بواسطة Syria in a Week Editors | يناير 22, 2020 | 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.
Russian Style Truce
18 January 2020
Five civilians were killed, including four from one family, in a Russian airstrike that targeted a village in northwest Syria within the context of a military escalation in the area that has been going on for days, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
An AFP reporter on Sunday saw the bodies of the family wrapped in winter covers and placed on the floor in a hospital in the western countryside of Aleppo, waiting for family members to recognize them so they can be buried. Paramedics in the White Helmets (the civil defense in areas controlled by militant factions) transported the bodies the previous night.
Idlib has witnessed an escalation of bombardment since Wednesday despite the ceasefire declared by Russia – which supports Damascus whereas Turkey supports the factions.
Four Russian Soldiers
17 January 2020
Four Russian soldiers were killed on Friday in an offensive by Syrian opposition factions against a military position from which Russia manages operations in the eastern countryside of Idlib, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Friday.
The SOHR said that this comes on the third consecutive day of a new escalation of military operations by the Syrian government and the Russian “guarantor.” It said that more than one thousand and seven hundred and ninety-six aerial and ground strikes have been carried out in the last seventy-two hours mainly against the eastern, southern, and southeastern countryside of Idlib and the western and southern countryside of Aleppo.
Failure of the Truce
16 January 2020
United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called on Friday for an immediate cessation of hostilities in Syria’s opposition-held Idlib province, saying the latest ceasefire attempt had yet again failed to protect civilians.
Turkey, which for years has backed Syrian opposition, agreed a truce with Russia that was supposed to have taken hold in the bastion of three million people in the northwest earlier this month.
Around three hundred and fifty thousand Syrians, mostly women and children, have fled Idlib since early December, and sought shelter in border areas near Turkey, the United Nations said on Thursday.
Three Turkish Soldiers
16 January 2020
Three Turkish soldiers were killed on Thursday by a car bomb in an area in north Syria controlled by Turkish forces, said the ministry of defense in Ankara.
“Three brothers-in-arms were martyred in a car-bomb attack during a road check,” the ministry said in a brief statement.
Turkish forces are deployed in several areas in north and northeast Syria, where Ankara has launched three military operations between 2016 and 2019 that targeted the Islamic State and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) – which Turkey characterizes as “terrorists”.
Terrible Violation
16 January 2020
UN investigators on Sunday called for thousands of children of Islamic State militants to be repatriated from Syria to their families’ countries.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a report that the children were in a “particularly precarious” situation since they often lacked official papers.
“This, in turn, jeopardizes their rights to a nationality, hinders family reunification processes, and puts them at a higher risk of exploitation and abuse,” the report said.
The UN says around twenty-eight thousand children of foreign fighters are living in Syrian camps – twenty thousand of them from Iraq.
Thousands more are believed to be held in prisons, where teenage children are being detained alongside adults.
After the collapse of the self-proclaimed caliphate of the Islamic State last year, foreign fighters from nearly fifty countries were detained in Syria and Iraq.
Many of their relatives are held in the overcrowded al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria, home to around sixty-eight thousand people and where more than five hundred people – mostly children – died in 2019.
It is estimated that around seven hundred to seven hundred and fifty children with European links are being held in camps in northeast Syria, with three hundred of them said to be French.
Some countries have started to repatriate the children – with or without their parents – on humanitarian grounds.
But the UN investigators criticized the practice of revoking citizenship of suspected Islamic State fighters used by countries including Britain, Denmark and France.
The Cave and the Doctor
15 January 2020
A young doctor, who managed an underground hospital in eastern Ghouta during the Syrian civil war was awarded a European award for extraordinary humanitarian acts.
Amani Ballour, a pediatrician was named this year’s recipient of the Council of Europe’s Raoul Wallenberg prize, awarded in honor of a Swedish diplomat who saved tens of thousands of Jews from Nazi persecution in Hungary during World War II.
Ballour was described in the council announcement on Wednesday as a young doctor who finished university in 2012 one year after the start of the Syrian conflict and began as a volunteer helping the wounded in a makeshift clinic.
The clinic was located in the eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of Damascus, which was under the control of rebels and besieged and bombarded by government forces.
Within a few years Ballour was heading a hospital known as the Cave with some one hundred staff, operating in underground shelters.
Ballour is the subject of a National Geographic documentary, also called “The Cave.”
