Al Qaeda-linked fighters fought rival Syrian rebels near the border with Turkey on Wednesday, activists said, in an outbreak of violence driven by the divisions between factions battling President Bashar al-Assad.
The al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) took control of the northern border town of Azaz last month, kicking out rival rebels and prompting Turkey to shut the crossing about 5 km away.
ISIL, which wants to merge Syria into a larger state ruled by Islamic law, has maintained control of the town since then and clashes have periodically erupted between it and fighters of the Northern Storm brigade that they had expelled to its outskirts.
Activists said the latest fighting broke out on Tuesday night after a deadline ISIL had set for Northern Storm fighters to surrender their weapons came to an end.
"There are very fierce clashes on the outskirts of Azaz. ISIL cut all roads leading to Turkey and the situation is very tense," said one rebel source, speaking from Turkey.
Another activist from Azaz said ISIL had seized two checkpoints and a base from Northern Storm and had advanced toward the border. He said some ISIL fighters had been killed, but he did not know how many.
[Reuters]
The UN Security Council on Wednesday agreed on a statement calling on the Syrian government to improve humanitarian aid access, diplomats said.
The statement, which also includes a call for cross-border aid operations, is to be officially released later Wednesday, the diplomats told AFP news agency.
[AFP]
Global powers are "on the right track" with a plan to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons arsenal, Russian President Vladimir Putin told an investment conference on Wednesday. [Reuters]
UN asks Kuwait to host second donors meet for Syria
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon has called on the emir of Kuwait to host a second donors' conference to raise aid for Syrian refugees, the official KUNA agency said on Wednesday.
Kuwait hosted the first donors' conference in January, when participating nations pledged $1.5bn for Syrian refugees.
Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who is on a private visit to the United States, received a phone call late on Tuesday from Ban who "expressed hopes... for Kuwait to host the second donors' conference to support the humanitarian situation in Syria," KUNA said.
The United Nations launched a record $5.2bn aid appeal in June to fund operations in Syria and neighbouring countries, warning the number of Syrians needing help because of the conflict could rise to over 10 million by the end of 2013.
The aid is for food, which accounts for one-fifth of the sum, clean water, medical care and schooling, as well as to build refugee camps.
The UN appeal aims to raise $3.8bn for refugees and $1.4bn for operations in Syria.
[Source: AFP]
Syria's foreign reserves crashed by more than a third in the year to the end of 2011, figures published by the central bank showed, giving a rare glimpse into the war-stricken country's finances.
An undated report on Syria's central bank website showed foreign reserves fell to about 158 billion Syrian pounds at the end of 2011 from around 242 billion a year earlier - the most up-to-date figures published since the crisis started.
The figures were converted to pounds at an old official rate the report listed as 11.2 pounds to the dollar, vastly different from the current unofficial rate of around 167 to the dollar.
While the numbers are too old to indicate Syria's current reserve levels, they suggest reserves were dropping at a rapid pace even during the conflict's early days when fighting was relatively limited.
Economists estimated foreign reserves at about $16-18bn before the crisis, when Syria was earning some $2.5bn a year from oil exports. Most of the oil revenues dried up in late 2011 when the European Union imposed sanctions on Syrian crude purchases.
[Reuters]
Syria's currency has recovered some of the heavy losses inflicted over two years of civil war and sanctions, helped by a US decision not to pursue military action against Damascus.
Traders said the pound, which traded at 47 to the dollar before protests against President Bashar al-Assad erupted in March 2011, was trading at 167 to the dollar on Tuesday, its strongest level since June - partly due to the return of some refugees with dollars to change.
That has helped make the pound worth nearly twice as much as in July when it briefly hit record lows of around 300 per dollar.
"There is less psychological pressure because the scare about a strike has gone," said a Damascus based banker, adding that the central bank's readiness to inject more dollars was also supporting the pound.
The pound's value has also revived somewhat after the arrest of dozens of dealers and the closure of several exchange houses which officials blamed for its wild fluctuations, dealers said.
It sank to 235 after President Barack Obama announced that Washington wanted to strike Syrian targets in response to a deadly chemical attack but has appreciated again helped by central bank intervention in the market and, dealers say, by the return of some refugees who have bought pounds.
"A lot of people who had left were returning and there is more demand because they are bringing dollars and spending in Syrian pounds. We are feeling their presence," said a dealer in a licensed firm located in one of the main Damascus trading areas.
Other moves such as eased restrictions on banks selling dollars was helping to bolster the pound, one banker said, adding that the central bank was meeting most of their foreign currency needs.
Dealers said the central bank was expected to announce plans in the next few days to lift a $10,000 ceiling on dollar purchases by ordinary Syrians for non-trading purposes.
(Reuters)
A chemical weapons disarmament team arrived in Damascus on Tuesday to begin evaluating the country's arsenal of the banned weapons.
The 19-member team traveled to Syria to begin an inspection mission before the arms are turned over for destruction under UN Security Council resolution 2118 adopted last week.
In a rebel-held village in Syria's northern Idlib province, some 200 children returned to school last week to resume their lessons a year after violence forced their school to close its doors.
But in the village of Madaya the children are haunted by the threat of bombardment by Syrian government forces which residents say is a daily occurrence.
"We go to school in fear," said 12-year old Abdo Al Fikri, who arrived to school clutching the books close to his chest and keeping a protective arm around his younger brother's shoulders.
"They shell us with rockets, airplanes and missiles," Abdo said.
Although, some children were schooled at home during the most intense fighting between Free Syrian Army and government troops, most had their education disrupted for more than a year.
It was dangerous to walk to school and children were unable to concentrate on their studies because of fear of shelling.
