Bashar Assad (Syria) - Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association

Thousands flee as Syrian insurgents advance to the doorstep of the country’s third-largest city

BASSEM MROUE | AP News — Fri, 06 Dec 2024 22:49:30 +0000

BEIRUT (AP) — Thousands of people fled the central Syrian city of Homs, the country’s third largest, as insurgents seized two towns on the outskirts Friday, positioning themselves for an assault on a potentially major prize in their march against President Bashar Assad.

The move, reported by pro-government media and an opposition war monitor, was the latest in the stunning advances by opposition fighters over the past week that have so far met little resistance from Assad’s forces. A day earlier, fighters captured the central city of Hama, Syria’s fourth largest, after the army said it withdrew to avoid fighting inside the city and spare the lives of civilians.

The insurgents, led by the jihadi Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, have vowed to march to Homs and the capital, Damascus, Assad’s seat of power. Videos circulating online showed a highway jammed with cars full of people fleeing Homs, a city with a large population belonging to Assad’s Alawite sect, seen as his core supporters.

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Source: https://apnews.com/article/syria-08d18aa519dd9883eb291f5a534a02f3

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Iran is using the war in Ukraine to strengthen its presence in Syria

Yoni Ben Menachem - Jewish News Syndicate — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 20:33:39 +0000

As the war continues, the Iranians have begun a series of coordinated diplomatic and military moves with the Russian regime.

(March 14, 2022 / Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) According to political sources in Jerusalem, during their meeting at the Kremlin on March 5, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the Iranian threat and the Islamic Republic’s military entrenchment in Syria. Though the details of their conversation are unknown, senior Israeli security sources say Iran is exploiting the war in Ukraine to shore up its military presence in Syria.

The Syrian army now controls almost all of southern Syria. It closely coordinates with the Iranian militias, which significantly concerns Israel.

The anticipated nuclear deal between Iran and world powers is also no longer the focus of international interest, which naturally has shifted to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The signing of the deal may also be delayed by Russia’s demand of the United States that sanctions on Russia be lifted in the context of the deal. In the absence of a new deal, Iran can keep violating the 2015 agreement by enriching uranium beyond the allowed threshold.

If the nuclear deal is not signed in the coming days, Iran will be able to race toward the bomb with no international monitoring.

Putin has a clear interest in undercutting the nuclear deal, which President Biden is keen on signing as soon as possible. Although the Iranians are expressing concern about the delay, they are also keeping an eye on the United States, which is under tremendous pressure, and rubbing their hands in glee as Putin, their ally, makes life difficult for Biden.

The Israeli military recently beefed up preparedness on the northern border after Iran announced the deaths of two Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps officers in an alleged Israeli strike near Damascus International Airport. According to Israeli security sources, the two officers were involved in Hezbollah’s precision-guided missile project.

Residents of southern Lebanon have expressed fear that the Iranian response would be carried out by Hezbollah from there. However, Israel Defense Force sources believe the response could also come from pro-Iran militias in Syria, Iraq or Yemen, using missiles or drones.

The Israeli assessment is that the Iranian response will come, but may be delayed by the Vienna nuclear talks. With the talks reportedly on the verge of an agreement (before Russia made its demand for its own sanctions relief), Israel believes that for now, Iran will not want to risk an escalation and the loss of the new status the agreement will grant it in terms of selling oil to Western countries.

The two Iranian colonels killed in the strikes were laid to rest in a large, official funeral in Tehran attended by former IRGC commander Brig.-Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari and IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Brig.-Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh. Iran threatened to take revenge against Israel, and Israeli military intelligence believes the threat is serious and will be carried out.

In 2018, seven Iranians were killed in an Israeli strike on the Tiyas military airbase (aka the T-4 airbase) east of Homs in Syria, including Col. Mehdi Dehghan Yazdeli, a commander from the IRGC Aerospace Force’s Shahid Karimi UAV base. In that case, the Iranians responded by firing dozens of rockets at Israeli targets in the Golan Heights.

