Assad's naval fleet smashed by barrage of Israeli missiles

Israel has carried out a wave of airstrikes across Syria, claiming to have destroyed the country’s naval fleet and deployed troops beyond a demilitarised buffer zone between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

- ALEX CROFT

The defence minister, Israel Katz, said Israeli forces had been ordered to create a “sterile defence zone” in southern Syria. He gave no details, other than to say it would not have a permanent Israeli presence. He added the zone, would “prevent the establishment and organisation of terror in Syria”.

“We will not allow this, we will not allow threats to the state of Israel,” he said in a statement following a visit to a naval base in the northern Israeli port of Haifa.

Israeli jets have struck a string of targets across Syria since the weekend, aiming to ensure Syrian military equipment, including combat aircraft, missiles and chemical weapons, does not fall into rebel hands. As part of the wave of strikes, Mr Katz said Israeli missile ships had destroyed the Syrian military fleet in an operation on Monday night.

Video showing the smoking wreckage of what appeared to be small Syrian naval ships in the port at Latakia was broadcast by Saudi-owned television station Al-Hadath yesterday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has closely tracked the conflict since the civil war erupted in 2011, said Israel targeted Syrian warships, military warehouses and an air-defence facility on the coast.