Tag Archives: Syria

Rights group accuses Syria of several likely nerve agent attacks

A civil defence member breathes through an oxygen mask, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Human Rights Watch on Monday accused Syrian government forces of likely dropping bombs containing nerve agents at least three times elsewhere in the country before an April 4 attack that killed dozens of people and sparked a retaliatory U.S. strike.

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons. The Syrian U.N. mission was not immediately available to comment on the allegations by Human Rights Watch, which cited interviews with witnesses and medical personnel.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons, a global watchdog, has said sarin or a similar banned toxin was used in the April 4 strike.

Human Rights Watch said that before the April 4 attack on Khan Sheikhoun, government warplanes also appeared to have dropped nerve agents on eastern Hama on Dec. 11 and 12, 2016, and northern Hama, near Khan Sheikhoun, on March 30, 2017.

“All four of these attacks were in areas where opposition or ISIS forces were launching an offensive that threatened government military air bases,” Human Rights Watch Executive Director Ken Roth told a news conference at the United Nations.

“The decision to ratchet up to this level seems to have been related to that unfavorable battlefield situation,” he said.

The report said an opposition-affiliated activist and local residents provided the names of 64 people they say died from exposure to chemicals in the December attacks, which were in an area controlled by Islamic State militants.

It said no one died in the March 30 attack but dozens of people were injured, according to residents and medical workers.

“The pattern shows that the Syrian government retained sarin or some similar nerve agent after its August 2013 eastern Ghouta attack despite having agreed to hand over all chemical weapons to U.N. inspectors,” Roth said.

Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Moscow and Washington.

Roth said Human Rights Watch found that the remnants of a bomb at the site of the April 4 attack “appear consistent with the characteristics with a Soviet-made air-dropped chemical bomb specifically designed to deliver sarin.” The report said the remnants of the bomb appears similar to a KhAB-250.

Human Rights Watch called on the U.N. Security Council to impose an arms embargo and targeted sanctions on Syria and refer the situation in the country to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Russia and China blocked a Western bid for a referral to the ICC in 2014 and this February blocked a bid to impose sanctions over accusations of chemical weapons attacks.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S.-backed militias oust Islamic State from Syria’s Tabqa old city

Syrian Democratic Forces fighters gesture while posing on a damaged airplane inside Tabqa military airport after taking control of it from Islamic State fighters, west of Raqqa city, Syria ,

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed militias said on Monday they had pushed Islamic State fighters out of the old quarters of Tabqa, a strategically vital town controlling Syria’s largest dam, hemming the militants into the remaining modern district along the shore.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance made up of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighting groups, are fighting a multi-phased campaign to drive Islamic State from its stronghold of Raqqa, 40km (25 miles) downstream and east of Tabqa.

The SDF will wait to assault Raqqa until it seizes Tabqa, its military officials have previously said, but it had made slow progress since besieging the town in early April.

This changed on Thursday when the SDF began to advance north into the old city.

On Monday the SDF said in an online statement it had taken the last three neighborhoods of the old city and an adjoining industrial district.

SDF forces were now fighting Islamic State in the three modern quarters of the town which lie along the Tabqa reservoir, SDF spokesman Talal Silo said.

Islamic State still control the dam.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said on Monday the SDF now controls about 80 percent of Tabqa.

In recent weeks the SDF has also squeezed Islamic State’s pocket of territory around Raqqa, which the jihadist group has used as a base to plot attacks and manage much of its self-declared caliphate since seizing the city in 2014.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Toby Chopra)

U.S. forces to monitor situation along Syria-Turkey border: YPG commander

A member of U.S forces rides on a military vehicle in the town of Darbasiya next to the Turkish border, Syria April 28, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

DARBASIYA, Syria (Reuters) – A commander of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Friday U.S. forces would begin monitoring the situation along the Syria-Turkey frontier after cross-border fire between the Turkish military and YPG this week.

The monitoring had not yet begun, but the forces would report to senior U.S. commanders, Sharvan Kobani told Reuters after meeting U.S. military officials in the town of Darbasiya next to the Turkish border.

The officials had toured Darbasiya which was hit by Turkish artillery fire earlier in the week.

Turkish warplanes carried out air strikes against Kurdish militants in northeastern Syria and Iraq’s Sinjar region on Tuesday in an unprecedented bombardment of groups linked to the PKK, which is fighting an insurgency against Ankara in Turkey’s southeast.

