Category: Syria

Militant group Islamic State killed 270 soldiers, guards and staff when they captured a Syrian gas field on Thursday in the bloodiest clashes between the al Qaeda offshoot and President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, a monitoring group said on Saturday. The anti-Assad Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Thursday that 90 people had been killed and that many were missing after the attack against the Sha’ar gas field east of Homs in central Syria. The Observatory, which monitors violence in Syria through a network of sources in the country on both sides, quoted "trusted sources" as saying on Saturday that the Islamic State had "killed and executed" 270 people during the assault. It said at least 40 Islamic State fighters were killed in the offensive. Islamic State has made rapid gains in Syria, mostly by seizing territory from rival rebel groups, using weaponry brought in from […]

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Fighters from the self-declared jihadist group, the Islamic State, have seized a gas field in the desert region of Palmyra in the Syrian central province of Homs, a monitoring group and the governor of Homs said. The fighters on Thursday morning attacked the Shaer gas field, east of the ancient site of Palmyra, killing 23 guards, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. "The fate of 340 National Defence Force (paramilitary) members, guards, engineers and employees who were in the field, is unknown, as they were either taken prisoner or wounded during the operation," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman. The operation, he added, was the Islamic State’s "most important so far against the government" of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad. Abu Bilal, an activist linked to the Islamic State in Homs province, also reported the attack. At least 12 members of the Islamic State had been slain in […]

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By Sam Dagher DAMASCUS, Syria–Militants from the Sunni extremist group that calls itself the Islamic State have captured Syria’s largest oil field and now hold nearly half of the northeastern province of Deir-Ezzour after monthslong battles with other rebel factions, according to opposition activists, rebels and local residents The fighting has intensified in recent days on the back of gains in neighboring Iraq by the militants, who formerly called themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS. Videos posted on jihadist websites showed black-clad fighters who identified themselves as belonging to the Islamic State standing at the entrance of a facility leading to the site of the Al-Omar oil field in eastern Syria. "They fled like rats," says one of the fighters, referring to members of its rival, the al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, which captured the field, considered the largest in Syria in terms of production, from […]

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After months of delay, Syria exported the last of its known supplies of chemical weapons components on Monday for destruction overseas, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced, calling it a major achievement in a country engulfed by war. But the organization, which is helping oversee Syria’s compliance with its chemical disarmament promises, stopped short of pronouncing Syria free of all chemical weapons. It said that verification work was not complete and reminded the Syrian authorities that they have not yet destroyed — as required — a dozen facilities used for making and mixing the munitions. A separate inquiry by the organization into suspected use of chlorine gas bombs in the conflict is also pending. Syria delivered the final stocks of the more than 1,300 tons of chemical agents it had declared to the port of Latakia, where they were loaded aboard a Danish vessel […]

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The last busloads of insurgents left the battered Old City of Homs in central Syria on Friday, under a deal handing over the longtime bastion of rebellion to the government after nearly two years of blockade and bombardment. Residents trickled in to gaze in shock at blocks of bomb-bitten homes. Some wheeled bicycles or carried gawking children on their shoulders, while others wept and fled in grief from camera operators, in scenes captured on state television and in snapshots that flooded social media. Soldiers giving the victory sign planted government flags in a square at the edge of the district. Across the country, in Aleppo Province in the north, rebels allowed a convoy of trucks delivering humanitarian aid into villages they had long blockaded, fulfilling their end of the deal so that the government would allow the last fighters out of Homs. In carrying out the […]

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A rebel-claimed bombing Thursday in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo leveled a hotel that government troops used as a military base, along with several other buildings in a government-held area, activists and militants said. Syrian state television said an explosion struck a government-held area on the edge of a contested neighborhood in old part of Aleppo. The television report identified the hotel as the Carlton hotel, located next to the city’s ancient Citadel. A local activist group called the Sham News Network also reported the blast, saying that President Bashar Assad’s troops were based in the hotel. The Islamic Front rebel group claimed responsibility for the blast. A statement posted on its official Twitter account Thursday said that its "fighters this morning leveled the Carlton Hotel barracks in Old Aleppo and a number of buildings near it, killing 50 soldiers." It did not say how […]

