Israel drops ‘earthquake bomb’: Colossal explosion ‘so big it registered on the Richter scale’ hits Syrian coast as air strikes target weapons depots after fall of Assad regime
‘Colossal’ explosions have filled Syria’s airspace, while Israeli strikes are said to have hit military sites in the area’s ‘heaviest attacks’ for more than a decade – with blasts recorded by earthquake sensors.
A war monitoring group said Israeli strikes had targeted military sites in Syria’s coastal region of Tartus.
“Israeli warplanes launched attacks” on a range of locations, including air defense units and “surface-to-surface missile depots,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, in what it said were “the heaviest attacks in Syria’s coastal region since its inception.” of the 2012 strikes’.
It is claimed that the explosion was so large that it registered a magnitude of 3.0 on seismic sensors.
Tartus was the site of one of two Russian military bases in Syria and was used as a naval base and ammunition depot.
The Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier today that it has evacuated part of its diplomatic staff from Syria, a week after the fall of Russian dictator Bashar al-Assad.
On Wednesday, a Kremlin spokesman said Moscow was in contact with the new authorities in Syria about the future of their bases.
The airstrikes now raise more questions about the future of Russian assets in the country, including the Hmeimim military airport.
Social media posts on Twitter show what are believed to be Israeli airstrikes near Tartus in northwestern Syria
It is believed that the massive explosions show Israeli attacks on Tartus on the Syrian coast
Tartus was the site of a huge Russian naval base and ammunition depot in Syria
The massive explosion sent a large cloud of smoke into the sky and reportedly set off seismometers
After an 11-day offensive, a rebel coalition dominated by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrew Al-Assad, who fled to Russia with his family.
Russia was one of al-Assad’s main backers during the Syrian civil war, providing troops and vital air support from 2015 to push back advancing rebels and shore up support for the Ba’athist dictator.
Well-placed sources told Bloomberg yesterday that talks were already underway to ensure Russian troops could remain in the naval port of Tartus – the only Russian port on the Mediterranean.
Satellite images taken earlier this week nevertheless showed that Russia has, at least for now, abandoned its naval base in Tartus since the fall of Damascus on December 8.
Five warships were photographed in port last week but had left on Monday.