Syria hit by US and Israeli airstrikes as war bloggers fret about ‘threat’ to Russian bases
Syria’s new rebel leaders are facing the daunting task of healing a divided nation – and the toppling of the Assad regime has not put an end to fighting in the country.
In northern Syria, Turkey-backed opposition fighters are still battling US-allied Kurdish forces, while both Israel and the US launched airstrikes on Syria on Sunday. There is also uncertainty surrounding two Russian bases.
President Bashar al Assad fled Damascus with his family on Sunday morning and their whereabouts were unknown until Russian state media confirmed they had been given asylum in Moscow “on humanitarian grounds”.
Read more: Latest updates from Syria
Sources also told Russian media the Kremlin had struck a deal with Syria’s rebel leaders to guarantee the safety of its bases in the country, as part of arrangements that saw Mr Assad head to Russia.
Moscow – a staunch backer of the Assad regime – has the strategically important Hmeimim airbase in Syria’s Latakia province and a naval facility at Tartous – its only Mediterranean repair and replenishment hub.
A satellite image shows Russia-operated Hmeimim Air Base. Pic: Reuters
Despite the deal, some Russian war bloggers have said the situations around the bases remain intense.
‘Rybar’, a Russian war blogger close to the country’s defence ministry, said: “Russia’s military presence in the Middle East region hangs by a thread.
“What anyone decided in high offices is absolutely irrelevant on the ground.”
Russian warships have left Tartous and taken up positions at sea for security reasons, Rybar added.
The account – which has more than 1.3 million followers on Telegram – also said the Hmeimim airbase had effectively been cut off after rebels took control of a nearby town. Rybar’s claims have not been verified.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs played down any immediate threat to its bases, but Sky News was told both are on “high alert” and Moscow is following events with “extreme concern”.
Smoke rises from Syria as people cross the Lebanese-Syrian border crossing of Arida. Pic: Reuters
Israel and US launch airstrikes on Syria
Meanwhile, Israel and the US have conducted separate airstrikes in Syria since Assad’s regime collapsed.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces had aimed dozens of strikes at Islamic State targets in central Syria, to ensure it does not take advantage of the uncertainty.
A senior official in the Biden administration said the US has also been focused on making sure chemical weapons controlled by the new regime are secured.
While there would be no role for US ground troops, the official said the US would work to ensure the safety of chemical weapons stockpiles in the country – which have in the past been used on rebels – but they did not elaborate on how that would be achieved.
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What are the impacts of Assad’s fall?
Meanwhile, Israel conducted three airstrikes against a major security complex and a research centre in Damascus, two regional security sources told Reuters.
According to Israel, the centre was used by Iranian scientists to develop missiles. Smoke was seen billowing over Damascus on Sunday, although it was not known what had caused it.
There has also been military action on the Israel-Syria border.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered Israeli forces to seize a buffer zone in the Golan Heights, established by a 1974 ceasefire agreement.
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What happened to Bashar al Assad?
Read more:
Who are the Syrian rebels – and what are their plans?
Syrians share dream of going home
Mr Netanyahu claimed it was necessary to “ensure the protection of all Israeli communities in the Golan Heights” after Syrian soldiers abandoned their positions there.
The Golan area was captured by Israel in the 1967 Mideast war, and later annexed. The international community, except the US, views it as occupied territory.
World
Thai prime minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra sacked for ethics violation after leaked phone call
Thailand’s prime minister has been sacked after a leaked phone call with a senior Cambodian politician caused outrage.
Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who was Thailand’s youngest PM, has been dismissed from office by the country’s Constitutional Court after only a year in power.
The court found Ms Shinawatra, 39, violated ethics in a leaked June telephone call, during which she appeared to kowtow to Cambodia’s former leader Hun Sen as the bordering countries were on the verge of an armed conflict.
She also criticised a Thai army commander – a taboo move in a country where the military is extremely influential.
Fighting erupted weeks later and lasted five days. At least 35 people were killed and more than 260,000 were displaced.
