The Syrian Air Force Today

Order of Battle

The SyAAF’s doctrinal order of battle offers a comprehensive overview of the structure and composition of Syria’s remaining active air bases, as well as the evolving makeup of air force divisions, brigades and squadrons over the course of the war. Reconstructing the SyAAF in its current form is essential not only for mitigating its destruction going forward, but also for holding the institution accountable for past crimes. The order of battle provides a useful reference for retracing the functions and positioning of the Syrian air force – and paints a clear picture of its remaining capabilities.

Over the course of the conflict, the SyAAF lost six of its 17 air bases to insurgents: Taftanaz in January 2013, Jirah in February 2013, Al-Qusayr and Abu ad-Duhur in April 2013, Mennegh in August 2013, and Tabqa in August 2014. These blows, in addition to heavy losses of airframes and pilots, forced the SyAAF to consolidate its existing fleet in a few key locations. While 12 air bases have remained operational throughout the war, most offensive operations have been conducted from a small number of geographically secure bases (mainly Shayrat, Dumayr, Tiyas, Hama, and Blay air bases). The SyAAF also set up eight known forward-operating bases and heliports throughout the country. In addition, seven air bases in Syria have been known to house chemical weapons: Shayrat, Sayqal, Blay, Khalkhalah, Al-Nasiriyah, Tha’lah, and Al-Qusayr air bases.

The SyAAF’s principal maintenance and overhaul facility is based at Aleppo International Airport, and is commonly referred to as the “Factory” or the “Works”. Other large overhaul shops can be found at air bases in Dumayr, Hama and Kweires. In addition, maintenance facilities are present at Sayqal, Khalkhalah, Shayrat, Tiyas, Blay, and Aqraba air bases (although the facility at Aqraba is only semi-operational).

Based on our interviews with former pilots and officers, we estimate that the SyAAF possessed 535 airframes at the beginning of the war in 2011. We included in this calculation six fix-wing airframe types and two rotary-wing types. In reconstructing the operability of the SyAAF’s current fixed-wing and rotary fleets, we found that 182 airframes were destroyed in 155 recorded incidents between 2012 and 2020. These losses were individually confirmed through both comprehensive reporting and standard open-source investigations, where possible. Further, we were able to visually identify 157 derelict airframes over the course of the war using the latest satellite imagery available. These obsolete airframes are currently scattered around five air bases across Syria: Dumayr, Hama, Kweires, Blay, and Tiyas air bases.

Our interviews allow us to further estimate that the SyAAF currently has 113 operational airframes (as calculated based on the main airframe types considered). This number has been corroborated through open-source research, from which we were able to identify 61 airframes with individual serial numbers. In addition, while the true number of mission-capable jets and helicopters fluctuates, our estimates are in line with calculations based on sortie rates during major military operations over the past three years. After deducting the airframes that were either lost in combat or rendered obsolete from our 2011 estimate, 113 operational airframes are what remains of Syria’s air force after a decade of war.

Chemical Weapons and the SyAAF

For decades, the SyAAF has served alongside the country’s missile and artillery forces as a key pillar of Syria’s chemical deterrent. While historically aimed at neighboring Israel, the air wing of the Syrian military has repeatedly deployed chemical weapons against insurgents and citizens in opposition-held areas. In our previous report Nowhere to Hide, we found the Syrian government responsible for 98 percent of the 349 recorded attacks using chemical weapons throughout the war. The great majority of these attacks involved improvised munitions, including modified barrel bombs carrying chlorine gas that were delivered via the SyAAF’s Mi-8/17 helicopters. However, in multiple instances, Syria’s air force also used the far more potent and deadly nerve agent Sarin – most notably in a string of attacks in late 2016 and early 2017.

On 29 April 2013, in the first confirmed instance of the SyAAF’s use of chemical weapons during the war, helicopters were observed dropping three small objects encased in what appeared to be cylinder blocks along the outskirts of the opposition-held town of Saraqib. Hitting the ground with a thud rather than an explosion, one of the objects landed in a private backyard, while another crashed into a deserted intersection and a third was recovered fully intact. While reports of chemical attacks had been circulating around the country since late 2012, the international community had possessed no tangible proof until that point. International investigators were able to analyze the third grenade and found that it contained 100 milliliters of Sarin matching the chemical makeup of the Syrian government’s stockpiles. Similar attacks were reported in the following weeks across Northwest Syria. After receiving intelligence concerning the Syrian government’s preparations for chemical attacks the previous summer, the United States had publicly warned the Assad regime that the use of such weapons would be considered a figurative “red line.” When such chemical munitions were again discovered in Saraqib, Western intelligence officials concluded that Syrian government forces had reverted to deploying improvised munitions, this time carrying smaller quantities of chemical agents in an attempt to skirt unwanted attention from the international community.

