Drafted — not technically validated
Record revision 1 · A major Syrian Air Force base in Idlib, wrecked in the civil war and struck by Israel in August 2026.
A real-world airfield as described in public sources, and how sim maps represent it. Units, facilities and names change; each is dated where the sources allow, and the charts are not for navigation. Use current official publications for flight planning.
Location and identity
- Location
- About 5 km east of the town of Abu al-Duhur, Idlib Governorate [1]
- Country or territory
- Syria
- Coordinates
- 35.7322° N, 37.1042° E [2]
- Elevation
- 846 ft (258 m) [2]
- Identifiers
- OS57
- Other names
- Abu ad-Duhur Air Base [1]
- Opened
- no opening date is given in the sources consulted
- Theatre
- Middle East
Role and operators
- Status
- Active · No current operator
- Roles today
- None documented in the sources consulted
- Operators
- Syrian Air Force · Syria, air force · until Nov 2024 [1]
Runways and facilities
The sources do not date these figures. Facilities not listed here are not documented in the sources cited, which does not mean the airfield lacks them.
| Runway | Length | Width | Surface |
|---|---|---|---|
| 09/27 [2] | 9,810 ft (2,990 m) | 135 ft (41 m) | paved |
- Arresting gear
- None documented in the sources cited
- Navaids
- None documented in the sources cited
Figure 1 — Airfield map of Abu al-Duhur Air Base (to scale)
- Runway
- Taxiway
- Apron
- Hangar or terminal
- Airfield boundary
Runways, taxiways, aprons and buildings inside the airfield boundary, true north up, drawn from OpenStreetMap data retrieved 2026-10-28. Widths come from the map data or, where it gives none, a typical 45 m runway and 18 m taxiway. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors, available under the ODbL 1.0. Community-mapped, not an official aerodrome chart, and not for navigation.
Sim maps
Represented in: DCS: Syria
DCS: Syria DCS World · Present day
Represented as “Abu al-Duhur” · checked 2026-10-28 [3]
Differences from the real airfield
Only the maps marked represented or confirmed absent have been checked. Any other map may or may not represent this airfield.
Other maps in Middle East, not yet checked for this airfield, which may lie outside them: DCS: Persian Gulf, DCS: Sinai, DCS: Iraq, DCS: Iraq North, Falcon BMS: Israel.
Role today
Abu al-Duhur was a major Syrian Air Force base, 5 km east of the town of the same name in Idlib Governorate. [1] The civil war left it completely destroyed and useless. [1] On 18 August 2026 Israeli aircraft struck its runways and storage in several raids; Israel said it was deterring Turkish use of the base, and experts quoted by The New York Times linked the strikes to fears that Turkish air defences there could close Syrian airspace to Israeli aircraft heading for Iran. [1]
History
Rebels besieged the base from 2012 until 9 September 2015, when the Army of Conquest coalition captured it, finding fighters that had been out of service for years pushed to the edges of the aprons. [1] The Syrian army retook it on 10 January 2018. [1] On 30 November 2024, in the offensive that brought down the Assad government, rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham captured it again. [1]
The airfield
Source 2 lists one paved runway, 09/27, of 9,810 ft. [2] OpenStreetMap maps two parallel runways, each about 2,970 m long. [4]
Sources
- Abu al-Duhur Air Base. Wikipedia (secondary source). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_al-Duhur_Air_Base (accessed 2026-10-28). A short article: the civil war sieges and captures, and the Israeli strikes of August 2026.
- Airport and runway data, OS57. OurAirports open data (public domain, community-maintained). https://davidmegginson.github.io/ourairports-data/airports.csv (accessed 2026-10-28). Rows for OS57 Abu al-Duhur Air Base in airports.csv and runways.csv: position, elevation and runway 09/27.
- dcs-world-schema reference data: Syria airbases (Abu al-Duhur.json). dcs-world-schema, open-source data extracted by running DCS World 2.9.30.28536. https://github.com/YoloWingPixie/dcs-world-schema/blob/c3091e6c08fb8167e26145d0e33c10e4140c6fe7/dcs-world-reference/latest/airbases/Syria/Abu%20al-Duhur.json (accessed 2026-10-28). With its beacon and navaid files, as tabled on the DCS: Syria map page.
- OpenStreetMap aerodrome way/130717242 (Abu adh-Dhuhour Air Base) and its runways. OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL 1.0). https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/130717242 (accessed 2026-10-28). Community-mapped. Runway lengths here are measured along the mapped lines, not published figures.
Wikipedia articles are secondary sources and can change; they are cited with the date they were read. FAA airport data and diagrams are official but are reissued every 28 or 56 days; each is cited with the edition read. pydcs mirrors the DCS terrain data at the commit linked.