Category Archives: Syria

At least 544 civilians killed in Russian-led assault in Syria, rights groups say

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Syrian Network for Human Rights says two-month offensive has left 130 children dead

At least 544 civilians have been killed and over 2,000 people injured since a Russian-led assault on the last rebel bastion in north-western Syria began two months ago, according to rights groups and rescuers.

Russian jets joined the Syrian army on 26 April in the biggest offensive against parts of rebel-held Idlib province and adjoining northern Hama provinces in the biggest escalation in the war between the Syrian president, Bashar al Assad, and his enemies since last summer.

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Iran fury as Royal Marines seize tanker suspected of carrying oil to Syria

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Iran summons UK ambassador over incident off Gibraltar as tensions escalate over nuclear deal

Royal Marines have helped seize an Iranian supertanker suspected of carrying oil to Syria off the coast of Gibraltar, escalating tensions between the UK and Tehran as the agreement aimed at halting Iran’s nuclear programme unravels.

A detachment of nearly 30 British troops working with the Gibraltarian police intercepted the vessel, believed to be carrying 2m barrels of oil, in a dramatic manoeuvre Spain said had been conducted at the request of the US.

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Syria accuses Israel of ‘heinous aggression’ after airstrikes

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Syria accuses Israel of ‘practising state terrorism’ after strikes reported to have killed at least 15 people

Syria has accused Israel of “heinous aggression” after alleged Israeli airstrikes killed several civilians.

“Israeli authorities are increasingly practising state terrorism,” the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the official Sana news agency on Tuesday. “The latest heinous Israeli aggression falls within the framework of ongoing Israeli attempts to prolong the crisis in Syria,” it added.

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Stray missile from Syria-Israel clash lands in Cyprus – video

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A stray missile has exploded in mid-air over villages in northern Cyprus, thought to have been fired by Syrian forces in response to an Israeli attack. Hours after the projectile struck the area at about 1am local time (11pm BST) debris was still being discovered in Turkish Cypriot villages

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Syrian refugees forced to destroy their own homes in Lebanon

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Demolition ordered by military leaves 5,000 families homeless again, says charity

Syrian refugees in Lebanon are being forced to tear down their own homes in the face of an aggressive new campaign by the Lebanese authorities to pressure refugees into returning home.

In the border town of Arsal, informal settlements that house 55,000 refugees were the scene of frantic activity under the hot summer sun on Friday as young men took apart the breeze-block homes with pickaxes, hammers and drills, covering the ground in rubble and dust.

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Faces of war: Kurdistan’s armed struggle against Islamic State

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Since March 2015, the photographer and author Joey Lawrence has had unprecedented access to Kurdish guerrilla organisations fighting Isis, embedding himself into the Iraq and Syrian civil war. His powerful portraits of the fighters give a different perspective to the conflict

We came from fire, and we will return to fire

The war against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria has flooded our daily news with troubling statistics of massacres and mass migrations, yet there are faces and human stories at the heart of the conflict. Joey L wrote: “From Iraq, one crosses the Tigris River into war-torn Syria, and is catapulted into a worldview crafted by the guerrilla.”

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How a small Turkish city successfully absorbed half a million migrants

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Gaziantep has grown by 30% due to newcomers fleeing the crisis across the border in Syria, but remains a model of tolerance and pragmatism

Imagine you live in a medium-sized city such as Birmingham or Milan. Now imagine that overnight the population increases by about 30%. The new people are mostly destitute, hungry and with nowhere to stay. They don’t even speak the language.

Then imagine that instead of driving them away, you make them welcome and accommodate them as best you can.

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Thousands of Syrian refugees could be sent back, says Lebanese minister

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Gebran Bassil claims many refugees are not living in political fear, but stay for economic reasons

As many as three quarters of Syrian refugees in Lebanon could return to Syria because they face no fear of political persecution or threat to their security, Lebanon’s controversial foreign minister has said.

Gebran Bassil also urged the UK to rethink how it was spending aid money on keeping 1.5 million refugees in Lebanon, where he said they were taking the jobs from the Lebanese, and undercutting wages.

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Assad demolishes refugee homes to tighten grip on rebel strongholds

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As the civil war wanes, the government is blowing up properties in areas it claims were opposition heartlands

Amjad Farekh’s shops had survived Syria’s long civil war, but not the new, unsteady peace that has settled in some parts of the country.

The government recently blew up several properties in the industrial zone of Qaboun, a former opposition stronghold just outside the capital, the exiled businessman said.

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Britain should take back children of Isis fighters, says Mordaunt

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Defence secretary says UK has ‘an obligation to innocents’ as Syrian civil war subsides

Britain has an obligation to take back “innocent” children born to Islamic State fighters in Syria, the defence secretary has said, arguing that the UK needs to resolve its failure to repatriate minors caught up in the Syrian civil war.

Penny Mordaunt said she wanted to “build up a very clear picture” of where children have been taken into camps as Syria’s violent conflict has subsided and be prepared to allow them to come to the UK.