Those attacks killed nearly 30 YPG fighters and officials, a monitoring group reported.

Since Tuesday the YPG and Turkish forces have traded artillery fire along the Syria-Turkey border.

Turkey’s bombardment of YPG positions complicates the U.S.-backed fight against Islamic State in Syria, where the YPG has been a crucial partner on the ground for Washington.

The YPG is a key component of the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighting groups involved in a campaign to drive Islamic State out of its Syria stronghold, Raqqa.

U.S. NATO ally Turkey views the YPG and other PKK-affiliated groups as terrorists.

Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said on Friday U.S. troops were deployed along the border.

“We continue to urge all the parties involved to focus on the common enemy which is ISIS (Islamic State),” he told reporters.

Hundreds of U.S. troops are deployed on the ground in Syria to support the Raqqa offensive.

(Reporting by Rodi Said; additional reporting by Idrees Ali in Washington; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

U.S.-backed forces push against IS in slowed Raqqa campaign

A Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighter rests near destroyed airplane parts inside Tabqa military airport after taking control of it from Islamic State fighters, west of Raqqa city, Syria April 9, 2017. REUTERS/Rodi Said

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed forces fighting Islamic State in Syria took several neighborhoods from the militant group in the town of Tabqa on Friday, they said in a statement, part of a campaign to oust Islamic State from its stronghold in Raqqa city.

The multi-phased campaign against the jihadists by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance made up of Syrian Kurdish and Arab fighting groups, was launched in November but has slowed in recent weeks.

Pushing down from the north, the SDF is trying to take the Islamic State-held Tabqa area and its adjacent Euphrates dam, the largest in Syria, some 40 km (25 miles) upstream of Raqqa.

SDF forces surround Tabqa town, having cut it off in late March from a swathe of Islamic State territory which runs across Syria into Iraq.

On Friday the SDF said it had pushed up into the town and taken the southern neighborhoods of Nababila and Zahra, having taken Wahab neighborhood to their south on Thursday.

In recent weeks the SDF has also squeezed Islamic State’s pocket of territory around Raqqa, which the jihadist group has used as a base to plot attacks and manage much of its self-declared caliphate since seizing the city in 2014.

The Kurdish YPG militia is the strongest unit of the SDF and is taking part in the assault on Tabqa and Raqqa, but it is seen by Turkey as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade insurgency against Ankara.

On Tuesday the Turkish military conducted air strikes and cross-border shelling against YPG targets in Syria in what it said was retaliation for mortar attacks, prompting the U.S. State Department to voice concern. Sporadic clashes have continued along the border in recent days.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Israel seeks U.S. backing to avert permanent Iran foothold in Syria

By Matt Spetalnick and Mark Hosenball

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Israel is seeking an “understanding” with the Trump administration that Iran must not be allowed to establish a permanent military foothold in Syria, Israel’s intelligence minister told Reuters on Wednesday.

In an interview, visiting Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said he was also using his meetings with White House officials and key lawmakers to press for further U.S. sanctions on Iran and the Iranian-backed Lebanese militia Hezbollah, which is supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“I want to achieve an understanding, an agreement between the U.S. and Israel … not to let Iran have permanent military forces in Syria, by air, by land, by sea,” Katz told Reuters, saying this should be part of any future international accord on ending Syria’s six-year-old civil war.

Katz, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party, insisted, however, that Israel was not asking Washington to commit more forces to Syria, but to “achieve this by talking to the Russians, by threatening Iran, by sanctions and other things.”

There was no immediate comment from the White House. Katz was due to meet President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt.

For its part, Israel has stayed mostly on the sidelines in the Syrian conflict and has shown no sign of significantly altering that posture. It has carried out only occasional air strikes when its has felt threatened, including by the delivery of weapons to Hezbollah militants.

Israeli officials have estimated that Iran – Israel’s regional archfoe, but also that of Saudi Arabia and other Sunni Arab states – commands at least 25,000 fighters in Syria, including members of its own Revolutionary Guard, Shi’ite militants from Iraq and recruits from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

ALARMING PROVOCATIONS

Katz’s visit came just a week after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson accused Iran of “alarming ongoing provocations” to destabilize countries in the Middle East as the Trump administration launched a review of its policy toward Tehran.

