Tag Archives: Syria

Israeli minister threatens Assad over any Iranian attacks from Syria

Israel's Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz is seen during a quadrilateral Ministerial Summit in Nicosia, Cyprus December 5, 2017. REUTERS/Yiannis Kourtoglou

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel could respond to any Iranian attack on it from Syria by toppling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government, an Israeli security cabinet minister said on Monday, hinting that Assad himself may be targeted for assassination.

Israel and Iran have traded blows over Syria since February, stirring concern that major escalation could be looming ahead of next week’s review decision by U.S. President Donald Trump on the 2015 international nuclear deal with Tehran.

On April 9, an air strike killed seven Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps members at the Syrian base. Tehran blamed Israel and vowed unspecified retaliation, drawing Israeli counter-threats to broaden attacks on Iranian military assets in Syria.

Sharpening these warnings, Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said on Monday that Assad may find himself in Israel’s sights.

“If Assad allows Iran to turn Syria into a military vanguard against us, to attack us from Syrian territory, he should know that would be the end of him, the end of his regime,” Steinitz told the Ynet news site.

Asked if that meant Israel might assassinate Assad, Steinitz said: “His blood would be forfeit.” He also appeared to suggest that his remarks did not reflect Israeli government policy, saying: “I’m not talking about any concrete proposal.”

There was no immediate response from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office or from Israel’s Defence Ministry.

A Ynet text story had quoted Steinitz as saying explicitly that Israel would kill Assad, but this was not borne out by a video clip of the interview.

Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia and Russia have been reinforcing Damascus against a 7-year-old Syrian rebellion. The Israelis worry that Iran’s garrison will remain, linking with Hezbollah to form a broad Syrian-Lebanese front against them.

On Sunday, Israeli media carried what they described as an alert by Israel’s intelligence services that Iran was planning a missile salvo against Israeli military bases from within Syria.

Some analysts interpreted the publication as a warning to Iran that its plans were known, lest it try to carry out the missile strike without explicitly claiming responsibility.

On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss Syria, where Moscow wants to see Assad’s rule restored.

“Whoever is interested in Assad’s survival should do the honor of telling Assad to prevent attacks on Israel,” Steinitz said, alluding to Putin.

(Writing by Dan Williams, Editing by Hugh Lawson, William Maclean)

Jailed U.S. pastor denies terrorism charges in Turkish court

Jailed U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson's wife Norine Brunson arrives at Aliaga Prison and Courthouse complex in Izmir, Turkey May 7, 2018. REUTERS/Osman Orsal

By Ezgi Erkoyun

ANKARA (Reuters) – A U.S. pastor denied terrorism and spying charges in a Turkish court on Monday and called them “shameful and disgusting”, in a prosecution that has been condemned by U.S. President Donald Trump.

Andrew Brunson, who could face up to 35 years in jail, denied links to a network led by U.S.-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen, accused of orchestrating a failed military coup in Turkey in 2016, and the outlawed Kurdish PKK militant group.

The Christian pastor from North Carolina has lived in Turkey for more than two decades and has been jailed pending trial since 2016.

“I am helping Syrian refugees, they say that I am aiding the PKK. I am setting up a church, they say I got help from Gulen’s network,” Brunson said, referring to the testimonies of anonymous witnesses in court.

One of the secret witnesses accused Brunson of trying to establish a Christian Kurdish state, and providing coordinates to U.S. forces in the delivery of weapons to the Kurdish YPG militia, active in northern Syria.

“My service that I have spent my life on, has now turned upside down. I was never ashamed to be a server of Jesus but these claims are shameful and disgusting,” Brunson told the court in the Aegean town of Aliaga, north of Izmir.

Brunson has been the pastor of Izmir Resurrection Church, serving a small Protestant congregation in Turkey’s third largest city.

TURKEY WANTS GULEN EXTRADITED

Brunson’s legal case is among several roiling U.S.-Turkish relations, including one in New York against a former executive of Turkish state lender Halkbank. The two countries are also at odds over U.S. support for the Kurdish militia in northern Syria, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization.

Erdogan suggested last year Brunson’s fate could be linked to that of Gulen, whom Turkey wants extradited.

Gulen denies any association with the coup attempt. Tens of thousands of Turks have been arrested or lost their jobs over alleged connections with it.

U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted after Brunson’s first court appearance last month that the pastor was on trial for “no reason”.

“They call him a spy, but I am more a spy than he is. Hopefully he will be allowed to come home to his beautiful family where he belongs!” Trump said.

Outside the court on Monday, Sandra Jolley, vice chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, called for the clergyman’s release.

“Every day that Andrew Brunson spends here in prison is another day that the standing of the Turkish government diminishes in the eyes of not just the U.S. but the entire world,” she told reporters.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who is expected to meet with U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo in Washington this week or next, said on Saturday any decision was up to the court.

