{"id":254873,"date":"2026-08-18T18:16:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/254873\/"},"modified":"2026-08-18T18:16:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-18T18:16:08","slug":"analysis-syrian-airbase-attack-is-an-israeli-message-to-damascus-ankara-syrias-war-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/254873\/","title":{"rendered":"Analysis: Syrian airbase attack is an Israeli message to Damascus, Ankara | Syria’s War News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday\u2019s air strikes on an airbase in northwest Syria<\/a> have been blamed on Israel, and, according to analysts, they are a message not just to the government in Damascus, but also to its ally, Turkiye.<\/p>\n

While Israel has yet to officially claim the attacks, Syria, the United States and Jordan have all said the attack on the Abu al-Duhur airbase in Idlib was the latest Israeli strike on its neighbour.<\/p>\n

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\u201cBombing an airbase means the Israeli army doesn\u2019t want the new Syria to have any sort of air force in the coming years,\u201d Kheder Khaddour, a nonresident scholar at the Malcolm H Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center, told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s message to Damascus<\/p>\n

On December 8, 2024, Syrian rebel forces took Damascus, overthrowing the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. In the subsequent hours, Israel\u2019s air force attacked Syrian military bases and infrastructure<\/a>, in strikes that are believed to have knocked out much of the new Syrian government\u2019s air defence.<\/p>\n

In the hours after al-Assad\u2019s fall, Israel also seized<\/a> areas in the Syrian Golan Heights and illegally occupied the strategic point of Jabal al-Sheikh. Since then, Israel has set up checkpoints on Syrian territory, where it has harassed and at times kidnapped Syrian citizens.<\/p>\n

In March 2025, Israel struck two Syrian airbases \u2013 T4 in Homs and the Palmyra airbase \u2013 that the Reuters news agency had reported had previously been visited by Turkish military delegations. And then, in July of the same year, Israel bombed Syria\u2019s Ministry of Defence in the heart of Damascus.<\/p>\n

Israeli officials have repeatedly stated that they see Syria\u2019s new government as a threat, even though it has grown closer to the West \u2013 including the US. Israel\u2019s government under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has also repeatedly warned Syria not to move troops south of Damascus \u2013 closer to the Israeli border \u2013 despite the new administration stating on multiple occasions that it does not seek a confrontation with Israel.<\/p>\n

\u201cSyria has not been a threat to Israel, and there have been months of negotiations on a security deal between the two neighbours,\u201d Asli Aydintasbas, an associate senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera. \u201cSince the downfall of the al-Assad regime, Syrians have made it very clear that they are interested in peaceful relations with Israel, and that should matter.\u201d<\/p>\n

There were no reported injuries in Tuesday\u2019s attacks. International Crisis Group\u2019s senior analyst for Syria, Nanar Hawach, said only airstrips and storage facilities were damaged, but that no jets were destroyed.<\/p>\n

Many analysts said the Israelis were trying to send a message that Syria should not rebuild its air force, which it has taken steps to do \u2013 such as repairing facilities and aircraft and training new personnel.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Israelis are not happy about the Syrians having a functioning air force,\u201d Samy Akil, a senior adviser with The Syria Report, told Al Jazeera. He said, however, that the remaining jets in the Syrian air force\u2019s armoury posed little threat to the Israelis.<\/p>\n

Turkiye\u2019s role<\/p>\n

Analysts also said the Israeli strike was likely a message directed at Turkiye.<\/p>\n

Turkiye was a backer of some anti-Assad rebel groups throughout the war, and continues to have a military presence in northern Syria.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbu al-Duhur is close to Idlib and well within the Turkish sphere of influence,\u201d Akil said.<\/p>\n

Israel has previously expressed concern and opposition to Turkish influence in Syria. Netanyahu has reportedly held security consultations over Ankara\u2019s role in Syria and has talked up the threat from Turkiye, NATO\u2019s second-largest army after the US.<\/p>\n

Naftali Bennett, the former Israeli prime minister who is also in the running to replace Netanyahu when Israel goes to the polls in October, has also called Turkiye \u201cthe new Iran\u201d.<\/p>\n

Navvar Saban, a researcher in security and military affairs at the Arab Center for Contemporary Syrian Studies, compared the Abu al-Duhur attack to Israel\u2019s March 2025 airbase attacks.<\/p>\n

Reuters reported that Turkish military teams had visited those airbases prior to the March attacks, although neither the Syrian nor Turkish governments confirmed the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe strike was probably less about destroying an immediate Syrian military threat and more about preventing the creation of a future military capability,\u201d Saban said. \u201cIsrael appeared to be drawing a red line around possible reconstruction of Syrian military infrastructure, particularly where Turkish assistance could improve Syrian air capability or restrict the Israeli freedom of operation over Syria\u2019s airspace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tuesday\u2019s air strikes on an airbase in northwest Syria have been blamed on Israel, and, according to analysts,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254874,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[30],"tags":[647,49,42,95,1183,1176,2167],"class_list":["post-254873","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-syria","tag-features","tag-middle-east","tag-news","tag-syria","tag-syrias-war","tag-turkey","tag-turkey-syria-border"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117117883713142109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254873","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254873"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254873\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254874"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254873"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254873"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254873"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}