Tillerson said the review would look not only at Tehran’s compliance with a 2015 nuclear deal, but also its behavior in the region.

Trump, who may visit Israel as early as next month, has adopted a tougher stance against Assad. He ordered cruise missile strikes on a Syrian air base this month after blaming Assad for a chemical weapons attack that killed at least 70 people, many of them children.

“It was important morally and strategically,” Katz said of the U.S. strikes. The Syrian government has denied it was behind the gas attack.

Israeli officials want Russia, which they see as holding the balance of power among Assad’s supporters, to use its influence to help rein in Iran’s activities in Syria.

Though Russia has shown no willingness to restrain Iran, Israeli officials say there are indications that Moscow may see any long-term Iranian military presence in Syria as potentially destabilizing.

Katz reiterated Israel’s vow to continue launching occasional air strikes in Syria against Hezbollah forces detected transporting rockets or other weapons toward the Lebanese border, which he described as a “red line.”

(Writing by Matt Spetalnick; Editing by John Walcott and Jonathan Oatis)

Iraqi paramilitaries shut more Islamic State escape routes to Syria border

A view shows the ancient city of Hatra, south of Mosul, Iraq April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Stringer

ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraqi paramilitary units captured the northern province of Hatra on Thursday, cutting off several desert tracks used by Islamic State to move between Iraq and Syria, the military.

The operations in Hatra are carried out by Popular Mobilisation, a coalition of mostly Iranian-trained militias of Shi’ite volunteers formed in 2014 after Islamic State, a hardline Sunni group, overran a third of Iraq.

The militias on Wednesday dislodged Islamic State from the ancient ruins of Hatra, which suffered great destruction under the militants’ three-year rule, a military spokesman said.

Hatra, a city that flourished in the first century AD, lies 125 km (80 miles) south of Mosul, where the militants have been fighting off a U.S.-backed offensive since October.

The militants are now surrounded in the northwestern part of Mosul, including the Old City and its landmark Grand al-Nuri Mosque from where their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, declared in mid-2014 a caliphate also spanning parts of Syria.

Mosul is by far the largest city that had fallen to the militants in both countries. The density of the population is slowing the advance of Iraqi forces.

Hatra is also located west of Hawija, a region north of Baghdad still under Islamic State control.

Popular Mobilisation, which operates with the approval of Iraq’s Shi’ite-led government, said on Tuesday the Hatra campaign aims at cutting off Islamic State’s routes between Hawija, Mosul and eastern Syria.

Iraq’s border region with Syria is a historic hotbed of the Sunni insurgency against the rule of the Shi’ite majority community, empowered after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Israel strikes Iran-supplied arms depot near Damascus airport

A video posted to social media shows explosions and rising flames, said to be in Damascus. Social Media Website via Reuters TV

By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Angus McDowall

AMMAN/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Israel struck an arms supply hub operated by the Lebanese group Hezbollah near Damascus airport on Thursday, Syrian rebel and regional intelligence sources said, targeting weapons sent from Iran via commercial and military cargo planes.

Video carried on Lebanese TV and shared on social media showed the pre-dawn airstrikes caused a fire around the airport east of the Syrian capital, suggesting fuel sources or weapons containing explosives were hit.

Syrian state media said Israeli missiles hit a military position southwest of the airport, but did not mention arms or fuel. It said “Israeli aggression” had caused explosions and some material losses, but did not expand on the damage.

Israel does not usually comment on action it takes in Syria. But Intelligence Minister Israel Katz, speaking to Army Radio from the United States, appeared to confirm involvement.

“The incident in Syria corresponds completely with Israel’s policy to act to prevent Iran’s smuggling of advanced weapons via Syria to Hezbollah,” he said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had “said that whenever we receive intelligence that indicates an intention to transfer advanced weapons to Hezbollah, we will act”, he added.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said: “We can’t comment on such reports.”

Two senior rebel sources in the Damascus area, citing monitors in the eastern outskirts of the capital, said five strikes hit an ammunition depot used by Iran-backed militias.

Lebanon’s al-Manar television, which is affiliated with Hezbollah, said early indications were that the strikes hit warehouses and fuel tanks. It said there no casualties.

RUSSIA AND IRAN BACK ASSAD

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is backed in his six-year-old civil war by Russia, Iran and regional Shi’ite militias. These include Hezbollah, a close ally of Tehran and enemy of Israel, which describes the group as the biggest threat it faces on its borders. The two fought a month-long war in 2006.

