ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT: Syria’s US-backed Kurds are getting indirect help from an unlikely source in their war against Turkey in the northwestern region of Afrin: President Bashar Assad.
Pro-government forces and Kurdish-led forces have fought each other elsewhere in Syria and Damascus opposes the Kurds’ demands for autonomy. But in Afrin they have a common enemy and a mutual interest in blocking Turkish advances.
Turkey, which regards the Kurdish YPG militia in Afrin as a threat on its southern border, launched an assault on the region last month. Seeking to shield Afrin, the Kurds asked Damascus to send forces into action to defend the border.
The government shows no sign of doing so, but it is providing indirect help by allowing Kurdish fighters, civilians and politicians to reach Afrin through territory it holds, representatives of both sides told Reuters.
Assad stands to gain while doing little.
The arrival of reinforcements is likely to sustain Kurdish resistance, bog down the Turkish forces and prolong a conflict that is sapping the resources of military powers that rival him for control of Syrian territory.
For the United States, it is yet another complication in Syria’s seven-year-old war, and a reminder of how its Syrian Kurdish ally must at times make deals with Assad even as it builds military ties with the United States.
Lacking international protection, the Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria say they have reached agreements with Damascus to allow reinforcements to be sent to Afrin from other Kurdish-dominated areas — Kobani and the Jazeera region.
“There are different ways to get reinforcements to Afrin but the fundamental route is via regime forces. There are understandings between the two forces ... for the sake of delivering reinforcements to Afrin,” Kino Gabriel, spokesman for the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said.
While the Kurds depend on Assad to reach Afrin, Kurdish sources say they also enjoy leverage over Damascus because it needs their cooperation to source grain and oil from areas of the northeast under Kurdish control.
A commander in the military alliance fighting in support of Assad said “the Kurds have no option but coordination with the regime” to defend Afrin.
“The Syrian regime is helping the Kurds with humanitarian support and some logistics, like turning a blind eye and allowing Kurdish support to reach some fronts,” said the commander, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Turkish campaign moves slowly
The Turkish military is making slow gains nearly three weeks into the operation it calls “Olive Branch.”
Ankara views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency in Turkey and is regarded as a terrorist group by the United States and the European Union.
The United States has relied on the YPG as a vital ground component of its war against Daesh, and has backed the group in other Kurdish-run regions in northern Syria along the border with Turkey.
But US forces are not in Afrin, so have been unable to shield Afrin from the attack by Turkey, its NATO ally.
The Kurds meanwhile accuse Russia of giving a green light for the Turkish attack by withdrawing observers it deployed in Afrin last year.
The Afrin war marks another twist in the complicated story of relations between Assad and the Syrian Kurdish groups, spearheaded by the YPG, that have carved out autonomous regions in northern Syria since the war began in 2011.
The YPG controls nearly all of Syria’s frontier with Turkey. But Afrin is separated from the bigger Kurdish-controlled region further east by a 100 km-wide zone controlled by the Turkish military and its Syrian militia allies.
For much of the war, Damascus and the YPG have avoided confrontation, at times fighting common enemies, including the rebel groups that are now helping Turkey attack Afrin.
But tensions have mounted in recent months, with Damascus threatening to march into parts of eastern and northern Syria captured by the SDF with support from the US-led coalition.
Underlining that, pro-Syrian government forces attacked the SDF in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, drawing coalition air strikes overnight that killed more than 100 of the attackers, the coalition said.
“The regime has allowed the YPG to bring people into Afrin, while attacking it east of Euphrates (River). I think that is indicative of the state of relations right,” said Noah Bonsey, International Crisis Group’s Senior Analyst on Syria.
He added: “There is still a significant gap between the YPG and regime positions on the future of northeastern Syria.”
Fighting for Afrin
The main Syrian Kurdish groups remain wedded to their vision of a Syria where they enjoy autonomy in a form of federalism that is at odds with Assad’s determination to recover all Syria.
