بواسطة Syria in a Week Editors | يوليو 11, 2018 | Media Roundups, Syria in a Week
The following is a selection by our editors of significant weekly developments in Syria. Depending on events, each issue will include anywhere from four to eight briefs. This series is produced in both Arabic and English in partnership between Salon Syria and Jadaliyya. Suggestions and blurbs may be sent to info@salonsyria.com.
Half the Crossings are Under Control
6 July 2018
Syrian government forces took control of the border strip with Jordan and the vital Nassib crossing, known as Jaber crossing from the Jordanian side, after it had previously been under the control of opposition factions.
Of the nineteen border crossings with neighboring countries, i.e. Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey, the government now controls around half of them, including five with Lebanon and one with Jordan and Iraq each, in addition to two crossings with Turkey, which has closed them from its side.
In mid-2015, the government only had control over the crossings with Lebanon while the remaining crossings were controlled by the opposition, fanatics, or Kurds. The following is a list of crossings that shows by whom they are controlled, according to the AFP:
- Nassib crossing, south of Daraa Governorate, had always been a vital commercial crossing for Damascus before opposition factions took control of it in April 2015. Syrian authorities are hoping that with its recapture, they will be able to reboot this strategic route and re-stimulate commercial activities with all the economic and financial benefits.
- Al-Jomrok al-Qadeem crossing, known as al-Ramtha from the Jordanian side. Government forces lost control over this crossing in 2013. It is still under the control of opposition factions, however, they are supposed to withdraw from it in the upcoming period according to an agreement between the factions and the Russians.
- Kasab crossing, Lattakia Governorate (northeast of Syria), is under the control of government forces but it is closed from the Turkish side after fierce battles in 2014 between government forces and opposition factions who took control of it for a short period of time.
- Bab al-Hawa crossing, Idlib Governorate (northeast of Syria), is under the control of a civil administration affiliated with Tahrir al-Sham (previously Nusra).
- Bab al-Salamah, in I’zaz, Aleppo Governorate (north of Syria), is under the control of Syrian opposition factions loyal to Turkey.
- Jarablus crossing, in Aleppo Governorate (north of Syria), is under the control of Syrian factions loyal to Turkey.
- Tal Abyadh crossing, in Raqqa Governorate (north of Syria), is under the control of the US-supported Kurdish People’s Protection Units after ISIS was kicked out of it in 2015.
- Ain al-Arab (Kobani) crossing, in Aleppo Governorate, is under the control of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units.
- Ra’s al-Ain crossing, in Hasakeh Governorate (northeast of Syria), witnessed fierce battles in the summer of 2013 between ISIS and Kurdish fighters who were able to oust ISIS from the crossing and the city of Ra’s al-Ain.
- Qamishli-Nssaibin crossing, is the only crossing in Hasakeh Governorate that is still under government control, but it is closed by Turkish authorities.
- Ain Diwar in Hasakeh is under the control of Kurdish fighters.
- Al-Ya’robieh or al-Rabi’a from the Iraqi side, in Hasakeh Governorate, is under the control of Kurdish fighters.
- Al-Boukamal or al-Qaem from the Iraqi side, in Deir Azzor Governorate (north-east of Syria, is under the control of the government and ally fighters from Iran.
- Al-Tanf or al-Waleed from the Iraqi side, south of Deir Azzor, is under the control of the US-led international coalition along with opposition factions after ousting ISIS from it.
- Five crossings between Lebanon and Syria, in Homs and Damascus Governorates, are under government control; they are: Jdaidet Yaboos (al-Masna’ from the Lebanese side), al-Daboosieh (al-A’boodieh from the Lebanese side), Josieh (al-Qa’a from the Lebanese side), Tal Kalakh (al-Bqai’a from the Lebanese side), and Tartus (al-A’reidah from the Lebanese side). There are numerous illegal crossings along the Lebanese-Syrian borders most of which are in mountainous areas.
