Syrian forces intercept missile over airbase

DAMASCUS, Apr 17 (Agencies): Syrian anti-aircraft defences shot down missiles fired at the Syrian air base of Shayrat in Homs province late on Monday and another base northeast of the capital, Damascus, Syria's state television and pro-Iranian Hezbollah media said.
State television showed pictures of a missile that was shot in the air above the air base only days after a US, British and French attack on Syrian targets in retaliation for a suspected chemical attack on the city of Douma on the outskirts of Damascus.
State television did not mention three missiles that were fired at Dumair military airport, northeast of Damascus, that pro-Iranian Hezbollah's media service reported were intercepted by Syrian air defences.
Opposition sources say Dumair airport is a major air base used in a large-scale military campaign waged by the Syrian army with Russian firepower that regained eastern Ghouta, a rebel enclave on the outskirts of Damascus.
A Pentagon spokesman said there was no US military activity in that area at this time.
Asked about the missile attack, an Israeli military spokesman said: "We don't comment on such reports."
Shayrat air base was targeted last year in a US cruise missile attack in response to a chemical attack that killed at least 70 people, including children, on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun.
Israel has struck Syrian army locations many times in the course of the conflict, hitting convoys and bases of Iranian-backed militias that fight alongside Syrian President Bashar al- Assad's forces.
Israel has long said Iran was expanding its influence in a belt of territory that stretches from the Iraqi border to the Lebanese border, where Israel says Iran supplies Hezbollah with arms.
Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias have a large military presence in Syria and are well entrenched in central and eastern areas near the Iraqi border.
Meanwhile, an international inspection mission to Syria looked in question Tuesday after Western powers which accused Damascus of using chemical weapons warned that evidence had likely been removed.
The United States, France and Britain conducted an unprecedented missile attack Saturday on the Syrian regime that Paris described as a matter of honour but admitted had solved nothing.
The punitive strikes were launched before a fact-finding team was able to enter Douma, where the alleged April 07 chemical attack happened, and begin its field work. Western diplomats charged Monday during an emergency meeting at the watchdog's The Hague headquarters that the regime and its Russian ally were blocking the team.
Russia denied the claims, saying parts of Douma still needed to be de-mined and said the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors would enter on Wednesday.