Seven people were killed in a raid by unidentified planes on Sunday evening on a convoy of trucks loaded with weapons from Iran in eastern Syria, a Syrian NGO said on Monday.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), seven truck drivers or people accompanying them died in this raid which targeted the convoy in the region of Boukamal, in the province of Deir Ezzor, bordering of Iraq.

"The attack targeted six refrigerated trucks" as soon as they entered Syrian territory after crossing the border with Iraq, added this NGO which has a vast network of sources in Syria at war.

"The trucks were loaded with Iranian weapons and were destroyed," OSDH chief Rami Abdel Rahmane told AFP, adding that all the dead were "non-Syrians".

Omar Abou Leila, an activist who runs the local news site Deir Ezzor 24, told AFP that the strikes had targeted the convoy but also "the headquarters of pro-Iranian militias" in the region.

Iran supports the Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad.

The pro-Iranian armed groups enjoy significant military influence in the border area between Syria and Iraq, and are deployed on the west bank of the Euphrates in the province of Deir Ezzor.

This area is an important crossing point for weapons, fighters and goods between Iraq and Syria.

According to the OSDH, at least two similar convoys entered Syria this week from Iraq, a country where Iran exercises a strong influence.

Israeli revelations

The Syrian government did not react to this raid, but a pro-Syrian government radio station confirmed it, saying that "unidentified warplanes targeted six refrigerated trucks", without giving further details.

Questioned by AFP, the Iraqi authorities did not comment on this attack immediately.

In November, a raid had targeted a convoy of weapons and tank trucks loaded with fuel from pro-Iranian militias in Syria, near the border with Iraq, killing at least 14 people according to the OSDH.

In December, then-Israeli Chief of Staff Aviv Kohavi revealed that his country was behind the raid, adding that the convoy was carrying weapons bound for Lebanon where the pro-Iranian Hezbollah armed movement a dominating influence.

Israel rarely claims the raids it leads in neighboring Syria and which target pro-Iranian militias in particular, but says it wants to prevent the military establishment on its border of Iran, its pet peeve.

On several occasions, the international anti-jihadist coalition led by the United States, whose members are stationed in Syria and Iraq, has admitted to carrying out strikes in the border region against pro-Iranian fighters.

Since 2011, the conflict in Syria, in which several powers and armed groups are involved, has claimed around half a million lives.

With AFP

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