Israel Says Four ISIS-Affiliated Militants Killed in Airstrike in Syrian Golan Heights Israel said it conducted the strike after its soldiers came under fire from across the border By Rory Jones
http://www.wsj.com/articles/israel-says-four-isis-affiliated-militants-killed-in-airstrike-in-syrian-golan-heights-1480247662
TEL AVIV—An Israeli airstrike killed four Islamic State-affiliated militants in the Syrian Golan Heights on Sunday, Israel’s military said, after its soldiers came under fire in one of the first major clashes with the extremist group.
An Israeli unit was conducting an operation beyond a fence that separates the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and Syria but within the border when it was shot at by Islamic State militants, the army said. The soldiers returned fire before an Israeli warplane struck a machine gun-mounted vehicle that was carrying the militants, said military spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner.
The strike killed at least four militants, according to a visual assessment by the pilot. No Israeli soldiers were injured.
The military said the militants were fighting for the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade, which the U.S. designated a terrorist organization in June after the group pledged allegiance to Islamic State.
The brigade is made up of roughly 600 fighters and has been operating on Syria’s borders with Jordan and Israeli-controlled Golan for about three years, Israel’s military said.
The group gained notoriety for kidnapping United Nations observers in 2013 but has so far refrained from cross-border attacks so as not to provoke Israel or Jordan.
Sunday’s attack was unlikely to signal a new wave of Islamic State violence on the border, said Nitzan Nuriel, former director of the counterterrorism bureau in Israel’s prime minister’s office.
“I don’t think that at this stage…someone decided to open up a new front against Israel,” he told reporters Sunday.
The Israeli side of the Golan Heights, land captured from Syria during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, has seen periodic clashes since the civil war began nearly six years ago. Most of the incidents have been caused by the Syrian regime misfiring against rebels and Israel returning fire.
Israel has said it won’t allow Lebanese political and militant group Hezbollah fighting alongside President Bashar al-Assad to open a front in the Syrian Golan Heights. It has regularly launched airstrikes against weapons convoys bound for Hezbollah.
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