Outgoing head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Syria on Wednesday offered a dire prognosis for the war-torn nation, saying the conflict would continue to pose risks far beyond Syria’s borders.

“If a solution is not found soon, a political solution, in Syria, the whole area, the whole region will be affected. It’s already affected. It will deteriorate even more”, Marianne Gasser told a panel discussion at Washington-based Wilson Center.

According to the UN, Syria’s civil war has left more than 80,000 people dead, displacing over four million internally, and sending approximately 1.5 million others to flee Syria’s borders into neighboring countries.

“If the fighting would stop even tomorrow it would take years to reconstruct this country, and especially even more to reconciliate [sic] the different people,” Ms Gasser said.

The now two-plus year conflict also risks a regional escalation of the fighting along sectarian lines, highlighted by a still-unfolding battle for Qusair, a Syrian town close to Lebanese border, which Syrian rebels said had seen dozens of Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants killed fighting alongside Syrian troops since Sunday.
Earlier in May, Israeli war planes in Syria hit an alleged shipment of “game-changing” weapons, advanced missiles which the Jewish state said were destined to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

And, in the deadliest spillover of violence in Turkey, the southern town of Reyhanli near the Syrian border was hit by twin car bombings on May 11 which killed 51 people, including Syrian shelter seekers. For the attacks, Turkey has blamed terrorist groups with “direct links” to the Syrian regime and intelligence.

UN’s refugee agency has said the total number of people in need of assistance in Syria has reached 8.3 million, or 38 percent of the country’s population. 

23 May 2013 – Anadolu Agency

At least 10 people were killed on Friday in an explosion after alleged smugglers set a fuel depot on fire in response to a police crackdown, a local official said.

The suspects set ablaze an illegal fuel depot located in the basement of a three-story building in a small village near Turkey’s border with Syria, triggering a strong explosion that also wounded nine people.

Among the wounded were three suspected smugglers as well as several security officers, Anatolia news agency reported.

The suspects were trying to elude a crackdown by security forces who raided their shelter after a tip-off, Hatay city governor Celalettin Lekesiz was quoted as saying by Anatolia.

Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, security along the lengthy border has weakened, with border towns becoming a hub for fuel smugglers, who can sell Syrian oil at a much higher price inside Turkey.

The explosion came days after twin car bombs rocked a border town in the same region on Saturday, killing 51 people. Official reports did not establish a connection between the incidents.

Those bombings were the deadliest case of what observers see as an increasing regionalization of the Syrian conflict that started in March 2011 and has taken 94,000 lives according to rights groups.

Ankara has sided with the rebels fighting to topple the Damascus regime and shelters around 400,000 refugees as well as army defectors along its frontier.

AFP - 05/17/2013

More than 1.5 million Syrians have fled their conflict-ravaged homeland, the UN’s refugee agency said Friday, warning that the real figure could be even higher as the tally only reflected those who register with aid groups.

Dan McNorton, spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, told reporters that close to 250,000 Syrians were being registered each month.

“Refugees tell us the increased fighting and changing of control of towns and villages, in particular in conflict areas, results in more and more civilians deciding to leave,” McNorton said.

“Over the past four months we have seen a rapid deterioration when compared to the previous 20 months of this conflict,” he added.

McNorton underlined that the actual number of refugees was likely to be even higher than 1.5 million.

“This is due to concerns that some Syrians have regarding registration,” he said, explaining that rumors circulating among exiles about the supposed security risks of signing up for refugee status put some people off.

He said aid agencies were working to encourage waivers to register in order to be able to receive official help, even as UNHCR struggles to keep up with the rising numbers and needs.

“The increasingly widening gap between the needs and resources available is a growing challenge,” he said.

“UNHCR continues to respond to the emergency needs of those in desperate need inside Syria and neighboring countries,” he added.

Syrians have surged out of their country since March 2011, when a crackdown on protests against the regime of President Bashar al-Assad heralded the start of an armed rebellion.

Numbers ballooned as the conflict morphed into an increasingly sectarian civil war, and the total topped a million in March this year.

Most have fled to neighboring Jordan, where close to 474,000 have been registered by UNHCR or are waiting registration, and to Lebanon, with over 470,000.

