The collapse of the Assad regime has been followed by pre-emptive military strikes from countries like Israel and the US who fear an Afghanistan-like situation. Over the weekend, Israel conducted airstrikes on military targets across Syria and deployed ground troops beyond a demilitarised buffer zone in the Golan Heights for the first time in 50 years.
At least 75 strikes were carried out since Saturday night targeting Syria’s strategic weapons stockpiles, aircraft and naval fleet since Saturday night, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Monday.
Israel has struck Syria more than 450 times since the collapse of the al-Assad regime a week ago.
Israeli strikes include one in Syria’s coastal Tartus region that has been termed as “the heaviest strikes” in the area in more than a decade. Around the same time, a 3.1-magnitude tremor was recorded off Syria’s coast by Israel’s seismology department. The earthquake, recorded late Sunday night, had a depth of 32 kilometres and an epicentre 28 kilometres off the coast of Banias. However, there is no confirmation that it was caused by the Israeli explosions.
On X, several independent researchers have speculated the bomb to be an “earthquake bomb” i.e big bombs used during world war II. Unlike a traditional bomb, which usually explodes at or near the surface, a seismic bomb or an earthquake bomb is dropped from higher altitude to attain very high speed as it falls and upon impact, penetrates and explodes deep underground, causing intense shockwaves.
On Thursday, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said the Air Force has succeeded in destroying an estimated 90 per cent of Syria’s strategically important surface-to-air missiles.
The IDF has also struck major production and storage sites, including a facility in the Homs region that was central to Syria’s Scud missile project, as per media reports.
SIGNS RUSSIA IS EVACUATING MILITARY ASSETS
Satellite images from Maxar Technologies show increased ground vehicles, the arrival of large transport aircraft, and the disassembly of Russian helicopters and air defences at the Khmeimim air base, suggesting forces preparing to depart at least partial evacuation of Russia’s military hardware and personnel from Syria.
Analysts from the US-based space technology company noted that a Ka-52 attack helicopter was “being dismantled and likely prepared for transport”. They also identified parts of an S-400 air defence unit “preparing to depart from its previous deployment site at the air base”.
On Monday, the Kremlin said that no final decisions had yet been taken on the fate of Russia’s military bases in Syria and that it was in contact with those in charge of the country. Syrian officials informed Reuters that Russia is pulling back its military from the front lines in northern Syria and from posts in the Alawite Mountains but is not leaving its two main bases after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad.
WHY ISRAEL CAPTURED SYRIA’S HIGHEST SUMMIT?
Israel wasted no time after Bashar al-Assad’s fall to capture Syria’s highest peak, the Mount Hermon summit, which may prove among its most prized possessions, as it entered a demilitarised zone in the Golan Heights, abutting Syrian-held territory.
The summit of Mount Hermon lies in a buffer zone that separated Israeli and Syrian forces for fifty years until last weekend, when Israeli troops took control of it. Until Sunday, the summit was demilitarized and patrolled by UN peacekeepers – their highest permanent position in the world.
Mount Hermon’s summit is a tremendous asset under Israel’s control. At 9,232 feet (2,814 meters), it is higher than any point in Syria or Israel, and second to only one peak in Lebanon.The peak is just over 35 kilometers (about 22 miles) from Damascus, which means that control of its Syrian foothills – also now in IDF hands – put the Syrian capital within range for artillery cannons.
Israel captured the Golan Heights, a strategic plateau in southwestern Syria that abuts Mount Hermon, in the 1967 war and has occupied it since. Syria attempted to retake the territory in a surprise attack in 1973, but failed, and Israel annexed it in 1981. The occupation is illegal under international law, but the United States recognized Israel’s claim on the Golan during the Trump administration.
The Israeli government on Sunday approved a plan to expand settlements on the occupied Golan Heights, saying it was acting “in light of the war and the new front facing Syria.