In October 2013, Syria acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention and pledged to declare and destroy its stockpile of chemical weapons under international supervision. The move was primarily a way for the Syrian government to avert US intervention following the 23 August attacks on Ghouta, where the Assad regime killed at least 1,400 civilians. Over the following months, Syria declared 27 chemical weapons production facilities (CWPF) across the country, including five underground bunkers and seven hangars located at different air bases. In addition, the Syrian government declared 15 filling structures for chemical bombs, eight of which were housed on moveable trucks. According to recent reporting, every site contained hundreds of gallons of precursors for binary Sarin and other nerve and blistering agents.1 In addition to chemical stockpiles and facilities, the Syrian government declared large numbers of aerial bombs known as M4000 and MYM6000, which were fabricated domestically according to Soviet-era designs and capable of carrying chemical agents. It would take more than three years for international inspectors to secure and confirm the destruction of Syria’s declared chemical agents, munitions and production facilities.

The destruction of the last chemical weapons facility affiliated with the SyAAF – which was located at Sayqal Air Base in rural Damascus – was only certified by the OPCW as dismantled on 6 June 2017, after loyalist forces pushed back Islamic State militants toward the outskirts of the airbase. Satellite images taken between 2014 and 2017 showing demolished aircraft hangars on all seven air bases with declared CWPF further testify to this effort.

Hidden Stockpiles and Surviving Capabilities

However, between 24 March and 7 April 2017 – just a few weeks before the OPCW’s certification of chemical facilities at Sayqal Air Base – the SyAAF delivered at least three separate chemical attacks against opposition-held areas in Northwest Syria. All three missions were completed by a single pilot – a squadron commander from Shayrat Air Base in central Syria. While the first two incidents passed mostly unnoticed by the international community, the third attack killed at least 89 civilians, causing global outrage and triggering punitive airstrikes from the United States. Based on the chemical analysis of biomedical and environmental samples, recovered bomb fragments, intercepted communications from the SyAAF chain of command, and reconstructions of flight paths, international investigators from the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism and from the OPCW Investigation and Identification Team were able to easily trace the chemical agents and munitions back to the Syrian government’s stockpiles and the responsible jet back to Shayrat Air Base.

According to witness testimonies provided to investigators, Shayrat Air Base housed a second, non-declared chemical weapons facility that was well-secured and hidden underneath two structures in the northwestern corner of the sprawling facility. One witness testified that they had seen government forces loading chemical munitions onto a jet on the morning of an attack. According to reports citing American officials, US targeteers deliberately avoided striking Shayrat Air Base’s second complex for fear of accidentally releasing nerve agents into the air.2 Additional reports suggested an underground storage bunker in Him Shinshar in the rural Homs governorate as another likely chemical weapons storage facility that had escaped disarmament. This underground bunker would be one of three targets of Western airstrikes following the 2018 chemical attack in Duma – suggesting that Western governments had knowledge of the facility and its likely contents.

The Duma incident made clear to the world what foreign intelligence agencies and OPCW inspectors had quietly suspected: Syria had retained parts of its chemical weapons arsenal, as well as the ability to deploy it. And while attributing the attack proved relatively straightforward, establishing the size of the outstanding chemical weapons arsenal and infrastructure has been more challenging. One report by civil society investigators based on defector statements identified a number of likely Syrian Scientific Research Center (SSRC) facilities that appear to have avoided inspection, as well as a number of high-ranking officials who have thus far escaped sanctioning. However, the gradual decrease in defectors from Syria’s weapons program in recent years means that investigators are struggling to produce reliable, up-to-date estimates of stockpiles and facilities. While the OPCW is seeking clarification from Syria on its obviously faulty declarations, the Assad regime has grown increasingly obstinate.

The Chlorine Barrel Bomb Connection

Meanwhile, chemical attacks involving chlorine-filled barrel bombs, which have accounted for more than 90 percent of all chemical bombings during the conflict, have received considerably less international scrutiny. While US and European officials have decried such incidents as clear violations of the Chemical Weapons Convention, they have – except for one unusually deadly occasion – stopped short of declaring the use of chlorine a “red line” that would spark punitive airstrikes. By treating chemical attacks involving chlorine less severely than those involving Sarin, Western actors created a situation in which only one type of chemical weapon faces significant scrutiny and punishment. This asymmetry became evident in the aftermath of the 7 April 2018 attack on Duma, when the United States responded to the chemical attacks involving chlorine by targeting the Syrian government’s nerve agent program and stockpiles rather than the units responsible for the attacks themselves.