Some 347,000 are in Turkey, over 147,000 in Iraq and close to 67,000 in Egypt, according to UNHCR’s latest data.

In addition to the refugees, the United Nations has said that more than 4.25 million Syrians are displaced within their homeland.

That means that, all told, over a quarter of Syria’s pre-war population of 22.5 million have been forced to quit their homes since the conflict began.

The death toll has surpassed 90,000, according to the UN.

AFP - 05/17/2013

05/11/2013 - #Syria - 13 dead in #Turkey car bombings near Syria border Reyhanli

05/07/2013 - Syria’s War - The View From Turkey - #Syria

Syrian regime troops have fired missiles with chemical weapons at opponents, crossing President Barack Obama’s red line a “long time ago,” Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been quoted as saying.

“It is clear that the regime has used chemical weapons and missiles. They used about 200 missiles, according to our intelligence,” Erdogan said in a transcript of the interview with the American television news outlet NBC News in Istanbul, issued on Thursday.

The Turkish leader did not make clear whether Turkey believed that all 200 missiles carried chemical weapons and said that his government had not determined whether sarin gas was used.

“There are different sizes missiles. And then there are deaths caused by these missiles. And there are burns, you know, serious burns and chemical reactions,” Erdogan told the network when asked what evidence Turkey had.

“And there are patients who are brought to our hospitals who were wounded by these chemical weapons.”

Erdogan told NBC Turkey that you could see who was affected by chemical missiles by their burns, vowing to share intelligence with the United Nations Security Council.

Assad’s forces and opposing rebels have accused each other of using chemical weapons.

Erdogan told NBC he rejected the idea that Assad’s opponents has used such weapons because they lacked access to them.

Turkey’s state-run Anatolian news agency said earlier on Thursday that the country has sent a team of eight experts to the border with Syria to test wounded victims of the country’s civil war for traces of chemical and biological weapons.

- Reuters - 05/09/2013

Residents said cluster bombs were used in Saturday’s bombardment [Basma Atassi]

(Reuters) - The United Nations on Friday urged Syria’s neighbors to keep open their borders to civilians fleeing the intensifying conflict and said that the refugee exodus into Jordan was “absolutely dramatic”.

More than 30,000 Syrians have arrived in Jordan’s main Zaatri camp this year, including 4,400 on Thursday and another 2,000 overnight, it said. Most were fleeing fighting in the southern area of Deraa, food and fuel shortages and high prices.

Turkey has said that camps are filling up as soon as they are built and officials in Jordan said this week it would keep its borders open but wanted other countries to help it boost its ability to cope with the influx.

“It is just absolutely dramatic the inflow of people that continues into Jordan,” Melissa Fleming, chief spokeswoman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a news briefing in Geneva.

Jordan now hosts more than 206,000 Syrians who have registered as refugees or await processing, while the government says that more than 300,000 Syrians are actually in the country.

A further 30,000 Syrians could be preparing to head to Jordan, according to the UNHCR’s latest assessment.

Across the region, 678,540 Syrian refugees had registered or were being processed as of Tuesday, according to UNHCR figures for Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and North Africa.

“It is fast approaching 700,000,” spokeswoman Sybella Wilkes told Reuters. “It is a challenge on every border the number of people that are arriving and crossing borders every day.”

Fleming said the UNHCR commended the Jordanian, Lebanese and Turkish governments for keeping their borders open and urged them to continue to do so.

Refugees report fighting in Deraa and its suburbs but the UNHCR was not in a position to assess military activities, she said. Water and electricity are only available for intermittent periods in parts of southern Syria.

Some 25,000 to 40,000 Syrians are reported to be massed in northern Syria along Turkey’s border, awaiting entry into the country which has 15 refugee camps and is building a further five, Fleming said.

“They are building camps as fast as they can and they are letting people in as soon as the camps are ready,” she said.

What began as a mostly peaceful movement against President Bashar al-Assad has killed more than 60,000 people in 22 months, devastated the economy and left 2.5 million people inside the country hungry, according to the U.N.

