| | | Date: Jun 29, 2018 | | Source: The Daily Star |  |  |  |
| | Syrian army battles to bisect rebel area in southwest | Reuters
BEIRUT: The Syrian army is fighting to cut rebel ground in the southwest in two by seizing an air base near the Jordanian border, an insurgent official said on Thursday, as intensifying air strikes killed dozens of people nearby.
President Bashar al-Assad has sworn to take back every inch of Syria, and recapturing the southwest, one of the first hotbeds of the uprising against him, would leave rebels with only one remaining stronghold, in the northwest.
The area is in a "de-escalation zone" agreed last year by the United States, Jordan and Assad's ally Russia to curb fighting. But despite American warnings that it would respond to an attack, it has not done so and Syrian opposition figures on Wednesday decried Washington's "silence".
Assad's offensive in the southwest has been backed by air strikes and shelling that have killed 93 civilians since June 19, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said, including 46 on Wednesday and Thursday.
Insurgent territory in the southwest is strung along the borders with Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, narrowing to only a few kilometers wide at the city of Deraa.
The fighting so far had mostly focused on areas northeast of Deraa, where the army and allied militia recaptured a string of villages, but was extended to the city's outskirts on Tuesday.
"The goal for them is to split the western Deraa countryside from the city and the eastern Deraa countryside. Praise God, so far the fighters are standing strong and the regime was not able to advance," Abu Shaima, a rebel spokesman, said.
The Britain-based monitoring group and two rebel sources said aircraft had bombed Busra al-Sham, Nawa, Rakham and other towns in the province.
Warfare in southwestern Syria is sensitive to neighboring Jordan and Israel, though government bombardments so far have not focused on territory nearest to the Golan Heights.
In Riyadh, the chief Syrian opposition negotiator Nasr al-Hariri condemned "U.S. silence" over the offensive in the de-escalation zone, comparing it to Washington's prompt use of force against attacks on forces it is allied to elsewhere.
Only a "malicious deal" could explain the lack of a U.S. response to the assault, Hariri said.
France said it was extremely concerned by the attack, which it warned could carry the risk of regional destabilization.
There was no immediate comment on civilian deaths from the air strikes from Damascus or Moscow, which have said they only target armed militants in the seven-year conflict.
"We can't even catch up to count the air strikes," Abdallah Mahameed, a rebel official in Deraa,, said "The house is shaking around us."
Abu Jihad, a local opposition official near the border, said the violence since Wednesday had forced at least 11,000 people to flee their homes and towns. If the escalation continues, he said, people would head closer to the frontiers with Jordan and the Golan.
A Jordanian official who requested anonymity said the Jordanian army had stepped up its state of readiness at the border. The country already hosts more than 650,000 registered Syrian refugees and said it will not open the border for more.
Syrian state television said the air force targeted militants in Busra al-Sham in east Deraa province on Thursday, and that government forces entered two villages further northeast.
It said 450 insurgents in the Laja area, which the army seized earlier this week, handed themselves in with their weapons to "settle their affairs" with the government.
Assad's military, with the help of Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, has driven rebels out of all their enclaves near the capital Damascus this year.
The United Nations says the southwestern assault has uprooted at least 45,000 civilians.
Airstrikes kill 17 in southern Syria, thousands flee
BEIRUT: Airstrikes pounded rebel-held areas in southwestern Syria Thursday, killing at least 17 civilians in an underground shelter and driving thousands from their homes, as scores of displaced people protested near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, demanding protection from the international community.
The Syrian government pressed ahead with its offensive to reclaim the strategic region that extends along the border with Jordan and the Golan Heights, and which was until recently part of a U.S.-backed and negotiated truce.
Signaling that the humanitarian crisis is likely to deepen, U.N. officials said because of the fighting, no aid has entered from Jordan to reach the estimated 50,000 people displaced since Tuesday. Jordan, which is already hosting 660,000 registered refugees, says it cannot accept any more and has sealed its border, despite appeals from aid groups.
Near the Golan Heights, scores of newly displaced raised banners in protest. Thousands have fled to the area, saying they thought the proximity to Israeli forces would deter Syrian air raids. One activist said the camps are about 3 kilometers from the frontier.
Activists and a U.N. official said a new group fled their homes Thursday in the western Deraa province, where government strikes pounded Nawa, one of the largest towns in the area.
Linda Tom, spokeswoman for the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said unconfirmed local reports suggest a “very large number” – estimated at 50,000 people – were driven from Nawa.
Yasser al-Khatib, of the activist-operated Nabaa news, provided a similar estimate.
A top U.N. adviser on humanitarian aid for Syria, Jan Egeland, said he believes the frontier with the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights is “hermetically closed.”
“I think you have to ask the Israelis whether they are going also to take part in giving shelter, protection, to people who flee,” Egeland said.
The Israeli military said it was monitoring the situation and was prepared for a variety of scenarios.
An Israeli official said authorities are likely to provide humanitarian aid to fleeing Syrians, but not allow them to enter Israel. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because the plan was still evolving and he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media. Israel has sent humanitarian aid across the border for several years. It has never confirmed claims that it provides military aid to Syrian rebels.
The strategic southwestern corner of Syria had been under a so-called de-escalation agreement reached between Russia, the United States and Jordan in July of last year, but the truce has unraveled in recent weeks.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said warplanes pummeled rebel-held areas with as many as 240 raids, with crude barrel bombs dropped throughout the day. The Observatory described Thursday’s airstrike in the town of Mseifereh in eastern Deraa, which left 17 dead, as the worst violence since the government offensive began in the area on June 19.
The Observatory said at least five children were among the killed. An activist with the opposition-operated Horan Free Media, who goes by the name Abu Mahmoud Hourani, said the rescuers were still pulling bodies from the underground shelter by early afternoon.
He put the death toll at 20, saying women and children were among the casualties. “The situation on the ground is disastrous,” Hourani said.
Syrian government troops are seeking to dislodge rebels who have been in the area for years and to gain control of the commercial border crossing with Jordan.In recent days, government forces have gained new ground, bisecting rebel-held territories in Deraa’s east and west and severing their supply lines.
The Syrian Civil Defense said more than 150 airstrikes have targeted 12 towns and villages in Deraa since dawn.
Jordan has asked the U.N. to provide security for displaced Syrians within their own country, while Israel has not commented on the offensive or the displacement.
The international aid organization CARE said humanitarian workers in the south are struggling to deliver basic supplies. One aid worker in an organization supported by CARE was killed in shelling Tuesday.
“Civilians are paying the price of another military offensive,” Wouter Schapp, CARE’s Syria country director, said.
“Cities and towns are bombed daily, people are being uprooted and lack basic human necessities, such as water and shelter.”
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia has withdrawn 1,140 military personnel and 13 warplanes from Syria in last few days.
“As you know, we started withdrawing our forces during my visit to Hmeimim base.
“This withdrawal continues now,” Putin said at a ceremony for military college graduates in the Kremlin. |
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