The authorities claim to have contained the flames after several hours of fire in the port
Syrian authorities have denounced on Tuesday that several Israeli warplanes have fired missiles at the port of the coastal city of Latakia, located in western Syria, an attack that they have attributed to the Israeli Army.
Military sources cited by the Syrian state news agency SANA have highlighted that the attack was carried out at around 3:20 am (local time) and added that it had caused a large fire and significant material damage to the facilities.
The commander of the Latakia Fire Brigade, Muhamad Yaafar, has said that a nearby hospital, several buildings and shops adjacent to the port have been damaged, noting that there are flammable materials in the port’s containers, such as oils, wheels and vehicles.
The governor of the province of Latakia, Amer Ismail Hilal, announced hours after that the fire teams have managed to contain the fire in the port and have started the cooling and supervision works.
Thus, he highlighted that the fire brigades and civil defense teams have made a “great effort” to deal with the fire and added that they have had the support of vehicles from the Latakia City Council to contain the flames.
The governor has stressed that these teams will remain in place to inspect the burned areas and complete the work to extinguish the fire, without providing a balance of victims due to the bombing for now.
For its part, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has indicated on its website that the air attack has reached places where there were weapons and explosives in the port of the city, without informing about possible victims of the bombing.
The agency, based in London and with informants in the Arab country, has stressed that the bombing has caused serious material damage in the port and several tourist buildings in the surroundings, while warning of the possibility of secondary explosions of the stored ammunition in the place.
On December 7, the Israeli Army carried out another missile attack on the port, a vital facility where much of Syria’s imports are managed. The Observatory indicated that the objective was an arms shipment to pro-Iranian militias.
The Israeli Army, which has not yet ruled on what happened, has carried out dozens of bombings in Syria, arguing that they are acting to prevent the establishment of Iranian bases in the country and the shipment of weapons to the Lebanese Shiite militia-party. Hezbollah by the Iranian authorities, who support Damascus in the context of the war that broke out in 2011.