Each side has allowed the other to maintain footholds in its territory. In Kurdish-held Qamishli, the government still controls the airport. In the Sheikh Maqsoud district of Aleppo, a government city, Kurdish security forces patrol the streets.
Scores of Kurds from Sheikh Maqsoud have gone to Afrin to support the fight, Kurdish officials there said. The short journey requires movement through areas held by the government or its Iran-backed Shiite militia allies.
“Of course people went from Sheikh Maqsoud — in the hundreds — to bear arms and defend Afrin,” said Badran Himo, a Kurdish official from Sheikh Maqsoud.
“Around 10 of them were martyred (killed),” he told Reuters as Kurdish security forces held a rally to commemorate one of the dead.
Earlier this week, witnesses say a civilian convoy of hundreds of cars drove to Afrin from other Kurdish-held areas in a show of solidarity.
The Syrian government has ignored appeals by the Kurdish authorities to guard the Syrian border at Afrin.
“We tried to convince them, via the Russians, to at least protect the borders, to take a position, but we did not reach (get?) a result,” Aldar Khalil, a top Kurdish politician, told Reuters.
“If they don’t protect the borders, then at least they don’t have the right to block the way for Syrian patriots who are protecting these borders, regardless of other domestic issues.”
Friend or foe? Assad quietly aids Syrian Kurds against Turkey
Friend or foe? Assad quietly aids Syrian Kurds against Turkey
Hamas armed wing says Israeli woman hostage killed in north Gaza
The woman had been held with a second female hostage whose life was in danger
GAZA: Hamas’s armed wing said Saturday an Israeli woman taken hostage during the October 2023 attack had been killed in a combat zone in northern Gaza and the Israeli military said it was investigating.
Ezzedine Al-Qassam Brigades spokesman Abu Obeida said contact had been restored with the woman’s captors after a break of several weeks and it was established that the hostage had been killed in an area of north Gaza where the Israeli army has been operating.
Abu Obeida’s statement did not further identify the hostage or say how or when she was killed.
The Israeli army told AFP it was looking into the claim.
Abu Obeida said that the woman had been held with a second female hostage whose life was in danger.
During last year’s Hamas attack which triggered the Gaza war, militants took 251 hostages, of whom 97 are still held in Gaza, including 34 the army says are dead.
Ten female hostages, including five soldiers, were believed to remain alive in custody before Abu Obeida’s statement, according to an AFP tally.
During a one-week truce in November last year, 105 hostages were freed, including 80 Israelis who were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners.
The Israeli government has come under immense public pressure to agree a new deal to bring the remaining hostages home while they are still alive.
The Hostage and Missing Families Forum campaign group did not wish to comment on Saturday’s claim.
“Nothing is known other than what Hamas is saying. Our only reliable source is the Israeli army,” the group told AFP.
Hamas’s attack on October 7 last year resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 44,176 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.
Fierce Israel-Hezbollah clashes at flashpoint town: Lebanon state media
- Israel was “attempting to control the town” as it was “a strategic gateway for a rapid ground incursion,” the NNA said
- It said Israeli troops had dynamited houses and were “trying to surround (Khiam) from all sides using extensive air and ground cover“
BEIRUT: Hezbollah fighters and Israeli troops engaged in fierce clashes Saturday at the key south Lebanon town of Khiam and in the coastal Bayada area several kilometers north of the border.
The official National News Agency (NNA) reported intense air and artillery bombardment of Khiam, about six kilometers (nearly four miles) from the frontier.
Israel was “attempting to control the town” as it was “a strategic gateway for a rapid ground incursion,” the NNA said.
It said Israeli troops had dynamited houses and were “trying to surround (Khiam) from all sides using extensive air and ground cover.”
Over the past two days, Hezbollah said its fighters had attacked Israeli troops about 20 times in and around the large town.
On September 23, Israel launched an intense air campaign in Lebanon, mainly targeting Hezbollah bastions in the south and east and in south Beirut.
A week later it sent ground troops across the border.
The NNA said Saturday that on the south coast, “the areas of Bayada and Wadi Hamoul are witnessing violent clashes,” and also reported air strikes and shelling.
