Israeli troops dismantle key Syrian military headquarters on Mt. Hermon: army

JERUSALEM, May 5 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli military said on Monday it had raided and "dismantled" a key Syrian army headquarters located on Mount Hermon in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

In a statement, the military said that over the past week, troops from the infantry 810th Brigade, including paratroopers and the Yahalom special combat engineering unit, raided the compound. According to the military, it was formerly used by the Syrian government as the central headquarters of the unit responsible for the Mount Hermon area.

During the raid, the troops located military infrastructure, including bunkers and a large cache of weapons, the military said, noting that "all weapons were either dismantled or confiscated."

In early December, in the wake of the collapse of Bashar al-Assad's government, Israeli forces crossed into the United Nations-monitored buffer zone. Israel later captured the top of Mount Hermon, a Syrian territory, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announcing that forces would remain there "indefinitely." The move drew international criticism.

In its statement on Monday, the military defended the operation, saying it aimed "to remove threats and protect the security of Israeli civilians, and residents of the Golan Heights in particular." ■