Israel strikes Syrian coastal site near Baniyas suspected of links to Iran

The port city of Baniyas is seen as a main delivery point for Iranian weapons

Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies shows the Baniyas power plant on Syria's Mediterranean coast in August 2021. AFP

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Israel has been suspected of launching an air attack on the coastal Syrian city of Baniyas, the Syrian state news agency said on Tuesday. This is the latest strike on targets thought to be linked to Iran.

The Israeli air force has intensified a more than decade-long campaign against military bases and storage facilities in Syria overseen by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps since the Gaza war started in October.

One such strike in April on Damascus, which killed most of the IRGC senior command in Syria, almost brought Israel and Iran to direct war, with Tehran launching several hundred missiles and drones at Israel.

In the latest attack over Syria, the state-linked Sana news outlet said air defence systems intercepted and shot down some of the missiles, which were launched just past midnight from the sea. A fire broke out after the strikes.

It was aimed at “one of the points in the vicinity of the city of Baniyas, resulting in some material losses”, the agency said, citing a military official.

Several Baniyas residents identified the area of the attack as Arab Al Mulk bay, five kilometres north of the city, according to their Facebook pages.

Baniyas, which borders the Alawite Mountains, heartland of President Bashar Al Assad's minority sect, is home to a critical oil refinery, which provides much of Syria's fuel demand. Iranian tankers often dock at its port and a number of them have suffered suspected Israeli attacks in recent years.

The city's 105,000 population has a large proportion of Sunnis, who formed the core of the 2011 Syrian revolt. Mass demonstrations calling for the downfall of the regime broke out in Baniyas that year, but the authorities swiftly used force to crush the protest movement in Baniyas and other urban centres across Syria.

A reconnaissance specialist in the Syrian opposition said he believes an Iranian air defence system, equipped with electronic jamming capabilities, was installed in Baniyas this year and was the target of the latest Israeli attack.

He told The National that Iran has been setting up similar systems in Syria after a visit by Mr Assad to Tehran in late may to offer condolences for the death of president Ebrahim Raisi.

“Ironing out issues related to increasing Iranian defence capabilities in Syria seems to have been discussed on the visit,” the opposition member said.

The port is also thought by military analysts to be one of the main weapons supply points in Syria. In 2017, Israeli security firm ImageSat International released satellite imagery it said showed ballistic missile production close to the port.

The images were strikingly similar to ballistic missile production sites previously identified in Iran.

Israel has not confirmed the strike and rarely comments on operations, but it has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in Syria.

Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on sites in Syria since 2012. The targets have mainly been Iran-backed forces, including militants from Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iraqi militias, as well as Syrian army air defence sites.

In May, a Syrian officer was killed in a car bomb in Damascus. A relative and other sources told The National that he served in electronic warfare, in an army department linked to Iran and North Korea.

Iran has been a crucial ally of the ruling elite in Damascus, providing elite IRGC commanders and proxy militias who have acted as a main ground component on the side of the regime in the Syrian civil war.

Russia also intervened on the side of the regime, after loyalist forces suffered major losses in 2015.