ISTANBUL: Turkey returned fire after mortar bombs shot from Syria landed in a field in southern Turkey yesterday, the day after Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan warned Damascus Turkey would not shy away from war if provoked.
It was the fourth day of Turkish strikes in retaliation for mortar bombs and shelling by Syrian forces that killed five Turkish civilians further east on Wednesday.
The strikes and counterstrikes are the most serious cross-border violence in Syria’s conflict, which began as a democracy uprising but has evolved into a civil war with sectarian overtones. They highlight how the crisis could destabilize the region.
Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu struck a defensive tone yesterday, saying Parliament’s authorization of possible cross-border military action was designed as a deterrent.
“With the mandate we did not take a step toward war, we showed the Syrian administration our deterrence, making the necessary warning to prevent a war,” he said.
“From now on, if there is an attack on Turkey it will be silenced,” he said in an interview with state broadcaster TRT.
Davutoglu said international mediator on Syria Lakhdar Brahimi would come to Turkey before Russian President Vladimir Putin visits Ankara within the next 10 days.
Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby described Brahimi’s Syria mission as “virtually impossible,” in an interview with Egyptian paper Al-Ahram.
Asked about the efforts of the Egypt-Saudi-Turkey-Iran quartet to solve the Syrian crisis, Elaraby said: “The solution must comprise Iran. The important thing is that matters get moving.”
Two rounds fired from Syria struck near Guvecci village in Yayladagi yesterday, the Hatay governor’s office said. It said the fire appeared to have been aimed by Syrian government forces at rebels along the border. There were no casualties.
The first round landed 50 meters inside Turkey at 7 a.m. (0400 GMT) and the Guvecci border post retaliated with four rounds from 81 mm mortars. It fired two further rounds after the second mortar struck around 11:30 a.m. (0830 GMT).
The governor’s office warned people in the area not to go out on balconies or spend time in open places, Dogan news agency said. It said the Red Crescent was offering psychological support to people in the area.
The Turkish General Staff yesterday sought to quell concerns about scenes of people apparently crossing freely back and forth across the frontier in the Akcakale area.
“There are no uncontrolled or illegal transits along the border. The region which we are responsible for is completely under control,” the General Staff said in a statement to state-run Anatolian news agency.
Meanwhile, Iran’s Foreign Ministry yesterday appealed for the release of 48 of its citizens held hostage by rebels in Syria and threatened with execution one by one unless Syria’s Army withdraws from an area in Damascus province.
The statement, relayed by the official news agency IRNA, described the captives as “pilgrims.”
The Syrian rebels, in an August 5 video, showed the Iranians and said they were members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards conducting a military mission in support of Syria’s regime.
On Friday, a rebel commander told AFP via Internet that the regime had until late Saturday to withdraw its forces from the embattled Eastern Ghuta area of Damascus province.
“We also have other secret, military demands. If the regime does not fulfill them we will start finishing off the hostages,” warned the commander, Abul Wafa, of the rebels’ Revolutionary Military Council in Damascus province.
The Iranian statement, by Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast, said: “The hostage takers of the Iranian pilgrims in Syria as well as those supporting them are responsible for their lives.”
The statement called on “international organizations to prevent such acts and to do everything to obtain the immediate liberation of all the pilgrims and Iranian nationals.”
Iran’s Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, on Aug. 8 said “retired” Revolutionary Guards members were among the hostages, but he denied they were on active service in Syria.
Turkey strikes back after fresh shelling from Syria
Turkey strikes back after fresh shelling from Syria
Libya protesters call on PM to quit in third weekly march
- The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport
TRIPOLI: Hundreds of protesters gathered in central Tripoli on Friday for the third week in a row to demand the resignation of UN-recognized Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah following recent clashes in Libya’s capital.
Demonstrators chanted “Dbeibah out,” “the people want the fall of the government,” and “long live Libya.”
At least 200 people had assembled by late afternoon, with several hundred more following suit later. Some blasted slogans on loudspeakers from their cars.
Libya is split between the UN-recognized government in Tripoli, led by Dbeibah, and a rival administration in the east controlled by the family of military strongman Khalifa Haftar.
The North African country has remained deeply divided since the 2011 NATO-backed revolt that toppled and killed longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi.
National elections scheduled for December 2021 were postponed indefinitely due to disputes between the two rival powers.
The recent unrest came after deadly clashes between armed groups controlling different areas of Tripoli killed at least eight people, according to the UN.
The clashes were sparked by the killing of an armed faction leader by a group aligned with Dbeibah’s government — the 444 Brigade which later fought a third group, the Radaa force that controls parts of eastern Tripoli and the city’s airport.
The fighting broke out also after Dbeibah announced a string of executive orders seeking to dismantle Radaa and dissolve other Tripoli-based armed groups but excluding the 444 Brigade.
