ANKARA: Turkey’s top security body, the National Security Council (MGK), on Tuesday recommended that the government deploy forces around Syria’s Kurdish-held Afrin canton and in western Aleppo.
The MGK emphasized Turkey’s determination to secure its borders against terrorist groups. Afrin is controlled by the US-backed Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which Ankara views as the Syrian affiliate of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
On Monday, Turkish Defense Minister Nurettin Canikli hinted at a possible operation in Afrin, saying such an operation “may be tomorrow or... sooner than tomorrow.”
Last week, he said the PKK/YPG presence in Afrin poses a “serious danger and threat that should be removed in line with Turkey’s rights arising from international law.”
The Turkish military recently completed the formation of its third observation post in Syria’s northwest Idlib province, as part of a cease-fire co-guaranteed with Russia and Iran.
Earlier this month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country needed to clear Afrin of the YPG after accomplishing its military operation in Idlib.
But Serhat Erkmen, a Middle East expert at the Ankara-based 21st Century Turkey Institute, told Arab News: “Following the agreement reached in Sochi last week between Moscow, Tehran and Ankara, a comprehensive military operation that would escalate regional tension is unlikely.”
He added: “Even if it took place, it wouldn’t be a military operation that changes the balance power fundamentally, at a time when the Syrian conflict is evolving toward a political settlement.”
Turkey’s Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria last year was conducted after getting the green light from Moscow.
Any move on Afrin, where Russian military observers were deployed this summer, would also need its approval.
“Ankara should reach an agreement with Moscow over who will control Afrin if the PKK/YPG are removed from the region: The Syrian regime or the Free Syrian Army (FSA), which is backed by Turkey? It’s the key question,” Erkmen said. “Turkey won’t feel secure so long as the PKK is in Afrin.”
But the risks of such an operation may be prohibitively high, he added. “First of all, there’s a military risk. The PKK has been preparing for a possible Turkish operation for a while.”
Erkmen said: “One shouldn’t forget the political risks as well. We don’t know how the Syrian government will react.”
He added: “If the perceived security threat is bigger than the current risk, decision-makers will take into consideration the dynamics not only of Syria but the whole region.”
Bora Bayraktar, a Middle East expert from Istanbul Kultur University, told Arab News: “The operation will be mostly a continuation of Turkey’s military engagement in the Idlib de-escalation zone.”
“The region will be contained by moving as close as possible to Aleppo and the town of Tal Rifat,” he said.
“Fifty-five percent of Afrin’s population are Arabs, Kurds make up 30-35 percent, and the rest are Turkmen. With the stability that would be brought by a possible Turkish operation, the return of displaced populations may restore the original demography and neutralize the PKK/YPG presence.”
If Syrian-Kurdish forces resist the Turkish operation, Ankara may use aerial attacks and shelling without launching a ground operation with its troops, Bayraktar said.
Turkey hints at imminent Afrin operation
Turkey hints at imminent Afrin operation
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WHO chief says he is safe after Sanaa airport bombardment
“One of our plane’s crew members was injured. At least two people were reported killed at the airport,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X.
Other UN staff were also safe but their departure was delayed until repairs could be made, he added.
Tedros was in Yemen as part of a mission to seek the release of detained UN staff and assess the health and humanitarian situations in the war-torn country.
He said the mission “concluded today,” and “we continue to call for the detainees’ immediate release.”
While about to board their flight, he said “the airport came under aerial bombardment.”
“The air traffic control tower, the departure lounge — just a few meters from where we were — and the runway were damaged.”
The Israeli air strikes came a day after the latest attacks on Israel by Iran-backed Houthis.
The rebel-held capital’s airport was struck by “more than six” attacks with raids also targeting the adjacent Al-Dailami air base, a witness told AFP.
Israel strikes Yemen’s Sana’a airport, ports and power stations
- Houthis said that multiple air raids targeted an airport, military air base and a power station in Yemen
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said it struck multiple targets linked to the Iran-aligned Houthi movement in Yemen on Thursday, including Sana’a International Airport and three ports along the western coast.
Attacks hit Yemen’s Hezyaz and Ras Kanatib power stations as well as military infrastructure in the ports of Hodeidah, Salif and Ras Kanatib, Israel’s military added.
The Houthis have repeatedly fired drones and missiles toward Israel in what they describe as acts of solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The Israeli attacks on the airport, Hodeidah and on one power station, were reported by Al Masirah TV, the main television news outlet run by the Houthis.
