Israel Moves to Protect Itself From Turkish Aggression

I assume that the attack on Abu Al Duhur airbase had two objectives. First, to destroy the main runway, which for some time will put the airbase out of commission. This means the Turks will not be able to fly in men and weapons. Second, to destroy radar and other air defense systems that the Turks have stored at the base, and which they could use to monitor Israeli aircraft flying in Syrian air space. This is the same reason why earlier the Israelis struck the Syrian base T4.

Israel is determined to prevent Turkey from deploying its troops at Syria’s Abu Al Duhur base: “Strikes on Syrian air base sharpen Israel-Turkey rivalry over Syria,” by Alex Schloss, i24News, August 18, 2026:

Another inspection of T4 and Palmyra was scheduled for March 25, 2025, but never happened. Israeli aircraft struck both bases just hours before the Turkish delegation was due to arrive. Israel publicly acknowledged those strikes and later struck T4 again in early attempts to reconstruct its military after Assad’s fall. Israel launched hundreds of strikes after his government collapsed in December 2024, destroying aircraft, missiles, naval assets, air defense systems and other strategic weapons it feared could fall into hostile hands….

The IDF was right to make maximum use of that time, when the old regime had fallen and the new regime not yet taken full control of the arms left from Assad’s military, to destroy as much of Syria’s weaponry as possible. And it is clear that, unlike the gullible Americans, the Israelis are convinced of Syria’s malevolent intentions, and just as important, of Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s threat to Israel. Erdogan, after all, has in the recent past proposed the establishment of a pan-Islamic military force that would be strong enough to take on Israel, leaving no doubt that he thought Turkey would head such an army.

Fırat argues that a functioning Syrian state would ultimately benefit the wider region.

“If the Syrians can get together and build a state again, a viable state that runs, that has a viable economy. It’s not going to be detrimental to anybody, including Israel.”…

This is nonsense. Sunni jihadists run the regime in Damascus, including veterans of HTS and Al-Nusra. If they are not making war on Israel today, it is for only one reason: they can’t. Israel has a stake not in Syria rebuilding its state, but in remaining fractured and weak. The Israelis destroyed so much of their military equipment in the months following the downfall of Assad’s regime that it will take a long time before the Syrian military is in any position to threaten Israel. But after October 7, 2023, the IDF decided It would no longer wait to respond to attacks. Instead, it would pre-empt them, in order to make such attacks impossible. Long before a real threat is posed, the IDF policy is to attack to prevent it from developing. And in Syria, that threat is from Turkey.

“What needs to be done is to make sure that we go back to talking, we go back to diplomacy, we go back to actually seeing eye to eye on certain things,” Fırat said, before adding: “If you want to have another country like Turkey on your warpath, go ahead. I don’t recommend it at all.”

But Turkey is already “on the warpath” against Israel. Keeping it from using the Syrian airbase at Al-Duhur makes perfect sense for the IDF. Where next will Turkey try to establish a forward operating base inside Syria, and how long do you think it will take for the IDF to blast that base to smithereens?