UPDATES: Syria’s New Government Faces Israel’s Attacks
Destruction from Israeli airstrikes near the Mezzeh airbase in southern Damascus, Syria, December 8, 2024 (Sham FM)
EA on International Media: Syria After The Fall of Assad
What Now for Syria’s Kurds?
UPDATES: Assad Regime Is Over In Syria
UPDATE 1629 GMT:
Syria’s interim government has asked the UN High Commission for Refugees to remain in the country.
Saying “the needs are absolutely huge”, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, told reporters that the agency had had “some contact with the interim authorities”: “The initial signals that they are sending us are constructive”.
He explained that the interim government said “that they want us to stay in Syria, that they appreciate the work that we have been doing now for many years, that they need us to continue doing that work”.
The interim authorities had also indicated that “they will provide us the necessary security to carry out those activities”.
UPDATE 1609 GMT:
Abu Hassan al-Hamwi, the military commander of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham,
has described the year-long planning of the operation which culminated in the overthrow of the Assad regime.
Al-Hamwi said preparations began for years before the operational plans. He emphasized the need for organization and coordination.
After the last campaign [in August 2019], during which we lost significant territory, all revolutionary factions realised the critical danger – the fundamental problem was the absence of unified leadership and control over battle.
The 2019 campaign was a counter-attack against an 11-month Russian-regime offensive in the northwest. After it failed, the pro-Assad forces seized the remainder of Hama Province and parts of Idlib and Aleppo. A ceasefire, agreed between Russia and Turkey, led to an uneasy partition of the region until this month.
Afterwards, al-Hamwi said, “We studied the enemy thoroughly, analyzing their tactics, both day and night, and used these insights to develop our own forces.”
Military branches, units, and security forces were created. Production of weaponry, vehicles, and ammunition began. A drone unit was created with engineers, mechanics. “We needed reconnaissance drones, attack drones and suicide drones, with a focus on range and endurance,” al-Hamwi said.
Last year the northwest rebel coalition sent messages to counterparts in the south, discussing how to create a unified war room. An operations room brought together the commanders of around 25 southern rebel groups. Planning began on the approach to Damascus from both the north and the south.
Turkish officials have claimed that the initial goal of the rebel offensive, which began on November 27, was merely to gain some territory in Aleppo Province. Al-Hamwi’s account challenges that, indicating that rebels did not just seize an opportunity to capture Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, but were looking to do so all along.
Rebels entered Aleppo city on November 29. Just over a week later, they were in Damascus.
Now, al-Hamwi says:
We affirm that minorities in Syria are part of the nation and have the right to practice their rituals, education, and services like every other Syrian citizen.
The regime planted division, and we are trying, as much as possible, to bridge these divides.
UPDATE 1255 GMT:
Outlets of Turkey’s Erdoğan Government say Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and visiting US Secretary of State Antony Blinken have “
discussed what roles they can play for ensuring a healthy, inclusive and stable power transition in Syria”, despite differences on American support of the Kurdish authority in the northeast of the country.
Fidan said after the meeting:
Stabilizing Syria as soon as possible, eliminating terrorism and preventing the dominance of DAESH [the Islamic State and [the Turkish Kurdish insurgency] PKK are among our priorities.
What can we do on all this? What are our common concerns and what solutions can we find to address them? We have discussed these issues in detail.
Blinken declared the importance for the Syrian people, making good use of the opportunity from the collapse of the Assad regime, to pursue a better future for the country.
He said there was general consensus between Ankara and Washington on the new Syria they want to see.
UPDATE 1247 GMT:
Defense Minister Israel Katz has indicated that Israel’s cross-border incursion into southern Syria will last for months.
Katz said he has ordered the military to prepare to stay atop the Syrian-controlled side of Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights throughout the winter.
Due to what is happening in Syria, there is a huge security importance to our holding of the Hermon peak and everything must be done to ensure the Israel Defense Force’s preparations in the area, to allow the troops to stay there in the difficult weather conditions.
Katz ordered the move during an assessment on Thursday with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi and other senior officers.
UPDATE 1151 GMT:
Reuters publishes
details of Bashar al-Assad’s quick departure for Moscow (see 0938 GMT) last Sunday.
The previous day, Assad assured a meeting of around 30 army and security chiefs at the Defense Ministry that Russian military support was on its way. He urged ground forces to hold out, according to a commander who was present.
He told his presidential office manager that he was going home but instead headed to the airport, according to an “aide in his inner circle”.
Assad had called his media advisor Buthaina Shaaban and asked her to come to his home to write him a speech. But when she arrived, no one was there.
Assad spoke by phone with Prime Minister Mohammed Jalali at 10.30 pm. Jalali described how difficult the situation was” with “panic and horror in the streets”.
Assad replied, “Tomorrow, we will see. Tomorrow, tomorrow.”
Jalali tried to call Assad as dawn broke on Sunday, but there was no response.
Assad did not even inform his younger brother Maher, commander of the Army’s 4th Armored Division, according to three aides. Maher flew a helicopter to Iraq and then to Russia.
Assad’s maternal cousins, Ihab and Iyad Makhlouf, were left behind. The pair tried to flee by car to Lebanon but were ambushed by rebels who shot and killed Ihab dead and wounded Iyad, the sources said.
On Sunday, Assad — reportedly escorted by Russian military intelligence — flew to Russia’s Hmeimim airbase in western Syria and from there to Moscow. His wife Asma and their three children were already in the Russian capital, according to “three former close aides and a senior regional official”.
The departure was so sudden that in the Assad home, cooked food left on the stove and personal belongings such as family photo albums were abandoned.
Three members of Assad’s inner circle said he wanted to seek refuge in the UAE< but the Emiratis feared an international backlash.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, at the Doha forum in Qatar on Saturday and Sunday, urged Turkey and Qatar — with their connections with the Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham — to secure Assad’s safe exit to Russia. The two countries did so, according to three sources.
Russia coordinated with neighboring states to ensure that a Russian plane leaving Syrian airspace with Assad on board would not be intercepted or targeted.
Posted by
Scott Lucas | Dec 13, 2024 |
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Posted by
Scott Lucas | Dec 13, 2024 |
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The long-bearded Iranian Rahbar is in a state of shock after his soldiers fled Syria
