Kuweires Military Aviation Institute ( ar, الكلية الجوية العسكرية في كويرس) is an

airbase An air base (sometimes referred to as a military air base, military airfield, military airport, air station, naval air station, air force station, or air force base) is an aerodrome used as a military base by a military force for the operation ...

and

military aviation Military aviation comprises military aircraft and other flying machines for the purposes of conducting or enabling aerial warfare, including national airlift ( air cargo) capacity to provide logistical supply to forces stationed in a war the ...

institute in Aleppo Governorate,

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

. It is situated some 30 km east of the city of

Aleppo )), is an adjective which means "white-colored mixed with black". , motto = , image_map = , mapsize = , map_caption = , image_map1 = ...

, to the northeast of

Kuweires Sharqi Kuweires Sharqi ( ar, كويرس شرقي, East Kuweires) is a town in eastern Aleppo Governorate, northwestern Syria, mostly known for the Kuweires Military Airbase Kuweires Military Aviation Institute ( ar, الكلية الجوية العسك ...

village, between As-Safira in the West and Dayr Hafir in the East. The base was constructed with Polish support in the late 1960s as the primary base of the Syrian air force academy. The base is home to the Military Aviation Institute (originally opened in

Damascus )), is an adjective which means "spacious". , motto = , image_flag = Flag of Damascus.svg , image_seal = Emblem of Damascus.svg , seal_type = Seal , map_caption = , ...

in 1947) of the Syrian Arab Air Force since 1980. The Military Aviation Institute was renovated between 2017–2021 and reopened in 2021.

Siege during the Syrian civil war

Kuweires Airbase was defended mostly by cadets when it fell under siege by rebels in 2013. Rebel forces surrounded Kuweiris for more than a year but did not overrun it. As rebel infighting with ISIS intensified, ISIS took control of the siege around late 2013. ISIS besieged the airbase for two years, deploying heavy weapons and armoured vehicles like suicide tank VBIEDs. 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. Twice ISIS breached the perimeter of the airbase, even reaching as far as the hardened aircraft shelters where the defenders lived, but could not capture it. Colonel Suheil al-Hassan and his

Tiger Forces The 25th Special Mission Forces Division, mostly known by their former name Tiger Forces or Quwwat al-Nimr ( ar, قُوَّات النِّمْر), is an elite formation (special forces unit) of the Syrian Arab Army which functions primarily as a ...

finally broke the siege on November 10, 2015, as part of the Kuweires offensive. Only 300 of 1,100 soldiers survived the siege. The Syrian government repaired the base immediately after lifting the siege, deploying a squadron of Aero L-39 Albatros fighter-bombers together with a

Buk M1 The Buk (russian: link=no, "Бук"; "beech" (tree), ) is a family of self-propelled, medium-range surface-to-air missile systems developed by the Soviet Union and its successor state, the Russian Federation, and designed to counter cruise miss ...

surface-to-air missile system, operated by a combined Russian and Syrian crew, to defend the base.

References

External links

Wikimapia
{{authority control Military installations of Syria Sieges of the Syrian civil war Syrian Air Force bases Dayr Hafir District Universities in Syria

Siege during the Syrian civil war

See also

References

External links