Netanyahu says Israel has bombed Iranian-backed Shiite militias in Syria

Israel has attacked Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militias in Syria, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Thursday. Israeli officials have previously disclosed scores of airstrikes within Syria to prevent suspected arms transfers to Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah guerrillas or Iranian military deployments. However, they have rarely described non-Lebanese militiamen as having been targeted. Netanyahu accused Iran of bringing in 80,000 Shiite fighters from countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan to mount attacks against Israel and “convert” Syria’s Sunni majority, Reuters said. “That is a recipe for a re-inflammation of another civil war - I should say a theological war, a religious war - and the sparks of that could be millions more that go into Europe,” Netanyahu told an international security forum.