The Syrian Crisis
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Hindustani78
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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1223646/middle-east
AMMAN: Rebels launched a counter attack against Syrian government forces and their allies in Idlib province on Thursday, trying to roll back an advance that is fueling tension with neigboring Turkey.
Fighting raged in Idlib, where a government offensive helped by Iran-backed militia has gathered pace in the last two weeks, according to rebels and a military media unit run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is fighting on the Syrian government’s side.
Idlib province is the biggest chunk of Syria still held by rebels fighting President Bashar Assad, with a population swollen by Syrians who have fled government advances in other parts of the country. Assad has defeated rebels in many parts of western Syria with critical help from Russia and Iran.
The recent military escalation in western Syria has included an unprecedented attack by a squadron of drones on Russian military bases and has cast a shadow over Moscow’s efforts to convene a Syria peace congress later this month.
The Hezbollah media unit said the army and its allies were repelling a “fierce assault” by the Nusra Front, formerly Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the Syrian war, and factions linked to it.
Syrian troops and allied forces absorbed the attack and regained control of some positions they had withdrawn from, it said.
Rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) said in a statement they had set up a joint operations room to repel the offensive and take back areas seized by the government in northeastern Hama and southern Idlib.
“The operation is to hit the belly of the regime deep into liberated territories and to encircle their advancing forces,” said Abdul Hakim al Rahamon, a senior official in Jaish al Nasr, an FSA faction taking part.
Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), an alliance led by the Nusra Front, the dominant force in Idlib, said it had already made gains.
“With Allah’s blessings we drew plans and prepared ourselves and are encircling them,” said Abu al Naji, a commander from Tahrir al Sham. “We have killed many.”
Rebels said they had captured some 15 villages and seized 60 government fighters. A Syrian military source denied this and dismissed rebel talk of a counter attack as propaganda. The source said fierce battles were however underway in the area and army advances were continuing.
Rebel sources said warplanes had struck Khan Sheikhoun and Saraqeb, two major population centers in Idlib province that are among several towns that have been targeted in the latest offensive.
The latest push by the army and its allies has alarmed Turkey which has been deploying forces inside northern Idlib and setting up bases which it says are part of agreements with Iran and Russia over a descalation zone in Idlib.
The Turkish government said the Idlib offensive was endangering the effort to reach a resolution of the conflict and accused the Syrian government of using the pretext of fighting militants to wage a widescale attack.
Ankara is concerned that wider fighting in the province could bring tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing from the battlefields on its borders far beyond the numbers now fleeing.
Many Syrians living in rebel-held areas see Turkey’s military intervention as a bulwark against a relentless bombing campaign by Syrian and Russian airforces they blame for killing and injuring hundreds of civilians in urban areas in recent months, away from the frontlines.
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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1223311/middle-east
BEIRUT: Syrian insurgent groups launched a counteroffensive Thursday against government forces advancing toward a major opposition-held air base in the country’s northwest Idlib province, capturing several villages and taking prisoners, opposition groups said.
The push by several factions, including the Al-Qaeda-linked Levant Liberation Committee, slowed the government offensive toward the Abu Zuhour air base that has been held by fighters since 2015.
Recapturing the air base has been a key government goal since late October and Syrian forces have captured some 160 villages since first launched the offensive. The operations also aim to secure the road linking the capital, Damascus, with Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
The UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock, in Damascus, said he was “deeply worried” about civilians caught up in the violence in Idlib. The fighting has displaced an estimated 100,000 people who have fled north toward safer areas close to the border with Turkey.
Lowcock, on his first mission to Syria since his appointment last year, called for agreements to allow the UN and other relief organizations to reach 2.5 million Syrians in need of aid on a regular basis. They are Syrians in areas the UN classifies as “besieged” or “hard-to-reach.” The UN delivered aid to an average 7.5 million people each month last year.
The under-secretary-general said he was “particularly concerned about the fate of the besieged people of (Eastern) Ghouta,” a pocket of the opposition in the suburbs of Damascus. Government forces have waged a punishing aerial and artillery campaign on eastern Ghouta after opposition launched an attack on a nearby military base in November. The bombardment has killed 170 civilians over the last two weeks, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
Attacks by Syrian and Russian forces on eastern Ghouta damaged or destroyed four schools and killed eight children in late October and early November 2017, according to a new report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Russia is a key military backer of Syria's Bashar Assad.
“Syrian and Russian forces appear to view the lives of children in Eastern Ghouta as utterly disposable,” said Bill Van Esveld, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Government forces had largely beaten back the counter-offensive by militants in Idlib by evening Thursday, the Observatory reported. The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said troops repelled the assault and killed several militants in the fighting.
Idlib is the largest remaining territory in opposition hands, and its population is swollen with more than 1.1 million refugees who have fled fighting from other areas in Syria, according to the UN
A statement Thursday by the International Rescue Committee said it received hundreds of newly displaced people from the southeast of the province in the past few days, joining thousands who fled over the past month.