“They say that the government should release him,” he said. “Is it in my power? This is a decision the judiciary will make.”

(Writing by Ece Toksabay; editing by Andrew Roche)

Turkey says it will retaliate if U.S. halts weapons sales

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan makes a speech during a ceremony in Istanbul, Turkey May 4, 2018. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

By Tuvan Gumrukcu

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey will retaliate if the United States enacts a proposed law that would halt weapons sales to the country, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Sunday.

Lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives released details on Friday of a $717 billion annual defense policy bill, including a measure to temporarily halt weapons sales to Turkey.

In an interview with broadcaster CNN Turk, Cavusoglu said the measures in the bill were wrong, illogical and not fitting between the NATO allies.

“If the United States imposes sanctions on us or takes such a step, Turkey will absolutely retaliate,” Cavusoglu said. “What needs to be done is the U.S. needs to let go of this.”

The proposed U.S. National Defense Authorization Act, which is several steps from becoming law, would ask the Defense Department to provide Congress with a report on the relationship between the United States and Turkey, and would block the sale of major defense equipment until the report was complete.

Turkey plans to buy more than 100 of Lockheed Martin’s <LMT.N> F-35 Joint Strike Fighter jets, and is also in talks with Washington over the purchase of Patriot missiles.

Turkey signed an agreement with Russia in December to buy S-400 surface-to-air missile batteries as part of Ankara’s plans to boost its defense capabilities amid threats from Kurdish and Islamist militants at home and conflicts across its borders in Syria and Iraq.

The move to buy S-400s, which are incompatible with the NATO systems, has unnerved NATO member countries, which are already wary of Moscow’s military presence in the Middle East, prompting NATO officials to warn Turkey of unspecified consequences.

Cavusoglu dismissed the warnings, saying Turkey’s relations and agreements with Russia were not an alternative to its ties with the West and accused the United States of trying to control Turkey’s actions.

“Turkey is not a country under your orders, it is an independent country… Speaking to such a country from above, dictating what it can and cannot buy, is not a correct approach and does not fit our alliance,” he said.

Relations between Ankara and Washington have been strained over a host of issues in recent months, including U.S. policy in Syria and a number of legal cases against Turkish and U.S. nationals being held in the two countries.

Last month, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told Cavusoglu that the United States was seriously concerned over Ankara’s decision to buy the Russian S-400 missile batteries.

Cavusoglu said he would visit the United States next week to meet Pompeo, but added a specific date had not been set yet.

(Reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Adrian Croft)

Chemical weapons inspectors back from Syria’s Douma: source

FILE PHOTO: The United Nation vehicle carrying the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) inspectors is seen in Damascus, Syria April 18, 2018. REUTERS/ Ali Hashisho

By Anthony Deutsch

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Chemical weapons inspectors have returned from a mission to the Syrian town of Douma, where they took samples and interviewed witnesses to determine whether banned munitions were used in an attack last month, a diplomatic source said on Friday.

A team of experts from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons returned to the Netherlands on Thursday night after going to Damascus on April 14, the source said on condition of anonymity.

The suspected chemical attack prompted missile strikes by the United States, France and Britain on April 13 against several alleged chemical weapons facilities in Syria.

The OPCW is investigating the deaths of dozens of people in Douma, an enclave in Ghouta on the oustskrts of the Syrian capital, on April 7.

The United States and its allies say they were caused by chemical weapons, possibly a nerve agent, used by forces of the Russian-back government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Inspectors visited two sites of alleged attacks and took samples, which will be split at their laboratory in the Netherlands before being forwarded to affiliated national labs for testing. Test results are typically returned within three to four weeks. The OPCW will not assign blame.

The inspectors were also expected to have taken samples from canisters found at the scene that are believed to have contained toxic agents dropped from airplanes or helicopters.

Russia and Syria last week held a briefing for states belonging to the OPCW to support Moscow’s assertion that no chemical weapons were used in Douma and the attack was staged by rebels.

The briefing was boycotted by several OPCW member states, who denounced the Russian event as “a crude propaganda exercise” intended to undermine the OPCW’s work.

Britain, the United States, France, Germany and others, said in a statement that all material gathered so far supported their theory that chemical weapons were used in Douma.

The information gathered to date is “unassailable,” they said at the time. Medical NGOs having found traces of chemical agents and authenticated photo and video evidence reinforces the theory of gas intoxication by hundreds of victims.

The World Health Organization has also expressed concern “at reports from its partners of patients exhibiting signs and symptoms consistent with exposure to toxic chemicals.”

A joint United Nations-OPCW investigation concluded last year that Syrian government forces used sarin nerve agent and chlorine in several attacks.

