On 1 April 2025, reports emerged that Turkey had begun moving to take control of Syria’s Tiyas airbase (also known as T4), with sources confirming that air defence systems and armed drones could soon be deployed.
The move is part of a broader pact reportedly being negotiated between Ankara and Syria’s interim government, in which Turkey would provide air cover and military protection to a regime that now lacks a functioning national army.
Construction plans for the T4 site are already underway, raising the prospect that Ankara could soon wield strategic control over a swath of central Syria.
The timing is significant. The reported base takeover comes almost simultaneously after Israel conducted airstrikes against T4 and nearby Palmyra, a show of force aimed at deterring any power - Turkish or otherwise - from reducing its operational freedom in Syrian skies.
An unnamed Israeli official told The Jerusalem Post that a Turkish military foothold in Syria would be a “potential threat,” drawing a direct line between Ankara’s ambitions and Israeli security concerns.
Deconfliction by absence
Tensions between Turkey and Israel have been simmering for over a year, fuelled by the fallout from Israel’s war in Gaza and the collapse of earlier diplomatic normalisation efforts. While political rhetoric has escalated - with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accusing Israel of “genocide” and Israeli officials branding him a supporter of terrorism - the potential military implications are now coming into sharper focus.
What makes the situation particularly volatile is the lack of a formal deconfliction mechanism between the two countries. Unlike Russia and the United States, which maintained operational channels to avoid accidental clashes in Syria, Turkey and Israel are now operating in overlapping zones of interest without clear lines of communication.
As former Pentagon advisor Aaron Stein has noted, this resembles the situation in Libya in 2020, when the UAE struck a Turkish-run airbase at al-Watiya. Ankara, then, opted for strategic patience. But Syria may prove a different case.
“Accidental escalation is no longer unthinkable,” Stein warned in a recent essay. “The barriers to direct conflict are decreasing. This is not an ideal situation.”
Why T4 matters
Located near Palmyra in Homs province, Tiyas (T4) airbase is one of Syria’s largest and most versatile military installations. For much of the Syrian civil war, it was operated jointly by the Syrian Arab Air Force (SAAF) and Russia, serving as a key node for air support and logistics across the central and eastern frontlines. Its geographic position - between Homs, Deir az-Zour, and the eastern desert - makes it ideal for Turkey’s stated goal of intensifying its counter-IS operations.
According to Barin Kayaoglu, an independent analyst and non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute, Turkey’s reported ambition to take over T4 should not be interpreted as a direct threat to Israel. Rather, it fits within Ankara’s broader goal of stabilising Syria’s central authority following the collapse of the Assad regime.
“For Turkey,” Kayaoglu told The New Arab, “controlling the base would serve multiple aims: denying ISIS space to regroup in Syria’s central desert, preventing the emergence of a Kurdish autonomous region near its southern border, and creating conditions for the safe return of millions of Syrian refugees currently residing in Turkey. From this perspective, Ankara’s defence posture - while undoubtedly assertive - is primarily about internal and regional stabilisation, not confrontation.”
While the presence of air defence systems at T4 might limit Israel’s ability to operate freely in central Syria, Ankara’s intentions seem driven more by its own national security imperatives than by a desire to challenge Israeli airpower per se.
The Turkish expert also emphasises that Turkish-Syrian defence cooperation, including the training and equipping of a post-Assad national army, is part of this stabilising vision. Yet such cooperation will remain fragile, he notes, as it is subject to competing regional pressures and domestic constraints.
But military advantage comes with risk. The deployment of short- and medium-range Hisar systems, combined with surveillance and strike drones, and even troops, would significantly expand Turkey’s air control footprint over central Syria. A second Turkish base under renovation near Menagh, in Aleppo province, could eventually complete a broader arc of Turkish influence, unsettling not just Israel, but also remaining Iranian-linked groups and other regional actors.
According to sources, Ankara has even considered the temporary deployment of Russian-made S-400 systems to T4 or Palmyra during reconstruction - a move that would require Moscow’s approval, but would send a powerful message to Israel and the United States alike.