Many of the newly displaced brought only the belongings they could carry, the committee said, adding that one mother of two twin babies recounted the initial panic of fleeing the airstrikes. The woman was so frightened, she initially left one of her children behind.
“We couldn’t think properly. The fear affected our brains,” the IRC quoted her as saying. The baby was unharmed, she added.
The IRC said nearly two thirds of the displaced in Idlib are living in makeshift tents that are unable to withstand winter conditions while others live in abandoned or partially-build homes that have well water but no toilets.
The Aamaq media arm of the extremist Daesh group reported Thursday that its fighters are clashing with Syrian troops on the eastern edges of Idlib, and released a video purporting to show four soldiers it claimed to have captured.
The Observatory confirmed insurgents have retaken several villages from government troops and said 11 pro-government fighters were captured. The Observatory’s chief Rami Abdurrahman said 16 insurgents were killed in the fighting but did not provide a figure for government casulaties.
At least 400,000 people have been killed and half of Syria’s population displaced since a violent crackdown on anti-government demonstrations in 2011 plunged the country into civil war.
Assad regime says it is fighting a war on terror and describes itself is as a target of a US-led international conspiracy.
It says Western sanctions have crippled its economy. Lowcock, in Damascus, said he would like to see “more detailed evidence” about the claims, and said it would be topic of continued discussion with regime officials.
The US Treasury Department says its sanctions against the Syrian government are in response to human rights abuses and state-sponsored terrorism.
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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1223756/middle-east
ANKARA: Another crisis is brewing between Ankara and Washington over US backing of the Syrian-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
On Wednesday, Ankara summoned the chargé d’affaires of the US Embassy over reports that US troops have begun training some 400 YPG militants in northern Syria in an attempt to establish a new force, the North Army, to monitor the border with Turkey.
The training is reportedly being conducted at Aleppo’s Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates River and in Hasakah province.
US CENTCOM Commander Gen. Joseph Votel announced on Dec. 22 plans to set up border guard regiments in Syria in a bid to prevent the resurgence of Daesh.
This new development is likely to deal a fresh blow to already-fragile relations between the two NATO allies.
In recent weeks, President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis gave assurances that the US would stop delivering heavy weapons to the YPG.
The group is a local partner of the US in Syria, but Ankara considers it a terror organization due to its links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a war against the Turkish state for more than 30 years.
“The latest US move to train YPG forces shows once again that the Pentagon won’t reverse its Syria policy,” Ahmet K. Han, a Middle East expert at Istanbul Kadir Has University, told Arab News.
“Ankara should now give up hope that the heavy weapons that were supplied by the US to the YPG will be taken back.”
Han said the formation of a regiment with US assistance is a step toward state-building in northern Syria, which poses a major threat to Turkey’s national security.
“The fate of the Syrian conflict will be determined no longer by proxies, but by the states that support them,” he added.
“At this stage, Turkey should take action irrespective of whether it will be rational or not. For instance, it may initiate a military operation in the Kurdish-held Afrin canton.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday said: “We are losing patience with those trying to establish a terror corridor within earshot.”
In November, Kurds in northern Syria voted in local council elections. There will be elections for a regional Parliament on Jan. 19, which are widely seen as a move toward autonomy.
“Forming a Kurdish military entity is an attempt to regain power that the US has lost to Iran in recent years,” Enes Ayasli, a research assistant at Sakarya University in Turkey, told Arab News.
The formation of such an army will help the US to have a stronghold in Syria, and will indirectly help it regain influence in the Middle East, he said.
Against this latest move, Turkey must establish observation points in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, he added.
“By doing so, Afrin could be besieged from every direction. Then its vulnerable position could be used as a trump card regarding the YPG issue,” Ayasli said.
“Any direct involvement (by Turkey) in the YPG-controlled area, or breaking off ties with the US, will cause nothing but more troubles,” he added.
“Ongoing clashes in Idlib, backed by Russian airstrikes, are a direct violation of the Astana de-escalation agreement. Conflict with Russia might leave Turkey vulnerable in Syria. Under these circumstances, Turkey can’t just break off ties with the US.”
AMMAN: Rebels launched a counter attack against Syrian government forces and their allies in Idlib province on Thursday, trying to roll back an advance that is fueling tension with neigboring Turkey.
Fighting raged in Idlib, where a government offensive helped by Iran-backed militia has gathered pace in the last two weeks, according to rebels and a military media unit run by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which is fighting on the Syrian government’s side.
Idlib province is the biggest chunk of Syria still held by rebels fighting President Bashar Assad, with a population swollen by Syrians who have fled government advances in other parts of the country. Assad has defeated rebels in many parts of western Syria with critical help from Russia and Iran.