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Syria’s third-largest city, Homs, was one of the first to hold large demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad. Protesters there were among the first to take up arms against the state, and Homs neighborhoods were the first to suffer indiscriminate bombardment by government forces. Homs long stood as a bellwether for a nation slowly, brutally, unraveling. A diverse community increasingly split along sectarian lines as populations fled, neighborhoods were destroyed and rebels held out in the Old City. On Wednesday, the last insurgent-held neighborhoods of the Old City appeared to be falling to the government as the last fighters and their families began to evacuate under a deal freighted with symbolism for both sides. The government seeks to prove that through brute force and local talks, it can retake a major urban area. For its opponents, handing over enclaves that withstood a nearly two-year blockade is an […]

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The head of the Syrian opposition says that he will ask the Obama administration to provide antiaircraft missiles and will try to convince American officials that the weapons would not fall into the wrong hands. In an interview on Tuesday night, Ahmad Assi al-Jarba, president of the opposition coalition, also confirmed reports that Syrian rebels had received American TOW antitank missiles and said the shipment had enabled the opposition to demonstrate that it was able to use and maintain control of advanced American weaponry. Mr. Jarba, who is visiting Washington for the first time, plans to meet with a senior Pentagon official, leading members of Congress and Secretary of State John Kerry. A White House official said President Obama was expected to see him.  In an effort to present a unified front to the Americans, Mr. Jarba is accompanied by Brig. Gen. Abdul-Ilah al-Bashir, the new leader […]

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A new and bloody front has been opened in eastern Syria as the country’s two most powerful jihadist groups battle for control of the region’s oilfields. The struggle for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars a day in much-needed funding highlights how controlling resources has become crucial to fighters from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isis) and Jabhat Al-Nusra. “The battles here aren’t over God or [President] Bashar al-Assad . They’re about oil,” said an activist in eastern Deir Ezzor province who asked not to be named. “Donors can turn the money pipeline on or off. But when you control an oil well, the pipeline never gets shutdown.” Since early 2014, infighting between Nusra, which is afiliated to al-Qaeda, and Isis, an al-Qaeda splinter group, has killed thousands in opposition-held regions of northern and eastern Syria. Clashes have intensified in eastern provinces in recent months […]

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More than 50 people were killed in bomb, mortar and rocket attacks in government-controlled areas of Syria on Tuesday, as the international chemical weapons monitoring group declared that it was sending inspectors to the country to investigate suspected use of chlorine gas. The wave of attacks on civilian, mainly pro-government, areas in the capital, Damascus, and in the central city of Homs, came a day after President Bashar al-Assad formally announced plans to run for re-election. Taken together, the day’s events underscored the uncertainties around the elections planned for June 3, which government opponents widely regard as a sham, saying Mr. Assad’s victory is guaranteed. It remains unclear how the vote can be carried out safely amid the war, while insurgents still strike in the heart of government territory and the government bombards insurgent-held areas in major cities like Aleppo on a daily basis. While the […]

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The U.S. and Saudi Arabia have supplied Syrian rebel groups with a small number of advanced American antitank missiles for the first time in a pilot program that could lead to larger flows of sophisticated weaponry, people briefed on the effort said. The new willingness to arm these rebels comes after the failure of U.S.-backed peace talks in January and recent regime gains on the battlefield. It also follows a reorganization of Western-backed fighters aimed at creating a more effective military force and increasing protection for Christian and other religious minorities—something of particular importance to Washington. This shift is seen as a test of whether the U.S. can find a trustworthy rebel partner able to keep sophisticated weapons out of the hands of extremists, Saudi and Syrian opposition figures said. The U.S. has long feared that if it does supply advanced arms, the weapons will wind up with radical […]

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Syria has delivered a consignment of chemical weapons materials for export and destruction overseas for the first time in more than two weeks, a delay that revived concerns about the country’s readiness and ability to meet newly extended deadlines for completing the task this month. The delivery, completed on Friday, involved an unspecified volume of chemical agents, according to a statement by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international monitor group helping the United Nations oversee the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons arsenal. However, Friday’s consignment involved only a small volume of chemical agents, Michael Luhan, a spokesman for the agency, said in an interview. Syria missed a February deadline for completing the shipment of all chemical weapons materials to be destroyed abroad and later agreed it would finish the job by April 27, so as to fulfill the agreement brokered by the […]

