Israeli strikes destroy research center in Syria

Shafaq News/ Overnight Israeli strikes Israel destroyed a defense ministry research center in northern Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Tuesday.

The Britain-based war monitor said the strikes targeted the Barzeh scientific research center as well as naval vessels and military warehouses in and around the Latakia military port.

The attacks came just days after the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad’s government, which fell to opposition forces over the weekend following a rapid advance.

Western countries, including the United States, previously targeted the Barzeh facility in 2018, alleging its involvement in Syria’s chemical weapons program.

AFP reported that three buildings comprising the Barzeh research center had been destroyed, with fires still smoldering among the debris.

Documents were scattered across the site, some burned, as the acrid smell of explosives lingered in the air.

An employee who said he had worked at the center for 25 years claimed the destroyed facilities were civilian in nature. “The military centers were destroyed in the past, and the current research was civilian,” he said, requesting anonymity.

He also reported that a second scientific research center in Jamraya, near Damascus, was hit and “totally destroyed” in the same wave of strikes.

In Latakia, smoke rose from half-sunken naval vessels equipped with machine guns and rocket launchers, according to AFP journalists on the scene.

Ahmad Khabaze, a civilian port employee, said workers continued to report for duty despite the government’s collapse. “We are still here to maintain state facilities even after the regime fell,” he said.

The Observatory reported that Israel has conducted more than 300 strikes across Syria in recent days, claiming they targeted the country’s “most important military sites.”

Israel, which has conducted hundreds of strikes in Syria since the civil war began in 2011, said on Monday that its operations aimed to prevent “remaining chemical weapons or long-range missiles and rockets” from falling into the hands of extremist groups.