The recent military escalation in western Syria has included an unprecedented attack by a squadron of drones on Russian military bases and has cast a shadow over Moscow’s efforts to convene a Syria peace congress later this month.
The Hezbollah media unit said the army and its allies were repelling a “fierce assault” by the Nusra Front, formerly Al-Qaeda’s affiliate in the Syrian war, and factions linked to it.
Syrian troops and allied forces absorbed the attack and regained control of some positions they had withdrawn from, it said.
Rebels fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) said in a statement they had set up a joint operations room to repel the offensive and take back areas seized by the government in northeastern Hama and southern Idlib.
“The operation is to hit the belly of the regime deep into liberated territories and to encircle their advancing forces,” said Abdul Hakim al Rahamon, a senior official in Jaish al Nasr, an FSA faction taking part.
Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), an alliance led by the Nusra Front, the dominant force in Idlib, said it had already made gains.
“With Allah’s blessings we drew plans and prepared ourselves and are encircling them,” said Abu al Naji, a commander from Tahrir al Sham. “We have killed many.”
Rebels said they had captured some 15 villages and seized 60 government fighters. A Syrian military source denied this and dismissed rebel talk of a counter attack as propaganda. The source said fierce battles were however underway in the area and army advances were continuing.
Rebel sources said warplanes had struck Khan Sheikhoun and Saraqeb, two major population centers in Idlib province that are among several towns that have been targeted in the latest offensive.
The latest push by the army and its allies has alarmed Turkey which has been deploying forces inside northern Idlib and setting up bases which it says are part of agreements with Iran and Russia over a descalation zone in Idlib.
The Turkish government said the Idlib offensive was endangering the effort to reach a resolution of the conflict and accused the Syrian government of using the pretext of fighting militants to wage a widescale attack.
Ankara is concerned that wider fighting in the province could bring tens of thousands of Syrians fleeing from the battlefields on its borders far beyond the numbers now fleeing.
Many Syrians living in rebel-held areas see Turkey’s military intervention as a bulwark against a relentless bombing campaign by Syrian and Russian airforces they blame for killing and injuring hundreds of civilians in urban areas in recent months, away from the frontlines.
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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1223311/middle-east
BEIRUT: Syrian insurgent groups launched a counteroffensive Thursday against government forces advancing toward a major opposition-held air base in the country’s northwest Idlib province, capturing several villages and taking prisoners, opposition groups said.
The push by several factions, including the Al-Qaeda-linked Levant Liberation Committee, slowed the government offensive toward the Abu Zuhour air base that has been held by fighters since 2015.
Recapturing the air base has been a key government goal since late October and Syrian forces have captured some 160 villages since first launched the offensive. The operations also aim to secure the road linking the capital, Damascus, with Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
The UN’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Mark Lowcock, in Damascus, said he was “deeply worried” about civilians caught up in the violence in Idlib. The fighting has displaced an estimated 100,000 people who have fled north toward safer areas close to the border with Turkey.
Lowcock, on his first mission to Syria since his appointment last year, called for agreements to allow the UN and other relief organizations to reach 2.5 million Syrians in need of aid on a regular basis. They are Syrians in areas the UN classifies as “besieged” or “hard-to-reach.” The UN delivered aid to an average 7.5 million people each month last year.
The under-secretary-general said he was “particularly concerned about the fate of the besieged people of (Eastern) Ghouta,” a pocket of the opposition in the suburbs of Damascus. Government forces have waged a punishing aerial and artillery campaign on eastern Ghouta after opposition launched an attack on a nearby military base in November. The bombardment has killed 170 civilians over the last two weeks, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
Attacks by Syrian and Russian forces on eastern Ghouta damaged or destroyed four schools and killed eight children in late October and early November 2017, according to a new report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Russia is a key military backer of Syria's Bashar Assad.
“Syrian and Russian forces appear to view the lives of children in Eastern Ghouta as utterly disposable,” said Bill Van Esveld, senior children’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.
Government forces had largely beaten back the counter-offensive by militants in Idlib by evening Thursday, the Observatory reported. The government-controlled Syrian Central Military Media said troops repelled the assault and killed several militants in the fighting.
Idlib is the largest remaining territory in opposition hands, and its population is swollen with more than 1.1 million refugees who have fled fighting from other areas in Syria, according to the UN
A statement Thursday by the International Rescue Committee said it received hundreds of newly displaced people from the southeast of the province in the past few days, joining thousands who fled over the past month.
Many of the newly displaced brought only the belongings they could carry, the committee said, adding that one mother of two twin babies recounted the initial panic of fleeing the airstrikes. The woman was so frightened, she initially left one of her children behind.
“We couldn’t think properly. The fear affected our brains,” the IRC quoted her as saying. The baby was unharmed, she added.
The IRC said nearly two thirds of the displaced in Idlib are living in makeshift tents that are unable to withstand winter conditions while others live in abandoned or partially-build homes that have well water but no toilets.