According to National Geographic, Ballour left the hospital and eastern Ghouta in March 2018 as government forces launched a final assault on the enclave.
Ballour will be presented with the award on Friday. The day also marks the seventy-fifth anniversary of Wallenberg’s arrest in Budapest by Soviet forces after the city was liberated. He was never again seen alive in public.
Sweidaa Surprise
15 January 2020
Dozens of residents in Sweidaa governorate, south of Syria, held their first ever protest against the deteriorating economic situation in the country.
The Syrian official news agency SANA said on Wednesday a few people gathered in a square in the center of Sweidaa and started chanting “we want to live… we want to live.”
The Syrian pound suffered a new loss today as the exchange rate for of 1 US dollar exceeded 1,070 Syrian pounds in the capital Damascus and Aleppo and 1,080 in Idlib.
Syrian markets in general have witnessed major recession in all regions under the control of the Syrian government, the opposition, and the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Most Syrians have lost their savings especially as the Syrian pound reached its lowest rate, which became twenty times less in value since the beginning of the crisis entering its tenth year. The exchange rate for 1 US dollar was 50 Syrian pounds in early 2011.
A Strike in Depth
14 January 2020
Strikes that targeted the military T4 airport – which Damascus accused Israel of carrying out – killed at least three militants affiliated to Iran, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) on Wednesday.
A Syrian military source accused Israeli planes of carrying out an “aerial aggression” against the airport located in Homs governorate, according to a statement reported by the official news agency SANA. Syrian air defenses “confronted… the enemy missiles and brought down a number of them,” the source said.
The T4 military airport is in the eastern countryside of Homs in middle Syria, which is considered an area of Iranian influence. Syrian government forces as well as Iranian forces are stationed in the airport, whereas the Russian presence there is limited to a number of consultants.
Israel did not claim responsibility for the bombardment, as the spokeswoman for the Israeli army refused to comment on a question by the AFP.
These strikes coincided with a strike by unidentified planes against positions for government forces and allied groups in east of the country, according to the SOHR.
Rescue of one hundred Syrian
14 January 2020
Cyprus police said on Tuesday that they saved one hundred and one Syrian immigrants spotted in the Mediterranean, southeast of the Island which suffers from an influx of immigrants.
A marine patrol found a thirty-three-meter-long boat carrying immigrants eighteen nautical miles off of Protaras, a famous beach resort in southeast Cyprus.
The police added that the Syrian immigrants, eighty-eight men, six women, and seven children, were transferred to a reception center near the capital Nicosia.
The boat started its journey in Mersin, Turkey, noting that this sea route has become common for smugglers, the police said.
Syrians constituted more than three percent of asylum seekers in Cyprus in the second quarter of 2019. Cyprus has repeatedly alerted the European Union because of the influx of refugees.
In August, Cyprus called on other countries in the European Union to receive five thousand of the immigrants who arrived at the island, to alleviate “the disproportionate pressures and serious challenges” facing this county of less than one million people.
Figures by the European Statistics Office indicate that Cyprus is the European country with the highest rate of refugee reception compared to its population.
Syrian – Turkish Meeting
13 January 2020
The Syrian side in a trilateral meeting (Syria, Russia, and Turkey) in Moscow on Monday called on the Turkish side to completely comply with the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic and immediately and completely withdraw from all Syrian territory.
The Syrian side, represented by the head of the National Security Bureau Major General Ali Mamlouk, called on the Turkish side, represented by the head of the Intelligence Service Hakan Fidan, to comply with its commitments under the Sochi agreement on Idlib in 17 September 2018, especially in regards to clearing the area of terrorist and heavy weaponry and opening the Aleppo-Lattakia and the Aleppo-Hama roads, according to the official Syrian news agency SANA.
بواسطة Syria in a Week Editors | سبتمبر 26, 2019 | Syria in a Week, غير مصنف
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.
Constitution from Syria
23 September 2019
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moualem received the UN Special Envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen to discuss the issue of the Syria Constitutional Committee.
The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said on Wednesday that Syrian parties reached an “agreement” on the formation of a committee to draft a new constitution for the country, a step considered by the UN as a key gateway to the political process aimed at resolving the eight-year-long conflict.
This is Pedersen’s third visit to Syria since he started his mission at the beginning of the year.
Bombarding the PMF
22 September 2019
The operation commander of the People’s Mobilization Forces (PMF) in al-Anbar governorate Qasem Mosleh said on Sunday that the PMF is ready for any contingency that may occur on the Iraqi-Syrian border in coordination with Iraqi army forces and border guards.
