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Israel Publishes Names of 2 Alleged 'Lebanese Shiiite Operatives' Killed in Attack on Syria

TEL AVIV (Sputnik) - The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) published on Monday the names of two alleged "Lebanese Shiite operatives" killed in its weekend airstrikes near Damascus.
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"Hasan Yousif Zbib [and] Yasir Ahmad Dahir[.] These Lebanese Shiite militia operatives were behind the attempt to attack Israel with killer drones and were killed when we foiled the attack," the IDF wrote on Twitter.

​The Israeli army also attached what it claimed were the images of the two men "pictured flying to Iran to receive drone-operation training."

On Sunday, the Israeli military said that it attacked facilities it claims were belonging to the Iranian Quds Force and Shiite militants southeast of Damascus overnight. The IDF claimed that the operation was meant to prevent a "pending, large-scale attack of multiple killer drones on Israel."

A senior Iranian official later denied that Iranian forces had been hit in the airstrikes. A source in the Lebanon-based Shiite Hezbollah movement, meanwhile, said that two of its members had been killed in the raid.

Israel considers Iran and Hezbollah, which is also fighting in Syria alongside the forces of President Bashar Assad, to be its main opponents in the region. Tehran maintains that it has only its advisers in the Arab republic, who are present there at the request of the Syrian government, saying Israel’s regular attacks on Syria have no legal basis.

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