Syrian military defectors familiar with the airport say it plays a major role as a conduit for arms from Tehran.

Alongside military planes, there are a number of commercial cargo aircraft that fly from Iran to resupply arms to Hezbollah and other groups. The flights go directly from Iran to Syria, passing through Iraqi airspace.

As well as weapons, hundreds of Shi’ite militia fighters from Iraq and Iran have been flown to Damascus international airport. Intelligence sources put their numbers at 10,000 to 20,000 and say they play a significant role in military campaigns launched by the Syrian army.

Israel has largely kept out the war in Syria, but officials have consistently referred to two red lines that have prompted a military response in the past: any supply of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah, and the establishment of “launch sites” for attacks on Israel from the Golan Heights region.

Speaking in Moscow on Wednesday, where he was attending a security conference, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman reiterated that Israel “will not allow Iranian and Hezbollah forces to be amassed on the Golan Heights border”.

During his visit, Lieberman held talks with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, as part of efforts by Israel to coordinate with Moscow on actions in Syria and avoid the risk of confrontation.

A statement from the Defence Ministry said Lieberman had expressed concern to the Russian ministers over “Iranian activity in Syria and the Iranian use of Syrian soil as a base for arms smuggling to Hezbollah in Lebanon”.

A Western diplomat said the airstrikes sent a clear political message to Iran, effectively saying it could no longer use Iraqi and Syrian airspace to resupply proxies with impunity.

Speaking to Reuters in an interview in Washington on Wednesday, Katz, the intelligence minister, said he was seeking an understanding with the Trump administration that Iran not be allowed to establish a permanent military foothold in Syria.

Israeli officials estimate that Iran commands around 25,000 fighters in Syria, including members of its own Revolutionary Guard, Shi’ite militants from Iraq and recruits from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Israel has also said that Hezbollah has built up an arsenal of more than 100,000 rockets, many of which would be capable of striking anywhere within Israel’s territory. The last conflict between the two left 1,300 people dead and uprooted more than a million Lebanese and 300,000 to 500,000 Israelis.

(Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Jerusalem and Omar Fahmy in Cairo; Writing by Luke Baker, Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Michael Perry, Richard Lough and David Stamp)

French intelligence says Assad forces carried out sarin attack

FILE PHOTO: A man breathes through an oxygen mask as another one receives treatments, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah/File Photo

By John Irish

PARIS (Reuters) – French intelligence has concluded that forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad carried out a sarin nerve gas attack on April 4 in northern Syria and that Assad or members of his inner circle ordered the strike, a declassified report showed.

The chemical weapons attack on the town of Khan Sheikhoun killed scores of people, according to a war monitor, Syrian opposition groups and Western countries. It prompted the United States to launch a cruise missile strike on a Syrian air base, its first deliberate assault on the Assad government in the six-year-old conflict.

Assad has said in two media interviews since April 4 that the evidence of a poison gas attack was false and denied his government had ever used chemical weapons.

The six-page French document, seen by Reuters and drawn up by France’s military and foreign intelligence services – said it reached its conclusion based on samples they had obtained from the impact strike on the ground and a blood sample from a victim.

“We know, from a certain source, that the process of fabrication of the samples taken is typical of the method developed in Syrian laboratories,” Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters after presenting the findings to the cabinet.

“This method is the signature of the regime and it is what enables us to establish the responsibility of the attack. We know because we kept samples from previous attacks that we were able to use for comparison.”

Among the elements found in the samples were hexamine, a hallmark of sarin produced by the Syrian government, according to the report.

It said the findings matched the results of samples obtained by French intelligence, including an unexploded grenade, from an attack in Saraqib on April 29, 2013, which Western powers have accused the Assad government of carrying out.

“This production process is developed by Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) for the regime,” the report said.

The United States on Monday blacklisted 271 employees belonging to the agency.

Syria agreed in September 2013 to destroy its entire chemical weapons program under a deal negotiated with the United States and Russia after hundreds of people were killed in a sarin gas attack in the outskirts of the capital, Damascus.

The report said that based on its assessments, there were “serious doubts on the accuracy, completeness and sincerity of the dismantlement of Syria’s chemical arsenal.”

