A Syrian bunker complex outside the port of Tartus was ablaze and rocked by an explosion just hours after what a war monitor and locals said was an intense wave of Israeli air strikes.
Even after the strikes ended, blasts continued to erupt in a valley outside the village of Bmalkah, a Christian community in the hills behind the city, which is home to Russia’s naval base in Syria.
Israeli planes launched “the heaviest strikes in Syria’s coastal region since the start of strikes in 2012” overnight, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Coming just over a week after Bashar al-Assad’s regime was ousted in a lightning rebel offensive, the raids targeted strategic sites and air defenses along Syria’s western coast
The hillsides around Bmalkah and the base, a cluster of concrete buildings and arched concrete bunker entrances cut into the hillside to protect stockpiled munitions, were littered with shrapnel.
Missile launch tubes, mortar shells, and damaged munitions were scattered on the ground and plumes of smoke rose from the terraced sides of the valley as parts of the arsenal continued to detonate.
