GENEVA – Civilians fleeing attacks on rebel-held towns in southern Syria are being used as “pawns”, the UN rights chief said, lamenting reported demands for payment at government checkpoints and jihadist’s blocking movement.
Building on his recapture of the Eastern Ghouta suburb after a long and bloody siege that ended with an alleged chemical weapons attack, Syrian dictator Bashar Assad on Tuesday began the final battle for control of Damascus with artillery strikes on the last rebel positions near the city.
The Syrian regime is massing troops and armored vehicles to prepare to retake from Islamic State the Yarmouk area in southern Damascus, according to local sources and media.
DAMASCUS, Syria — The world’s chemical weapons watchdog is set to convene Monday to discuss the suspected toxic gas assault in Syria that prompted an unprecedented wave of Western strikes, as its inspectors probe the attack near Damascus.
Claiming that “the rules of the games have changed,” a political and media adviser to President Bashar Assad claimed Thursday that Syria was ready for war with international forces if hostilities were to break out.
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump faced a decision on whether to strike Syria and risk a clash with Damascus ally Russia, after UN members failed Tuesday to agree on action to probe chemical attacks in the war-wracked country.
BEIRUT — Syrian activists, rescuers and medics said Sunday that a poison gas attack on a rebel-held town near the capital has killed at least 40 people, allegations denied by the Syrian government.
State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert had some fun at the expense of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad during a press briefing on Thursday. Nauert needled the Syrian strongman for behaving like an ordinary head of state, even as his brutal operation in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta grinds to its bloody conclusion.
Rockets fired on a market in a government-controlled neighborhood of Damascus on Tuesday killed 35 people and wounded more than 20 others, Syrian state-run media said, marking one of the highest death tolls in a single attack targeting the capital.
Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad visited soldiers in the siege stricken area of Eastern Ghouta on Sunday as his forces reportedly appear to be on the verge of reclaiming the area.
BEIRUT — Syrian government and Russian airstrikes killed at least 46 people in a besieged town outside of Damascus on Friday, while Turkish shelling and attacks on a Kurdish-held town in northern Syria left at least 22 dead there, monitors and officials said.
This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com Concerns grow of humanitarian disaster in Afrin, Syria, as Turkey’s forces enter Silence from North Korea puts Kim-Trump summit in doubt Concerns grow of humanitarian disaster in Afrin, Syria, as Turkey’s forces enter Syrians
Contents: The Ghouta ‘ceasefire’ turns into a Syrian army scam to steal humanitarian aid; Syria says close to defeating Jaysh al-Islam in Eastern Ghouta
The Syrian government has reportedly begun a land invasion of the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta, following a brutally intense two-week campaign of airstrikes and artillery bombardments that killed hundreds of people.
Contents: Russia’s ‘humanitarian pause’ in Syria turns into farce on first day; Report: North Korea is selling chemical weapons supplies to Syria; Areas of control in Syria and Iraq
The U.N. Security Council unanimously voted in favor of a ceasefire resolution for Syria on Saturday, but the bombing of the Eastern Ghouta suburb near Damascus continued, with at least 24 more deaths after the resolution was passed.
BEIRUT, Lebanon — A child died and at least 13 other people suffered breathing difficulties after a suspected chemical attack on a besieged Syrian rebel enclave Sunday, a medic and a monitor said.
MOSCOW — Russia has tested over 200 new types of arms in Syria during its campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad, a senior lawmaker said Thursday, as Moscow was accused of taking part in airstrikes against rebel-held Eastern Ghouta.
Contents: Syria, Russia, Iran conduct full-on mass extermination of civilians in Eastern Ghouta; Russia rejects 30-day ceasefire in United Nations Security Council; North Korea insults South Korea with selection of Kim Yong-chol head of Olympics closing ceremony
Thirty-eight more people were reportedly killed in the Assad regime’s bombing campaign against the Eastern Ghouta district near Damascus, bringing the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’ estimate to 310 killed and over 1,550 injured since Sunday.
Syrian dictator Bashar Assad’s bloody efforts to stamp out the remaining rebel enclaves near Damascus resulted in what observers are describing as the wholesale massacre of civilians on Monday and Tuesday, with a bombing campaign that deliberately targeted seven hospitals and killed over a hundred people, including at least 20 children.
Contents: Turkey gets bogged down with military ‘Operation Olive Branch’ in Afrin, Syria; Syria says it will send its ‘popular forces’ to support the YPG against Turkey in Afrin
HAMOURIA, Syria — A heavy bombardment killed at least 100 civilians, 20 of them children, in rebel-held Eastern Ghouta on Monday, as regime forces appeared to be preparing for an imminent ground assault.
DAMASCUS: The Syrian government on Wednesday denied it possessed chemical weapons and branded the use of such arms “immoral and unacceptable,” following a French warning of punitive strikes.
Contents: Israel’s F-16 warplane shot down in aftermath of downing Iranian drone; Turkish helicopter shot down in Afrin, days after Russian warplane downed in Idlib; With defeat of ISIS, war escalates, and Syria becomes more fragmented and chaotic
Contents: US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) clash with Syrian regime forces; International Crisis Groups asks Russia to prevent Israel-Iran war in Syria
Contents: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad steps up use of chemical weapons on his own people; UN Security Council is worthless as Syria uses chemical weapons with impunity
Five civilians were treated for “suffocation” Sunday, after Syrian regime air strikes on the northwestern town of Saraqeb, a monitor said.
U.S. officials on Thursday charged that Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has manufactured and deployed new chemical weapons in stark violation of a 2013 agreement, supposedly overseen by Russia, that would eliminate the entire Syrian inventory of weapons of mass destruction.
Contents: Russia’s Syria peace talks in Sochi dissolve into farce as Lavrov gets heckled; Russia sidelines the failed United Nations Syria peace process; War continues in full force, with Syria and Turkey killing ‘terrorists’
Speaking at a conference on chemical weapons in Paris on Tuesday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said there is reason to believe Syrian dictator Bashar Assad has resumed using chemical weapons against his own people. He said Russia was to blame for failing to confiscate all of Assad’s weapons of mass destruction as promised.
Contents: Turkey’s troops mass on border, preparing to invade northern Syria; Collapse of the Russian ‘peace process’; The growing conflagration in northwest Syria
Contents: Al-Assad’s continued chlorine attacks on civilians follow Putin’s ‘Grozny model’; Syria’s al-Assad threatens to drive hundreds of thousands more refugees into Turkey and Europe
Contents: Syria’s Bashar al-Assad targets civilians and hospitals in never-ending war of extermination; Russia’s ‘de-escalation zones’ turn into total farce
Contents: Syria regime walks out of UN-sponsored Geneva peace talks; Syria and Russia repeat Aleppo war crimes in massive destruction of Eastern Ghouta