While the cannons roar in Ukraine, Iran is active

As the war in Ukraine continues, the Iranians have begun a series of coordinated diplomatic and military moves with the Russian regime.

On Feb. 27, Gen. Ali Mamlouk, the head of Syria’s National Security Bureau, visited Tehran for the first time in two years, meeting with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Ali Shamkhani, secretary-general of Iran’s National Security Council. They discussed tightening security coordination and preparations for any possible repercussions for Syria from the war in Ukraine.

In the meeting with Ali Mamlouk, the Iranians also asked for quicker implementation of the Iranian-Syrian economic memorandums of understanding regarding energy, agricultural produce and the transportation sector. Alongside military activity, Iran is also deepening its economic involvement in Syria.

According to Israeli security sources, the Iranian militias in Syria have stepped up their activity in the south, in the Daraa and Suwayda regions, which worries Jordan’s King Abdullah, especially in light of increased drug smuggling from Syria to Jordan and from there to the Gulf States.

Iran has also intensified its arms smuggling to Syria and Lebanon, including drones, precision-guided missiles and aerial-defense systems. According to Syrian sources, Israel is worried that Russia will help the Syrian army intercept its aircraft. Hence, it has preferred to attack Iranian targets in Syria with surface-to-surface missiles.

On March 2, Falih al-Fayyadh, one of the heads of the umbrella organization of the pro-Iranian militias in Iraq, Al-Hashd al-Shabi (the Popular Mobilization Forces), paid a visit to Damascus. There he met with Syrian President Bashar Assad and discussed the reinforcement of security on the Iraqi-Syrian border and the curtailing of the activity of the Kurds in Syria.

Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and conquest of large swaths of territory may, in the Iranians’ assessment, force Russia to transfer some of its military forces from Syria to Ukraine. As a result, Russia’s military power in Syria could decline while Iran’s military power and influence could grow.

Israel is concerned that Russia will give Syria its advanced S-300 anti-aircraft defense system. This system is already present in Syria, but Russian soldiers currently operate it. Its operation by the Syrian army’s air-defense forces could hamper the Israeli Air Force’s freedom of action in attacking Iranian targets in Syria.

A calming signal from Russia

A few days ago, the Russian embassy in Israel announced that the security coordination in Syria between the IDF and the Russian army would continue, affirming that “Our military officials discuss the practical issues of this substantively on a daily basis. This mechanism has proven to be useful and will continue to work.”

The Russian embassy posted on Facebook: “We are maintaining close contacts with our Israeli colleagues. We do not want Syrian territory to be used for actions against Israel or anyone else.”

As the war in Ukraine continues, however, things could change. In January 2022, Russian warplanes conducted a joint aerial patrol with Syrian planes along the Golan border to warn Israel about its attacks in Syria. The Russians are playing a carrot-and-stick game, and Israel does not want to find itself in a confrontation with them.

It is unclear how the Israeli attempt to mediate between Russia and Ukraine will turn out, or what will happen in Syria if Israel eventually has to side unequivocally with Ukraine and the United States. Israel cannot zigzag and “walk between the raindrops” indefinitely to maintain its freedom of action in Syria.

With Putin, there is no free lunch. At the moment, he is using Israel’s services to achieve his goals. However, ultimately what matters is interests, and in the course of the war in Ukraine, the picture could change rapidly, possibly to Israel’s detriment.

Yoni Ben Menachem, a veteran Arab affairs and diplomatic commentator for Israel Radio and Television, is a senior Middle East analyst for the Jerusalem Center. He served as director general and chief editor of the Israel Broadcasting Authority.

This article was first published by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs.

