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Opposition Platform: Israeli Airstrikes Attempt to Prevent Syria From Settlement

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - The latest Israeli airstrikes on military facilities in Syria is one more attempt of hostile forces to prevent a political solution for the conflict-torn country, Qadri Jamil, the leader of the Moscow platform of the Syrian opposition, said in a statement on Saturday.
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Earlier in the day, the Israeli army said its helicopter intercepted an Iranian drone launched from Syria and that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck Iranian targets in Syria, prompting fire from the Syrian air defense systems.

"The new Zionist aggression and bombing of Syrian military sites is an extension of the campaign of escalation initiated by the war forces in the US administration, whether directly through the US warplanes bombing of Syrian military sites in Deir al-Zour and the propaganda campaign about chemical weapons, or through the Turkish aggression on Afrin… or through the field escalation carried out by the terrorist Al-Nusra Front," Jamil said.

Washington Says Israel-Syria Border Incident Iran's 'Calculated Escalation'
According to the IDF, during the attack, "multiple anti-aircraft missiles were fired at IAF," and one F16 fighter jet crashed in Israel. An IAF pilot was severely injured and transferred to a hospital. In the second wave of the attack, the Israeli forces struck 12 targets in Syria, including Syrian air defense batteries and Iranian military facilities, the IDF said.

"All of which constitute a single series, in attempts to exploit the emerging situation during the years of the crisis to establish international influence in Syria, and to prevent the political solution that the Allies could impose as a regional and international option through a major military and diplomatic effort, which gained a new momentum after the Intra-Syrian Dialogue Conference [in Sochi, Russia]," Jamil added.

According to Jamil, Syrians will continue searching for the political solution on the basis of the UN resolution 2254, as it is the "way to restore national sovereignty over the entire Syrian territory."

Washington called the latest incident on the Israeli-Syrian border Iran's "calculated escalation" of tension, while Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi called "ridiculous" the Israeli claims that it had intercepted an Iranian drone launched from Syria.

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