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Syrian air defenses intercepted two out of six guided glide bombs launched by Israeli fighter jets during the May 28 attack on Damascus outskirts, Rear Admiral Oleg Gurinov, deputy chief of the Russian Center for Reconciliation of the Opposing Parties in Syria, revealed.
According to Gurinov, two Israeli F-16 fighter jets carried the airstrikes from the airspace of the occupied Golan Heights, launching six GBU-39 Small Diameter Bombs.
“The Syrian air defense forces downed two air bombs from Russian-made Buk-M2E air defense systems. As a result of the Israeli airstrike, two warehouses were damaged. No one was hurt,” the Russian commander said.
The Buk-M2E, a Russian upgraded export version of the original Soviet Buk air defense system, is armed with 9K317E radar-guided missiles, with an engagement range of 45 kilometers and altitude of 15 kilometers.
On the other hand, the American-made GBU-39 is a glide bomb with a range of 110 kilometers. The 129-kilogram bomb is guided by a GPS-aided inertial navigation system.
Commander Gurinov didn’t specify the location of the warehouses hit by Israeli airstrikes. However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group based in London, said that the targets included two bases near the towns of al-Hameh and Hafir Fawqa as well as Damascus International Airport.
The monitoring group also reported that five people were wounded in the airstrikes, speculating that at least some of the casualties were members of Lebanon’s Hezbollah. These claims are yet to be verified.
The recent airstrikes on Damascus were the first Israeli attack against Syria in over three weeks. On May 1, three Syrian service members were killed when a series of airstrikes targeted Aleppo International Airport and a complex of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Center near the town of al-Safira in the southern countryside of the governorate.
Back then, news reports said that the airstrikes destroyed Iranian-made air defense systems and military equipment which were destined to Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes against Syria over the past decade. Most of the strikes targeted Syrian military positions along with others belonging to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and its affiliates, like Hezbollah. The attacks were a part of an Israeli covert military campaign, known as “the war between wars”.
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