JERUSALEM: Israel Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman Friday called on President Bashar Assad to “get rid” of Iranian forces in Syria, warning their continued presence would only cause trouble.
Iran, meanwhile, in its first official reaction to the Israeli attacks on suspected Iranian targets in Syria, said Damascus has the legitimate right to respond to what it said were repeated violations of the country’s sovereignty “under fabricated and baseless excuses.”
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Braham Ghasemi added that the international silence in the face of such “aggressive moves” is in effect a “green light” to more such attacks.
A hard-line Iranian cleric threatened Iran would retaliate if Israel “does anything foolish.”
Israel attacked dozens of suspected Iranian targets in Syria in overnight strikes this week that it said were in response to an Iranian rocket barrage. It was the most serious military confrontation between the two bitter enemies to date. The cross-border exchange gave way to a war of words.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called late Thursday for an immediate halt to “all hostile acts” to avoid “a new conflagration” in the Middle East.
Guterres’ comments came as a calm night followed intense attacks on parts of Syria by Israel. Israel has called on the UN Security Council and secretary-general to condemn Iran’s attack on its positions in the Golan Heights, occupied and annexed by Israel.
The Security Council, deeply divided over Syria, is highly unlikely to issue a statement and as of Friday morning no council member had asked for a meeting.
Speaking while touring the Israeli side of the occupied Golan Heights, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said Israel is not looking for friction. “We did not come to the Iranian border, they came here,” he said.
Iran has advisers and experts and has backed tens of thousands of militiamen who are fighting alongside Assad forces in the civil war. Israel has warned it will not tolerate its archenemy Iran establishing a military presence on its doorstep.
“I will take this opportunity to send a message to Assad: Get rid of the Iranians, get rid of Qasem Soleimani, and the Quds Force, they are not helping you, they only cause damage, and their presence will only cause problems and damages” Lieberman said. Soleimani is the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds expeditionary force which is fighting in both Iraq and Syria.
“Get rid of the Iranians and maybe it will be possible to have a different kind of life,” Lieberman added.
Israel and Iran have long fought each other through proxies, and with the new exchange each seemed to be sending a warning that a direct clash between them could swiftly escalate.
The scope of the attacks — which Israel called its largest in Syria since the 1973 Mideast war — raised the specter of a full-fledged war between Iran and Israel in Syria, a conflict that could potentially drag the militant Hezbollah and Lebanon into the mix with devastating effects, although both sides appeared to signal they wanted the confrontation to remain contained, at least for now.
The rising tension in Syria came just as the United States decided to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and impose new sanctions, adding to the pressure on Tehran.
In Tehran, senior cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami said the Western pressure will backfire, threatening that Israel will pay the price.
“The holy system of Islamic Republic will step up its missile capabilities day by day so that Israel, this occupying regime, will become sleepless and the nightmare will constantly haunt it that if it does anything foolish, we will raze Tel Aviv and Haifa to the ground,” the hard-line cleric said during Friday sermons. The worshippers chanted: “Death to America,” and “Death to Israel.”
Ghasemi, the foreign ministry spokesman, said the direct attacks on Syria come as the government of Assad is regaining control of territories from rebel fighters, accusing Israel and the United States of supporting the opposition which he called “terrorists.”
In the latest victory for Assad, Syrian police prepared Friday to take control of three suburbs of the capital Damascus previously controlled by the rebels.
Opposition fighters and their families left Babila, Beit Sahem and Yalda, three southern suburbs that were held by rebels for years, Syrian state media and a war monitor said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the last group evacuated the suburbs Thursday night, bringing the total of those fighters and civilians who left the area since May 3 to a total of 8,400.
Syria’s state news agency SANA said opposition fighters who decided to stay in the suburbs will hand over the weapons and return to normal life.
With the capture of the three suburbs, the only area outside government control in Damascus is that of the neighborhood of Hajjar Al-Aswad and the nearby Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk that are partially controlled by the Daesh group.
Government forces have been on the offensive against IS in the area since last month and its capture would boost security in Assad’s seat of power.
Israel calls on Syria’s Assad to ‘get rid’ of Iranian forces
Israel calls on Syria’s Assad to ‘get rid’ of Iranian forces
- Israel Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman: “I will take this opportunity to send a message to Assad: Get rid of the Iranians.”
- Israel and Iran have long fought each other through proxies, and with the new exchange each seemed to be sending a warning that a direct clash between them could swiftly escalate.
West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief
- MI6 head Richard Moore cites ‘terrible loss of innocent life’
- ‘In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state’
LONDON: The West has “yet to have a full reckoning with the radicalizing impact of the fighting, the terrible loss of innocent life in the Middle East and the horrors of Oct. 7,” the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 has warned.
