Category: Syria

President Bashar al-Assad acknowledged in an unusually frank public admission on Sunday that the Syrian military is unable to hold on to some parts of the country because his forces have been depleted by desertions and defections. Mr. Assad attributed the regime’s recent battlefield setbacks to this shortage of manpower and the need to defend areas deemed more strategic and vital than others. “The idea that we were going to win all battles everywhere at the same time is unrealistic, impossible and not doable,” said Mr. Assad in a televised speech delivered at the presidential palace in Damascus to members of trade and professional unions. “This is why priorities were set.” He said the decision on where to mobilize forces was based on the military, political, economic and strategic importance of the area, among other factors. “When we want to concentrate our forces in an important area, what happens […]

Click here to view full article at www.wsj.com

Photo In a speech on Sunday, President Bashar al-Assad said that the army had ceded some areas to insurgents to hold onto others. Credit SANA, via European Pressphoto Agency BEIRUT, Lebanon — In a striking admission, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria said on Sunday that the country’s army faced a manpower shortage and had ceded some areas to insurgents in order to hold onto other regions deemed more important. Mr. Assad also acknowledged in a speech televised from Damascus, the Syrian capital, that many Syrians could not watch the address because of the lack of electricity in many areas and noted the economic hardships that people are facing after more than four years of an increasingly complex civil war. What was unusual was not the fact of the struggles that Mr. Assad mentioned, which have been obvious for some time, but his mentioning them at all. It was his […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

Sunni fighters say the army has now encircled them within a five square kilometre radius inside the city [File: Getty Images] The United Nations envoy for Syria has said government forces have dropped a large number of barrel bombs on Zabadani city, "causing unprecedented levels of destruction". Staffan de Mistura cited local sources on Thursday, saying the air strikes caused many civilian deaths in the city, located about 45km northwest of the capital Damascus, and about 10km from the border with Lebanon. " [The] Army of Fatah (a Sunni rebel alliance), that controls Zabadani, retaliated by firing rockets and mortar bombs on two Shia villages, Al Foua and Kefraya, near Idlib city in the north," de Mistura said. "In both cases, civilians are tragically caught in the middle of the fighting." Syrian state television said the army had destroyed a 70-metre-long tunnel used by the rebels to transport equipment […]

Click here to view full article at www.aljazeera.com

A child inspects a site hit by what activists said was an airstrike by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar el-Asaad at Arbin town in Damascus countryside, Syria July 21, 2015. The United Nations envoy for Syria has voiced deep concern about civilians in the city of Zabadani, the focus of an offensive by the Syrian military and Lebanon’s Hezbollah aimed at wresting control of the area from insurgents. Citing local sources in a statement late on Tuesday, Staffan de Mistura said the military had dropped a large number of barrel bombs on Zabadani "causing unprecedented levels of destruction and many deaths among the civilian population." Control of the city, about 45 km (30 miles) northwest of the capital Damascus, is seen as crucial to consolidating President Bashar al-Assad’s control over the border zone between Lebanon and Syria. The Syrian air force has bombarded areas in and around the […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

Children run as they flee from a makeshift playground after hearing the sound of a Syrian fighter jet hovering over Idlib city, Syria July 18, 2015. Syria’s army said on Sunday it had stepped up air strikes and retaken villages in a new offensive on Islamist insurgents in areas close to President Bashar al Assad’s ancestral homeland in the coastal province of Latakia. Aerial bombardment had intensified over the past 48 hours in a bid to cut rebel supply lines in rugged territory close to Turkey’s border, an army source was quoted as saying on state media. Latakia province – home to Syria’s biggest port and a stronghold of Assad’s Alawite sect – has been a key battleground of the conflict, which is now in its fifth year. Sunni Muslim jihadists, including al Qaeda’s Syrian offshoot the Nusra Front, control many villages in the borderlands north of the government-held […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

GENEVA — The number of Syrians who have fled into neighboring countries to escape the civil war has reached more than four million, the United Nations said Thursday, and with the fighting dragging into its fifth year the number is still rising. More than 24,000 people crossed into Turkey to escape fighting in northern Syria in June, pushing the number now sheltering in neighboring countries past four million, increasing the Syrian refugee population by one million in just 10 months, the United Nations refugee agency reported. International aid agencies say the fighting has driven at least 7.6 million people who remain in the country from their homes. “This is the biggest refugee population from a single conflict in a generation,” Antonio Guterres, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, said in a statement. Mr. Guterres, once again, warned that international aid was not keeping pace with the scale of […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

