Security Council discusses US strikes in Syria; UN calls on all sides to step back from brink

Security Council discusses US strikes in Syria; UN calls on all sides to step back from brink
Russia called on the UN Security Council to convene to discuss US air strikes on Iran-backed groups in Iraq and Syria. (AP Photo)
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Updated 06 February 2024
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Security Council discusses US strikes in Syria; UN calls on all sides to step back from brink

Security Council discusses US strikes in Syria; UN calls on all sides to step back from brink
  • Russian envoy accuses Washington of deliberately stoking the fires of regional conflict in an attempt to expand it
  • US envoy urges all countries with ties to Iran to press leaders of the regime in Tehran to rein in their militias

NEW YORK CITY: The UN on Monday repeated its call for all those involved in conflicts in the region to “step back from the brink and to consider the unbearable human and economic cost of a potential regional conflict.”

It warned that the Middle East remains “highly volatile,” and called for the development and implementation of a clear political road map designed to resolve the conflicts that rage there.

During a meeting of the Security Council to discuss the latest escalations in the region, including the US strikes on targets in Yemen, Syria and Iraq, the under-secretary-general for political and peacebuilding affairs, Rosemarie DiCarlo, once again called for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and for the unconditional release of all Israeli hostages held by Hamas.

The UN has repeatedly warned of the danger that the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel and the war that has followed in Gaza could spark an escalation into a wider regional conflict.

Since the Hamas attacks there have been near-daily incidents in several countries, including about 165 attacks on US targets in Syria and Iraq, prompting Washington to launch retaliatory strikes in both countries.

On Jan. 28, a drone attack killed three American personnel and injured 40 at a US military outpost in northeastern Jordan. These were the first combat fatalities among US forces related to the current regional crisis.

Washington attributed that attack to the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and President Joe Biden vowed the US would “hold all those responsible to account at a time and in a manner of our choosing.”

A few days later, US Central Command carried out 85 retaliatory airstrikes in western Iraq and eastern Syria, targeting sites used by Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps. Washington said the attacks targeted command-and-control operations, intelligence centers and weapons facilities, and stressed it was not seeking a wider conflict in the Middle East or elsewhere.

Iran, Iraq and Syria condemned the attacks, which they said caused the deaths of 16 people in Iraq, including civilians, and 23 people affiliated with militias in Syria. Iraqi authorities summoned the US charge d’affaires in Baghdad and disputed a US claim that Washington had provided them with advance warning of the strikes.

Though the Iraqi government has reiterated that it remains committed to protecting US and other coalition forces in Iraq, DiCarlo said some armed factions linked to the “Islamic Resistance in Iraq have pledged to continue their attacks against US and coalition forces in the region.”

She told the Security Council that the wave of violence since early October has encompassed a large swath of the Middle East. She highlighted in particular the daily exchanges of fire across the blue line that separates Israel and Lebanon between the Israeli army and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.

She also expressed concern about ongoing drone and missile attacks by the Houthis in Yemen and the threat they pose to international shipping in the Red Sea. She said they risk “exacerbating the conflict and further impacting international trade, as companies divert ships away from critical maritime routes.”

The US and UK have been launching strikes on Houthi positions in Yemen since Jan. 11. In the past three days alone, they hit more than 36 targets at 13 locations, including what were described as command-and-control sites.

Russia’s permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, accused Washington of deliberately stoking the conflict in an attempt to expand it to some of the biggest countries in the region, as he called on the international community to condemn the “senseless acts of Washington and its allies in the Middle East.”

He said the escalation of violence has already gone “far beyond the Occupied Palestinian Territories, crossing not only the border between Israel and Lebanon, but also to the Red Sea and Yemen.”

He added: “Unilateral acts of violence by Washington and their allies only worsen the chaos in the region, nullifying international efforts to reestablish peace in the Middle East and to find a just solution to the Palestinian question.

“It is clear that the presence (in Syria) of the international (anti-Daesh) coalition led by the US has been a threat to security and stability in the country and also an attempt to involve it in regional and international conflicts. Washington, enjoying impunity, continues to sow chaos and destruction in the middle east.”

