The overnight air strikes against a Syrian air base, which came on the heels of a deadly chemical weapons attack on a Damascus suburb, have been attributed to Israel by Syria, and, one of its patrons, Russia, The Washington Post reported Monday.

If true, it would be the second attack by Israel against the air base in recent months. In February, following the incursion of an Iranian drone into Israeli airspace, Israeli war planes struck at a number of Syrian and Iranian targets inside Syria, including the Tiyas, or T-4, air base located in Syria’s Homs province.

According to the Post, the suspected Israeli strike comes “as tensions rise over possible U.S. military action in Syria in response to an alleged chemical strike near Damascus late Saturday.”

The attack was said to have been carried out by two Israeli F-15s which flew over Lebanon and launched their missiles at the air base, without entering Syrian airspace.

Russia termed the overnight strike against the T-4 airbase as a “dangerous provocation,” while denying that its ally and client carried out the deadly chemical weapons attack.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which is based in the United Kingdom, said that 14 people, mostly from Iran’s military or its proxy forces, were killed in the airstrikes.

Fars News, which the Post described as being close to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, reported that at least four Iranian “military advisers” were killed in the strike.

Initially the Iranian news agency PressTV blamed the air strikes on the United States, suggesting that they were in retaliation for the chemical weapons attack.

[Photo: BBC News / YouTube ]