DUBAI: A Syrian airport was the target of an Israeli attack that tore a hole in the runway and also destroyed a neighboring section of tarmac and a building on the airfield's military side, according to satellite images analysed by AP on Friday.
The attack on Aleppo International Airport on Wednesday night comes only months after an Israeli strike destroyed the runway at the country's primary airport in the capital, Damascus, in protest over Iranian arms deliveries to the nation.
On Wednesday, the strike was recognised by Syria's state-run SANA news agency, but no information about the damage or the attack's target was provided. The airport's one runway's western border was where one of the strikes occurred, as seen in the satellite images captured on Thursday by Planet Labs PBC. The impact caused a grassfire at the airfield and tore a hole through the runway.
The aftermath of another strike that hit an item on the tarmac and another structure left debris lying dispersed just south of the runway damage on the military side of the airport.
Like many other Middle Eastern countries, Syria has airports that can be used for both military and civilian purposes. The attack has interfered with flights at the airport. Immediately following the attack, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor headquartered in the UK, claimed that Israel had attacked a consignment of Iranian missiles bound for the airport in Aleppo.
Since a civil conflict broke out in Syria during the 2011 Arab Spring, Iran and the militant organisation Hezbollah, which is associated with Lebanon, have played a critical role in ensuring that the embattled president Bashar Assad has remained in office. According to flight-tracking data, a transponder on an Antonov An-74 cargo plane operated by Iran's Yas Air that had been sanctioned years earlier by the U.S. Treasury for transporting weapons for the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard briefly pinged near Aleppo just before the strike. The plane appeared to be headed for Aleppo based on the altitude and position.
Frequently, cargo planes over Syria don't broadcast their location information. On Friday, a call to a Yas Air phone number went unanswered.
An inquiry for comment from The Associated Press on Friday went unanswered by the UN missions of Iran and Syria. Israel, which has often attacked Syria as part of its covert conflict with Iran in the wider Middle East, has not officially recognised Wednesday's attack. The strike comes as tensions across the wider Mideast remain high as negotiations over Iran’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers hang in the balance.
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