Smoldering aftermath of Israel’s biggest bombing exposes Syria’s military dilemmas

The locals had no idea what the Israelis were up to Syrian military base at Bimalkah. They just knew that it produced a series of almighty and rather terrifying explosions.

So powerful was the largest blast that it snapped trees in half along the road outside the base, rattled windows in the town of Tartus eight miles away and fooled nearby seismic sensors into thinking there had been a magnitude three earthquake.

Ever since the fall Bashar al-AssadPresident of Syria, Israel has occupied one continuous campaign to eliminate much of the old regime’s military capability, a precaution, it said, against sophisticated weaponry falling into the hands of hostile Islamists.

The attack on Bimalkah in the early hours of Monday morning was among the most powerful of the more than 450 air strikes The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights calculates that Israel has launched over the past nine days. The UK-based organization has documented military action in Syria since rebellion against Assad began in 2011.

What exactly was inside the base, the rebels guarding it Monday could not say exactly. They knew that it housed an air defense facility and missile depot, and that, certainly until a few days earlier, it also stored a formidable amount of Russian weapons.

The commander standing guard outside the smoldering base said he also believed the warehouse housed a large Hezbollah weapons dump.

Like Moscow, the Lebanese militia spent years successfully backing up Assad’s regimewith Hezbollah forces engaging rebels on the ground while Russia rained missiles down on them from the air, destroying large swathes of Syria’s urban landscape in the process.

Unlike Russia, however, Hezbollah – severely weakened by an Israeli offensive against the movement that ended late last month – was unable to retrieve the weapons it may have had at the base.

During the previous days, according to the residents, Russian forces had frantically hauled missiles and other weapons and drove them down to their naval base in Tartusa coastal town overlooking the Mediterranean.

It is unclear whether Russian forces had prior knowledge of the Israeli attacks or had been given a window to withdraw their weapons.

Regardless of how much the Russians had been able to salvage, it was clear that a great deal of ammunition remained at the base. Fires smoldered on both sides of the valley for more than 12 hours after the strikes, while a long stretch of the main road was strewn with shrapnel.

As volunteers, insurgents and locals scavenging for wood and scrap metal cleared the site, secondary explosions echoed around the facility every minute or so. Some sent even more shrapnel into the air, forcing the scavengers to frantically duck for cover.

Residents of Tartus said they had spent a sleepless night as a result of the attack.

Ali Abdullah Ali, a carpenter, felt the windows of his apartment shake at the sound of the first detonation, shortly after midnight.

As he stepped out onto his balcony, he could see a large orange glow from the mountains in the direction of Bimalkah. He reassured the neighbors that there was nothing to fear and retired to his sofa.

A few minutes later, a massive explosion made his heart race.

“It felt like an earthquake,” he said. “We could feel the pressure wave from where we were, and then I saw a huge fireball from the window. I shouted to the neighbors to keep their windows and doors open in case glass broke.”

Credit: X/ @sentdefender

Still, Mr. Ali and other residents of Tartus, despite the consternation, are remarkably phlegmatic about Israel’s systematic destruction of Syria’s military capabilities without a shot being fired in return.

While some middle eastern powers just as Saudi Arabia has condemned Israel’s actions, which have gone far beyond what even its Western allies expected it to do, many in Tartus seemed a little embarrassed.

As the city lies in the heart of Assad’s Alawite minority, the indifference may have arisen out of fear of the country coming under the domination of Islamist rebels from the country’s Sunni majority.

While there is some truth to that, some also joked that the Assad regime had brought such misery to Alawites and Sunnis alike, Israeli occupation was unlikely to worsen the situation.

“If Israel wants to come and occupy us, let them come,” said one. “They can even improve things.”

There has also been a muted reaction from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the rebel coalition that led the offensive against the Assad regime.

Its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa – who stopped using his nom de guerre of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani at the end of the uprising – has said that Israel “can no longer justify” its continued bombardment, which he called “an unjustified escalation”.

At the same time, however, he also indicated that he would not do anything about it, effectively giving Benjamin Netanyahuthe Israeli prime minister, the green light to proceed.

“Syria’s war-weary state, after years of conflict and war, does not allow new confrontations,” he said. “The priority at this stage is reconstruction and stability, not being drawn into disputes that could lead to further destruction.”

Even in such unprecedented times, Mr. Sharaa’s consent is seen only as either an act of extraordinary kindness or, more likely, extraordinary helplessness.

Part of Mr Sharaa’s calculus will undoubtedly be to show the world that he is not the Islamist extremist some feared given his past links, and his movement’s, to al-Qaeda – one of the reasons Israel performs its attacks.

Still, on a personal level, Syria’s interim leader must surely feel some consternation. As his nom de guerre suggests, he is from Syria The Golan Heightstwo-thirds of which Israel occupied after The Six Day War in 1967 and subsequently annexed, a move that remains internationally unrecognized.

Since Assad’s fall, Israel has sent troops across the border to create a buffer zone around the Golan Heights, while Mr. Netanyahu announced plans to double the presence of Israeli settlers on the part of the plateau it controls.

“Strengthening the Golan strengthens the state of Israel, and that is especially important at this time,” Netanyahu said. “We’re going to continue to hold onto it, make it flourish and settle into it.”

According to the Syrian Observatory, Israeli airstrikes have so far destroyed dozens of air bases, ammunition depots and other military installations, as well as sinking the Syrian navy.

Significant amounts of army hardware were also destroyed in the 13-day campaign that toppled Assad.

The road to Tartus, which guards the Alawite heartland and where the former president hoped to make a final stand, is littered with wrecked tanks, armored fighting vehicles and mobile rocket launchers.

HTS, formidable as an insurgent force, sought to model itself on the British Army and admired the way it used agility to compensate for its relatively small size.

While it spent years training and manufacturing its own missiles and drones, it certainly lacks much of the capability of a conventional state army.

The bulk of its fighters advanced on the capital Damascus, not in military vehicles, but in saloon cars embedded in mud that served as homemade camouflage.

And while it captured tanks, anti-aircraft systems and even aircraft from the Syrian armed forces along the way, analysts say HTS will struggle to incorporate these into regular use, limiting its capacity to fight a war with Israel even if it wanted to.

Neil Quilliam, a Middle East expert at Chatham House, an international affairs think tank, said: “HTS now operates a modest fleet of captured tanks and APCs (armored personnel carriers).

“However, maintenance and ammunition for these assets will pose a major challenge. While HTS has captured the regime’s air bases and aircraft, it lacks the expertise and infrastructure to operate fighter jets or helicopters.”

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