US Envoy Tom Barrack Criticises Israel, While Turkey's Military Footprint Draws Praise
Israel’s attack on the Abu al-Duhur airbase in Syria has opened up the risk of direct confrontation with Turkey, a fellow key partner of the United States in the region. US Ambassador to Turkey and special envoy of President Donald Trump for Syria and Iraq, Tom Barrack, said Ankara did not know the purpose of the Israeli aircraft moving towards its border, so the Turkish military could have scrambled fighter jets in response.
Barrack even put forward one theory that Israel may have deliberately been ‘baiting’ Turkey. However, he explicitly stressed that this was a theory, not a conclusion of US intelligence.
Barrack’s comments came after Israel struck the Abu al-Duhur airbase in Idlib province, north-western Syria, on Tuesday, 18 August 2026. Syrian state television Ekhbariya, citing military sources, reported eight strikes hit the runway and storage facilities. No casualties were reported.
Reuters reported on Tuesday, 18 August 2026 that the base is located around 70 kilometres east of the Turkish border and has not operated as a dedicated military airfield since 2013.
Israel said the strike was carried out because Damascus was on the verge of violating the ‘status quo agreed with Israel on security matters’ by allowing Turkish forces to be stationed at Abu al-Duhur.
‘Israel has repeatedly warned Syria that such a deployment would be a threat to Israel’s security. Syria chose to ignore the warning,’ read a statement from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as reported by Reuters on Tuesday, 18 August 2026.
Israel stressed it would not allow threats to its security to emerge from Syria. However, it was this justification that Barrack subsequently questioned.
Israel said it could have been ‘baiting’ Turkey
In an interview with Mario Nawfal published on platform X on Friday evening, 21 August 2026, Barrack raised several possibilities regarding the motive behind the Israeli strike.
The Associated Press reported on Saturday, 22 August 2026 that Barrack said one possibility was that Israel was ‘baiting the Turks’.
However, Barrack did not state this as an intelligence finding. The Jerusalem Post reported on Saturday, 22 August 2026 that Barrack specifically stressed he was putting forward a theory that might explain the strike. ‘One of the theories is that Israel is baiting Turkey,’ Barrack said.
He described the operation of fighter jets near the border without coordination or notification as ‘a very dangerous game’. Barrack also linked one possible motive to the Israeli election scheduled for 27 October 2026.
The election date is not speculation. Reuters reported on Sunday, 12 July 2026 that Netanyahu’s coalition chief, Ofir Katz, confirmed Israel’s national election would be held on 27 October.
Barrack said one of his theories was that the action was an aggressive move that might be politically acceptable ahead of the election. However, he again provided no evidence that Netanyahu ordered the strike for electoral gain.
Another possibility raised by Barrack was more operational in nature: miscommunication between the Israeli military, Mossad and the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office.
The Associated Press reported Barrack said there may have been Israeli intelligence about a possible increase in Turkish presence, and then a commander took a decision to prevent it.
Barrack said the problem was that the Israeli side did not inform either the United States or Turkey about the execution of the strike.
Potential clash with the Turkish military
The biggest risk, according to Barrack, was not merely the strike on the Syrian base. The issue was how the Turkish military could interpret Israeli fighter jets flying towards an area near its border without knowing the purpose of the flight.
Reuters reported on Tuesday, 18 August 2026 quoting Barrack as saying Turkey received no warning about the Israeli strike. As a result, Ankara saw aircraft moving north towards its territory and ‘could reasonably prepare its own response’.
‘Thankfully, cooler heads were able to prevent the situation from deteriorating further,’ Barrack told Reuters.
In a subsequent interview with Nawfal, Barrack described the scenario in more detail. ‘When they see these jets coming towards the border and do not know the purpose, direction or intent, they start saying, “We have to fly our own planes”,’ Barrack said, as reported by the Associated Press on Saturday, 22 August 2026.
The historical context means such concerns cannot be taken lightly. In 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian Su-24 fighter jet near the Turkey-Syria border. The incident triggered a serious crisis between Ankara and Moscow.