Israel strikes an air base in Syria to prevent Turkish troops from deploying

NPR ^ | August 19, 2026

[Red Badger]

DAMASCUS, Syria — Israel struck an air base in northwest Syria early Tuesday, saying it aimed to prevent Turkish troops from deploying there.

Turkey, which has close ties with the Syrian government and has been providing assistance to Syria's military, has tense relations with Israel. The rival countries have sought to curb each other's influence in neighboring Syria.

Eight strikes hit the runway of the Abu Duhur air base in the northwestern province of Idlib, causing damage but no casualties, state TV said. Syria's Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shibani told reporters in Damascus that Syria condemns the "Israeli aggression," adding that the strikes were "an unjustified provocation, a violation of Syria's sovereignty, and a direct threat to regional and global stability."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement that Israel had attacked the base because Syria had been "on the verge of breaching" an agreed-upon "status quo in security matters" by allowing Turkish troops to deploy there.

"Israel repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel's security. Syria chose to ignore these warnings," the statement said.

The Foreign Ministry of Turkey condemned the attack in a statement and called for "the international community to take a more decisive stance to end Israel's escalating aggression against Syria and to ensure accountability for these actions that disregard international law."

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said foreign fighters used to stay at the base before they were recently asked to leave. The Observatory added that Turkey, which is a main backer of Syria's government, has been rehabilitating the air base that had been out of service for years during Syria's conflict that left nearly half a million people dead.

Tom Barrack, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria, posted on X that Washington is "deeply concerned that the confirmed Israeli airstrikes" on the Abu Duhur air base constitute "an unnecessary escalation that does not advance regional stability."

The government of Syria's Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has neither "adopted a predatory posture nor maintained proxy forces" but has repeatedly indicated a preference for de-escalation with Israel, Barrack said.

The United States has in the past hosted, and will continue in the future to host, discussions to encourage diplomacy, Barrack added.

Regional countries including Qatar, Egypt and Saudi Arabia also issued statements condemning the strikes.

Since the fall of Bashar Assad's government in December 2024 when insurgents marched into his seat of power in Damascus, tensions between Israel and Turkey over Syria have been on the rise.

Israel carried out hundreds of airstrikes around Syria after Assad's fall, mainly destroying assets of the Syrian army to keep them out of the hands of his successors. The Israeli military also seized control of a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone in southern Syria, which it continues to occupy.

Israeli drone strikes on a southern suburb of Damascus last year killed eight soldiers and wounded others.

The new authorities in Damascus have said they do not want a conflict with Israel, but Israel has remained suspicious of the government led by former Islamist insurgents.

U.S.-mediated talks between Israel and Syria aimed at reaching a security agreement have been ongoing for more than a year but have so far failed to produce a deal.

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TOPICS: Israel; Syria; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: greaterisrael; turkey; worldwareleven

[ClearCase_guy]

I’m not passing judgement on anyone in any way. But I think we are in an interesting period now where a lot of countries (Iran, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Turkey, Israel, USA, etc) are attacking and being attacked outside of anything like a declared war. I put Ukraine and Russia in a whole different category — that’s an actual war. But these other countries are just periodically sending or receiving bombs and missiles and it’s barely “a thing”. Quite an interesting time right now.

[Tell It Right]

Sick man of Europe.

[Red Badger]

Ezekiel 38 is starting to come into focus..............

[Gunslingr3]

"Israel repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would pose a threat to Israel's security. Syria chose to ignore these warnings," the statement said.

Israel attacked Syria, not in response to having been attacked itself, but in order to thwart Syria’s military cooperation with a NATO member.

Israel’s stated justification is merely that they don’t want Syria to change the status quo.

How does that differ in principle from Putin’s attack on Ukraine for its repeated desire and intent to become a NATO member?

[Leaning Right]

> Sick man of Europe. <

At one time, for sure. But today their military is rated among the best in the world. That was a good thing back when Turkey was more secular, and was a NATO counterbalance to the USSR.

But now, it’s just another thing for Israel to worry about.

https://www.militarypowerrankings.com/military-power/turkey

[Jan_Sobieski]

Turkish deployment to Syria is seen as an existential threat by Israel, as NATO deployment to Ukraine is seen as existential by Russia

[Netz]

Turkey still thinks they are an empire in the making once again. They forgot about WWI and 1918 and Atatürk.

Instead Turkey is ruled by a Islamic Brotherhood nut job who wants to conquer the entire region as in up to 1918.
Turkey must not be allowed to threaten Israel and Israel sent a message regarding Turkish intervention in Syria.

[Pontiac]

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said in a statement that Israel had attacked the base because Syria had been "on the verge of breaching" an agreed-upon "status quo in security matters" by allowing Turkish troops to deploy there.

Netanyahu is working really hard to expand this war to the entire Middle East.

He wants the United States to give him control of the area.

He will expand the war and we will be forced to assist him in the war.

