Israel launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbor since Syria’s civil war began in 2011 targeting Iran-backed forces Air raids over eastern Syria near Iraqi border kill 6 Iran-backed militants Jerusalem: The Israeli army said early Saturday that it was carrying out strikes in Syria after two rockets fired from the country fell into territory under its control. “Following the report regarding sirens sounding in northern Israel, a short while ago two launches that were identified crossing from Syria fell in an open area,” the army said. “The IDF (military) is striking the sources of fire,” it added. The Israeli army confirmed to AFP that the projectiles fired were rockets, but did not say the precise location where they fell. Israel considers the annexed Golan Heights to be part of its northern region. FASTFACT The observatory said the airstrikes targeted military positions in Albu Kamal and its surroundings in Syria’s Deir Ezzor province, adding that a weapons shipment from Iraq and an ammunition warehouse were also hit. Another three overnight airstrikes on eastern Syria were also carried Saturday near a strategic border crossing with Iraq killed six Iran-backed militants, two members of Iraqi militia groups told The Associated Press. The strikes on the border region of Boukamal came hours after an umbrella group of Iran-backed Iraqi militants — known as the Islamic Resistance — claimed an attack on a US military base in the city of Irbil in northern Iraq. The group has conducted over a hundred attacks on US positions in Iraq and eastern Syria since the onset of the Hamas-Israel war on Oct. 7. Four of the killed were from Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group while the other two militants were Syrian, the militants said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not cleared to talk to the press. Another two were injured, they added. Meanwhile, an activist collective that covers news in the area, Deir Ezzor 24, said the airstrikes hit two militant posts and a weapons warehouse that it says was recently stocked with rocket launchers and munitions. Elsewhere, Britain-backed opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said in addition to the weapons warehouse, the strikes targeted a militants’ convoy that had arrived from Iraq to Syria as well as a location where a militia affiliated with Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard was training. It added that the strikes killed nine people, three Syrians and six people from other nationalities. Washington did not immediately comment on the strike, though it has announced some were planned on Iran-backed militia positions following the surge of attacks over the past two months. The Boukamal region in Deir Ezzor, Syria, along the Iraqi border, has been a strategic area for Iran-backed militants after it was taken back from the extremist Daesh group in 2019. US coalition forces have conducted strikes targeting convoys there prior to recent tensions.