BEIRUT: Al-Qaeda-linked fighters on Friday attacked a key central Syrian village at the crossroads between areas under regime control and those controlled by insurgents, activists said. In eastern Syria, meanwhile, regime forces reportedly entered a town that is one of Daesh’s biggest strongholds.
According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Syrian regime forces and allied militiamen entered western parts of Mayadeen, including the town’s wheat silos compound and the sheep market.
The regime-controlled Syrian Central Military Media earlier said that troops were marching south from Deir Ezzor toward Mayadeen, under the cover of airstrikes.
If the report proves true and Syrian troops indeed entered Mayadeen, it would mark another blow for the extremist group, which has lost wide areas of Iraq and Syria in its self-declared caliphate over the past year.
Omar Abou Leila, from the monitoring group DeirEzzor 24, said he could not confirm or deny the report, though he added that it was possible, given the regime forces’ days-long advance.
Airstrikes on Mayadeen and nearby areas over the past days have killed and wounded scores of people, including 15 civilians — women and children among them — who were killed when a missile slammed into a regime-held neighborhood in the city of Deir Ezzor on Thursday evening.
The attack on the village of Abu Dali in central Hama province was led by Al-Qaeda-linked Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham — Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee and also known as HTS. It came two weeks after insurgents attacked a nearby area where three Russian soldiers were wounded.
Earlier this week, Russia’s military claimed the leader of the group was wounded in a Russian airstrike and had fallen into a coma. The military offered no evidence on the purported condition of Abu Mohammed Al-Golani.
The group subsequently denied Al-Golani was hurt, insisting he is in excellent health and going about his duties as usual. The group’s fighters have been gaining more influence in the northwestern province of Idlib and northern parts of Hama, where they have launched attacks on rival militant groups, as well as areas controlled by the government.
Abu Dali had been spared much of the violence and had functioned as a local business hub between opposition-run areas and those under President Bashar Assad’s forces.
The observatory said Al-Qaeda fighters captured several areas in the village on Friday. The HTS-linked Ibaa news agency did not mention the attack but said Russian warplanes were bombing areas the group controls in northern Syria.
Violence in eastern Syria has escalated significantly in recent weeks as Syrian troops with the help of Russian air cover have been closing in on Mayadeen.
The DeirEzzor24 monitoring group said the missile in the Thursday evening airstrike that killed 15 hit near a school in the Qusour neighborhood. Three children and three women were among those killed, the group said Friday, blaming Daesh for the attack. The school and a nearby residential building were destroyed.
The Russian military has accused the US of turning a blind eye and effectively providing cover to Daesh operations in an area in Syria that is under US control.
The Russian Defense Ministry spokesman, Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, said that Daesh militants have used the area around the town of Tanf near Syria’s border with Jordan — where US military instructors are also stationed — to launch attacks against the Syrian Army.
He said the area has become a “black hole,” posing a threat to the Syrian regime army’s offensive against Daesh in eastern Deir Ezzor province.
Separately, the Russian military said one of its helicopters had made an emergency landing in Syria but that its crew was unhurt.
According to the Defense Ministry, the Mi-28 helicopter gunship landed in Hama province on Friday due to a technical malfunction. The two crewmen were not injured and were flown back to base. The ministry said the helicopter was not fired upon.
The ministry’s statement followed a claim by Daesh-linked Aamaq news agency, which said the group had downed a Russian helicopter south of Shiekh Hilal village in Hama.
Al-Qaeda-linked fighters launch new attack in central Syria
Al-Qaeda-linked fighters launch new attack in central Syria
Italy protests to Israel over unexploded shell hitting Italian base in Lebanon
- Tajani said the safety of the soldiers in UNIFIL had to be ensured and stressed “the unacceptability” of the attacks
- The Italian statement said Saar had “guaranteed an immediate investigation” into the shell incident
ROME: Italy on Friday said an unexploded artillery shell hit the base of the Italian contingent in the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon and Israel promised to investigate.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani spoke with Israeli counterpart Gideon Saar and protested Israeli attacks against its personnel and infrastructure in the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, an Italian statement said.
Tajani said the safety of the soldiers in UNIFIL had to be ensured and stressed “the unacceptability” of the attacks.
The Italian statement said Saar had “guaranteed an immediate investigation” into the shell incident.
Established by a UN Security Council resolution in 2006, the 10,000-strong UN mission is stationed in southern Lebanon to monitor hostilities along the “blue line” separating Lebanon from Israel.
Since Israel launched a ground campaign in Lebanon against Hezbollah fighters at the end of September, UNIFIL has accused the Israel Defense Forces of deliberately attacking its bases, including by shooting at peacekeepers and destroying watch towers.
Lebanon rescuer picks up ‘pieces’ of father after Israel strike
- Karkaba then rushed back to the bombed civil defense center to search for her fellow first responders under the rubble
- Israel struck the center, the main civil defense facility in the eastern Baalbek area, while nearly 20 rescuers were still inside
DOURIS, Lebanon: Suzanne Karkaba and her father Ali were both civil defense rescuers whose job was to save the injured and recover the dead in Lebanon’s war.
