Israel Did Not Warn US Before Syria Air Base Strike, Envoy Says

Israel did not give the United States advance notice before striking an air base in northern Syria this week, according to the U.S. special envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack. The attack on Tuesday on the Abu Duhur base, located about 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of the Turkish border, caused damage but no casualties.

Barrack, who also serves as ambassador to Turkey, suggested the strike could have been Israel "baiting the Turks," calling that possibility "the serious and worrying part." He said Israel may have acted on intelligence that Turkey was planning to bolster its presence in the area, and that a field commander may have decided to prevent that without informing Washington or Ankara.

Another possible explanation, Barrack noted, was miscommunication between Israel's military and its intelligence agency. He warned that the incident brought Israel and NATO member Turkey close to direct confrontation, recalling that Turkey shot down a Russian jet over its Syrian frontier in 2015.

In the wake of the strike, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said the base was targeted because Syria was "on the verge of breaching" an agreement by allowing Turkish troops to deploy there. However, Barrack said the U.S. had concluded that Turkish military activity at the base was "not happening."

Two Syrian officials, speaking anonymously, said a Turkish delegation had visited the base a day before the strike to review reconstruction work. Turkey has been supporting Syria's rebuilding efforts, and the two countries signed a military cooperation agreement last year.

Turkey has not indicated it will respond militarily, but the incident has further strained already tense Turkish-Israeli relations. Israel has conducted hundreds of airstrikes in Syria since the fall of Bashar Assad's government in late 2024 and continues to occupy a buffer zone in the south.