He said there was no justification for the US airstrikes on Syria and that such US attempts “to flex muscles (are) mainly to try to implement the domestic political situation in America to salvage the image of the current American administration in the international arena in the light of the upcoming presidential elections.”

Robert Wood, the alternate US representative to the UN for special political affairs, called on council members, especially “those with direct channels to Iran,” to press the leaders of the regime in Tehran to rein in their militias.

He added that “they should also press the Syrian regime to stop giving a platform to destabilize the region,” and vowed that the US would continue “to defend our personnel and hold responsible all those who harm Americans. That certainly goes for Iran and its proxies.”

He added: “We will continue to exercise our right to self-defense at a time and a place of our choosing. And we will continue to hold Iran and its affiliates accountable for their destabilizing actions.”


King Charles donates to International Rescue Committee’s Syria aid operation

King Charles donates to International Rescue Committee’s Syria aid operation
Updated 03 January 2025
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King Charles donates to International Rescue Committee’s Syria aid operation

King Charles donates to International Rescue Committee’s Syria aid operation
  • Donation will fund healthcare, protect children, provide emergency cash 

LONDON: King Charles III has helped pay for urgent humanitarian aid needed in Syria after the fall of Bashar Assad.

Charles made an undisclosed donation to International Rescue Committee UK to fund healthcare, protect children and provide emergency cash.

The king is the patron of the charity, which says Syria is facing profound humanitarian needs despite the defeat of the Assad regime by opposition forces.

Khusbu Patel, IRC UK’s acting executive director, said: “His Majesty’s contribution underscores his deep commitment to addressing urgent global challenges, and helping people affected by humanitarian crises to survive, recover and rebuild their lives.

“We are immensely grateful to His Majesty The King for his donation supporting our work in Syria. This assistance will enable us to provide essential services, including healthcare, child protection and emergency cash, to those people most in need.”

The charity said it was scaling-up its efforts in northern Syria to evaluate the urgent needs of communities. Towns and villages have become accessible to aid groups for the first time in years now that rebel forces have taken control of much of the country.

The charity said Syria ranks fourth on its emergency watchlist for 2025 and a recent assessment found that people in the northeast of the country were facing unsafe childbirth conditions, cold-related illnesses, water contamination, and shortages of medical supplies.

Charles last month said he would be “praying for Syria” as he attended a church service in London attended by various faiths.

The king met Syrian nun Sister Annie Demerjian at the event, who described the situation in her homeland after the regime had been swept from power.


Israeli strike targets facilities in Aleppo: Syrian state tv 

Israeli strike targets facilities in Aleppo: Syrian state tv 
Updated 03 January 2025
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Israeli strike targets facilities in Aleppo: Syrian state tv 

Israeli strike targets facilities in Aleppo: Syrian state tv 

CAIRO: An Israeli strike targeted military facilities at Safira town in Syria’s Aleppo, Syrian state television reported early on Friday. 

(Developing story)


After Ocalan visit, Turkiye opposition MPs brief speaker, far-right leader

After Ocalan visit, Turkiye opposition MPs brief speaker, far-right leader
Updated 03 January 2025
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After Ocalan visit, Turkiye opposition MPs brief speaker, far-right leader

After Ocalan visit, Turkiye opposition MPs brief speaker, far-right leader

ISTANBUL: A delegation from Turkiye’s pro-Kurdish opposition DEM party met Thursday with the parliamentary speaker and far-right MHP leader amid tentative efforts to resume dialogue between Ankara and the banned PKK militant group. DEM’s three-person delegation met with Speaker Numan Kurtulmus and then with MHP leader Devlet Bahceli.

The aim was to brief them on a rare weekend meeting with Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed founder of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party who is serving life without parole on Imrali prison island near Istanbul.

It was the Ocalan’s first political visit in almost a decade and follows an easing of tension between Ankara and the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency on Turkish soil and is proscribed by Washington and Brussels as a terror group.

The visit took place two months after Bahceli extended a surprise olive branch to Ocalan, inviting him to parliament to disband the PKK and saying he should be given the “right to hope” in remarks understood to moot a possible early release.

