What Tom Barrack Alleges About Israel’s Abu al-Duhur Strike

That distinction matters. The available reporting supports an allegation about possible political calculation—not a verified finding that Netanyahu ordered the strike for electoral reasons.

The central dispute: was Turkey preparing to use the base?

Israel’s stated justification was security-related. Israeli officials said Syria was close to allowing Turkish forces to deploy at Abu al-Duhur, an arrangement Israel viewed as a threat and a breach of the security status quo between Israel and Syria. Israel said it had warned Syria repeatedly and acted after receiving intelligence about planned Turkish activity. ^AM

Barrack challenged that explanation. He said U.S. intelligence agencies examined information shared by Israel and found no evidence supporting the claim that Turkey was preparing to deploy forces at the airbase. ^AM

The result is a direct intelligence dispute rather than a settled account of what happened:

• Israel’s position: It had clear intelligence indicating that Turkish activity at Abu al-Duhur could endanger Israeli security, and it shared that information with authorized U.S. officials. ^TM
• Barrack’s position: Washington reviewed the intelligence and found no evidence substantiating the alleged Turkish buildup. ^A

No source provided here independently resolves which assessment was correct.

Why the strike risked an Israel–Turkey confrontation

Barrack’s most immediate warning concerned the lack of operational communication. He said Turkey was not told in advance that Israeli aircraft were heading toward the Syrian base or what their mission was. Turkish forces reportedly observed the aircraft flying north toward Turkish territory and could reasonably have prepared a response. ^RI

In that scenario, Turkish pilots might have scrambled because they believed their own forces were under attack. Israeli and Turkish aircraft could then have entered a rapidly escalating confrontation, with Syria also drawn into the crisis. Barrack described the strike as carrying a “real risk” of direct military confrontation between Israel and Turkey, as well as Syria. ^YI

The danger was therefore not only the intended target. It was the possibility that an unannounced operation near Turkey would be misread in real time. The United States said it was working on a deconfliction mechanism among Turkey, Israel, and Syria to reduce that risk. ^RH

How Turkey and Syria responded

Turkey condemned the attack and rejected Israel’s claims about Turkish military plans in Syria as “untenable.” Ankara called for an international response to what it described as Israel’s escalating aggression. ^R

Syria called the raid an unjustified act of aggression and a violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Syrian state media reported that eight Israeli strikes hit the runway and storage facilities at Abu al-Duhur, near Aleppo, with no casualties reported. ^RAP

The responses reflected two separate objections: Turkey disputed the alleged military buildup, while Syria rejected Israel’s right to attack infrastructure on Syrian territory.

Israel Katz’s rejection of Barrack’s account

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz dismissed Barrack’s comments as “full of inaccuracies.” Katz said Israel had passed intelligence to the appropriate U.S. authorities and maintained that the military had repeatedly recommended striking the airbase after receiving information about Turkish intentions. ^TM

Katz’s account also said Israel had warned Syria before the operation. That directly conflicts with Barrack’s criticism of the strike’s rationale and his description of the intelligence assessment. ^ET

The disagreement has a broader diplomatic consequence: even though Israel and the United States remain closely connected, their public accounts diverged over both the evidence behind the strike and the communication surrounding it.

What the ISIS coordination reveals

Barrack said Turkey, Israel, and Syria were coordinating every evening, with U.S. involvement, to hunt ISIS terrorists. He warned that the continuing power vacuum could allow ISIS to rebuild. ^E

That detail points to a striking contradiction in the regional picture. The same governments publicly condemned or defended the Abu al-Duhur strike while maintaining practical security contacts focused on ISIS and preventing accidental military escalation.

The coordination does not mean that Turkey, Israel, and Syria have resolved their disputes. It suggests instead that they can maintain limited, task-specific cooperation when they share an immediate interest—such as containing an ISIS resurgence or avoiding an unintended clash—even while disagreeing sharply over territorial rights, military deployments, and Israel’s freedom to act in Syria. ^RE

The bottom line

Barrack’s allegation was that Israel’s Abu al-Duhur strike was an avoidable escalation that may have served political or strategic purposes beyond the stated security justification, including possibly provoking Turkey. He said U.S. intelligence did not validate Israel’s claim of an impending Turkish deployment and warned that Turkey’s lack of advance notice created a genuine risk of air-to-air confrontation. ^AT

Israel rejects that account. Katz says the strike was based on clear intelligence, that the information was shared with Washington, and that warnings to Syria went unanswered. The evidence provided publicly leaves the key intelligence question unresolved—but makes clear that the strike exposed a dangerous gap between behind-the-scenes coordination and public military action.