Re: Syria
Posted: Tue Jan 03, 2023 2:26 pm
Israel strikes Damascus international airport again, kills two Syrian soldiers
Damage caused by the unprovoked Israeli air strike made Damascus international airport non-operational for a few hours for the second time in under a year
January 02, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch
(Photo: TSGT KEVIN J. GRUENWALD modified b FOX 52, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Israeli air strikes killed at least two Syrian soldiers and injured two others on Monday, January 2, SANA reported. The report quoted Syrian military sources who claimed that a barrage of missiles caused material damage to Damascus international airport and nearby areas, forcing the airport to shut down temporarily.
According to SANA, the air attacks were carried out from northern Israeli territory across Lake Tiberias around 2 am on Monday.
Damascus international airport was attacked by Israeli missiles earlier in June as well, after which it had to be shut down for two weeks. Israel has also targeted the airport in Aleppo in the past.
SANA reported a few hours later that airport authorities had carried out the required cleaning and repair work to make the airport operational around 9 am local time.
No comments have so far been made by the Israeli government or military regarding the air strike.
Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes and missile attacks inside Syria since the beginning of the war in 2011, killing hundreds of civilians and causing massive damage to civilian infrastructure. The last strikes were reported on December 19 and 20. Most often, Israel uses Lebanese air space to carry out the attacks within Syria.
Ordinarily, Israel neither confirms nor denies its involvement in these attacks. However, on the rare occasions when it does seek to justify the attacks on the pretext of domestic security, it claims that it has targeted alleged Iranian involvement and bases in Syria.
Syria has raised the issue of Israeli violations of its sovereignty several times at the UN in the past, asking that immediate action be taken against such contravention of international law and the UN charter. Recently, Syria’s permanent representative to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, told the UN Security Council that Israel’s recurring air strikes within Syrian territory were one of the central reasons for the continuation of the war in the country. He said that if the world wanted peace in Syria, efforts need to be made to stop this Israeli aggression.
The Syrian government has accused Israel of using the military strikes inside its territories to aid anti-Assad forces and to prolong the war and the suffering of the people in the country. More than a decade of war in Syria has killed thousands of people and displaced almost half of its pre-war population.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/01/02/ ... -soldiers/
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Russia consolidates in East Mediterranean
Last week’s meeting between Syria and Turkey in Moscow show that Russia’s standing in the West Asian region is far from defined by the Ukraine conflict
January 03, 2023 by M.K. Bhadrakumar
Turkish military convoy in border with Northern Syria. (File photo)
The curtain is coming down on the brutal 11-year old Syrian conflict, which former US President and Nobel Laureate Barack Obama initiated, as the Arab Spring swept through West Asia a decade ago. The United States has suffered yet another big setback in West Asia as the year 2022 draws to a close. The unfolding Turkish-Syrian reconciliation process under Russian mediation is to be seen as a saga of betrayal and vengeance.
Ankara came under immense pressure from the Obama administration in 2011 to spearhead the regime change project in Syria. Obama blithely assumed that Turkey would gleefully serve as the charioteer of “moderate” Islamism for the transformation in West Asia. But Ankara took its time to calibrate its foreign policies to adapt to the Arab Spring before responding to the shifting landscape in Syria.
Erdogan was caught unprepared by the uprising in Syria at a juncture when Ankara was pursuing a “zero-problems” policy with Turkey’s neighbors. Ankara was unsure how the Arab Spring would play out and remained silent when the revolt first appeared in Tunisia. Even on Egypt, Erdogan made an emotional call for Hosni Mubarak’s departure only when he sensed, correctly so, that Obama was decoupling from America’s staunch ally in Cairo.
Syria was the ultimate test case and a real challenge for Erdogan. Ankara had invested heavily in the improvement of relations with Syria within the framework of the so-called Adana Agreement in 1998 in the downstream of Turkish military’s massive showdown with Damascus over the latter harboring the PKK (Kurdish) leader Ocalan. Erdogan initially did not want Bashar al-Assad to lose power, and advised him to reform. The families of Erdogan and Assad used to holiday together.
Obama had to depute then CIA chief David Petraeus to visit Turkey twice in 2012 to persuade Erdogan to engage with the US in operational planning aimed at bringing about the end of the Assad government. It was Petraeus who proposed to Ankara a covert program of arming and training Syrian rebels.
But by 2013 already, Erdogan began sensing that Obama himself had only a limited American involvement in Syria and preferred to lead from the rear. In 2014, Erdogan went public that his relations with Obama had diminished, saying that he was disappointed about not getting direct results on the Syrian conflict. By that time, more than 170,000 people had died and 2.9 million Syrians had fled to neighboring countries, including Turkey, and the fighting had forced another 6.5 million people from their homes within Syria.
