English Wikipedia dates Shayrat to the 1960s and describes two runways, one of 3,002 m and one of 3,200 m, and about 40 hardened aircraft shelters. It is a classic fighter-bomber base of the Soviet-equipped era: long runways, dispersed concrete shelters and a single resident brigade.

By the civil war the base housed the 50th Air Brigade. The OPCW, in its first attribution report of April 2020, placed the brigade in the 22nd Air Division and identified its aircraft as Su-22s. Wikipedia credits the brigade with three fighter squadrons. A Russian television report quoted in Wikipedia’s account of the 2017 strike listed Su-22M3s, Su-22M4s and MiG-23MLs among the aircraft destroyed there, which gives an idea of the mix; that list is a claim, not an official inventory.

Russia’s intervention from September 2015 reached Shayrat too. Wikipedia, citing Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, says its runways were expanded for Russian aircraft, and, citing Jane’s of 24 February 2016, that four Mi-35s, four Mi-24s and one Mi-8/17 of the Russian forces were deployed there. Russian personnel were still present in April 2017: the Pentagon said it had warned them before the Tomahawks struck.

Three weeks before the US strike, the town of Ltamenah in Hama province was hit twice with sarin and once with chlorine. In April 2020 the OPCW’s Investigation and Identification Team (IIT) concluded that there were reasonable grounds to believe that on 24 March 2017, at about 06:00, a Su-22 of the 50th Brigade, 22nd Air Division, departing from Shayrat, dropped sarin, affecting at least 16 people; that on 25 March a Syrian Arab Air Force helicopter from Hama air base dropped a chlorine cylinder on Ltamenah hospital, affecting at least 30; and that on 30 March another Su-22 from Shayrat dropped sarin, affecting at least 60.

Khan Shaykhun, struck on 4 April, was investigated by a different body. On 26 October 2017 the OPCW-UN Joint Investigative Mechanism said its leadership panel was “confident that the Syrian Arab Republic is responsible for the release of sarin at Khan Shaykhun”. The JIM did not need to name the airfield; the US government did, saying on 6 April that aircraft from Shayrat had carried out the attack.

The Syrian government rejected all of it. President Bashar al-Assad called the Khan Shaykhun attack a “100 per cent fabrication”, and Russia said a Syrian aircraft had struck a terrorist depot producing chemical munitions, later suggesting the incident was staged. In April 2021 the OPCW’s member states suspended Syria’s rights in the organisation.

At 04:40 local time on 7 April 2017 the destroyers USS Ross and USS Porter fired 59 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles at Shayrat. The Pentagon listed the targets as aircraft, hardened aircraft shelters, petroleum and logistical storage, ammunition supply bunkers, air defence systems and radars, and said the initial assessment was that the strike had “severely damaged or destroyed” Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure. The runways were not on the list.

How much was destroyed is still disputed. US officials first spoke of about 20 aircraft, and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis later said about 20 per cent of Syria’s operational aircraft. Russia’s defence ministry said only 23 missiles reached the base and that six aircraft were destroyed. ImageSat International counted 44 targets hit in imagery taken within ten hours. The figures are each party’s own and none has been independently reconciled.

Syrian state media reported civilian dead in the neighbouring villages of Shayrat and al-Hamrat (SANA gave five and four), and Wikipedia’s sources give seven to nine soldiers killed. The base did not stay shut: according to reports collected by Wikipedia, combat flights resumed from Shayrat a few hours after the strike.

Shayrat remained an operational base for the rest of the war. On 13 November 2022 Syrian state media, as reported by Al Jazeera, said Israeli strikes on the base had killed two soldiers and wounded three.

When the Assad government fell on 8 December 2024, Israel began what the UN Commission of Inquiry describes as an unprecedented campaign of more than 350 strikes on military facilities, equipment and supplies between 8 and 17 December. Wikipedia, citing Middle East Monitor, lists Shayrat among the bases hit. The IDF said it had destroyed dozens of fighter jets and helicopters across Syria. No damage assessment specific to Shayrat has been published by either government.

The new Ministry of Defence has not said whether Shayrat will host aircraft again. Wikipedia’s 2026 list of bases reported as active, drawn from Janes, does not include it.