Tag: Syria government

US sending F-16 fighter jets to protect ships from Iranian seizures in Gulf region

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. is beefing up its use of fighter jets around the strategic Strait of Hormuz to protect ships from Iranian seizures, a senior defense official said Friday, adding that the U.S. is increasingly concerned about the growing ties between Iran, Russia and Syria across the Middle East.

Speaking to Pentagon reporters, the official said the U.S. will send F-16 fighter jets to the Gulf region this weekend to augment the A-10 attack aircraft that have been patrolling there for more than a week. The move comes after Iran tried to seize two oil tankers near the strait last week, opening fire on one of them.

The defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of military operations in the region, said the F-16s will give air cover to the ships moving through the waterway and increase the military’s visibility in the area, as a deterrent to Iran.

The U.S. Air Force says Russian fighter jets flew dangerously close to U.S. drone aircraft over Syria again Thursday, setting off flares and forcing the MQ-9 Reapers to take evasive maneuvers.

The wrecks of the Titanic and the Titan sit on the ocean floor, separated by 1,600 feet and 111 years of history.

Talk to someone who went on previous trips on the Titan submersible and they’re likely to mention a technology glitch.

The desperate search for a submersible that disappeared and imploded while taking five people to view the Titanic wreckage has drawn attention to other deep-sea rescues.

The U.S. Navy said in both instances the Iranian naval vessels backed off when the USS McFaul, a guided-missile destroyer, arrived on the scene.

In addition, the defense official told reporters the U.S. is considering a number of military options to address increasing Russian aggression in the skies over Syria, which complicated efforts to strike an Islamic State group leader last weekend. The official declined to detail the options, but said the U.S. will not cede any territory and will continue to fly in the western part of the country on anti-Islamic State missions.

The Russian military activity, which has increased in frequency and aggression since March, stems from growing cooperation and coordination between Moscow, Tehran and the Syrian government to try to pressure the U.S. to leave Syria, the official said.

The official said Russia is beholden to Iran for its support in the war in Ukraine, and Tehran wants the U.S. out of Syria so it can more easily move lethal aid to Lebanese Hezbollah and threaten Israel. The U.S. has seen more cooperation, collaboration, planning and intelligence sharing, largely between mid-level Russian and Iranian Quds force leaders in Syria, to pressure the U.S. to remove troops from Syria, the official added.

There are about 900 U.S. forces in the country, and others move in and out to conduct missions targeting Islamic State group militants.

The U.S. does not believe Russian aircraft plan to drop bombs on U.S. troops or shoot down manned aircraft. But there are concerns that Russian pilots will knock a Reaper drone out of the sky and that Moscow believes that type of action would not get a strong U.S. military response, the official said.

As an example, in March, a Russian warplane poured jet fuel on a U.S. surveillance drone and then struck its propeller, forcing the U.S. military to ditch the MQ-9 Reaper into the Black Sea. The incident spiked tensions between the two countries and triggered a call between their defense chiefs, but led to no direct military response.

Last week, Rear Adm. Oleg Gurinov, head of the Russian Reconciliation Center for Syria, said the Russian and Syrian militaries have been doing joint training. In comments carried by Syrian state media, he said Moscow is concerned about drone flights by the U.S.-led coalition over northern Syria, calling them “systematic violations of protocols” designed to avoid clashes between the two militaries.

U.S. and Russian military commanders routinely communicate over a deconfliction phone line that has been in place for several years to avoid unintended clashes in Syria, where both sides have troops on the ground and in the air.

There are often many calls a day, and at times result in angry threats as commanders argue over an ongoing operation, said the U.S. official. Describing a conversation, the official said the Russians will often declare an area of space a restricted operating zone and say they are doing military exercises there.

The U.S. sees no exercises, and tells Russia that American forces are on a counterterror mission against the Islamic State group and plan to fly in that area. The Russians then say they can’t guarantee U.S. aircraft safety if they go there. And once the mission begins, and the aircraft move into the zone, “it sometimes gets very heated,” said the official, as both sides loudly protest and reject the other’s assertions.

The most recent incident was Friday morning, when a Russia aircraft flew repeatedly over the at-Tanf garrison in eastern Syria, where U.S. forces are training Syrian allies and monitoring Islamic State militant activity. The official said the Russian An-30 aircraft was collecting intelligence on the base.

The U.S. did not have fighter aircraft in the area and took no direct action against the Russian flight.

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July 14, 2023
IS attacks on Syria truffle hunters are deadliest in a year

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BEIRUT (AP) — The Islamic State group has carried out its deadliest attacks in more than a year, killing dozens of civilians and security officers in the deserts of central Syria, even as people of northern Syria have been digging out of the wreckage from the region’s devastating earthquake.

The bloodshed was a reminder of the persistent threat from IS, whose sleeper cells still terrorize populations nearly four years after the group was defeated in Syria.

The attacks also underscored the extremists’ limitations. IS militants have found refuge in the remote deserts of Syria’s interior and along the Iraqi-Syrian border. From there, they lash out against civilians and security forces in both countries. But they are also hemmed in by opponents on all sides: Syrian government troops as well as Kurdish-led fighters who control eastern Syria and are backed by U.S. forces. American raids with their Kurdish-led allies have repeatedly killed or caught IS leaders and, earlier this month, killed two senior IS figures.

The IS attacks this month were largely against a very vulnerable target: Syrians hunting truffles in the desert.