The government and UN support mission in Libya have been pressing efforts to reach a permanent ceasefire since.
Last Saturday, a separate protest in Tripoli drew hundreds in support of Dbeibah.
Demonstrators condemned the armed groups and called for the reinstatement of Libya’s 1951 constitution, which was abolished by Qaddafi after his 1969 coup.
Israel strikes western Syria, despite talks
- Syrian state television said the strike targeted sites in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia
- The Israeli military said it struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles
DAMASCUS: Israel on Friday struck western Syria, the Israeli military and Syrian state media said, in the first such attack on the country in nearly a month.
It came after Damascus announced earlier this month indirect talks with Israel to calm tensions, and the US called for a “non-aggression agreement” between the two countries, which are technically at war.
“A strike from Israeli occupation aircraft targeted sites close to the village of Zama in the Jableh countryside south of Latakia,” state television said.
The Israeli military shortly thereafter said it “struck weapon storage facilities containing coastal missiles that posed a threat to international and Israeli maritime freedom of navigation, in the Latakia area of Syria.”
“In addition, components of surface-to-air missiles were struck in the area of Latakia,” it said, adding that it would “continue to operate to maintain freedom of action in the region, in order to carry out its missions and will act to remove any threat to the State of Israel and its citizens.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights meanwhile reported that jets likely to be Israeli struck military sides on the outskirts of Tartus and Latakia.
Syria and Israel have technically been at war since 1948. Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967 and has carried out hundreds of strikes and several incursions since the overthrow of Bashar Assad in December.
Israel says its strikes aim to stop advanced weapons reaching Syria’s new authorities, whom it considers jihadists.
UN condemns ‘armed individuals’ for looting medical supplies in Gaza
- The group “stormed the warehouses at a field hospital in Deir Al-Balah, looting large quantities of medical equipment,” said Dujarric
- The stolen aid had been brought into war-ravaged Gaza just a day earlier
UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations condemned Friday a group of “armed individuals” for raiding warehouses in the Palestinian territory of Gaza and looting large amounts of medical supplies.
The group “stormed the warehouses at a field hospital in Deir Al-Balah, looting large quantities of medical equipment, supplies, medicines, nutritional supplements that was intended for malnourished children,” said Stephane Dujarric, spokesperson for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The stolen aid had been brought into war-ravaged Gaza just a day earlier, he said.
“As conditions on the ground further deteriorate and public order and safety breaks down, looting incidents continue to be reported,” he said.
But Dujarric highlighted the difference between Friday’s event and the looting two days earlier of a UN World Food Programme (WFP) warehouse by “starving” Palestinians, desperate for aid.
“This appeared to be much more organized and much different from the looting we’d seen... in the past days,” he said.
“This was an organized operation with armed men.”
Since the beginning of last week, Israel has begun to allow a trickle of aid into the Palestinian territory, after a total blockade imposed on March 2.
The UN has warned that the aid allowed through so far was “a drop in the ocean” of the towering needs in Gaza, after the blockade created dramatic shortages of food and medicine.
The UN humanitarian agency warned Friday that “100 percent of the population (are) at risk of famine.”
Gaza has been decimated by Israel’s punishing military offensive on the territory, which has killed at least 54,321 people, mostly civilians, according to health ministry figures the UN considers reliable.
It has also reduced much of the territory to rubble, destroying hospitals, schools, residential areas and basic road and sewage infrastructure.
Israel launched its offensive in response to an unprecedented Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, also mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
On Thursday, “we and our humanitarian partners only managed to collect five truckloads of cargo from the Palestinian side of the Kerem Shalom crossing,” Dujarric said.
“Another 60 trucks had to return to the crossing due to intense hostilities in the area.”
He rejected Israeli allegations that the UN was not collecting available aid.
“It was no longer safe to use that road,” which Israel’s military had asked aid organizations to use, he said, stressing that there are “a lot of armed gangs” operating there.
The five trucks that did make it through on Thursday were carrying medical supplies for the Deir Al-Balah field hospital.
And most of those supplies “were looted today, very sadly and tragically,” Dujarric said.
Syrian minister says lifting of economic sanctions offers hope for recovery
- Hind Kabawat: Govt to launch ‘temporary schools’ for the children of refugees returning to their home areas
DAMASCUS: The lifting of economic sanctions on the Syrian Arab Republic will allow the government to begin work on daunting tasks that include fighting corruption and bringing millions of refugees home, Hind Kabawat, the minister of social affairs and labor, told The Associated Press on Friday.
Kabawat is the only woman and the only Christian in the 23-member cabinet formed in March to steer the country during a transitional period after the ouster of former President Bashar Assad in December.