Simply put, Erdogan felt embittered that he was left holding a can of worms and Obama had scooted off. Worse still, the Pentagon began aligning with the Syrian Kurdish groups linked to the PKK. (In October 2014, US began providing supplies to Kurdish forces and in November 2015, US special forces were deployed in Syria.)
It is against such a backdrop that the two meetings in Moscow on Wednesday between the defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Turkey and Syria in the presence of their Russian counterparts took place. Erdogan’s reconciliation process with Assad is quintessentially his sweet revenge for the American betrayal. Erdogan sought help from Russia, the archetypal enemy country in the US and NATO’s sights, in order to communicate with Assad who is a pariah in American eyes. The matrix is self-evident.
On Thursday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said: “At the meeting (in Moscow), we discussed what we could do to improve the situation in Syria and the region as soon as possible while ensuring peace, tranquility and stability… We reiterated our respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty rights of all our neighbors, especially Syria and Iraq, and that our sole aim is the fight against terrorism, we have no other purpose.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been counseling Erdogan in recent years that Turkey’s security concerns are best tackled in coordination with Damascus and that Adana Agreement could provide a framework of cooperation. The Turkish Defense Ministry readout said the meeting in Moscow took place in a “constructive atmosphere” and it was agreed to continue the format of trilateral meetings “to ensure and maintain stability in Syria and the region as a whole.”
Without doubt, the normalization between Ankara and Damascus will impact regional security and, in particular, the Syrian war, given the clout Turkey wields with the residual Syrian opposition. A Turkish ground operation in northern Syria may not be necessary if Ankara and Damascus were to revive the Adana Agreement. In fact, Akar disclosed that Ankara, Moscow and Damascus are working on carrying out joint missions on the ground in Syria.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s willingness right in the middle of the Ukraine war to take the steering wheel and navigate its reconciliation with Syria adds an altogether new dimension to the deepening strategic ties between Moscow and Ankara. For Erdogan too, Syria becomes the newest addition to his policy initiatives lately to improve Turkey’s relations with the regional states. Normalization with Syria will go down well with Turkish public opinion and that has implications for Erdogan’s bid for a renewed mandate in the upcoming elections.
From the Syrian perspective, the normalization with Turkey is going to be far more consequential than the restoration of ties with various regional states (starting with the UAE) in the recent years who had fueled the conflict. Turkey’s equations with Syrian militant groups (eg., Syrian National Army and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), its continued occupation of Syrian territory, Syrian refugees in Turkey (numbering 3.6 million), etc. are vital issues affecting Syria’s security.
The US resents Erdogan’s move to normalize with Assad — and that too, with Russia’s helping hand. It is now even more unlikely to give up its military presence in Syria or its alliance with the Syrian Kurdish group YPG (which Ankara regards as an affiliate of the PKK.)
But the YPG will find itself in a tight spot. As Syria requests Turkey to withdraw from its territories (Idlib and so-called operation areas) and stop supporting armed groups, Turkey in return will insist on pushing the YPG away from the border. (The government-aligned Syrian daily Al-Watan reported quoting sources that at the tripartite meeting in Moscow, Ankara has committed to withdrawing all its forces from Syrian territory.)
Indeed, the replacement of the YPG militia by the Syrian government forces along the borders with Turkey would lead to the weakening of both YPG and the US military presence. However, the question will still remain unanswered as regards the place of Kurds in the future of Syria.
The US State Department stated recently, “The US will not upgrade its diplomatic relations with the Assad regime and does not support other countries upgrading their relations. The US urges states in the region to consider carefully the atrocities inflicted by the Assad regime on the Syrian people over the last decade. The US believes that stability in Syria and the greater region can be achieved through a political process that represents the will of all Syrians.”
Last week’s meetings in Moscow show that Russia’s standing in the West Asian region is far from defined by the Ukraine conflict. Russian influence on Syria remains intact and Moscow will continue to shape Syria’s transition out of conflict zone and consolidate its own long-term presence in Eastern Mediterranean.
OPEC Plus has gained traction. Russia’s ties with the Gulf states are steadily growing. The Russia-Iran strategic ties are at its highest level in history. And the return of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister means that the Russian-Israeli ties are heading for a reset. Clearly, Russian diplomacy is on a roll in West Asia.
Conventional wisdom was that Russia and Turkey’s geopolitical interests would inevitably collide once the floodgates were opened in Ukraine. Herein lies the paradox, for, what has happened is entirely to the contrary.