More than a year of Houthi attacks have disrupted international shipping routes, forcing firms to re-route to longer and more expensive journeys that have in turn stoked fears over global inflation.
Israel has instructed its diplomatic missions in Europe to try to get the Houthis designated as a terrorist organization.
The UN Security Council is due to meet on Monday over Houthi attacks against Israel, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon said on Wednesday.
On Saturday, Israel’s military failed to intercept a missile from Yemen that fell in the Tel Aviv-Jaffa area, injuring 14 people.
Syria authorities say torched 1 million captagon pills
DAMASCUS: Syria’s new authorities torched a large stockpile of drugs on Wednesday, two security officials told AFP, including one million pills of captagon, whose industrial-scale production flourished under ousted president Bashar Assad.
Captagon is a banned amphetamine-like stimulant that became Syria’s largest export during the country’s more than 13-year civil war, effectively turning it into a narco state under Assad.
“We found a large quantity of captagon, around one million pills,” said a balaclava-wearing member of the security forces, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Osama, and whose khaki uniform bore a “public security” patch.
An AFP journalist saw forces pour fuel over and set fire to a cache of cannabis, the painkiller tramadol, and around 50 bags of pink and yellow captagon pills in a security compound formerly belonging to Assad’s forces in the capital’s Kafr Sousa district.
Captagon has flooded the black market across the region in recent years, with oil-rich Saudi Arabia a major destination.
“The security forces of the new government discovered a drug warehouse as they were inspecting the security quarter,” said another member of the security forces, who identified himself as Hamza.
Authorities destroyed the stocks of alcohol, cannabis, captagon and hashish in order to “protect Syrian society” and “cut off smuggling routes used by Assad family businesses,” he added.
Syria’s new Islamist rulers have yet to spell out their policy on alcohol, which has long been widely available in the country.
Since an Islamist-led rebel alliance toppled Assad on December 8 after a lightning offensive, Syria’s new authorities have said massive quantities of captagon have been found in former government sites around the country, including security branches.
AFP journalists in Syria have seen fighters from Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) set fire to what they said were stashes of captagon found at facilities once operated by Assad’s forces.
Security force member Hamza confirmed Wednesday that “this is not the first initiative of its kind — the security services, in a number of locations, have found other warehouses... and drug manufacturing sites and destroyed them in the appropriate manner.”
Maher Assad, a military commander and the brother of Bashar Assad, is widely accused of being the power behind the lucrative captagon trade.
Experts believe Syria’s former leader used the threat of drug-fueled unrest to put pressure on Arab governments.
A Saudi delegation met Syria’s new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa in Damascus on Sunday, a source close to the government told AFP, to discuss the “Syria situation and captagon.”
Jordan in recent years has also cracked down on the smuggling of weapons and drugs including captagon along its 375-kilometer (230-mile) border with Syria.
Jordan says 18,000 Syrians returned home since Assad’s fall
AMMAN: About 18,000 Syrians have crossed into their country from Jordan since the government of Bashar Assad was toppled earlier this month, Jordanian authorities said on Thursday.
Interior Minister Mazen Al-Faraya told state TV channel Al-Mamlaka that “around 18,000 Syrians have returned to their country between the fall of the regime of Bashar Assad on December 8, 2024 until Thursday.”
He said the returnees included 2,300 refugees registered with the United Nations.
Amman says it has hosted about 1.3 million Syrians who fled their country since civil war broke out in 2011, with 650,000 formally registered with the United Nations.
Lebanon hopes for neighborly relations in first message to new Syria government
- Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria’s ousted President Bashar Assad through years of war
- Syria’s new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders
DUBAI: Lebanon said on Thursday it was looking forward to having the best neighborly relations with Syria, in its first official message to the new administration in Damascus.
Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib passed the message to his Syrian counterpart, Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani, in a phone call, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry said on X.
Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah played a major part propping up Syria’s ousted President Bashar Assad through years of war, before bringing its fighters back to Lebanon over the last year to fight in a bruising war with Israel – a redeployment which weakened Syrian government lines.
Under Assad, Hezbollah used Syria to bring in weapons and other military equipment from Iran, through Iraq and Syria and into Lebanon. But on Dec. 6, anti-Assad fighters seized the border with Iraq and cut off that route, and two days later, Islamist militants captured the capital Damascus.
Syria’s new Islamist de-facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa is seeking to establish relations with Arab and Western leaders after toppling Assad.