The truffles are a seasonal delicacy that can be sold for a high price. Since the truffle hunters work in large groups in remote areas, IS militants in previous years have repeatedly preyed on them, emerging from the desert to abduct them, kill some and ransom others for money.

On Feb. 11, IS fighters kidnapped about 75 truffle hunters outside the town of Palmyra. At least 16 were killed, including a woman and security officers, 25 were released and the rest remain missing.

Six days later, on Friday, they attacked a group of truffle hunters outside the desert town of Sukhna, just up the highway from Palmyra, and fought with troops at a security checkpoint close by. At least 61 civilians and seven soldiers were killed. Many of the truffle hunters in the group work for three local businessmen close to the Syrian military and pro-government militias, which may have prompted IS to target them, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, and the Palmyra News Network, an activist collective that covers developments in the desert areas.

Smaller attacks around the area killed 12 other people, including soldiers, pro-government fighters and civilians.

The area is far from the northern regions devastated by the Feb. 6 earthquake that killed more than 46,000 people in Turkey and Syria. Still, IS fighters “took advantage of the earthquake to send a message that the organization is still present,” said Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Observatory.

Friday’s attack in Sukhna was the group’s deadliest since January 2022, when IS gunmen stormed a prison in the northeastern city of Hassakeh that held some 3,000 militants and juveniles. Ten days of battles between the militants and U.S.-backed fighters left nearly 500 dead.

The prison attack raised fears IS was staging a comeback. But it was followed by a series of blows against the group, which reverted to its drumbeat of smaller-scale shootings and bombings.

It’s too early to say if the new spate of attacks marks a new resurgence, said Aaron Y. Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

“It’s the biggest attack in a while. So the question is if it’s just a one-off attack or if they are reactivating capabilities,” said Zelin, who closely follows militant Islamic groups and founded Jihadology.net.

He said IS fighters have been less active every year since 2019 and noted that the recent attacks hit civilians, not tougher security targets.

In 2014, IS overran large swaths of Syria and Iraq and declared the entire territory a “caliphate,” where it imposed a radically brutal rule. The U.S. and its allies in Syria and Iraq, as well as Syria’s Russian-backed government troops, fought against it for years, eventually rolling it back but also leaving tens of thousands dead and cities in ruins. The group was declared defeated in Iraq in 2017, then in Syria two years later.

In 2019, many thought that IS was finished after it lost the last sliver of land it controlled, its founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a U.S. raid and an international crackdown on social media pages linked to the extremists limited its propaganda and recruitment campaigns.

Another U.S. raid about a year ago killed al-Baghdadi’s successor, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi. His replacement was killed in battle with rebels in southern Syria in October.

The newest IS leader, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi, may be trying to show his strength with the latest attacks, said Abdullah Suleiman Ali, a Syrian researcher who focuses on jihadi groups. The leaders’ names are pseudonyms and don’t refer to a family relation.

“The new leader has to take measures to prove himself within the organization … (to show) that the group under the new leadership is capable and strong,” Ali said.

American troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces eliminated a series of senior IS figures this month, according to the U.S. military. On Feb, 10, they killed Ibrahim Al Qahtani, suspected of planning last year’s prison attack, then eight days later they captured an IS official allegedly involved in planning attacks and manufacturing bombs. Last week, a senior IS commander, Hamza al-Homsi, was killed in a raid that also left four American service-members wounded.

But IS remains a threat, according to U.N., U.S. and Kurdish officials.

It is estimated to have 5,000 to 7,000 members and supporters – around half of them fighters — in Iraq and Syria, according to a U.N. report this month. IS uses desert hideouts “for remobilization and training purposes” and has spread cells of 15 to 30 people each to other parts of the country, particularly the southern province of Daraa.

SDF spokesman Siamand Ali said IS persistently plots attacks in Kurdish-run eastern Syria. He pointed to an attempted attack by IS fighters on SDF security headquarters in the city of Raqqa in December. SDF sweeps since then have captured IS operatives and weapons caches, he said. This is a sign the group was close to carrying out large operations, he said.

IS in particular aims to storm SDF-run prisons to free militants, he said. Some 10,000 IS fighters, including about 2,000 foreigners, are held in the more than two dozen Kurdish-run detention facilities.

Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, commander of the U.S. Central Command or CENTCOM, said in a statement this month that IS “continues to represent a threat to not only Iraq and Syria, but to the stability and security of the region.”

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February 23, 2023
UAE top diplomat back in Syria as relations continue to thaw

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BEIRUT — The United Arab Emirates’ top diplomat met with Syrian President Bashar Assad on Wednesday, his second visit to Damascus as relations continue to thaw between the two countries.

According to a statement from Assad’s office, he and UAE’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan discussed boosting economic ties between their nations. It quoted Assad as saying that the restoration of ties between the two countries is in the interest of regional stability.

The UAE’s state-run WAM news agency said they also discussed developments in Syria and the region, with Sheikh Abdullah expressing support for a political solution to end the conflict. The UAE foreign minister was joined by a delegation of economic and security officials.

Sheikh Abdullah’s visit is the second to Syria since his first trip to the war-torn country in November 2021. It also comes 10 months after Assad paid a rare visit to the UAE — his first in several years to a foreign country other than his allies Russia and Iran. The UAE reopened its embassy in Syria in 2018.

Syria was expelled from the 22-member Arab League and boycotted by its neighbors after its uprising turned conflict broke out in 2011. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the war, which displaced half of Syria’s pre-war population of 23 million. Large parts of Syria have been destroyed, and reconstruction will cost tens of billions of dollars.

