AMMAN (Reuters) - In the early hours of Sunday, an Israeli missile attack targeted a building in the Kafr Souseh neighborhood in the center of the Syrian capital, Damascus, near a large security complex close to Iranian facilities, killing five people, witnesses and officials said.
The rare, targeted attack damaged several buildings in the densely populated area near Umayyad Square in the heart of the capital, where multi-storey security buildings are located in the middle of residential areas.
A police official told state media that the attack resulted in several deaths and injuries.
An Israeli military spokesman declined to comment.
State media quoted a military source as saying that Israel launched air strikes targeting several areas in the capital after midnight, killing five, wounding 15 civilians and damaging a number of residential buildings.
The army said in a statement that the attacks resulted in "the destruction of a number of civilian homes and material damage to a number of neighborhoods in and around Damascus."
It was not immediately clear if the attack targeted a specific person. Imad Mughniyeh, the supreme commander of the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, was killed in 2008 in a bombing in Kafr Sousse, an area under close security supervision where residents say several Iranian security services are located there, including a center great cultural.
Israel has been carrying out air strikes for nearly a decade against suspected Iranian-sponsored arms transfers and personnel deployments in neighboring Syria. Israeli officials rarely admit responsibility for specific operations.
Western intelligence sources say Iran has expanded its military presence in Syria in recent years and has a presence in most areas controlled by the state, with thousands of members of local armed groups under its command.
In recent months, Israel has also intensified its attacks on Syrian airports and air bases to disrupt Iran's increasing use of air supply lines to transport weapons to its allies in Syria and Lebanon, including the Iran-backed Lebanese Hezbollah.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government has never publicly acknowledged that Iranian forces are working on his behalf in the Syrian civil war and says Tehran has only military advisers on the ground.