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Ten killed in Israeli airstrikes in Syria in reply to rocket attack

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Israel launches airstrikes in response to rocket fire targeting Golan Heights

Israel has carried out airstrikes in Syria in response to rare rocket fire from the neighbouring country. A war monitor reported that 10 people were killed, including Syrian soldiers and foreign fighters.

Israel’s army said two rockets were fired from Syria at Mount Hermon, in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, late on Saturday and one was “located within Israeli territory”.

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Isis wife reveals role in helping CIA hunt for Baghdadi

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Umm Sayyaf, sentenced to death in Iraq, tells how she exposed fugitive’s secrets

The most senior female Islamic State captive has played a central role in the hunt for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, helping identify safe houses used by the fugitive terrorist leader and in one case pinpointing his location in Mosul, the Guardian can reveal.

The Isis woman, Nisrine Assad Ibrahim, better known by her nom de guerre, Umm Sayyaf, has helped the CIA and Kurdish intelligence officers build a detailed portrait of Baghdadi’s movements, hideouts and networks, investigators have disclosed. The claims have been confirmed by Umm Sayyaf in her first interview since being captured in a Delta Force raid in Syria four years ago that killed her husband, the then Isis oil minister.

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Idlib casualties mount as assault leaves aid efforts in the balance

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Increased airstrikes and shelling by Syrian regime claim lives of an estimated 40 civilians in 48 hours

The recent escalation in the Syrian regime bombardment of Idlib has killed at least 10 more civilians.

The deaths were reported on Wednesday, 24 hours after a senior UN official had warned the security council that aid efforts in the enclave were in danger of being “overwhelmed”.

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France opposes death penalty for French Isis fighters in Iraq

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Foreign ministry says it is opposed to the death penalty ‘at all times and in all places’

France has confirmed it will take “the necessary steps” to try to prevent Iraq carrying out the death penalty against French citizens convicted of fighting with Islamic State.

“France is opposed in principle to the death penalty at all times and in all places,” the French foreign ministry said on Monday, as an Iraqi court sentenced a fourth French citizen to death, a day after handing capital punishment sentences to three others.

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Iraq sentences three French citizens to death for joining Isis

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Human rights groups have criticised the country’s trials of fighters captured in Syria

An Iraqi court has sentenced three French citizens to death after they were found guilty of joining Islamic State, a court official said.

Captured in Syria by a US-backed force fighting the jihadists, they are the first French Isis members to receive death sentences in Iraq, where they were transferred for trial.

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Sajid Javid condemned for ‘criminalising’ fighters against Isis

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Families of those killed say the home secretary must distinguish between jihadists and others fighting with Kurdish forces

More than 40 international volunteers – a third of them British – who fought in Syria against the Islamic State terror group have written to the home secretary, Sajid Javid, to condemn his plans to prosecute UK citizens who remain in the country.

Four British families whose sons or daughters were killed fighting Isis have also signed the letter, raising concerns that Javid is “criminalising” those who risked their lives supporting the US-led coalition which two months ago defeated the IS caliphate.

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US repatriates family from Syrian detention camp for Isis suspects

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Exclusive: removal of four people could put pressure on other countries to follow suit

A US family have been removed from a Syrian detention centre for suspected members of Islamic State and returned to the US. The move could have implications for hundreds of children born to non-Syrians who have been in legal limbo since the disintegration of the terror group.

The family of four were taken from al-Roj camp in the country’s north-east over the weekend, sources inside the camp have confirmed to the Guardian. They are believed to be US citizens of Cambodian ancestry and to include children born under Isis rule.

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Sajid Javid announces overhaul of espionage and treason laws

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New bill needed to tackle hostile activity by Russia and others, says home secretary

Hostile state actors – spies, assassins or hackers directed by the government of another country – are to be targeted by refreshed espionage and treason laws, the home secretary has announced.

In a speech to security officials in central London, Sajid Javid revealed plans to publish a new espionage bill to tackle increased hostile state activity from countries including but not limited to Russia.

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These elections could define Europe. It must urgently rediscover its founding spirit | Natalie Nougayrède

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Facing challenges from Russia, China and the US, the continent can no longer neglect its core values of peace and human rights

Sometimes, when it comes to Europe, things are clearer from afar. Take Viktor Orbán’s encounter with Donald Trump last week: a love-fest perfectly timed to signal that this US president is out to disembowel the European Union, if not break it entirely. Ahead of the European elections, here was Hungary’s self-proclaimed “illiberal” prime minister – a man teaming up with Italy’s far-right strongman Matteo Salvini – receiving his long-awaited anointment from a white-nationalist US president who has called the EU a “foe”.

Meanwhile, in Syria, barrel bombs and Russian military ordnance continued to rain down on Idlib’s hospitals and schools, as the noose tightened on 3 million civilians trapped in the last rebel-held area that the president, Bashar al-Assad, wants to reconquer. Historians will perhaps one day tell us whether Vladimir Putin timed that particular offensive to coincide with other items on his EU-destroying agenda, already well on display with disinformation campaigns aimed at helping extremist political forces across the continent.

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