A series of explosions at weapons and ammunition sites across Syria this month have exposed the difficulties facing the country’s military in storing and moving munitions, as the armed forces rebuild after more than a decade of war. The latest blasts injured at least four people in the early hours of Monday morning at an arms depot in al-Eis, south of Aleppo. On Friday, a blast in Ayyash, west of Deir Az Zor, killed 11 soldiers.
Another on September 9 killed 14 defence ministry personnel in Sarmada, Idlib. Also in Idlib, five people were killed when a vehicle carrying ammunition exploded in the town of Binnish on September 1 . According to a tally by the news agency, at least 16 similar explosions have hit arms storage facilities since the fall of long-time President Bashar al-Assad in December 2024 after an opposition offensive.
Some have been attributed to poor storage conditions. The Syrian Defence Ministry said it is investigating the causes behind the recurrent explosions to prevent future incidents. Security analysts are divided on the root causes, with some pointing to a lack of professional infrastructure and others highlighting the potential for foreign interference – although there is as yet no hard evidence for that.
Omer Ozkizilcik, a nonresident senior fellow for the Syria Project in the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programmes, explained to Al Jazeera that the Syrian military is undergoing a period of huge change. It is reorganising from what it was under al-Assad, consolidating weapons from different sources and integrating various forces. All of that could be putting pressure on Syria’s storage infrastructure, which was already creaking after the long war and international isolation.
It gained control over the stockpiles of the former regime and the formerly US-backed [Syrian Democratic Forces]. The increase in quantity coupled with the need to protect weapons from potential Israeli airstrikes may have pushed the Syrian army to store weapons in inadequate places.” Ozkizilcik emphasised that Syria’s military is still in a transitional phase. The former army was dissolved after the fall of the al-Assad regime and fighters from armed opposition groups were integrated into a new military structure.
Damascus has also been working to integrate territory and forces previously controlled by the Kurdish-led SDF. Before the fall of al-Assad, similar things happened many times in Syria. [but] I don’t think these explosions will affect Syria’s military capabilities in any visible way. It’s merely a loss of some stockpiles that can be replenished.” Weapons and ammunition, by their nature, need to be handled extremely carefully and stored properly.
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