MK Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat. He was India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey. The views are personal.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/01/03/ ... terranean/
Given the 'intricacies' of Russian diplomacy that standing cannot rise too high until Russia abandons it's determination to be 'even-handed' in regards to Israel. Allowing Israeli warplanes to have their way over Damascus without activating the S-300 air defense system has got to aggravate the Syrians, who obviously cannot 'bite the hand that feeds them'.
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94 suspects of Martyr Soleimani’s case are Americans: Iran official
3 January، 2023
Tehran, SANA– Ninety-four of the suspects involved in the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani are from the United States, including three main defendants who are ex-US President Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) Kenneth McKenzie, an Iranian official said.
Kazem Gharibabadi, the secretary of the High Council for Human Rights and deputy head of the Iranian judiciary, announced the latest follow-ups by the Iranian judicial system on the case of General Soleimani’s assassination in a news conference in Tehran on Tuesday.
Gharibabadi also pointed to the cooperation between the judicial systems of Iraq and Iran, saying that a joint committee of the two countries held three rounds of talks in Baghdad and Tehran and that the fourth round will be held within a few days.
The indictment of the dossier is to be finalized in the near future, he assessed, noting that the indictment is now focusing on the American suspects, who are 94 people at present.
Since the suspects are not merely American nationals, the Iranian judiciary sent judicial representations to seven countries, including Germany and Britain, he argued.
Families of the martyrs from Iraq accused five people of playing role in the assassination of General Soleimani and his entourage, including Deputy Chairman of Popular Mobilization Committee of Iraq Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the official said, adding that Iran’s judicial system provided the Iraqi counterparts with documents on the involvement of 17 Iraqi nationals in the crime.
In the framework of the Convention 1973, Iran sent an official letter to the US administration, urging the American authorities to extradite the defendants to Iran or sue them on US soil, Gharibabadi said, adding that the deadline set in this diplomatic note has expired, which means Iran can take the next steps according to the convention.
US terrorists assassinated General Soleimani, the commander of the Qods Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the former commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), along with their companions by targeting their vehicles outside Baghdad International Airport on 3 January 2020 at the direct order from US President Donald Trump.
Amer Dawa
https://www.sana.sy/en/?p=294737
Damage caused by the unprovoked Israeli air strike made Damascus international airport non-operational for a few hours for the second time in under a year
January 02, 2023 by Peoples Dispatch
(Photo: TSGT KEVIN J. GRUENWALD modified b FOX 52, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)
Israeli air strikes killed at least two Syrian soldiers and injured two others on Monday, January 2, SANA reported. The report quoted Syrian military sources who claimed that a barrage of missiles caused material damage to Damascus international airport and nearby areas, forcing the airport to shut down temporarily.
According to SANA, the air attacks were carried out from northern Israeli territory across Lake Tiberias around 2 am on Monday.
Damascus international airport was attacked by Israeli missiles earlier in June as well, after which it had to be shut down for two weeks. Israel has also targeted the airport in Aleppo in the past.
SANA reported a few hours later that airport authorities had carried out the required cleaning and repair work to make the airport operational around 9 am local time.
No comments have so far been made by the Israeli government or military regarding the air strike.
Israel has carried out hundreds of air strikes and missile attacks inside Syria since the beginning of the war in 2011, killing hundreds of civilians and causing massive damage to civilian infrastructure. The last strikes were reported on December 19 and 20. Most often, Israel uses Lebanese air space to carry out the attacks within Syria.
Ordinarily, Israel neither confirms nor denies its involvement in these attacks. However, on the rare occasions when it does seek to justify the attacks on the pretext of domestic security, it claims that it has targeted alleged Iranian involvement and bases in Syria.
Syria has raised the issue of Israeli violations of its sovereignty several times at the UN in the past, asking that immediate action be taken against such contravention of international law and the UN charter. Recently, Syria’s permanent representative to the UN, Bassam Sabbagh, told the UN Security Council that Israel’s recurring air strikes within Syrian territory were one of the central reasons for the continuation of the war in the country. He said that if the world wanted peace in Syria, efforts need to be made to stop this Israeli aggression.