AMMAN The Syrian army and its allied militia have launched a major assault on the rebel-held Syrian city of Zabadani, the Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah’s television station said on Saturday. It said heavy artillery and aerial bombardment were being deployed to capture the city, located north-west of the Syrian capital near the frontier with Lebanon. The Syrian army has long sought to wrest control of Zabadani from Sunni militants. The city is close to the Beirut-Damascus highway that links the two countries and capturing it would be a major strategic gain for President Bashar al Assad’s government. Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside the Syrian army in Syria against the militants, has in recent months stepped up its assault on rebel outposts along the Qalamoun mountain region straddling the Lebanese Syrian border. An announcement of the start of a major military campaign by the Syrian army and the Lebanese group […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

Syria was previously the eastern Mediterranean’s leading oil and natural gas producer, however, with Syria’s oil and natural gas production declining since 2011, a report from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) states that the country’s energy sector is ‘in turmoil.’ According to the EIA, this is due to the ongoing civil conflict that began in spring of 2011. Summary of key points The report highlights that Syria’s energy sector has faced numerous challenges as a result of conflict and subsequent sanctions imposed by the US and the EU. Damage to energy infrastructure, including oil and natural gas pipelines and electricity transmission networks, hindered the exploration, development, production, and transport of the Syria’s energy resources. Syria has seen production fall dramatically, to a minor sum in comparison to pre-conflict levels. Syria is no longer able to export oil and, as a result, government revenues from the energy sector have […]

Click here to view full article at www.energyglobal.com

Activists say regime forces hit Ibleen, Syria, with chlorine gas in May. U.S. intelligence agencies believe there is a strong possibility the Assad regime will use chemical weapons on a large scale as part of a last-ditch effort to protect key Syrian government strongholds if Islamist fighters and other rebels try to overrun them, U.S. officials said. Analysts and policy makers have been poring over all available intelligence hoping to determine what types of chemical weapons the regime might be able to deploy and what event or events might trigger their use, according to officials briefed on the matter. Last year, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad let international inspectors oversee the removal of what President Barack Obama called the regime’s most deadly chemical weapons. The deal averted U.S. airstrikes that would have come in retaliation for an Aug. 21, 2013, sarin-gas attack that killed more than 1,400 people. Since then, […]

Click here to view full article at www.wsj.com

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s official news agency says a mortar round has hit a central Damascus square, wounding three people in the second such attack in the Syrian capital in as many days. It is not uncommon for Damascus to be shelled, but Monday’s attack targeted the Ummayad Square, home to the headquarters of Syria’s state TV and radio, and the opera house. It’s also close to the Defense Ministry. The agency says the shell caused damage, but gave no details. On Sunday, two mortar rounds hit a crowded outdoor market and al-Amarra district, also in central Damascus, killing three people and wounding 12, including a child and two women. Armed Islamic factions fighting forces loyal to President Bashar Assad control parts of the Syrian capital and large parts of the city’s suburbs.

Click here to view full article at hosted.ap.org

BEIRUT Kurdish forces and the Syrian army fought separate battles with Islamic State around Hasaka city in northeast Syria overnight as the hardline group tried to capture more areas of the major urban center near the Iraqi border, a monitor said on Saturday. Islamic State launched an assault on government-held areas of Hasaka early on Thursday and the United Nations says the violence is estimated to have displaced up to 120,000 people. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the conflict using sources on the ground, said the Kurdish YPG militia fought with Islamic State fighters on the outskirts of the Ghwyran neighborhood in Hasaka’s southeast overnight. Hasaka is divided into areas run separately by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and Kurdish authorities and has a mixed population of Arabs, Kurds and Christians. It is important to all sides fighting in an area that sits between Islamic State-held […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

Photo As they waited at the border to cross into Turkey on Thursday, relatives of a woman who died after being wounded in Kobani, in northern Syria, mourned over her body. Credit Rodi Said/Reuters BEIRUT, Lebanon — The militants of the Islamic State carried out two new offensives in northern Syria on Thursday, entering a provincial capital and detonating large bombs in the border town of Kobani, where intensive airstrikes by a United States-led coalition helped Kurdish forces rout the jihadists last year. In southern Syria, rebel groups began a new campaign to push government forces from the city of Dara’a. The new attacks by the Islamic State came more than a week after its fighters lost the town of Tal Abyad, on the Turkish border, to Kurdish militias and Arab rebels in what was seen as a strategic setback for the group . In striking back, the Islamic […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

