Warplanes bombed a rebel-held area east of Damascus on Wednesday where Russia declared a ceasefire less than 24 hours earlier, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported. Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Tuesday a ceasefire had been agreed in Eastern Ghouta in Syria’s Damascus province until March 20. The Observatory said air strikes and artillery had hit three towns there.
The top generals from Turkey, the United States and Russia met Tuesday to discuss tensions in northern Syria, where mutually suspicious forces allied with the three countries are fighting the Islamic State group. The surprise meeting took place in the Turkish coastal city of Antalya. The talks, announced by Turkey, come amid rising tensions in northern Syria, where Turkish troops and allied Syrian fighters, U.S.-backed Kurdish-led forces and Russian-allied Syrian troops are fighting their way toward the IS group’s de facto capital, Raqqa.
130 migrants were apprehended off the Çeşme district in the Aegean province of İzmir as they attempted to reach the nearby Greek island of Chios on March 5. The most of migrants were women and children from Syria, Iraq, Iran and Morocco. They were taken to the Izmir Immigrations Directorate from where they are expected to be deported.
Relations between Putin’s Russia and America Trump are at historic lows, in fact, due to continuous and repeated scandals regarding the contacts between his electoral campain managers and members of his administration with Russian agents and diplomats had forced President Trump to dissociate, at least temporarily, from his Russian colleague. In Moscow they did not take well the new American line, especially the appointment of Gen. McMaster, known for his anti-Russian positions, as Advisor for National Security and the American irritation for some military operations carried out by the Russians in Syria have helped to cool relations. According to some european officials, remained anonymous, the current US policy is much closer to European interests than those of Russians, especially the statements made by US Ambassador at the UN about the Russian annexation of the Crimea, that Americans still do not recognize, bode well for the detractors of Trump-Putin axis.
The Ankara-backed Euphrates Shield Operation forces launched an offensive on the Kurdish section of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Northern Syria and pushed them back from several villages. They forces attacked the Kurdish fighters positions and seized control of Tal Tourin and Qarah villages in Eastern al-Bab after fierce clashes. Meantime, Sharafan Darvish, the spokesman of the military council of the Northern city of Manbij, said that the Turkish army and the Ankara-backed militants launched an offensive on the positions of the Kurdish troops on Wednesday, and captured several villages near Manbij and the military council of Manbij announced in a statement that the Kurdish forces will surrender the villages bordering the areas occupied by the Turkey-backed Euphrates Shield Operation militants to the Syrian army. The statement said that based on an agreement with the Russian side, the control of these villages will be given to the Syrian government’s border guards.
Kremlin’s spokesman says President Vladimir Putin has been informed by Russia’s defense minister that Syrian government forces have taken control of Palmyra, with support from Russian warplanes. Syrian state media said the government forces battling the Islamic State group re-entered Palmyra earlier in the day, aiming to retake the historic town that they had lost to the militants in December.
Protesting Israel’s recurrent violation against Lebanon’s southern territories, residents of the border town of Mays al-Jabal staged a sit-in in the presence of MP Qassem Hashem and a number of journalists. Israeli troops fired tear gas bombs in the direction of the campaigners to disperce them which led to several cases of suffocation. Meanwhile Israeli airplanes hovered over the region. On Wednesday, a 12-member Israeli force crossed the electronic fence in the outskirts of Mays al-Jabal in the Kroum al-Sharqi area. Troops planted spy devices consisted of a camera and a transmission instrument that are both solar powered. The development comes amid high tensions between Israel and Hizbullah that follow an exchange of threats and amid unconfirmed reports of Israeli airstrikes on Hizbullah posts inside Syria.
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi authorized the country’s air force to carry out raids against the Islamic State inside Syria: “We are determined to chase terrorism that tries to kill our sons and citizens wherever it is found, so we gave orders to the air force command to strike ISIS positions in Hosaiba [an Iraqi town] and Albu Kamal inside Syrian territory, as they were responsible for recent bombings in Baghdad,” he have said. “The heroes of the sky executed the operation and responded to the terrorists with amazing success”, he added.
Israeli warplanes struck Hizbullah and Syrian army targets in a number of hills in the Syria-Lebanon border region at dawn Wednesday, media reports said, drawing a rebuttal from Hizbullah sources. “Suspected Israeli warplanes fired at least six missiles at the al-Qutaifa mountainous region in Damascus’ northeastern countryside, targeting arms depots in an area where the regime forces’ Third Division is deployed”, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, quoting “a number of credible sources”. The bombing caused “destruction” but “there are no reports of casualties until the moment”, the Observatory added. “Hizbullah sources denied that the raids had targeted areas inside Lebanon”, Sky News Arabia added. The Hizbullah-affiliated Military Media arm meanwhile said “reports claiming that Israeli raids have targeted a region in Lebanon’s Eastern Mountain Belt and resistance posts in the belt and Syria’s Qalamoun are baseless”.
Syria peace talks due to start this week in Geneva are based on the broad mandate of a U.N. resolution that asks the U.N. mediator to hold talks on a “political transition process”, an official involved in the talks said on Tuesday. Michael Contet, chief of staff of Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura, told a regular U.N. briefing that de Mistura was putting the final touches to arrangements for the talks. “The invitations as well as the substantive agenda for the negotiations are all based on the wide scope of Security Council resolutions, in particular (U.N. Security Council Resolution) 2254, which is our main guidance in this process”.