The Aamaq media arm of the extremist Daesh group reported Thursday that its fighters are clashing with Syrian troops on the eastern edges of Idlib, and released a video purporting to show four soldiers it claimed to have captured.
The Observatory confirmed insurgents have retaken several villages from government troops and said 11 pro-government fighters were captured. The Observatory’s chief Rami Abdurrahman said 16 insurgents were killed in the fighting but did not provide a figure for government casulaties.
At least 400,000 people have been killed and half of Syria’s population displaced since a violent crackdown on anti-government demonstrations in 2011 plunged the country into civil war.
Assad regime says it is fighting a war on terror and describes itself is as a target of a US-led international conspiracy.
It says Western sanctions have crippled its economy. Lowcock, in Damascus, said he would like to see “more detailed evidence” about the claims, and said it would be topic of continued discussion with regime officials.
The US Treasury Department says its sanctions against the Syrian government are in response to human rights abuses and state-sponsored terrorism.
*******************
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1223756/middle-east
ANKARA: Another crisis is brewing between Ankara and Washington over US backing of the Syrian-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
On Wednesday, Ankara summoned the chargé d’affaires of the US Embassy over reports that US troops have begun training some 400 YPG militants in northern Syria in an attempt to establish a new force, the North Army, to monitor the border with Turkey.
The training is reportedly being conducted at Aleppo’s Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates River and in Hasakah province.
US CENTCOM Commander Gen. Joseph Votel announced on Dec. 22 plans to set up border guard regiments in Syria in a bid to prevent the resurgence of Daesh.
This new development is likely to deal a fresh blow to already-fragile relations between the two NATO allies.
In recent weeks, President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary James Mattis gave assurances that the US would stop delivering heavy weapons to the YPG.
The group is a local partner of the US in Syria, but Ankara considers it a terror organization due to its links with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a war against the Turkish state for more than 30 years.
“The latest US move to train YPG forces shows once again that the Pentagon won’t reverse its Syria policy,” Ahmet K. Han, a Middle East expert at Istanbul Kadir Has University, told Arab News.
“Ankara should now give up hope that the heavy weapons that were supplied by the US to the YPG will be taken back.”
Han said the formation of a regiment with US assistance is a step toward state-building in northern Syria, which poses a major threat to Turkey’s national security.
“The fate of the Syrian conflict will be determined no longer by proxies, but by the states that support them,” he added.
“At this stage, Turkey should take action irrespective of whether it will be rational or not. For instance, it may initiate a military operation in the Kurdish-held Afrin canton.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday said: “We are losing patience with those trying to establish a terror corridor within earshot.”
In November, Kurds in northern Syria voted in local council elections. There will be elections for a regional Parliament on Jan. 19, which are widely seen as a move toward autonomy.
“Forming a Kurdish military entity is an attempt to regain power that the US has lost to Iran in recent years,” Enes Ayasli, a research assistant at Sakarya University in Turkey, told Arab News.
The formation of such an army will help the US to have a stronghold in Syria, and will indirectly help it regain influence in the Middle East, he said.
Against this latest move, Turkey must establish observation points in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province, he added.
“By doing so, Afrin could be besieged from every direction. Then its vulnerable position could be used as a trump card regarding the YPG issue,” Ayasli said.
“Any direct involvement (by Turkey) in the YPG-controlled area, or breaking off ties with the US, will cause nothing but more troubles,” he added.
“Ongoing clashes in Idlib, backed by Russian airstrikes, are a direct violation of the Astana de-escalation agreement. Conflict with Russia might leave Turkey vulnerable in Syria. Under these circumstances, Turkey can’t just break off ties with the US.”
Hindustani78
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http://aa.com.tr/en/middle-east/iran-buries-afghan-pakistani-fighters-killed-in-syria/1028663
By Mustafa Melih Ahishali
ISTANBUL
Funerals have been held for seven members of two Iran-backed militia groups recently killed in Syria, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported Thursday.
According to the news agency, funerals were held in the Iranian city of Qom for the slain fighters, who had been members of the Fatemiyoun and Zainabiyoun brigades, both of which are affiliated with Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The fighters were recently killed during combat operations in Syria, Tasnim reported, without providing any information about the date -- or location -- of their deaths.
Roughly 2,400 Iranian -- or Iran-linked -- military personnel have been killed in Syria while fighting alongside Assad regime forces since the conflict began in 2011, according to estimates.
The Fatemiyoun Brigade consists mainly of Shia Afghan fighters, while the Zainabiyoun Brigade is made up of Pakistani Shias who have taken refuge in Iran.
By Mustafa Melih Ahishali
ISTANBUL
Funerals have been held for seven members of two Iran-backed militia groups recently killed in Syria, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported Thursday.
