BEIRUT: Syria’s main Western-backed opposition group on Wednesday rejected Russian accusations that rebels made sarin nerve gas and used it in a deadly chemical attack outside Aleppo in March.
The Syrian National Coalition called the charges “desperate” and “fabricated.” Russia is a key ally of President Bashar Assad’s regime.
Use of chemical weapons is an explosive issue, potentially guiding whether the West increases its aid to rebel forces. President Barack Obama called chemical weapons use by the Assad government a “red line,” while such accusations against the rebels could reinforce Western misgivings about arming them.
Russia’s UN ambassador, Vitaly Churkin, blamed opposition fighters for the March 19 attack in the government-controlled Aleppo suburb of Khan Al-Assal, which he said killed 26 people, including 16 government troops, and injured 86 others.
The rebels have blamed the government for the attack. The US, Britain and France have said they have seen no evidence that the opposition has acquired or used chemical weapons.
“Evidence provided by parties that support Assad’s tyrannical regime with money, weapons, and ammunition is false and clearly fabricated,” said the statement by the SNC, a group made up mostly of exiled dissidents.
“The recent Russian analysis on the use of chemical weapons in Khan Al-Assal is a desperate attempt by Russia to deceive the world and justify Assad’s crimes,” it added. “The Syrian people consider Russia (to be) Assad’s partner in the murder of innocent Syrian civilians.”
The Coalition invited a UN fact-finding mission to enter areas under rebel control in Syria to investigate the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian regime.
On Monday, the Syrian government also invited Ake Sellstrom, head of the UN fact-finding mission on allegations of chemical weapons use in Syria, and UN disarmament chief Angela Kane to visit Damascus for foreign minister level talks on conducting an inquiry into the Khan Al-Assal attack alone. The UN has sought wider access.
Up to now the government and UN have not been able to agree on the scope of an inquiry, and there has been no independent investigation.
Churkin delivered an 80-page report to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Tuesday. He said Syria asked its ally Russia to investigate the attack because of the impasse with the UN
The samples taken from the impact site were analyzed at a Russian laboratory, Churkin said, and “there is every reason to believe that it was the armed opposition fighters who used the chemical weapons in Khan Al-Assal.”
In Washington, White House spokesman Jay Carney replied, “We have yet to see any evidence that backs up the assertion that anybody besides the Syrian government has had the ability to use chemical weapons or has used chemical weapons.”
The US says it has “high confidence” that Assad’s forces have killed up to 150 people with sarin gas.
In violence Wednesday, woman and her four children were killed as they fled shelling near Damascus, the Observatory said.
Residents of two northern Syrian towns demonstrated against Al-Qaeda-linked rebels, an activist said Wednesday, suggesting growing discontent in opposition areas toward hard-line Islamists fighting against the Syrian regime.
There have been similar protests over the past month in rebel-held areas, said Rami Abdul-Rahman of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The organization receives its information through a wide network of activists on the ground.
“There’s clear dissatisfaction against them,” Abdul-Rahman said. He said most residents’ anger was directed against one specific group, “The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant,” an Al-Qaeda-linked coalition announced by the head of Iraq’s Al-Qaeda arm, Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, in April.
The Syrian Al-Qaeda element, the Al-Nusra Front, rejected the merger. Last month Al-Qaeda’s global leader, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, was said to be trying to end the squabbling, ordering that the merger be dissolved.
Hard-line Sunni fighters, some from other countries, form the most organized part of the chaotic brigades battling Assad’s rule. The war in Syria is now in its third year, and different groups of rebels control northern and southern parts of the country.
Abdul-Rahman said it seemed residents were angry because fighters had been arresting youths on flimsy pretexts.
“They are trying to show their muscle,” he said.
Similar demonstrations took place in Aleppo province.
Syrian rebels reject Russian claims on chemicals
Syrian rebels reject Russian claims on chemicals
Russian-made plane engine catches fire after landing in Turkiye’s Antalya
- All 89 passengers and six crew were safely evacuated from the Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger plane that had come from the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, the ministry said
ISTANBUL: The engine of a Russian-made passenger plane caught fire after landing at southern Turkiye’s Antalya Airport on Sunday, the Turkish transport ministry said in a statement.
The ministry said landings at the airport were suspended until 0300 local time (0000 GMT) while authorities towed the plane from the runway.
All 89 passengers and six crew were safely evacuated from the Sukhoi Superjet 100 passenger plane that had come from the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, the ministry said.
A video shared on social media by Airport Haber news website showed emergency units responding at the site of the fire, with flames and smoke coming out of the aircraft’s engine.