During a security meeting near Qaem and with the presence of brigade commanders in Qati’ in western Anbar to discuss the security and logistic situation in Qaem and the Iraqi-Syrian border, Mosleh said, “the goals of the meeting fall under the framework of studying the security and intelligence preparation in Qati’ in western Anbar and refusing US interventions in internal Iraqi affairs, especially the Iraqi-Syrian border.”
“It has become clear for everybody that building new US bases in the area or any new US presence in that area would lead to instability in the region,” he added.
Bombardment and Truce
21 September 2019
Syrian government forces on Sunday launched tens of missiles towards areas in the southeastern countryside of Idlib, which is controlled by the Syrian opposition.
“Syrian government forces and allied armed groups present in the town of al-Hbait in the southern countryside of Idlib have bombarded the town of Maaret Hirmeh with dozens of shells, causing wide destruction in the property of civilians who displaced towards the northern countryside of Idlib,” said a military commander in the National Front for Liberation – affiliated with the Free Syrian Army.
The commander, who asked to be anonymous, told a German news agency that government forces deployed in al-Qassabieh camp shelled the villages of Um al-Sair and Hassaneh in the southern countryside of Idlib with more than forty rocket shells. Government forces also used surface-to-surface missiles to target the vicinity of the brick factory in the southern countryside of Idlib.
“The onset of military operations by Syrian government forces in Idlib governorate and the bombardment that took place is in fact targeting Nusra Front militants,” a source close to Syrian government forces, who refused to give his name, told the German news agency.
Syrian government forces took control of the northern countryside of Hama in addition to Khan Sheikhoun in mid-August. They declared a truce in Idlib countryside in late September, opening humanitarian corridors between areas they control and areas controlled by the militants.
Turkish Incursion?
20 September 2019
Turkey is ready to act on its southern border with Syria, President Tayyip Erdogan said, after warning that it could take unilateral steps if the US does not establish a “safe zone” in northeast Syria this month.
“Our preparations along our borders are complete,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul on Saturday before departing to attend a UN General Assembly meeting.
Turkey and the US have started joint land and air patrols along part of the border strip, but Ankara says Washington is moving too slowly to establish a sufficiently large safe zone to push Syrian Kurdish forces from the border.
Drone near Damascus
20 September 2019
Damascus said on Saturday that it downed a drone south of the country without saying where it came from, according to the Syrian official news agency SANA, in the second incident of its kind in two days.
“The competent authorities in Qunaitera governorate, and after monitoring and follow-up operations, were able to control a drone coming from the west and heading east over the town of Erneh in al-Sheikh mountain… and they downed it,” SANA quoted a field source as saying.
The source said that after dismantling the drone, “it turned out to be loaded with cluster bombs and had a highly explosive C4 booby-trap.”
The source did not directly accuse Israel or any other party. However, SANA mentioned that Syrian air defense systems engaged “Israeli and US aggressions that used planes and missiles” in recent years.
Demonstration Against Iran
20 September 2019
A member of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) was killed on Friday by Syrian government and Iranian gunshots and dozens of demonstrators calling for the ousting of Iranians from al-Salhieh town in the northern countryside of Deir al-Zor were also injured.
“A member of al-Asayesh – the local police force affiliated with SDF – was killed by gunshots from Syrian government and Iranian forces who fired at demonstrators that approached the checkpoint in al-Salhieh,” a source in the civil council of Deir al-Zor told a Germany news agency.
“Members of al-Asayesh, who are from the Arab component in the area, advanced to protect the demonstrators who were being shot by government and Iranian forces, after their withdrawal from al-Salhieh checkpoint and deployment at the outskirts of the town,” the source said.
Demonstrators also set out from the towns of al-Hosainah and al-Ma’mel, north of Deir al-Zor city, and headed towards al-Salhieh, which is controlled by government forces. The demonstrators demanded their restoration to their homes and the ousting of Iranian elements.
The source said that the area has been witnessing severe tensions and that al-Asayesh and SDF have called for military reinforcements. The demonstrators might storm the town with support from SDF elements, the source added.
Children Born During War
20 September 2019
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Friday that more than twenty-nine million children were born in areas of conflict during 2018.
The UN organization went on to say that at least one in five infants in the world started out their lives in a severely dangerous and tense atmosphere, including countries like Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.