When an Israeli strike killed him on Thursday and it was his turn to be rescued, there wasn’t much left. She had to identify him by his fingers.
Karkaba then rushed back to the bombed civil defense center to search for her fellow first responders under the rubble.
Israel struck the center, the main civil defense facility in the eastern Baalbek area, while nearly 20 rescuers were still inside, said Samir Chakia, a local official with the agency.
At least 14 civil defense workers were killed, he said.
“My dad was sleeping here with them. He helped people and recovered bodies to return them to their families... But now it’s my turn to pick up the pieces of my dad,” Karkaba told AFP with tears in her eyes.
Unlike many first-responder facilities previously targeted during the war, this facility in Douris, on the edge of Baalbek city, was state-run and had no political affiliation.
Israel’s military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Friday morning, dozens of rescuers and residents were still rummaging through the wreckage of the center. Two excavators pulled broken slabs of concrete, twisted metal bars and red tiles.
Wearing her civil defense uniform at the scene, Karkaba said she had been working around-the-clock since Israel ramped up its air raids on Lebanon’s east in late September.
“I don’t know who to grieve anymore, the (center’s) chief, my father, or my friends of 10 years,” Karkaba said, her braided hair flowing in the wind.
“I don’t have the heart to leave the center, to leave the smell of my father... I’ve lost a part of my soul.”
Beginning on September 23, Israel escalated its air raids mainly on Hezbollah strongholds in east and south Lebanon, as well as south Beirut after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges of fire.
A week later Israel sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.
More than 150 rescuers, most of them affiliated with Hezbollah and its allies, have been killed in more than a year of clashes, according to health ministry figures from late October.
Friday morning, rescuers in Douris were still pulling body parts from the rubble, strewn with dozens of paper documents, while Lebanese army troops stood guard near the site.
Civil defense worker Mahmoud Issa was among those searching for friends in the rubble.
“Does it get worse than this kind of strike against rescue teams and medics? We are among the first to... save people. But now, we are targets,” he said.
On Thursday, Lebanon’s health ministry said more than 40 people had been killed in Israeli strikes on the country’s south and east.
The ministry reported two deadly Israeli raids on emergency facilities in less than two hours that day: the one near Baalbek, and another on the south that killed four Hezbollah-affiliated paramedics.
The ministry urged the international community to “put an end to these dangerous violations.”
More than 3,400 people have been killed in Lebanon since the clashes began last year, according to the ministry, the majority of them since late September.
Iran backs Lebanon in ceasefire talks, seeks end to ‘problems’
- World powers say Lebanon ceasefire must be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701
- Israel demands the freedom to act should Hezbollah violate any agreement, which Lebanon has rejected
BEIRUT: Iran backs any decision taken by Lebanon in talks to secure a ceasefire with Israel, a senior Iranian official said on Friday, signalling Tehran wants to see an end to a conflict that has dealt heavy blows to its Lebanese ally Hezbollah.
Israel launched airstrikes in the Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut, flattening buildings for a fourth consecutive day. Israel has stepped up its bombardment of the area this week, an escalation that has coincided with signs of movement in US-led diplomacy toward a ceasefire.
Two senior Lebanese political sources told Reuters that the US ambassador to Lebanon had presented a draft ceasefire proposal to Lebanon’s parliament speaker Nabih Berri the previous day. Berri is endorsed by Hezbollah to negotiate and met the senior Iranian official Ali Larijani on Friday.
Asked at a news conference whether he had come to Beirut to undermine the US truce plan, Larijani said: “We are not looking to sabotage anything. We are after a solution to the problems.”
“We support in all circumstances the Lebanese government. Those who are disrupting are Netanyahu and his people,” Larijani added, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Hezbollah was founded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in 1982, and has been armed and financed by Tehran.
A senior diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, assessed that more time was needed to get a ceasefire done but was hopeful it could be achieved.
The outgoing US administration appears keen to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon, even as efforts to end Israel’s related war in the Gaza Strip appear totally adrift.
World powers say a Lebanon ceasefire must be based on UN Security Council Resolution 1701 which ended a previous 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel. Its terms require Hezbollah to move weapons and fighters north of the Litani river, which runs some 20 km (30 miles) north of the border.
Israel demands the freedom to act should Hezbollah violate any agreement, which Lebanon has rejected.
In a meeting with Larijani, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati urged support for Lebanon’s position on implementing 1701 and called this a priority, along with halting the “Israeli aggression,” a statement from his office said.
Larijani stressed “that Iran supports any decision taken by the government, especially resolution 1701,” the statement said.
Israel launched its ground and air offensive against Hezbollah in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities in parallel with the Gaza war. It says it aims to secure the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis, forced to evacuate from northern Israel under Hezbollah fire.
Israel’s campaign has forced more than 1 million Lebanese to flee their homes, igniting a humanitarian crisis.
FLATTENED BUILDINGS
It has dealt Hezbollah serious blows, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders. Hezbollah has kept up rocket attacks into Israel and its fighters have been battling Israeli troops in the south.
On Friday, Israeli airstrikes flattened five more buildings in Beirut’s southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh. One of them was located near one of Beirut’s busiest traffic junctions, Tayouneh, in an area where Dahiyeh meets other parts of Beirut.
