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Syria Tag

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 13, 2015 16 Comments
In a surprise move today, Germany has announced that it is reversing current policy with regard to refugees entering the country from Austria.  While Germany continues to accept refugees, the border controls are designed to instill some order to the process.  Adam Withnall, writing for The Independent, reports:
Germany has reintroduced border controls with Austria, its interior minister has confirmed, halting all trains and deploying 2,100 riot police to help carry out checks. Speaking at a press conference called at short notice, Thomas de Maizière said the controls were being applied with immediate effect "to bring some order to the entry of refugees". . . . . A spokesperson for an Austrian rail company said German officials had begun halting all trains trying to cross the border into Bavaria from 5pm local time (4pm BST), while the situation involving traffic going the other way remained unclear. Reporting on the unexpected move earlier and citing unnamed officials, German daily Bild said the closing of the border represented "a dramatic shift in refugee policy". Der Spiegel reported that only those with "valid travel documents" would be allowed to enter the country from Austria "until further notice".

Posted by Fuzzy Slippers on September 13, 2015 39 Comments
As the migrant crisis spirals out of control in Europe and though Saudi Arabia refuses to take in any Syrian refugees, they have offered to build 200 new mosques in Germany. The Times of India reports:
Syria's richer Gulf neighbours have been accused of not doing their fair share in the humanitarian crisis, with Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the UAE also keeping their doors firmly shut to asylum-seekers. According to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, which quoted a report in the Lebanese newspaper Al Diyar, Saudi Arabia would build one mosque for every 100 refugees who entered Germany in extraordinary numbers last weekend.
Angela Merkel, who last week announced that Germany would "no longer follow the Dublin accord which stipulated refugees and asylum seekers had to be processed in the first EU member state they arrived in," is reportedly hopeful that the Syrian refugees will assimilate into German language and culture.
Back in Germany, Angela Merkel welcomed two refugee families at a home for asylum-seekers in the Berlin suburb of Spandau on Thursday.

Posted by David Gerstman on September 07, 2015 17 Comments
The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power recently wrote a piece for Politico arguing the Congress not reject the nuclear deal with Iran. In short she argued that rejecting the deal would leave the United States, not Iran isolated and the ability of the United States would be greatly compromised in its ability to influence outcomes globally. Towards the end she summed up her argument:
The Iran nuclear deal has been championed by the president of the United States, every one of America’s European friends and countless other countries around the world. If Congress rejects the deal, we will project globally an America that is internally divided, unreliable and dismissive of the views of those with whom we built Iran’s sanctions architecture in the first place. Although it is hard to measure the precise impact of these perceptions, I and other American diplomats around the world draw every day on our nation’s soft power, which greatly enhances our ability to mobilize other countries to our side. While that soft power is built in many ways, two of its most important sources are the belief among other countries’ leaders and publics that we share similar values, and that America delivers on its commitments. Of course, there is no substitute for the essential deterrent and coercive effects rooted in the hard power of America’s unmatched military arsenal. But we should not underestimate the political capital we will lose—political capital that we draw upon for influence—if we walk away from this deal.
What makes Power's plea so inexplicable is her record. As Claudia Rosett explained back in July:

Posted by Vijeta Uniyal on September 03, 2015 28 Comments
As if biting off a big chunk off Ukraine in Crimea wasn’t enough, Putin is now putting Russian troops on the ground in Syria. Counting on President Obama’s continuing Foreign Policy paralysis on Syria, Russian army is reinforcing Dictator Bashar al-Assad’s air and ground forces. Neither Russia nor Assad’s Syria have any real intentions of destroying the Islamic State (ISIS) in the region. Their primary aim is to restore and maintain territorial control. Emboldened by America’s retreat under President Obama’s reign and the recent rise of its regional ally Iran in the Middle East, Russia feels confident opening up a new front in the Arab heartland. A story by Michael Weiss in The Daily Beast confirms that Russian troops are playing combat role in Syria. Previous reports from the Syrian frontlines dating back to 2013 had indicated Russian presence amidst the ranks of Assad’s Syrian Arab Army (SAA). Michael Weiss writes:
Russian pilots are gearing up to fly missions alongside the Syrian air force, dropping bombs not just on ISIS but on anti-Assad rebels who may or may not be aligned with the United States or its regional allies. Several sources consulted for this story said the Pentagon is being unusually cagey about Russia’s reinvigorated role in Syria. A former U.S. military officer told The Daily Beast, “I’m being told things like, ‘We really can’t talk about this.’ That indicates to me that there’s some truth to these allegations.”
After Iran gets access to over $100 billion of frozen reserves as a signing amount for the nuclear deal, Regime in Tehran is setting about carving out a new map of the Middle East -- tightening its hold on Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen. Russian want to play a bigger role in this scramble for the Middle East.