According to the news agency, funerals were held in the Iranian city of Qom for the slain fighters, who had been members of the Fatemiyoun and Zainabiyoun brigades, both of which are affiliated with Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The fighters were recently killed during combat operations in Syria, Tasnim reported, without providing any information about the date -- or location -- of their deaths.
Roughly 2,400 Iranian -- or Iran-linked -- military personnel have been killed in Syria while fighting alongside Assad regime forces since the conflict began in 2011, according to estimates.
The Fatemiyoun Brigade consists mainly of Shia Afghan fighters, while the Zainabiyoun Brigade is made up of Pakistani Shias who have taken refuge in Iran.
Hindustani78
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http://aa.com.tr/en/europe/it-was-not-turks-who-attacked-russias-bases-putin/1028660
By Emre Gurkan Abay
MOSCOW
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that it was not Turks who attacked Russia’s bases in Syria this week, according to local media reports.
On Monday, Russia averted an attack by 13 drones on its Syrian installations -- 10 attacking its Khmeimim air base and three of them on the Tartus naval base -- according to Russia’s Defense Ministry.
The attacks in Syria were provocations aimed at undermining Russia’s relations with its partners, including Turkey, Putin told reporters in Moscow, according to Russia’s Sputnik news agency.
Putin also said that he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had spoken on the phone about the incident.
"There were some provocateurs, but they were not Turks,” Putin was quoted as saying by Russia’s official news agency TASS.
“We know who they are, who paid who for this provocation, and what the actual sum was.”
On Dec. 11, Putin ordered the start of a withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria, adding that the Tartus and Khmeimim bases would still be in use.
By Emre Gurkan Abay
MOSCOW
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that it was not Turks who attacked Russia’s bases in Syria this week, according to local media reports.
On Monday, Russia averted an attack by 13 drones on its Syrian installations -- 10 attacking its Khmeimim air base and three of them on the Tartus naval base -- according to Russia’s Defense Ministry.
The attacks in Syria were provocations aimed at undermining Russia’s relations with its partners, including Turkey, Putin told reporters in Moscow, according to Russia’s Sputnik news agency.
Putin also said that he and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had spoken on the phone about the incident.
"There were some provocateurs, but they were not Turks,” Putin was quoted as saying by Russia’s official news agency TASS.
“We know who they are, who paid who for this provocation, and what the actual sum was.”
On Dec. 11, Putin ordered the start of a withdrawal of Russian troops from Syria, adding that the Tartus and Khmeimim bases would still be in use.
bhramos
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The militants are conducting an offensive for the second consecutive day in the province of Idlib, even IGIL has joined the fighting against the Syrian army.
But this did not prevent the SAA to return all the lost territories yesterday and occupy about 20 new settlements in the province of Aleppo.
But this did not prevent the SAA to return all the lost territories yesterday and occupy about 20 new settlements in the province of Aleppo.
Hindustani78
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http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/er...terrorists-do-not-pull-out-in-one-week-125674
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signalled a possible military operation on Syria’s Afrin, Manbij 'if terroristst do not pull out in one week' on Jan. 13.
"In Manbij, if they break the promises, we will take the matter in our own hands until there are no terrorists left. They will see what we'll do in about a week," Erdogan said.
"If the terrorists in Afrin don't surrender we will tear them down," he added.
Speaking at the provincial congress meetings of his ruling Justice and Development (AKP) in the eastern province of Elazığ, Erdoğan said that Turkey would conduct military operations in Syria's Afrin if the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) militants do not withdraw, adding that Turkey was disappointed with the United States for not keeping its promises.
"The U.S. sent 4,900 trucks of weapons in Syria. We know this. This is not what allies do," Erdoğan said.
"We know they sent 2,000 planes full of weapons, he added.
He said that Turkey would clear its border with Iraq of "terrorists."
Erdoğan said the YPG is trying to establish a "terror corridor" on Turkey's southern border.
"With the Euphrates Shield operation we cut the terror corridor right in the middle. We hit them one night suddenly. With the idlib operation, we are collapsing the western wing," Erdoğan said, referring to Afrin.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan signalled a possible military operation on Syria’s Afrin, Manbij 'if terroristst do not pull out in one week' on Jan. 13.
"In Manbij, if they break the promises, we will take the matter in our own hands until there are no terrorists left. They will see what we'll do in about a week," Erdogan said.
"If the terrorists in Afrin don't surrender we will tear them down," he added.
Speaking at the provincial congress meetings of his ruling Justice and Development (AKP) in the eastern province of Elazığ, Erdoğan said that Turkey would conduct military operations in Syria's Afrin if the Peoples' Protection Units (YPG) militants do not withdraw, adding that Turkey was disappointed with the United States for not keeping its promises.
"The U.S. sent 4,900 trucks of weapons in Syria. We know this. This is not what allies do," Erdoğan said.
"We know they sent 2,000 planes full of weapons, he added.