Ted Chaiban, UNICEF director of emergency programs who was in Syria last week, said food, basic medicines and drinkable water were getting harder to find, while families were living 20 to a room with minimal shelter and clothing in cold weather.

The Ras al-Ain branch of the Kurdish National Council in Syria called on the Syrian opposition on Saturday to intervene over an ongoing jihadist assault on the northern city located on the Turkish border.

“Since Wednesday morning, some armed groups have launched an offensive against innocent and unarmed civilians in Ras al-Ain using various types of heavy weapons and sowing fear and panic among children and women,” a statement said.

“We condemn these cowardly attacks and call on the National Coalition, the Syrian National Council and the Free [Syrian] Army to pressure these militants to stop this criminal war, which is detrimental to the principles and objectives of the Syrian revolution,” it said.

The council said hardline rebels were indiscriminately shelling Ras al-Ain with tanks and called on Turkish authorities to “stop interfering and supporting armed groups to implement their own agenda.”

“We ask our fellow Syrians inside and outside the country to stand beside their brethren in Ras al-Ain,” it concluded.

On Saturday, one rebel was reported dead and three wounded in fierce clashes between Kurdish fighters and the jihadist Al-Nusra Front and several other Islamist factions in Ras al-Ain, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

On Friday, armed groups loyal to Al-Nusra Front crossed into Ras al-Ain from the Turkish border with three tanks, a Kurdish activist from the city told AFP via Internet.

While Turkey supports the revolt against Assad, it is also home to a sizeable Kurdish minority that has suffered much persecution and suppression.

Activists say they fear Turkey may be using jihadists in Syria to fight its own battle against the Kurds.

01/19/2013

A shell fired from Syria early Monday landed in southeastern Turkey without injuring anyone, Turkish television reported.

The shell dug a deep crater in an olive grove near Akcabaglar in Kilis province, damaging some trees, according to NTV and CNN-Turk.

It was not clear whether it was fired by troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or by rebels fighting to oust his regime.

Since the shelling in early October of the Turkish border village of Akcakale killed five civilians, Ankara forces have replied in kind each time Syrian fire hits Turkey, with Damascus generally being held responsible.

To protect NATO member Turkey from possible Syrian threats, the United States, The Netherlands and Germany are to deploy batteries of ground-to-air Patriot missiles and hundreds of soldiers in the next few days along the Syrian border in southern Turkey at the request of Ankara.

01/14/2013

The Netherlands’ Patriot missile batteries on Monday began their journey to fellow NATO member Turkey where they are to defend civilians near the border from a possible Syrian attack.

Around 160 vehicles carrying the missiles and equipment for 300 Dutch support troops left the Bestkazerne military base in Vredepeel in the southeastern Netherlands on Monday morning, an AFP correspondent reported.

The convoy is headed for Eemshaven port in the north of the country from where it will sail for Turkey and is expected to arrive around January 22.

The US and Germany are also sending Patriot surface-to-air missiles to southeastern Turkey following a request from Ankara because of the threat of the deadly 21-month civil war in Syria spilling over.

The Turkish request came after repeated cross-border shelling from Syria, including an October attack that killed five civilians.

The Dutch Patriots and support troops will be tasked with defending the city of Adana, population 1.5 million, which lies around 100 kilometers from Syria.

Mission commander Lieutenant Colonel Marcel Buis told journalists that 30 Dutch troops would fly out on Tuesday to begin setting up and the remaining 270 troops would fly out on January 21.

The US began deploying its Patriots on Saturday, while the German missiles are to arrive in Turkey on January 21.

Syria’s allies Iran and Russia oppose the Patriot deployment, fearing that it could spark regional conflict also drawing in NATO.

“This is a purely defensive mission,” General Tom Middendorp, the Netherlands top military officer, told journalists.

“We do not know whether the missiles will cross the border but what we do know is that Syria has deadly offensive weapons at its disposal and has already deployed them on a grand scale,” he said.

“We want to prevent what could amount to large numbers of casualties among innocent civilians.”

Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen last month rejected Iranian accusations that the West was preparing another world war by deploying Patriots near the border with Syria.

“The mission is purely focusing on threats coming from Syrian territory, the mission does not encompass possible threats from other countries,” Middendorp said.

