BEIRUT: Syrian troops massed around the town of Douma on Tuesday after a powerful rebel faction refused to evacuate, threatening the resumption of the ferocious air and ground offensive that has driven rebels from the rest of the eastern Ghouta suburbs of Damascus.
Thousands of fighters have already evacuated the suburbs with their family members and other civilians, but the Army of Islam said it was determined to stay in its stronghold, Douma, the largest town in eastern Ghouta.
“The negotiations are to remain, not to leave,” Army of Islam spokesman Hamza Bayraqdar told the Dubai-based Al-Arabiya TV from inside Douma.
Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, gave the group 48 hours to agree to leave or face a final assault on the town, where Syrian opposition activists say some 150,000 civilians are trapped. The Russian military has said it will not tolerate the presence of armed groups near the capital.
Residents trapped in Douma said they wanted a quick settlement to end the siege.
“The Army of Islam has taken the decision to stay put, but there is hope they will change their mind,” said a Douma-based opposition activist, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Pro-government media said Damascus was sending in reinforcements.
Hezbollah-run Al-Manar TV said the Army of Islam, which is only negotiating with Russia, was refusing to discuss the release of prisoners and was obstructing the talks. Hezbollah, a Lebanese militant group, fights alongside Assad’s forces.
Tens if not hundreds of thousands languish in Syria’s notorious prisons, where severe mistreatment and torture are rampant. Syria executed between 5,000 and 13,000 prisoners between 2011 and 2015, according to an Amnesty International report released last year. The US State Department, citing satellite photos, said authorities had built a crematorium to hide the scope of the killings.
The government has refused to negotiate any mass prisoner release despite pressure from the UN Late Monday, rebels released 28 prisoners to the government.
Pro-government forces besieged all of eastern Ghouta in 2013. Last month, the government launched a massive ground operation with Russian air support to retake the region. After weeks of heavy bombardment, two other rebel groups as well as Al-Qaeda fighters withdrew from their strongholds, leaving Douma as the last major town in rebel hands.
More than 1,600 civilians have been killed in the government offensive, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
More than 120,000 crossed the front lines for safety, the Russian military said Tuesday. Authorities registered them at camps around the capital, and men of fighting age are being conscripted into the Syrian army. Another 20,000 fighters and civilians, refusing to reconcile with the government, have elected to relocate to the rebel-held Idlib province in northern Syria.
Tens of thousands more are expected to follow them north to Idlib, where more than 1 million displaced Syrians have already sought refuge. Living conditions in the camps there are abysmal, the UN and aid agencies say, and the region is frequently targeted by airstrikes that have killed large numbers of civilians.
The exodus from eastern Ghouta, which was home to an estimated 400,000 people before the latest offensive, is shaping up to be one of the largest organized population transfers in the country’s seven-year civil war. The Syrian opposition and the United Nations say the displacement amounts to forced migration.
Bayraqdar, the Army of Islam spokesman, said Douma’s fighters and residents refuse to be part of “demographic change,” saying “those who leave cannot dream of returning.”
Syrian troops mass around town as rebels refuse to leave
Syrian troops mass around town as rebels refuse to leave
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.
Iraqi intelligence chief discusses border security with new Syrian administration
BAGHDAD: An Iraqi delegation met with Syria’s new rulers in Damascus on Thursday, an Iraqi government spokesman said, the latest diplomatic outreach more than two weeks after the fall of Bashar Assad’s rule.
The delegation, led by Iraqi intelligence chief Hamid Al-Shatri, “met with the new Syrian administration,” government spokesman Bassem Al-Awadi told state media, adding that the parties discussed “the developments in the Syrian arena, and security and stability needs on the two countries’ shared border.”
Israeli minister’s Al-Aqsa mosque visit sparks condemnation
- Ben Gvir has repeatedly defied the Israeli government’s longstanding ban on Jewish prayer at the site in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem
JERUSALEM: Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir visited Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque compound on Thursday, triggering angry reactions from the Palestinian Authority and Jordan accusing the far-right politician of a deliberate provocation.