We need to get out of this war before we are dragged in to war poverty.

And there will be blowback eventually. We will suffer a major act of terrorism due to our involvement in this war.

[RetiredArmy]

Amen. It is forming. Ezekiel named the countries coming against Israel in that ultimate war, and those nations are forming.

[fruser1]

The difference is that Islamists do actually want to eliminate Israel.

Ukraine allying w/NATO would be defensive because everyone knows Russia is the aggressor and the majority of eastern European countries did not want to be under a soviet-style yoke again.

But propagandists like you keeping spewing the easily refutable moral-equivalence falsehood that NATO and Israel are aggressors for defending themselves.

[fruser1]

We will suffer a major act of terrorism

No, that'll happen if Israel and the US stop fighting Islamists.

I guess you'd like to de-fund the police in order to stop crime.

[allendale]

The mullah regime in Iran owes its survival to Turkey. The regime was badly tottering after the first two weeks of the intense bombing by Israel and the US. At that time the Kurds of Western Iran were prepared to lead an armed rebellion against the mullahs. They would have been joined by the Iranian urban persecuted opponents of the regime and logistically and militarily by Israel. The Turks realized that if successful the Kurds would have established an automonous Kurdistan out of Western Iran. Turkey views a Kurdistan as an existential threat to itnation. They threatened to enter the war overtly. Trump made a huge strategic mistake. He in view of this Turkish threat, prevented the Kurds from attacking, the mullah regime survived, stabilized and now can only be defeated with a hard ,bloody war involving American troops.

[Texas Fossil]

NPR normally sucks.

You might want to look at these:

Israel confirms strikes on Syria's Idlib airbase after US envoy condemns attack (Aug 19, 2026)

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-905862

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Turkey slams Israel's ‘untenable’ claims after strikes on Syrian base (Aug 19, 2026)

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-905987

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‘Armed to the teeth’: Syria buildup, Ankara involvement necessitated Israeli strikes - experts say (Aug 19, 2026)

https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-906009

[allendale]

If Turkey tries to deploy combat formations within Syria, they will be without air cover. When necessary Israel will slaughter huge numbers of these Turks if they threaten Israeli security directly or indirectly.

[MeanWestTexan]

Please. Turkey is a NATO member by accident of history.

It’s now a dictatorship with a wanna-be-Sultan of an Islamofacist state in charge.

[Wallace T.]

Turkey is a NATO member and controls the Straits of Bosphorus. Pushing Turkey into a military alliance with Iran, and by extension Russia and China, as well as Pakistan, would be disastrous for both Israel and the United States. It was wise to refuse Kurdish help against the mullahs, as the Kurds have claims to territory held by Turkey, as well as Iran. Honestly, Turkey created grudges dating back a century or more held by the Armenians, Greeks, and Kurds. Under Ataturk, a secular nationalist, Greek Christians were ethnically cleansed out of western Turkey. A few years earlier, the Turks committed genocide against the Armenians, so horrible that the Nazis used what the Turks did as a blueprint for their plans against the Jews 25 years later.

The Muslim extremists in Iran have received much assistance from Moscow and Beijing. China's crude oil and natural gas supply have not been impeded by either the Americans or the Iranians. Behind the crazy men in Tehran are Xi and Putin, who see the Iranian war as a way to knock the United States down a peg or two.

Israeli and American options are limited at this point. Netanyahu needs to take a back seat and let the U.S. Navy blockade of the Persian Gulf degrade the Iranian economy. He will have his hands full dealing with the Muslim terror gangs in Gaza and south Lebanon. Trump's strategy will take more time but is less risky to American lives and resources than a land invasion.

[MrBambaLaMamba]

Genocide!!!

[tlozo]

Turkish deployment to Syria is seen as an existential threat by Israel, as NATO deployment to Ukraine is seen as existential by Russia

So did Israel invade and annex Syrian land like in the Russian invasion of Ukraine?

Another major difference is that Ukraine disarmed before the Russian invasion. Ukraine handed over all nukes, long range missiles and bombers to Russia only to have the bombers and missiles used to attack Ukraine's civilians.

[af_vet_1981]

Thanks for posting it.

From Amir Tsarfati news feed:

IAEA VERIFIES TONS OF UNDECLARED NUCLEAR MATERIAL IN SYRIA

IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi says inspectors are verifying “a few tons of nuclear material that could be put to bad use” at a previously undeclared site dating to the Assad era.The material was disclosed to the IAEA by Syria’s new government and will now be accounted for and placed under international safeguards.The concern is not merely the existence of the material, but the danger of diversion, misuse, or loss of control over nuclear material that had remained outside international safeguards.Grossi also visited the Deir Ezzor site, where Israel destroyed a suspected nuclear reactor in 2007. He said new excavation work “validates the longstanding evaluation of the IAEA that a nuclear facility was being built in secrecy.”The Assad regime’s clandestine nuclear activities are now being uncovered piece by piece.

t.me
6h