LONDON: Daesh has killed 47 US-backed fighters in two days in an attack launched from its embattled holdout in eastern Syria, a war monitor said Saturday.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Kurdish-led alliance backed by the US-led coalition is battling to expel the militants from a pocket in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor on the Iraqi border.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said the jihadists broke out of that pocket on Friday to attack a nearby village where SDF fighters and coalition advisers are based.
“IS launched a broad attack on the village of Al-Bahra next to its holdout, taking advantage of the fog,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said using a name for Daesh.
Abdel Rahman said 47 SDF fighters were killed in the attack, and violent clashes continued to rage on Saturday as coalition air planes carried out air strikes in the area.
Twenty-seven Daesh militants were killed in clashes and air strikes in the same period, according to the Observatory, which says it relies on sources inside Syria for its information.
The monitor said coalition raids has also killed 17 civilians, including five children, in the Daesh-held pocket since Friday.
Coalition spokesman Sean Ryan said he had not received any reports of civilian casualties, and insisted its air strikes had been “very limited due to the weather.”
The anti-Daesh alliance has repeatedly denied previous reports of civilians killed in its air strikes, and said it does its utmost to avoid targeting non-combatants.
Deir Ezzor activist Omar Abu Leila said the attack on Al-Bahra was “very scary” and that Daesh fighters were able to move quickly “taking advantage of the fog.”
Daesh overran large swathes of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, proclaiming a “caliphate” in land it controlled but has lost most of it to offensives by multiple forces in both countries.
In Syria, the militants are largely confined to the pocket in Deir Ezzor, but they also have a presence in vast Badia desert that stretches across the country to the Iraqi border.
Since 2014, the US-led coalition has acknowledged direct responsibility for over 1,100 civilian deaths in Syria and Iraq, but rights groups put the number much higher.
Syria’s war has killed more than 360,000 people and displaced millions since its started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
Daesh attacks kills 47 US-backed fighters in east Syria: monitor
Daesh attacks kills 47 US-backed fighters in east Syria: monitor
Second Israeli far-right minister opposes Gaza deal
“The deal is truly catastrophic,” National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said on his Telegram channel.
“This effectively erases the hard-won achievements of the war, which have been earned at the great cost of the blood of our soldiers in Gaza.
“It is a conscious decision to pay the price with the lives of many other Israeli citizens, who will, unfortunately, bear the burden of this deal,” Ben Gvir added.
Ben Gvir, an outspoken member of Netanyahu’s government, has steadfastly opposed halting the war in Gaza.
He is the second minister to publicly reject a deal being negotiated in Doha between Israel and Hamas through international mediators.
On Monday, far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich also opposed any agreement that would halt the war.
These stances highlight sharp divides in the ruling coalition.
Netanyahu could nonetheless muster enough support to pass the deal through his cabinet, even without their backing.
He is assured of receiving majority votes in the 34-member cabinet supporting the deal, even if Ben Gvir and Smotrich, who together control six ministers, vote against it.
Israel’s main opposition leader, Yair Lapid, has also publicly said he would back Netanyahu to ensure the government does not collapse if Ben Gvir and Smotrich withdraw.
“He doesn’t need them... I offered him a political safety net for a hostage deal,” Lapid said on Monday.
Ben Gvir said he and Smotrich had tried to block the deal for a year.
“Over the past year, through our political power, we have managed to block this deal from being executed time and again,” he said.
“However, new elements have since joined the government and now support the deal, leaving us no longer a decisive force.”
He urged Smotrich to join him in opposing what he described as a “disastrous deal.”
He said the two could make “a clear statement to the prime minister that if this deal proceeds, we will withdraw from the government.”
However, the two would not seek to bring down the government, he said.
“I emphasize that even if we find ourselves in the opposition, we will not topple Netanyahu,” he said.
“However, this step is our only chance to prevent the deal from being executed and to stop Israel’s capitulation to Hamas after more than a year of bloody war.”
Gaza, Lebanon conflicts see civilian casualties at highest point in over a decade
- Israeli military action responsible for more than half of all non-combatants killed or injured in bombings and explosions in 2024
- Last year saw casualty figures increase globally by more than two-thirds, with airstrikes the leading cause of death and injury
LONDON: The number of civilian casualties worldwide caused by bombings or explosions during conflicts has reached its highest point in over a decade, driven in particular by Israel’s campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon.