A new red line for Israel?
For Israel, the expansion of Turkish military infrastructure into central Syria raises immediate strategic alarms. Since 2013, the Israeli Air Force (IAF) has conducted hundreds of airstrikes across Syrian territory, targeting Hezbollah supply lines, Iranian personnel, and military assets linked to the so-called “Axis of Resistance.” These operations have largely proceeded unchallenged, underpinned by Israel’s qualitative military edge and the absence of state-level interference.
Turkey’s presence could change that calculus, as Ankara’s systems could limit Israel’s freedom of action. Even a temporary interruption in air dominance would be unacceptable for Israeli planners, who are known to act pre-emptively against emerging threats. Israel’s 21 and 25 March airstrikes on T4, which reportedly destroyed at least one Syrian Su-24 and damaged runways, were widely interpreted as a warning shot to both the interim government in Damascus and Turkey.
More recently, Israeli airstrikes further cratered T4’s main runway and severed key taxiways – as well as defence infrastructure in Hama and Damascus, effectively grounding the base’s operational capacity and complicating any Turkish attempt to move air defence systems, drones, or heavy logistics equipment into the area.
With T4 located roughly 230 kilometres south of the Turkish border, the prospect of supplying the base via overland routes is already logistically challenging - an issue that Israeli targeting is clearly designed to exploit.
Beyond T4, Turkish interest in establishing a secondary base at Palmyra - also in central Syria - has drawn additional scrutiny from Israel, which views any fortified Turkish presence in the heart of Syria as a strategic complication.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz described the latest wave of strikes as “a warning for the future,” signalling that Jerusalem will continue to act pre-emptively to prevent any perceived erosion of its operational freedom in Syria.
Deconfliction or a powder keg in waiting?
Despite the risks, full-blown confrontation remains unlikely - for now. Turkey’s interest in T4 appears rooted in its long-term goal of stabilising post-Assad Syria under a new security framework, one that reduces Iranian influence and projects Turkish strength across the Levant. Israel, meanwhile, remains focused on containing threats from Hezbollah and Iran’s proxies, with no apparent appetite for opening a new front with Ankara.
On the possibility of a direct Turkish-Israeli clash in Syria, Kayaoglu is cautious but measured. “This is the least likely scenario,” he told The New Arab. “Recent statements by both the Turkish and Israeli sides that they do not want a conflict over Syria attest to this. But if a conflict were to happen, the United States would put a lid on it pretty quickly.”
Still, the absence of a working tactical coordination channel - akin to the US-Russia “deconfliction line” in Syria - makes the current situation fragile. As Stein and other analysts have suggested, a basic mechanism for mutual notification of air operations could reduce the risk of miscalculation. Even an informal arrangement, brokered quietly via US backchannels, could go a long way toward preventing accidental escalation.
Whether such mediation is feasible under the current US administration remains an open question. While President Trump has shown interest in resetting relations with Turkey, particularly around the F-35 program, Washington’s bandwidth for regional crisis management has narrowed. Meanwhile, Israel is unlikely to accept any setup that limits its air dominance, even marginally.
With airbase construction underway and rhetoric hardening, the T4 standoff may be the opening chapter in a broader reshaping of post-war Syria. For Ankara, securing a foothold in central Syria could consolidate its influence and protect its southern border from both IS and Kurdish groups. For Israel, however, the move represents a direct challenge to its operational freedom in a country it has treated as an active security theatre for over a decade.
In a region where airspace dominance is tightly linked to strategic deterrence, even a single miscalculation could set off a chain of escalation neither side wants but may find increasingly difficult to avoid.
Francesco Salesio Schiavi is an Italian specialist in the Middle East. His focus lies in the security architecture of the Levant and the Gulf, with a particular emphasis on Iraq, Iran, and the Arab Peninsula, as well as military and diplomatic interventions by international actors
Follow him on X: @frencio_schiavi
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