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When Syrian government forces on Sunday swept into Yabrud, a town long held by rebels near the Lebanese border, it was a symbolic turning point for insurgents and government supporters alike in a conflict now heading into its fourth year. Yabrud was a rallying point for the government and its allies in the Lebanese militia Hezbollah, who were instrumental in the fight, just as they were when they helped take another crucial border town, Qusayr, last spring. Thirteen Syrian nuns had been held hostage by insurgents in Yabrud until last week, and the government had long said that the town harbored a factory that was making the car bombs that have killed scores in southern Beirut in recent months. For Syrian opposition […]

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On the eve of the third anniversary of unrest that led to the  Syrian civil war , the  United Nation’s refugee agency (UNHCR) said Friday  that the country now leads the world in forced displacement, with more than 9 million people uprootedas a result of the conflict. The total number of displaced people is comprised of over  2.5 million refugees  who are living in neighboring countries and 6.5 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) within  Syria , according to the UNHCR. The number of people uprooted — half of which are children — equals 40 percent of the country’s pre-war population. In crossing the 9 million mark, experts believe that Syria has overtaken Afghanistan as the world’s leader in forcibly displaced persons. “It is unconscionable that a humanitarian catastrophe of this scale is unfolding before our eyes with no meaningful progress to stop the bloodshed," said U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees […]

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After three years of grinding conflict, the destruction of whole city districts and an exodus of refugees all triggered by an uprising against his rule, Bashar al-Assad is quietly preparing to be re-elected. The Syrian president has not yet announced whether he will stand for a third term, in defiance of protesters, rebel fighters and Western foes who have demanded he go; but in state-controlled parts of Damascus preparations for his candidacy are unmistakable. Public gatherings have become platforms to urge the president to nominate himself, despite a continuing civil war that has killed more than 140,000 people, fractured the country and destroyed any chance of a credible vote being held. Authorities are once again organizing demonstrations in support of Assad, accused by opponents of massacres of civilians. Shopkeepers are encouraged to show their support by painting national colors on their store fronts. Some express their […]

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After weeks of deepening foreign frustration over missed deadlines and other delays in Syria’s elimination of its chemical weapons, the international mission policing the process reported on Wednesday that Syria had delivered a significant consignment of mustard gas, one of the deadliest toxic agents, to the Syrian port of Latakia to be exported and destroyed. Sigrid Kaag, the coordinator of the international mission of the United Nations and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, called the delivery “an important step” toward eliminating Syria’s chemical weapons in the middle of the three-year-old civil war there. Continue reading the main story The latest shipment came after a series of meetings at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in recent days, aimed at resolving a rift between Syria and its allies, notably Russia, Iran and China, and most Western governments over how to deal with the […]

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It appeared to be a huge step forward for the scattered rebel groups fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad of Syria: the creation of a central body of top insurgent commanders who would coordinate military campaigns, direct foreign support and serve as a unifying force for their diverse movement. But 14 months after its creation, the body, known as the Supreme Military Council, is in disarray. Islamist groups have seized its weapons storerooms, its members have stolen or sold its supplies, and one prominent commander it armed and equipped has publicly joined an offshoot of Al Qaeda. The council’s full dysfunction spilled into public view recently when a group of its members decided at a secret meeting to oust its chief of staff, Gen. Salim Idris, and put another man in his place. While the opposition’s exiled leadership, the Syrian National Coalition, quickly congratulated the new […]

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The second round of Syria peace talks deadlocked in acrimony and frustration on Friday, as the government delegation appeared to rule out any compromise with the opposition, throwing the future of the negotiations into more doubt. Members of the opposition delegation called on the United States and Russia, the two major sponsors of the talks, to find ways to move forward, and said there was a small possibility of a final meeting between the antagonists on Saturday. But the prevailing mood was grim. The impasse in Geneva came as the United Nations human rights office warned of new deprivations and civilian uprooting inside Syria and antigovernment activists in the country reported new mayhem, including a large car bombing in the […]