Ben Gvir has repeatedly defied the Israeli government’s longstanding ban on Jewish prayer at the site in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem, which is revered by both Muslims and Jews and has been a focal point of tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I went up to the site of our temple this morning to pray for the peace of our soldiers, the swift return of all hostages and a total victory, God willing,” Ben Gvir said in a message on social media platform X, referring to the Gaza war and the dozens of Israeli captives held in the Palestinian territory.
He also posted a photo of himself on the holy site, with members of the Israeli security forces and the famed golden Dome of the Rock in the background.
The Al-Aqsa compound in Jerusalem’s Old City is Islam’s third-holiest site and a symbol of Palestinian national identity.
Known to Jews as the Temple Mount, it is also Judaism’s holiest place, revered as the site of the second temple destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD.
Under the status quo maintained by Israel, which has occupied east Jerusalem and its Old City since 1967, Jews and other non-Muslims are allowed to visit the compound during specified hours, but they are not permitted to pray there or display religious symbols.
Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as their future capital, while Israeli leaders have insisted that the entire city is their “undivided” capital.
The Palestinian Authority’s foreign ministry said in a statement that it “condemns” Ben Gvir’s latest visit, calling his prayer at the site a “provocation to millions of Palestinians and Muslims.”
Jordan, which administers the mosque compound, similarly condemned what its foreign ministry called Ben Gvir’s “provocative and unacceptable” actions.
The ministry’s statement decried a “violation of the historical and legal status quo.”
The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a brief statement that “the status quo on the Temple Mount has not changed.”
UN force sounds alarm over Israeli ‘destruction’ in south Lebanon
- Under the ceasefire agreement, UNIFIL peacekeepers and the Lebanese army were to redeploy in south Lebanon, near the Israeli border, as Israeli forces withdrew over 60 days
BEIRUT: The United Nations’ peacekeeping force in Lebanon expressed concern on Thursday at the “continuing” damage done by Israeli forces in the country’s south despite a ceasefire in the war with Hezbollah.
The truce went into effect on November 27, about two months after Israel stepped up its bombing campaign and later sent troops into Lebanon following nearly a year of exchanges of cross-border fire initiated by Hezbollah over the war in Gaza.
The warring sides have since traded accusations of violating the truce.
Under the ceasefire agreement, UNIFIL peacekeepers and the Lebanese army were to redeploy in south Lebanon, near the Israeli border, as Israeli forces withdrew over 60 days.
UNIFIL said in a statement on Thursday that “there is concern at continuing destruction by the IDF (army) in residential areas, agricultural land and road networks in south Lebanon.”
The statement added that “this is in violation of Resolution 1701,” which was adopted by the UN Security Council and ended the last Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006.
The UN force also reiterated its call for “the timely withdrawal” of Israeli troops from Lebanon, and “the full implementation of Resolution 1701.”
The resolution states that Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers should be the only forces in south Lebanon, where Hezbollah exerts control, and also calls for Israeli troops to withdraw from Lebanese territory.
“Any actions that risk the fragile cessation of hostilities must cease,” UNIFIL said.
On Monday the force had urged “accelerated progress” in the Israeli military’s withdrawal.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency (NNA) reported on Thursday “extensive” operations by Israeli forces in the south.
It said residents of Qantara fled to a nearby village “following an incursion by Israeli enemy forces into their town.”
On Wednesday the NNA said Israeli aircraft struck the eastern Baalbek region, far from the border.
Syria forces carry out operation against pro-Assad ‘militias’: state media
- Operation had already succeeded in ‘neutralizing a certain number’ of armed men loyal to Assad
DUBAI: The new Syrian military administration announced on Thursday that it was launching a security operation in Tartous province, according to the Syrian state news agency.
The operation aims to maintain security in the region and target remnants of the Assad regime still operating in the area.
The announcement marks a significant move by the new administration as it consolidates its authority in the coastal province.
The operation had already succeeded in “neutralizing a certain number” of armed men loyal to toppled president Bashar Assad, state news agency SANA reported said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor has reported several arrests in connection with Wednesday’s clashes.
Further details about the scope or duration of the operation have not yet been disclosed.
