Rebel fighters from the Free Syrian Army and affiliated groups launched an attack against the air base on 2 August 2012 using a combination of small arms, rocket-propelled grenades, and five tanks they had captured during the battle of Anadan.

[40] On 28 May, rebel sources reported that the government conducted a successful airborne resupply mission to the Menagh base after several thousand FSA and jihadist rebels moved west to launch an attack on Kurdish fighters of the People's Protection Units (YPG) in the Afrin region, bringing critical military and logistical supplies to the air base.

[43] On 17 June, rebels clashed with pro-government fighters from Nubl and Al-Zahraa who were headed for Menagh in an effort to reinforce the remaining soldiers inside the base.

[44] On 23 June, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a pro-opposition war observer, reported that rebels had detonated a large car bomb in the government-held area of Menagh, which killed 12 soldiers and destroyed many buildings within the airport.

Several insurgent militias taking part in this coordinated effort were actually hostile toward each other (for example, the Northern Storm Brigade had clashed with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) as late as July 2013); nevertheless, they put their differences mostly aside for the final attack on the base.

[47] The attack began when two foreign suicide bombers from ISIL's JAMWA,[19] one of them a Saudi, drove a BMP infantry fighting vehicle up to the airport's command center and blew themselves up, destroying the building and killing or scattering the defenders.

[29] Though most of the aircraft which had originally been stationed at the airbase was distributed to other bases during the siege,[51] the Syrian Air Force lost at least five Mil Mi-8 helicopters at Menagh.

[32] About 70 Syrian soldiers, who managed to flee from the base during the battle, surrendered themselves (and two tanks) the next day to the Kurdish-led YPG in Afrin, located about 15 kilometers west of the airbase.

[46] Two and a half years after the siege's end, in February 2016, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, supported by Russian airstrikes, captured Menagh Air Base from the rebels.