'Possibly Israeli strike' in ammunition warehouses near Damascus

Several explosions rang out on Sunday in ammunition warehouses belonging to Bashar al-Assad"s army near the Syrian capital Damascus, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

"Violent explosions were heard around the capital Damascus today, possibly due to an Israeli strike," stated the NGO. When questioned by AFP in Jerusalem on Sunday, the Israeli army, which has targeted several sites of the ousted Syrian president"s army in recent weeks, stated "not to be the source" of these explosions.

The explosions occurred "in ammunition depots belonging to the forces of the former regime, near the town of Kiswah in the suburbs of Damascus," according to the Observatory, which did not report any casualties. The SOHR reported a "thick cloud of smoke and violent tremors in the vicinity."

Since the downfall of President Bashar al-Assad, ousted from power on Dec. 8 by a coalition of rebels, Israel has conducted hundreds of strikes on military sites in Syria, claiming to prevent the fallen regime"s arsenal from falling into the new authorities" hands. On Jan. 3, Israeli strikes targeted military sites of the former regime in southern Aleppo (north), according to the SOHR. At the end of December, the Observatory reported the death of 11 people in an explosion at an arms depot near Damascus. Israel denied any involvement.

During the Syrian civil war, which broke out in 2011, Israel carried out hundreds of strikes against positions of the Assad regime's army and its allies, including the Lebanese Hezbollah and Iran.

Following the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, Israel sent troops into a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan, in southwestern Syria, at the edge of the part of this plateau occupied by Israel since the 1967 war and annexed in 1981.

The new Syrian leader Ahmad al-Jarrah denounced the intrusion of Israeli forces in mid-December, asserting, however, that Syria was too "exhausted" by the war to engage in another conflict.