The chlorine-filled variations of conventional barrel bombs first appeared in the spring of 2014 – half a year after the fateful “red line” moment following the Ghouta chemical attack and well into Syria’s official disarmament process. At the time, Syrian government forces were fending off rebel advances in the northern Hama governorate. Over the course of three months in the spring of 2015, SyAAF helicopters launched at least 38 chlorine attacks against villages along Syria’s M5 highway. Locals in the small settlement of Kafr Zayta, which was the target of at least 17 attacks, told international investigators that they had stopped counting the number of chlorine bombings. The evidence of chemical weapons was overwhelming: not only had journalists visited the attack sites and smuggled out soil samples, but on the outskirts of town, Kafr Zayta residents had piled high the spent and dented chlorine barrels.

According to the OPCW, at least seven distinct types of chlorine-filled barrel bombs have been identified in Syria. In total, our research team has collected data on hundreds of chlorine attacks across nine (out of 14) governorates. The chlorine barrel bomb’s most recent iteration – a yellow canister welded into a metal “cradle” structure with stabilizing fins and wheels – has been in use since at least 2016. Munitions of this specific build have been recovered across four governorates, including in two besieged pockets. In one instance, first responders recovered a dented (but otherwise intact), unexploded chlorine barrel bomb, providing investigators with a reference munition that made it easier for forensic experts to reconstruct shards of burst munitions from later attacks.

According to multiple reports and witness testimony, the production of these chemical munitions occurred at the Zawi factories near Masyaf in the Hama governorate – a production facility under the direct control of Syria’s secretive SSRC weapons programs. Witnesses reported that the so-called Branch 797 was responsible for the development of the chlorine bomb’s design. However, other accounts point toward Branch 797’s previous seat at the Safira Defense factories in southern Aleppo as the original development and production sites. After reviewing satellite imagery of airfields immediately before chemical attacks, investigators now speculate that chemical munitions – at least in their most recent iterations – may be assembled in mobile facilities located at the dispatching air base.

Operationally, the use of chlorine barrel bombs is closely associated with a small formation of six to eight specially configured Mi-8/17 helicopters, formally affiliated with the SyAAF’s 63rd Brigade based at Hama Air Base. However, in practice, this helicopter division is commanded by the so-called “Tiger Forces” (also known as Tigers) under Brigadier General Suhail al-Hassan. Recently rebranded as “Division 25”, the Tigers are commonly credited with pioneering the use of barrel bombs in the early years of the war. In 2017, more than 40 UN member states identified al-Hassan as the commander of the first major chlorine bombing campaigns in 2014 and 2015.3 Flight tracking data, satellite imagery and open-source reporting allow us to trace the Tigers’ helicopter formation from frontline to frontline as they leave in their wake a trail of conventional and chlorine barrel bombs.

The Impact of SyAAF’s Operations

Assessing the impact of the Syrian air force, both in terms of its military scope and effect on civilians, is essential for understanding its crucial role in Syria’s ongoing war. While the SyAAF has not posed a major threat to rebel operations, its devastating campaigns against civilian populations, cities and infrastructure have shaped the Syrian conflict.

Military Targets

Our interviews with rebel commanders and intelligence officials suggest that Syria’s air force did not play a decisive role on the battlefield prior to Russia’s entry into the conflict in 2015. While the SyAAF had success with rare, intense bombing campaigns that covered broad sections of the frontline, the insurgents we interviewed agreed that the air force’s relatively slow operational tempo, low targeting precision and unencrypted communications meant that its operations posed little threat to early rebel advances. Of the deaths recorded by the Violations Documentation Center over the course of the war, a mere nine percent of fatalities related to air attacks were identified as combatants.

In response to the rare occurrences when the SyAAF successfully concentrated its airstrikes on rebel frontline positions, opposition forces quickly adapted. According to the rebel intelligence officers we interviewed, the prospect of heavy bombardment – which would likely stall the progress of offensive operations – led militant groups to invest more time into operational planning ahead of battles. In such instances, opposition forces often made the decision to advance over terrain that offered more opportunities for shelter and camouflage. In urban environments, rebels heavily invested in constructing tunnels, trenches and makeshift shelters, and established command posts in neighborhoods where buildings contained basements for added shelter. In addition, rebels would often carry out their attacks after dark, as few Syrian pilots were equipped with night-vision equipment.

