Israel destroys targets across Syria as Russian vessels desert Tartus naval base

Israel has conducted at least 350 airstrikes in the past 48 hours on targets in Syria as its military seeks to neutralize potential threats following the ouster of dictator Bashar Assad, Israeli military spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted on X Tuesday.

The strikes hit weapons production sites, anti-aircraft batteries and airfields, while Israel continued to move troops into the Golan Heights buffer zone on its border with Syria. The attacks have hit production sites in Damascus, Homs, Tartous, Latakia and Palmyra, Adraee wrote.

During a visit to a naval base in Haifa, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the objective was to “destroy strategic capabilities that threaten the State of Israel.”

The port city of Latakia on the Mediterranean Sea came under heavy attack, the BBC reported. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that “Israeli warplanes” had damaged or sunk about 10 Syrian naval vessels and levelled “the Barzeh scientific research center” in the town.

That same facility was hit in 2018 by Western countries, with then-U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis describing it as part of Syria’s “chemical weapons infrastructure.”

The wider Latakia region is also home to the Alawite minority religious group to which Assad belongs.

“I warn here the leaders of the rebels in Syria: Anyone who follows Assad’s path will end up like Assad,” Katz said in Haifa. “We will not allow an extreme Islamic terrorist entity to act against Israel beyond its border, putting its citizens at risk.”

But there were no reports of attacks on the port city of Tartus, some 100 kilometers to the south, where Russia has had a naval presence for five decades (most recently hosting three frigates, two auxiliary craft and a Kilo-class diesel-electric attack submarine). Satellite images taken on Monday appeared to suggest the vessels had sailed, although Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said they were merely on naval maneuvers in the Mediterranean.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday that Moscow was taking all “necessary steps to establish contact in Syria with those capable of ensuring the security of military bases.”