Is the conditional cease-fire in northern Syria too good to be true?

Turkey-backed Syrian rebels drive on top of a truck to cross into Syria, near the border town of Akcakale in Sanliurfa province, Turkey, on Thursday. (Reuters)
Updated 19 October 2019
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Is the conditional cease-fire in northern Syria too good to be true?

  • If truce conditions are not met, Turkey will relaunch Syria operation ‘in a more decisive manner’

ANKARA: The surprise cease-fire deal between US Vice President Mike Pence and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara has brought a new dimension to the dynamics in northern Syria. Turkey launched the cross-border offensive last week after US President Donald Trump announced he was pulling US forces out of the Syria-Turkey border region.
Ankara’s goal is to push back a Kurdish militia group — the People’s Protection Units (YPG) — that it sees as a terrorist organization. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) — a group dominated by the YPG — fought with the US against Daesh in Syria.
On Thursday evening Turkey agreed to a 120-hour pause in military operations against the YPG militia for the next five days to give Kurdish troops time to withdraw from a proposed “safe zone” along its border.
Ankara has agreed to a permanent cease-fire once the withdrawal is complete, Pence told reporters in Ankara after his meeting with Turkish officials.
In return, the US will not impose further sanctions on Turkey and remove the ones imposed last week, although there is still a risk that a bipartisan group of US senators will press ahead with new sanctions.
Erdogan is due to meet President Vladimir Putin in Russia on Tuesday, where further talks are expected about Turkey’s safe zone plans.
“I consider my meeting with President Putin as another element of this (safe zone) process,” Erdogan said Friday. “Turkey wouldn’t be bothered by Assad regime control in towns like Manbij, Kobani and Qamishli if the YPG is completely cleared out.” The question remains whether the cease-fire will hold.
In comments to local television on Thursday night, the SDF’s Gen. Mazloum Kobani said the deal only applied to the area between the towns of Tal Abyad and Ras Al-Ain.
Erdogan announced on Friday that if the conditions in the agreement were not met during the 120 hour-pause, Turkey would relaunch Operation Peace Spring “in a more decisive manner.”
Selim Sazak, a doctoral researcher at Brown University and the research director of Ankara-based consulting firm TUM Strategy, believed the agreement would be implemented and the YPG would withdraw.

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Erdogan is due to meet President Vladimir Putin in Russia on Tuesday, where further talks are expected about Turkey’s safe zone plans.

“The agency of the YPG is fairly limited. If the deal collapses because of the YPG, it’s actually all the better for Ankara,” he told Arab News.
“What Ankara originally wanted was to take all of the belt into its control and eliminate as many of the YPG forces as possible. Instead, the YPG is withdrawing with a portion of its forces and its territory intact. Had the deal collapsed because of the YPG, Ankara would have reason to push forward, this time with much more legitimacy.”

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Tal Abyad and Ras Al-Ain were the easiest link in the second phase of Turkey’s Syrian operation and with the same tactic, he added.
“On the west of the Euphrates, Ankara began by drawing a wedge in the YPG-controlled territory via the Arab-dominant Jarablus and Al-Bab and then opened the wedge toward Afrin on the east and Manbij on the west. The same is happening here. Drive a wedge through Ras Al-Ain and Tal Abyad, open it up toward Kobani on the west and Qamishli on the east.”

Ultimate goal
Sazak said he believed that Ankara was sincere about not having territorial ambitions.
“Its ultimate goal is for the YPG to be pushed away from the border. If that’s the case, it doesn’t matter who controls Kobani or Manbij so long as it’s not the YPG. In the short run, it gives Ankara more time, but in the long run it is probably not an ideal position.”
Dareen Khalifa, a senior Syria analyst at the International Crisis Group, said the cease-fire had unclear goals.
There was no mention of the scope of the area that would be under Turkish control and, despite Pence referring to a 32-km zone in his speech, the length of the zone remains ambiguous, she said.
“It’s unclear if the US only agreed to what (the US special representative on Syria) James Jeffrey and Mazloum described — the 110-km area currently under Turkish control — or to YPG withdrawal from the entire zone, which is over 400 km along the Turkish border,” she told Arab News.
“If it is the former and the YPG is expected only to leave the area where Turkey is already at, then the agreement might stall over divergent interpretations from both sides. I don’t expect Turkey to settle for less when they could push for more.”
Khalifa said if it was the latter and the US agreed to a full YPG withdrawal from a 30-km area along the entire 400-km border strip then the US, in search for a face-saving deal, has decided to capitulate to Turkish demands and claim it is a deal reached through negotiations.


Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

Updated 6 sec ago
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Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

  • Militants from the Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid in Sistan-Baluchistan province on October 26
  • Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces

TEHRAN: Iran’s military has killed eight militants in an operation in the restive southeast since a deadly attack last month on a police station, state media reported Tuesday.
Militants from the Pakistan-based Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid on October 26 in Sistan-Baluchistan province — one of the deadliest attacks in the region in recent months.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces.
It has long been a flashpoint for cross-border attacks by separatists and extremists, opposed to the authorities in Iran.
Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Shafahi said “a total of eight terrorists have been killed” since the beginning of operations in the province, according to the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
“Fourteen other terrorists have been arrested,” including key figures involved in the attack, he said, adding security forces seized weapons and ammunition.
Shortly after the attack in Taftan county, some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, a report on the Tasnim news agency said four militants had been killed and four others arrested.
Late on Monday, IRNA quoted Guards ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour as saying the attackers “were not Iranian,” though he did not specify their nationalities.
In early October, at least six people including police officers were killed in two separate attacks in the province.
Jaish Al-Adl said on Telegram they had carried out the attacks.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, the group is proscribed as a “terrorist organization” by both Iran and the United States.
 
 


Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Updated 43 min 41 sec ago
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Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

  • The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing

GENEVA: More than 100 patients including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday in a rare transfer out of the war-ravaged enclave, a World Health Organization official said.
“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer.
The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, he added, and then a portion will travel to Romania.


Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

  • In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security

DUBAI: Two French citizens detained in Iran since May 2022 are in good health and being held in good detention conditions, Iran’s judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Tuesday, according to state media.
Last month, France’s foreign ministry said the conditions that three of its nationals were being held in by Iran were unacceptable.
“According to the relevant authorities, these two people have good conditions in the detention center and are in good health, so any claim regarding their conditions being abnormal is rejected,” Jahangir said.
The spokesperson was referring to Cecile Koehler and Jacques Paris, who he said were arrested on charges of espionage and will have their next court hearing on Nov. 24.
Jahangir did not mention the third French national detained in Iran. French media have disclosed only his first name, Olivier.
In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security.
Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests.


Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead

Updated 36 min 1 sec ago
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Israeli strikes in Gaza, West Bank leave dozens dead

  • Airstrikes in Gaza kill at least 30, Palestinian medics and media say
  • Israeli military says it ‘eliminated terrorists’ in latest operations

CAIRO/QABATIYAH: Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip and West Bank have resulted in significant casualties, as conflict in the region intensifies.

Since Monday night, at least 30 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, with strikes leveling buildings and tightening sieges on northern areas of the enclave, according to Palestinian media and medical sources.

In Beit Lahiya, northern Gaza, two houses were heavily damaged in an airstrike, killing at least 20 people late on Monday, as reported by WAFA and Hamas-linked media. The Gaza health ministry has not immediately verified this toll. Additionally, four people were reported dead in the central town of Al-Zawayda around midnight.

Meanwhile, six more Palestinians died in separate airstrikes on Gaza City and Deir Al-Balah. The Israeli military claimed that its forces had "eliminated terrorists" in central Gaza and Jabalia and uncovered weapons and explosives in the southern area of Rafah, where it had also dismantled "terrorist infrastructure."

Reports from the ground suggest that Israel's tactics aim to clear northern Gaza towns and refugee camps to establish buffer zones, a strategy Israel says has successfully neutralized hundreds of Palestinian fighters in Jabalia over the past month.

More than 43,300 Palestinians have died in Gaza over a year of fighting, and much of the region has been devastated. The conflict initially erupted following Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 Israelis and resulted in 251 hostages being taken to Gaza.

Violence has also erupted in the occupied West Bank. On Tuesday, Israeli airstrikes killed four Palestinians in separate incidents during two military operations.

In Tammun, near Tubas, two Palestinians died, one of whom was severely mutilated, according to the city’s governor, Ahmad Assad.

The health ministry in Ramallah confirmed the deaths, noting that the identity of one victim remains unverified and that the army is withholding the body.

In a separate airstrike in Qabatiyah near Jenin, two more Palestinian men, aged 40 and 38 and reportedly related, were killed, confirmed Kamal Abu Rubb, governor of Jenin.

The Israeli military did not immediately respond to inquiries about these operations. The West Bank has seen escalating violence since the onset of the Gaza conflict, with at least 754 Palestinians killed in the territory by Israeli forces or settlers, according to the health ministry in Ramallah.

In contrast, Palestinian attacks have claimed 24 Israeli lives during the same period, according to official Israeli sources.


Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

Updated 05 November 2024
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Sudan paramilitaries kill 10 civilians: activists

PORT SUDAN: Ten civilians were killed in the central Sudanese state of Al-Jazira, pro-democracy activists said on Tuesday, in an attack they blamed on the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
The Madani Resistance Committee, one of hundreds of volunteer groups coordinating aid across the country, said the RSF carried out the killings on Monday night in the village of Barborab, about 85 kilometers (50 miles) northeast of the state capital Wad Madani.