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Syria Cease-Fire After Hundreds Killed In Bombings

A place to talk about domestic politics in Middle East (Iran, Iraq , Turkey, Syria) Also includes topics about Assyrian, Armenian, Chaldean .

Syria Cease-Fire After Hundreds Killed In Bombings

PostAuthor: Anthea » Fri Feb 16, 2018 9:21 pm

Syria's Civil War Complicated By Multiple Proxy Battles
Ian Bremmer

Seven years into Syria’s “civil war,” the country is at greater risk than ever of being overrun by the proxy wars of other nations.

These five facts explain just some of the foreign clashes currently raging in Syria:

Israel vs. Iran

    Over the weekend, Israel intercepted an Iranian drone that had flown into Israeli airspace from neighboring Syria through Jordan. Iran has been openly supporting the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad for some time now (much of that through its proxy Hezbollah), while Israel has tried to generally steer clear of the Syrian quagmire, at least publicly.

    But with the breach of Israeli airspace by perennial foe Iran, Israel was forced to respond, launching an airstrike on Syrian and Iranian military positions. The Syrians shot down an Israeli jet (the first Israeli jet to be downed by an enemy since 1982), and the Israelis continued to hit numerous military positions. It is the closest Iran and Israel have come to war since the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, and sets a new precedent for the rules of engagement for Israel in Syria.

    Seven years on, Syria manages to keep pulling in new actors, and with them their accompanying blood feuds. That’s incredibly disheartening — not to mention dangerous.

Turkey vs. Kurds

    But Syria is not just being used to wage proxy battles between international powers — it’s also being used to wage domestic fights, too. Case in point: Turkey.

    When Turkey first joined the Syria fray in the summer of 2015, it was ostensibly in response to an ISIS suicide bombing in the border town of Suruç. But the fact that Kurdish forces within Syria were making significant progress battling both Assad and ISIS also weighed heavily on Ankara; indeed, some even argue that Kurdish advances were the primary motivating force for Turkey’s entering the war.

    Kurds are an ethnic minority of roughly 30 million, the majority of whom live in Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq. For millions of Kurds, an independent Kurdish state has always been the ultimate—but elusive—end goal. Turkey itself has the largest Kurdish population, at roughly 15 million, or 18 percent of its total population. While some Kurds have decided to work within the Turkish political system, others have opted for violence, headlined by the Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). More than 40,000 people have been killed in Turkish-Kurdish violence over the years. For the Turkish government, the success of Kurds in Syria emboldens the Kurdish separatist movement within its own borders. That’s why Turkey has been targeting Kurdish units in Syria…

U.S. vs Turkey

    …bringing Turkey into direct conflict with the U.S. Given Washington’s other two ongoing wars (in Iraq and Afghanistan), the U.S. has been understandably hesitant to wade too deeply into the Syrian morass. There are currently around 2,000 American troops in Syria as part of an anti-ISIS coalition, but the U.S.’s real contribution to the war in Syria has been its 11,000+ U.S.-allied airstrikes against ISIS positions, as well as its training and equipping of anti-ISIS forces, among them Syria’s Kurdish militias.

    Washington’s support for Kurdish militia forces has long irked Ankara, but things came to a head last month when the U.S. announced it would help establish a 30,000-strong border force in northeastern Syria, the backbone of which would be comprised of Kurdish fighters. This was wholly unacceptable to Turkey, which launched a wide-ranging military offensive known as “Operation Olive Branch” (Ankara was obviously in charge of naming). And suddenly, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, two NATO allies are engaged in a direct proxy war, with repercussions that will potentially long outlast Syria’s war.

Russia vs U.S.

    At least the NATO dustup should please Moscow; it’s probably less pleased about the toll the Syrian war is beginning to take on Russian personnel. Russia joined the fray to prop up Assad, Moscow’s long-time ally. Syria is strategically important for Russia, housing Moscow’s only naval base with direct access to the Mediterranean. Along with Iran, Russia has been instrumental in solidifying Assad’s hold on the country, and has in the process burnished Russia’s credentials as a serious player across the Middle East. Russia has presidential elections in about a month. Much of Putin’s popular appeal rests on his ability to restore Russia’s place in the geopolitical order after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Syria is one of the shiniest examples he can hold up.

    But this week brought news that dozens or even hundreds of Russian fighters were recently killed in a failed attack on a U.S.-Kurdish base in the Deir Ezzor region in support of Assad. When questioned about the news, the Kremlin responded that the individuals in question were mercenaries rather than members of the Russian military. Either way, Syria has become the unlikely site for what could have been the deadliest skirmish between the U.S. and Russia since the Cold War. Let that sink in.

Secularists (Russia/U.S./UAE) vs. Islamists (Turkey/Iran/Qatar)

    All these proxy wars aside, Syria is a microcosm for the defining conflict playing out across the Middle East today: secularism vs. Islamism.[/size]

    On one side, you have those pushing for a more secular Syria—Russia, the U.S., and the United Arab Emirates to a large degree. On the other side, you have those pushing for an Islamist Syria—Turkey, Iran and Qatar. (While Iran and Turkey favor a Shia/Sunni ideology, neither oppose increasing the influence of Islam in the Syrian political system.)

