Category: Syria

Western governments are growing impatient with Syria’s failure to follow up promptly on a first small shipment of chemical weapons and fear Damascus will miss a deadline to hand over all toxins by mid-2014. Sources at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), which is jointly overseeing the destruction process with the United Nations, said the concerns have been raised during internal discussions, but have not yet been reported to the U.N. Security Council. Syria agreed to dismantle its entire chemical weapons program by June 30, under a deal proposed by Russia and agreed with the United States. It has until March 31 to relinquish around 500 tonnes of the worst substances, including more than 20 tonnes of mustard gas stored in liquid form. That deadline had already been expected to slip, but the concern now is that the entire destruction program will […]

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American and other Western diplomats on Monday managed to salvage the long-awaited peace conference on Syria, which had seemed on the verge of unraveling before it even began when Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, issued an unexpected invitation to Iran to attend. The possible presence of the Iranians infuriated Syrian opposition leaders, who said they would not attend the conference. But after a day of intensive consultations in which American officials made clear their unhappiness with Mr. Ban’s move, Iran was disinvited, and diplomats affirmed the conference will begin in Switzerland on Wednesday. The 24-hour controversy, while a diversion from the main issues about Syria’s future that will be on the table there, seemed a fitting prelude for what even the most optimistic American diplomats say will be […]

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The announcement by Ban Ki-moon , the United Nations secretary general, that he had invited Iran to a peace conference to end the war in Syria drew strong objections on Sunday from American officials, who suggested that Iran had not met all the conditions for attending and that the invitation might need to be withdrawn. At the heart of the dispute is whether Iran has accepted the terms of the talks, which begin Wednesday in Montreux, Switzerland: to establish “by mutual consent” a transitional body to govern Syria. Mr. Ban said he had been privately assured that Iranian officials “welcome” those rules and that they had pledged to play “a positive and constructive role.” American officials said they had been in regular communication with the United Nations over the requirements Iran would need to meet to be invited, but they appeared to have been caught off guard by Mr. […]

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Syrian refugee children gather around a fire near their makeshift tents in central Ankara ©Reuters Syrian refugee children in Turkey Syria ’s main political opposition has threatened to withdraw from international peace talks aimed at bringing an end to the three-year long civil war unless an invitation to Iran to join the talks is rescinded. Ban Ki-moon, secretary general of the UN, on Sunday caused uproar after inviting Iran, President Bashar al-Assad’s main backer, to join the talks – known as Geneva II – that are planned to start on Wednesday. But Mr Ban said he had received reassurances from Tehran that it would play a “constructive and positive role”. Washington has said it is opposed to Iran attending the Syria talks unless it abides by the so-called Geneva communiqué signed in 2012, which calls for a “Syrian-led political process leading to a transition that meets the legitimate aspirations […]

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Syria’s new 25-year energy deal with Russia, a key ally of embattled President Bashar Assad, could open the way for Moscow’s eventual move into the gas-rich eastern Mediterranean — if the Damascus regime survives the civil war that’s raged since March 2011. The Dec. 25 agreement gives Russia’s state-controlled Soyuzneftegas exclusive exploration, development and production rights over 850 square miles of Syria’s Exclusive Economic Zone in an area known as Block 2 roughly between the coastal cities of Banias and Tartous. The deal gives the Russians, one of the world’s leading energy producers, their first real foothold in the Levant Basin, considered to be rich in natural gas. Israel, which hit major gas fields in 2009-10, containing an estimated 30 tcf, is the more advanced in terms of developing its gas reserves, which are likely much higher. Its Tamar field began producing in […]

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The Assad regime is gaining ground as it takes advantage of infighting between Syrian opposition groups, in a sign of how the rise of extremists could tip the balance in the three-year-old civil war. Pro-regime forces have consolidated recent gains in and around the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s economic hub. These forces are also geared up to recapture more territory around the city, in a potential major setback for rebels after 18 months of battles to oust the regime from parts of the city that have remained under its control. In one area, moderate rebels late last week succeeded in forcing extremists from Naqareen, northeast of the city. That withdrawal enabled pro-regime forces to move in against a weakened rebel contingent on Sunday. Pro-regime forces are also preparing for an assault on rebels in the nearby Sheikh Najjar area—a sprawling industrial district, said a resident and opposition activists. […]

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As a government warplane soared over the northern Syrian city of Raqqa recently, a fighter from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, the country’s most radical group linked to Al Qaeda, watched from behind an antiaircraft gun mounted on a pickup truck. Fighters and activists from rival insurgent factions urged him to fire. He did not. The others were incredulous, recalled one, who supports the Nusra Front, a rival group that has Al Qaeda’s official stamp of approval as its representative in the fight against President Bashar al-Assad. But the man on the truck replied, “We are here to establish the Islamic state, not to fight Assad.” Such disputes helped set off the infighting that has swept insurgent-held northern Syria for the past week, leaving more than 500 dead, as a broad array of factions have turned against the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, […]

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Al Qaeda-linked jihadists struck back against rival rebels in eastern and northern Syria on Friday after a week of internecine fighting among opponents of President Bashar al-Assad in which 500 people have been killed, a monitoring group said. A coordinated offensive by armed groups had seized several strongholds of the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant in Aleppo, on the border with Turkey, and further east in Raqqa – the only city under control of Assad’s foes. But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said ISIL fighters pushed back rival rebels on the eastern approaches of Raqqa on Friday. They also killed 20 fighters in the town of Al-Bab, north-east of Aleppo, the monitoring group said. The fighting comes less than two weeks before the planned start of international peace talks aimed at ending nearly three years of conflict in Syria, which the Observatory says […]

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Lebanon — For months, the patchwork of rebel brigades spread across northern Syria watched with foreboding as a new group gradually expanded its control, filling a vacuum left by nearly three years of war. The group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, which is linked to Al Qaeda and known as ISIS, seemed less interested in fighting President Bashar al-Assad than in imposing its ultraconservative version of Islam, antigovernment activists said. It banned smoking, ousted other rebels from their bases, and detained and executed those it decided were opposed to its international jihadist project. Last week, mounting tensions between the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and other rebel groups exploded into clashes that have raged across northern Syria, left […]

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