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Israel kills four-man bomb squad plotting attack at border with Syria

An Israeli military armoured personnel carrier (APC) manoeuvres in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights near the Israel-Syria frontier - Reuters
An Israeli military armoured personnel carrier (APC) manoeuvres in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights near the Israel-Syria frontier - Reuters

The Israeli army announced on Monday it had killed four terrorists who were attempting to plant a bomb at the Jewish state’s northeastern border with Syria.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it deployed a special forces unit to intercept the bomb squad, which was apparently attempting to blow up an unmanned military outpost in the Golan Heights.

Video footage of the moment the four men were killed was posted to the IDF’s Twitter account, with the caption: “This is the moment when four terrorists attempted to plant explosives near the security fence between Israel and Syria last night....and the moment we stopped them.”

In addition to plotting a bomb attack, some of the men were armed, according to an IDF spokesman, which said it had not confirmed their identities.

“I believe in the coming days we’ll know better about what organization they were a part of,” IDF spokesman Hidai Zilberman told reporters.

Israel has said it holds the Syrian regime responsible for the attempted bombing, which appeared to be in retaliation for a series of airstrikes attributed to Israel on Iranian-backed forces in Syria.

Israel is believed to have repeatedly carried out airstrikes in Syria on targets allied with the Iranian regime such as Hizbollah, which support the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Hizbollah vowed to take revenge after an airstrike carried out last month, which was attributed to Israel, killed one of its fighters.

The Israeli government follows a policy of not commenting on reports of airstrikes attributed to Israeli forces.

Hizbollah, which is designated as a terrorist organization in Britain, is funded by the Iranian regime and its leaders have repeatedly vowed to destroy the state of Israel.

The incident took place at the same area where, until two years ago, Israel had run a field hospital to treat Syrians who had been wounded in the civil war.

Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, another IDF spokesman, said the army had noticed "irregular activity" in that area for about a week and had a commando team waiting there in ambush.

It comes after the Israeli army said it had thwarted a similar attack by Hizbollah on its northern border with Lebanon, where it said a group of armed men had attempted to carry out an act of terror.