    And while each of these players have different political interests and factions that they back in Syria, they represent in aggregate two wildly different visions of Syria’s future. Whichever constellation of actors emerges victorious will go a long way in determining Syria’s future tilt towards one of the two extremes
.
http://time.com/5162409/syria-civil-war-proxy-battles/
Last edited by Anthea on Sun Feb 25, 2018 2:36 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Syria Cease-Fire After Hundreds Killed In Bombings

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Re: Syria's Civil War Complicated By Multiple Proxy Battles

PostAuthor: Anthea » Fri Feb 16, 2018 9:34 pm

Who’s still in Syria?

The battle against Islamic State in Syria may be nearing its end, but the conflict in this war-torn country seems far from over. Competing factions and old rivalries have created a complicated, uncertain future for Syria.

With so many different warring parties wrestling for control of Syria’s fate, it seems prudent to review the conflict’s major actors – and where their allegiances lie.
:

Syrian government

    Since 2011, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has been fighting to take back Syrian territory seized by terrorist groups and foreign-funded “rebels.” Backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, Syrian forces have fought Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIL/ISIS), “moderate” rebels and jihadist groups such as Al-Nusra. The SAA has even faced airstrikes from Israel and the United States, although neither Tel Aviv nor Washington have officially declared war on Damascus. Although opposed to Kurdish efforts to create an autonomous state, reports suggest that Syrian President Bashar Assad has been quietly aiding Kurdish militias in their fight against the Turkish army – just one example of the conflict’s constantly-shifting allegiances.

Islamic State

    The infamous terrorist organization is clinging to its final parcels of land in Syria, where it once controlled huge swathes of territory (although a lot of it uninhabited desert). Created in the chaotic aftermath of the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, the terrorist organization initially began as an insurgent group. In 2014, IS declared itself a worldwide caliphate. With the Iraqi city of Mosul as its self-declared capital, IS eventually pushed into landlocked eastern Syria, seizing Raqqa. The Islamic State is at war with everyone – the Syrian Army, US-backed rebels, Kurds, Russia, Hezbollah, Turkey – although reports of IS smuggling oil across the border to Turkey have raised questions about Ankara’s commitment to neutralizing the terrorist group.

Russia

    In September 2015, Russia began air operations in Syria at the urging of the Syrian government. Targeting IS and jihadist groups (including US-backed “moderate” rebels, many of whom apparently had a penchant for defecting to Al Qaeda), Russia’s air campaign, in coordination with Syrian and Iranian forces, has been credited with helping turn the tide of the war. Moscow has also lead peace efforts in Syria, helping to organize peace conferences and acting as a co-guarantor in designated “de-escalation” zones across the country.

Iran

    Iran has been a faithful ally of Damascus, deploying thousands of fighters to Syria since 2013. Tehran views the conflict in Syria as the latest attempts by the US, Israel and the Gulf States to destabilize the Middle East and undermine Iranian influence in the region. Religious affiliations aside (Assad practices a branch of Shia Islam, a fact that is certainly not overlooked by predominantly Shia Iran), Tehran is surrounded by hostile nations and US military bases and understands that the fall of Damascus would be an unacceptable geopolitical defeat.

    Iranian regular and irregular forces have been credited with playing critical roles on numerous fronts, including in Latakia, Palmyra, Damascus and Aleppo. Often in coordination with Russian air support, Iranian forces have fought IS, the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and Kurdish militants during the course of the war.

Turkey

    Turkey has supported a number of militant groups and proxy forces in an attempt to uproot the Kurds from northern Syria. Ankara views the Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) militia as an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is a designated terrorist organization in Turkey. Although both Turkey and the United States are staunchly anti-Assad, they have clashed over the fate of the Kurds, and relations between the two NATO allies have rapidly deteriorated in recent months.

    In late January, Turkish troops crossed into Syria in an attempt to drive out US-backed Kurds from Afrin. The offensive, codenamed ‘Operation Olive Branch’, could soon target the city of Manbij, where US forces are currently stationed. However, Ankara is also a key player in political efforts to end the conflict. Along with Russia and Iran, Turkey is a co-guarantor of Syria’s de-escalation zones.

United States

    Despite objections from the Syrian government, the United States began air operations in Syria in September 2014, ostensibly as part of a US-led international effort to combat IS. However, Washington has never hidden its desire to see Assad removed, and has regularly used its seat on the United Nations Security Council to exert military, political and diplomatic pressure on Damascus.

    Aside from the uninvited US air campaign, the CIA and Pentagon have operated separate programs designed to train and arm Syrian rebel groups – although the CIA program was reportedly shuttered after squandering hundreds of millions of dollars.

