Category Archives: Syria

Suspected IS fighters kill 26 desert truffle hunters in Syria

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Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says latest attack brings the number of foragers killed since February to 200

Suspected Islamic State fighters killed at least 26 people in Syria on Sunday, a war monitor said, the latest in a spate of attacks targeting people foraging for desert truffles.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “civilians and at least 10 pro-regime fighters” were among “the 26 people killed in an attack by Islamic State fighters while they were collecting truffles in the desert east of Hama”.

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Holiday rites without clashes in Jerusalem but region braces for further violence

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Al-Aqsa mosque compound tensions have triggered cross-border fighting in Gaza and drawn in Lebanon and Syria

Simultaneous Muslim and Jewish holiday rites at Jerusalem’s flashpoint Temple Mount or al-Aqsa mosque compound have passed without major clashes after rare cross-border airstrikes and rocket fire between Israel and Syria overnight, and fears of wider conflict in the Middle East after escalations on multiple fronts.

About 15,000 Jewish worshippers gathered at the Western Wall in occupied East Jerusalem, the holiest site at which Jews can pray, on Sunday morning for a benediction prayer marking Passover. At the same time, thousands of Palestinians performed dawn and midday Muslim prayers at al-Aqsa, an esplanade on the other side of the wall, as part of observances during the holy month of Ramadan. Christian pilgrims also flooded the Old City to mark Easter Sunday, in a rare convergence of celebrations in the three different faiths.

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Israel launches strikes on Syria after rocket fire as violence flares

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Attacks come amid sharply increased Israel-Palestinian tensions following Israeli raids this week on al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem

Israeli jets hit Syrian military targets in response to rockets launched towards Israeli-controlled territory overnight, Israel’s military said, as violence flared again after cross-border exchanges of fire during the week.

State media in Syria reported explosions in the vicinity of the capital Damascus as Israel said its forces continued to hit Syrian territory after six rockets were fired overnight towards the Golan Heights.

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Australia must rescue citizens from ‘dire’ Syrian detention camps, Red Cross says

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Global director general says ‘state of in-limbo cannot last longer’, with about 40 citizens still believed to be detained indefinitely

Australia and other countries must continue to rescue their citizens from “dire” conditions in camps in north-eastern Syria, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has said.

The global director general of the Geneva-based humanitarian organisation, Robert Mardini, said the “state of in-limbo cannot last longer”.

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US says strike in Syria has killed senior Islamic State leader

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Khalid Aydd Ahmad al-Jabouri said to have been responsible for planning IS attacks in Europe

The US military has said it carried out a strike in Syria, killing a senior Islamic State group official responsible for planning attacks in Europe.

The strike in the north-west of the country on Monday killed the senior IS leader Khalid Aydd Ahmad al-Jabouri, US Central Command said.

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Only official civilian victim of UK’s bombing campaign against IS appears not to exist

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Contradictions over missions in Syria and Iraq deepens concern over Britain’s ‘perfect’ precision war

It sounded like accountability. Pressed about the UK’s implausibly spotless record in its bombing campaign against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the British government admitted in May 2018 that its military had killed one civilian in eastern Syria two months earlier.

But the strike the then defence secretary, Gavin Williamson, described to parliament was not logged in the records of civilian casualties kept by its allies in the international coalition flying bombers and drones over Syria and Iraq.

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Syrian refugee celebrates ‘sensational’ win in German mayoral race

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Ryyan Alshebl, 29, won an absolute majority in Sunday’s mayoral election in Ostelsheim

A Syrian who arrived in Germany as a refugee in 2015 has been elected as the mayor of a village in the south-west of the country.

Ryyan Alshebl, 29, who is a member of the German Greens but stood as a non-party candidate, won an absolute majority in Sunday’s mayoral election in Ostelsheim, a small municipality of about 2,500 inhabitants in the state of Baden-Württemberg.

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Israeli airstrikes wound five Syrian soldiers, state media say

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Attack near western city of Homs early on Sunday was Israel’s third in recent days

Five Syrian soldiers were wounded in the latest Israeli airstrike on Syria, the state news agency Sana reported on Sunday, while Iran said two Revolutionary Guards officers had died in earlier attacks.

Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian territory during more than a decade of civil war, primarily targeting Iranian-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.

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Recycling rubble can help rebuild Syria faster, scientists show

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Tests show recycled concrete could safely be used in new buildings in war- and quake-stricken country

Concrete rubble from destroyed buildings in Syria can be safely recycled into new concrete, scientists have shown, which will make the rebuilding of the war-hit country faster, cheaper and greener.

Syria, which was also hit by a huge earthquake in February, has a vast amount of concrete rubble, estimated at 40m tonnes. The key barrier to recycling this waste is ensuring that the new concrete is as strong and safe as conventional concrete.

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US urged to hold Assad to account as power shifts in Middle East

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Officials call on Biden to take steps to stop Arab states from normalising relations with Syrian leader

Moves to re-engage Bashar al-Assad without him taking steps to stabilise Syria or commit to reforms should be met by more robust US leadership that holds the Syrian leader to account and addresses a litany of US policy failings, a group of prominent former officials say.

In an unprecedented letter to Joe Biden and the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, the officials called for moves to stop a regional drift towards normalisation with Assad and impose a formalised ceasefire that facilitates a more impactful aid effort and helps ignite a political process.