With the war mostly stalemated in recent years and after Assad regained control over much of Syria’s territory thanks to military assistance from Russia, Iran, and the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group, Arab countries have inched closer toward restoring ties with the Syrian leader.

In June, Bahrain named its full diplomatic mission to Syria in over a decade, while Algeria’s top diplomat in a Damascus visit last July said his nation alongside other Arab countries was coordinating to restore Syria’s Arab League membership. Assad also had a call with Jordan’s King Abdullah II in October 2021, who hosted Western-backed opposition groups and hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the war.

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January 4, 2023
Turkish, Russian forces could ‘expand’ Syria joint patrols

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ANKARA, Turkey — Turkey’s defense minister said Wednesday that Turkish and Russian troops could “expand” their joint patrols in northern Syria as part of efforts to bring security to the region.

Hulusi Akar did not elaborate on the plans, which come days after he held talks with his Syrian and Russian counterparts in a surprise meeting in Moscow. Akar’s talks with Syria’s Mahmoud Abbas marked the first ministerial level meeting between Turkey and Syria since relations broke down with the start of the Syrian civil war more than 11 years ago.

“We can expand the joint patrols with Russia in (the) north of Syria,” Akar told a group of reporters when asked about his discussions in Moscow, according to a defense ministry statement.

More talks between Russian, Syrian and Turkish officials would follow, Akar said, adding: “our hope is that this process will continue in a reasonable, logical and successful manner, and the fight against terrorism will be successful.”

Turkey has been threatening to carry out a new military offensive into Syria against Kurdish militants it has blamed for a deadly Nov. 13 bomb attack in Istanbul.

Moscow, which has been pressing for a reconciliation between Ankara and Damascus, has made clear that it opposes a new Turkish invasion. It was not immediately clear whether Russia may have proposed expanded joint patrols between Turkish and Russian forces to avert a new incursion.

Turkey and Syria have been standing on opposing sides of the Syrian conflict, with Turkey backing rebels trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. Damascus for its part, has denounced Turkey’s hold over stretches of territory in northern Syria which were seized in a series of military incursions since 2016 to drive away Kurdish militant groups.

Turkey and Russia started joint patrols in March 2020 after a cease-fire was reached earlier that month ending a Russian-backed government offensive on the last rebel stronghold in the northwest.

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January 4, 2023
Israeli missile strikes put Damascus airport out of service

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BEIRUT — Israel’s military fired missiles toward the international airport of the capital Damascus early Monday, putting it out of service and killing two soldiers and wounding two others, the Syrian army said.

The attack, the first this year, also caused material damage in nearby area, the army said without giving further details.

It was the second time the Damascus International Airport was put out of service in less than a year.

There was no comment from Israel.

On June 10, Israeli airstrikes that struck Damascus International Airport caused significant damage to infrastructure and runways. It reopened two weeks later after repairs.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges or discusses such operations.

Israel has acknowledged, however, that it targets bases of Iran-allied militant groups, such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has sent thousands of fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad’s forces.

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January 1, 2023
Former IS families face neighbors’ hatred returning home

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RAQQA, Syria — Marwa Ahmad rarely leaves her run-down house in the Syrian city of Raqqa. The single mother of four says people look at her with suspicion and refuse to offer her a job, while her children get bullied and beaten up at school.

She and her children are paying the price, she says, because she once belonged to the Islamic State group, which overran a swath of Syria and Iraq in 2014 and imposed a radical, brutal rule for years.

Ahmad is among tens of thousands of widows and wives of IS militants who were detained in the wretched and lawless al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria after U.S.-led coalition and Syrian Kurdish forces cleared IS from the region in 2019.

She and a growing number of families have since been allowed to leave, after Kurdish authorities that oversee the camp determined they were no longer affiliated with the militant group and do not pose a threat to society. But the difficulties they face in trying to reintegrate back in Syria and Iraq show the deep, bitter resentments remaining after the atrocities committed by IS and the destructiveness of the long war that brought down the militants.

There also remains fear of IS sleeper cells that continue to carry out attacks. IS militants in Raqqa on Monday attacked and killed six members of the Kurdish-led security forces, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. The attack came following a surge of SDF and U.S. raids targeting IS militants in eastern Syria.

Near Ahmad’s house, an IS slogan, “The Islamic Caliphate is coming, God willing,” is graffitied on the wall of a dilapidated building.

It’s an ideology that Ahmad once believed in. She said she and her sister joined IS after their brother, an IS member, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in 2014. She married a member of the group, though she says he was a nurse, not a fighter. He has been detained since 2019.

Ahmed says she now rejects IS. Her community doesn’t believe that though, and she claims it’s because she wears the conservative niqab veil that covers most of her face.

“Now, I have to face people, and many of the people in this society have been hurt by (IS),” Ahmad said. “Of course, it was not only the organization that did so. We, the people who live in Syria, have been hurt by the Free Syrian Army, the regime, and IS, right? But they don’t say that.”

She says the neighborhood bakery sometimes refuses to give her bread. Even her own father, who did not approve of her joining the extremist group, threatened a shop owner who employed her that he would accuse him of communicating with IS if he didn’t fire her.

After IS overran Raqqa, large parts of northern and eastern Syria and western Iraq in 2014, the group declared a so-called Islamic caliphate over the territory. Thousands came from around the world to join. Raqqa became the “Caliphate’s” de facto capital.