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 11, 2015 14 Comments
A Mississippi couple has been arrested for planning to join ISIS during their honeymoon in Syria. They were taken into custody as they were preparing to board a flight for Istanbul. CNN reports:
Feds: Mississippi couple planned to join ISIS in Syria Two Mississippi residents were arrested last weekend and charged with attempting to provide material support to ISIS, according to a law enforcement official. Muhammad Oda Dakhlalla and Jaelyn Delshaun Young were arrested at a Mississippi airport on Saturday. Authorities say they were planning to travel overseas to join the terror group. An initial court appearance from Monday was continued to today, when a criminal complaint will be announced. CNN obtained a copy of the criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court. Law enforcement sources confirmed it is genuine but said the final version of the complaint could change. According to the criminal complaint, Young and her soon-to-be husband were planning to fly from Mississippi to Europe, then travel to Syria and join ISIS.
Here's a video report from CBS:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 24, 2015 6 Comments
We are told that the Obama administration, its successor and European governments will strictly enforce Iran's adherence to the nuclear deal. Put aside for the moment the problems with the deal, and focus on compliance. Put aside also that Iran has a history of cheating on nuclear issues. We have a recent example of how the West will become complicit in non-compliance. In Syria, The Wall Street Journal reports, Mission to Purge Syria of Chemical Weapons Comes Up Short (paywall):
.... One year after the West celebrated the removal of Syria’s arsenal as a foreign-policy success, U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that the regime didn’t give up all of the chemical weapons it was supposed to. An examination of last year’s international effort to rid Syria of chemical weapons, based on interviews with many of the inspectors and U.S. and European officials who were involved, shows the extent to which the Syrian regime controlled where inspectors went, what they saw and, in turn, what they accomplished. That happened in large part because of the ground rules under which the inspectors were allowed into the country, according to the inspectors and officials.... Demanding greater access and fuller disclosures by the regime, they say, might have meant getting no cooperation at all, jeopardizing the entire removal effort.
That is a key point with Iran too -- the fear that Iran will simply back out of the agreement by claiming Western non-compliance will cause the West to back away for fear of losing all compliance. The WSJ article continues noting that control on the ground gave Syria a huge advantage, and Russia ran interference for Syria (as it will do for Iran on compliance issued):

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 23, 2015 1 Comment
On May 25, 2015, I reported on my visit to Ziv Hospital in Safed (Tsvat), Israel, where people injured in the Syrian conflict were being given medical care, Meet an Israeli Doctor Saving Syrian Lives and Limbs:
Ziv has received some publicity the past two years for its treatment of Syrians. While some of the Syrians seeking help are not direct casualties of the fighting, such as expectant mothers, almost all have traumatic wounds as a result of the war. Almost all of them are men of fighting age, but it is a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy as far as the hospital goes. The decision whether to admit people into the country for medical treatment, whether to treat them at the border, and whether to transport them to a place like Ziv is a decision made by the military. When the military does bring a wounded person to Ziv, the person is treated as any other patient.... A total of 490 Syrians have been treated at Ziv, under a status of “humanitarian life saving aid.” They are not treated as refugees under this status. Nintey percent are males, 17 percent have been children, and on one day in February 2013, 7 patients arrived in a single day.
[caption id="attachment_128518" align="alignnone" width="600"]Safed Rivka Ziv Medical Center Emergency Entrance [Ziv Hospital, Safed, Israel][/caption] These treatments are not sitting well with Israel's 130,000 person Druze community, particularly on the Golan Heights, out of concern for attacks on Druze in Syria by al-Qaeda linked groups. The concern is that the over 700,000 Druze in Syria, who have stayed out of the fighting but also have been protected by the Syrian government, will be slaughtered by Jihadis.

