Israel Strikes Syria Base as Turkey-US Tensions Rise
· World · Al Jazeera, New York Times
Israeli fighter jets attacked the Abu al-Duhur airbase in northwestern Syria on Tuesday, a strike the Israeli government said was based on intelligence of Turkish military movement to the site. US Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy for Syria Tom Barrack said the United States received the same intelligence from Israel six days before the attack, but US intelligence found no basis for the claim. Ankara condemned the strike but refrained from escalating, framing the dispute between Israel and the US, and between Israel and broader regional and international consensus. The attack broke with a normal deconfliction mechanism between Turkey and Israel, as Israel warned neither Turkey nor the US beforehand. The incident signals a regional reordering in which Israel is no longer central, and escalation appears intended to support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's electoral campaign ahead of the Israeli election. Direct intervention by US President Donald Trump would be needed to rein in
Why it matters
The strike inflames Israel-Syria-Turkey tensions just ahead of Israel's election and raises the risk of broader regional escalation, with Turkey and the US publicly disagreeing over the intelligence that justified the attack.
Read the original report — Al Jazeera
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