QAMISHLI, Syria: Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed Wednesday to order a land invasion of northern Syria targeting Kurdish groups, amid yearslong border violence and repeated Turkish incursions.
Turkiye has launched a barrage of airstrikes on suspected militant targets in northern Syria and Iraq in recent days, in retaliation for a deadly Nov. 13 bombing in Istanbul that Ankara blames on the Kurdish groups. The groups have denied involvement in the bombing, and say Turkish strikes have killed civilians and threatened the fight against the Daesh group.
Ankara’s allies, particularly Russia, have attempted to avert a ground incursion, but Erdogan said Wednesday in a speech to his ruling party’s legislators in Ankara that the air operations are “just the beginning” and that Turkiye is determined to “close down all of our southern borders ... with a security strip that will prevent the possibility of attacks on our country.”
Turkiye has carried out a series of incursions into Syria since 2016 and already controls parts of northern Syria. Erdogan said the new military offensive, planned to take place “at the most convenient time for us” would target the regions of Tel Rifaat, Manbij and Kobani, which is also known by its Arabic name Ayn Al Arab.
“The day is near when those concrete tunnels which the terrorists use for safety will become their graves,” he said.
The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria, meanwhile, said his group is prepared to repel a ground invasion by Turkiye.
SDF head Mazloum Abdi told the The Associated Press that his group has been preparing for another such attack since Turkiye launched a ground offensive in the area in 2019 and “we believe that we have reached a level where we can foil any new attack. At least the Turks will not be able to occupy more of our areas and there will be a great battle.”
He added, “If Turkiye attacks any region, the war will spread to all regions ... and everyone will be hurt by that.”
Following the weekend’s airstrikes, Turkish officials said that suspected Kurdish militants fired rockets Monday across the Syrian border into Turkiye, killing at least two people and wounding 10 others. Abdi denied that SDF had struck inside Turkish territory.
Russian presidential envoy in Syria Alexander Lavrentyev said that Turkiye should “show a certain restraint” in order to prevent an escalation in Syria and expressed hope that “it will be possible to convince our Turkish partners to refrain from excessive use of force on Syrian territory.”
Mazloum called on Moscow and Damascus, as well as on the US-led coalition fighting against the Daesh group in Syria, with which allied with Kurdish fighters in the area, to take a stronger stance to prevent a Turkish ground invasion, warning that such an action could harm attempts to combat a resurgence of Daesh.
“We can say that our work against Daesh with the international coalition has stopped, because we are preoccupied with the Turkish attacks,” he said. “Our coordination and work with the Russians on the ground has also been affected by the Turkish attacks.”
Late Wednesday, Turkish airstrikes also hit near the Al-Hol camp in Hassakeh province where tens of thousands of wives, widows, and children of Daesh group militants are held. SDF forces and a camp official said the strikes appeared to target security forces in charge of keeping the crime-ridden camp secure.
Sheikhmous Ahmad, a Kurdish official overseeing camps for displaced people in northeast Syria, said that some detainees tried to escape.
“The security forces currently have Al-Hol camp under control, but that could change if these attacks continued and the detainees could disperse in the area,” Ahmad told the AP. “This would also threaten international security, not just our own.”
A US Central Command spokesperson said that one of the Turkish strikes on Tuesday had hit within 300 meters of US personnel, adding, “These strikes continue to put US forces at risk.” He declined to say where the site that had been struck was.
The Turkish airstrikes, which have killed a number of Syrian army soldiers operating in the same area as the SDF forces, have also threatened to upset a nascent rapprochement between Damascus and Ankara. The two have been on opposing sides in Syria’s civil war but in recent months have launched low-level talks.
Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said that the events unfolding “will probably culminate in a Turkish incursion into Syria,” but perhaps not immediately.
“I think Ankara is aligning the two stars required for an incursion into Syria, the stars being the American star and the Russian star,” Cagaptay said, noting that Washington and its allies need Turkiye’s support to give NATO membership to Finland and Sweden, while Russia is angling for a deal between Ankara and Damascus that could “wrap up the war” in Syria.
Erdogan vows Syria ground invasion, Kurds prepare response
https://arab.news/jxkyr
Erdogan vows Syria ground invasion, Kurds prepare response
- Ankara’s allies, particularly Russia, have attempted to avert a ground incursion
- Turkiye has carried out a series of incursions into Syria since 2016 and already controls parts of northern Syria
Asma Assad barred from UK to seek cancer treatment
- UK foreign secretary says she is ‘not welcome’ in Britain
- Former Syrian first lady’s passport expired in 2020
LONDON: Asma Al-Assad is effectively barred from returning to the UK after her British passport expired, The Times newspaper reported.
The wife of former Syrian dictator Bashar Al-Assad will not be able to return to her birthplace, London, despite reports that she is critically ill with leukemia.
The 49-year-old has been given a 50-50 chance of surviving the illness, according to sources.
The news comes as her father, Fawaz Akhras, a renowned cardiologist, left his work at the privately run Cromwell Hospital in Kensington, west London, to care for his daughter in Moscow, where the Assad family was granted asylum this month.
Asma Assad’s British passport expired in September 2020, and it is unclear whether UK ministers have blocked renewal or if the former first lady simply allowed the document’s validity to lapse.
Yvette Cooper, the UK home secretary, said that Assad will be prevented from entering the UK to seek treatment.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy said that the former investment banker is “not welcome” in Britain.
Asma Assad became Syria’s first lady in 2000 after marrying the country’s new president.
Leaked emails show that she ordered luxury goods in London and Paris during the civil war in her country, which resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
She played a key role in supporting her husband’s brutal crackdown on opposition protests during the Arab Spring in 2011.