The sound of an incoming missile could be heard in footage showing the airstrike near Tayouneh. The targeted building turned into a cloud of rubble and debris which billowed into the adjacent Horsh Beirut, the city’s main park.
The Israeli military said its fighter jets attacked munitions warehouses, a headquarters and other Hezbollah infrastructure. Ahead of the latest airstrikes, the Israeli military issued a warning on social media identifying buildings.
The European Union strongly condemned the killing of 12 paramedics in an Israeli strike near Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley on Thursday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said.
“Attacks on health care workers and facilities are a grave violation of international humanitarian law,” he wrote on X.
On Thursday, Eli Cohen, Israel’s energy minister and a member of its security cabinet, told Reuters prospects for a ceasefire were the most promising since the conflict began.
The Washington Post reported that Netanyahu was rushing to advance a Lebanon ceasefire with the aim of delivering an early foreign policy win to his ally US President-elect Donald Trump.
According to Lebanon’s health ministry, Israeli attacks have killed at least 3,386 people through Wednesday since Oct. 7, 2023, the vast majority of them since late September. It does not distinguish between civilian casualties and fighters.
Hezbollah attacks have killed about 100 civilians and soldiers in northern Israel, the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and southern Lebanon over the last year, according to Israel.
French anti-terrorism prosecutor to appeal against Lebanese militant’s release
- Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade, would be released on Dec. 6
- Requests for Abdallah’s release have been rejected and annulled multiple times
PARIS: The office of France’s anti-terrorism prosecutor said on Friday it would appeal against a French court’s decision to grant the release of a Lebanese militant jailed for attacks on US and Israeli diplomats in France in the early 1980s.
PNAT said Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, a former head of the Lebanese Armed Revolutionary Brigade, would be released on Dec. 6 under the court’s decision on condition that he leave France and not return.
Abdallah was given a life sentence in 1987 for his role in the murders of US diplomat Charles Ray in Paris and Israeli diplomat Yacov Barsimantov in 1982, and in the attempted murder of US Consul General Robert Homme in Strasbourg in 1984.
Representatives for the embassies of the United States and Israel, as well as the Ministry of Justice, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Requests for Abdallah’s release have been rejected and annulled multiple times, including in 2003, 2012 and 2014.
A French student who was arrested and detained in Tunisia returns to Paris
- Victor Dupont, a Ph.D. at Aix-Marseille University’s Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds, arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport on Friday
- Dupont, who researches social movements, youth unemployment and Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, was one of three French nationals arrested on Oct. 19
PARIS: A French student detained for weeks in Tunisia returned to Paris on Friday after weeks of top-level diplomatic discussions.
Victor Dupont, a 27-year-old completing a Ph.D. at Aix-Marseille University’s Institute of Research and Study on the Arab and Islamic Worlds, arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport on Friday afternoon, 27 days after he was arrested in Tunis.
“Obviously, we welcome this outcome for him and, most of all, we welcome that he is able to reunite with his loved ones here in France,” French Foreign Ministry spokesman Christophe Lemoine said.
He announced the release at a ministry news briefing on Friday, saying that Dupont was freed Tuesday from prison and returned on Friday back to France.
Dupont, who researches social movements, youth unemployment and Tunisia’s 2011 revolution, was one of three French nationals arrested on Oct. 19. Authorities in recent years have arrested journalists, activists and opposition figures, but Dupont’s arrest garnered international attention and condemnation because of his nationality and because he wasn’t known as a critic of the government.
A support committee set up to advocate for Dupont’s release told The Associated Press in October that Dupont and several friends were detained in front of Dupont’s home, then taken to a police station for questioning. Dupont was later taken alone into custody and taken to appear in military court in the city of Le Kef.
The arrest provoked concerns about the safety and security of foreigners in Tunisia, where rights and freedoms have gradually been curtailed under President Kais Saied.
Dupont’s supporters, both at his university and in associations representing academics who work in the Middle East and North Africa, said that his research didn’t pose any security risks and called the charges unfounded.
In a letter to Saied and Tunisia’s Ministry of Higher Educations, associations representing French, Italian and British academics who work in the region said that Tunisia’s government had approved Dupont’s research and that the allegations against him “lack both founding and credibility.”
“We therefore condemn the extraordinary use of the military court system,” they wrote on Nov. 12.
Saied has harnessed populist anger to win two terms as president of Tunisia and reversed many of the gains that were made when the country became the first to topple a longtime dictator in 2011 during the regional uprisings that became known as the Arab Spring.
Tunisia and France have maintained close political and economic ties since Tunisia became independent after 75 years of being a French protectorate. France is Tunisia’s top trade partner, home to a large Tunisian diaspora and a key interlocutor in managing migration from North Africa to Europe.
A French diplomatic official not authorized to speak publicly about the arrest told The Associated Press in late October that officials were in contact with Tunisian authorities about the case. Another diplomatic official with knowledge of the matter said on Thursday that French President Emmanuel Macron had recently spoken to Saied twice about the case and said that it was the subject of regular calls between top level diplomats.
The others arrested along with Dupont were previously released.