The joint mission ended in November after Russia repeatedly blocked U.N. Security Council resolutions that would have extended its mandate.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Insurgents start leaving south Damascus pocket, release hostages

A soldier loyal to Syria's President Bashar al Assad forces talks to a woman in a bus after they were released by militants from Idlib, Syria May 1, 2018. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Dozens of hostages held by militants in northern Syria reached army lines on Tuesday, launching a deal for insurgents to quit an enclave south of Damascus, state media and a monitor said.

State news agency SANA said 42 people were freed in the first step of the agreement, arriving in government territory at a crossing near Aleppo city.

Soldiers loyal to Syria's President Bashar al Assad are seen near a bus carrying rebels from Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus, Syria April 30, 2018. SANA/ via REUTERS

Soldiers loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al Assad are seen near a bus carrying rebels from Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus, Syria April 30, 2018. SANA/ via REUTERS

Women, children, and men including some soldiers wept and hugged on the bus, live on state TV. Islamist rebels had kidnapped the people in a village in rural Idlib as they swept into the province three years ago.

South of Damascus, buses shuttled 200 fighters and relatives out of the Yarmouk enclave under the swap between the government and insurgents, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The fleet arrived at the same crossing near Aleppo in the early hours, the UK-based war monitoring group said. The fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly linked to al-Qaeda, would go to Idlib in the northwest near the Turkish border.

President Bashar al-Assad’s military and its allies have pushed to crush the last insurgent footholds around the capital Damascus through a string of offensives and withdrawal deals.

The pocket south of Damascus includes zones held by Islamic State and others by rebel factions, which have fought each other. It has been the focus of intense fighting since the Syrian army recaptured eastern Ghouta last month with Russian and Iranian help.

Bombing has left parts of the once-teeming Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in ruins, and the United Nations raised warnings over the fate of civilians still stuck there.

The evacuation deal for Tahrir al-Sham to surrender also includes allowing people to leave two pro-government Shi’ite villages, which the insurgents have encircled in Idlib.

State media said ambulances carried some critically ill patients out of the villages, al-Foua and Kefraya, on Tuesday morning in the first step of the agreement.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis, Editing by William Maclean)

‘I lived alongside death and didn’t die’: a Syrian frontline breathes again

Muhammad al-Masri, 75, gestures at his house in Jobar, eastern Ghouta, in Damascus, Syria April 17, 2018. Picture taken April 17, 2018. REUTERS/Ali Hashisho

By Laila Bassam

JOBAR, SYRIA (Reuters) – Muhammad al-Masri spent the Syrian war in a house the 75-year-old described as being on the frontline with death.

In his partly roofless, cobweb-filled house on a government frontline with the formerly rebel-held eastern Ghouta district of Jobar, al-Masri stayed put through years of conflict.

“Many said I was crazy … Everyone fled.”

But since the fighting ended three weeks ago, a trickle of life has returned to the war-ravaged, deserted streets around him.

The Syrian government, backed by Russia and Iran, regained eastern Ghouta, an area of farms and towns just outside Damascus, in early April in a ferocious assault.

The army offensive to capture it, heralded by one of the heaviest bombardments in the seven-year war, killed more than 1,600 people, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor.

Today the boom of mortars around al-Masri has been replaced with voices.

“Listen!” he says, as the sound of girls singing a traditional Syrian song reached him. “Life has returned to the neighborhood!”

Former residents are starting to come back, hoping to see what years of grinding warfare have done to their homes.

Near al-Masri’s house, soldiers yell at children and teenagers to stop exploring the barricades, trenches and war debris which had previously been off limits to them.

Most of the Jobar district is still uninhabited. Classified as a security zone by the Syrian army, the streets are strewn with destroyed buildings, bullets and explosives.

Underground, the army is still discovering a network of tunnels used by eastern Ghouta’s fighters and smugglers during years of siege.

Al-Masri’s house was the last inhabited position in his neighborhood before a bank of earth marked Damascus’s frontline with Jobar.

The house, shared at times with his son and daughter-in-law, was shelled three times. Shrapnel injured his son on one occasion.

“The mortars fell while I was inside. I didn’t leave. We cleaned up and sat back down,” he said.

“I lived here alongside death and didn’t die.”

His house was surrounded by Syrian government security forces who would bring him his food. He spent his days sweeping war debris from streets around him, watching television and telephoning family.

In the early days of the conflict he was scared and unsure of what might happen.

“For more than a month I slept with my shoes on, on full alert.”

Jobar adjoins government-held central Damascus. Parts of Jobar are just 500 meters from one of Damascus’s most famous public spaces: Abbasid Square.

Although Damascus has remained largely peaceful during the seven-year conflict, the proximity of formerly rebel-held areas like Jobar to the capital means rockets sometimes killed and injured people in the city.

