‘Faceless killer’: Syria land mines keep sowing death

Syrian soldiers take part in a training session to remove and neutralise unexploded weapons, in the countryside of the capital Damascus, on June 19, 2022. (AFP)
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Updated 11 July 2022
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‘Faceless killer’: Syria land mines keep sowing death

  • The airstrikes and shelling responsible for many of the Syrian war’s half million deaths have decreased in recent years

DAMASCUS: Family members from three generations were huddled on the back of a pickup truck for what started as a joyful ride through the Syrian countryside for Abdulaziz Al-Oqab and his relatives.
They were planning to sample the long-forgotten peacetime pleasure of a simple family picnic when a land mine brought a bloody end to their outing, and to the lives of 21 family members.




Members of the Syrian civil defence known as the White Helmets, equipped with protective outfits, search for unexploded weapons in a field, on the outskirts of al-Jinah village in Syria's northern Aleppo province, on June 23, 2022. (AFP)

Oqab walked away with relatively light wounds that day in February 2019, but the blast killed his wife, two of his sons, four of his siblings, an uncle and other family members, and left others maimed.
“It was a day of joy that turned into tragedy,” Oqab, 41, told AFP. “I’ve come to hate going out since then. People live in fear of this faceless killer that could be anywhere.”

FASTFACTS

• Since 2015, landmines and other explosive remnants have on average killed or injured five people every day, according to UN data.

• The UN Mine Action Service said 15,000 people have been killed or injured by explosive devices in Syria since 2015.

The airstrikes and shelling responsible for many of the Syrian war’s half million deaths have decreased in recent years.
But remnants of explosives laid by all sides in the 11-year-old conflict are now claiming more lives in Syria than anywhere else in the world, says the United Nations.
Since 2015, land mines and other explosive remnants have on average killed or injured five people every day, according to UN data.
“An entire family was destroyed,” Oqab said about the fateful day more than three years ago, sitting outside his traditional beehive-style mud hut in his village in Hama province.
“Death awaited us from inside the earth,” he said, surrounded by his orphaned nephews.
“This was our destiny.”




An explosion is provoked as Syrian soldiers take part in a training session to remove and neutralise unexploded weapons, in the countryside of the capital Damascus, on June 19, 2022. (AFP)

The UN Mine Action Service said 15,000 people have been killed or injured by explosive devices in Syria since 2015.
This is a “huge number,” said Habibulhaq Javed, who heads Syria’s UNMAS team. “Currently, Syria is reporting the highest number of victims caused by explosive ordnance globally.”
Syria’s war is estimated to have killed almost 500,000 people and displaced millions since it began in 2011.
About 10.2 million people, or roughly half of all Syrians, live in areas contaminated with explosive devices, the UN says.
“Mines have a long lifespan,” said a Syrian army officer, who asked not to be named over security concerns.
They stay lethal even longer if they are kept inside casings, he told AFP during a de-mining training exercise organized by the military near Damascus.
Syrian authorities detonate ammunition and explosive remnants of war on a near-daily basis, especially in areas formerly held by rebel forces near the capital.
In Syria’s rebel-held north, it is rescue workers who take on the daunting task of sweeping for land mines and detonating them, in the absence of state support.
The White Helmets rescue group has even set up training and workshops to raise awareness on the dangers land mines pose.




Abdulaziz al-Oqab and his nephews, orpahned after a landmine exploded under a pick-up truck they had clamoured on, killing several members of the family, walk in front of traditional beehive mud huts in a village in the central Syrian Hama province, on June 13, 2022. (AFP)

Raed Hassoun of the White Helmets heads a de-mining center in Syria’s northwest that has neutralized about 24,000 explosive devices since 2016.
“We deal with unexploded ordnance according to one principle,” he told AFP.
“Your first mistake is your last.”

