Aurora Intel

Smoke still continues to rise up from Latakia Port, #Syria

Ps; yes, I totally know this should have ended up being an article on the website instead of a thread on twitter, Welp. Enjoy the typos :).

What is this ramble about really? Well it shows the ever moving, ever evolving supply chain that runs from Iran into Syria, via land, sea and air, from West Syria to East, have it can change, evolve, adapt and move based not just on events within the country but also outwit.

Has to end up somewhere, that somewhere is Latakia Port (it seems). Today’s reported airstrike comes after the arrival of Iranian container vessel SHIBA into Latakia on the 24th December.

Pressure mounted throughout the year to stop these “tanker wars” attacks, from both sides. Israel was pressured by the US, since the Mercer Street this “theatre” has calmed (remains to be seen if it’s truly over). But what does that mean? It means that these vessels, the cargo

Between March and December a lot of events happened in the “tanker wars”, events including multiple vessels belonging to Iran and Israel, for those unaware, a few of the events to search are the Saviz, Hyperion Ray, Mercer Street (there are more.)

Step forward back to December, SHAHR E KORD now named DAISY now taking a different route to Syria, several days later the first strike at Latakia Port.https://twitter.com/samir_madani/status/1464550236404264963 …

But let’s step back to March, to the SHAHR E KORD, a cargo vessel belonging to Iran, making a trip to Syria, reported targeted by Israel en route to deliver illicit cargo to militants in Syria and onto Hezbollah.https://twitter.com/auroraintel/status/1369945156162572292 …

A systematic tit for tat targeting of vessels across several areas of the seas. Notably the must recent being the Mercer Street leaving multinational crew members dead from a drone impact on the bridge, allegedly conducted by Iran using their Delta Wing Drone(s) (Shahed-136)

However, since then two strikes have been conducted in Latakia, in December, alone, against the port. The final supply chain, the Sea. Throughout 2021 we have heard the term “tanker wars” become a common phase used for the Iran/Israel “war between wars” against assets at sea.

So, now we have the land supply chain from the East, and the air (technically from the the east aswell). In May, a rare reported airstrike (at the time) was conducted in Latakia and the surrounding areas, I wrote a thread about this, which details which is was counted as rare.https://twitter.com/auroraintel/status/1391655906962718721 …

And a more recent one at Damascus Airport. Despite the runway already undergoing resurfacing, imagery from yesterday shows that no work has taken place since and these impacts have remained untouched.https://twitter.com/auroraintel/status/1471909416358318081 …

Throughout the years the reported IDF airstrikes have targeted these routes, targeting the runways, whilst it doesn’t stop these routes it does pause them for a while as the repairs take time. Examples for T4. https://twitter.com/auroraintel/status/1448022968047656960?s=21 …https://twitter.com/AuroraIntel/status/1302550635255074822 …

Damascus. This is a common route for smuggling items into Syria, it’s ultimately the quickest route for them. For a period of time a pattern emerged after a series of flights into Damascus airstrikes would be conducted, presumed to be targeting the contents on the ground.

As we get further West into Syria we start to see the use of the air route more, Damascus Airport, T4 and other military airports, Throughout the year IRGC affiliated flights are publicly monitored flying from Tehran to..

To close off the East we have seen this trend for the last few years with the extensive targeting of the, at the time, being built #IRGC base in Albukamal being targeted, and now mostly abandoned except for a tunnel which still sees the odd activity.https://twitter.com/auroraintel/status/1240036730880831489 …

Reports and imagery of Fatemiyoun militants at one of the targeted locations. The supply route in Palmyra can be served by two core routes, from the West and T4 airbase or from the East and DeZhttps://twitter.com/auroraintel/status/1450929295824756747 …