Ms Shinawatra, who was new to politics when she took office in August last year, apologised over the call and said she was trying to avert a war. She was suspended in July.
Ms Shinawatra arriving at Government House in Bangkok ahead of the verdict on Friday. Pic: Reuters
She is now the fifth Thai PM from, or backed by, the billionaire Shinawatra family to be removed by the military or the judiciary in 17 years, amid a battle for power between the country’s warring elites.
The ruling thrusts Thailand into more political uncertainty at a time of public unease over stalled reforms and a stuttering economy.
Speaking after the court’s decision, the exiting PM said “all sides” in Thai politics now “have to work together to build political stability and to ensure that there won’t be another turning point again”.
The focus will now shift to who will replace Ms Shinawatra.
Her influential, billionaire father, Thaksin Shinawatra, who also once served as Thailand’s PM, is expected to be at the heart of a flurry of bargaining to keep the ruling Pheu Thai party in power.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
Read more:
What happened between Thailand and Cambodia
Drug epidemic sweeps Southeast Asia
The leader of the main opposition People’s Party has called for the next prime minister to dissolve parliament once they are installed.
The deputy PM, Phumtham Wechayachai, and the current cabinet will act as government caretakers until a new leader is elected by parliament. There is no time limit on when that must take place.
After all those raised hopes of peace, Ukraine has been hit by the second-worst night of Russian air attacks since the war began.
So much for diplomacy, despite the Alaska summit, then the Washington DC meeting.
The Kremlin says it was aiming at military targets, but yet again, the pictures tell a very different story.
Follow latest: UK summons Putin’s ambassador
Firefighters work at the site of a burning building after a Russian attack in Kyiv, Ukraine. Pic: AP
One civilian building after another was hit, more than a dozen people were killed, and British Council and EU buildings were also damaged.
So what’s going on? Why is Vladimir Putin doing it?
Because he can.
The Russian president thinks he’s winning this war, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that he’s using diplomacy to play for time while he carries on beating down the Ukrainians’ will to win.
And at the moment, no one is stopping him
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At least 14 killed in Kyiv attack
Ukraine is hitting back, particularly at Russia‘s oil installations, more of them going up in thick black smoke, after being hit by long-range Ukrainian drones.
It is taking a heavy toll on Putin’s ‘Achilles heel’, but on its own, analysts don’t expect it will be enough to persuade him to end this war.
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British Council building hit in Kyiv
The West can wring its hands in condemnation.
But it’s divided between Europe that wants a ceasefire and much more severe sanctions, and Donald Trump, who, it seems, does not – strangely always willing to sympathise with the Russians more than Ukraine.
He’s back to blaming Ukraine for starting the war, saying earlier in the week that Kyiv should not have got into a war it had no chance of winning.
It is a grotesque perversion of history. Ukraine, of course, had no choice but to fight to defend itself when it was invaded in an act of unprovoked aggression.
Every time the US president has condemned Russia for these kinds of attacks, he has never followed through and done nothing to punish them.
Rescue workers carry an injured woman after a Russian strike on Kyiv, Ukraine. Pic: AP
More worryingly for the Ukrainians, the Russians are getting the upper hand in the drones war, taking Iranian technology and souping it up into faster-moving drones that the Ukrainians are having increasing difficulty bringing down.
They expect as many as a thousand drones a night coming their way by the winter, and many, many more innocents to die.
Next week, Putin will join Chinese and North Korean leaders in a summit in Beijing, both supporting his war in Ukraine.
(L-R) Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping and Kim Jong Un. Pics: Reuters
Read more from Dominic Waghorn:
Ukrainians warn they’re in danger of losing drone arms race
We are further away from peace now than we were two weeks ago
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
A war that began as one man’s mad idea has, in three and a half years, metastasised into a titanic struggle between east and west, fought increasingly with machines in a dystopian evolution of war.
If Mr Trump is not prepared to use his power to bring this war to an end, what will another three and a half years of his presidency bring?
It is a chilling question.
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