A lack of resources is depriving most of Syria’s towns and villages of vital mine clearance work.
Last year, UNMAS carried out its first mine-clearing operation in government-held parts of Daraya, an area on the outskirts of Damascus that was once a rebel bastion and saw fierce fighting.
UNMAS also carried out sweeps in the Yarmuk Palestinian refugee camp outside Damascus, which was held by rebels and then jihadists before its recapture by government forces in 2018.
Explosive remnants were found in about 200 out of 6,000 surveyed buildings, the UN said.
The world body is struggling with limited funding for its de-mining programs, Javed said.
As a result, civilians have paid the price.
They include the family of Zakia Al-Boushi who, on a fateful day in 2017, went out with eight relatives in Aleppo province searching for the precious white truffles that grow in the desert sands in winter.
Only three of them returned alive.
The land mine that killed her relatives was the second one they came across that day.
Her brother was avoiding a device he had spotted when a second one went off and blew up their vehicle.
Boushi’s brother and mother were killed, while her daughter was left so shell-shocked she has not uttered a word in five years.
“The mine tore us apart,” Boushi said.


Israel is trying to destabilize Lebanon and Syria, Arab League chief laments

Updated 05 April 2025
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Israel is trying to destabilize Lebanon and Syria, Arab League chief laments

  • Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon is an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year, Aboul Gheit said in a statement

CAIRO: Arab League Secretary-General Ahmed Aboul Gheit on Saturday accused Israel of trying to destabilize Syria and Lebanon through irresponsible military provocations, in “flagrant disregard for international legal norms.”

In a statement, Aboul Gheit lamented that global inaction has further emboldened the Zionist state.

“(T)he wars waged by Israel on the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, and Syria have entered a new phase of complete recklessness, deliberately violating signed agreements, invading countries, and killing more civilians,” said the statement carried by the Saudi Press Agency.

He said Israel’s resumption of targeted assassinations in Lebanon is an unacceptable and condemnable breach of the ceasefire agreement it signed with Lebanon late last year. 

Aboul Gheit suggested that Israel’s actions were driven by narrow domestic agendas at the expense of civilian lives and regional peace.

“It seems that the Israeli war machine does not want to stop as long as the occupation leaders insist on facing their internal crises by exporting them abroad, and this situation has become clear to everyone,” he said.

As per the Gaza Ministry of Health’s count last week, more than 50,000 people have been killed and over 113,200 wounded in Israeli attacks on Palestinian territories in retaliation against the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas surprise attack on southern Israel.

In Lebanon, war monitors have said at least 3,961 people were killed and at least 16,520, wounded in Israel’s war with the Iran-backed Hezbollah movement from October 8, 2023, to November 26, 2024.

Syria’s new government accused Israel on April 3 of mounting a deadly destabilization campaign after a wave of strikes on military targets, including an airport, and a ground incursion killed 13 people, in the southern province of Daraa. 


Syrian government says studying Amnesty report on massacres

Updated 05 April 2025
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Syrian government says studying Amnesty report on massacres

Damascus: Syria’s government said late Friday it was “closely following” the findings of a new Amnesty International report urging an investigation into sectarian massacres last month.
Amnesty called on the Syrian government in a report on Thursday to ensure accountability for the massacres targeting the Alawite minority, saying they may constitute war crimes.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor has said security forces and allied groups killed more than 1,700 civilians, mostly Alawites, during the violence.
Interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa, whose Islamist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) led the offensive that toppled longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December, has vowed to prosecute those responsible.
In a statement on Friday, the government said it had been “following closely the Amnesty report” and its “preliminary findings.”
“It is up to the Independent National Commission for Investigation and Fact-Finding to evaluate them, in accordance with the mandate, independence, and broad powers granted to it by presidential decree,” it said.
The Syrian authorities have accused armed Assad supporters of sparking the violence by attacking the new security forces.
The government on Friday complained the report failed to note “the broader context of the events.”
It said the violence began with a “premeditated assault” by the “remnants of the previous regime, targeting army and internal security personnel.”
In the ensuing chaos, “acts of retaliation and serious violations occurred,” it said, vowing that these would be investigated and a report issued within a month.


