Yesterdays reported airstrike in Syria was in fact a false alarm.

Russian MP's check for weapons in Douma. ABC News/AP.

Yesterday's reports of an additional airstrike targeting an airbase near Homs turned out to be a false alarm. ABC News. Syria had reported that they had shot down missiles targeting the Shayrat airbase near Homs with a second attack occurring at the Dumayr airbase near Damascus. Shortly afterwards, Syria took back those claims and said the incidents were false alarms. 

My Comment:

Ugh, once again we have all been a victim of the fog of war. I commented on this yesterday and now the whole story has fallen apart. In my defense, my sources got it wrong as well, but even so, it doesn't feel good. I will be updating the previous post with a link to this one so people no longer get confused. 

However, this incident does prove one thing. Syria's air defenses aren't that good. They apparently mistook nothing for a major attack and ended up wasting some of their precious missiles. And they didn't realize that they weren't under attack until several hours later. That doesn't speak well of the state of their air defenses which have clearly seen better days at this point in the war. 

I think this also demonstrates that we should be hesitant to rely on reports that come from the Assad government. In hindsight, their claim was fairly unbelievable in the first place. I don't think there is any way that the Syrian air defenses could shoot down a bunch of missiles without any of those missiles getting through. The recent attacks on Syria by Israel, America, France and the UK show that pretty clearly. We have to remember that the Syrian government has their own agenda and at times they don't seem to understand exactly what is going on in their own country. 

I do have to mention that there is a slim possibility that the Syrians really did come under attack but are lying about it now for some reason. That wouldn't make a whole lot of sense but I guess they could be trying to do some kind of psychological warfare against their enemies. I find that extremely unlikely, but with how stupid this story turned out to be, I wouldn't be surprised...