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Hundreds of evacuees from this besieged city were detained by the Syrian regime as soon as they were rescued, said the top United Nations official here, who said the U.N. now has no control over their fate. The disclosure came as President Barack Obama and his visiting French counterpart, François Hollande, expressed dismay in Washington about the humanitarian crisis in Homs and elsewhere in Syria. Mr. Obama described the situation as "horrendous" and asserted that the country was "crumbling" as he put the responsibility partly on Syrian ally Russia. Most member states of the U.N. Security Council want to pass a resolution requiring that humanitarian aid be allowed into besieged areas of Syria. But, "Russia is a holdout," Mr. Obama said. "They cannot say that they are concerned about the well-being of the Syrian people when there are starving civilians," he said, adding not only Syria is responsible, […]

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HOMS, Syria—Regime loyalists here voiced fury over a United Nations humanitarian relief mission for a rebel-held enclave in their city, accusing the organization of bias against minorities that support President Bashar al-Assad. The U.N. said Monday that it was extending the relief mission for the old quarter of Homs for three more days. It has already evacuated more than 1,000 people and delivered desperately needed food while its convoys came under mortar and sniper fire on their way into the besieged enclave. At least 11 people have been killed in violence around the operation since it began on Friday, the U.N. said. Members of the Mr. Assad’s Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam and a minority in Syria that dominates the regime, accused the U.N. of being far more concerned about taking in food and medicine for rebels and civilians than determining the whereabouts of some 740 missing […]

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Civilians in Homs, Syria, left for a safer part of the city Sunday. Despite a cease-fire, aid convoys were attacked over the weekend. Bassel Tawil/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images ANTAKYA, Turkey — A three-day humanitarian cease-fire in the Syrian city of Homs was supposed to be a small breakthrough, a moment of relief for civilians trapped in a grim civil war. But mortar rounds and gunfire struck near aid convoys, damaging vehicles and leaving victims lying in the streets. Snipers fired on civilians as they fled their besieged neighborhood. Others refused to leave, fearing a massacre of those left behind. Limited food made it in, and some of the nearly 700 people who reached safety said they had been surviving on one meal a day and that some of their neighbors had resorted to eating grass. Though few expect the international peace talks that resume in Geneva on Monday […]

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Over the last two weeks, Obama administration officials have signaled – sometimes intentionally, sometimes not – that a worst-case scenario is emerging in Syria. Peace talks are at a virtual standstill. An emboldened President Bashar al-Assad has missed two deadlines to turn over his deadliest chemical weapons. And radical extremists who have fought in Syria are carrying out attacks in Egypt and allegedly aspire to strike the United States as well. Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper told members of Congress last week that Jabhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda aligned group in Syria, "does have aspirations for attacks on the homeland." American and Egyptian officials expressed alarm this week at signs that Egyptians who fought in Syria have returned home to mount an insurgency. Critics of Obama administration policy in Syria argue that none of this should come as a surprise. For years, they have predicted that […]

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; Al Qaeda’s central leadership has officially cut ties with a powerful jihadist group that has flourished in the chaos of the civil war in Syria and that rushed to build an Islamic state on its own terms, antagonizing the wider rebel movement. The animosity between the group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and other rebel groups has fueled the deadliest infighting yet between the foes of President Bashar al-Assad and has sapped their campaign to depose him. Though the isolation of the group could lead to greater unity among other rebel forces, it is unlikely to assuage fears in the United States and elsewhere about the increasing power of extremists in Syria. The break between Al Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, announced late Sunday on jihadist websites, served both […]

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– Syria plans to send a large shipment of toxic agents out of the country this month and can complete the removal process by March 1, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov was quoted as saying on Tuesday. "Literally yesterday the Syrians announced that the removal of a large shipment of chemical substances is planned in February. They are ready to complete this process by March 1," state-run Russia news agency RIA quoted Gatilov as saying. The operation to dispose of Syria’s chemical stockpile under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States is far behind schedule and a deadline for sending all toxic agents out of Syria this week will be missed, Reuters reported last week. U.S. officials accused Damascus of dragging its feet and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry asked Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov last Friday to put pressure on Assad’s government […]

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UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has said progress at the Syria peace talks has been slow but can form a basis on which the two sides can build, as he closed the week-long conference in Geneva. He said he had seen a "little bit of common ground" between government delegates and the opposition. Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, however, said there had been no tangible results from the conference. Another round of talks has been scheduled for 10 February. The opposition has agreed to take part, but Mr Muallem refused to commit. "We represent the concerns and interests of our people. If we find that [another meeting] is their demand, then we will come back," he told reporters. The two sides discussed humanitarian issues and how to end the violence. More than 100,000 people have died in Syria since the uprising against President […]

