(Beirut) The airport of Aleppo, in northern Syria, was targeted on Wednesday by a new Israeli strike which put it out of service and targeted in particular, according to an NGO, an arms depot belonging to groups pro-Iranians.
According to the Syrian Ministry of Defense, the strike which targeted the airport of Syria’s second city at dawn only caused material damage.
“At approximately 3:55 a.m. (8:55 p.m. Eastern Time), the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial assault using multiple missiles from the Mediterranean, west of Latakia, targeting Latakia International Airport. Aleppo,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Ministry of Transport announced that due to damage inflicted on the runways and certain installations, “the airport has been taken out of service until the repair operations have been completed”.
All flights have been diverted to airports in Damascus and Latakia, according to the ministry.
The airport, the second largest in the country, was used in particular for the delivery of international humanitarian aid to Aleppo, hard hit by the earthquake which devastated several regions of Syria and Turkey on February 6.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), a UK-based NGO with an extensive network of sources in Syria, the strike targeted “the airport and an arms depot of groups nearby pro-Iranians”.
This arms depot “has been completely destroyed”, added the Observatory.
Groups under the control of Iran and its allies have great influence in Aleppo, of which they helped the Syrian government forces regain full control in December 2016, alongside the Russian army.
Second strike in two weeks
Asked by AFP about Wednesday’s strike, the Israeli army said, as usual, “not to comment on information from foreign media”.
This is the second time that Aleppo airport has been targeted by Israel this March. On March 7, a raid killed three people and put the airport out of service, according to the OSDH.
More than 80 planes loaded with humanitarian aid have landed at this airport since the earthquake, which killed nearly 6,000 people in Syria, according to the Ministry of Transport.
Aleppo airport had already remained closed for three days after an Israeli strike in September, according to official sources.
At the beginning of January, strikes had also targeted the airport of Damascus, the capital, targeting according to the OSDH “positions of Hezbollah and pro-Iranian groups”.
In recent years, Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes in Syria, against regime positions as well as Iranian and Lebanese Hezbollah forces, allies of Damascus and sworn enemies of Israel.
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 Israeli army announced on Wednesday evening that a military drone had fallen in Syria without “fear of information being exposed”, according to a press release.
Triggered in 2011 by the repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, the war in Syria has claimed around 500,000 lives, devastated the country’s infrastructure and displaced millions of people.