U.S.-backed Kurdish-led authorities battled for years to roll back IS. Finally in March 2019, they captured the last sliver of IS-held territory in Syria, the small village of Bahgouz. Ahmed’s husband was captured by the SDF at Bahgouz, and Ahmed and her children were sent to al-Hol camp.

Ever since, what to do with the women and children at al-Hol has been a conundrum for the Kurdish-led authorities. Most of the women are wives and widows of IS fighters. Thousands of Syrians and Iraqis have been released and sent home, as well as a number of foreigners.

Still some 50,000 Syrians and Iraqis, half of whom are children, remain crowded into tents in the fenced-in camp in a barren stretch of desert. Several thousand foreigners from dozens of countries also remain.

Conditions are dire. Kurdish-led authorities and activists blame IS sleeper cells for surging violence within the camp, including the beheading of two Egyptian girls, aged 11 and 13, in November. Ahmad says life in al-Hol was similar to life under IS, “except you’re fenced in.”

Armed militants affiliated to IS still control large parts of the camp, Human Rights Watch said in a recent report, citing camp authorities.

The U.S. Central Command said it conducted 313 raids targeting IS militants in Syria and Iraq over the past year, detaining 215 and killing 466 militants in Syria, mostly in cooperation with the SDF.

The Kurdish-led forces announced Thursday, citing a surge in IS attacks, that they launched a new military campaign against the extremist group, dubbed “Operation Al-Jazeera Thunderbolt,” to target sleeper cells in al-Hol and nearby in Tal Hamis.

Despite all this, Ahlam Abdulla, another woman released from al-Hol, says life in the camp was better than in her hometown of Raqqa.

“In general, everyone is against us. We are fought wherever we go,” she said. She says husband joined IS and worked in an office for the militant group, while she just looked after the house.

With the support of her tribe’s elders, the mother of five returned to Raqqa in 2020 without her husband, who has been missing for four years. She says local authorities have watched their every move with suspicion and asked for their personal information.

“We are scared,” she said. “If anyone asks, I just say my husband died at the Turkish border.” She tells no one she was at al-Hol.

Saeed al-Borsan, an elder of the al-Walda tribe, says that reintegrating women and children from al-Hol has been a huge challenge, both because of a lack of job opportunities and because residents struggle to accept them. Tribe elders like al-Borsan have been trying to help women find housing and livelihoods.

“The children especially have faced difficulties, lack of education, and disconnection from society for five years,” he explained, sitting in a room with other tribesmen with a set of prayer beads in one hand. “They’re victims.”

Local charities and civil society groups have tried to help the children reintegrate into schools and help their mothers improve their skills to find better jobs.

“They stayed under the rule of IS, and many of them are relatively still influenced by them,” Helen Mohammed of Women for Peace, a civil society organization supporting women and children, told The Associated Press. “They were victims to extremist ideology.”

But she believes the women can be successfully reintegrated with the right services and support.

Abdulla says she attended a few workshops but feels her job prospects haven’t improved yet. In the meantime, she earns a little by cleaning carpets and homes and selling traditionally jarred pickled or dried seasonal food, known locally as “mouneh.”

Meanwhile, Ahmad got rejected from yet another job. She said she didn’t get a clear reason why, but believes it’s because her husband was with IS.

“We have to live with the IS label in this society,” Ahmad said as she let her kids out of her dim house to play. “No matter how hard we try to be part of this community, to embrace the people and be nice to them, they still look at us the same way.”

———

Chehayeb reported from Beirut.

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December 29, 2022
Turkish, Syrian, Russian defense chiefs hold surprise talks

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ANKARA, Turkey — The Turkish, Syrian and Russian defense ministers have held previously unannounced talks in Moscow, the Turkish and Russian defense ministries said on Wednesday. It was the first ministerial level meeting between rivals Turkey and Syria since the start of the Syrian conflict 11 years ago.

A Turkish defense ministry statement said the Turkish, Syrian and Russian intelligence chiefs also attended the talks in Moscow which, it said, took place in a “positive atmosphere.”

The discussion focused on “the Syrian crisis, the refugee problem and efforts for a joint struggle against terror organizations present on Syrian territory,” the ministry said.

It added that the sides would continue to hold trilateral meetings.

Russia has long been pressing for a reconciliation between Turkey and the Syrian government — Moscow’s close ally — which have been standing on opposite sides in Syria’s civil war.

Turkey backed rebels trying to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. Damascus for its part denounced Turkey’s hold over stretches of territory in northern Syria which were seized in Turkish military incursions launched since 2016 to drive Kurdish militant groups away from the frontier.

Russia’s Defense Ministry confirmed that the three ministers discussed ways to resolve the Syrian crisis, the refugee issue and to combat extremist groups.

The parties noted “the constructive nature of the dialogue … and the need to continue it in the interests of further stabilizing the situation” in Syria and the region as a whole, the short statement said. It didn’t provide any other details.

The previously unannounced talks in Moscow follow repeated warnings by Turkey of a new land incursion into Syria after a deadly bombing in Istanbul last month. Turkish authorities blamed the attack on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and on the Syria-based People’s Protection Units, or YPG. Both groups denied involvement.

Russia has opposed a new Turkish military offensive.

The efforts toward a Turkish-Syrian reconciliation also comes as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan — who faces presidential and parliamentary elections in June — is under intense pressure at home to send Syrian refugees back. Anti-refugee sentiment is rising in Turkey amid an economic crisis.