Videos shared by the transport ministry following the incident showed the aircraft with fire extinguishing foam underneath as firefighters continue to spray the left-side engine to cool it down.
According to the Antalya Airport website, an Azimuth Airlines plane from Sochi landed at 1825 GMT.
War-hit Lebanon suspends in-person classes in Beirut area til end of December
- Education minister announced “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut
- Suspension of in-person teaching also applies to parts of neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday
BEIRUT: Lebanon has suspended in-person classes in the Beirut area until the end of December, the education ministry announced Sunday, citing safety concerns after a series of Israeli air strikes this week.
Education Minister Abbas Halabi announced in a statement “the suspension of in-person teaching” in schools, technical institutes and private higher education institutions in Beirut and parts of the neighboring Metn, Baabda and Shouf districts starting Monday “for the safety of students, educational institutions and parents, in light of the current dangerous conditions.”
Earlier on Sunday, Lebanese state media reported two Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs, about an hour after the Israeli military posted evacuation calls online for parts of the Hezbollah bastion.
“Israeli warplanes launched two violent strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the Kafaat area,” the official National News Agency said.
The southern Beirut area has been repeatedly struck since September 23 when Israel intensified its air campaign also targeting Hezbollah bastions in Lebanon’s east and south. It later sent in ground troops to southern Lebanon.
Legal threats close in on Israel’s Netanyahu, could impact ongoing wars
- The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu faces legal perils at home and abroad that point to a turbulent future for the Israeli leader and could influence the wars in Gaza and Lebanon, analysts and officials say. The International Criminal Court (ICC) stunned Israel on Thursday by issuing arrest warrants for Netanyahu and his former defense chief Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in the 13-month-old Gaza conflict. The bombshell came less than two weeks before Netanyahu is due to testify in a corruption trial that has dogged him for years and could end his political career if he is found guilty. He has denied any wrongdoing. While the domestic bribery trial has polarized public opinion, the prime minister has received widespread support from across the political spectrum following the ICC move, giving him a boost in troubled times.
Netanyahu has denounced the court’s decision as antisemitic and denied charges that he and Gallant targeted Gazan civilians and deliberately starved them.
“Israelis get really annoyed if they think the world is against them and rally around their leader, even if he has faced a lot of criticism,” said Yonatan Freeman, an international relations expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
“So anyone expecting that the ICC ruling will end this government, and what they see as a flawed (war) policy, is going to get the opposite,” he added.
A senior diplomat said one initial consequence was that Israel might be less likely to reach a rapid ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon or secure a deal to bring back hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.
“This terrible decision has ... badly harmed the chances of a deal in Lebanon and future negotiations on the issue of the hostages,” said Ofir Akunis, Israel’s consul general in New York.
“Terrible damage has been done because these organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas ... have received backing from the ICC and thus they are likely to make the price higher because they have the support of the ICC,” he told Reuters.
While Hamas welcomed the ICC decision, there has been no indication that either it or Hezbollah see this as a chance to put pressure on Israel, which has inflicted huge losses on both groups over the past year, as well as on civilian populations.
IN THE DOCK The ICC warrants highlight the disconnect between the way the war is viewed here and how it is seen by many abroad, with Israelis focused on their own losses and convinced the nation’s army has sought to minimize civilian casualties.
Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, said the ICC move would likely harden resolve and give the war cabinet license to hit Gaza and Lebanon harder still.
“There’s a strong strand of Israeli feeling that runs deep, which says ‘if we’re being condemned for what we are doing, we might just as well go full gas’,” he told Reuters.
While Netanyahu has received wide support at home over the ICC action, the same is not true of the domestic graft case, where he is accused of bribery, breach of trust and fraud.
The trial opened in 2020 and Netanyahu is finally scheduled to take the stand next month after the court rejected his latest request to delay testimony on the grounds that he had been too busy overseeing the war to prepare his defense.
He was due to give evidence last year but the date was put back because of the war. His critics have accused him of prolonging the Gaza conflict to delay judgment day and remain in power, which he denies. Always a divisive figure in Israel, public trust in Netanyahu fell sharply in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas assault on southern Israel that caught his government off guard, cost around 1,200 lives.
Israel’s subsequent campaign has killed more than 44,000 people and displaced nearly all Gaza’s population at least once, triggering a humanitarian catastrophe, according to Gaza officials.
The prime minister has refused advice from the state attorney general to set up an independent commission into what went wrong and Israel’s subsequent conduct of the war.
He is instead looking to establish an inquiry made up only of politicians, which critics say would not provide the sort of accountability demanded by the ICC.
Popular Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth said the failure to order an independent investigation had prodded the ICC into action. “Netanyahu preferred to take the risk of arrest warrants, just as long as he did not have to form such a commission,” it wrote on Friday.