He said that Turkey would clear its border with Iraq of "terrorists."
Erdoğan said the YPG is trying to establish a "terror corridor" on Turkey's southern border.
"With the Euphrates Shield operation we cut the terror corridor right in the middle. We hit them one night suddenly. With the idlib operation, we are collapsing the western wing," Erdoğan said, referring to Afrin.
Hindustani78
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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1225151/middle-east
Syrian troops and their allies have blockaded Eastern Ghouta, a densely populated pocket of satellite towns and farms, since 2013. It is the only remaining major opposition enclave near the Syrian capital.
Dropped by one of the countless warplanes that emergency workers say have pounded the opposition-held Syrian enclave of Eastern Ghouta in recent days.
the eastern Ghouta village of Marj Al-Sultan, which the Syrian army recaptured from insurgents in late 2015 had moved deeper into the enclave to the town of Saqba.
Home to around 400,000 civilians, the Eastern Ghouta enclave, Syrian regime forces and their allies have killed at least 85 civilians there since the end of December, including 21 women and 30 children.
“If they want to fight, let them go fight on the frontlines. But why are they bombing us?”
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Government air strikes on northwest Syria killed at least 11 people overnight, most of them civilians,
“Government warplanes carried out air strikes after midnight on several areas in the town of Ariha” in Idlib province
Idlib province has been battered by heavy air strikes in recent weeks, with intensifying bombing raids by regime warplanes in particular, according to the Observatory.
It has also been rocked by infighting between rebel and jihadist factions, including Al-Qaeda’s former Syrian affiliate, Fateh Al-Sham Front.
************
Regime airstrikes killed dozens of civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo and nearby areas Friday
The raids were the most intense in more than a month, with dozens of barrel bombs — crude, unguided explosive devices — dropped on several rebel-held eastern districts of the city, an AFP correspondent said.
Ten people were killed when a bus they were traveling in was hit on the Castello road, a key rebel supply route out of Aleppo, the civil defense said.
At least 28 other civilians were killed in regime strikes on several neighborhoods in the rebel-held east of the city, said the civil defense, known as the White Helmets.
Official news agency SANA said rebel rocket fire killed two children in the regime-controlled west of the city.
“All movement is targeted, be that buses or bystanders,” its head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
*******
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1225236/middle-east
JEDDAH: A counterattack by Syrian opposition groups in northwest Idlib province has recaptured several villages, taken prisoners and liberated more than two-thirds of the territory captured by regime forces.
The push by factions including the radical Levant Liberation Committee slowed an offensive launched two weeks ago by Assad regime troops, Iranian militias and Russian jets toward the Abu Zuhour air base, which has been held by the opposition since 2015.
The regime offensive has displaced about 200,000 people, opposition spokesman Yahya Al-Aridi told Arab News on Saturday. “They are now refugees,” he said. “This is a disaster for them.”
Nevertheless, the morale of the anti-Assad forces was high, Al-Aridi said. He said the pretext for the regime offensive was “a few people classified as Al-Nusra, and the brutality perpetrated is horrible. The freedom fighters are just doing a good job and are liberating many of the villages captured by the regime.”
Al-Aridi described a recent meeting between an opposition delegation and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as “very fruitful,” and said there was an understanding of the rebel view that the conflict should be resolved through UN-sponsored negotiations in Geneva.
Russia is sponsoring what it calls a Syrian national dialogue conference at the end of January in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. “There is no clear picture about the Sochi meeting and the viewpoints on it are quite similar,” Al-Aridi said. “Guterres is not encouraged toward the Sochi meeting.”
In Damascus, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, said he was “deeply worried” about civilians caught up in the violence in Idlib. He said he was also particularly concerned about the fate of the people of eastern Ghouta, the opposition-held rural suburb of Damascus where more than 400,000 have been trapped under regime siege since 2013.
Attacks on the area by Syrian and Russian forces in late October and early November 2017 killed eight children and damaged or destroyed four schools, according to a new report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
“Syrian and Russian forces appear to view the lives of children in eastern Ghouta as utterly disposable,” said Bill Van Esveld, the group’s senior children’s rights researcher.
Meanwhile, the Russian military said it had eliminated a group of opposition fighters who killed two Russian servicemen and destroyed seven aircraft in a drone attack on Russia’s Hmeymin air base in Syria on New Year’s eve. The military tracked down the fighters with drones and other intelligence assets and struck them with artillery while they were boarding a minibus in Idlib. Russia also destroyed the drone assembly facility in Idlib, the Defense Ministry said.
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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1225586/middle-east
BEIRUT: Syria’s leading opposition body on Saturday blamed the government for the mysterious death of one of its members after a car accident in the capital Damascus.
Munir Darwish, 80, was a writer and founder of a Cairo-based opposition group seen as “tolerated” by President Bashar Assad’s government.
He joined the mainstream Syrian Negotiations Committee (SNC) in November but continued to live in Damascus.