The Syrian government has accused Israel of using the military strikes inside its territories to aid anti-Assad forces and to prolong the war and the suffering of the people in the country. More than a decade of war in Syria has killed thousands of people and displaced almost half of its pre-war population.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/01/02/ ... -soldiers/
*************
Russia consolidates in East Mediterranean
Last week’s meeting between Syria and Turkey in Moscow show that Russia’s standing in the West Asian region is far from defined by the Ukraine conflict
January 03, 2023 by M.K. Bhadrakumar
Turkish military convoy in border with Northern Syria. (File photo)
The curtain is coming down on the brutal 11-year old Syrian conflict, which former US President and Nobel Laureate Barack Obama initiated, as the Arab Spring swept through West Asia a decade ago. The United States has suffered yet another big setback in West Asia as the year 2022 draws to a close. The unfolding Turkish-Syrian reconciliation process under Russian mediation is to be seen as a saga of betrayal and vengeance.
Ankara came under immense pressure from the Obama administration in 2011 to spearhead the regime change project in Syria. Obama blithely assumed that Turkey would gleefully serve as the charioteer of “moderate” Islamism for the transformation in West Asia. But Ankara took its time to calibrate its foreign policies to adapt to the Arab Spring before responding to the shifting landscape in Syria.
Erdogan was caught unprepared by the uprising in Syria at a juncture when Ankara was pursuing a “zero-problems” policy with Turkey’s neighbors. Ankara was unsure how the Arab Spring would play out and remained silent when the revolt first appeared in Tunisia. Even on Egypt, Erdogan made an emotional call for Hosni Mubarak’s departure only when he sensed, correctly so, that Obama was decoupling from America’s staunch ally in Cairo.
Syria was the ultimate test case and a real challenge for Erdogan. Ankara had invested heavily in the improvement of relations with Syria within the framework of the so-called Adana Agreement in 1998 in the downstream of Turkish military’s massive showdown with Damascus over the latter harboring the PKK (Kurdish) leader Ocalan. Erdogan initially did not want Bashar al-Assad to lose power, and advised him to reform. The families of Erdogan and Assad used to holiday together.
Obama had to depute then CIA chief David Petraeus to visit Turkey twice in 2012 to persuade Erdogan to engage with the US in operational planning aimed at bringing about the end of the Assad government. It was Petraeus who proposed to Ankara a covert program of arming and training Syrian rebels.
But by 2013 already, Erdogan began sensing that Obama himself had only a limited American involvement in Syria and preferred to lead from the rear. In 2014, Erdogan went public that his relations with Obama had diminished, saying that he was disappointed about not getting direct results on the Syrian conflict. By that time, more than 170,000 people had died and 2.9 million Syrians had fled to neighboring countries, including Turkey, and the fighting had forced another 6.5 million people from their homes within Syria.
Simply put, Erdogan felt embittered that he was left holding a can of worms and Obama had scooted off. Worse still, the Pentagon began aligning with the Syrian Kurdish groups linked to the PKK. (In October 2014, US began providing supplies to Kurdish forces and in November 2015, US special forces were deployed in Syria.)
It is against such a backdrop that the two meetings in Moscow on Wednesday between the defense ministers and intelligence chiefs of Turkey and Syria in the presence of their Russian counterparts took place. Erdogan’s reconciliation process with Assad is quintessentially his sweet revenge for the American betrayal. Erdogan sought help from Russia, the archetypal enemy country in the US and NATO’s sights, in order to communicate with Assad who is a pariah in American eyes. The matrix is self-evident.
On Thursday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said: “At the meeting (in Moscow), we discussed what we could do to improve the situation in Syria and the region as soon as possible while ensuring peace, tranquility and stability… We reiterated our respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty rights of all our neighbors, especially Syria and Iraq, and that our sole aim is the fight against terrorism, we have no other purpose.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been counseling Erdogan in recent years that Turkey’s security concerns are best tackled in coordination with Damascus and that Adana Agreement could provide a framework of cooperation. The Turkish Defense Ministry readout said the meeting in Moscow took place in a “constructive atmosphere” and it was agreed to continue the format of trilateral meetings “to ensure and maintain stability in Syria and the region as a whole.”
Without doubt, the normalization between Ankara and Damascus will impact regional security and, in particular, the Syrian war, given the clout Turkey wields with the residual Syrian opposition. A Turkish ground operation in northern Syria may not be necessary if Ankara and Damascus were to revive the Adana Agreement. In fact, Akar disclosed that Ankara, Moscow and Damascus are working on carrying out joint missions on the ground in Syria.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu’s willingness right in the middle of the Ukraine war to take the steering wheel and navigate its reconciliation with Syria adds an altogether new dimension to the deepening strategic ties between Moscow and Ankara. For Erdogan too, Syria becomes the newest addition to his policy initiatives lately to improve Turkey’s relations with the regional states. Normalization with Syria will go down well with Turkish public opinion and that has implications for Erdogan’s bid for a renewed mandate in the upcoming elections.