    The US has had better luck with its Kurdish allies, but the chummy relationship between Washington and the Kurds has strained relations with its NATO ally Turkey. The Turkish army crossed into Syria last month to evict US-backed Kurds from northern Syria – an offensive that could risk a confrontation between US and Turkish troops, according to the White House.

Israel

    Since the start of the conflict, Israel has launched dozens of air strikes and missile attacks inside Syrian territory, claiming that it’s an effort to curb Iran’s presence in the country, which Tel Aviv considers an existential threat to the Jewish state. Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon said in 2016 that "Iran is our main enemy,” and that if the Syrian government were to fall, Israel would prefer that IS was in control of the territory over Iran or its proxies.

    The Israelis have also provided money and supplies to militants near the Golan Heights, likely in an effort to secure Israel’s claims to the occupied Syrian region.

    Israel has also called for an independent Kurdistan – slighting both Ankara and Damascus.

Hezbollah

    Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist political movement and militant group based in Lebanon, entered the conflict in Syria in 2012. Supported by Iran, the group has been instrumental in ground operations against IS, Al-Nusra Front, the Free Syrian Army and other “rebel” forces. On numerous occasions, Israel has claimed to have bombed Hezbollah weapon convoys inside Syria – attacks which Damascus says have undermined anti-terrorism operations in the country.

Saudi Arabia

    Saudi Arabia, along with its Gulf partners, has been a major financier and arms supplier for various rebel groups in Syria, some of which have been accused of having ties to Al-Nusra Front, an internationally-recognized terrorist organization.

    Riyadh, a major rival to Iran, views Assad’s relationship with Tehran as unacceptable. Like their American partners, the Saudis have repeatedly called for Assad’s removal. The Sunni kingdom has clashed with Shia Iran for decades, usually through proxies, for regional influence and control. With the fall of Saddam Hussein – the Sunni strongman who once waged a bloody war against Iran with help from the United States – Iran has successfully pulled Iraq into its sphere of influence. The Saudis view this shift in the geopolitical landscape as crushing blow and have done everything in their power to prevent Iran from also wielding influence in Syria. According to Assad, Saudi Arabia even offered to fight alongside – and not against – Damascus if it severed its ties with Tehran.

Al Nusra Front

    Currently known as Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, the Al-Nusra Front, also called “al-Qaeda in Syria,” is a Salafist jihadist group that has often been handled with kids’ gloves by MSM. The organization, whose stated aim is to overthrow Assad’s government and create an Islamic emirate under sharia law, announced its formation in January 2012. Its ranks formed from hardened veterans from the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan, Al-Nusra acted as the official Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda until July 2016, when the two head-chopping organizations allegedly split. Al Nusra doesn’t seem to get along with anyone, and has fought with nearly every faction currently operating in Syria, from IS to Iran – although the terror group’s common cause shared with US-backed “moderate rebels” has not gone unnoticed.

The Kurds

    Based in northern Syria, the Kurds have faced enemies from all sides. Much of the territory they now control was taken from ISIS. Targeted by the Syrian army (Assad is staunchly opposed to Kurdish efforts to create an independent state), in recent weeks the Kurds have also faced the Turkish army, which has been ordered by Ankara to cleanse northern Syria of “terrorists”. US support for the Kurdish YPG and Syrian Democratic Forces (a predominantly-Kurdish alliance composed mostly of YPG militia) has enraged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has vowed to return the Kurdish-controlled Syrian city of Manbij to its “true owners.”

    For its part, Moscow has welcomed Kurdish efforts to combat IS, while expressing concern about Kurdish desires for an independent Kurdish state – essentially partitioning Syria.

The end of Syria as we know it?

    Syria’s future remains perilously uncertain. Having survived and triumphed over Islamic State, Syria is still the involuntary host to a gaggle of uninvited foreign militaries and militias. With Israel eyeing the Golan in the south, and the Kurds, backed by Washington, calling for an autonomous state in the north, it will be a miracle if Syria emerges from this long, bloody conflict fully intact. As Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has noted, the US has taken “dangerous, unilateral steps” in Syria instead of trying to “achieve a common understanding” between all parties.

    “We’ve raised these questions multiple times but have not received a coherent answer besides a general motto ‘Don’t’ worry we’re for the territorial integrity of Syria.’ In reality, it looks otherwise though,” Lavrov stated.

https://www.rt.com/news/418924-factions ... syria-war/
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Re: Syria's Civil War Complicated By Multiple Proxy Battles

PostAuthor: Anthea » Wed Feb 21, 2018 12:47 am

Syrian Bombardment Takes Its Deadliest Toll in Years
Anne Barnard and Carlotta Gall

The Syrian government, seizing on a chance to reclaim territory lost in its ever-escalating civil war, has loosed a devastating bombardment on a rebel-held Damascus suburb, killing more than 150 people, many of them children, aid workers said Tuesday.

92% of those killed in an armed conflict are innocent civilians

Syrian officials vowed to show no quarter as they moved to wipe out rebels in the suburb of eastern Ghouta, with the assault this week ranking as the deadliest there in years.

