Flights Resume At Damascus International Airport In First Since Assad’s Ouster

The first international commercial flight since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad at the hands of al-Qaeda faction Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) arrived Tuesday at Damascus international airport.

The Qatar Airways flight landed with much anticipation, opening up a much needed travel link to the Gulf states, after most commercial carriers had abandoned Syria over the last couple years of security uncertainty and extreme economic hardship brought on by US-led sanctions. 

Most passengers on the plane were described as Syrian nationals who had long been outside their homeland, working in the Arab Gulf countries, where there is much more opportunity for professional employment.

Pre-war Syria, prior to 2011, had daily flights directly from European capitals. For example British Airways frequently flew to Damascus, but after the war began British Airways and others only flew in and out of nearby Beirut.

NPR (being NPR)… decided to use the opportunity of Damascus airport opening back up for propaganda purposes:

Ashad al-Suleibi, head of Syria’s Air Transport Authority, said Qatar had provided assistance in rehabilitating the airport, which had suffered from years of neglect as well as sustaining damages from periodic Israeli airstrikes.

“Honestly, there was a lot of damage from the (Assad) regime to this lively area and this lively airport and also the Aleppo airport,” he said.

This is utterly false. As is alluded to only remotely in the above, constant Israeli airstrikes on the airport going back years is what kept it out of commission. 

Why would Assad attack or ‘damage’ his own airport which was vital to his government’s economic survival and that of its population?

From the opening years of the war it was none other than the US/Gulf-backed ‘rebels’ which launched attacks on the civilian airport. There’s even a smoking-gun NSA document to prove it, via a 2017 article in The Intercept:

A loosely knit collection of Syrian rebel fighters set up positions on March 18, 2013, and fired several barrages of rockets at targets in the heart of Damascus, Bashar al-Assad’s capital. The attack was a brazen show of force by rebels under the banner of the Free Syrian Army, targeting the presidential palace, Damascus International Airport, and a government security compound. It sent a chilling message to the regime about its increasingly shaky hold on the country, two years after an uprising against its rule began.

Behind the attacks, the influence of a foreign power loomed. According to a top-secret National Security Agency document provided by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the March 2013 rocket attacks were directly ordered by a member of the Saudi royal family, Prince Salman bin Sultan, to help mark the second anniversary of the Syrian revolution. Salman had provided 120 tons of explosives and other weaponry to opposition forces, giving them instructions to “light up Damascus” and “flatten” the airport, the document, produced by U.S. government surveillance on Syrian opposition factions, shows.

NSA doc shows Syrian opposition was Saudi proxy. Prince ordered it to “light up Damascus” and “flatten” airport in 2013. Was “very pleased” pic.twitter.com/MNLRueNIiC

— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) October 24, 2017

Meanwhile, Aleppo airport in the north was the first to be taken over by Jolani’s HTS and allied jihadist factions in the events leading up to Assad’s ouster on December 8.

Jihadist control of key national infrastructure helped in the offensive on Damascus, which was largely bloodless, given the Syrian Army essentially folded soon after the militants entered Homs.