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December 28, 2022
Syria reports two soldiers injured in Israeli airstrikes

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Two soldiers were injured by Israeli airstrikes in the vicinity of the Syrian capital of Damascus early Tuesday, the first such attack in more than a month, a Syrian military statement reported.

In addition to the injuries, the strikes caused some “material losses,” the statement said without elaboration, noting that Syrian air defenses had intercepted and shot down a number of missiles.

The last reported Israeli attack in Syria was on Nov. 13 and killed two Syrian soldiers and wounded three others when airstrikes hit an airbase in the province of Homs.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but it rarely acknowledges or discusses specific operations.

Israeli leaders have in the past acknowledged striking targets in Syria and elsewhere in what it says is a campaign to thwart Iranian attempts to smuggle weapons to proxies such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group or to destroy weapons caches

Last week, Israel’s military chief of staff strongly suggested that Israel was behind a Nov. 8 strike on a truck convoy in Syria.

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December 19, 2022
EXPLAINER: What’s at stake in Turkey’s new Syria escalation

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BEIRUT — After weeks of deadly Turkish airstrikes in northern Syria, Kurdish forces and international players are trying to gauge whether Ankara’s threats of a ground invasion are serious.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly warned of a new land incursion to drive Kurdish groups away from the Turkish-Syrian border, following a deadly Nov. 13 bombing in Istanbul. Turkish authorities blamed the attack on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and on the Syria-based People’s Protection Units, or YPG. Both have denied involvement.

On Nov. 20, Ankara launched a barrage of airstrikes, killing dozens, including civilians as well as Kurdish fighters and Syrian government troops. Human Rights Watch has warned that the strikes are exacerbating a humanitarian crisis by disrupting power, fuel and aid.

In the most recent development, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Vershinin flew to Turkey this week for talks on the situation in Syria.

Here’s a look at what various foreign powers and groups embroiled in the Syria conflict stand to gain or lose:

WHAT TURKEY WANTS

Turkey sees the Kurdish forces along its border with Syria as a threat and has launched three major military incursions since 2016, taking control of large swaths of territory.

Erdogan hopes to relocate many of the 3.6 million Syrian refugees in Turkey to northern Syria and has begun building housing units there. The plan could address growing anti-refugee sentiment in Turkey and bolster Erdogan’s support ahead of next year’s elections, while diluting historically Kurdish-majority areas by resettling non-Kurdish Syrian refugees there.

Erdogan has also touted plans to create a 30-kilometer (19-mile) security corridor in areas currently under Kurdish control. A planned Turkish invasion earlier this year was halted amid opposition by the U.S. and Russia.

THE KURDISH RESPONSE

Kurdish groups are pressing the U.S. and Russia, both of which have military posts in northern Syria, to once again prevent Turkey from carrying out its threats.

The Kurds are worried that West will stand aside this time to appease Ankara in exchange for approval of Sweden and Finland joining NATO.

“This silence toward Turkey’s brutality will encourage Turkey to carry out a ground operation,” said Badran Jia Kurd, deputy co-chair of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

Kurdish groups, which fought against the Islamic State group alongside a U.S.-led coalition and now guard thousands of captured IS fighters and family members, warn that a Turkish escalation would threaten efforts to stamp out the extremist group.

In recent weeks, officials from the U.S. and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said they had stopped or scaled back joint patrols against IS because of the airstrikes, although patrols have since resumed.

THE ROLE OF THE SYRIAN INSURGENTS

The so-called Syrian National Army, a coalition of Turkey-backed Syrian opposition groups with tens of thousands of fighters, would likely provide foot soldiers for any future ground offensive. In previous incursions, including the 2018 offensive on the town of Afrin, the SNA was accused of committing atrocities against Kurds and displacing tens of thousands from their homes.

Several officials from the SNA did not respond to calls and text messages by The Associated Press. One official who answered said they were ordered by Turkish authorities not to speak about plans for a new incursion.

THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT’S STANCE?

The Syrian government has opposed past Turkish incursions but also sees the SDF as a secessionist force and a Trojan horse for the U.S., which has imposed paralyzing sanctions on the government of Bashar Assad.

Damascus and Ankara have recently been moving to improve relations after 11 years of tension triggered by Turkey’s backing of opposition fighters in Syria’s civil war. Damascus has kept relatively quiet about the killing of Syrian soldiers in the recent Turkish strikes.

WILL THE UNITED STATES GET INVOLVED?

The United States maintains a small military presence in northern Syria, where its strong backing of the SDF has infuriated Turkey.

However, the U.S. at first said little publicly about the Turkish airstrikes, speaking more forcefully only after they hit dangerously close to U.S. troops and led to anti-IS patrols being temporarily halted. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin last week voiced “strong opposition” to a new offensive.

Asked if the U.S. had any assurances for Kurds worried that the U.S. might abandon them to coax a NATO deal out of Turkey, a senior U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said only that there had been no changes to U.S. policy in the region.

WILL RUSSIA BROKER A DEAL?

Russia is the Syrian government’s closest ally. Its involvement in Syria’s conflict helped turn the tide in favor of Assad.

Although Turkey and Russia support rival sides in the conflict, the two have coordinated closely in Syria’s north. In recent months, Russia has pushed for a reconciliation between Damascus and Ankara.

Moscow has voiced concerns over Turkey’s recent military actions in northern Syria and has attempted to broker a deal. According to Lebanon-based pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV, the chief of Russian forces in Syria, Lt. Gen. Alexander Chaiko, recently suggested to SDF commander Mazloum Abdi that Syrian government forces should deploy in a security strip along the border with Turkey to avoid a Turkish incursion.

