Syrian state media said Israeli warplanes fired missiles on the port of the coastal city of Latakia early Tuesday causing large explosions and fires, the second alleged strike in a month on the key facility.
SANA, Syria’s state media, quoted an unnamed military official as saying that several missiles struck the container area in the port, setting some of them on fire. He said the strikes caused “massive material damage.”
The strikes came from the direction of the Mediterranean, he said.
The official said efforts were still underway to put out fires and assess the damage. There were no immediate reports of casualties from the attack, which activated Syrian air defenses, according to SANA.
Videos posted to social media showed huge explosions and fires raging across the port.
There was no comment from the Israel Defense Forces.
Moment of the Israeli strikes on Latakia port by Sham FM. Looks like weapon/ammunition shipment was targeted. pic.twitter.com/PZD844to6H
— TheCrimsonWorm (@PrtyOfNone) December 28, 2021
Syria’s state-run Al-Ikhbariyah TV ran footage showing flames and smoke rising from the terminal. It reported damage to residential buildings, a hospital, shops and some tourist sites near the port.
An Al-Ikhbariyah TV reporter in the area said Tuesday’s attack appeared to have been larger than the strike earlier this month and the explosions could be heard in Tartus, another coastal city more than 80 kilometers (nearly 50 miles) away. The reporter said ambulances were rushed to the scene but it remained unclear if there were any casualties.
Until earlier this month, strikes on the port of Latakia were highly irregular. The port is a vital facility where much of Syria’s imports are brought into the war-torn country and through which Iran reportedly brings in weapons to its militias in the country, including the Lebanese terrorist army Hezbollah.
Though Israel has regularly conducted raids against Iranian-linked targets in Syria, it rarely strikes close to Latakia, let alone inside the terminal, as the Russian military maintains a base of operations nearby. Due to its delicate relationship with Moscow, Israel typically refrains from carrying out attacks against targets if there are Russian troops nearby, though Israel believes that this well-known policy has led Iran to seek to protect its arms transfers by conducting them near Russian-controlled areas.
The previous time that Israel reportedly conducted a strike on a target in the city of Latakia — though not in the port — was in 2018, during which a Russian spy plane was accidentally shot down by Syrian air defenses, causing a major confrontation between Jerusalem and Moscow. Israel has also reportedly carried out raids against targets in the port city in 2014 and twice in 2013.
Israel has staged hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled Syria over the years but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations. Many of the strikes in the past had targeted the main airport in the capital Damascus, through which Iran is also believed to transfer advanced arms to its proxies.
Much of Latakia port cargo unloading area is ablaze, 3-4 targets hit per @AndrewBritani pic.twitter.com/7Id3fwGPTH
— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) December 28, 2021
Israel has acknowledged, however, that it targets the bases of Iran-allied terror groups, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah that has fighters deployed in Syria. It says it attacks arms shipments believed to be bound for the groups.
Hezbollah is fighting on the side of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces in the decade-old civil war.
Israel says Iranian presence on its northern frontier is a red line, justifying its strikes on facilities and weapons inside Syria.
Hours after Syrian media accused Israel of striking the port city of Latakia in early December, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett alluded to the incident, saying that the military was constantly fighting “bad forces” in the Middle East.
In this photo released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, flames rise from containers at the scene of a missile attack, at the port of the coastal city of Latakia, Syria, early Tuesday, Dec. 28, 2021. (SANA via AP)
“We’re pushing back on the bad forces of this region day and night,” he said in English alongside Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades. “We won’t stop for one second. This happens almost daily.”
“In the face of destructive forces we will continue to act, we will be persistent, and we will not tire,” Bennett pledged.
AP contributed to this report