On the morning of Aug. 18, Israeli fighter jets bombed the Abu al-Duhur Air Base in the countryside of Idlib, Syria. The base had been inactive for years, and the main targets were the runways. In other words, this was not a strike against a target of significant military value. It was a message. And the intended recipient was not Damascus, but Ankara.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office justified the attack by claiming that Syria was preparing to allow Turkish troops to deploy at the base. Both Damascus and Ankara stated that there were no Turkish soldiers at the site.
The real significance of the incident emerged through the remarks of Tom Barrack, the U.S. Ambassador to Ankara and Special Envoy for Syria. According to Barrack, Israel informed Washington approximately six days before the strike that there might be Turkish military activity at the base. The United States investigated the matter through its own intelligence agencies and told Israel that there was no such activity.
Despite this, the strike went ahead.
What is even more striking is Barrack’s account that Israel deliberately withheld operational information from the American side, fearing that Washington might warn Ankara. Türkiye was not informed either. Israeli aircraft approached within approximately 80 kilometers (50 miles) of the Turkish border. As Barrack put it, the real problem was that Türkiye did not know the operation was coming. Since Turkish forces were unaware of Israel’s intentions, they could have scrambled their own fighter jets.