Richard Moore made the comments in a speech delivered to the British Embassy in Paris, and was joined by his French counterpart Nicolas Lerner.
Moore said: “In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious.”
Daesh is expanding its reach and staging deadly attacks in Iran and Russia despite suffering significant territorial setbacks, he added, warning that “the menace of terrorism has not gone away.”
In October last year, Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, said his agency was monitoring for increased terror risks in the UK due to the Gaza war. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in over a year of fighting.
In Lebanon, a 60-day truce agreed this week between Hezbollah and Israel brought an end to a conflict that has killed thousands of Lebanese civilians.
Israel military strikes kill 32 Palestinians in Gaza, medics say
- Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City
The Israeli military said it killed a Palestinian it accused of involvement in Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel in a vehicle strike in Gaza, and is investigating claims that the individual was an employee of aid group World Central Kitchen.
At least 32 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across Gaza overnight and into Saturday, with most casualties reported in northern areas, medics told Reuters.
Later on Saturday medics said seven people were killed when an Israeli air strike targeted a vehicle near a gathering of Palestinians receiving aid in the southern area of Khan Younis south of the enclave.
According to residents and a Hamas source, the vehicle targeted near a crowd receiving flour belonged to security personnel responsible for overseeing the delivery of aid shipments into Gaza.
Among the 32 killed, at least seven died in an Israeli strike on a house in central Gaza City, according to a statement from the Gaza Civil Defense and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA early on Saturday.
The Gaza Civil Defense also reported that one of its officers was killed in attacks in northern Gaza’s Jabalia, bringing the total number of civil defense workers killed since October 7, 2023, to 88.
Earlier on Saturday, WAFA reported that three employees of the World Central Kitchen, a US-based, non-governmental humanitarian agency, were killed when a civilian vehicle was targeted in Khan Younis, southern Gaza.
The World Central Kitchen has not yet commented on the incident.
Syria’s military ‘temporarily’ withdraws from Aleppo to prepare for counteroffensive
- Syrian military confirms militantss enter Aleppo, says dozens of soldiers killed
AMMAN: The Syrian military said on Saturday that dozens of its troops had been killed during an militant attack in northwestern Syria and that militants had managed to enter large parts of Aleppo city, forcing the army to redeploy.
The Syrian military statement was the first public acknowledgement by the army that insurgents led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham had entered the government-held city of Aleppo in a surprise attack that began earlier this week.
“The large numbers of terrorists and the multiplicity of battlefronts prompted our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defense lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers, and prepare for a counterattack,” the army said.
The insurgent attack marks the most significant challenge in years to President Bashar Assad, jolting the frontlines of the Syrian civil war that have largely been frozen since 2020.
The Syrian military statement said that the insurgents had not been able to establish fixed positions in Aleppo city due to the army’s continued bombardment of their positions.
Two Syrian military sources said earlier that Russian and Syrian warplanes targeted insurgents in an Aleppo suburb on Saturday. Russia deployed its air force to Syria in 2015 to aid Assad in the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011.
The insurgent force began its surprise offensive earlier this week, sweeping through government-held towns and reaching Aleppo nearly a decade after government forces backed by Russia and Iran drove militants from the city.
Speaking on Friday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow regarded the militant attack as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty. “We are in favor of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible,” he said.
Israel says it struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites in Syria, testing a fragile ceasefire
- ‘Military infrastructure’ at the Syria-Lebanon border being used by Hezbollah for weapons smuggling
TEL AVIV: Israeli aircraft struck Hezbollah weapons smuggling sites along Syria’s border with Lebanon, the Israeli military said Saturday, testing a fragile, days-old ceasefire that halted months of fighting between the sides but has seen continued sporadic fire.
The military said it struck sites that had been used to smuggle weapons from Syria to Lebanon after the ceasefire took effect, which the military said was a violation of its terms. There was no immediate comment from Syrian authorities or activists monitoring the conflict in that country. Hezbollah also did not immediately comment.
The Israeli strike, the latest of several since the ceasefire began on Wednesday, came as unrest spread to other areas of the Middle East, with Syrian insurgents breaching the country’s largest city, Aleppo, in a shock offensive that added fresh uncertainty to a region reeling from multiple wars.
The truce between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah, brokered by the United States and France, calls for an initial two-month ceasefire in which the militants are to withdraw north of Lebanon’s Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border.