From the Syrian perspective, the normalization with Turkey is going to be far more consequential than the restoration of ties with various regional states (starting with the UAE) in the recent years who had fueled the conflict. Turkey’s equations with Syrian militant groups (eg., Syrian National Army and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham), its continued occupation of Syrian territory, Syrian refugees in Turkey (numbering 3.6 million), etc. are vital issues affecting Syria’s security.
The US resents Erdogan’s move to normalize with Assad — and that too, with Russia’s helping hand. It is now even more unlikely to give up its military presence in Syria or its alliance with the Syrian Kurdish group YPG (which Ankara regards as an affiliate of the PKK.)
But the YPG will find itself in a tight spot. As Syria requests Turkey to withdraw from its territories (Idlib and so-called operation areas) and stop supporting armed groups, Turkey in return will insist on pushing the YPG away from the border. (The government-aligned Syrian daily Al-Watan reported quoting sources that at the tripartite meeting in Moscow, Ankara has committed to withdrawing all its forces from Syrian territory.)
Indeed, the replacement of the YPG militia by the Syrian government forces along the borders with Turkey would lead to the weakening of both YPG and the US military presence. However, the question will still remain unanswered as regards the place of Kurds in the future of Syria.
The US State Department stated recently, “The US will not upgrade its diplomatic relations with the Assad regime and does not support other countries upgrading their relations. The US urges states in the region to consider carefully the atrocities inflicted by the Assad regime on the Syrian people over the last decade. The US believes that stability in Syria and the greater region can be achieved through a political process that represents the will of all Syrians.”
Last week’s meetings in Moscow show that Russia’s standing in the West Asian region is far from defined by the Ukraine conflict. Russian influence on Syria remains intact and Moscow will continue to shape Syria’s transition out of conflict zone and consolidate its own long-term presence in Eastern Mediterranean.
OPEC Plus has gained traction. Russia’s ties with the Gulf states are steadily growing. The Russia-Iran strategic ties are at its highest level in history. And the return of Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister means that the Russian-Israeli ties are heading for a reset. Clearly, Russian diplomacy is on a roll in West Asia.
Conventional wisdom was that Russia and Turkey’s geopolitical interests would inevitably collide once the floodgates were opened in Ukraine. Herein lies the paradox, for, what has happened is entirely to the contrary.
MK Bhadrakumar is a former diplomat. He was India’s ambassador to Uzbekistan and Turkey. The views are personal.
https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/01/03/ ... terranean/
Given the 'intricacies' of Russian diplomacy that standing cannot rise too high until Russia abandons it's determination to be 'even-handed' in regards to Israel. Allowing Israeli warplanes to have their way over Damascus without activating the S-300 air defense system has got to aggravate the Syrians, who obviously cannot 'bite the hand that feeds them'.
************
94 suspects of Martyr Soleimani’s case are Americans: Iran official
3 January، 2023
Tehran, SANA– Ninety-four of the suspects involved in the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani are from the United States, including three main defendants who are ex-US President Donald Trump, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and head of the US Central Command (CENTCOM) Kenneth McKenzie, an Iranian official said.
Kazem Gharibabadi, the secretary of the High Council for Human Rights and deputy head of the Iranian judiciary, announced the latest follow-ups by the Iranian judicial system on the case of General Soleimani’s assassination in a news conference in Tehran on Tuesday.
Gharibabadi also pointed to the cooperation between the judicial systems of Iraq and Iran, saying that a joint committee of the two countries held three rounds of talks in Baghdad and Tehran and that the fourth round will be held within a few days.
The indictment of the dossier is to be finalized in the near future, he assessed, noting that the indictment is now focusing on the American suspects, who are 94 people at present.
Since the suspects are not merely American nationals, the Iranian judiciary sent judicial representations to seven countries, including Germany and Britain, he argued.
Families of the martyrs from Iraq accused five people of playing role in the assassination of General Soleimani and his entourage, including Deputy Chairman of Popular Mobilization Committee of Iraq Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the official said, adding that Iran’s judicial system provided the Iraqi counterparts with documents on the involvement of 17 Iraqi nationals in the crime.
In the framework of the Convention 1973, Iran sent an official letter to the US administration, urging the American authorities to extradite the defendants to Iran or sue them on US soil, Gharibabadi said, adding that the deadline set in this diplomatic note has expired, which means Iran can take the next steps according to the convention.
US terrorists assassinated General Soleimani, the commander of the Qods Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the former commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), along with their companions by targeting their vehicles outside Baghdad International Airport on 3 January 2020 at the direct order from US President Donald Trump.
Amer Dawa
https://www.sana.sy/en/?p=294737