BEIRUT: Syria’s army and its allies raced toward their enclave in the Euphrates city of Deir Al-Zor after a rapid advance on Sunday, seeking to relieve it after years of Daesh siege as jihadist defenses suddenly collapsed.
Deir Al-Zor’s provincial governor, Mohammed Ibrahim Samra, told Reuters in a phone interview that he expected the army to arrive at the city within hours and that some people there had taken to the streets to demonstrate their happiness.
Syrian President Bashar Assad has focused this year on the campaign in Syria’s desert, striking eastwards in a multi-pronged assault to restore Deir Al-Zor, where Daesh has held half the city and all the land around since 2014.
Sunday’s advance brought the army and its allies to about 10 km (6 miles) from the city, said the military media unit run by the army’s ally, Lebanon’s Hezbollah group. On Friday, it reported the army was still 30 km (19 miles) away after capturing Jebel Al-Bashri.
A war monitor, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the army had advanced even farther, reaching the border of the besieged garrison’s army camp on the western edge of Deir Al-Zor.
Intense fighting is taking place as the army attempts to break through Daesh lines to join up with the besieged garrison, the Observatory reported.
It is a sign of the rapidly changing fortunes in Syria’s civil war, as Assad, aided by Russian air strikes and Iran-backed Shiite militias including Hezbollah, has won a series of battlefield victories.
Daesh, which took advantage of chaos caused by the civil war to seize swathes of Iraq and Syria in 2014, is retreating in both countries and falling back on its Euphrates valley strongholds on either side of Deir Al-Zor.
The United Nations says there are about 93,000 people in the besieged, government-controlled enclave, which includes much of the city, the Brigade 137 military camp and the airport.
For years, Deir Al-Zor has been supplied only by air, and the United Nations said last month it had carried out about 300 high-altitude air drops of food over the past year alone.
Syrian state television reported that Daesh was in a state of collapse in the face of the army’s progress. A Syrian military source said on Saturday the army had also advanced eastwards from Sukhna, on the main road between Damascus and Deir Al-Zor, along a parallel route of attack.
Pro-government forces are also fighting to eradicate a large Daesh enclave they left to their rear in central Syria as they advanced toward Deir Al-Zor.
Syrian army, allies race to relieve Deir Al-Zor
Syrian army, allies race to relieve Deir Al-Zor
Lebanon to hold parliament session on January 9 to elect president
- State news agency: ‘Speaker Nabih Berri called a parliament session to elect a president of the republic on January 9’
“Speaker Nabih Berri called a parliament session to elect a president of the republic on January 9,” the official National News Agency reported.
Israeli tank fires at 3 south Lebanese towns
- Lebanese security sources and state media report tank fire struck Markaba, Wazzani and Kfarchouba
BEIRUT: Israeli tank fire hit three towns along Lebanon’s southeast border with Israel on Thursday, Lebanese security sources and state media said, a day after a ceasefire barring “offensive military operations” came into force.
Tank fire struck Markaba, Wazzani and Kfarchouba, all of which lie within two kilometers of the Blue Line demarcating the border between Lebanon and Israel. One of the security sources said two people were wounded in Markaba.
A ceasefire between Israel and Lebanese armed group Hezbollah took effect on Wednesday under a deal brokered by the US and France, intended to allow people in both countries to start returning to homes in border areas shattered by 14 months of fighting.
But managing the returns have been complicated. Israeli troops remain stationed within Lebanese territory in towns along the border, and on Thursday morning the Israeli military urged residents of towns along the border strip not to return yet for their own safety.
The three towns hit on Thursday morning lie within that strip.
There was no immediate comment on the tank rounds from Hezbollah or Israel, who had been fighting for over a year in parallel with the Gaza war.
The agreement, a rare diplomatic feat in a region racked by conflict, ended the deadliest confrontation between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group in years. But Israel is still fighting its other arch foe, the Palestinian militant group Hamas, in the Gaza Strip.
Under the ceasefire terms, Israeli forces can take up to 60 days to withdraw from southern Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had instructed the military not to allow residents back to villages near the border.
Lebanon’s speaker of parliament Nabih Berri, the top interlocutor for Lebanon in negotiating the deal, had said on Wednesday that residents could return home.
Syria war monitor says more than 130 dead in army-militant clashes in north
- Clashes followed “an operation launched by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said
- The air forces of both Syria and its ally Russia struck the attacking militants
BEIRUT: A monitor of Syria’s war said on Thursday that more than 130 combatants had been killed in clashes between the army and militant groups in the country’s north, as the government also reported fierce fighting.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the toll in the clashes which began a day earlier after the militants launched an attack “has risen to 132, including 65 fighters” from Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, 18 from allied factions “and 49 members of the regime forces.”
Palestinian leader Abbas lays ground for succession
- Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president
RAMALLAH, Palestinian Territories: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday announced who would replace him in an interim period when the post becomes vacant, effectively removing the Islamist movement Hamas from any involvement in a future transition.
Abbas, 89, still rules despite his term as head of the Palestinian Authority ending in 2009, and has resisted pressure to appoint a successor or a vice president.
Under current Palestinian law, the speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) takes over the Palestinian Authority in the event of a power vacuum.
But the PLC, where Hamas had a majority, no longer exists since Abbas officially dissolved it in 2018 after more than a decade of tensions between his secular party, Fatah, and Hamas, which ousted the Palestinian Authority from power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.
In a decree, Abbas said the Palestinian National Council chairman, Rawhi Fattuh, would be his temporary replacement should the position should become vacant.
“If the position of the president of the national authority becomes vacant in the absence of the legislative council, the Palestinian National Council president shall assume the duties... temporarily,” it said.
The decree added that following the transition period, elections must be held within 90 days. This deadline can be extended in the event of a “force majeure,” it said.
The PNC is the parliament of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), which has over 700 members from the Palestinian territories and abroad.
Hamas, which does not belong to the PLO, has no representation on the council. The PNC deputies are not elected, but appointed.
The decree refers to the “delicate stage in the history of the homeland and the Palestinian cause” as war rages in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, after the latter’s unprecedented attack on southern Israel in October last year.
There are also persistent divisions between Hamas and Fatah.
The decree comes on the same day that a ceasefire entered into force in Lebanon after an agreement between Israel and Hamas’s ally, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
The Palestinian Authority appears weaker than ever, unable to pay its civil servants and threatened by Israeli far-right ministers’ calls to annex all or part of the occupied West Bank, an ambition increasingly less hidden by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli military says it downed drone smuggling weapons from Egypt
CAIRO: The Israeli military said on Wednesday it shot down a drone that was carrying weapons and crossed from Egypt to Israel.
When asked about the latest drone incident, Egyptian security sources said they had no knowledge of such an incident.
In two separate incidents in October, Israel also said it downed two drones smuggling weapons from Egyptian territory.
Israeli officials have said during the war in Gaza that Palestinian militant group Hamas used tunnels running under the border into Egypt’s Sinai region to smuggle arms.
However, Egypt says it destroyed tunnel networks leading to Gaza years ago and created a buffer zone and border fortifications that prevent smuggling.
