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An Israeli strike on a Syrian air base this week may have been a political attempt at “baiting” Turkey into a conflict ahead of Israeli elections later this autumn, a senior US diplomat said on Saturday.
The comments by Tom Barrack, Washington’s ambassador to Ankara and special envoy for Syria, were the sharpest US criticism yet of the Israeli raid on the Abu al-Duhur military air base in north-west Syria on Tuesday.
After the raid Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the base was targeted due to fears that Turkey would establish itself at the site and threaten Israeli security. Israeli analysts speculated that Turkey intended to establish air-defence radars and attack drones at the base.
In an interview with an online social media platform on Saturday, Barrack said the claims were unfounded, adding that there were no Turkish military assets at the site, nor did Ankara intend to move into the base.
The US envoy suggested that Israel might have been “baiting the Turks” in a “very aggressive but well received pre-election concept” ahead of the October general election, in which Netanyahu is trailing in the polls.
In the immediate aftermath of the strike, Barrack had said that Ankara could have activated fighter jets to intercept the Israeli warplanes, risking an “unnecessary escalation”. On Saturday he said this could have resulted in “World War Three”.
In the same interview Barrack added that a second theory for the Israeli raid could be a “miscommunication” between Netanyahu’s office, the Israel Defense Forces and the country’s Mossad intelligence service.
Israeli defence minister Israel Katz rejected Barrack’s comments in a highly unusual statement issued on Saturday afternoon during the Jewish Sabbath.
He said the IDF had on several occasions recommended striking Abu al-Duhur “in light of clear intelligence” that Turkey intended to “conduct operations” at the site.
Katz also claimed that a “direct warning” was delivered to the Syrian government and that the US was informed ahead of time — something Barrack had denied.
“[Turkish President Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan was caught with his hand in the cookie jar and was forced to retreat,” Katz said, condemning what he claimed was an attempt to depict the strike in a political light.
He also criticised Barrack’s comments that the Golan Heights — which were seized by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war and later annexed — were “occupied” Syrian land, saying US President Donald Trump had recognised Israeli sovereignty over the territory during his first term in office.
Turkey is one of the principal backers of the government of new Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former militant Islamist who led the rebel offensive that ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
Ankara has provided military training, equipment and logistical support to Damascus to rebuild state institutions shattered by Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, which left half a million people dead.
But Israel sees Sharaa’s government, which is dominated by his Islamist faction, as a threat. It has conducted widespread strikes in the country since the overthrow of Assad, destroyed much of the former regime’s military infrastructure and occupied swaths of southern Syria, calling it a “security zone”.
Turkey has kept thousands of troops in northern Syria after making several interventions during the civil war. Israel has objected to Turkey establishing military infrastructure that could restrict its freedom of action, especially in Syrian airspace.
Abu al-Duhur air base is about 70km from the Turkish border in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, which was a rebel holdout during the civil war. It had been largely out of service for more than a decade but was in the process of being reactivated.
A Turkish delegation visited the facility to inspect the work just hours before the Israeli strikes, according to Turkish media.
Relations between Israel and Turkey, which has Nato’s second-biggest army after the US, began to significantly deteriorate in 2024 over Israel’s war in Gaza, with Ankara suspending bilateral trade.
Since then their differences have escalated, particularly over Syria.
As Israel carried out military operations in Syria and Lebanon in June, Erdoğan said that “Turkey’s security . . . begins from Aleppo, it begins from Damascus, it begins from Beirut”. He added: “We will not turn a blind eye to any attack against our brothers.”
Israel has increasingly portrayed Turkey’s expanding regional role as a security challenge of its own, with some Israeli politicians and analysts even dubbing Turkey the “new Iran”.
