LONDON, December 10. /TASS/. The Israeli naval forces have destroyed at least five Syrian warships following their attack on the port of Latakia in Syria, Reuters news agency reported citing its sources in the British security firm Ambrey.
"Ambrey said video footage showed one naval vessel listing and that five others had been sunk, without any visible damage being done to the port's infrastructure," according to Reuters.
Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz said earlier in the day that Israeli forces destroyed Syria’s Navy in the early hours of December 10.
"The Israeli Navy carried out an operation to destroy the Syrian Navy in the small hours of today and succeeded," Katz said, as cited by the N14 TV channel. Katz added that the Israel Defense Forces had been active in Syria for several days, working to eliminate "strategic weapons threatening the State of Israel."
Israel’s attacks followed the overthrow of former Syrian President Bashar Assad.
On November 27, Syria’s armed opposition units launched a large-scale offensive on the positions of government forces in the provinces of Aleppo and Idlib. By the evening of December 7, President Bashar Assad’s opponents had seized several large cities, including Aleppo, Hama, Deir ez-Zor, Daraa, and Homs.
On December 8, they entered the Syrian capital, Damascus, while the army withdrew from the city. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry’s statement, Syrian President Bashar Assad stepped down and left the country, issuing instructions to ensure a peaceful transition of power. A Kremlin source said later that Assad and his family members had arrived in Moscow as Russia had provided them with asylum based on humanitarian grounds.