An Israeli airstrike near the Syrian capital kills 11, war monitor says

BEIRUT (AP) — An Israeli airstrike in the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday killed 11 people, according to a war monitor, as Israel continues to target Syrian weapons and military infrastructure even after the ouster of former President Bashar Assad.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrike targeted a weapons depot that belonged to Assad’s forces near the industrial town of Adra, northeast of the capital. The observatory said at least 11 people, mostly civilians, were killed.

Beirut-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV also reported the airstrike but put the death toll at six. The Israeli military did not comment on the airstrike Sunday.

Israel, which has launched hundreds of airstrikes over Syria since the country’s uprising turned-civil war broke out in 2011, rarely acknowledges them. It says its targets are Iran-backed groups that backed Assad. Israel also wants to remove a threat posed by weapons in Syria, which is now governed by Islamists.

Syrian insurgents who ousted Assad in a lightning ofensive in early December have demanded that Israel cease its airstrikes.

Elsewhere, Turkish-backed Syrian rebels attacked near the strategic northern border town of Kobani, which is under the control of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, following weekslong clashes.

The SDF shared a video of a rocket attack that destroyed what it said was a radar system south of the city of Manbij, which the Turkish-back group captured earlier this month. The Kurdish-led group is Washington’s key ally in Syria, where it is heavily involved in targeting sleeper cells belonging to the extremist Islamic State group.

In other developments:

— Syrian state-run media said a mass grave was found near the third largest city of Homs. SANA said civil defense workers were sent to to the site in al-Kabo, one of many suspected mass graves where tens of thousands of Syrians are believed to have been buried during a brutal crackdown under Assad and his network of security agencies.

— An Egyptian activist wanted by Cairo on charges of incitement to violence and terrorism, Abdulrahman al-Qardawi, was detained by Lebanese security forces after crossing the porous border from Syria, according to two judicial and one security officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to to talk to the press.

Al-Qardawi is an Egyptian activist residing in Turkey and an outspoken critic of Egypt’s government. He had reportedly visited Syria to join celebrations after Assad’s downfall. His late father, Youssef al-Qaradawi, was a top and controversial Egyptian cleric revered by the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood. He had lived in exile in Qatar for decades.

— Lebanese security forces apprehended an armed group in the northern city of Tripoli that kidnapped a group of 26 Syrians who were recently smuggled into Lebanon, two Lebanese security officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to share the information with the media. The Syrians included five women and seven children, and security officials are working to return them to Syria.