The monitoring group Action on Armed Violence said it had identified 61,353 non-combatants killed or wounded in 2024, up 67 percent on 2023. Of those figures, 25,116 were fatalities, a 51 percent increase.
AOAV said Israeli military activity in Gaza and Lebanon was responsible for 55 percent of all civilians killed or wounded by explosions, at 33,910 people.
Gaza alone accounted for 39 percent of all casualties recorded, with 14,435 killed in explosions and 9,314 injured.
The civil war in Sudan has also contributed to the uptick in numbers, as well as 11,693 civilians killed or wounded by explosions in the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Spikes in casualties between 2013 and 2017 were due to the conflict in Syria, but the 2024 total was more than double that previous high-water mark.
The top cause of death and injury from explosions in 2024 was airstrikes — a tactic Israel has used extensively in Gaza and Lebanon.
The number of casualties caused this way more than doubled from 2023, with 30,804 people affected.
AOAV Executive Director Iain Overton said: “2024 has been a catastrophic year for civilians caught in explosive violence, particularly in Gaza, Ukraine and Lebanon. The international community cannot ignore the scale of harm caused.”
The true number of people affected by bombings and explosions is likely to be far higher, as AOAV bases its figures on English-language accounts of incidents.
For instance, where AOAV was only able to verify 14,435 people killed by explosions in Gaza, local health authorities put the number at 23,600.
A report last week in medical journal The Lancet estimated that casualties in Gaza in 2024 could be as much as 40 percent higher than those reported by the enclave’s authorities.
Lebanese PM designate Salam says he is against exclusion
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam said on Tuesday his hands are extended to everyone, in a gesture to the Iran-backed Hezbollah group that accused opponents of seeking to exclude it by nominating him for the post.
Salam, nominated by a majority of Lebanese lawmakers on Monday, said he opposed exclusion and supported unity. “This is my sincere call, and my hands are extended to everyone,” he said.
Salam, who was serving as president of the International Court of Justice before his designation as prime minister, cited priorities including rebuilding Lebanon from last year’s devastating war between Hezbollah and Israel.
The choice of Salam underlined a major shift in the power balance among Lebanon’s sectarian factions since Hezbollah was pummelled in its conflict with Israel, and its ally in neighboring Syria, Bashar Assad, was
toppled
by rebels.
“Reconstruction isn’t just a promise, but a commitment, and this requires complete implementation of UN Resolution 1701, implementation of all articles of the ceasefire, and imposing the full withdrawal of the Israeli enemy from every inch” of Lebanon, Salam said.
He added that he would work for justice for the victims of the 2020 Beirut port explosion, and for depositors whose savings have been frozen inside the Lebanese financial system since its collapse in 2019.
“It is time to begin a new chapter, one that we want to be rooted in justice, security, progress, and opportunity,” Salam said after meeting President Joseph Aoun.
Sudan rescuers say more than 120 killed by shelling around capital
- Fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has escalated in recent weeks after more than 20 months of war in Sudan
Port Sudan: Sudanese volunteer rescuers said shelling of an area of Omdurman, the capital Khartoum’s twin city just across the Nile River, killed more than 120 people.
The “random shelling” on Monday in western Omdurman resulted in the deaths of 120 civilians, said the Ombada Emergency Response Room, part of a network of volunteer rescuers across the war-torn country.
The network described the toll as preliminary and did not specify who was behind the attack.
The rescuers said medical supplies were in critically short supply as health workers struggled to treat “a large number of wounded people suffering from varying degrees of injuries.”
Fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has escalated in recent weeks after more than 20 months of war in Sudan.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the war which has left the country on the brink of famine, according to aid agencies.
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of targeting civilians, including health workers, and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.
Most of Omdurman is under army control while the RSF holds the capital and part of the greater Khartoum area.
Residents on both sides of the Nile have reported shelling across the river, with bombs and shrapnel regularly striking homes and civilians.
Erdogan ally urges jailed Kurdish militant leader to announce PKK’s disbandment
ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s key nationalist ally urged jailed PKK militant group leader Abdullah Ocalan to explicitly announce the group’s disbandment after his next expected meeting with the country’s pro-Kurdish political party.
The remarks by nationalist Devlet Bahceli came after a rare meeting between officials from the pro-Kurdish DEM Party and Ocalan last week.
The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkiye, has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