Israel and Syria are officially in a state of war and there are no crossings between the two countries. However, opposition factions control the Qonaiterah border area. Israel has occupied a major part of the Syrian Golan Heights since 1967.
The remaining parts of the Syrian border are open to the Mediterranean and maritime ports are all under government control, in addition to the airports in Damascus, Aleppo, Lattakia, and Qamishli.
Daraa Besieged and the Return of Refugees
9 July 2018
On Monday, the Syrian army and allied forces imposed a siege on the opposition enclave in Daraa in southern Syrian and were poised to gain complete control of the city, fighters from the Syrian opposition said.
Daraa is considered the cradle of the uprising against President Bashar al-Asad’s rule. Abu Shaima, a spokesman for the opposition in the southern Syrian city, said that several thousand people were now encircled after the army pushed into a base west of the city without a fight before the formal evacuation of opposition fighters in contravention of a Russian-brokered agreement. He told Reuters that the army and allied fighters have completely encircled Daraa.
Opposition representatives and Russian officers reached an agreement on Friday that the opposition would give up Daraa and other towns in the governorate bordering Jordan, in a new victory for Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies.
The agreement allows fighters not ready to make peace to leave for opposition-controlled areas in northern Syria before the handover of weapons and the return of state sovereignty.
“There is a lot of fear and we do not trust the Russians or the regime,” Abu Shaima said.
In other areas covered by the agreement, fighters from the Free Syrian Army, which previously received Western support, continued to hand over positions bordering Jordan, east of Daraa, that had been under their control since the onset of the conflict.
Two hundred thousand displaced people went back to their towns and villages, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on Monday. The SOHR added that the vast majority of people who were on the Syrian-Jordanian border went back to their villages and towns, which were widely looted by government forces and allied militants for items that included furniture, cars, cattle, and other property.
This comes after cautious calmness throughout Darra since Sunday and after a series of heavy shelling and more than one hundred and twenty air raids that targeted the town of Um al-Mayathen and the city of Daraa and their surroundings.
The SOHR said that government forces and Russia launched more than two thousand and three hundred air raids and shells on opposition areas to impose a surrender and signing of a deal in Bosra al-Sham.
Israel and Iran in Syria
8 July 2018
The “aggression” that targeted a military base in central Syria is an “Israeli” one, said Damascus on Sunday adding that its forces successfully hit one of the attacking planes, according to a military source in the official media.
The Syrian news agency SANA reported an “aggression” on the T4 military airport in central Syria without mentioning the responsible party. It then cited a military source as saying: “Our defense systems have confronted an Israeli aggression and downed a number of missiles that targeted the T4 airport, they successfully hit one of the attacking planes and forced the rest to leave our airspace.”
The SOHR said that “the missile attack targeted the T4 airport and its vicinity near Palmyra in Homs Governorate.” The SOHR added that the bombardment targeted “Iranian fighters in the airport complex,” and confirmed the death of Iranian fighters and others loyal to the Syrian government without specifying numbers.
In addition to the Syrian army, there are Iranian and Hezbollah fighters in the T4 airport, according to the SOHR.
The T4 military base was repeatedly subject to airstrikes, which Damascus accused Israel of carrying out, including an airstrike on 9 April that left fourteen soldiers dead including seven Iranians. Moscow, Tehran, and Damascus blamed Israel for the airstrike.
The airport was also targeted on 10 February in an incident that witnessed the downing of an Israeli military airplane by Syrian forces. Israel at the time said that it hit “Iranian targets.”
“We will violently respond to any Syrian military incursion in the demilitarized zone of the Golan Heights,” said Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he will discuss the Iranian presence in Syria with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday.
Spy’s Watch
5 July 2018
On Thursday, the Israeli Mossad said that it was able to obtain the watch of an Israeli spy that was sentenced to death in Syria in 1965.
The Israeli spy Eli Cohen was put on trial and sentenced to death for espionage in Syria after he succeeded in penetrating the highest levels of the Syrian government.
“The Mossad returned the watch of the late Mossad fighter Eli Cohen to Israel … the watch was returned through a special operation carried out by the Mossad recently,” a statement by the Israeli government said.
