Syrians in frantic search for their children after blast

Syrians, who were injured in a suicide car bombing that targeted buses carrying evacuees, sit in a tent on the Syrian-Turkish border in Idlib Monday. (AFP)
Updated 19 April 2017
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Syrians in frantic search for their children after blast

BAB Al-HAWA, Syria: Fatima Rashid was recovering in a Syrian hospital after a deadly suicide blast when she glanced at a teenager with a bloody, disfigured face. She did not recognize her daughter.

The wounded teenager was later taken across the border to Turkey for treatment and now Rashid, like many parents caught up in a horrifying attack on Saturday, is searching frantically for her child.
“I lifted the curtain back in the emergency room and I saw a girl. Half her face was gone and she was bleeding,” Rashid told AFP, speaking at a shelter for displaced families near the Syria-Turkey border.
“I didn’t think about whose daughter she was.”
“When I woke up the next day, the doctors came to show me a picture of that girl. I remembered what my daughter Ghadir had been wearing. That was her,” she said, with tears in her eyes.
At least 68 children were among 126 people killed when a suicide car bomb tore through buses evacuating Foua and Kfraya, two villages in northern Syria under opposition siege.
Dozens of wounded, including 37-year-old Fatima and her children, were rushed to hospitals in nearby opposition-controlled territory, while others were taken to regime-held Aleppo city.
Fatima has no news of Ghadir, her son Adel, 15, her 13-month-old daughter Rimas, or her husband Mohannad.
Only Zahra, 7, is safely at Fatima’s side.
The carnage on Saturday came as thousands gathered to be evacuated from Foua and Kfraya as part of a complex deal that also saw people leave Madaya and Zabadani, towns near Damascus surrounded by pro-regime forces.
“I saw a car distributing potato chips to the children. My daughter asked me to get her a bag, but a little kid came and snatched the bag from me,” Fatima said.
A smile briefly crossed her face before it turned dark again, as she remembered the devastating scene that followed.
“I went to get another one and suddenly something exploded. I flew back onto the ground and there were bodies on top of me.... I pulled myself and my daughter out from under the bodies and ran.”
“They took us to a hospital and treated us well... But when they took Ghadir to Turkey, I didn’t know anything. They didn’t even have her name,” Fatima said.
Dozens of survivors from were squatting on blankets and rugs in the displacement center, awaiting news of relatives of whom they lost track after the explosion.
Several children, some as young as three, sat shell-shocked in a row, staying quiet as people asked for their names or where their parents were.
One woman, whose daughter was taken to another village for treatment, anxiously tried to locate her in unfamiliar opposition-controlled territory.
“Where is this village? How am I supposed to know anything about her?” she called out.
Nearby, Umm Mohammad, her face scratched and her left hand wrapped in gauze, was hysterical.
She was flanked by her two young boys, whose faces were bandaged, but her third child was nowhere in sight.
“I want information about my son. Is he in Turkey? Did he die?” she screamed, as mothers nearby tried to soothe her.
“He’s eight months old, he can’t tell people who he is. No one knows his name. How am I supposed to get to him?”
In a section of the tent reserved for men, Shareef Al-Hussein, 35, waited with his two sons.
Haydar, 10, was lightly wounded in the forehead. All that was visible of four-year-old Hamza’s face from behind his bloodied bandages was his nose.
“My children cry every day because they want to see their mother. We hope to go back one day” to Kfraya, Hussein said.
He and fellow evacuees were besieged for two years by opposition fighters — some of whom helped rescue people hurt in the suicide attack.
“They got us medication and food, they helped us with the kids,” Hussein told AFP, which requested that opposition fighters not be present during the interview.
Osama, a resident of Foua who had joined a local pro-regime militia in the village, said he was “not afraid” of being in opposition-controlled territory.
“Our brothers here are assuring us that we are not their hostages,” he said.
Syria’s six-year war has so bitterly divided its population that many anti-regime fighters and residents of regime-held territory struggled to believe they were under the same tent.
Abu Obeida, a 33-year-old opposition fighter, said he helped rescue wounded civilians after Saturday’s attack, but acknowledged it was “difficult” to say how he would have reacted if a deal between the two sides had not been underway.
“But I had to rescue the children and the old people,” he added.
“It’s a human issue.”


ICC member states must act against Israeli, US threats: HRW

Updated 6 sec ago
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ICC member states must act against Israeli, US threats: HRW

  • International Criminal Court has faced ‘extreme pressure’ since issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant
  • Human Rights Watch: ‘Crucial work’ at The Hague must continue ‘without obstruction’

LONDON: International Criminal Court member countries must oppose Israeli and US efforts to undermine the court follows its issuing of arrest warrants against Israeli leaders, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

The organization released a 24-page report outlining recommendations to member countries ensuring that the ICC receives the “political backing, resources and cooperation” it needs to carry out its mandate.

The world’s top international court has faced “extreme pressure” since issuing the warrants on Nov. 21, HRW said.

Warrants were issued for the arrests of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Mohammed Deif, a Hamas commander.

US lawmakers renewed threats of sanctions against the court and its officials after the warrants were issued.

Liz Evenson, HRW’s international justice director, said ICC warrants “send a critical message that no one is above the law. ICC member countries should make a commitment during their annual meeting (on Dec. 2-7) to take all necessary steps to ensure that the ICC’s crucial work for justice can continue without obstruction.”

