BEIRUT: An explosion rocked an area in northern Syria Saturday near a base where pro-regime Iranian fighters and allied Shiite militias have been stationed, a monitor said.
The origin of the blast was not immediately clear and could have been caused by an air strike or an incident at an ammunition depot, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“A powerful explosion went off late Saturday in an area of southern Aleppo province,” the Britain-based monitoring group said.
The war monitor’s head, Rami Abdel Rahman, said the area was known to host Iranian forces deployed in Syria to support President Bashar Assad’s regime as well as allied Afghan fighters from the Fatemiyoun Brigade.
Western powers carried out their biggest attack on Assad’s regime before dawn on Saturday with strikes on targets they said were linked to Syria’s chemical weapons program.
The Pentagon subsequently said no further strikes were planned as part of an operation launched a week after a suspected chemical attack on the holdout rebel town of Douma killed dozens of people.
Israel, which was not involved in Saturday’s unprecedented wave of missile strikes but expressed full support, has unilaterally launched air raids on targets inside Syria on several occasions.
Blast rocks Syria area hosting Iran-backed fighters
Blast rocks Syria area hosting Iran-backed fighters
- Monitor says the powerful explosion went off late Saturday
Related
Israel agrees to ‘limited reopening’ of Rafah crossing: PM’s office
- The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza
JERUSALEM: Israel said Monday it would allow a “limited reopening” of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt once it had recovered the remains of the last hostage in the Palestinian territory.
The announcement came after visiting US envoys reportedly pressed Israeli officials to reopen the crossing, a vital entry point for aid into Gaza.
Reopening Rafah forms part of a Gaza truce framework announced by US President Donald Trump in October, but the crossing has remained closed after Israeli forces took control of it during the war.
The Israeli military also said it was searching a cemetery in the Gaza Strip on Sunday for the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, a non-commissioned officer in the police’s elite Yassam unit.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the reopening would depend on “the return of all living hostages and a 100 percent effort by Hamas to locate and return all deceased hostages,” Netanyahu’s office said on X.
It said Israel’s military was “currently conducting a focused operation to exhaust all of the intelligence that has been gathered in the effort to locate and return” Gvili’s body.
“Upon completion of this operation, and in accordance with what has been agreed upon with the US, Israel will open the Rafah Crossing,” it said.