The statement went on to say: “After Cohen’s execution on 18 May 1965, his watch remained in an enemy state,” and added “after the watch returned to Israel, intelligence and research operations were carried out that came to the firm conclusion that this indeed is Eli Cohen’s watch.”
Syria, which has not signed a peace agreement with Israel, did not respond to Israeli requests over the years for the return of Cohen’s remains for humanitarian reasons.
In 2004, former Israeli President Moshe Katsav sent a humanitarian call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad through envoys from France, Germany, and the UN.
The information obtained by Cohen was considered crucial to Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights in the 1967 War.
“This year and as a result of an operation we succeeded in determining the place of Eli Cohen’s watch, which he wore until he was captured, and we brought it back to Israel.” a statement reported the Mossad chief Yosi Cohen saying on Thursday.
“The watch represents a partial picture of Elie Cohen’s operation and part of his fake Arab identity,” he added.
The statement said that the watch will be presented in the Mossad headquarters until the end of the Jewish year in September and will be given to his family afterwards.
In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu praised Cohen and his colleagues in the Mossad. However, Cohen’s widow said that bringing the watch back happened by buying it from an online auction.
Chlorine and not Sarine
6 July 2018
A preliminary report by investigators in the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) published on Friday said that traces of chlorine gas were discovered in the Syrian city of Douma, where an attack in April left tens of deaths and injuries.
The report issued by the OPCW did not find any traces of nerve gas and added that the date for publishing the final report is still unclear.
Last month, UN human rights investigators found that “current evidence is largely consistent with the use of chlorine.”
Activists and international powers accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons against its opponents and civilians, while Syria has repeatedly rejected these claims.
On 7 April, at least forty people were killed in an attack on Douma, which was still under the control of opposition fighters.
The suspected use of chemical weapons prompted the United States, Britain, and France to launch a series of airstrikes on Syria one week after the Douma attack.
بواسطة Syria in a Week Editors | أبريل 17, 2018 | Media Roundups, Syria in a Week
The following is a selection by our editors of significant weekly developments in Syria. Depending on events, each issue will include anywhere from four to eight briefs. This series is produced in both Arabic and English in partnership between Salon Syria and Jadaliyya. Suggestions and blurbs may be sent to info@salonsyria.com.
“Soft” Strike and “Fatal” Division
9-15 April 2018
This week witnessed the eruption of a new international conflict and the formation of a US-British-French tripartite coalition to “punish” Damascus.
After the claimed “chemical” attack on Douma in eastern Ghouta last week, the United States stepped up its threats to carry out a military strike against the Syrian government as “punishment for crossing the red line,” which was set by former President Barak Obama in 2012.
France and Britain supported President Donald Trump’s approach and expressed their desire to participate in the military action. After a failed session in the UN Security Council on Tuesday, which ended in a Russian veto against a US draft resolution calling for the establishment of an investigation mechanism regarding the use of chemical weapons in Syria, President Trump said on his Twitter account that Russia should get ready for US missiles that will hit Syria.
After that, he retracted his statement through another tweet saying that he did not set a time, and that it could be very soon or not so soon. This was echoed by Russian responses, which included the demand that Trump direct his “missiles towards terrorists instead of directing them towards the Syrian government.”
This strain showed the extent of tensions in the international arena, raised the stakes for a major deterioration among the super powers, and was reflected in currency and commodity markets and global stocks.
In the face of this escalation, Damascus agreed to receive an investigation committee from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which arrived on Saturday and is set to visit the site of the attack. (Reuters)
Before the arrival of international inspectors to Douma and before the British Parliament convenes on Monday (due to Prime Minister Theresa May’s concern that she would not get support, just like what happened with her predecessor David Cameron in 2013), the three countries carried out one hundred and five strikes on Saturday that targeted the Scientific Research Center in Barzeh, Damascus, the Scientific Research Center in Hama, and a military depot in Homs.