01/07/2013

NATO began deploying Patriot missiles in Turkey Friday to defend against threats from neighboring Syria, the US military’s European Command (EUCOM) said.

US military personnel and equipment arrived at Incirlik Air Base in southeastern Turkey to support NATO’s Patriot battery deployment at Ankara’s request, EUCOM, based in the southwestern German city of Stuttgart, said in a statement.

The United States will transport some 400 troops to Turkey in the next several days to operate two Patriot batteries supporting NATO’s mission there. Additional equipment will arrive by sea later in January.

“The deployment of six Patriot batteries, including two each from Germany and The Netherlands, is in response to Turkey’s request to NATO,” EUCOM said.

“The forces will augment Turkey’s air defense capabilities and contribute to the de-escalation of the crisis along the Alliance’s border.”

EUCOM deputy commander Charles Martoglio said the Patriot batteries would fall under NATO command “when set-up is complete and the systems are operational in the next several weeks.”

“The deployment will be defensive only and will not support a no-fly zone or any offensive operation,” EUCOM added.

The duration of the deployment will be determined by the contributing nations in coordination with Turkey and NATO, it said.

Germany, The Netherlands and the United States agreed to supply the ground-to-air missile batteries, which Turkey requested after repeated cross-border shelling from Syria, including an attack that killed five civilians.

NATO-member Turkey, a one-time Damascus ally, has turned into one of its most vocal opponents over the 21-month civil war in Syria that monitors say has killed some 60,000 people.

The deployment will continue Monday when two Dutch Patriot batteries will be transported to the port of Eemshaven from a military barracks in Vredepeel in the southeast of the country, the Dutch Defense Ministry said.

The next day, 30 Dutch and 20 German soldiers charged with preparing for the missiles’ arrival by ship, scheduled for January 22, will fly from the Dutch air base of Eindhoven to Turkey.

Another 270 Dutch troops, who will operate the missiles, will leave for Turkey on January 21, the ministry added.

The German Defense Ministry said that its Patriots would be shipped Tuesday from the port of Luebeck-Travemuende and were due to arrive at the Turkish port of Iskenderun on January 21.

The main German contingent of up to 350 soldiers will begin deploying in mid-January.

January 4, 2013

By BARBARA SURK, Associated Press

BEIRUT (AP) — Syria’s civil war spilled over into neighboring Lebanon once again on Sunday, with gun battles in the northern city of Tripoli between supporters and opponents of President Bashar Assad’s regime that left four dead.

Nine Syrian judges and prosecutors also defected to the opposition. It was the latest setback for the regime which in recent weeks has seen a tough rebel challenge in its seat of power, Damascus, and has lost two airbases to opposition fighters.

In Lebanon, fighting between pro-and anti-Assad gunmen flared as bodies of three Lebanese who fought in Syria’s civil war were brought back home for burial, the state-run National News Agency said.

Four people were killed and 12 were wounded in the gunfights, the agency said.

Syria civil war has often spilled into neighboring countries including Turkey, Lebanon and Israel, raising concerns of a wider war in the volatile region.

Lebanon, which Syria dominated for decades, is particularly vulnerable to getting sucked into the crisis. The two countries share a porous border and a complex web of political and sectarian ties.

Syria’s opposition is dominated by members of the Sunni Muslim minority. Assad’s regime is predominantly Alawite, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

Tripoli has been the scene of frequent sectarian clashes between the Alawite and Sunni Muslim communities. Last week, the Lebanese army sent additional troops to Tripoli to try to prevent clashes that broke out over reports that 17 Lebanese men were killed after entering Syria to fight alongside the rebels.

In Syria, fighting between opposition fighters and regime troops was concentrated in northern Idlib province, in the Damascus suburbs and in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, according to the Britain-based opposition activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. At least 21 people were killed in fighting Sunday, said the group, which relies on reports from activists on the ground.

The defecting judges posted a joint statement online urging others to join them and break ranks with Assad’s regime. There have been a series of high-level defections over the past year, including Assad’s former prime minister.

The Observatory said the latest defectors came from the northern city of Idlib.

_____

Associated Press Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan contributed to this report.