The SNC said Darwish was the victim of “a hit-and-run outside his home in Damascus, followed by a premeditated elimination (killing)” on Friday night.
“We hold the tyrannical Assad regime responsible for Munir Darwish’s death,” the SNC said in a statement, referring to the incident as an “assassination.”
Firas Al-Khalidi, who heads the Cairo Platform, told AFP that the exact cause of death remained unclear.
After the car accident, Darwish underwent ankle surgery at the capital’s Mawasat Hospital and was in “excellent health,” awaiting release on Saturday, he said.
“At around midnight on Friday, they called to say he’s dead. I found out from his son,” he said.
Khalidi said Darwish had not left Syria since late November out of fear for his safety, even though both his sons and wife lived abroad.
“He clearly hinted that there were threats,” Khalidi added, without directly accusing the government.
“Who has an interest in his assassination, except those who hate Syria — with the regime at the top of the list?” Khalidi told AFP.
A statement from the office of Syria’s UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said he was “shocked and saddened” to hear of Darwish’s death.
Meanwhile, Syrian troops have recaptured dozens of towns and villages from opposition fighters, a monitor said Sunday, bringing them closer to a key military airport in the country’s northwest.
“In the past 24 hours, regime forces have taken at least 79 villages in the southern parts of Aleppo province, an area near the Abu Duhur military airport,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
Russia-backed regime troops are aiming to reach the Abu Duhur base as part of a weeks-long assault against Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which is dominated by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate.
The offensive has seen Syrian forces seize surrounding territory in the provinces of Aleppo and Hama as they close in on Abu Duhur, which lies just inside the Idlib province.
They briefly broke into the air base this week from the south but were ousted in a ferocious counter-offensive by opposition fighters.
With the latest push in Aleppo province, Abdel Rahman said, army troops were seeking to open a new front on the airport’s northern and eastern flanks.
“Regime troops lost control of those villages in southern Aleppo province in 2012,” he said.
“They are advancing quickly now because of HTS’s collapse, and the withdrawal of its fighters and those of other groups from the area,” Abdel Rahman added.
Syrian daily Al-Watan, which is close to the government, also reported that the army was “encircling” the airport.
The airport straddles the border between Aleppo and Idlib, the last province in the country outside the government’s control.
In addition to the base, the regime hopes to secure a key patch of highway running through Idlib that links the northern city of Aleppo with the capital Damascus further south.
Opposition fighters overran Idlib province over the course of several months in 2015, capturing Abu Duhur in September of that year.
Syrian troops and their allies have blockaded Eastern Ghouta, a densely populated pocket of satellite towns and farms, since 2013. It is the only remaining major opposition enclave near the Syrian capital.
Dropped by one of the countless warplanes that emergency workers say have pounded the opposition-held Syrian enclave of Eastern Ghouta in recent days.
the eastern Ghouta village of Marj Al-Sultan, which the Syrian army recaptured from insurgents in late 2015 had moved deeper into the enclave to the town of Saqba.
Home to around 400,000 civilians, the Eastern Ghouta enclave, Syrian regime forces and their allies have killed at least 85 civilians there since the end of December, including 21 women and 30 children.
“If they want to fight, let them go fight on the frontlines. But why are they bombing us?”
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Government air strikes on northwest Syria killed at least 11 people overnight, most of them civilians,
“Government warplanes carried out air strikes after midnight on several areas in the town of Ariha” in Idlib province
Idlib province has been battered by heavy air strikes in recent weeks, with intensifying bombing raids by regime warplanes in particular, according to the Observatory.
It has also been rocked by infighting between rebel and jihadist factions, including Al-Qaeda’s former Syrian affiliate, Fateh Al-Sham Front.
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Regime airstrikes killed dozens of civilians in the Syrian city of Aleppo and nearby areas Friday
The raids were the most intense in more than a month, with dozens of barrel bombs — crude, unguided explosive devices — dropped on several rebel-held eastern districts of the city, an AFP correspondent said.
Ten people were killed when a bus they were traveling in was hit on the Castello road, a key rebel supply route out of Aleppo, the civil defense said.
At least 28 other civilians were killed in regime strikes on several neighborhoods in the rebel-held east of the city, said the civil defense, known as the White Helmets.
Official news agency SANA said rebel rocket fire killed two children in the regime-controlled west of the city.
“All movement is targeted, be that buses or bystanders,” its head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
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http://www.arabnews.com/node/1225236/middle-east
JEDDAH: A counterattack by Syrian opposition groups in northwest Idlib province has recaptured several villages, taken prisoners and liberated more than two-thirds of the territory captured by regime forces.
The push by factions including the radical Levant Liberation Committee slowed an offensive launched two weeks ago by Assad regime troops, Iranian militias and Russian jets toward the Abu Zuhour air base, which has been held by the opposition since 2015.
