A series of powerful explosions rocked a Syrian army weapons depot early on Monday near the town of al-Eis, roughly 35 kilometres south of Aleppo in northern Syria, injuring at least four people and prompting authorities to seal off surrounding roads. The cause of the blasts has not been established. State media agency SANA reported the initial explosion at the military site before dawn, with a chain of secondary detonations — likely caused by exploding missiles and stored ammunition — audible from several kilometres away. Shrapnel was filmed flying dozens of metres into the air.
The continuing explosions initially hampered rescue teams attempting to reach the site, but civil defence units eventually managed to enter the area and evacuate four injured people. Aleppo's governor, Azzam al-Gharib, urged residents to remain indoors and not to travel toward the site, while hospitals, ambulance crews and emergency services were placed on full alert. Syria's Emergency and Disaster Management Minister Raid al-Saleh said he was personally monitoring the situation and warned the public against approaching any unidentified objects in the vicinity. The Damascus–Aleppo international highway was closed from the Aleppo side, and additional roads leading to the depot were blocked to protect civilians. A resident of Aleppo's Hamdaniyeh neighbourhood described hearing a "huge explosion" and, from their rooftop, seeing "large flames in the distance" to the west.
Monday's incident is the latest in a troubling pattern of explosions at military sites across Syria, which has been navigating a fragile transition since the fall of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in late 2024 following more than a decade of civil war. The country's landscape remains littered with weapons stockpiles and war remnants from that prolonged conflict. Just last Friday, an explosion of unknown origin killed 11 soldiers at a military site in Deir Az Zor, a province in eastern Syria. Earlier in September, a blast at a Defence Ministry weapons depot near Sarmada in the northwestern Idlib province killed 14 people and injured 11, while a separate explosion involving a munitions-laden vehicle in the same province killed five.
The frequency of such incidents underscores the enormous challenge facing Syrian authorities in securing and safely disposing of the vast quantities of weapons and unexploded ordnance left behind by years of conflict. Until the causes of these recurring blasts are determined and legacy munitions are systematically cleared, civilian populations living near former military infrastructure remain at significant risk.