IRAN’S INTERESTS

Iran, a key ally of the Assad government, strongly opposed Turkish plans for a land offensive earlier this year but hasn’t commented publicly on the possible new incursion.

Tehran also has a sizable Kurdish minority and has battled a low-level separatist insurgency for decades. Iran has seen sustained protests and a deadly crackdown by security forces since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman, in the custody of the country’s morality police in mid- September.

Iran has blamed much of the unrest on Kurdish opposition groups exiled in neighboring Iraq, charges those groups deny, and has carried out strikes against them. Another Turkish incursion into Syria could provide a model for a wider response if the unrest in Iran’s Kurdistan continues to escalate.

———

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Associated Press writers Andrew Wilks in Istanbul and Ellen Knickmeyer in Washington contributed.

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December 10, 2022
UN envoy: Military escalation in Syria is `dangerous’

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UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. special envoy for Syria warned Tuesday that the current military escalation in Syria is dangerous for civilians and regional stability, and he urged Turkey and Kurdish-led forces in the north to de-escalate immediately and restore the relative calm that has prevailed for the last three years.

Geir Pedersen told the Security Council that the U.N.’s call for maximum restraint and de-escalation also applies to other areas in Syria. He pointed to the upsurge in truce violations in the last rebel-held stronghold in northwest Idlib, airstrikes attributed to Israel in Damascus, Homs, Hama and Latakia, as well as reported airstrikes on the Syria-Iraq border and security incidents and fresh military clashes in the south.

In northwest Idlib, he said, government airstrikes have killed and injured civilians who fled fighting during the nearly 12-year war and now live in camps. He said the attacks destroyed their tents and displaced hundreds of families.

The al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, the most powerful militant group in Idlib, reportedly attacked government forces and government-controlled areas with civilian casualties, he added.

But Pedersen said his major concern now is the slow increase in mutual strikes between the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main U.S.-backed Kurdish-led force in Syria, and Turkey and armed opposition groups across northern Syria, with violence spilling into Turkish territory.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to order a land invasion of northern Syria targeting Kurdish groups following a Nov. 3, explosion in Istanbul that killed six people and wounded dozens, and the government has launched a barrage of airstrikes on suspected militant targets in northern Syria and Iraq in retaliation.

The Kurdish groups have denied involvement in the bombing and say Turkish strikes have killed civilians and threatened the fight against the Islamic State group. But Pedersen cited reports of Syrian Democratic Forces attacks on Turkish forces including inside Turkish territory.

The U.N. envoy said he came to New York to warn the Security Council of “the dangers of military escalation” taking place and of his fear of what a major military operation would mean for Syrian civilian and for wider regional security.

“And I equally fear a scenario where the situation escalates in part because there is today no serious effort to resolve the conflict politically,” Pedersen said.

He expressed concern that the committee comprising government, opposition and civil society representatives that is supposed to revise Syria’s constitution has not met for six months and reiterated his call for a meeting in Geneva in January.

Russia had raised issues over Geneva as the venue, which Pedersen said were “comprehensively addressed” by Swiss authorities, but Moscow has now raised another issue — which he refused to disclose.

“It is now the question of political will from Russia to move on or not to move on,” the U.N. envoy told reporters later. “And as I said to the council, the longer it takes before we meet again, the more problematic it will be. So, I really hope I will get some positive news on this.”

Pedersen said there is a way forward in the weeks ahead: stop the military escalation, renew cross-border aid deliveries to northwest Idlib which expire in January, resume constitutional committee meetings, prioritize work on Syrians detained and missing, and identify and implement step-for-step confidence-building measures.

Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia hinted at Moscow’s concerns, saying decisions on further inter-Syrian dialogue in the constitutional committee “should be made by the Syrians themselves without external interference.”

To that end, he said, Russia welcomes Pedersen’s contacts with Damascus and the opposition, but not his “step-by-step initiative,” saying this is not part of the special envoy’s mandate.

Nebenzia called the overall situation in Syria tense, with terrorist threats persisting, and the north, northeast and south “exposed to illegal foreign military presence while the humanitarian and socioeconomic situation keeps deteriorating.” He blamed U.S. and European sanctions for making the situation worse.

U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths told the council in a video briefing that the gap between the needs of Syrians and available funding keeps growing.

“The trend is clear: more people need our support each year to survive,” he said. “We expect to see a surge in the number of people needing humanitarian assistance from 14.6 million this year to over 15 million in 2023.”

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November 29, 2022
Turkey hints new Syria offensive; Russia urges restraint

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ANKARA — Turkey’s president again hinted at a possible new ground offensive in Syria against Kurdish militants on Tuesday, as Syrian forces denounced new airstrikes and Russia urged restraint and called on Ankara to avoid an escalation.

Russian presidential envoy in Syria Alexander Lavrentyev said that Turkey should “show a certain restraint” in order to prevent an escalation in Syria, where tensions heightened over the weekend after Turkish airstrikes killed and wounded a number of Syrian soldiers.

Lavrentyev — whose country is a strong ally of the Syrian government — expressed hope that “it will be possible to convince our Turkish partners to refrain from excessive use of force on Syrian territory.”

Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces later said fresh Turkish airstrikes on Tuesday struck a base the group shares with the U.S.-led coalition in the fight against the Islamic State group. The base is just outside the town of Qamishli, 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Turkish border. Two SDF fighters were killed and three were wounded, the group said.