Asma Assad reportedly fled to Moscow weeks before her husband this month during a lighting offensive by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
Her three children, Hafez, 23, Zein, 21, and Karim, 19, are also in Moscow, where the family own luxury properties.
Sources told The Telegraph last week that the former first lady was being kept in isolation during medical treatment.
“Asma is dying. She can’t be in the same room as anyone,” one source said.
Her father and his wife, Sahar, 75, were placed under US sanctions along with Asma’s younger brothers in 2020, although none of her family has been blacklisted by the UK.
Gaza health officials say baby dies from ‘severe cold’
- Jumaa Al-Batran died from the cold, while his twin brother remains in the intensive care unit at a local hospital
- The vast majority of the territory’s residents have been displaced since the Israeli offensive
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Gaza health officials said that a 20-day-old baby died on Sunday from “severe cold” as the war-ravaged Palestinian territory grapples with winter weather.
Jumaa Al-Batran died from the cold, while his twin brother remains in the intensive care unit at a local hospital, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said in a statement.
Marwan Al-Hamas, head of field hospitals in Gaza, confirmed the death. He said it brought to five the total number of children “who have died due to severe cold” in recent weeks.
“There is no electricity. The water is cold and there is no gas, heating or food,” said Yahya Al-Batran, the father of the child.
“My children are dying in front of my eyes and nobody cares. Jumaa has died and I fear that his brother Ali may follow.”
Yahya Al-Batran said he and his wife were living in a tattered tent in the city of Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
Hundreds of thousands of displaced people are crammed into unsuitable tents, most of which were hastily set up in Deir el-Balah and in the southern areas of Khan Yunis and Rafah.
Since the war between Israel and Hamas began in October last year, Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have endured severe shortages of electricity, drinkable water, food and medical services.
The vast majority of the territory’s residents have been displaced at least once since the war broke out with Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Tourist killed in shark attack in Egypt’s Marsa Alam resort
- There are sharks in the Red Sea but encounters with them are relatively rare
- Ministry said the attack occurred in deep water outside the designated swimming zone near the jetties in northern Marsa Alam
CAIRO: One tourist was killed and another was injured in a shark attack in Egypt’s Marsa Alam resort, the environment ministry said in a statement on Sunday without giving the nationalities of those involved.
There are sharks in the Red Sea but encounters with them are relatively rare.
The ministry said the attack occurred in deep water outside the designated swimming zone near the jetties in northern Marsa Alam, adding that swimming out from the jetties was prohibited and the jetties would be closed for two days from Monday.
Marsa Alam is an Egyptian coastal town known for its coral reefs, marine life and beaches.
The last similar incident was in June 2023 when a tiger shark killed a Russian national in Hurghada, another coastal city on the Red Sea north of Marsa Alam.
Last month a tourist boat capsized in the same area, leaving four dead and seven missing.
Sudan government rejects UN-backed famine declaration
- War between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had created famine conditions
- Both the Sudanese army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war
CAIRO: The Sudanese government rejected on Sunday a report backed by the United Nations which determined that famine had spread to five areas of the war-torn country.
The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) review, which UN agencies use, said last week that the war between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces had created famine conditions for 638,000 people, with a further 8.1 million on the brink of mass starvation.
The army-aligned government “categorically rejects the IPC’s description of the situation in Sudan as a famine,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The statement called the report “essentially speculative” and accused the IPC of procedural and transparency failings.
They said the team did not have access to updated field data and had not consulted with the government’s technical team on the final version before publication.
The IPC did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
The Sudanese government, loyal to army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, has been based in the Red Sea city of Port Sudan since the capital Khartoum became a warzone in April 2023.
It has repeatedly been accused of stonewalling international efforts to assess the food security situation in the war-torn country.
The authorities have also been accused of creating bureaucratic hurdles to humanitarian work and blocking visas for foreign teams.
The International Rescue Committee said the army was “leveraging its status as the internationally recognized government (and blocking) the UN and other agencies from reaching RSF-controlled areas.”
Both the army and the RSF have been accused of using starvation as a weapon of war.
The war in Sudan has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted over 12 million people, including millions who face dire food insecurity in army-controlled areas.
Across the country, more than 24.6 million people — around half the population — face high levels of acute food insecurity.
Egypt tests new extension of the Suez Canal
- Two ships used the new extension on Saturday, a statement from the Suez Canal Authority said
- The new extension is set to boost the canal’s capacity by six to eight vessels a day
CAIRO: Egypt has tested a new 10-kilometer extension to the Suez Canal as it tries to minimize the impact of currents on shipping and increase the key waterway’s capacity.
Two ships used the new extension on Saturday, a statement from the Suez Canal Authority said.
Authority chief Osama Rabie said the development in the canal’s southern region will “enhance navigational safety and reduce the effects of water and air currents on passing ships.”
Vessels navigating the waterway have at times run aground, mostly because of strong winds and sandstorms.
In 2021, giant container ship Ever Given became wedged diagonally in the canal, blocking trade for nearly a week and resulting in delays that cost billions of dollars.
The new extension is set to boost the canal’s capacity by six to eight vessels a day, Rabie said, and it will open after new navigational maps are issued.
In 2015, Egypt undertook an $8-billion expansion to the waterway, followed by several smaller development projects.
The Suez Canal has long been a vital source of foreign currency for Egypt that has been undergoing its worst ever economic crisis.
According to the International Monetary Fund, revenue from the canal has been slashed by up to 70 percent since last year because of attacks by Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi rebels on shipping in the Red Sea.
Before the attacks pushed companies to change routes, the vital passage accounted for around 10 percent of global maritime trade.
