. While water engineers are ready to repair the damaged supply plant outside Damascus, armed groups have blocked the works, de Mistura said.

Although the U.N. has not yet been formally invited to attend the Jan. 23 peace talks in Kazakhstan sponsored by Russia and Turkey, de Mistura said the meeting should help the talks he has scheduled in Geneva in February.

RECOMMENDED READS:

• Al Jumhuriya: Yarmouk Anniversary: Nakbas New And Old
• ABC News: United States Sanctions 18 Senior Syrian Officials for Chlorine Chemical Weapons Attacks
• Newsweek: Will Syria’s Assad Benefit From the Damascus Drought?
• Al Jazeera: Syria’s Civil War: Aleppo’s Heritage Sites ‘in Danger’
• Agence France-Presse: Nazi War Criminal Brunner ‘Died in Syria Basement in 2001’