Most importantly, rebels quickly began tapping into the SyAAF’s radio communications in order to gather intelligence on future airstrikes. Early on, rebel forces were aided in this effort by defected SyAAF pilots and officers, who would train new volunteer spotters on the basics of SyAAF procedures and radio protocols, as well as on practical skills such as map reading. Over the years, these spotters would become highly proficient at deciphering Syrian radio communications. By decoding the precise coordinates of planned airstrikes, opposition fighters could scatter or seek shelter. As a consequence, the rebels we interviewed reported feeling relatively safe from the SyAAF jets and helicopters.

While the SyAAF posed little challenge to rebel operations, opposition officials worried about the impact of airstrikes – particularly barrel bombings – on communities behind the frontlines. In towns across Northwest Syria, near-daily air raids not only caused untold casualties, but also slowly eroded civilian support for continued fighting against government forces. Local leaders reported fearing that the terror resulting from incessant air bombardment was forcing civilians to flee their homes, leading to a loss of opposition legitimacy and incoming tax revenue. There was also concern that a turn in civilian sentiment would put pressure on rebel forces to abandon their offensives, thus undermining the military effort. In this way, it was the SyAAF’s campaign against civilians – rather than their own military losses – that led the opposition to look for ways to down or deter Syrian airframes flying over opposition-held regions. Rebel forces also launched direct offensives against nearby air bases, capturing Taftanaz Air Base on 11 January 2013, followed by Jirah on 12 February, Al-Qusayr on 18 April, Abu ad-Duhur on 30 April, and Mennegh on 6 August.4

Initially, opposition forces had some success in striking at airframes using truck-mounted anti-aircraft cannons that had been captured from government bases, which led to a series of shootdowns during the first months of the air campaign in late 2012 and early 2013. However, these gains were quickly offset when SyAAF pilots began flying at higher altitude. Most of the Syrian air defense materiel that was captured by opposition forces proved derelict or unusable. While rebels implored the international community for more modern weapons, Western officials feared that supplying opposition forces with advanced surface-to-air missiles could lead to their proliferation beyond Syria, and thus threaten civilian air traffic. According to media reports, American officials experimented with modified man-portable air-defense systems (MANPADS) that could be tracked or remotely deactivated, but found no workable solution.5

In October and November 2012, Jaish al-Islam managed to capture at least three operational 9K33 Osa – advanced mobile surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems – along with dozens of other missiles from Syrian government forces outside of Damascus. While rarely employed, these advanced anti-aircraft systems proved relatively effective in the hands of the self-taught rebel forces, who used them to down at least four helicopters over the next two years. These SAM systems offered the besieged pocket of opposition territory outside Damascus a means of deterring the SyAAF’s constant attacks.6 In addition, rebel forces were able to capture dozens of HT-16PGJ systems – a North Korean variant of the Soviet 9K310 Igla-1 (SA-16) – from Syrian stockpiles.7 In 2013, Qatar supplied Syrian rebel forces with at least two shipments of Chinese FN-6s (heat-seeking, shoulder-fired missiles). The shipments arrived via Turkey, despite warnings from the US administration that these sophisticated weapons could fall into the wrong hands.

The limited deterrence offered by these anti-aircraft weapons further incentivized SyAAF pilots to target civilians rather than military assets. Now flying at higher altitude to avoid the SAM systems, the Soviet-era jets and “dumb” munitions (i.e., without modern guidance systems) were even less useful in close air support roles against advancing rebel forces. Instead, the SyAAF would direct its firepower against the insurgency’s true center of gravity – the civilian populations residing in opposition-held areas.

Civilian Targets

While the SyAAF may not have left a big impression on the battlefield, it has wreaked havoc on Syria’s civilian populations, cities and infrastructure. As the war progressed and frontlines hardened, Syria’s air force became the government’s principal means of inflicting violence against civilians in opposition-held areas. The Syrian Network for Human Rights has recorded a staggering 59,637 civilian deaths from SyAAF airstrikes over the course of the war, accounting for more than 25 percent of all civilian deaths during the conflict and close to 30 percent of all deaths attributable to the Syrian government forces. The relative significance of these attacks has grown over time as fewer civilians were caught in the crossfires of frontline fighting. In 2016, Syrian and Russian pilots together accounted for 73 percent of all civilian casualties.

In the absence of a reliable no-fly zone, mitigation measures like the Sentry system offer locals some degree of protection, as well as a mental reprieve from the otherwise constant state of high alert. Comparing casualty data before and after the introduction of the Sentry system, Hala estimates that early warning has reduced the rate of mortality and injury from air attacks in opposition-held areas by 10 to 30 percent, and saved thousands of additional lives in the process.