SIX WARPLANE STRIKES

The report, which lists some 140 suspected chemical attacks in Syria since 2012, also said intelligence services were aware of a Syrian government Sukhoi 22 warplane that had struck six times on Khan Sheikhoun on April 4 and that samples taken from the ground were consistent with an airborne projectile that had munitions loaded with sarin.

“The French intelligence services consider that only Bashar al-Assad and some of his most influential entourage can give the order to use chemical weapons,” the report said.

It added that jihadist groups in the area in Idlib province did not have the capacity to develop and launch such an attack and that Islamic State was not in the region.

Assad’s assertion that the attack was fabricated was “not credible” given the mass flows of casualties in a short space of time arriving in Syrian and Turkish hospitals as well as the sheer quantity of social media posts and video showing people with neurotoxic symptoms, said the report.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) said on April 19 that sarin or a similar banned toxin was used in the Khan Sheikhoun attack, but it is not mandated to assign blame.

Russia, which backs Assad in the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions, has said the gas was released by an air strike on a poison gas storage depot controlled by rebels.

“The Kremlin thinks as before that the only way to restore the truth of what happened in Idlib is impartial international investigation. We regret that OPCW restrains so far from such an investigation,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the French report.

A senior French diplomatic source said Paris had passed the report on to its partners and would continue to push for a probe.

Moscow was attempting to discredit the OPCW, the source said: “There is a propaganda effort by Russia to say that the OPCW’s work is not credible.”

(Reporting by John Irish; Editing by Andrew Callus, Pravin Char and Sonya Hepinstall)

Russia says U.S. missile strike on Syria was a threat to its forces

FILE PHOTO: Battle damage assessment image of Shayrat Airfield, Syria, is seen in this DigitalGlobe satellite image, released by the Pentagon following U.S. Tomahawk Land Attack Missile strikes from Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, the USS Ross and USS Porter on April 7, 2017. DigitalGlobe/Courtesy U.S. Department of Defense/Handout via REUTERS

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu complained on Wednesday that a U.S. missile strike on a Syrian air base earlier this month had posed a threat to Russian troops and was forcing Moscow to take extra measures to protect them.

Speaking at a security conference in Moscow, Shoigu restated Russia’s view that the strike — which Washington conducted in response to what it said was a deadly chemical weapons attack by Syrian government forces — was “a crude violation of international law.”

U.S. officials said at the time that they had informed Russian forces ahead of the strikes. No Russian personnel were injured in the attack.

As well as housing Syrian military jets, satellite imagery suggested that the base which was struck was home to Russian special forces and military helicopters, part of the Kremlin’s effort to help the Syrian government fight Islamic State and other militant groups.

“Washington’s action created a threat to the lives of our servicemen who are fighting against terrorism in Syria,” said Shoigu.

“Such steps are forcing us to take extra measures to ensure the safety of Russian forces.” He did not specify what those measures were.

The Russian Defence Ministry said after the U.S. strike that Syrian air defenses would be beefed up, while Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev complained that the attack was just one step away from clashing with the Russian military.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Andrey Ostroukh)

U.S. says raised deep concerns with Turkey over air strikes

Fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) inspect the damage at their headquarters after it was hit by Turkish airstrikes in Mount Karachok near Malikiya, Syria April 25, 2017. REUTERS/ Rodi Said

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States on Tuesday expressed “deep concern” over Turkish air strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq and said they were not authorized by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.

The raids in Iraq’s Sinjar region and northeast Syria killed at least 20 in a campaign against groups linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency against Turkey for Kurdish autonomy.

Turkey is part of the U.S.-led military coalition fighting militants in Syria.

Ankara has strongly opposed Washington’s support for Syrian Kurdish YPG fighters who are part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have been closing in on the Islamic State bastion of Raqqa.

“We have expressed those concerns with the government of Turkey directly,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told reporters on a conference call.

“These air strikes were not approved by the coalition and led to the unfortunate loss of life of our partner forces in the fight against” Islamic State, he said.

Toner said while the United States recognized Turkey’s concerns with the PKK, the cross-border raids harmed the coalition’s efforts to fight Islamic State.

“We recognize their concerns about the PKK but these kinds of actions frankly harm the coalition’s efforts to go after ISIS and frankly harm our partners on the ground who are conducting that fight,” he added.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Yeganeh Torbati; Editing by Paul Simao)