Israel says struck Iranian arms convoy on Syria-Iraq border

By Abdel Raouf Arnaout

JERUSALEM (AA) - Israel said Wednesday it had bombed a convoy carrying Iranian weapons on Syria’s border with Iraq.

Army Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, however, did not provide a date for the airstrike, saying it had taken place several weeks ago.

“We could have not known, a number of weeks ago, about the Syrian convoy moving from Iraq to Syria. We could have not known what was in there. We could have not known that among 25 trucks, this is the truck—truck number eight—that is the truck with the weapons,” Kochavi said at Reichman University in Herzliya.

“We have to send the pilots. They have to know how to evade surface-to-air missiles,” he added.

Kochavi, whose term is set to end in January 2023, admitted that Iran has sometimes succeeded in smuggling weapons to Syria and the Lebanese group Hezbollah.

“Iran's dream of creating a new Hezbollah in the Golan Heights has been thwarted,” he added.

There was no comment from Iranian or Iraqi authorities on the report.

Israel has carried out several airstrikes against the positions of Iranian-backed groups and the Syrian regime since the country’s civil war in 2011.

Israeli officials generally refrain from commenting on attacks on Syrian territory.

*Ikram Imane Kouachi in Ankara contributed to this report