Kobane has been devastated by the fierce battle Islamic State fighters have entered the northern Syrian city of Kobane, battling Kurdish forces, activists say. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says a number of people were killed in fierce clashes in the centre of the town on the Syrian-Turkish border. Kurdish forces drove IS forces from Kobane early this year after a long campaign backed by US-led air strikes. The battle made international headlines – heralding what some saw as a symbolic defeat for the IS. The jihadist group has suffered a string of defeats to Kurdish forces since it was forced to withdraw from Kobane in January after a four-month battle. Early this week, Kurdish Popular Protection Units (YPG) forces said they had captured a key town, Ain Issa, just 50km (30 miles) from the IS headquarters at Raqqa, days after seizing Tal Abyad and cutting a major […]

Click here to view full article at www.bbc.com

BEIRUT Kurdish-led forces advanced on Monday deep into territory in Syria held by Islamic State, showing new momentum after they unexpectedly swiftly seized a border crossing from the jihadists last week. The Kurds, aided by U.S.-led air strikes and smaller Syrian rebel groups, had pushed to within 7 km (4 miles) of Ain Issa, a town 50 km (30 miles) north of Islamic State’s de facto capital Raqqa city, said Redur Xelil, spokesman for the Kurdish forces. The rapid advance into Raqqa province has defied expectations of a protracted battle between the Kurdish YPG group and Islamic State fighters, who waged a four-month battle for the border town of Kobani, where the Kurds finally defeated the jihadists in January. Raqqa is the main seat of power in Syria for Islamic State, the group also known as ISIS or ISIL, which has proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Islamic State fighters are preventing fuel shipments from reaching rebel-held parts of northern Syria , causing severe shortages that are paralyzing ambulances, stopping medical centers from providing care and shutting down bakeries, according to antigovernment activists and aid workers. Adding to the misery, international aid groups said, the forces of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, are targeting medical centers in opposition areas, killing some workers and forcing facilities to shut down. The fuel shortages highlight how more than four years of war in Syria have ravaged the economy and allowed the warring parties to use the country’s scarce resources as a vise to squeeze their enemies. Since the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, seized oil-rich regions in Syria’s north and east, it has used their output to finance its efforts to build an Islamic emirate that straddles the Syria-Iraq border. Traders from elsewhere in […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

A quick and successful offensive by Kurdish fighters and allied rebels in a northern Syrian town has boosted a U.S.-backed effort to choke off Islamic State’s supply routes and offered a template for regaining territory from the extremist group. Emboldened by the recapture of Tal Abyad, the Syrian Kurdish alliance said Tuesday that its next target is Raqqa, Islamic State’s main stronghold in Syria about 50 miles south of Tal Abyad. The fighters said they had already begun advancing southward toward Raqqa on Monday, reaching the town of Ain Issa, only about 30 miles away. “We will move to liberate Raqqa in the near future,” said Shervan Darweesh, a spokesman for a coalition of rebel factions led by the Syrian Kurdish militia known as YPG. Despite those proclamations, there is no broader military planning under way by the U.S.-led coalition for an imminent Raqqa offensive, which would be a […]

Click here to view full article at www.wsj.com

A quick and successful offensive by Kurdish fighters and allied rebels in a northern Syrian town has boosted a U.S.-backed effort to choke off Islamic State’s supply routes and offered Continue Reading

Photo An Islamic State flag flying on Monday in Tal Abyad, a Syrian town on the Turkish border. The town represents a strategic supply route for Islamic State militants. Credit Umit Bektas/Reuters ISTANBUL — A coalition of Kurdish militias and Arab rebels stormed into a strategic Syrian town on the Turkey border on Monday, seizing most of it from Islamic State fighters who had long used the area to smuggle supplies and fighters into their self-declared caliphate, according to Kurdish militia leaders and activists. The complete loss of the town, Tal Abyad, would deal a major blow to the jihadists by cutting the primary lifeline to the Syrian city of Raqqa, which the Islamic State has ruled for more than a year and has tried to turn into a model of strict Islamic governance. The advance was a boost to opposition fighters who have watched in dismay as the […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

