Syria says busted foreign-linked cell behind Damascus attacks

Syria’s interior ministry said Sunday that its forces had dismantled a cell that was responsible for recent attacks targeting Damascus’s Mazzeh district, saying the weapons came from Lebanon’s Hezbollah group.

Security forces carried out operations that “targeted a terrorist cell involved in several attacks on the Mazzeh area and its military airport”, a statement said, reporting that the cell was dismantled and its members arrested.

Forces also “seized a number of drones that were prepared for use in terrorist acts”, it said.

“Preliminary investigations with those arrested revealed their links to foreign entities, and that the source of the rockets and launch platforms used in the attacks, as well as the seized drones, goes back to Lebanese militia Hezbollah,” the statement added.

The Iran-backed Hezbollah played a key role in Syria’s civil war, fighting alongside the forces of now ousted leader Bashar al-Assad.

Syria was formerly part of Iran’s “axis of resistance” against Israel and enabled the transfer of weapons and money from Iran to Hezbollah, but the new Islamist authorities in Damascus have rejected Iranian influence.

Last month, authorities said three rockets hit the Mazzeh area, with one damaging a mosque and another coming down near the military airport, without causing casualties.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said at the time that the mosque was in an area where senior officials from Syria’s new authorities live.

And in December, state news agency SANA quoted a military source as saying three projectiles of unknown origin targeted the area near the Mazzeh military airport, without causing damage or casualties.

A month earlier, a woman was hurt in a rocket attack that struck a house in the Mazzeh area, with SANA quoting a military source as saying the attack was carried out “using rockets launched from a mobile platform”.