Posted by Amy Miller on June 10, 2015 5 Comments
State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke has confirmed that American man and paramilitary fighter Keith Broomfield was killed fighting ISIS alongside Kurdish forces in Syria. More from NBC News:
Idris Nassan, Kurdish co-deputy foreign minister of the Kobani district, also confirmed to NBC News that an American who had joined Kurdish fighters died in a battle with ISIS in his area. It was not immediately clear when Broomfield was killed. Broomfield's mother, Donna, said she had learned from her other son that Keith was dead. "I didn't want him to go but I didn't have a choice in the matter," she tearfully told NBC News over the phone from Westminster, Massachusetts. She said that her son had left to fight around four months ago and that while there was "a little bit of texting" after he first arrived, lately she had heard "nothing." "I'm waiting for his body to come back," she added.
Social media accounts belonging to Kurdish fighters were the first outlets to leak his death, confirming that Broomfield was killed in the Syrian countryside surrounding Kobani.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on May 25, 2015 6 Comments
Yesterday I reported on the Haifa Bus 37 suicide bombing in 2003, and how I stumbled on the Memorial during my first full day in Haifa. Today was a travel day that took us even further north, to the Lebanese border. I'll have a report in the next couple of days on the extraordinary story of a child survivor of another bus bombing, and the unexpected recent twist in his life some 45 years later. Now I report on a different aspect of terror, and the extraordinary Israeli humanitarian effort. I traveled to the Ziv Medical Center in Safed (Zefat), Israel. Ziv is the major trauma center serving the northestern part of the country from the Upper Gallile to the Golan Heights. Safed Rivka Ziv Medical Center Regional Map Because Ziv is only 11 kilometers from Lebanon, Ziv was targeted by Hezbollah rockets during the 2006 Lebanon War. It has undergone, and still is undergoing, a process of creating reinforced operating room theaters and patient facilities to protect against future rocket attacks.

Posted by Mike LaChance on May 15, 2015 22 Comments
I don't know what should be done with refugees from Syria but this proposal from Stanford professor David Laitin seems like cruel and unusual punishment. CBS News of Detroit:
Stanford Professor: Let Refugees From War-Torn Syria Settle In Detroit What to do with refugees from war-torn Syria? Send them to Detroit! That’s the message Thursday from a Stanford University political science professor in the New York Times. David Laitin writes in an opinion piece titled “Let Syrians Settle Detroit” that refugees traumatized by war usually turn out to be good citizens. “Suppose these two social and humanitarian disasters were conjoined to produce something positive,” Laitin says. Laitin notes that Syrians have set up thousands of shops at a refugee camp in Jordan and writes that Detroit’s large American Arab population would help them assimilate.

Posted by Amy Miller on May 08, 2015 5 Comments
Earlier this month we took a look back at the 2013 sarin gas attacks in Syria. No one has ever been held accountable for those attacks, and now new allegations have surfaced of chemical weapons use against civilians in Syria. At least one diplomat stationed in Syria is saying that the situation there has become "unacceptable," and that he (or she---the diplomat spoke under conditions of anonymity) has seen evidence of chlorine gas attacks. Fox News explains in detail:
Civilians, including children, allegedly have been injured and killed in the latest attacks. In a letter sent this week to the U.N. Security Council from the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, the group cited reports of chlorine gas attacks in the Idlib and Hama areas and urged the creation of a no-fly zone to protect the Syrian people. "In the past two weeks alone, witnesses and medics on the ground in Idlib and Hama governorates reported at least nine separate instances of toxic chemical attacks -- several of them deadly," the group wrote. "... in each instance, barrel bombs loaded with poisonous chemical substances were deployed from Syrian regime helicopters."

Posted by Amy Miller on April 20, 2015 17 Comments
Two years ago, over 1,000 people died in Syria after sarin gas was unleashed on civilian neighborhoods in Damascus. No one has ever been held accountable for ordering the attack, but among those who have followed the violence in Syria there is little doubt that all the evidence points to President Bashar al-Assad. 60 Minutes correspondent Scott Pelley's "A Crime Against Humanity" aired on 60 Minutes yesterday evening alongside never-before-seen footage of the 2013 sarin gas massacre. The segment throws into full relief what words like "extermination" really mean in a modern context. Pelley spoke to a man named Kassem Eid, who was in Damascus when the rockets hit the ground:
Nobody knew what was going on. People were just praying for God to have mercy on them. Sir, I've seen things you only would dream about in your worst nightmares. ... I felt like my chest was set on fire. My eyes were burning like hell. I wasn't able even to scream, or to do anything, so I started to beat my chest really hard...trying to take a breath, just to be able to take a single breath. It was so painful. It felt like someone was tearing up my chest with a knife made of fire.
Watch:

