Unidentified aircraft on Tuesday struck an out-of-service military airfield in northwest Syria where forces from the country's defense ministry are present, a security source told AFP. "Early on Tuesday morning, unknown aircraft bombed the Abu Duhur military airport in Idlib province," the source said on condition of anonymity. The facility has been out of service since 2012 and is currently protected by Syrian defense ministry forces, the source said, without immediately reporting casualties. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, the strikes came after "a visit by a Turkish military delegation to the airfield in recent days as part of efforts to reactivate it". Türkiye is a key ally of the new authorities. No side has claimed the strikes on the airfield, which suffered heavy damage during Syria's civil war. The Israeli military said "no comment" in response to an AFP inquiry about the strikes. Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on Syria since the December 2024 toppling of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad by opposition forces. A US-led international coalition against the ISIS group has previously carried out strikes on senior extremist figures in the northwest. Syria is now part of the coalition. After taking power, the new authorities in Damascus took control over the Abu Duhur airfield which had been held since late 2018 by Assad's forces.
