Massive explosions fill skies over Syria as 'Israeli air strikes' hit

'Colossal' explosions have filled the skies in Syria as Israeli strikes are said to have targeted military sites in the 'the heaviest strikes' in the area for more than a decade - with blasts which registered on earthquake sensors.

A war monitor group said that Israeli strikes had targeted military sites in Syria's coastal Tartus region.

'Israeli warplanes launched strikes' targeting a series of sites including air defence units and 'surface-to-surface missile depots', said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in what it said were 'the heaviest strikes in Syria's coastal region since the start of strikes in 2012'.

It has been claimed that the explosion was so large, it measured as a magnitude 3.0 on seismic sensors.

Tartus has been the location of one of Russia's two military bases in Syria and was used as a naval base, as well as an ammunition depot.

The huge explosion, as well as secondary explosions, may indicate the presence of a large volume of stored armaments. 

Dramatic videos circulating on social media showed a huge bright flash followed by several explosions which sent an enormous mushroom cloud of smoke into the air. 

Russia's foreign ministry earlier today said it had evacuated some of its diplomatic staff from Syria, a week after the fall of the nation's dictator Bashar al-Assad.

According to researcher Richard Cordaro the blast was detected by a magnetometer station 820km away in Isnik in western Turkiye. 

He added that the signal had travelled about 'as twice as fast' as that of a typical earthquake.

A naval military base was first established by the Soviet Union in Tartus in 1971. 

Until 2017 the facility was classed as a 'Material-Technical Support Point' rather than a base, and is Russia's only entrance point to the Mediterranean.

The centre was used for the delivery of armaments and supplies as Russia intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2015.

Putin ordered the base's expansion in 2017, after Assad gave a 49-year lease on the facility free-of-charge in exchange for helping keep him in power. 

Russia also operated a base at Hmeimim in 2015, repurposing an existing civilian airport near the port city of Latakia.

The facility believed to be well protected, with security perimeters and air defences that have a range of up to 250 kilometres (155 miles), according to Russian state media.

While the Russian army doesn't publish deployment numbers, analysts believe the number of soldiers stationed there significantly decreased following Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

On Wednesday, a Kremlin spokesperson had said Moscow was in contact with the new authorities in Syria regarding their bases' future.  

The air strikes now raise more questions about the future of the Russian assets in the country, including the Hmeimim military airfield.

Following an 11-day offensive, a rebel coalition dominated by Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) overthrew Al-Assad, who fled to Russia along with his family.

Russia was one of al-Assad's main backers throughout 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.

The former president had to be persuaded by Russian intelligence that he would lose the fight and to leave the country as opposition forces marched on Damascus.

Well-placed sources told Bloomberg yesterday that talks were already underway to ensure Russian forces could remain at the naval port in Tartus - Russia's only Mediterranean port.

Satellite imagery taken earlier this week nonetheless 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 pictured in the port last week but had left by Monday.

It comes after the US held direct talks with rebel forces and insisted the incoming government must destroy the country's chemical weapons.

Alongside its campaign in Syria, Israel staged fresh attacks on Lebanon, while a mother and her five-year-old daughter were among the dead after a municipal meeting in central Gaza was apparently targeted. The IDF said the air strike killed a key Hamas member. 

Naim Qassem, the head of the Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group, urged the new Syrian regime not to normalise relations with Israel, adding that the Lebanese armed group had lost its supply route through Syria.

Earlier last week, Geir Pedersen, the United Nations' special envoy for Syria, said that Israeli airstrikes in Syria were a 'very troubling development' and needed to stop.