There were contradicting statements regarding whether the missiles achieved their objectives, as the Russian Defense Ministry said that seventy-one out of one hundred and three missiles were intercepted, while the Pentagon said that no missiles were brought down and that they successfully achieved their objectives. (Reuters)
The strike was not meant to stop the war or “change the regime” instead they were meant to target the Syrian government’s ability to use chemical weapons; it was a limited strike that has achieved its objective, according to several spokesmen from the tripartite coalition. The strike received support from NATO, Canada, Israel, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar, and was opposed by Russia, China, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Egypt, illustrating the continuous international and regional contradictions regarding the Syrian issue.
However, the limited scope of the strike and the Syrian government’s readiness for it, which was manifested by the evacuation of the targeted sites, in addition to not targeting any sites of the Syrian government’s allies, rendered the previous threats of a severe strike against the Syrian government meaningless. Some observers considered that the Syrian government was able to overcome the strike with minimal losses and would not change its policies, and that it will strengthen its alliance with Russia and Iran.
Amid all these thorny and contradictory issues, which indicate that the strike was a step in the deteriorating course of the Syrian war, and with the continuation of violence and no international will to stop the violence or find an exit, this strike once again showed the gravity of war for the Syrians. This war is getting increasingly complicated as time passes by, and the fragmentation within the Syrian people was manifested by those who celebrated repelling the aggression and others who celebrated launching the attack. This is one aspect of fragmentation that will be hard to cure.
Just like in Ghouta and Afrin, Syrians have shown a fatal rupture that threatens their identity and social fabric. The contradiction lies in the fact that Syrians have long suffered from the US role that has supported Israel for decades and destroyed Iraq by invading it and crushing its structure. Many people see Trump as a far cry from the demands of freedom and justice that the peoples of the region aspire to. On the other hand, the Syrian government has launched an internal law, violating all that is forbidden internationally and popularly, refusing change by force. Profanation of life has become a friend of Syrians. The more foreign support the Syrian government gets from Russia and Iran, the more intransigent it gets.
Are choices confined to local tyranny or international tyranny?
Douma in the Hands of the Government
14 April 2018
The pace of the agreement between Jaish al-Islam and Russian forces accelerated after the claimed chemical attack, which was accompanied by military escalation by the Syrian government and Russian forces last week. Jaish al-Islam agreed to leave for Aleppo countryside and hand over Douma to Russian military police. On Saturday, the Syrian army command announced the restoration of Douma and the entry of Syrian police into the city. Thus, eastern Ghouta is now under the control of the Syrian government and the only enclave remaining outside its control is Yarmouk Camp and al-Hajar al-Aswad, which are partially controlled by ISIS.
The next station is expected to be in southern Damascus and then in Homs countryside, leaving the future of Idlib, Daraa’ countryside, and east of the Euphrates subject to Russian understandings with regional and international powers.
بواسطة Syria in a Week Editors | أبريل 10, 2018 | Media Roundups, Syria in a Week
The following is a selection by our editors of significant weekly developments in Syria. Depending on events, each issue will include anywhere from four to eight briefs. This series is produced in both Arabic and English in partnership between Salon Syria and Jadaliyya. Suggestions and blurbs may be sent to info@salonsyria.com.
Chemical Weapons Once Again
8 April 2018
US President Donald Trump warned that those responsible for the reckless chemical attack on Douma in the Ghouta of Damascus would pay a “big price.” President Trump said in a tweet on Sunday that “President [Vladimir] Putin, Russia, and Iran are responsible for backing [Bashar] al-Assad… Big price to pay.”
At least one hundred civilians were killed on Friday night when the government continued its military airstrikes on Douma city, which is under opposition control in eastern Ghouta, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Reports regarding a suspected attack with “poisonous gases” stirred international condemnation after opposition members and rescue workers accused Syrian government forces of carrying out the attack which left scores of victims in Douma, the last enclave for opposition factions in eastern Ghouta.
Official Syrian television along with Russia, an ally of the government, denied accusations of using chemical weapons.