“I promise, I will teach them a lesson, in combat and in fire,” Brig. Gen. Suheil al-Hassan, leader of the government’s Tiger Force, said in a video shared by pro-government social media accounts. “You won’t find a rescuer. And if you do, you will be rescued with water like boiling oil. You’ll be rescued with blood.”

Residents and emergency medical workers in eastern Ghouta posted a cascade of heart-rending images: a family with five children pulled dead from the rubble; families huddled in basements and dugout shelters; an ambulance crew loading a patient, then fleeing moments before an explosion hits.

“We might die any moment,” Tareq al-Dimashqi, who lives in the area with his wife and 5-month-old baby, said in an interview. “You don’t know where the rockets might come from and end our lives.”

The government, backed by its Russian and Iranian allies, is making clear its determination to reduce its losses. Even as it bombarded the Ghouta area, pro-government militias in the north of the country advanced toward the Kurdish enclave Afrin.

Those forces were trying to join Kurdish militias defending Afrin from Turkish troops who crossed the border and were advancing from the north. They retreated after Turkish jets and artillery bombarded them, the Turkish government said.

The government’s move to support the Kurds threatened to unravel months of diplomatic efforts by Russia, Turkey and Iran to de-escalate the conflict. It also signaled a new phase of the war with a greater potential for military engagements between other countries with a stake in the outcome, among them Turkey, Iran and the United States.

In the Ghouta area, Monday was the deadliest day in three years, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group.

Eastern Ghouta, a cluster of concrete-block towns and farmland with an estimated population of nearly 400,000, is one of the last major areas held by insurgents fighting the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Rebels based there periodically shell government-held neighborhoods of Damascus.

As the government airstrikes have stepped up, so has the rebel shelling. On Tuesday, another 12 people were killed and dozens were wounded.

Five medical facilities in rebel-held eastern Ghouta were damaged in government attacks overnight, and several medical workers were killed, according to doctors working at hospitals supported by the Syrian American Medical Society.

“Such targeting of innocent civilians and infrastructure must stop now,” Panos Moumtzis, the United Nations regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria crisis, said in a statement.

The Syrian government and Russia have escalated an aerial campaign to subdue the rebel-held area, which has been besieged for years. And pro-government forces were gathering nearby for a possible ground assault. General Hassan’s video showed military vehicles said to be massing nearby.

Residents described the events as more like an all-out attack on civilians and infrastructure to force a surrender, a tactic used in previous battles across Syria. The government claims that there are few civilians in eastern Ghouta and that those who remain are being held as human shields.

“We are still alive, we can’t walk outside the house, even a few meters,” Mr. Dimashqi said.
Weeks of bombardment have left buildings destroyed in the rebel-held town of Hamouria, a suburb of Damascus.

Referring to his daughter, whom he calls Loulou, after the 1950s actress Gina Lollobrigida, he said, “I have only this baby, and we can’t find food for her.”

“We have no other choice except resisting until the last moment,” he said. “Death and life became equal to me.”

Many in eastern Ghouta have been hiding in shelters. Shadi Jad, the father of a three-week-old, said the infant had not seen the sun or breathed fresh air in 48 hours.

“We have a small window in our shelter,” he said. “I bring him close to the window just for seconds, to get some warmth from the sunlight.”

Wassim Khatib, a resident reached by video chat, said that recent negotiations for hard-line insurgents to leave the area had failed.

“Civilians were never allowed to leave,” he said, looking pale and exhausted. “If the regime wanted the civilians to be evacuated, they could have announced that or at least dropped leaflets.”

Until last year, tunnels provided a way for goods and people to enter and leave the besieged suburb, but smuggling fees were always high. Movement has become nearly impossible since government forces took over surrounding territory. Roads were opened briefly, but only government employees were allowed to go back and forth, residents said.

The government-run news agency Sana said that reports of an escalation in eastern Ghouta were “lies, deception, and fabrications” used by “terrorist organizations and their sponsors within capital cities conspiring against Syrians.”

Mr. Moumtzis of the United Nations called on all parties to “strictly adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law to take all feasible measures to protect civilians from harm, including the prohibition on launching of indiscriminate attacks and principles of proportionality and precautions.”

“The humanitarian situation of civilians in East Ghouta is spiraling out of control,” he said. “It’s imperative to end this senseless human suffering now.”

No Syrian government forces were involved in the assault on Afrin, but the attack drew a sharp rebuke from Turkey, which fired an artillery barrage at the advancing militia forces. The militias appeared to have halted their advance in the face of Turkish bombardment.

People’s militias, a mixture of pro-government tribal volunteers from eastern Syria and Shiite groups from northern Syria supported by Iran were shown on Syrian state television crossing the administrative border of Afrin. Dozens of vehicles passed, loaded with fighters making victory signs and flying government flags.

One pro-government supporter filmed what he said were Turkish spotter planes in the air and black plumes of smoke rising in the distance from artillery bombardment.