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Syrian rebels, some of which are aligned with al-Qaida, may be financing their rebel campaign through the sale of oil, an Emirati oil executive said. Syria relies on oil and natural gas revenue to help pay off its government debt. The U.S. Energy Information Administration says Syria’s energy sector is in decline because of war and Western economic sanctions. A report published Tuesday by the New York Times, citing unnamed U.S. counter-terrorism officials, says much of Syria’s oil and natural gas resources are in the hands of the Islamic States of Iraq and Syria, a group affiliated with al-Qaida. The report said ISIS is selling petroleum products to the Syrian government. "Even sold at discounted prices, this oil could be generating significant revenue for rebels to arm themselves," Badr Jafar, chairman of Emirati energy company Crescent Petroleum, was quoted in the report as […]

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Syria has given up less than five percent of its chemical weapons arsenal and will miss next week’s deadline to send all toxic agents abroad for destruction, sources familiar with the matter said on Wednesday. The deliveries, in two shipments this month to the northern Syrian port of Latakia totaled 4.1 percent of the roughly 1433 metric tons of toxic agents reported by Damascus to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "It’s not enough and there is no sign of more," one source briefed on the situation said. The internationally backed operation, overseen by a joint OPCW-United Nations mission, is now 6-8 weeks behind schedule. Damascus needs to show it is still serious about relinquishing its chemical weapons, the sources told Reuters. Failure to eliminate its chemical weapons could expose Syria to sanctions, although […]

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The World Food Program has said it is poised to enter besieged areas with 500 bags of family rations and 500 sacks of wheat. But the aid trucks remain stranded outside Homs, and on Tuesday, the U.S. government laid the blame squarely on the government. “The only reason this assistance has not been delivered is that the regime has refused to let the convoy through,” said State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez, rejecting government claims that rebel snipers and armed groups were preventing entry. “The regime’s actions speak volumes to how little they value the lives of innocent civilians.” Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, in Geneva, said the government wanted to be sure the aid deliveries would not go to “armed groups” or “terrorists,” Reuters news service reported. “We want them to go to the women and children. We are still waiting for these assurances,” he said. Several areas […]

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Islamist rebels and extremist groups have seized control of most of Syria’s oil and gas resources, a rare generator of cash in the country’s war-battered economy, and are now using the proceeds to underwrite their fights against one another as well as President Bashar al-Assad, American officials say. While the oil and gas fields are in serious decline, control of them has bolstered the fortunes of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria , or ISIS, and the Nusra Front, both of which are offshoots of Al Qaeda. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is even selling fuel to the Assad government, lending weight to allegations by opposition leaders that it is secretly […]

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Attempts to send convoys of food and medicine to thousands of people under siege in a rebel-held area of Homs failed Monday, lowering hopes about the regime’s commitment to confidence-building measures coming out of peace talks in Geneva. Syrian government and United Nations officials met for talks in Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, but they couldn’t agree how to implement a U.N. plan proposed to the regime more than a week ago. The regime insisted on Sunday in Geneva and on Monday in Homs that it would only discuss the evacuation of civilians. The opposition is demanding that aid be delivered before any evacuation, fearing that once some civilians leave, the government will launch a military offensive against rebels who remain. The government’s siege of the old quarter of Homs for the past 20 months has trapped an estimated 3,000 civilians and up to 4,000 rebels. Both the U.N. […]

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The United States has restarted deliveries of nonlethal aid to the Syrian opposition, officials said Monday, more than a month after al-Qaida-linked militants seized warehouses and prompted a sudden cutoff of Western supplies to the rebels. The communications equipment and other items are being funneled for now only to non-armed opposition groups, said the U.S. officials. But the move nevertheless boosts Syria’s beleaguered rebels, who saw their international support slide after Islamic militants seized bases near the Turkish border that had been under the authority of a key U.S.-backed leader. It could also be seen as a U.S. reward to the opposition for its participation in ongoing peace talks with President Bashar Assad’s government in Geneva. The U.S. officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly on the matter and demanded anonymity, said the aid was being sent through Turkey into Syria, with the coordination […]

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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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