ARREST THREAT The prime minister faces a difficult future living under the shadow of an ICC warrant, joining the ranks of only a few leaders to have suffered similar humiliation, including Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and Serbia’s Slobodan Milosevic.
It also means he risks arrest if he travels to any of the court’s 124 signatory states, including most of Europe.
One place he can safely visit is the United States, which is not a member of the ICC, and Israeli leaders hope US President-elect Donald Trump will bring pressure to bear by imposing sanctions on ICC officials.
Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for national security adviser, has already promised tough action: “You can expect a strong response to the antisemitic bias of the ICC & UN come January,” he wrote on X on Friday. In the meantime, Israeli officials are talking to their counterparts in Western capitals, urging them to ignore the arrest warrants, as Hungary has already promised to do.
However, the charges are not going to disappear soon, if at all, meaning fellow leaders will be increasingly reluctant to have relations with Netanyahu, said Yuval Shany, a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute.
“In a very direct sense, there is going to be more isolation for the Israeli state going forward,” he told Reuters.
Hezbollah says destroyed 6 Israeli tanks in Lebanon’s south
- In the area of Bayada, a village on the Mediterranean coast less than 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border, the NNA reported that “a convoy of 30 Israeli military vehicles” was retreating inland after Hezbollah had destroyed their tanks
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Hezbollah said its fighters destroyed six Israeli army tanks in Lebanon’s southern border area on Sunday, most of them near a coastal village where the group and state media reported fierce battles.
The official National News Agency (NNA) said intense ground fighting was underway in several parts of south Lebanon, about two months since limited exchanges of fire escalated into a full-blown war.
In the area of Bayada, a village on the Mediterranean coast less than 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border, the NNA reported that “a convoy of 30 Israeli military vehicles” was retreating inland after Hezbollah had destroyed their tanks.
A Hezbollah statement said fighters from the group “destroyed” five Israeli tanks on the eastern outskirts of Bayada, including one that had “attempted to advance to withdraw one of the destroyed tanks.”
In a separate statement, Hezbollah said it knocked out a sixth Merkava tank in the Deir Mimas area overlooking Israel’s far north, and where the Lebanese group claimed rocket fire at Israeli soldiers on Sunday.
George Nakad, mayor of Deir Mimas, was quoted by the NNA as saying that Israeli forces had “set up a checkpoint” on a road between his village and a neighboring one.
Further east, Hezbollah said its fighters launched four rocket salvos at Israeli troops east of Khiam, a border town that has seen intensifying battles in recent weeks.
Khiam has symbolic significance, as it had hosted a notorious prison run by the South Lebanon Army, an Israeli proxy militia, during Israel’s 22-year occupation of south Lebanon that ended in 2000.
The NNA reported “an accelerated Israeli ground operation in Khiam” after a “difficult” night of fighting.
Israeli tanks have been operating east of Khiam for more than three weeks, with the NNA reporting on Tuesday that the tanks had moved north of the town.
On Sunday it also reported clashes in other areas of the border strip including Bayada, and said that an Israeli strike had cut traffic between the town of Marjayoun and the major southern city of Nabatiyeh.
On Saturday, the NNA had said Israeli troops tried to penetrate the Bayada area, near Tyre city, in order to encircle the town of Naqura where UN peacekeepers are based.
On September 23, Israel launched an intense air campaign in Lebanon, mainly targeting Hezbollah bastions in the south and east and in south Beirut, later sending ground troops across the border.
It followed nearly a year of limited cross-border exchanges initiated by Hezbollah in support of Palestinian ally Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the Gaza war.
The conflict has killed at least 3,754 people in Lebanon since October 2023, according to the health ministry, most of them since September.
On the Israeli side, authorities say at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians have been killed.
UN envoy concerned over expansion of conflict
- The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities
DAMSCUS: The UN special envoy for Syria said on Sunday that it was “extremely critical” to end the fighting in Lebanon and Gaza to avoid the country being pulled into a regional war.
“We need now to make sure that we have immediately a ceasefire in Gaza, that we have a ceasefire in Lebanon, and that we avoid Syria being dragged even further into the conflict,” said Geir Pedersen ahead of a meeting with the Syrian foreign minister in Damascus. “We agree that it is extremely critical that we de-escalate so that Syria is not further dragged into this,” he said.
Since Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups.
The Israeli military has intensified its strikes on targets in Syria since its conflict with Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon escalated into full-scale war in late September after almost a year of cross-border hostilities.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Israeli strikes on the city of Palmyra earlier in the week killed 105 people, the vast majority of them pro-Iran fighters, in the deadliest such attack on radical groups to date.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country.