It said Israeli troops tried to penetrate the area in order to encircle the town of Naqura via Bayada — “a strategic location” on the coast between Naqura and Tyre, 20 kilometers from the border.
Israeli tanks have been operating east of Khiam for more than three weeks, with the NNA reporting on Tuesday that the tanks had moved north of the town.
On October 29, the NNA said Israeli tanks entered Khiam’s outskirts in their deepest incursion yet into south Lebanon.
Khiam has symbolic significance. It was the site of a notorious prison run by the South Lebanon Army, an Israeli proxy militia, during its 22-year occupation of south Lebanon.
Israeli forces withdrew from the region in 2000.
The NNA also reported intense Israeli bombardment along the border, including around 70 shells pounding the town of Bint Jbeil alone.
All-out war erupted in September after nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of Hamas, following its Palestinian ally’s October 7, 2023 attack that sparked the Gaza war.
The health ministry in Beirut says that more than 3,650 people have been killed in Lebanon since October 2023, with most deaths recorded since September this year.
Lebanon says Israeli strike on eastern town kills at least 8
- The Israeli enemy strike on Shmostar killed eight people, including four children
BEIRUT: Lebanon said eight people were killed in an Israeli strike on Saturday in the east, with state media reporting the attack on a house killed a mother and her children.
“The Israeli enemy strike on Shmostar killed eight people, including four children, and nine others were injured, including four in critical condition,” a ministry statement said, giving a preliminary toll.
The official National Nwes Agency earlier said the attack “killed a family including a mother and her four children.”
Doctor at the heart of Turkiye’s newborn baby deaths case says he was a ‘trusted’ physician
- Dr. Firat Sari is one of 47 people on trial accused of transferring newborn babies to neonatal units of private hospitals
- “Patients were referred to me because people trusted me. We did not accept patients by bribing anyone from 112,” Sari said
ISTANBUL: The Turkish doctor at the center of an alleged fraud scheme that led to the deaths of 10 babies told an Istanbul court Saturday that he was a “trusted” physician.
Dr. Firat Sari is one of 47 people on trial accused of transferring newborn babies to neonatal units of private hospitals, where they were allegedly kept for prolonged and sometimes unnecessary treatments in order to receive social security payments.
“Patients were referred to me because people trusted me. We did not accept patients by bribing anyone from 112,” Sari said, referring to Turkiye’s emergency medical phone line.
Sari, said to be the plot’s ringleader, operated the neonatal intensive care units of several private hospitals in Istanbul. He is facing a sentence of up to 583 years in prison in a case where doctors, nurses, hospital managers and other health staff are accused of putting financial gain before newborns’ wellbeing.
The case, which emerged last month, has sparked public outrage and calls for greater oversight of the health care system. Authorities have since revoked the licenses and closed 10 of the 19 hospitals that were implicated in the scandal.
“I want to tell everything so that the events can be revealed,” Sari, the owner of Medisense Health Services, told the court. “I love my profession very much. I love being a doctor very much.”
Although the defendants are charged with the negligent homicide of 10 infants since January 2023, an investigative report cited by the state-run Anadolu news agency said they caused the deaths of “hundreds” of babies over a much longer time period.
Over 350 families have petitioned prosecutors or other state institutions seeking investigations into the deaths of their children, according to state media.
Prosecutors at the trial, which opened on Monday, say the defendants also falsified reports to make the babies’ condition appear more serious so as to obtain more money from the state as well as from families.
The main defendants have denied any wrongdoing, insisting they made the best possible decisions and are now facing punishment for unavoidable, unwanted outcomes.
Sari is charged with establishing an organization with the aim of committing a crime, defrauding public institutions, forgery of official documents and homicide by negligence.
During questioning by prosecutors before the trial, Sari denied accusations that the babies were not given the proper care, that the neonatal units were understaffed or that his employees were not appropriately qualified, according to a 1,400-page indictment.