This latest suspected attack comes one year after the town of Khan Sheikhoun was subject to an attack with sarin gas, killing more than eighty people. The UN accused government forces of carrying out that attack.
Trump responded to the latter attack three days after by launching fifty-nine cruise missiles from US warships in the Mediterranean towards a Syrian airbase.
Assad denied giving orders for the attack as Russia continued to provide diplomatic cover for him in the UN.
President Trump criticized his predecessor on Sunday for failing to attack after warning that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a “red line.” Trump said, “If President Obama had crossed his stated Red Line in The Sand, the Syrian disaster would have ended long ago! Animal Assad would have been history!”
Afterwards, the official Syrian television reported an official source saying that an agreement was reached that provides for the release of all the abducted people held in Douma by Jaish al-Islam, which controls Douma, in exchange for the exit of Jaish al-Islam from the city. The official source added that the fighters would leave and venture towards Jarablus in northern Syria near the Turkish borders.
Exploitation of Sovereignty: The Ankara Meeting
4 April 2018
Leaders of Turkey, Iran, and Russia met in Ankara, Turkey, on Wednesday. In a joint statement, the leaders said they were determined to accelerate efforts to guarantee “stability on the ground” in Syria and protect civilians in “de-escalation zones.” They confirmed their adherence to the Astana formula has been proven to contribute to stability, according to the Anatolia News Agency. They also confirmed their adherence to the sovereignty, independence, and political integrity of Syria.
It is worth mentioning that this summit comes after the Russians and Iranians provided support for government forces in their brutal military attack on Ghouta, which is one of the de-escalation zones, and after the Olive Branch Operation, in which Turkey, along with allied opposition armed factions, captured Afrin through a wide-scale military operation.
In a related context, Turkey criticized the ambiguous position of the United States in Syria regarding the uncertainty of how long US forces will stay. There is also heated debate surrounding Manbij, as Turkey is demanding the withdrawal of the People’s Protection Units from it or else it will intervene militarily, while US forces are present in the city, fueling the Turkish-US tensions over the situation of the Kurds. The irony continued with the spokesman for the Turkish President saying that there is no need to intervene in Tal Rafa’at in light of Moscow’s assertion that there are no People’s Protection Units in it.
Turkey accused France of supporting terrorists in Syria after a meeting between the French president and a Syrian delegation that included the People’s Protection Units and the Democratic Union Party on 30 March. The French president reiterated France’s support to stabilize northern Syria by combatting the Islamic State. Turkey said this support amounted to support for terrorism.
Negotiations and decisions regarding every aspect and village in Syria with the use of blatant military force and Syrians nowhere in sight, and under the slogan of protecting the unity and sovereignty of Syria, this is how the various parties are breaching the agreements signed, while the Syrian people are paying the material and moral price and celebrate the success of the agreements!
Exploitation of Property: Law No. 10
2 April 2018
In light of the legislative work frame for the reconstruction of Syria, within the context of collecting the post-war spoils and after all the injustice to the lives and property of Syrians, Law No. 10 of 2018 has been issued, which stipulates the creation of one or more regulatory zones within the regulatory plan for administrational units in cities, according to a decree based on a proposal from the Minister of Local Administration and Environment. The law also provides for the amendment of some of the provisions in Legislative Decree No. 66 of 2012. This law comes in the same context of previous legislation to pre-distribute resources and profits of the reconstruction of Syria, as it comes after Decree No. 19 of 2015 that allowed administrational units to establish “private” holding companies to deal with the property and rights of these units.
Law No. 10 is based on the creation of a new regulatory zone and calls upon property owners and in-kind right holders to submit applications to prove their rights within thirty days. Property and land cases and their allocation are one of the most complicated cases in times of peace and welfare, however, in times of war, destruction, loss of documents and rights, forgery, looting, displacement, and intimidation, they become close to impossible. The current steps are taken within short time frames that can only be justified by the will to continue to plunder what is left, which is the land and future projects.