Backed by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the tentative opening came a month before Syrian rebels began a lightning 12-day offensive that ousted Bashar Assad in a move which has forced Turkiye’s concerns about the Kurdish issue into the headlines.

During Saturday’s meeting with DEM lawmakers Sirri Sureyya Onder and Pervin Buldan, Ocalan said he had “the competence and determination to make a positive contribution to the new paradigm started by Mr.Bahceli and Mr.Erdogan.”

Onder and Buldan then “began a round of meetings with the parliamentary parties” and were joined on Thursday by Ahmet Turk, 82, a veteran Kurdish politician with a long history of involvement in efforts to resolve the Kurdish issue.


Iraq’s Sulaimaniyah city bans groups accused of PKK links

Iraq’s Sulaimaniyah city bans groups accused of PKK links
Updated 03 January 2025
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Iraq’s Sulaimaniyah city bans groups accused of PKK links

Iraq’s Sulaimaniyah city bans groups accused of PKK links

SULAIMANIYAH: Authorities in the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah have banned four organizations accused of affiliation with the Turkish-blacklisted Kurdistan Workers Party, activists said Thursday, denouncing the move as “political.”

The four organizations include two feminist groups and a media production house, according to the METRO center for press freedoms which organized a news conference in Sulaimaniyah to criticize the decision.

PKK fighters have several positions in Iraq’s northern autonomous Kurdistan region, which also hosts Turkish military bases used to strike Kurdish insurgents.

Ankara and Washington both deem the PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency in Turkiye, a terrorist organization.

Authorities in Sulaimaniyah, the Iraqi Kurdistan region’s second city, have been accused of leniency toward PKK activities.

But the Iraqi federal authorities in Baghdad have recently sharpened their tone against the Turkish Kurdish insurgents.

Col. Salam Abdel Khaleq, the spokesman for the Kurdish Asayesh security forces in Sulaimaniyah, told AFP that the bans came “after a decision from the Iraqi judiciary and as a result of the expiration of the licenses” of these groups.


Israeli military says commandos raided missile plant in Syria in September

Israeli military says commandos raided missile plant in Syria in September
Updated 03 January 2025
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Israeli military says commandos raided missile plant in Syria in September

Israeli military says commandos raided missile plant in Syria in September

JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said on Thursday its special forces raided an underground missile production site in Syria in September that it said was primed to produce hundreds of precision missiles for use against Israel by the Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

The complex near Masyaf, in Hama province close to the Mediterranean coast, was “the flagship of Iranian manufacturing efforts in our region,” Israeli military spokesperson, Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani told a briefing with reporters.

“This facility was designed to manufacture hundreds of strategic missiles per year from start to finish, for Hezbollah to use in their aerial attacks on Israel,” he said.

He said the plant, dug into the side of a mountain, had been under observation by Israeli intelligence since construction work began in 2017 and was on the point of being able to manufacture precision-guided long-range missiles, some of them with a range of up to 300 km (190 miles).

“This ability was becoming active, so we’re talking about an immediate threat,” he said.

Details of the Sept. 8 raid have been reported in the Israeli media in recent days but Shoshani said this was the first confirmation by the military, which usually does not comment on special forces operations of this type.

At the time, Syrian state media said at least 16 people were killed in Israeli airstrikes in the west of the country.

Shoshani said the hours-long nighttime raid was “one of the more complex operations the IDF has done in recent years.” Accompanied by airstrikes, it involved dozens of aircraft and around 100 helicopter-borne troops, who located weapons and seized documents, he said.

“At the end of the raid, the troops dismantled the facility, including the machines and the manufacturing equipment themselves,” he said, adding that dismantling the plant was “key to ensure the safety of Israel.”

Israeli officials have accused the former Syrian government of President Bahar Assad of helping the Lebanese-based Hezbollah movement receive arms from Iran and say they are determined to stop the flow of weapons into Lebanon.

As Bashar Assad’s government crumbled toward the end of last year, Israel launched a series of strikes against Syrian military infrastructure and weapons manufacturing sites to ensure they did not fall into the hands of its enemies.