Massive Explosions as IDF Strikes Assad Military Assets in Syrian Coastal Region

Photo Credit: Moshe Shai/FLASH90

Bombs to be loaded onto Israel Air Force fighter jet F-15, at the Tel Nof base, January 1, 2024.

Israel conducted a wave of airstrikes in Syria overnight Sunday, with local media reporting that the attacks were so powerful that they triggered minor earthquakes.

Israeli fighter jets bombed military targets of the deposed dictator Bashar Assad in the port cities of Latakia and Tartus, according to the reports, with Russian media, citing Syrian sources, saying that the target of the attack in Tartus was an air-defense base and a surface-to-surface missile depot.

Massive explosion in northwestern Syria, following a targeted strike by the IDF on an ammunition storage facility.

Reports indicate the explosion registered as a 3.0-magnitude seismic event. pic.twitter.com/Srccxkklms

— Eli Kowaz – איליי קואז (@elikowaz) December 16, 2024

Tartus is home to a Russian naval base and a military shipyard.

Russian media also reported strikes on military positions in Hama and Homs during the night.

A small earthquake (3.0 on the Richter scale) was recorded in the Tartus area at 1:48 a.m. Damascus time, according to the VolcanoDiscovery website. The Geological Survey of Israel’s seismic network also recorded a 3.1 tremor off the Syrian coast at 11:49 p.m. local time.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor associated with the opposition that maintains a network of sources in the country, said that the strikes were the heaviest in Syria’s coastal region in more than a decade.