TEHRAN- The Syrian army says its air defense units have brought down several projectiles fired from Israeli-occupied territories.

Syria’s official news agency SANA, citing its correspondent, said that the Israeli aerial aggression occurred on Friday night.

Other reports, quoting some residents in the Syrian capital, said several loud explosions were heard near Damascus.

SANA, in a later update, quoted a military official as saying that the projectiles came from “the direction of” Syria’s southwestern province of Quneitra near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, adding that the air defense units had “countered” them.

The Israeli regime launches airstrikes on the Syrian territory from time to time. Such aggressive moves are usually viewed as attempts to prop up terrorist groups suffering defeats at the hands of Syrian government forces.

On April 13, the Syrian army said that its air defenses intercepted some of the Israeli missiles fired at a Syrian military base near the city of Hama, while the remaining missiles hitting the target destroyed a number of buildings and wounded three Syrian troopers.

 Syrian air defenses foil drones, rockets fired at key base

Meanwhile, Syria says its air defenses in the Hmeimim air base have thwarted projectiles and drones fired by terrorist groups. 

Terrorist groups fired projectiles at Hmeimim, situated in Latakia's Jableh district, as well as the nearby Qardaha neighborhood, the Syrian TV reported on Saturday.

It also noted that the attack had left one person dead and several others wounded.

Syria's official SANA news agency confirmed that terrorists based in the provinces of Idlib and Latakia had fired rockets at Sharasher and Hweiz villages in Lattakia countryside, killing one civilian and injuring two others.

The terrorist attack, it added, also caused material damage to Syrian houses.

In recent weeks, there has been a surge in attacks from Idlib which is the last major terrorist stronghold. 

Russia has been piling pressure on Turkey to start an operation against terrorist-held areas after Ankara's failure to get militants linked to al-Qaeda out of a buffer zone agreed between the two countries. 

In September, a deal was struck with the assistance of Russia and Turkey to make Idlib a de-escalation zone. The area is now largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham which was formerly known as Jubhat al-Nusra.

Russia has said it will refuse to consider terrorists "untouchable" and continue to target them.