Posted by Mike LaChance on January 25, 2015 11 Comments
A man named Ahmad Rashidi was interviewed on Meet the Press today and provided an alarming look into the goals of ISIS. He claims they want to be "better" than al-Qaeda and orchestrate an attack "more brutal" than the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Andrew Johnson of National Review has more:
Man Who Escaped ISIS: They Want to Plan an Attack ‘More Brutal’ than 9/11 The Islamic State is “happy” about the air strikes by the United States because it validates their efforts in emerging as a global threat, says a man who escaped after a month with the group. Ahmad Rashidi was captured by the Islamic State when he went to Syria from London to retrieve the two daughters of a family friend; the teenage girls had fled England to marry Islamic State fighters. When Rashidi found one of the girls, her husband accused him of being a spy and he was taken prisoner and tortured. He later won the favor of his capturers by telling them he was a doctor; Rashidi is, in fact, a first-year medical student. While embedded with the Islamic State for a month, Rashidi gained access to their computers and communications. He told NBC News’s Richard Engel that the group communicates with its contacts “every day” and is not worried about the West’s response to its attacks. In fact, the Islamic State was “happy” about the American military’s response of air strikes because it proved to the group’s leaders that they were considered as important a threat as al-Qaeda. “They want to be more . . . better than al-Qaeda,” he told Engel. “This is why they need to do something more brutal than the World Trade Center.”
Here's the video: Speaking of Syria, there are new developments in American policy.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 19, 2015 9 Comments
Yesterday we reported how an Israeli helicopter strike just over the Syrian Golan border killed several senior Hezbollah terrorist leaders, including Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of legendary and assassiated Hezbollah terror coordinatior Imad Mughniyeh. The elder Mughniyeh was responsible, among other things, for the Marine barracks bombing in Beirut that killed hundreds of Americans. A total of six senior Hezbollah military leaders were killed: https://twitter.com/One4Zion/status/556998160284139520/photo/1 A Hezbollah leader even more important than Jihad Mughniyeh also was killed in the attack:
Jihad does not appear to have been a key Hezbollah figure in the attack, however. One of the more central Hezbollah figures killed is Mohammad Ahmad Issa, who Raja News identified as an intelligence official, though other news agencies reported he was a top commander for Iraq and Syria.
In Beirut, Hezbollah is mourning its dead.

Posted by William A. Jacobson on January 18, 2015 8 Comments
The news reports at first were vague, an Israeli helicopter strike on one or more vehicles on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights, in an area in which Syrian troops, Hezbollah, and Syrian rebels operated. Reportedly it was on a group getting ready to fire rockets into Israel. More details are leaking out. The usual caution that early reports can be wrong apply. The latest reports are that several senior Hezbollah operatives, including Jihad Mughniyeh, the son of Imad Mughniyeh, were killed. Imad Mughniyeh, considered the top Hezbollah military operative at the time and the mastermind of numerous attacks on Israel and Israelis, was assassinated in Damascus when the headrest of his car blew up. Israel has never admitted the assassination, but just about everyone presumes it to be so. Hezbollah planned several revenge attacks that were thwarted, likely because the Israeli Mossad infiltrated Hezbollah's highest ranks including Hezbollah Chief Hassan Nasrallah's security detail. The Lebanese Daily Star reports Israel strike in Syria kills Mughniyeh's son, 9 others:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 07, 2014 5 Comments
Iran recently boasted how it had transferred via Syria game-changing missiles to the terrorist Hezbollah, which controls much of Lebanon and is fighting alongside the Assad regime in Syria. Israel has warned about such missile transfers, and reportedly (without Israel admitting it publicly) bombed convoys and facilities in Syria to stop such transfers. It appears from news reports that Israel has acted again. Reuters has confirmed the bombing:
Israel has carried out an air strike targeting a consignment of missiles in Syria bound for Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon, an Israeli official said on Saturday.... "There was an air strike. The target was not a chemical weapons facility. It was missiles intended for Hezbollah," the official told Reuters.
As with all such breaking events, photos and videos on Twitter are not yet verified as authentic.

Posted by Amy Miller on November 15, 2014 4 Comments
Reports have surfaced that "Jihadi John," the masked Brit responsible for the beheadings of four western hostages, was injured last Saturday's airstrikes near the Iraqi-Syrian border. Via the Daily Mail:
‘We are aware of reports that this individual [Jihadi John] has been injured, and we are looking into them,’ a Foreign Office spokesman told The Mail on Sunday. This newspaper has received an independent account of how Jihadi John was injured and rushed to hospital after a devastating air strike in Al Qaim, in Anbar Province, Western Iraq. The Foreign Office spokesman added: ‘We have a number of sources of information coming in. ‘The incident occurred last weekend, and so we have received the reports in the last few days. We don’t have any representation inside Syria, and so it is difficult to confirm these reports.’ The Foreign Office also issued an official statement saying: ‘We are aware of reports. We cannot confirm these reports.’ A spokesman for US Central Command said they were unable to confirm the details for security reasons. The joint US-Iraqi mission left at least ten IS commanders dead, and around 40 injured. Those reportedly hurt included IS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi.
The Mail provides a great infographic detailing the fractured timeline as we have it so far: 1416081735658_wps_43_BANNER_jpg
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