Israeli strikes leave Syrian ammo dump a smoking ruin

A Syrian bunker complex outside the port of Tartus was ablaze and rocked by explosions Monday just hours after what a war monitor and locals said was an intense wave of Israeli air strikes.

Even after the strikes ended, blasts continued to erupt in a valley outside the village of Bmalkah, a Christian community in the hills behind the city, which is home to Russia's naval base in Syria.

Israeli planes launched "the heaviest strikes in Syria's coastal region since the start of strikes in 2012" overnight, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Coming just over a week after Bashar al-Assad's regime was ousted in a lightning rebel offensive, the raids targeted strategic sites and air defenses along Syria's western coast.

"It was like an earthquake. All the windows in my house were blown out," said 28-year-old Ibrahim Ahmed, an employee in a legal office who had come to a roadside viewpoint to look down on the devastation.

The hillsides around Bmalkah and the base, a cluster of concrete buildings and arched concrete bunker entrances cut into the hillside to protect stockpiled munitions, were littered with shrapnel.

Missile launch tubes, mortar shells, and damaged munitions were scattered on the ground and plumes of smoke rose from the terraced sides of the valley as parts of the arsenal continued to detonate.

Shattered glass
In the village of Bmalkah itself, AFP found roads filled with shattered glass and metal roller doors that had ballooned outwards under the pressure wave triggered by the strike.

A Christmas tree in the town square was undamaged and there were no reports of civilian casualties, but angry residents were left to sweep up broken glass and domestic wreckage.

Blasts stripped the leaves from olive trees in groves surrounding the village. Witnesses said powerful explosions began shortly after midnight and continued until almost 6:00 am (0300 GMT).

Clean-up crews sawed up fallen trees that had blocked the road to the next village, sweeping up missile and shell parts, even as the valley echoed to more blasts as pockets of stockpiled munitions caught fire.

"The village did not sleep last night. The kids were crying," said one middle-aged man with a salt and pepper beard and a blue sweatshirt who refused to give his name.

"Most of the people had already left their homes towards the city, now they have lost their houses."

According to the Observatory, 473 Israeli strikes have targeted military sites in Syria since a rebel offensive toppled Assad on December 8.

Maurice Salloum, a 61-year-old teacher, was trying to secure his home after the windows blew in, scattering glass and twisted aluminium among Christian icons and family photos.

His two adult sons live abroad in Venezuela and France and have not heard about the bombing. The internet and electricity are cut in the village.

He told AFP nothing like this had happened in his community during Syria's long civil war, and that the perpetrators must have come from outside the country.

  Tunnel bunkers 

The Observatory said: "Israel is continuing its intensification of air strikes on Syrian territory, including to completely destroy tunnels under the mountains".

The tunnels are thought to hold "depots of ballistic missiles, ammunition, artillery shells and other military equipment".

Since Assad's fall, Israel has targeted Syria's fleet, chemical arsenals and air defence bases, trying to prevent the country's weapons from falling into the hands of the new Islamist-led government.

In a move that has drawn international condemnation, Israel also seized a United Nations-patrolled buffer zone on the Syrian Golan Heights, just hours after the rebels took Damascus.

Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, leader of Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led the final offensive against Assad, criticised Israel on Saturday but said his country was too exhausted for fresh conflict.

On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said his country had "no interest in confronting Syria. Israel's policy toward Syria will be determined by the evolving reality on the ground".