The majority of Deraa province is controlled by opposition fighters [Getty] An umbrella group of opposition fighters have seized the largest army base in the southern province of Deraa – the birthplace of Syria’s four-year uprising – after 24 hours of fighting, a rebel spokesman and monitoring group have said. Essam al-Rayes, a spokesman for the Southern Front rebel alliance operating in the province, told the AFP news agency on Tuesday that the "fully liberated" base "was one of the main lines of defence for regime forces". "It was a nightmare, because they used it to shell all the areas to the east of the province," he added. He said at least 2,000 rebel forces overran the base, which lies near a major highway running from Damascus to Syria’s southern border with Jordan, in a "short and quick" assault. Diaa al-Hariri, a spokesman for Faylaq al-Awwal, one of the […]

Click here to view full article at www.aljazeera.com

AMMAN The Syrian army said on Sunday it had repulsed a major offensive by Islamic State militants in the northeastern city of Hasaka and driven out fighters who had taken over key installations on the southern edge of the city. The northeastern corner of Syria is strategically important because it links areas controlled by Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Syrian Kurds have also sought to expand their territorial control over a region stretching from Kobani to Qamishili they see as part of a future Kurdish state. The militants, approaching from their stronghold the city of Shadadi, south of Hasaka city, made lighting advances this week after conducting around a dozen suicide attacks using explosives-laden trucks at army checkpoints in the city. But Syrian state television, quoting an army source, said in a newsflash they had taken back an electricity station, a juvenile prison and two villages almost two […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

PERTH Islamic State militants have used chlorine as a weapon and are recruiting highly trained technicians in a serious bid to develop chemical weapons, Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop warned. In a speech to an international forum of nations that works to fight the spread of such weapons, Bishop said the rise of militant groups such as ISIS, also known as Daish, posed “one of the gravest security threats we face today.” “Apart from some crude and small scale endeavors, the conventional wisdom has been that the terrorist intention to acquire and weaponize chemical agents has been largely aspirational,” Bishop told a meeting of the Australia Group in Perth. The speech on Friday was posted online. “The use of chlorine by Daish, and its recruitment of highly technically trained professionals, including from the West, have revealed far more serious efforts in chemical weapons development,” she said. “Daish is likely […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

AMMAN, Jordan — The Islamic State advanced against rival insurgents in northern Syria on Sunday, capturing areas close to a border crossing with Turkey and threatening their supply route to the city of Aleppo, fighters and a group monitoring the war said. The Islamic State captured the town of Soran Azaz and two nearby villages, giving it the ability to move along a road leading north to the Bab al-Salam crossing between the Syrian province of Aleppo and the Turkish province of Kilis, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain that tracks the war through a network of contacts in Syria. The loss of Soran Azaz is a blow to northern rebels in the Levant Front because it sits on an important weapons supply route, two alliance fighters said. “The main supply line between Turkey and Aleppo will be severely affected,” Abu […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

BEIRUT Insurgents who captured the last government-held town in Syria’s Idlib province celebrated inside on Friday and made more advances in surrounding areas, in a further blow to the stretched army and allied militia. The "Army of Fatah" alliance which includes al Qaeda’s Syria wing Nusra Front, the Islamist Ahrar al-Sham group and other factions, captured Ariha town on Thursday night as the Syrian military pulled back. The army has lost large parts of the northwestern province to insurgents since late March, when the provincial capital fell to Army of Fatah, a name which refers to Islamic conquest. The recent advances have brought insurgents closer to the coastal Latakia province, President Bashar al-Assad’s ancestral homeland and an area of importance to his government. The army and allied militia have increasingly focused on defending Syria’s western flank which includes Latakia, Homs city and Damascus further south. By Friday the insurgents […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

BEIRUT Syria’s air force carried out at least 15 strikes in and around the central city of Palmyra early on Monday, targeting buildings captured by Islamic State, a group monitoring the war said. Fighters from the militant group overran the ancient city, the site of some of the world’s best preserved Roman ruins, last week. They have killed at least 217 people execution-style in the area since May 16 including children, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. This was in addition to at least 300 soldiers killed by Islamic State in fighting leading up to the city’s capture, according to the Observatory’s toll. It said the hardline group had detained around 600 soldiers, pro-government fighters and those accused of being loyalists in and around the city, also a key military gain as it stands on a crossroads to the cities of Damascus and Homs. The air force […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

Enter your email address Select an access level You may also be interested in our corporate or newspaper only subscriptions.