Red Cross warns of continued threat of landmines in Iraq

Updated 05 April 2025
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Red Cross warns of continued threat of landmines in Iraq

  • Organization calls for greater effort to reduce contamination that spans 2,100 sq. km.
  • More than 80 casualties recorded since 2023

LONDON: The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday that landmines and explosive remnants of war continue to pose a severe threat in Iraq, contaminating an estimated 2,100 sq. km.

In a statement issued to coincide with the International Day for Mine Awareness, the organization said landmines from past conflicts, including the Iran-Iraq War and the 2014–17 battle against Daesh, remained a major hazard.

The contamination had resulted in civilian casualties, forced displacement, restricted farmland access and slowed reconstruction efforts, it said.

Between 2023 and 2024, the ICRC recorded 78 casualties from landmines and remnants of war in Iraq. Earlier this year, three students were killed in an explosion in Abu Al-Khasib, Basra.

The ICRC has appealed for greater efforts to reduce contamination and support mine-affected communities. Clearance operations continue in cooperation with national authorities and humanitarian partners.

The call for action comes at a time when several NATO member states, namely Poland, Finland and the Baltic states, have signaled their intention to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention, the international treaty banning antipersonnel landmines. They cited the growing military threat from Russia as the reason for reconsidering the ban.

Meanwhile, the US, previously the largest funder of global mine clearance efforts, has cut back support due to a foreign aid review under the Trump administration.

Washington had contributed over $300 million annually, covering 40 percent of total international mine action funding, according to the 2024 Landmine Monitor report, which led to major clearance efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan and Laos.

A State Department official said last month that the US had restarted some global humanitarian demining programs but provided no details.


Hamas says Israeli offensive in Gaza ‘highly dangerous’ for hostages

Updated 04 April 2025
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Hamas says Israeli offensive in Gaza ‘highly dangerous’ for hostages

  • “We have decided not to transfer these (hostages)... but (this situation) is highly dangerous to their lives,” said Abu Obeida

GAZA CITY: Hamas on Friday said Israel’s offensive in Gaza was creating a “highly dangerous” situation for the hostages held there, warning that half of the living captives were in areas where the army had ordered evacuations.
“Half of the living Israeli (hostages) are located in areas that the Israeli occupation army has requested to be evacuated in recent days,” Abu Obeida, spokesman for Hamas’s armed wing, said in a statement. “We have decided not to transfer these (hostages)... but (this situation) is highly dangerous to their lives.”


Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

Updated 04 April 2025
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Kurdish fighters leave northern city in Syria as part of deal with central government

  • The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh
  • The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month

ALEPPO, Syria: Scores of US-backed Kurdish fighters left two neighborhoods in the Syrian Arab Republic’s northern city of Aleppo Friday as part of a deal with the central government in Damascus, which is expanding its authority in the country.
The fighters left the predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods of Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh, which had been under the control of Kurdish fighters in Aleppo over the past decade.
The deal is a boost to an agreement reached last month between Syria’s interim government and the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast. The deal could eventually lead to the merger of the main US-backed force in Syria into the Syrian army.
The withdrawal of fighters from the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces came a day after dozens of prisoners from both sides were freed in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, reported that government forces were deployed along the road that SDF fighters will use to move between Aleppo and areas east of the Euphrates River, where the Kurdish-led force controls nearly a quarter of Syria.
Sheikh Maksoud and Achrafieh had been under SDF control since 2015 and remained so even when forces of ousted President Bashar Assad captured Aleppo in late 2016. The two neighborhoods remained under SDF control when forces loyal to current interim President Ahmad Al-Sharaa captured the city in November, and days later captured the capital, Damascus, removing Assad from power.
After being marginalized for decades under the rule of the Assad family rule, the deal signed last month promises Syria’s Kurds “constitutional rights,” including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades.
Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria’s nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.
Kurds made up 10 percent of the country’s prewar population of 23 million. Kurdish leaders say they don’t want full autonomy with their own government and parliament. They want decentralization and room to run their day-to day-affairs.