The advance by pro-government forces into Afrin came after a Kurdish official announced an agreement had been made for the Syrian government to support the Kurdish militias in Afrin against advancing Turkish forces.

Yet Turkey seemed to have been surprised by the agreement and the swift advance of the pro-government militias, and fired artillery strikes to stop their advance on Tuesday.

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the government advance on Afrin was halted after he spoke with President Vladimir Putin of Russia by telephone Monday. He also spoke with Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani.

Mr. Erdogan announced that the military operations against Afrin would continue, partly so that hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees in Turkey could return home.

“We haven’t gone there to burn down what comes in front of us,” Mr. Erdogan said in a speech to his party’s lawmakers at the Parliament. “We entered there to make it a safe, livable place for those hundreds thousands of people who still live in our country.”

“In the following days, the siege of Afrin will take place more swiftly,” he added.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/20/worl ... houta.html
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Re: Syrian Bombardment Takes Its Deadliest Toll in Years

PostAuthor: Anthea » Wed Feb 21, 2018 11:07 am

Question:

Why is there so much fuse about Assad bombing part of his own country in order to rid the place of armed rebels

Nobody complained about the US and the coalition bombing Mosul and Fallujah

In fact between Mosul and Fallujah countless THOUSANDS of innocent civilians were slaughtered - perhaps even Yazidi sex slaves - but the entire world (apart from me) seemed to be in favour of the slaughter X(

Nobody prevented groups such as ISIS from growing strong

Nobody prevented ISIS from spreading into Syria

Nobody has prevented other such rebel jihadist groups from forming and expanding

Nobody has prevented weapons from reaching these rebel groups

Nobody prevented ISIS from moving into Kobane - and nobody has ever explained why everyone sat back and allowed it to happen

Radical Muslim extremist groups are causing havoc in a great many countries - there has to be a world-wide consorted effort to put a stop to this
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Re: Syria: the mess - the groups fighting - the innocent dyi

PostAuthor: Anthea » Wed Feb 21, 2018 9:19 pm

UN plea to end 'hell on earth' Eastern Ghouta crisis

The UN Secretary General has demanded an immediate end to fighting in the Eastern Ghouta in Syria, describing the rebel enclave as a "hell on earth".

"I believe Eastern Ghouta cannot wait," Antonio Guterres told the UN Security Council on Wednesday.

The Eastern Ghouta has been under fierce bombardment from government forces backed by Russian airpower in recent days.

The region is the last major rebel-held area outside the capital Damascus.

The Syrian military says it is trying to liberate the area from what it terms terrorists - but it has also been accused of targeting civilians.

"This is a human tragedy that is unfolding in front of our eyes and I don't think we can let things go on happening in this horrendous way," Mr Guterres said.

He said an end to the fighting would allow the evacuation of hundreds of people who require urgent treatment as well as allowing humanitarian aid to reach the region.
Map showing control of the Eastern Ghouta (19 February 2017)

UN human rights commissioner Zeid Raad Al Hussein has joined calls for an end to the conflict in the region.

"How much cruelty will it take before the international community...take resolute, concerted action to bring this monstrous campaign of annihilation to an end?" he said in a statement.

Russia has meanwhile called for an urgent Security Council meeting on Thursday to discuss the violence in the Eastern Ghouta.

How bad is the situation in the Eastern Ghouta?

Pro-government forces, backed by Russia, intensified their efforts to retake the last major rebel stronghold on Sunday night.

A doctor working in the region says the situation is "catastrophic" - and he believes the international community has abandoned the people living there.

"They targeted everything: shops, markets, hospitals, schools, mosques, everything," Dr Bassam told the BBC on Wednesday.

"Maybe every minute we have 10 or 20 air strikes...I will treat someone - and after a day or two they come again, injured again."

"Where is the international community, where is (the UN) Security Council... they abandoned us. They leave us to be killed," he said.

What is the death toll?

The UN says at least 346 civilians have been killed and 878 have been injured, mostly in airstrikes.

But they say precise figures are still difficult to establish.

"These figures are far from comprehensive, representing only those cases the UN Human Rights Office has managed to document in the midst of the chaos and destruction in Eastern Ghouta," a statement said.

Activist groups have offered various estimates on the number of casualties.

The head of safety and security for the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM), which operates medical facilities in the Eastern Ghouta, told the BBC that 45 people had been killed and another 250 injured on Wednesday alone.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the total death toll since Sunday at 296.

It said that barrel bombs - containers filled with explosives and shrapnel - were used in government strikes on the towns of Jisreen and Kfar Batna on Wednesday.

It follows the bombardment on Tuesday of at least 10 towns and villages across the Eastern Ghouta.

Is humanitarian aid getting in?

No. The government has allowed one humanitarian convoy into the Eastern Ghouta since late November, and there are severe shortages of food.

A bundle of bread now costs close to 22 times the national average and 12% of children under five years old are said to be acutely malnourished.

On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) joined the UN in calling for emergency humanitarian access to allow much needed aid to be delivered and the wounded to be evacuated.