The regime offensive has displaced about 200,000 people, opposition spokesman Yahya Al-Aridi told Arab News on Saturday. “They are now refugees,” he said. “This is a disaster for them.”
Nevertheless, the morale of the anti-Assad forces was high, Al-Aridi said. He said the pretext for the regime offensive was “a few people classified as Al-Nusra, and the brutality perpetrated is horrible. The freedom fighters are just doing a good job and are liberating many of the villages captured by the regime.”
Al-Aridi described a recent meeting between an opposition delegation and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as “very fruitful,” and said there was an understanding of the rebel view that the conflict should be resolved through UN-sponsored negotiations in Geneva.
Russia is sponsoring what it calls a Syrian national dialogue conference at the end of January in the Black Sea resort of Sochi. “There is no clear picture about the Sochi meeting and the viewpoints on it are quite similar,” Al-Aridi said. “Guterres is not encouraged toward the Sochi meeting.”
In Damascus, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, said he was “deeply worried” about civilians caught up in the violence in Idlib. He said he was also particularly concerned about the fate of the people of eastern Ghouta, the opposition-held rural suburb of Damascus where more than 400,000 have been trapped under regime siege since 2013.
Attacks on the area by Syrian and Russian forces in late October and early November 2017 killed eight children and damaged or destroyed four schools, according to a new report by the New York-based Human Rights Watch.
“Syrian and Russian forces appear to view the lives of children in eastern Ghouta as utterly disposable,” said Bill Van Esveld, the group’s senior children’s rights researcher.
Meanwhile, the Russian military said it had eliminated a group of opposition fighters who killed two Russian servicemen and destroyed seven aircraft in a drone attack on Russia’s Hmeymin air base in Syria on New Year’s eve. The military tracked down the fighters with drones and other intelligence assets and struck them with artillery while they were boarding a minibus in Idlib. Russia also destroyed the drone assembly facility in Idlib, the Defense Ministry said.
***************
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1225586/middle-east
BEIRUT: Syria’s leading opposition body on Saturday blamed the government for the mysterious death of one of its members after a car accident in the capital Damascus.
Munir Darwish, 80, was a writer and founder of a Cairo-based opposition group seen as “tolerated” by President Bashar Assad’s government.
He joined the mainstream Syrian Negotiations Committee (SNC) in November but continued to live in Damascus.
The SNC said Darwish was the victim of “a hit-and-run outside his home in Damascus, followed by a premeditated elimination (killing)” on Friday night.
“We hold the tyrannical Assad regime responsible for Munir Darwish’s death,” the SNC said in a statement, referring to the incident as an “assassination.”
Firas Al-Khalidi, who heads the Cairo Platform, told AFP that the exact cause of death remained unclear.
After the car accident, Darwish underwent ankle surgery at the capital’s Mawasat Hospital and was in “excellent health,” awaiting release on Saturday, he said.
“At around midnight on Friday, they called to say he’s dead. I found out from his son,” he said.
Khalidi said Darwish had not left Syria since late November out of fear for his safety, even though both his sons and wife lived abroad.
“He clearly hinted that there were threats,” Khalidi added, without directly accusing the government.
“Who has an interest in his assassination, except those who hate Syria — with the regime at the top of the list?” Khalidi told AFP.
A statement from the office of Syria’s UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said he was “shocked and saddened” to hear of Darwish’s death.
Meanwhile, Syrian troops have recaptured dozens of towns and villages from opposition fighters, a monitor said Sunday, bringing them closer to a key military airport in the country’s northwest.
“In the past 24 hours, regime forces have taken at least 79 villages in the southern parts of Aleppo province, an area near the Abu Duhur military airport,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor.
Russia-backed regime troops are aiming to reach the Abu Duhur base as part of a weeks-long assault against Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), which is dominated by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria affiliate.
The offensive has seen Syrian forces seize surrounding territory in the provinces of Aleppo and Hama as they close in on Abu Duhur, which lies just inside the Idlib province.
They briefly broke into the air base this week from the south but were ousted in a ferocious counter-offensive by opposition fighters.
With the latest push in Aleppo province, Abdel Rahman said, army troops were seeking to open a new front on the airport’s northern and eastern flanks.
“Regime troops lost control of those villages in southern Aleppo province in 2012,” he said.
“They are advancing quickly now because of HTS’s collapse, and the withdrawal of its fighters and those of other groups from the area,” Abdel Rahman added.
Syrian daily Al-Watan, which is close to the government, also reported that the army was “encircling” the airport.
The airport straddles the border between Aleppo and Idlib, the last province in the country outside the government’s control.
In addition to the base, the regime hopes to secure a key patch of highway running through Idlib that links the northern city of Aleppo with the capital Damascus further south.
Opposition fighters overran Idlib province over the course of several months in 2015, capturing Abu Duhur in September of that year.