Source: https://www.jns.org/opinion/iran-is-using-the-war-in-ukraine-to-strengthen-its-presence-in-syria/

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Russia replaces America as the power player in the Middle East

The Hill — Tue, 06 Mar 2018 11:38:55 +0000

The sorry position of the United States in the Middle East today ought to be sending President Trump a powerful message. The region bristles with American air and naval bases and major deployments in Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, among others, manned by 55,000 troops and civilians, and rising contingents in the war zones of Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq. Despite all this military strength, the “go to” power in the region today is Russia.

Since Russian President Putin saved Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime from collapse, he has established working relations with every major power in the Middle East, including Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Iran and Turkey, though several of them fiercely oppose what he is doing in Syria. Moscow has worked successful deals with Saudi Arabia to prop up international oil prices. Its relations with Israel have never been closer, notwithstanding Russia’s having greatly strengthened Iran in Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Putin have overcome the tension of fighting on opposite sides in Syria, and of Turkey’s NATO membership, to agree on Ankara’s purchase of Russian air defense missiles and a Russian nuclear reactor. Egyptian President Fattah Al Sisi, like Erdogan and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has made multiple pilgrimages to Moscow, and now Egypt and Russia have signed a draft agreement giving Moscow access to Egyptian airspace and possibly bases. Moscow has agreed to sell Egypt the same advanced missile system Turkey is buying and to build Egypt’s first nuclear reactor.

Except in Syria, all of this has been achieved through diplomacy. In the space of a few years, Putin has ended decades of Russian irrelevance in the Middle East and built a stronger position than the Soviet Union enjoyed 40 years ago. There is nothing mysterious about how he’s done it. Putin understands the power of diplomacy. You can bet there are no unfilled Russian ambassadorships in countries that matter to Moscow as there are today, almost unbelievably, vacant American posts in Egypt, Jordan, Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey and of course, Iran, where we have no embassy.

Putin has been immeasurably helped by the conviction of American decline that prevails throughout the region. As much perception as it is reality, the belief took root in the early Obama years and has grown steadily since. What the president ought to notice is that no amount of military presence makes the slightest dent in it.

Yet, in order to make room for defense increases “like no one has ever seen,” Trump’s 2019 budget proposes that all nondefense discretionary spending, which is everything other than entitlements and interest on the national debt, should drop over 10 years to 1.3 percent of gross domestic product. According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, that would be a third of the average level of the past half century and the lowest level since the Hoover administration.

The State Department and international assistance would be slashed. Adjusted for inflation, the cuts would also amount to a 42 percent plummet from today’s spending for education, science, health, housing, nutrition assistance, which is virtually all federal programs that provide opportunity, reduce inequality, strengthen human capital and stoke innovation. These are the sources of long-term growth and national cohesion, two of the three pillars of national greatness.

We have a military designed for a global power and it has funding shortfalls that need to be fixed. On the other hand, we’re not acting like a state with global responsibilities and interests. We also continue to allow ourselves the luxury of enormous waste in the Pentagon budget by building tanks we will never need, airplanes that cannot operate in modern combat airspace, and redundant nuclear systems beyond what’s needed for deterrence. With 21st century military needs, domestic requirements and those of international leadership, and with an exploding deficit, the waste is no longer affordable.

No great nation has ever been built on military strength. The Soviet Union tried and left its people standing in line for soap and matches. No democracy as unequal and divided as we are can allow the fissures to continue to widen without mortal risk. No country that has built its well-being on alliances, trade, and leadership of an international order based on the rule of law can afford to treat its commitments with contempt or to forget that diplomacy is the primary instrument for promoting national interests. Military power is only the fallback when diplomacy fails.

Trump has plenty of company in confusing military spending with military strength and military strength with national greatness. The difference is that he wants to make the mistake on a larger scale than anyone else has imagined since at least 1945. A far lesser state, not a greater one, is at the end of the path he wants to head down.

Jessica T. Mathews is a distinguished fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she was president for 18 years.

Source: http://thehill.com/opinion/international/376929-russia-replaces-america-as-the-power-player-in-the-middle-east

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