Numerous videos have been circulating since November 27, highlighting the retreat of Bashar al-Assad’s forces against the rebels of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Syrian factions including the Syrian National Army (SNA). Around Aleppo, two air bases were taken and HTS elements filmed themselves taking over a palace believed to belong to the Syrian president. A battle of images and press releases between former rivals and enemies who have become allies of circumstance.
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The images are reminiscent of those seen at the start of the Syrian revolution in 2011. Syrian opposition factions tearing down statues or taking down portraits of Bashar el-Assad. In the wake of the lightning offensive of the Syrian moderate Islamist movement HTSother elements such as the Syrian National Army (SNA) supported by neighboring Turkey also took action. These Syrian activists, not always well identified, filmed themselves on December 3 on two pro-regime air bases, falling within a few hours of each other. The Kuweires Air Academy in eastern Aleppo and a former Mig-23 fighter base in Nayrab located southwest of the city.
We were able to geolocate certain videos which were widely distributed on social networks. Some images clearly bear the green, white and black logo of the “Syrian National Army” faction, as in the photographs of the devastated entrance to the Kuweires base and the still-standing portrait of Bashar el-Assad.
If we compare the satellite photos taken in recent years, we see that the base has suffered damage and that its air activity has been greatly reduced since the start of the civil war in 2011. Historically, this base was used to accommodate cadets of the Syrian army air academy. Some devices have survived. These are L-39 training aircraft used on the front by Damascus forces.
Bomb stock
In one of the videos, a plane can be seen parked in a hardened shelter. A militiaman briskly visits the hangar where dozens of aviation bombs and crates of rockets are stored. This material, renowned for its solidity, seems to be in rather good condition and could a priori be reused by the belligerents to manufacture, for example, artisanal mines.
The plane located nearby is externally very worn, but the fact that it is protected, equipped with its ejection seats and that its tires and shock absorbers are inflated suggests an aircraft still having some potential for use. However, the photographs do not allow us to know the state of the reactor located in the fuselage.
Damascus Air Force Sites
On the rest of the base, we mainly find wrecks. If we only consider the “spoils of war”, the capture of this site is more symbolic than anything else. Note, however, that the landing strip still appears usable. It might be useful in the future. On the networks, contributors wonder: the Syrian factions “ do they have deserters from the old regime capable of making them fly again? » ?
On the basis of Nayrab, it’s a bit the same setting. Old Mig-23s were stored in a corner of the parking lot. The helicopters have disappeared, apart from one machine whose tail boom (the rear part) was severed. On the networks, some accounts claim that this Mi-8 was destroyed by an HTS suicide drone. It may as well have been sabotaged by soldiers loyal to the regime to prevent its use. A bit like in Kuweires, there are many L-39s in poor condition. A curiosity however. Among these alignments of Syrian planes, we can see a handful of machines in Libyan colors!
On the networks, we suspect Marshal Haftar’s men of having sent these machines to Syria so that they could undergo a total overhaul in order to resume the fight later in Libya. So these machines remained there, waiting for spare parts, stuck between the civil, Syrian and Libyan wars… On the base, the militiamen also found some examples of tanks and anti-aircraft guns in front of which they paraded.
Syrian-Turkish rivalries
Beyond the inventory, the material which could be of interest to one or other of the armed movements, tensions seem to appear between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and theSyrian National Army supported by Turkey. This Tuesday, a press release from the SNA was outraged at the accusations made against it by its former enemy HTS, which denounced looting in areas taken by these Syrian activists. On the networks, we can read that “the moderate Islamists of HTS would demand “to regain control of the Kuweiris military base. »
This Turkish journalist discusses the growing tensions between two Syrian rebel movements which have clashed multiple times in the past.