Her portfolio will be one of the most important as the country begins rebuilding after nearly 14 years of civil war.
She said moves by the US and the EU in the past week to at least temporarily lift most of the sanctions that had been imposed on Syria over the decades will allow that work to get started.
Before, she said, “we would talk, we would make plans, but nothing could happen on the ground because sanctions were holding everything up and restricting our work.”
With the lifting of sanctions, they can move to “implementation.”
One of the first programs the new government is planning to launch is “temporary schools” for the children of refugees and internally displaced people returning to their home areas.
Kabawat said that it will take time for the easing of sanctions to show effects on the ground, particularly since unwinding some of the financial restrictions will involve complicated bureaucracy.
“We are going step by step,” she said.
“We are not saying that anything is easy — we have many challenges — but we can’t be pessimistic. We need to be optimistic.”
The new government’s vision is “that we don’t want either food baskets or tents after five years,” Kabawat said, referring to the country’s dependence on humanitarian aid and many displacement camps.
That may be an ambitious target, given that 90 percent of the country’s population currently lives below the poverty line, according to the UN.
The civil war that began in 2011 also displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million people.
The UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, estimates that about half a million have returned to Syria since Assad was ousted.
But the dire economic situation and battered infrastructure have also dissuaded many refugees from coming back.
The widespread poverty also fed into a culture of public corruption that developed in the Assad era, including solicitation of bribes by public employees and shakedowns by security forces at checkpoints.
Syria’s new leaders have pledged to end corruption, but they face an uphill battle. Public employees make salaries far below the cost of living, and the new government has so far been unable to make good on a promise to hike public sector wages by 400 percent.
“How can I fight corruption if the monthly salary is $40 and that is not enough to buy food for 10 days?” Kabawat asked.
Syria’s new rulers, led by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, have been under scrutiny by Western countries over the treatment of Syrian women and religious minorities.
In March, clashes between government security forces and pro-Assad armed groups spiraled into sectarian revenge attacks on members of the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs. Hundreds of civilians were killed.
The government formed a committee to investigate the attacks, which has not yet reported its findings.
Many also criticized the transitional government as giving only token representation to women and minorities.
Apart from Kabawat, the Cabinet includes only one member each from the Druze and Alawite sects and one Kurd.
“Everywhere I travel … the first and last question is, ‘What is the situation of the minorities?’” Kabawat said.
“I can understand the worries of the West about the minorities, but they should also be worried about Syrian men and women as a whole.”
She said the international community’s priority should be to help Syria build its economy and avoid the country falling into “chaos.”
Despite being the only woman in the Cabinet, Kabawat said “now there is a greater opportunity for women” than under Assad and that “today there is no committee being formed that does not have women in it.”
“Syrian women have suffered a lot in these 14 years and worked in all areas,” she said.
“All Syrian men and women need to have a role in rebuilding our institutions.”
She called for those wary of President Al-Sharaa to give him a chance.
The West has warmed to the new president — particularly after his recent high-profile meeting with US President Donald Trump.
Rights groups call on Houthis to release detained aid workers
- Only seven aid workers have been released, while at least 50 remain in detention “without adequate access to lawyers or their families, and without charge,” HRW and Amnesty said, calling on the rebels to “immediately and unconditionally release” them
DUBAI: Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have called on Houthis to release dozens of UN and aid workers who have been detained for nearly a year.
The arrest and detention of aid workers has “a direct impact on the delivery of lifesaving assistance to people in critical need of aid” in a country enduring one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, the two rights groups said in a joint statement.
Since May 2024, the Houthis have carried out several waves of arrests in regions under their control, targeting UN staff as well as workers in local and international humanitarian organizations.
The arrests have prompted the UN to limit its deployments and suspend activities in some regions of the country devastated by more than a decade of civil war.
FASTFACT
The arrests have prompted the UN to limit its deployments and suspend activities in some regions of Yemen.
The Houthis at the time claimed there was an “American-Israeli spy cell” operating under the cover of aid groups — accusations firmly rejected by the UN.
Only seven aid workers have been released, while at least 50 remain in detention “without adequate access to lawyers or their families, and without charge,” HRW and Amnesty said, calling on the rebels to “immediately and unconditionally release” them.
“It is shocking that most of these UN and civil society staff have now spent almost a year in arbitrary detention for simply doing their work in providing medical and food assistance or promoting human rights, peace, and dialogue,” said Diala Haidar, Yemen researcher at Amnesty International.
“They should never have been arrested in the first place,” she continued.
Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at HRW, meanwhile, said: “The Houthis need to facilitate the work of humanitarian workers and the movement of aid.
“All countries with influence, as well as the UN and civil society organizations, should use all the tools at their disposal to urge the release of those arbitrarily detained and to provide support to their family members.”
