A series of explosions of unknown origin rang out Friday morning near Taftanaz military airfield in Syria’s Idlib province. According to eyewitnesses, the first blasts were heard at around 8 a.m., and leftover wartime munitions most likely detonated. Footage circulated by “Syria Now” shows thick columns of smoke rising above the airfield; a correspondent reported that the explosions continued for approximately an hour and a half.
Taftanaz was Syria’s second-largest helicopter airfield. However, fighting took place there during the Syrian conflict, and the facility came under the control of opposition groups. Later, following the de-escalation agreement concluded in March 2020 by Turkish and Russian presidents Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Vladimir Putin, the airfield was converted into a Turkish observation post.
The latest explosions are not the first such incident in northwestern Syria: an entire series of detonations occurred there in September. The most recent took place at a military facility near the village of Al-Is in the southern part of Aleppo province. In addition, on September 9, a temporary weapons and military-waste depot exploded in Sarmada, in the Idlib countryside, killing 14 members of the Ministry of Defense and injuring several others. Meanwhile, five people were killed in Binnish at the beginning of the same month when a vehicle carrying munitions exploded.
Full version: انفجارات تهز مطار تفتناز العسكري بريف إدلب