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Syria: 19 killed in retaliatory US strikes on Iran-linked groups

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Washington insists it is not seeking conflict with Tehran after responding to drone attack on coalition base

The death toll from retaliatory US strikes on Iran-linked groups in Syria after a deadly drone attack has risen to 19, a war monitor said, as Washington insisted that it was not seeking conflict with Tehran.

Further rocket attacks by Iran-backed militias took place late on Friday, prompting more strikes by coalition warplanes, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

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Syria attacks: Biden warns Iran US will ‘act forcefully’ to protect Americans

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US president says he does not seek conflict with Iran but warns of consequences as Tehran-backed forces and US personnel launch attacks

President Joe Biden has warned Iran that the United States will “act forcefully” to protect Americans, after the US military carried out air strikes against Iran-backed forces in retaliation for an attack in Syria.

“Make no mistake: the United States does not ... seek conflict with Iran, but be prepared for us to act forcefully to protect our people,” Biden told reporters during a visit to Canada.

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US strikes Iran-backed group in Syria after deadly attack on coalition base

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Airstrikes in retaliation to attack on base in north-east by suspected Iranian-made drone that killed US contractor

The US military has carried out airstrikes against Iran-backed forces in retaliation for an attack that killed an American contractor and wounded five US troops.

A day after the deadly attack on US personnel in Syria, which Washington blamed on a drone of Iranian origin, sources said a US base in Syria’s north-east was targeted in a new missile attack. US officials said there were no US casualties in the incident on Friday.

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RAF airstrikes killed 29 civilians in Iraq and Syria in two years, analysis suggests

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Report says UK armed service has ‘major questions to answer’ about conduct in war against Islamic State

Twenty-nine civilians are feared to have been killed in nine RAF airstrikes in Iraq and Syria between 2016 and 2018, 10 more than previous estimates, and far higher than the single non-combatant fatality accepted by the UK, according to analysis.

In the worst incident, 12 civilians were accepted as likely to have been killed in Raqqa, Syria in 2017 by a US strike, while research points to an RAF drone strike killing at least four member of the same family in Abu Kamal, Syria, in 2016, according to on-the-ground reports.

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UK refuses to say if it investigated reports of Syria drone strike casualties

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MoD refuses to say whether it has looked into claims civilians were injured in December strike

Britain’s Ministry of Defence is refusing to say whether it conducted an investigation into reports of civilian casualties after an RAF drone strike conducted against a terrorist target in northern Syria last December.

Ben Wallace, the defence secretary, told MPs on Monday that a Reaper drone was used to attack “a leading Daesh [Islamic State] member in al-Bab, northern Syria” on 20 December, the latest strike in controversial policy of attempted targeted killing.

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Bashar al-Assad seizes his chance for a comeback after Syrian earthquake

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Arab neighbours who snubbed president for waging a war against his own people are courting him. What is behind the new attitude?

Walking through Aleppo in Syria last month, Bashar al-Assad did not look like a man shouldering the fate of a nation.

As he posed for photos with locals, who queued to meet him inspecting damage from the earthquake that had devastated parts of northern Syria, Assad appeared to show as much relief as concern for victims. The country’s grinning leader seemed to realise a moment had finally arrived.

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Life amid the rubble: UK specialists on their Turkey earthquake rescue effort

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After the first quake hit, 77 Britons were deployed to join teams from around the world. Here, some recount their experiences

British search-and-rescue specialists deployed to Turkey after its earthquake on 6 February have recalled the scenes of devastation that they encountered, as the country and its southern neighbour Syria were hit by two more tremors this week.

“If we were still out there [this week], we would have been in those buildings,” said Wayne Ward, a firefighter for Lancashire’s rescue service, and one of 77 British specialists deployed to Turkey in the days that followed the first quake.

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Shamima Begum loses appeal against removal of British citizenship

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Special immigration appeals commission decides revocation of her citizenship was lawful

Shamima Begum, who left Britain as a schoolgirl to join Islamic State (IS), has lost an appeal against the decision to remove her British citizenship.

Describing it as a case of “great concern and difficulty”, the special immigration appeals commission (Siac) ruled that although there was “credible suspicion” that Begum was trafficked for sexual exploitation, the decision was ultimately one for the home secretary.

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Death toll from latest earthquakes in Turkey reaches eight

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Casualties relatively low since few remain in region devastated by twin earthquakes two weeks ago

The toll from two earthquakes that hit Turkey and Syria on Monday – two weeks after powerful quakes killed more than 47,000 people – has risen to eight, with up to 300 recovering from injuries and up to a dozen buildings toppling on both sides of the border.

The widespread anxiety and panic sparked by the latest tremors has rattled a region that is still coming to terms with the devastation caused earlier this month.

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Turkey hit by two more powerful earthquakes two weeks after disaster

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Three killed and 213 injured, government says, after quakes of 6.4 and 5.8 magnitude shake southern province of Hatay

A 6.4-magnitude earthquake and a second measuring 5.8 have hit Turkey’s southern province of Hatay, terrifying those left in a region devastated by twin earthquakes two weeks ago.

Turkey’s interior minister, Süleyman Soylu, said that at least three people were killed and 213 wounded by the latest quakes, after a large government hospital in the city of İskenderun in the north of Hatay province declared it was evacuating patients.

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