ISRAEL carried out an attack in Syria today, targeting what it described as an extremist group preparing assaults on the Druze minority.

The strike, reportedly by a drone, hit the town of Sahnaya, south of Damascus, following an outbreak of violence the day before in Jaramana, a predominantly Druze region, that reportedly left more than a dozen people dead.

It was the latest in a series of Israeli strikes in Syria, where Israel says the Sunni Islamists who seized power in December pose a rising threat at its border.