"Wounded victims are dying only because they cannot be treated in time. In some areas of Ghouta, entire families have no safe place to go," the ICRC's Marianne Gasser said in a statement.

What about the fighting elsewhere in Syria?

Meanwhile, pro-government fighters have been sent to the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria to confront an offensive by Turkish troops and Syrian rebels.

Turkey fired shells near the advancing columns, which, it says, forced the pro-government fighters into retreat.

Afrin lies just south of the Turkish border. Turkey is trying to oust the Kurdish YPG militia, which controls the area and which has called on the Syrian military for help.

Syria has denounced the Turkish offensive as a "blatant attack" on its sovereignty, while Turkey has insisted it will not back down.

Syrian government forces are also carrying out offensives on the rebel-held north-western province of Idlib. The UN says more than 300,000 people have been displaced by the fighting there since December.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43146042
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Re: Syria: the mess - the groups fighting - the innocent dyi

PostAuthor: Anthea » Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:34 pm

As Syria bloodshed continues, U.N. delays vote on emergency cease-fire
By Louisa Loveluck and Carol Morello

The town of Hamouria, in the besieged Eastern Ghouta region on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, has been devastated by the government’s bombing campaign. (Abdulmonam Eassa/AFP/Getty Images)

A United Nations Security Council vote to halt the Syrian army’s furious blitz on a rebel-held Damascus suburb was delayed Thursday as Russia described civilian testimonies from the battered enclave as “mass psychosis.”

More than 350 people have been killed in Eastern Ghouta since Sunday, according to local doctors and monitoring groups, marking one of the bloodiest periods of Syria’s six-year war.

The vote at the Security Council would have imposed a 30-day pause in the fighting and allowed humanitarian supplies to be delivered to an area exhausted by five years of siege.

As a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, Russia has used its veto power at the U.N. Security Council nine times to block resolutions critical of the Syrian government, but other members hoped Thursday that it would ultimately abstain in the face of the heavy civilian casualties.

As the bombing continued in Eastern Ghouta, doctors in the sprawling rebel-held district described a health-care system pushed to breaking point, with medical staff forced to prioritize resources and leave grievously wounded patients to die.

Russia's U.N. ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, called the cease-fire resolution introduced by Sweden and Kuwait unrealistic, describing reports from the area as “mass psychosis”. He said he would circulate Russia's proposed amendments.

But Mark Lowcock, the U.N. official for humanitarian affairs, laid out a scene of death and desperation in a Security Council briefing that at times became a raw plea for intervention.

"Your obligations under humanitarian law are just that, binding obligations," he said via videoconference from Geneva. "They are not favors to be traded in a game of death and destruction. Humanitarian access is not a nice-to-have. It is a legal requirement."

The five-day blitz by forces loyal to the Syrian government has sent more than a thousand casualties spilling into a hospital network that has been bombed to near destruction. The Syrian-American Medical Society, a non-profit organization that supports hospitals in the area, said that at least 23 of its facilities had been bombed since Sunday.

“Our lives have become impossible. We have seen patients with their brains spilling out and been forced to choose to save other lives because that is all we can do now,” said Hamza Hasan, a doctor supported by the organization.

Kellie Currie, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the U.N., accused Russia of “appearing to be intent on blocking any meaningful effort” to halt the bombing and save lives. "The Assad regime wants to bomb or starve all of their opponents into submission," she told the council."

Ahead of Thursday’s emergency session at the Security Council, the Tass news agency reported that Moscow’s delegation would not consider any resolution that included extremist groups in the cease-fire.

“We are ready to study the resolution that we were proposed to adopt, but we offered a very strict wording that would say that the cease-fire regime does not cover ISIS, Jabhat al-Nusra and the groups that support them and regularly shell the residential neighborhoods of Damascus,” Lavrov said.

ISIS is an acronym for the Islamic State, and Jabhat al-Nusra is the former name for Syria’s al-Qaeda affiliate.

Publicly, the Syrian government draws no distinction between jihadist rebels and more moderate factions, describing what remains of the country’s armed opposition as terrorists.

The rebels controlling Eastern Ghouta, a small number linked to al-Qaeda, have ruled with an iron fist, and fighters on both the government and opposition sides have profited from a punishing siege that has caused scores of civilians to die from lack of food or medicine.

Robert Mardini, the top representative for the International Committee of the Red Cross in the Middle East, said Thursday that he was “shocked” by the level of violence around Eastern Ghouta and called for immediate access to its civilians.

He told reporters in Beirut that the international aid agency has a humanitarian convoy at the ready but that the Syrian authorities have yet to approve its passage.

“Scores were killed over the past days, statistics are staggering, but many can still be saved,” Mardini said. “Children, women and men are exhausted and terrified in Eastern Ghouta. They are on their knees, weakened because of months of being besieged.”