[Source: APTN]
At least 115,206 people have been killed in Syria's devastating 30-month conflict, most of them fighters from both sides, a monitoring group said on Tuesday.
"The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented the deaths of 115,206 people from the start of Syria's revolution on March 18, 2011 to September 30, 2013," the Britain-based group said.
Among the dead were 47,206 fighters loyal to President Bashar al-Assad's regime and 23,707 rebels seeking his ouster.
Of those, 28,804 were regular troops, another 18,228 were pro-regime militiamen and "informants" and 174 were members of the pro-Damascus Lebanese Shia movement Hezbollah, the group said.
On the rebel side, 17,071 were civilians who picked up weapons to join the insurgency, 2,176 were army defectors and 4,460 were either foreign or unidentified fighters killed in battle.
Another 41,533 civilians lost their lives in the war, among them 6,087 children and 4,079 women, said the Observatory.
The group also said it has documented the deaths of an additional 2,760 unidentified victims, who it was not possible to identify as either civilians, rebels or regime forces.
The figures exclude people being held by the regime, who activists have said number in the tens of thousands.
[Source: AFP]
An advance group of international inspectors charged with overseeing the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons have crossed into the country from neighbouring Lebanon.
Twenty inspectors from a Netherlands-based chemical weapons watchdog, the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), entered Syria on Tuesday through the Masnaa border crossing with Lebanon.
They are travelling to Damascus to begin a complex mission of finding and dismantling an estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal as the civil war rages in Syria.
Responding to this development, Bouthaina Shaaban, Political and Media Adviser to Syrian President Bashar Assad, said:
"The Syrian government has been very cooperative, it is the party that volunteered joining the organisation for non-proliferation of chemical weapons, and therefore all this rhetoric about forcing the Syrian government, or making sure that the Syrian government, all this rhetoric in order to show as if Syria is not the one who wanted to do this - and this proves that the Syrian government never used, would never use, such weapons against its own citizens."
[Source: APTN]
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad will remain in office, and has the right to decide to run for reelection next year, Information Minister Omran al-Zohbi has said.
"Syria is staying put: the state, the nation, the people and the president. This is the Syrians' choice," Zohbi told journalists on Tuesday.
"All the people call for President Bashar al-Assad to be president of this state, whatever the opposition, the Americans and the traitors say," he added.
Zohbi said it is "the president's right to take a decision" on whether he will run for a new term in mid-2014, when his mandate is set to expire.
In Tuesday's speech, Zohbi said the opposition "does not have the courage to go to the polls", and that "had it had the courage, we would not have reached this point".
[AFP]
China has said a mortar shell that landed in its embassy compound in Syria's capital Damascus has injured a Syrian employee and caused a small amount of damage to the property.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei also said on Tuesday that "China is shocked at the attack and strongly condemns" it.
The attack came days after shells hit the Iraqi and Russian missions in central Damascus. The governments of China, Russia and Iraq are strong backers of Assad's government.
Hong says that China urged all parties in Syria to halt violence and start talks on restoring peace. [AP]
A disarmament team is to reach Damascus on a mission to destroy Syria's chemical arsenal, a day after UN experts wrapped up their investigation of alleged gas attacks.
The team of 20 inspectors from The Hague-based Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is implementing a UN resolution that ordered the elimination of Syria's chemical arms starting from Tuesday.
The operation to rid Syria of chemical weapons by a target date of mid-2014 will be one of the largest and most dangerous of its kind.
The arsenal is believed to include more than 1,000 tonnes of sarin, mustard gas and other banned chemicals stored at an estimated 45 sites across the war-torn country. [AFP]
A Syrian photographer has been killed by shelling in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor.
Murhaf al-Modahi, known by the pseudonym Abu Shuja, was killed on Saturday in fighting between rebels and troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, a fellow photographer from Deir Ezzor said.
Al-Modahi had contributed work to AFP news agency. AFP's photography director for the Middle East and North Africa Patrick Baz said he had trained Abu Shuja in June, and that "he had made huge progress".
Abu Shuja "was part of this new generation of Syrian photojournalists" born of the country's brutal conflict.
The main opposition National Coalition also reported Abu Shuja's death, saying in a statement that he "died while carrying out his duty as a journalist".
The Coalition said he "picked up a camera and started documenting (the Syrian revolt) as soon as the first protests broke out in Deir Ezzor.
"He continued to work under the bullets, bombs and tank shells, defying the regime's military might."
International press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) describes Syria as the world's most dangerous country for journalists to work in.
It says that 25 journalists have been killed there, as have 26 citizen journalists, since March 2011 when the Syrian revolt began.
[AFP]
Global powers are "on the right track" with a plan to eliminate Syria's chemical weapons arsenal, Russian President Vladimir Putin told an investment conference on Wednesday. [Reuters]by AJE Staff 9:15 PM yesterday
The UN chemical weapons inspectors have crossed into Syria from neighboring Lebanon.Twenty inspectors from a Netherlands-based chemical weapons watchdog are traveling to Damascus to begin a complex mission of finding and dismantling an estimated 1,000-ton chemical arsenal as the civil war rages in Syria.The inspectors have about nine months to complete their task to have the Syrian regime destroy its chemical stockpile by mid-2014.The first group of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons entered Syria Tuesday through the Masnaa border crossing with Lebanon.They are expected to meet with Syrian Foreign Ministry officials on arrival in the capital, Damascus. [AP]A convoy (below) believed to be carrying UN chemical inspectors leaves Beirut international airport. [Source: Reuters]
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem is addressing the UN's General Assembly in New York City. You can watch his address live here.by Asad Hashim September 30 at 9:58 PM
No comments:
Post a Comment