Kuweires Military Aviation Institute .svg) الكلية الجوية العسكرية في كويرس | |||||||||||
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 Satellite imagery of Kuweires air base | |||||||||||
| Summary | |||||||||||
| Airport type | Military aviation institute | ||||||||||
| Owner | Syrian Armed Forces | ||||||||||
| Operator |  Syrian transitional government[1] | ||||||||||
| Location | Kuweires Sharqi,Aleppo Governorate | ||||||||||
| Built | 1980 | ||||||||||
| Coordinates | 36°11′13″N37°34′59″E / 36.18694°N 37.58306°E /36.18694; 37.58306 | ||||||||||
| Map | |||||||||||
  Kuweires Air Base Location in Syria | |||||||||||
| Runways | |||||||||||
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Kuweires Military Aviation Institute (Arabic:الكلية الجوية العسكرية في كويرس) is anairbase andmilitary aviation institute inAleppo Governorate,Syria. It is situated some 30 km east of the city ofAleppo,[2] to the northeast ofKuweires Sharqi village, betweenAs-Safira in the West andDayr Hafir in the East.
The base was constructed withPolish support in the late 1960s as the primary base of the Syrian air force academy.[2] The base is home to the Military Aviation Institute (originally opened inDamascus in 1947) of theSyrian Arab Air Force since 1980. The Military Aviation Institute was renovated between 2017 and 2021. Institute was reopened in 2021.[3]
Kuweires Airbase was defended mostly by cadets when it fell under siege bySyrian rebels in 2013. Rebel forces surrounded Kuweiris for more than a year but did not overrun it. As rebel infighting intensified causing their positions to collapse,ISIS took control of the siege around late 2013. ISIS besieged the airbase for two years, deploying heavy weapons and armoured vehicles like suicide tankVBIEDs. ISIS negotiators called up officers on the phone and urged them to surrender and shelled the base with leaflets promising safe passage, but no one defected.[4] Twice ISIS breached the perimeter of the airbase, even reaching as far as thehardened aircraft shelters where the defenders lived, but could not capture it.[4]
ColonelSuhayl al-Hasan and hisTiger Forces finally broke the siege on 10 November 2015, as part of theKuweires offensive. Only 300 of 1,100 soldiers survived the siege.[4][5]
The Syrian government repaired the base immediately after lifting the siege, deploying a squadron ofAero L-39 Albatros fighter-bombers together with aBuk M1 surface-to-air missile system, operated by a combinedRussian and Syrian crew, to defend the base.[2]
On 25 July 2024,GUR forces attacked Russian forces at the Kuweires airbase in Syria, destroying an Electronic Warfare station.[6] Later that year, on 30 November, theSyrian National Army secured the airbase during theOperation Dawn of Freedom.[7]
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