Eight air strikes hit airbase in Syria’s Idlib

Eight air strikes have hit an airbase in Idlib in northwestern Syria, causing damage and no casualties, Syrian state media report.

The air strikes hit the runway of the Abu al-Duhur military base in Idlib’s eastern countryside early on Tuesday, according to state television reports.

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It is the first attack on the airbase since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December 2024.

State TV quoted a military source as saying Israeli forces carried out the attack.

“Israeli occupation aircraft early this morning targeted the runway of the Abu Duhur military airport … with eight strikes,” state TV quoted the unidentified source as saying.

There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Reporting from Damascus, Al Jazeera correspondent Sohaib al-Khalaf said the nature of the attack resembles previous Israeli attacks on Syrian military sites and installations that have aimed to undermine the Syrian military’s capabilities.

Abu al-Duhur airbase suffered extensive destruction during the 14 years of the Syrian war. Opposition forces took control of it in 2015 after fighting with government forces. In 2019, it was recaptured by forces loyal to al-Assad, but the base was not functional due to significant damage it sustained throughout the war.

Al Jazeera’s Heidi Pett, reporting from Saraqib, noted that Israel has increased attacks on Syrian military sites since al-Assad fled the country.

“There is a continuing Israeli campaign to degrade Syrian military capabilities that began under the Assad regime, but it rapidly escalated immediately after its fall,” she said.

“Israel systematically bombed the Syrian air force basically out of existence, and in the last year and a half, there has been an effort to rebuild some of that air capacity,” she added.

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