Syrian troops battered rebel positions in and around Damascus in an assault aimed at securing the capital, as Russia and Turkey prepared for talks in Istanbul yesterday on their differences over the conflict.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said artillery gunners targeted the districts of Hajar al-Aswad and Tadamun as well as the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk in southern Damascus.
The army also bombarded Yabrud to the north, Yalda to the south and the Eastern Ghouta towns of Douma, Harasta, Irbin and Haran al-Hawamid, in the area of the road linking Damascus to its international airport, it said.
Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have been trying to establish a secure perimeter around Damascus at all costs, turning the province into one of the main battlegrounds in the country’s 20-month conflict.
Analysts say the objective of the military campaign is to put the regime in a position to negotiate a way out of the conflict that the Observatory says has cost more than 41,000 lives since March last year.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin was to meet with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a landmark visit to Istanbul to discuss their differences on Syria.
The talks are to cover “reconciliation in the Middle East, the situation in the Gaza Strip, the crisis in Syria, as well as cooperation,” Putin’s foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said in a statement.
Turkey and Russia are at loggerheads over how to tackle the bloody crackdown in Syria, despite growing trade and energy links.
Those tensions came to a head in October when Turkey intercepted a Syrian plane en route from Moscow to Damascus on suspicion that it had military cargo, drawing an angry response from Russia.
Ankara said the cargo contained military equipment destined for the Syrian defense ministry. Moscow insisted it was dual-purpose radar equipment which was not banned by international conventions.
Turkey, once an ally of the Damascus regime, has become one of its fiercest critics.
However, Moscow remains one of al-Assad’s few allies, routinely blocking resolutions against his regime in the UN Security Council.
Russia also objects to Turkey’s request to NATO for the deployment of Patriot missiles near its volatile border with Syria.
It has warned such a move could spark a broader conflict that would draw in the western military alliance.
However, Turkey insists that the US-made Patriots would be used for purely defensive purposes, and NATO’s response is expected this week.
On the ground, the Britain-based Observatory also reported clashes with rebels since Sunday in the central city of Hama, prompting authorities to send in reinforcements.
“This fighting ... shows that despite the total control of the army and security forces over the town, the rebels have still managed to infiltrate,” the Observatory’s Rami Abdel Rahman said.
The watchdog, which relies on a network of activists and medics in civilian and military hospitals, said a total of 134 people — 58 civilians, 41 soldiers and 35 rebels — were killed in countrywide violence on Sunday.
Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was deported from Israel yesterday, the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs said, the day after the Israeli navy prevented her and a group of fellow pro-Palestinian activists from sailing to Gaza. Thunberg, 22, was put on a flight to France, the ministry said, adding that she would travel on to Sweden from there. Three other people who had been aboard the charity vessel also agreed to immediate repatriation. Eight other crew members are contesting their deportation order, Israeli rights group Adalah, which advised them, said in a statement. They are being held at a detention center ahead of a
A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday. The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit. “The guidelines for importing biological materials into the US for research purposes are stringent, but clear, and actions like this undermine the legitimate work of other visiting scholars,” said John Nowak, who leads field
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
NUCLEAR WARNING: Elites are carelessly fomenting fear and tensions between nuclear powers, perhaps because they have access to shelters, Tulsi Gabbard said After a trip to Hiroshima, US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard on Tuesday warned that “warmongers” were pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Gabbard did not specify her concerns. Gabbard posted on social media a video of grisly footage from the world’s first nuclear attack and of her staring reflectively at the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. On Aug. 6, 1945, the US obliterated Hiroshima, killing 140,000 people in the explosion and by the end of the year from the uranium bomb’s effects. Three days later, a US plane dropped a plutonium bomb on Nagasaki, leaving abut 74,000 people dead by the
RSS