Israeli ground troops conducted a commando raid overnight Wednesday-Thursday on a Syrian site it had bombed on the two previous  days, Syrian state media reported, in a major operation said to have included helicopters and fighter jets as well as dozens of ground troops.

Israel first struck the site outside Damascus on Tuesday, killing several Syrian soldiers, according to Damascus’s foreign ministry, and bombed it again on Wednesday, according to state television.

A Syrian defense ministry official told AFP on condition of anonymity that the site was a former Syrian military base in Tal Maneh, near Kisweh.

Following the second attack on Wednesday, state media said that Israeli troops were flown into the area to carry out a raid, “the details of which are not yet known, amid continued intensive reconnaissance flights.”

According to two Syrian army sources, a unit of the Israeli army carried out an airborne landing on a strategic hilltop southwest of Damascus and conducted a two-hour operation before leaving the area.

They said the troops landed near Jabal Manea, which was once a major air defense base operated by Iran before being destroyed by Israel after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

A number of troops from the new Syrian army are positioned at the base, the sources said.

According to a Syrian source who spoke to Al Jazeera, the raid involved four helicopters and two fighter jets, as well as dozens of soldiers.

Saudi outlet Al-Hadath reported that Israeli forces had located and confiscated “secret and sensitive equipment,” citing an unnamed senior Israeli security official.

According to the report, the IDF dismantled Turkish surveillance devices planted in the Damascus area intended to monitor Israel. The source said Jerusalem had warned the new Syrian government against aligning with Ankara, saying it was “playing with fire.” The source further claimed the equipment had been housed in Syrian military bases for over a decade.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on a........

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