Inconsistent Satellite Images
While Google Maps satellite images from July 2017 depict raw desert ground, a TERRA server picture taken in May 2017 clearly shows a complete military airbase
info.BILD.de | Source: Google Maps, TERRA server
Only at the mobile version of Google Maps, runway construction works in the Syrian desert are visible, however not a single building has been built at the satellite image.
You can only see the base for a fee
BILD asked the US-led anti-ISIS coalition whether the base’s non-visibility is deliberate. We receive no reply. However, there are some indications that this is indeed the case. Commercial satellite image providers have already taken numerous pictures of the base.
The pictures show that construction of the facility already started under President Obama in May 2016. By now, it has grown considerably – to up to 1.6 million square metres. Google usually updates its map service with commercial images. However, this does not apply to the area where the US base is located.
BILD bought one of the updated pictures from provider “TERRA server” (taken in May 2017) and analysed it with the help of a military expert and a former soldier. The BILD map shows which areas the experts were able to identify on the satellite image.
Housing units for hundreds of soldiers, a vehicle fleet including more than 40 military vehicles, and structures for transport aircraft and the base’s defence – this new air force base is a mighty US army fortress in the middle of the area held by “Syrian Democratic Forces”.
Responding to BILD’s inquiry, a spokesperson of the anti-ISIS coalition called the military base a “logistical centre for the coalition’s support for our partner forces”. This refers to the “Syrian Democratic Forces”, a Kurdish/Arab alliance that, with US support, fights against ISIS in Syria.
Will even bigger planes land here soon?
The spokesperson told BILD a remarkable detail: the base is “designed for C-130s and C-17s landing there”. That is an unmistakable statement. So far, pictures and videos only show the 30-metre-long propeller transport aircraft C-130 “Hercules” on the base.
The fact that soon the 53-metre-long jet aircraft C-17 “Globemaster” could land here shows how important the military airport could becom
e.
A C-17 „Globemaster“ of the US Air Force takes off at the Rhein-Main-airport in Frankfurt am MainFoto: dpa
Eight hangars under construction at the base’s eastern edge suggest lively air traffic and a permanent presence of US air force planes, an expert explained to BILD. Moreover, the hangars’ size is striking. With a diameter of approximately 30 metres, they are too small for transport air craft. Fighter jets will possibly be put here.
The base suggests a long US presence in Syria
What do the existence and continuous expansion of such an extensive base in Syria’s north mean? Experts do not believe in the truth of the US’s statement that the base is merely used for the anti-ISIS operation in Syria.
For Kyle Orton of the British think tank “Henry Jackson Society”, the military base’s features only allow for one conclusion: “Its size and location clearly indicate that it will play a long-term role. This suggests a quasi-mandate policy in Syria’s northeast.”
Michael Horowitz, former soldier and analyst at the Middle East risk consultancy “Prime Source”, also regards the US base, which is now fully visible for the first time, as a “consolidation of a long-term presence in order to have a say in shaping Syria’s future.”
The base could lead to tensions with Turkey
Syria analyst Orton thinks that such a large base in the SDF area could lead to further disagreements with neighbouring Turkey. The base is located only 27 kilometres from the Turkish border in an area controlled by the SDF group. The Turkish government regards the SDF as synonymous with PKK. “If the base were to enable SDF/PKK to strengthen their control over the region, Turkey will naturally react with extreme irritation,” Orton warns.
SDF does not try to hide the base’s anti-Turkish stance. BILD spoke to Kurdish activist, Mustafa Abdi, in nearby Kobane. In his view, the military facility was primarily built due to concern about potential Turkish military actions against the region’s Kurdish militia.
What Abdi claims is explosive: “New SDF troops commanded by the US army are also being trained in the facility. The US are our ally.”
With the air force base, the US want to improve its strategic position south of the Turkish border. The base will be used by SDF operations against all enemies, Abdi explained to BILD.
Syria expert, Horowitz, thinks that the base is also intended to strengthen the independence of US troops in the region: “independence also from Turkey, since Turkey often uses the presence of US military in the Incirlik base to exercise pressure”. If the US actually were to station fighter jets in the new base – and the satellite image analysed by BILD strongly suggests this – it could turn into the starting point for US operations in Syria. Incirlik would be given up in the mid-term.
Does the base violate Syria’s sovereignty?
Assad supporters have been expressing their outrage on social media ever since the latest pictures of US air planes on the base’s runway were published. Assad-supporting media call the existence of the air force base in Syrian territory an “attack on the sovereignty” of Syria.
The regime’s supporters state that nobody has invited the US. Syria experts Orton and Horowitz cannot take this claim seriously.
Talking to BILD, Kyle Orton spoke of the “fiction of the sovereignty of Assad’s Syria”. According to Orton, the dictator neither has the moral right, nor the military means of insisting on sovereign borders in the civil war instigated by him. Only Assad’s allies, Russia and Iran, could “bundle their resources in the region in order to drive the US out of Syria”. In this case, the question would be whether the US are willing to “keep their ground” with military means, if necessary.
Michael Horowitz also thinks that Assad has lost his right for a sovereign state, “when he started to murder his population”. There is indeed the question whether the construction of a military base in a foreign country is legal from the perspective of international law. However, the debate in Syria rather concerns the issue of “who the sovereign of the state is”. As long as this issue is being discussed, “the legal question is irrelevant” and “every actor will keep trying to create facts on Syrian ground without asking first.” These actors are, besides the US, also Turkey, Russia, and Iran.