 Syria to buy latest Russian anti-missile system: Assad Damascus (AFP) April 27, 2017 - Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said Damascus is negotiating with regime ally Moscow to buy the latest Russian anti-missile system to repel Israeli and American attacks. "It's natural that we should have such systems," he said, quoted by Syria's official SANA agency on Thursday, the same day as Damascus accused Israel of firing several missiles at a military position near its international airport. "Israel has been committing aggressions on the Arab states surrounding it since its creation in 1948," Assad said in the interview with Venezuelan channel Telesur. "It is natural for us to negotiate with the Russians now with a view to strengthening (our) systems, whether to face any Israeli threats from the air or the threats of American missiles." "That has become a real possibility after the recent American aggression on Al-Shayrat air base in Syria," he added. The US military fired 59 Tomahawk missiles at the base overnight on April 6-7 following a suspected chemical attack on a rebel-held town in Idlib province that left 87 dead, including many children. Washington said the regime base was the launchpad for the attack, a charge Damascus denies. Russia's military said a day after the attack that Syria's air defences would be boosted. "To protect Syria's most sensitive infrastructure, a complex of measures will be implemented in the near future to strengthen and improve the effectiveness of the Syrian armed forces' air defence system," said spokesman Igor Konashenkov For its part, Israel has carried out multiple air strikes in Syria since the country's civil war erupted in 2011, most of which it has said targeted arms convoys or warehouses of its Lebanese arch-foe Hezbollah, a key supporter of Assad's regime. Assad also said that no country which had aided the Syrian opposition should be allowed to take part in Syria's post-war reconstruction. "All the states which stood against the Syrian people and took part in the destruction and sabotage will never take part in rebuilding Syria. That is final," he said. International organisations estimate that reconstructing Syria, devastated by a six-year war that has left over 320,000 dead, will cost upwards of $300 billion (275 billion euros).
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Israel shot down what it identified only as "a target" over the occupied Golan Heights on Thursday, hours after Syria accused it of hitting a military position near Damascus airport.
"The Patriot Aerial Defence System intercepted a target above the Golan Heights," the official Israeli army Twitter account said, without elaborating.
A military spokeswoman refused to comment on Israeli media reports that the object was a drone.
Syria's state news agency SANA said earlier that several Israeli missiles hit near Damascus airport at dawn.
Israel has not confirmed or denied the reported Damascus attack.
But Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said it was consistent with Israel's policy to prevent arms transfers through to Hezbollah, while stopping short of confirming his country was behind the incident.
"We are acting to prevent the transfer of sophisticated weapons from Syria to Hezbollah in Lebanon by Iran," Katz told army radio.
"When we receive serious information about the intention to transfer weapons to Hezbollah, we will act. This incident is totally consistent with this policy."
In Moscow, the Kremlin called for restraint and the foreign ministry condemned the attack.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not say if Israel had warned Moscow of the strike, saying only that their defence ministries "are in constant dialogue".
In Moscow, visiting Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu that the Jewish state would not allow "concentration of Iranian or Hezbollah forces on the Golan border," Lieberman's office said.
Israel has conducted multiple air strikes in Syria since that country's civil war erupted in 2011, most of which it has said targeted arms convoys or warehouses of its Lebanese arch-foe Hezbollah, which is a key supporter of the Syrian regime.
Last month, it said it had carried out several strikes near the Syrian desert city of Palmyra, targeting what it said were "advanced weapons" belonging to Hezbollah.
The strikes prompted Syria to launch ground-to-air missiles, one of which was intercepted over Israeli territory in the most serious flare-up between the two neighbours since the Syrian civil war began six years ago.
Israel seized 1,200 square kilometres (460 square miles) of the Golan from Syria in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed it in a move never recognised by the international community.
Around 510 square kilometres of the Golan are under Syrian control.
The two countries are still technically at war, although the border remained largely quiet for decades until 2011, when the Syrian conflict broke out.
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