As the violence intensifies, Eastern Ghouta’s rebels have launched daily attacks on densely populated neighborhoods in Damascus, killing 16 people since Sunday and forcing schools to close.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/mi ... 4b4474f701
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Re: Eastern Ghouta’s rebels increase attacks on civilians

PostAuthor: Anthea » Sun Feb 25, 2018 2:35 am

U.N. Security Council Passes Syria Cease-Fire After Hundreds Killed In Bombing
Laurel Wamsley

The United Nations Security Council has approved a resolution calling for a 30-day cease-fire in Syria, following one of the bloodiest weeks of aerial bombardment in the war that has devastated the country.

In the eastern suburbs of Damascus, a region called Eastern Ghouta, nearly 500 people have been killed in a deadly escalation by the Syrian government that began Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told The Associated Press. More than 120 of the dead are children, the group says.

The Security Council resolution aims to get humanitarian aid to Eastern Ghouta and other areas under siege. The resolution was delayed several times in an effort to get Russia's approval.

"Airstrikes, artillery shells and barrels filled with TNT are being dropped on neighborhoods that are heavily populated by civilians who have no way to escape," NPR's Lama Al-Arian reports. "They're being forced into bunkers, and many of them can't even find the time to bury their dead."

Syria's Civil Defense, a volunteer rescue group known as the White Helmets, told Reuters that it counted at least 350 deaths in a four-day span earlier in the week.

"Maybe there are many more," Siraj Mahmoud, a civil defense spokesman, told the news service. "We weren't able to count the martyrs yesterday or the day before because the warplanes are touring the skies."

Rescuers hurry to pull people from rubble, a difficult task amid the unrelenting barrage.

"But if we have to go out running on our legs and dig with our hands to rescue the people, we will still be here," Mahmoud told Reuters.

United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres called for an immediate end to hostilities in the region so the sick and wounded can be evacuated.

U.N. Security Council To Try Again For Syria Cease-Fire Resolution

"I am deeply saddened by the terrible suffering of the civilian population in Eastern Ghouta — 400,000 people that live in hell on earth," he said to the U.N. Security Council on Wednesday. "I don't think we can let things go on happening in this horrendous way. "

How come NOBODY cared for the THOUSANDS of innocent people who were slaughtered in MOSUL

Syrian state media said rebel factions had fired shells at the Old City of Damascus on Saturday, Reuters reported.

The Security Council's resolution, which passed 15-0, demands "all parties cease hostilities" for at least 30 days throughout Syria to allow the safe delivery of humanitarian aid and evacuations of the critically sick and wounded.

The resolution, sponsored by Kuwait and Sweden, calls for all parties to immediately lift sieges of populated areas, including Eastern Ghouta. The cease-fire does not apply to military operations against ISIS, al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

A vote on the resolution was delayed Friday as its sponsors worked to get a version Russia would approve. As NPR previously reported, most members of the Security Council had wanted to require the cease-fire to go into effect within 72 hours, but Russia had pushed for a looser timeline.

The approved resolution simply says that hostilities must cease "without delay."

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley criticized Russia for the wait, saying it had cost lives, The Associated Press reports.
Why Civilians Are Being Targeted In Syria Airstrikes

The break in fighting will come at a crucial time for Ghouta's civilians.

"There is no electricity, no water, no flour, no bread and no baby formula," paramedic Siraj Mahmoud told the AP. "There is nothing inside Ghouta."

A group of doctors and medical activists, from institutions including Harvard and Johns Hopkins, published an appeal on Friday to end the suffering in Ghouta. They urged citizens and health professionals to pressure government officials to act and for the U.N. Secretariat to use more effective tactics.

"Inaction in the face of unrelenting attacks on civilians represents an epic failure of world leaders," they write in The Lancet. "The UN Security Council has utterly failed the people of Syria. The UN Secretariat seems to operate without an effective strategy for political negotiations or aid delivery. These compounded failures are increasing frustrations with the UN as a legitimate interlocutor on human rights violations everywhere, and translate into deaths and suffering. We cannot allow this situation to continue."

https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way ... s-hundreds
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Re: Syria Cease-Fire After Hundreds Killed In Bombings

PostAuthor: Anthea » Tue Feb 27, 2018 3:09 pm

Media captionAid worker Danielle Spencer:
"They were withholding the aid... then using these women for sex"

Women in Syria have been sexually exploited by men delivering aid on behalf of the UN and international charities, the BBC has learned.

Aid workers said the men would trade food and lifts for sexual favours.

Despite warnings about the abuse three years ago, a new report shows it is continuing in the south of the country.

UN agencies and charities said they had zero tolerance of exploitation and were not aware of any cases of abuse by partner organisations in the region.

Aid workers told the BBC that the exploitation is so widespread that some Syrian women are refusing to go to distribution centres because people would assume they had offered their bodies for the aid they brought home.

One worker claimed that some humanitarian agencies were turning a blind eye to the exploitation because using third parties and local officials was the only way of getting aid into dangerous parts of Syria that international staff could not access.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) conducted an assessment of gender based violence in the region last year and concluded that humanitarian assistance was being exchanged for sex in various governorates in Syria.