Turkey carried out airstrikes on suspected Kurdish militant targets in northern Syria and Iraq over the weekend, in retaliation for a deadly Nov. 13 bombing in Istanbul that Ankara blames on the militant groups. The groups have denied involvement in the bombing.

The airstrikes also hit several Syrian army positions in three provinces along the border with Turkey, and killed and wounded a number of Syrian soldiers, Syrian officials said.

“We will, of course, call on our Turkish colleagues to show a certain restraint in order to prevent an escalation of tension, and an escalation of tension not only in the north, but also in the entire territory of Syria,” Lavrentyev was quoted as saying by the Russian state news agencies in the Kazakh capital, Astana, ahead of talks on Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said Turkey’s actions would not be limited to aerial strikes, suggesting a possible new incursion — a position he reiterated on Tuesday.

“We have been on top of the terrorists for the past few days with our planes, artillery and drones,” Erdogan said. “As soon as possible, we will root out all of them together with our tanks and soldiers.”

Erdogan continued: “From now on, there is only one measure for us. There is only one border. (And that is) the safety of our own country, our own citizens. It is our most legitimate right to go where this security is ensured.”

Turkey has launched three major incursions into northern Syria since 2016 and already controls some Syrian territory in the north.

Following the weekend’s airstrikes from Turkey, suspected Kurdish militants in Syria fired rockets Monday across the border into Turkey, killing at least two people and wounding 10 others, according to Turkish officials. Three more rockets were fired on Tuesday, but caused no damage or injuries, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

While Kurdish-led forces in Syria have not claimed responsibility for the attacks, the SDF on Monday vowed to respond to Turkish airstrikes “effectively and efficiently at the right time and place.”

The Turkish warplanes attacked bases of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and the Syrian People’s Protection Units, or YPG on Saturday night and on Sunday. Turkish officials claimed that 89 targets were destroyed and many militants were killed.

A Syria war monitoring group said 35 people were killed in Turkish airstrikes over the weekend — 18 Kurdish fighters, 16 Syrian government soldiers and a journalist.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that Moscow views Turkey’s security concerns “with understanding and respect” but also urges Ankara to “refrain from steps that could lead to a serious destabilization of the situation in general.”

“It can come back as a boomerang,” Peskov said.

Also Tuesday, German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser reiterated during a joint news conference with her Turkish counterpart that Berlin stands with Turkey in the fight against terrorism, but said Turkey’s response to attacks must be “proportionate” and mindful of civilian populations.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, however, defended Turkey’s actions.

“They want to establish a terror state around us, we cannot allow that. It is our duty to protect our borders and our nation,” he said.

Turkey’s defense minister meanwhile, renewed a call for the United States and other nations not to back the Syrian Kurdish militia group, YPG, which Turkey regards as an extension of the PKK.

“We express at every level that ‘PKK equals YPG’ to all our interlocutors, especially the United States, and constantly demand that all support to terrorists be cut,” Hulusi Akar told a parliamentary committee.

Ankara and Washington both consider the PKK a terror group, but disagree on the status of the YPG. Under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the YPG has been allied with the U.S. in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.

——

AP reporters Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut and Dasha Litvinova in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed to this report.

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November 22, 2022
Monitors say 6 killed in Syria’s shelling of tent settlement

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Opposition war monitors say Syrian government forces have shelled a tent settlement housing families displaced by the country’s conflict in the rebel-held northwest, killing at least six people and wounding more than a dozen

IDLIB, Syria — Syrian government forces shelled a tent settlement housing families displaced by the country’s conflict in the rebel-held northwest early Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding more than a dozen, opposition war monitors said.

The shelling is the latest violation of a truce reached between Russia and Turkey in March 2020 that ended a Russian-backed government offensive on Idlib province that is the last major rebel-held stronghold in Syria.

The truce has been repeatedly violated over the past two years killing and wounding scores of people.

The tent settlement, known as the Maram camp, is just northwest of the provincial capital of Idlib.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that government forces fired about 30 rockets toward rebel-held areas, including the Maram camp Sunday morning killing six and wounding 15. It said the dead included two children and one woman.

Other opposition activists also reported that six people were killed and more than 30 wounded.

The pro-government Sham FM radio station said Syrian government forces shelled positions of the al-Qaida-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, the most powerful militant group in Idlib. It said Syrian and Russian warplanes also attacked the areas.

Syria’s conflict broke out in March 2011 and has since killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million and left large parts of Syria destroyed.

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November 5, 2022
Kansas mom gets 20 years for leading Islamic State battalion

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ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A Kansas native who led an all-female Islamic State battalion when she lived in Syria has been sentenced to 20 years in prison, the maximum possible sentence, after her own children denounced her in court and detailed the horrific circumstances and abuse she heaped on them.

Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, admitted that she led the Khatiba Nusaybah, a battalion in which roughly 100 women and girls — some as young as 10 years old — learned how to use automatic weapons and detonate grenades and suicide belts.

One of Fluke-Ekren’s daughters was among those who said she received such training. The daughter and Fluke-Ekren’s oldest son, now adults, both urged the judge to impose the maximum sentence.

They said they were physically and sexually abused by their mother, and described the mistreatment in detail in letters to the court. Fluke-Ekren denied the abuse.

The daughter, Leyla Ekren, said “lust for control and power” drove her mother to drag the family half way across the world to find a terrorist group that would allow Fluke-Ekren to flourish, during a victim impact statement she gave at the hearing.

