Second Israeli Air Strike In A Week Damages Aleppo Airport
An Israeli air attack on Syria's Aleppo airport Tuesday has damaged the runway and taken it out of service, Syrian state media quoted a military source as saying.
An Israeli air attack on Syria's Aleppo airport Tuesday has damaged the runway and taken it out of service, Syrian state media quoted a military source as saying.
The Israel missile attack was launched from the Mediterranean Sea, west of the coastal city of Latakia, at 8:16 p.m. local time (1716 GMT), the source said.
Syrian air defences intercepted Israeli missiles, downing several of them, the Syrian state news agency (SANA) claimed earlier on Tuesday.
It was the second reported attack in less than week. On August 31, Israel fired rockets at the airport, which resulted in material damage, according to Syrian state media.
Israel has intensified strikes on Syrian airports to disrupt Tehran's increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon including Hezbollah, regional diplomatic and intelligence sources told Reuters.
The Ukraine war and Russia’s distraction has given a freer hand to Israel to attack targets in Syria. Since mid-2017, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes against Iranian arms supplies and positions.
Tehran has adopted air transport as a more reliable means of ferrying military equipment to its forces and allied fighters in Syria, following disruptions to ground transfers.
Last week's attack damaged Aleppo airport just before the arrival of a plane from Iran, a commander in an Iran-backed regional alliance who was familiar with the incident told Reuters.
Addressing the unveiling ceremony in the southern Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas on Monday, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, Iran's chief of staff for the Armed Forces, said the Soleimani patrol combat warship is a multi-hulled watercraft that can carry choppers and can unload strike speedboats and vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) drones, adding that it is the first Iranian military vessel equipped with air defense missiles with a vertical launching system that can fire mid- and short-range missiles.
He claimed that the hull of Shahid Soleimani-class missile corvette is made with radar-evading stealth technology construction techniques, meaning that it has a very low level of radar cross-section thanks to its shape.
In addition to Bagheri, the IRGC Chief Commander Major General Hossein Salami, Commander of the IRGC Navy Rear Admiral Alireza Tangsiri and a number of other high-ranking military officials, commanders and state officials attended the ceremony.
The IRGC Navy also delivered Shahid Rouhi and Shahid Dara high-speed and missile-launching assault boats.
In July, the United States Naval Institute published satellite photos showing that Iran was constructing new stealth missile boats on the island of Qeshm in the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf.
On Sunday, two surface-to-surface missile launchers, one logistic vessel and one Ghadir-class submarine were added to the South Fleet of the Iranian Army Navy of the country.