The report, entitled "Voices from Syria 2018", said: "Examples were given of women or girls marrying officials for a short period of time for 'sexual services' in order to receive meals; distributors asking for telephone numbers of women and girls; giving them lifts to their houses 'to take something in return' or obtaining distributions 'in exchange for a visit to her home' or 'in exchange for services, such as spending a night with them'."

It added: "Women and girls 'without male protectors', such as widows and divorcees as well as female IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons), were regarded as particularly vulnerable to sexual exploitation."

Yet this exploitation was first reported three years ago. Danielle Spencer, a humanitarian adviser working for a charity, heard about the allegations from a group of Syrian women in a refugee camp in Jordan in March 2015.

She conducted a focus group with some of these women who told her how men from local councils in areas such as Dara'a and Quneitra had offered them aid for sex.

"Some had experienced it themselves, some were very distraught.

"I remember one woman crying in the room and she was very upset about what she had experienced. Women and girls need to be protected when they are trying to receive food and soap and basic items to live. The last thing you need is a man who you're supposed to trust and supposed to be receiving aid from, then asking you to have sex with him and withholding aid from you."

She continued: "It was so endemic that they couldn't actually go without being stigmatised. It was assumed that if you go to these distributions, that you will have performed some kind of sexual act in return for aid."

A few months later, in June 2015, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) surveyed 190 women and girls in Dara'a and Quneitra. Its report suggested about 40% had said sexual violence took place when they were accessing services, including humanitarian aid.

An IRC spokesman said: "The assessment concluded that sexual violence was a widespread concern, including when seeking access to various types of services across southern Syria. These services included the distribution of humanitarian aid."

The reports - both of which have been seen by the BBC - were presented at a meeting of UN agencies and international charities hosted by the UNPFA in the Jordanian capital, Amman, on 15 July 2015.

As a result of this meeting, some aid agencies tightened up their procedures.

The IRC said: "Within our own operations, we launched new programmes and systems to better protect women and girls in southern Syria. Those programmes continue to be funded by a range of donors, including DfID (the UK's Department for International Development)."
Abuse 'ignored for years'

The charity Care expanded its monitoring team in Syria, set up a complaints mechanism and no longer hands over aid to local councils.

It also asked various UN agencies, including the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), to investigate further and set up new reporting mechanisms. But Care was refused permission to carry out studies in Jordanian refugee camps.

Ms Spencer claims the aid sector turned a blind eye to ensure that aid still got into southern Syria.

"Sexual exploitation and abuse of women and girls has been ignored, it's been known about and ignored for seven years," she said.

"The UN and the system as it currently stands have chosen for women's bodies to be sacrificed.

"Somewhere there has been a decision made that it is OK for women's bodies to continue to be used, abused, violated in order for aid to be delivered for a larger group of people."

Another source who attended the July 2015 meeting on behalf of one of the UN agencies told the BBC: "There were credible reports of sexual exploitation and abuse going on during the cross-border aid delivery and the UN didn't make any serious moves to address it or end it."

A spokesman for UNFPA said it had heard of possible cases of exploitation and abuse of Syrian women in southern Syria from Care. It said it had not received any allegations of abuse or exploitation from the two NGOs it works with in southern Syria. The spokesman also made clear that UNFPA does not work with local councils as implementing partners.

A spokesman for the children's charity Unicef confirmed it was present at the July 2015 meeting. The charity said it carried out a review of its local partners and contractors in southern Syria and is not aware of any allegations against them at this point. But it accepted that sexual exploitation was a serious risk in Syria and said it was introducing a community-based complaints mechanism and more training for its partners.

A DfID spokesman said it was not aware of any cases like this involving UK aid.

"There are mechanisms already in place to raise issues of abuse and exploitation," the department said. "DfID partners in Syria use third party monitors to verify UK aid distributed in Syria."

Zero tolerance

The spokesman added that any systematic abuse should be picked up by those monitors and reported to DfID.

An Oxfam spokeswoman said it had not been working with local councils delivering aid in the south of Syria in the run up to 2015 and was not doing so today.

"Our work inside Syria has been largely focused on providing large-scale hardware for supplying water to Syrian communities rather than targeting aid at individuals or specific households," she said.

"We did not receive reports about sexual exploitation around aid delivery in 2015, but have a zero tolerance policy on such abuse."

A spokesman for the UNHCR, Andrej Mahecic, said it was "important to understand that in any aid emergency there is a risk of sexual abuse and sexual exploitation, and to abuse somebody who is in need of assistance is despicable".

He added that while the allegations relating to 2015 were "incomplete, fragmented and unsubstantiated" the UN nevertheless had taken some action when they first surfaced.

He said the UN refugee agency had no access to the area of southern Syria where the abuse was alleged to have taken place, but that the agency did seek to bring local partners to Jordan for training.

He continued: "The mere suggestion that the UN can somehow control the situation in a war zone is rather simplistic and disconnected from the reality of what an aid operation looks like in an open and fierce conflict."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-43206297
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