HRW warned that US sanctions against the ICC would have “wide-reaching consequences for global justice.”

Legal uncertainty and apprehension for NGOs, consultants and lawyers could arise as a result of sanctions, which are “a tool to be used against those responsible for the most serious crimes, not against those promoting justice,” HRW said.

After the issuing of the warrants, many ICC member countries voiced support for the court’s decision, yet some avoided making explicit commitments to enforcing them.

Hungary’s President Viktor Orban said he would invite Netanyahu to visit his country despite Hungary, an ICC member, being obliged to arrest anyone wanted by The Hague.

The French government last week appeared to claim that Netanyahu enjoys immunity from arrest as Israel is not an ICC member. Judges at The Hague have rejected this view.

Member countries must condemn Israeli and US threats against the court and its supporters, including civil society organizations, NGOs and human rights defenders, HRW said.

The annual meeting should result in “concrete steps” aimed at protecting the court from “coercive measures,” the organization added.

“The ICC needs the support of its member countries to fulfill its ambitious global mandate of delivering justice for the most serious crimes,” Evenson said.

“Member country support needs to be consistent over time and across situations to avoid double standards, and uphold the court’s legitimacy for victims and affected communities.”


Iran says it will keep ‘military advisers’ in Syria

Updated 11 min 36 sec ago
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Iran says it will keep ‘military advisers’ in Syria

TEHRAN: Iran said on Monday that it plans to keep military advisers in Syria after its ally’s second city Aleppo was overrun by militants in a surprise offensive.
The Islamic republic, which has backed President Bashar Assad since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, says it only deploys military advisers in the country at the invitation of Damascus.
“We entered Syria many years ago at the official invitation of the Syrian government, when the Syrian people faced the threat of terrorism,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaeil.
“Our military advisers were present in Syria, and they are still present” and would remain in the country “in accordance with the wishes” of its government, he told a news conference in Tehran.
Baqaeil did not specify whether or not Iran would be increasing its forces in Syria in the wake of the lightning militant offensive.
His remarks come a day after Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Assad in Damascus to show support for the Syrian president.
Aleppo fell to an Islamist-dominated militant alliance over the course of the past week, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.


Syrian and Russian air forces strike Aleppo’s eastern countryside

Updated 02 December 2024
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Syrian and Russian air forces strike Aleppo’s eastern countryside

CAIRO: Syrian and Russian air forces were striking militant-held positions in Aleppo’s eastern countryside, killing and wounding dozens of insurgents, according to a statement from the Syrian Prime Minister’s office on Monday.

Russia said it continues to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and is analysing the situation on the ground after Islamist insurgents and other rebel groups seized territory in Syria.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday Russia would form its position based on unfolding events.

Meanwhile, Kurdish YPG forces began pulling out of areas under their control in the northeastern sector of Aleppo city under a deal with militant forces, sources and a resident said on Monday.

The deal to pull out of Sheikh Maqsoud and Bustan al Basha and other areas in the city allows civilians to leave to areas in northeast Syria under Kurdish control, the sources told Reuters. 


Lebanon army says Israeli drone hits post in east, wounding soldier

Updated 28 min 50 sec ago
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Lebanon army says Israeli drone hits post in east, wounding soldier

BEIRUT: Lebanon’s army said an Israeli drone strike wounded one of its soldiers in the eastern region of Hermel on Monday, the latest such raid since an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire last week.
“An enemy drone struck an army bulldozer at a position, injuring one soldier,” the army said, five days after a ceasefire ended more than a year of war between Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah armed group.
The ceasefire deal, which was intended to end the more than year-long conflict between Israel and Hezbollah, went into effect early on Wednesday.
The deal has reduced the level of fighting, but Israel has launched multiple strikes against targets it says were violating the truce.
As part of the terms of the agreement, the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers will deploy in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army withdraws over a period of 60 days.
Hezbollah is also meant to withdraw its forces north of the Litani river, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle its military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
Israel stepped up its campaign in south Lebanon in late September after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas following the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.


Pro-Iranian militias enter Syria from Iraq to aid beleaguered Syrian army

Updated 02 December 2024
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Pro-Iranian militias enter Syria from Iraq to aid beleaguered Syrian army

AMMAN: Iranian-backed militias entered Syria overnight from Iraq and were heading to northern Syria to beef up beleaguered Syrian army forces battling insurgents, according to two Syrian army sources.
Dozens of Iran-aligned Iraqi Hashd al Shaabi fighters from Iraq also crossed into Syria through a military route near Al Bukamal crossing, a senior Syrian army source told Reuters.
“These are fresh reinforcements being sent to aid our comrades on the front lines in the north,” the officer said, adding the militias included Iraq’s Katiab Hezbollah and Fatemiyoun groups.
Iran sent thousands of Shiite militias to Syria during the Syrian war and, alongside Russia with its air power, enabled Syrian President Bashar Assad to crush the insurgency and regain most of his territory.
A lack of that manpower to help thwart the militant onslaught in recent days contributed to the speedy retreat of Syrian army forces and withdrawal from Aleppo city, according to two other army sources. Militias allied to Iran, led by Hezbollah, have a strong presence in the Aleppo area.
Israel has also in recent months stepped up its strikes on Iranian bases in Syria while also waging an offensive in Lebanon which it says has weakened Hezbollah and its military capabilities.