The repeated bursts of violence — with no reports of serious casualties — reflected the uneasy nature of the ceasefire that otherwise appeared to hold. While Israel has accused Hezbollah of violating the ceasefire, Lebanon has also accused Israel of the same in the days since it took effect.
Many Lebanese, some of the 1.2 million displaced in the conflict, were streaming south to their homes, despite warnings by the Israeli and Lebanese militaries to stay away from certain areas.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency reported that an Israeli drone attacked a car in the southern village of Majdal Zoun. The agency said there had been casualties but gave no further details. Majdal Zoun, near the Mediterranean Sea, is close to where Israeli troops still have a presence.
The military said earlier Saturday that its forces, who remain in southern Lebanon until they withdraw gradually over the 60-day period, had been operating to distance “suspects” in the region, without elaborating, and said troops had located and seized weapons found hidden in a mosque.
Israel says it reserves the right under the ceasefire to strike against any perceived violations. Israel has made returning the tens of thousands of displaced Israelis home the goal of the war with Hezbollah but Israelis, concerned Hezbollah was not deterred and could still attack northern communities, have been apprehensive about returning home.
Hezbollah began attacking Israel on Oct. 8, 2023, in solidarity with the Palestinian militant group Hamas and its assault on southern Israel the day before. Israel and Hezbollah kept up a low-level conflict of cross-border fire for nearly a year, until Israel escalated its fight with a sophisticated attack that detonated hundreds of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah fighters. It followed that up with an intense aerial bombardment campaign against Hezbollah assets, killing many of its top leaders including longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah, and it launched a ground invasion in early October.
More than 3,760 people have been killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Militants control ‘most of’ Aleppo city, Syria war monitor says
- Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport as well as all roads leading into the city on Saturday
BEIRUT: A monitor of Syria’s war said Saturday militants now controlled a majority of Aleppo city, reporting Russian air strikes on parts of Syria’s second city for the first time since 2016.
“Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions... took control of most of the city and government centers and prisons,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, adding that overnight, Russian “warplanes launched raids on areas of Aleppo city for the first time since 2016.”
Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport as well as all roads leading into the city on Saturday, three military sources said, as militants opposed to President Bashar Assad said they had reached the heart of Aleppo.
The opposition fighters, led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, carried out a surprise sweep through government-held towns this week and reached Aleppo nearly a decade after having been forced out by Assad and his allies.
Russia, one of Assad’s key allies, has promised Damascus extra military aid to thwart the militants, two military sources said, adding new hardware would start arriving in the next 72 hours.
The Syrian army has been told to follow “safe withdrawal” orders from the main areas of the city that the militants have entered, three army sources said.
The militants began their incursion on Wednesday and by late Friday an operations room representing the offensive said they were sweeping through various neighborhoods of Aleppo.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Militants opposed to Assad return to city after nearly a decade
• Aleppo airport has been closed, military sources say
• Damascus expects Russian hardware to arrive soon, sources say
They are returning to the city for the first time since 2016, when Assad and his allies Russia, Iran, and regional Shiite militias retook it, with the insurgents agreeing to withdraw after months of bombardment and siege.
Mustafa Abdul Jaber, a commander in the Jaish Al-Izza militant brigade, said their speedy advance this week had been helped by a lack of Iran-backed manpower in the broader Aleppo province. Iran’s allies in the region have suffered a series of blows at the hands of Israel as the Gaza war has expanded through the Middle East.
The opposition fighters have said the campaign was in response to stepped-up strikes in recent weeks against civilians by the Russian and Syrian air force on areas in militant-held Idlib, and to preempt any attacks by the Syrian army.
Opposition sources in touch with Turkish intelligence said Turkiye, which supports the militants, had given a green light to the offensive.
But Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said on Friday that Turkiye sought to avoid greater instability in the region and had warned recent attacks undermined de-escalation agreements.
The attack is the biggest since March 2020, when Russia and Turkiye agreed to a deal to de-escalate the conflict.
CIVILIANS KILLED IN FIGHTING
On Friday, Syrian state television denied militants had reached the city and said Russia was providing Syria’s military with air support.
The Syrian military said it was fighting back against the attack and had inflicted heavy losses on the insurgents in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib.
David Carden, UN Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, said: “We’re deeply alarmed by the situation unfolding in northwest Syria.”
“Relentless attacks over the past three days have claimed the lives of at least 27 civilians, including children as young as 8 years old.”
Syrian state news agency SANA said four civilians including two students were killed on Friday in Aleppo by insurgent shelling of university student dormitories. It was not clear if they were among the 27 dead reported by the UN official.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Moscow regarded the militant attack as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty.
“We are in favor of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible,” he said.
