An Israeli bombardment knocked out the airport in Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo, in the north of the country early Monday, the official Sana news agency reported citing a military source. “Around 4:30 a.m. [2h30, heure française]the Israeli enemy carried out an air assault from the Mediterranean, west of Latakia, against Aleppo International Airport,” causing “material damage to the tarmac that put the airport out of service,” added Sana.
Since the beginning of the war in Syria, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian territory targeting mainly the forces supported by Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah, allies of Damascus and sworn enemies of Israel, as well as the army Syrian. Israel, a neighboring country of Syria, rarely comments on the strikes on a case-by-case basis, but says it wants to prevent Iran from establishing itself on its doorstep.
The Aleppo region regularly targeted by Israel
An official from the Syrian Ministry of Transport, Sleiman Khalil, indicated that “the only operational tarmac at the airport was damaged”. The Aleppo region, where groups linked to Iran and its allies are very present, and the airport have been targeted on several occasions by Israeli raids since the beginning of the year.
In early May, four Syrian soldiers and three foreign fighters from pro-Iranian groups were killed in strikes that then targeted the airport and other targets including an arms depot, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights ( OSDH). In March, Israeli strikes twice put Aleppo airport out of service. The war in Syria, triggered in 2011 by the repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, has left more than half a million dead and displaced several million people.