DAMASCUS (Dispatches) – An air attack by the Zionist regime on Aleppo airport in Syria’s north has damaged the runway and taken it out of service, the Syrian state media said quoting a military source in the wake of the second reported attack on the airport in less than a week.
The occupying regime’s missile attack was launched from the Mediterranean Sea, west of the coastal city of Latakia, at 8:16pm local time (17:16 GMT), the SANA news agency said.
Syrian air defenses intercepted the Zionist regime’s missiles, downing several of them, the SANA said.
It made no mention of casualties but only reported “material damage”.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, said on Wednesday that three people had been killed in the attack, and that the target was allegedly a warehouse in the airport.
The transport ministry said all flights will be diverted to the capital, Damascus. The private airliner Cham Wings said in a statement that it is diverting all its flights from Aleppo to the international airport of Damascus. It added that passengers will be shuttled by buses for free between the two cities.
Al Jazeera could not independently verify the claims of the attacks, but the Zionist regime has carried out hundreds of attacks inside Syria since 2011.
The Aleppo airport suffered material damage in the regime’s missile attacks on August 31, according to the Syrian state media.
Last week’s strike tore a hole in the runway and also damaged a structure close to the military side of the airfield.
Syria’s foreign minister last week said the attack “completely destroyed the navigation station with its equipment”.