Click here to view full article at www.ft.com

BEIRUT Islamic State militants stormed the Syrian city of Palmyra on Wednesday, seizing it from government forces in fierce fighting as civilians were evacuated and Syria’s antiquities chief called on the world to save its ancient monuments. The capture of Palmyra is the first time the al Qaeda offshoot has taken control of a city directly from the Syrian army and allied forces, which have already lost ground in the northwest and south to other insurgent groups in recent weeks. The central city, also known as Tadmur, is built alongside the remains of a oasis civilization whose colonnaded streets, temple and theater have stood for 2,000 years. It is home to modern military installations, and sits on a desert highway linking the capital Damascus with Syria’s eastern provinces, mostly under rebel control. "Praise God, (Palmyra) has been liberated," said an Islamic State fighter speaking by Internet from the area. […]

Click here to view full article at www.reuters.com

WASHINGTON — If President Obama hoped that the danger of chemical warfare in the Middle East receded when Syria gave up tons of poison gas, mounting evidence that toxic weapons remain in the strife-torn country could once again force him to decide just how far he is willing to go to enforce his famous “red line.” The discovery of traces of ricin and sarin in Syria, combined with the use of chlorine as a makeshift weapon in the country’s grinding civil war, undercut what Mr. Obama had viewed as a signal triumph of his foreign policy, the destruction of President Bashar al-Assad ’s chemical arsenal. But Mr. Obama appears no more eager to use military force against Mr. Assad’s government today than he was in 2013 when he abruptly called off a threatened airstrike in exchange for a Russian-brokered agreement in which Syria voluntarily gave up its chemical weapons. […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

Photo Villagers in Syria headed away from what activists said was a chlorine gas attack this month in insurgent-held areas. Credit Abed Kontar/Reuters International inspectors have found traces of banned toxic chemicals in at least three military locations in Syria , four diplomats and officials said, less than two years after President Bashar al-Assad agreed to dismantle the country’s chemical arsenal. Traces of sarin, a nerve agent, were found in drainage pipes and in artillery shells in two places, and traces of another banned toxin, ricin , were found in a third location, a scientific research center, according to a United Nations diplomat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss confidential reports from the inspectors. The discovery of the small amounts of banned materials, first reported by Reuters, comes as Syrian government forces are being accused of continuing to bombard insurgent-held areas with chlorine bombs. Taken together, […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

ENLARGE Children react after what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus on Wednesday. A U.S. diplomat termed chemical weapons use allegations against Syria ‘credible.’ Photo: Bassam Khabieh /Reuters Three U.S. diplomats stepped up pressure against the Syrian government on Friday by accusing it of continuing to use chemical arms against its opponents in the country’s four-year civil war. The American ambassador to The Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Robert Mikulak, cited a “steady stream” of accounts that the government is using chlorine as a chemical weapon, as recently as this month. Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken told reporters that accounts by people in Syria over such chemical attacks are “strong and credible.” And Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said evidence makes clear that Syria is killing people by dropping chlorine-filled barrels from helicopters […]

Click here to view full article at www.wsj.com

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Security forces battled armed men in Damascus on Monday, killing the attackers as one blew himself up, state news outlets reported, in a type of clash that remains rare in the capital even after more than four years of war in Syria . Websites that are for and against the government displayed photographs of a column of smoke towering above six-story apartment houses in Rukineddine, a northern district of central Damascus. A pro-government radio station reported that opposition fighters had crossed an agricultural area from insurgent-held suburbs, perhaps to carry out an attack on Berniah Street, a major thoroughfare near the scene of the clash. A Twitter account associated with the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, said that three members of the group had carried out the attack, which was on a military supplies and logistics headquarters. The Nusra Front has in the past […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com

Photo Rebel fighters took up positions in Jobar, Syria, last week for what they called a battle to unite rebel factions against forces loyal to the president. Credit Amer Almohibany /Reuters BEIRUT, Lebanon — The Syrian Army has suffered a string of defeats from re-energized insurgents and is struggling to replenish its ranks as even pro-government families increasingly refuse to send sons to poorly defended units on the front lines. These developments raise newly urgent questions about the durability of President Bashar al-Assad ’s rule. “The trend lines for Assad are bad and getting worse,” said a senior United States official in Washington, who, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss confidential intelligence assessments, nevertheless cautioned that things had not yet reached “a boiling point.” The erosion of the army is forcing the government to rely ever more heavily on Syrian and foreign militias, especially Hezbollah , the Lebanese […]

Click here to view full article at www.nytimes.com