09/12/12

By Erika Solomon

BEIRUT |

(Reuters) - Syrian rebels backed by radical Islamists captured a northern regimental command center of President Bashar al-Assad’s army, activists said on Sunday, as Russia dismissed speculation that it is preparing for its ally’s possible exit from power.

Assad’s forces hammered rebel units on the outskirts of Damascus as they tried to drive back opposition fighters rebels seeking to advance toward the embattled leader’s seat of power.

Rebels have made a series of advances in recent weeks, partly due to help from radicals such as Jabhat al-Nusra, a group linked to Al Qaeda in Iraq which has been excluded from a newly-formed rebel military command.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Jabhat al-Nusra, which has called for the creation of an Islamic state in Syria, had participated in capturing the command center of the army’s 111th regiment in the north of the country. It said around five soldiers were captured, while the commanding officer and some 140 of his men fled to another army site nearby.

Russia, Syria’s main arms supplier, dismissed suggestions from observers that its support for Assad might be softening.

“We are not holding any talks on the fate of Assad,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said after meeting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and special U.N. envoy to Syria Lakhdar Brahimi. “All attempts to present the situation differently are rather shady,” Itar-Tass news agency quoted him as saying.

Washington and its NATO allies, who have thrown their weight behind the opposition, are pressing for Assad’s departure to end the conflict in Syria, which has taken more than 40,000 lives.

Russia and China have blocked U.N. resolutions against Assad, saying they oppose foreign intervention in the conflict.

However, Western officials have recently cited intelligence reports that Assad may turn to chemical weapons. “We have seen enough evidence to know that they need a warning and they have received a warning and I hope they heed that,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Saturday.

Syria has repeatedly denied the charges and accused the West of creating pretexts for foreign intervention.

RADICALS ON THE RISE

Rebels have seized several military bases in recent weeks, although some activists on the ground say there is no sign they are on the verge of toppling Assad.

The rebels’ capture of the regimental command center in the Sheikh Suleiman region of Aleppo province, however, shows growing cooperation and even allegiance to radical Islamists who have proven to be some of the most effective fighters.

It is unclear how much Jabhat al-Nusra’s exclusion from the newly-formed rebel military command in Syria, an effort backed by Western, Turkish and Arab security officials, will affect efforts to unify rebel ranks and increase financial support.

Led by Brigadier Selim Idris, the new command structure itself is also Islamist-dominated, though it has the backing of many Western states which have expressed reluctance to support the rebels due to the presence of radicals.

Radical groups such as Jabhat al-Nusra are small compared with other factions but their influence has grown in recent months, partly due to their successful operations. Some residents and rebels also believe the hardliners are more disciplined than some rebels who have been accused of looting and kidnapping.

ROAD TO DAMASCUS?

Damascus has become a focal point of battles over the past week, as rebels effectively shut the international airport by clashing with Assad’s forces there. Foreign flights have been suspended and residents say the airport road is closed.

Rebels who have dubbed their campaign “Operation Opening the Road to Damascus”, uploaded video on Sunday that showed heavy gunbattles and explosions rocking several rural towns around the capital. The video also showed rebels firing a fully functioning tank which they had captured from the army.

But there is no clear winner yet in a battle where neither side seems to have advanced. The Syrian army has claimed many successes around the capital, airing footage on state television of soldiers raiding parts of the rebel stronghold of Deraya.

“Our noble forces in Deraya have destroyed some of the terrorist dens used by al Qaeda terrorists to store weapons and other criminal tools,” said a report on Syria TV, which usually refers to rebels as terrorists. “Many terrorists were killed.”

Syrian soldiers also freed an Iranian diplomat captured on the outskirts of Damascus on Saturday, according to Iran’s state-run Arabic news channel Al-Alam. Majeed Adeli, the cultural attaché at the Iranian embassy in Damascus, had been kidnapped by rebels in the Sayyida Zeinab suburb.

Rebels have been targeting Iranians in Syria, many of whom it accuses of belonging to Iranian security forces. Iran has been Assad’s main bankroller and backer in the region. Rebels are also holding 48 Iranians which Tehran says were pilgrims.