“Everything is in accordance with procedures,” he told prosecutors in a statement.
The hearings at Bakirkoy courthouse, on Istanbul’s European side, have seen protests outside calling for private hospitals to be shut down and “baby killers” to be held accountable.
The case has also led to calls for the resignation of Health Minister Kemal Memisoglu, who was the Istanbul provincial health director at the time some of the deaths occurred. Ozgur Ozel, the main opposition party leader, has called for all hospitals involved to be nationalized.
In a Saturday interview with the A Haber TV channel, Memisoglu characterized the defendants as “bad apples” who had been “weeded out.”
“Our health system is one of the best health systems in the world,” he said. “This is a very exceptional, very organized criminal organization. It is a mistake to evaluate this in the health system as a whole.”
Memisoglu also denied the claim that he shut down an investigation into the claims in 2016, when he was Istanbul’s health director, calling it “a lie and slander.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this week that those responsible for the deaths would be severely punished but warned against placing all the blame on the country’s health care system.
“We will not allow our health care community to be battered because of a few rotten apples,” he said.
Fear in central Beirut district hit by Israeli strikes
- “The strike was so strong it felt like the building was about to fall on our heads,” said Samir
- There had been no evacuation warning issued by the Israeli military for the Basta area
BEIRUT: When Lebanese carpenter Samir awoke in a panic Saturday to the sound of explosions and screams, he thought his own building in central Beirut had been hit by an air raid.
As it turned out, the early morning air strike — which killed at least 11 people and injured 63, according to authorities — had actually brought down an eight-story building nearby, in the second such attack on the working-class neighborhood of Basta in as many months.
A Lebanese security source told AFP the target had been a senior Hezbollah figure, without naming him.
“The strike was so strong it felt like the building was about to fall on our heads,” said Samir, 60, who lives with his family in a building facing the one that was hit.
“It felt like they had targeted my house,” he said, asking to be identified by only his first name because of security concerns.
There had been no evacuation warning issued by the Israeli military for the Basta area.
After the strike, Samir fled his home in the middle of the night with his wife and two children, aged 14 and just three.
On Saturday morning, dumbstruck residents watched as an excavator cleared the wreckage of the razed building and rescue efforts continued, with nearby buildings also damaged in the attack, AFP journalists reported.
The densely packed district has welcomed people displaced from traditional Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east, south and southern Beirut, after Israel intensified its air campaign on September 23, later sending in ground troops.
“We saw two dead people on the ground... The children started crying and their mother cried even more,” Samir told AFP, reporting minor damage to his home.
Since last Sunday, four deadly Israeli strikes have hit central Beirut, including one that killed Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif.
Residents across the city and its outskirts awoke at 0400 (0200 GMT) on Saturday to loud explosions and the smell of gunpowder in the air.
“It was the first time I’ve woken up screaming in terror,” said Salah, a 35-year-old father of two who lives in the same street as the building that was targeted.
“Words can’t express the fear that gripped me,” he said.
Saturday’s strikes were the second time the Basta district had been targeted since war broke out, after deadly twin strikes early in October hit the area and the Nweiri neighborhood.
Last month’s attacks killed 22 people and had targeted Hezbollah security chief Wafiq Safa, who made it out alive, a source close to the group told AFP.
Salah said his wife and children had been in the northern city of Tripoli, about 70 kilometers away (45 miles), but that he had to stay in the capital because of work.
His family had been due to return this weekend because their school reopens on Monday, but now he has decided against it following the attack.
“I miss them. Every day they ask me: ‘Dad, when are we coming home?’” he said.
Lebanon’s health ministry says that more than 3,650 people have been killed since October 2023, after Hezbollah initiated exchanges of fire with Israel in solidarity with its Iran-backed ally Hamas over the Gaza war.
However, most of the deaths in Lebanon have been since September this year.
Despite the trauma caused by Saturday’s strike, Samir said he and his family had no choice but to return home.
“Where else would I go?” he asked.
“All my relatives and siblings have been displaced from Beirut’s southern suburbs and from the south.”