“Millions of families lack access to nutritious food, safe water, sanitation, or a secure and healthy environment to grow and bond. Along with the immediate, obvious dangers, the long-term impacts of such a start in life are potentially catastrophic,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.
Prolonged or repeated adverse and traumatic events could affect children’s learning, behavior, and physical and mental health.
Veto 13
19 September 2019
Russia and China used their veto power on Thursday to block a resolution in the UN Security Council drafted by Germany, Kuwait, and Belgium and approved by twelve countries that calls for imposing “an immediate ceasefire” in the governorate of Idlib, northwest of Syria, reflecting once again the deep divisions in the Security Council on this issue.
This is the thirteenth veto cast by Russia to block resolutions in regards to Syria since the war began in the country in 2011.
Equatorial Guinea abstained and the remaining 12 members of the council voted in favor.
The three countries that sponsored the draft officially asked Russia not to use its veto power against the text that was negotiated for fifteen days, however, their demand was met with refusal.
After the veto, Russia and China presented a competing draft resolution that also stipulates for a ceasefire.
But in contrast to the first drat, the Russian-Chinese draft states that “the cessation of hostilities does not apply to military operations against individuals, groups, or entities related to terrorist groups.”
Iranian Domination
17 September 2019
The fifth cycle of the Exhibition for the Reconstruction of Syria kicked off on Tuesday in the Syrian capital Damascus with the participation of hundreds of Arab and foreign countries and amid prominent Iranian presence.
“The exhibition presents an important opportunity to see what companies have to offer and for mutual benefit between showcased technologies in various sections… the exhibition is a message to the whole world that Syria has returned to its previous state, and that has been proven by the vast participation of foreign companies in the exhibition,” Syrian Deputy Housing Minister Mohammed Said al-Deen said in a statement to reporters.
The Iranian wing is the largest of foreign wings in the exhibition, with a large number of public and private Iranian companies looking for a prominent role in the reconstruction of Syria.
The Iranian ambassador in Syria Javad Tark Abadi said in a press conference that “Iranian participation is based on consolidation with Syria and a strong stance against the economic sanctions that have been imposed against it for years, nevertheless, Syria has survived in face of this embargo.”
Tamer Yaghi, the CEO of al-Bashiq company which organized the exhibition, said in a press release to reporters, “the number of participating companies in this year’s exhibition is three hundred and ninety companies from thirty-one Arab and foreign countries, with an increase of one hundred and twenty companies compared to last year.”
153,000 Left Jordan
17 September 2019
The Jordanian interior ministry said in a statement on Tuesday that around one hundred and fifty-three thousand Syrians left the kingdom and returned to Syria after the border crossing between the two countries was reopened about one year ago.
The Directorate of Syrian Refugee Affairs in the ministry said that the “number of Syrians who left the kingdom through Jaber border center since it was opened in 15 October and up to yesterday (Monday) has reached around one hundred and fifty-three thousand people, including thirty-three thousand people who hold the refugee status.”
The ministry emphasized “Jordan’s commitment to the principle of voluntary return of Syrian refugees and facilitating necessary procedures for them to leave the kingdom.”
Jordan hosts around six hundred and fifty thousand Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations, whereas Jordan estimates the number of people who took refuge in the country since the onset of the conflict in Syria in 2011 at 1.3 million Syrians.
Jaber border crossing (Nassib from the Syrian side), which is the only major border crossing between Jordan and Syria, opened after three years of its closure due to the conflict in Syria.
Nassib border crossing was closed in 2015, a few months after the closure of the old al-Jomrok border corssing, which was taken over by opposition fighters in October of 2014.
The Syrian army was able to retake control of Nassib border crossing and all of the Syrian-Jordanian border in July of 2018.
Israeli Airstrike
17 September 2019
Ten Iraqi fighters loyal to Iran were killed on Monday night as a result of airstrikes by unidentified military planes in al-Bou Kamal area, near the border with Iraq in eastern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
The chief of the SOHR Rami Abdul Rahman told the AFP that the “airstrikes targeted three positions for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and allied groups” in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zor, without being able to identify the party that carried out the airstrikes.
Iranian and Iraqi forces, that support Syrian government forces, are deployed in a wide area in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zor, especially between the border cities of al-Bou Kamal and al-Mayadeen.
These strikes come after ten days of similar airstrikes by unidentified planes that killed eighteen fighters, including Iranians, in the same area.