She said her mother became skilled at hiding the abuse she inflicted. She described a circumstance where her mother poured an off-brand lice medication all over her face as a punishment and it started to blister her face and burn her eyes. Fluke-Ekren then tried to wash the chemicals off her daughers’s face, but Leyla Ekren resisted.

“I wanted people to see what kind of person she was. I wanted it to blind me,” she said as her mother sat a few feet away, resting her head on her hand with a look of disbelief. After her children testified, she glared in their direction.

Fluke-Ekren’s status as a U.S.-born woman who rose to a leadership status in the Islamic State makes her story unique among terror cases. Prosecutors say the abuse she inflicted on her children from a young age helps explain how she went from an 81-acre (33-hectare) farm in Overbrook, Kansas, to an Islamic State leader in Syria, with stops in Egypt and Libya along the way.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Raj Parekh said Fluke-Ekren’s family sent her to an elite private school in Topeka and that she grew up in a stable home. Parekh said Fluke-Ekren’s immediate family was unanimous in its desire to see her punished to the maximum extent possible, a circumstance the veteran prosecutor described as extremely rare.

“There is nothing in Fluke-Ekren’s background that can explain her conduct, which was driven by fanaticism, power, manipulation, delusional invincibility, and extreme cruelty,” Parekh said.

Fluke-Ekren asked for just a two-year sentence so she could raise her young children. She said at the outset of a lengthy, weepy speech that she takes responsibility for her actions before rationalizing and minimizing her conduct.

“We just lived a very normal life,” she told the judge about her time in Syria, showing pictures of her kids at a weekly pizza dinner.

She denied the abuse allegations, and tried to accuse her oldest son of manipulating her daughter into making them.

She portrayed the Khatiba Nusaybah as something more akin to a community center for women that morphed into a series of self-defense classes as it became clear that the city of Raqqa, the Islamic State stronghold where she lived, faced invasion.

She acknowledged that women and girls were taught to use suicide belts and automatic weapons but portrayed it as safety training to avoid accidents in a war zone where such weapons were common.

Judge Leonie Brinkema, though, made clear she was unimpressed by Fluke-Ekren’s justifications. At one point, Fluke-Ekren explained the need for women to defend themselves against the possibility of rape by enemy soldiers. “Sexual violence is not OK in any circumstance,” she said.

Brinkema interrupted to ask Fluke-Ekren about the daughter’s allegation that she was forced to marry an Islamic State fighter who raped her at the age of 13.

“She was a few weeks away from 14,” Fluke-Ekren responded in protest, later saying, “It was her decision. I never forced her.”

Parekh described Fluke-Ekren as an “empress of ISIS” whose husbands rose to senior ranks in the Islamic State, often to be killed in fighting.

Even within the Islamic State, people who knew Fluke-Ekren described her radicalization as “off the charts” and other terrorist groups refused her plans to form a female battalion until she finally found a taker in the Islamic State, Parekh said.

Fluke-Ekren’s actions “added a new dimension to the darkest side of humanity,” Parekh said.

In addition to forming the battalion, Fluke-Ekren admitted that while living in Libya, she helped translate, review and summarize documents taken from U.S. diplomatic facilities after the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi.

———

The spelling of Leyla Ekren’s first name has been corrected.

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November 1, 2022
Militant Hamas group back in Damascus after years of tension

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DAMASCUS, Syria — Two senior officials from the Palestinian militant Hamas group visited Syria’s capital on Wednesday for the first time since they were forced to leave the war-torn country a decade ago over backing armed opposition fighters.

The visit appears to be a first step toward reconciliation between Hamas and the Syrian government and follows a monthslong mediation by Iran and Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group — both key backers of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Over the years, Tehran and the Iran-backed Hezbollah have maintained their relations with Hamas despite Assad’s rift with the Palestinian militants.

Before the rift, Hamas had long kept a political base in Syria, receiving Damascus’ support in its campaign against Israel. Hamas’ powerful leadership-in-exile remained in Syria — even after the group took power in the Gaza Strip in 2007.

But when Syria tipped into civil war, Hamas broke with Assad and sided with the rebels fighting to oust him. The rebels are largely Sunni Muslims, like Hamas, and scenes of Sunni civilian deaths raised an outcry across the region against Assad, who belongs to the Alawites, a minority Shiite sect in Syria.

On Wednesday, Khalil al-Hayeh, a senior figure in Hamas’ political branch, and top Hamas official Osama Hamdan were among several officials representing different Palestinian factions who were received by Assad.

Al-Hayeh had regularly visited Beirut over the years, meeting with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah; their last meeting was in August.

After Wednesday’s meeting, al-Hayeh said Assad was “keen on Syria’s support to the Palestinian resistance” and called his visit a “glorious day.”

“God willing, we will turn the old page and look for the future,” al-Hayeh said, adding that Hamas is against any “Zionist or American aggression on Syria.”

Israel has carried out hundreds of airstrikes around Syria over the past years, mainly targeting Iran-backed fighters.

Hamas’ re-establishing of a Damascus base would mark its rejoining the so-called Iran-led “axis of resistance” as Tehran works to gather allies at a time when talks with world powers over Iran’s nuclear program are stalled.

The move by Hamas also comes after Turkey restored relations with Israel and after some Arab states, including the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, normalized relations with Hamas’ archenemy Israel.

The pro-government Al-Watan daily says Damascus will be reconciling with the “resistance branch” of Hamas and not the Muslim Brotherhood faction — an apparent reference to Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal who was once based in Damascus but is now in Qatar.

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October 19, 2022