Drones attack convoy trucks traveling from Iraq to Syria

Drones attacked a convoy of trucks in eastern Syria on Sunday evening shortly after it entered the country from Iraq, Syrian opposition activists and a pro-government radio station said. It was not immediately possible to say anything about victims.

The strike comes amid rising tensions between Iran and its rivals in the region.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack on the convoy in the Syrian border region of Boukamal, a stronghold of Iranian-backed militias.

Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said the drones appear to have come from the US-led coalition, adding that they targeted six refrigerated trucks. The group said there were casualties and ambulances rushed to the area.

Another activist said the strike hit a truckload of Iranian-backed militiamen. Omar Abu Layla, a European-based activist from Deir el-Zour who leads a group monitoring developments, tweeted that no casualties are immediately known.

The pro-government Sham FM radio station also reported that six refrigerated trucks had been hit.

In Baghdad, an official from an Iranian-backed militia confirmed there had been an attack, saying only one truck was involved. He did not comment on casualties.

The attack in eastern Syria came hours after bomb-carrying drones attacked an Iranian defense factory in the central city of Isfahan, causing some damage to the factory.

Last month, Israel’s military chief of staff strongly suggested that Israel was behind an attack on a truck convoy in Syria in November, providing a rare glimpse into Israel’s shadow war against Iran and its proxies across the region.

Lieutenant General Aviv Kochavi, who finished his military service earlier this month, said Israel’s military and intelligence capabilities made it possible to attack specific targets that pose a threat.

Israeli leaders have acknowledged in the past that they have attacked hundreds of targets in Syria and elsewhere in what they say is a campaign to thwart Iranian attempts to smuggle arms to proxies such as the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group or to destroy weapons caches.

The November strike hit fuel tankers and other trucks carrying weapons for militias in Syria’s eastern Deir el-Zour province, the Observatory reported at the time. It said at least 14 people, most of them militiamen, were killed in the strike.

The attack along the border with Iraq targeted Iranian-backed militiamen, Syrian opposition activists said at the time. Some of those killed in the attack were Iranian nationals, according to two Iraqi paramilitary officers.

Israel declined to comment on the strike at the time.

Iran is a major backer of Syrian President Bashar Assad and has sent thousands of Iranian-backed fighters to aid Syrian troops during the country’s 11-year civil war. Both the Iranian and Assad governments are also linked to Hezbollah, which fought alongside Assad’s forces in the war.

Israel considers Iran its greatest enemy and has warned of what it considers its hostile activities in the region.