A Blog by the Editor of The Middle East Journal

Putting Middle Eastern Events in Cultural and Historical Context

Friday, April 7, 2017

Google Earth Airbase Confusion

Yesterday, writing about the US attack on Sha'irat airbase in Syria, I posted a Google Earth image of the base; that was indeed the base the US attacked. But if you zoom in, you will find the image is labeled, in Arabic, as Tiyas Military Airbase (image below):
But Sha'irat, which is in fact pictured, is not only a different base than Tiras, though, is a much larger base, also known as T-4, which lies astride the main road from Homs to Palmyra, and before the civil war would be seen by anyone en route to  Palmyra.

Google's labeler screwed up the label.

The tactical pilotage chart below shows he location of both bases: Sha'irat at far left and Tiras to the right.




2 comments:

David Mack said...

Whoa. Has the mainstream media caught up with this confusion of air bases? Or blithely moved on?

Michael Collins Dunn said...

not to my knowledge.