“I didn’t take a single step from here. Not at night, not during the day. There was just 10 meters between me and the tanks. I was the only one in this area, no other buildings, no nothing. Me and the army were like brothers,” he said.

(Reporting by Laila Bassam and Firas Makdesi; Writing by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Alexandra Hudson)

Assad renews offensive as missile bombardment raise escalation risk

Soldiers loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad forces are deployed at al-Qadam area near Yarmouk Palestinian camp in Damascus,Syria April 29,2018.REUTERS/ Omar Sanadiki

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army unleashed a massive bombardment against one rebel enclave on Monday and prepared for the withdrawal of insurgents from another as President Bashar al-Assad pushes to crush the rebels’ last besieged strongholds.

However, missile strikes against several government military bases on Sunday – not claimed by any party despite speculation in Israel that its military was responsible – underscored the risks of a wider escalation in the seven-year conflict.

More than 140 Syrian army air strikes hit the town of Rastan and surrounding villages in the rebel enclave between the cities of Hama and Homs early on Monday alongside sustained shelling, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.

Last week a Syrian government minister said the enclave would be the army’s next target after retaking all rebel areas around the capital, a goal it looks closer to achieving with Monday’s expected insurgent withdrawal from south Damascus.

Despite Assad’s ever-stronger position against rebels since Russia’s entry into the war in 2015 brought a string of battlefield victories, the involvement of numerous regional and global powers threatens to inflame the war further.

Nobody has claimed responsibility for the missile attacks that struck several bases near Hama and Aleppo overnight, causing large explosions, and the Syrian army has blamed only “aggression” by its enemies.

However, Israel has previously carried out strikes in Syria to stop Assad’s ally Iran getting stronger there or transferring weapons to the Lebanese group Hezbollah, and there is widespread speculation in Israel that it was behind the attack.

Israel’s Intelligence Minister Israel Katz would not comment on the strikes, but added that Israel “has made it unequivocally clear at all levels that it will not allow an Iranian front in Syria to be established”.

A spokesman for Israel’s military said it would not comment on foreign reports. But Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, said Israel was likely behind the strikes.

“Israel has to decide: ‘are we confronting Iran in Syria before they have the full advanced weapons capabilities’ … or do we wait … let them build a huge military capability in Syria and meet them in a future war and pay a very high price?”

Diplomats have warned of a possible major escalation between Israel and Iran in Syria as Assad and his allies take more territory from rebels.

The United States, Jordan and Assad’s main ally Russia have declared a ceasefire zone in southwest Syria, near the border with Israel, and on Monday Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Washington’s strategy there “remains unchanged”.

The Observatory said at least 26 people – mostly Iranians and members of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia – were killed in Sunday’s strikes, and that dozens more people were missing.

Speaking in Israel on Sunday, Pompeo said the United States was “deeply concerned about Iran’s dangerous escalation of threats towards Israel and the region” and said it was critical for the two allies to work together to stop it.

Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency said no Iranian base had been hit or Iranians killed. Alaeddin Boroujerdi, a senior Iranian member of parliament met Assad on Monday and said Iran would keep its military advisers in Syria until the war ended.

Tehran and its allies blamed Israel for an April 9 air strike on the Tiyas air base in Syria, in which several Iranian military personnel were killed, and Iran has warned it would not go “without response”.

ASSAULT

The Syrian army’s assault on the pocket between Homs and Hama – the most populous remaining besieged area in Syria – included air strikes and artillery, said the Britain-based Observatory.

Reinforcements arrived in government-held areas before the bombardment, which targeted Rastan, the biggest town in the pocket, and several nearby villages, the Observatory said.

Syrian rebels hold large swathes of both northwest and southwest Syria. An alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by the United States holds large parts of northern and eastern Syria after an offensive against Islamic State last year.

The pocket in southern Damascus is split between areas held by Islamic State and rebel groups. It has been the focus of a massive bombardment and intense fighting since the Syrian army recaptured eastern Ghouta earlier this month.

Late on Sunday, state media reported that one of the rebel groups there, the jihadist Tahrir al-Sham alliance, which includes Syria’s former al-Qaeda affiliate, had agreed to withdraw to opposition-held Idlib province in northern Syria.

Footage on state television on Monday showed what it said was preparations for that withdrawal, along with the departure of buses in northern Syria to evacuate civilians from two government-held villages besieged by insurgents.

The surrender deal for Tahrir al-Sham in south Damascus was part of a deal to allow about 5,000 people to leave the two government-held Shi’ite villages, al-Foua and Kefraya, it said.

However, SANA state news agency reported continued intensive bombardment of al-Hajar al-Aswad, another area in the south Damascus pocket where Islamic State fighters are based.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall and Dahlia Nehme in Beirut, Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem, Suleiman al-Khalidi and Lesley Wroughton in Amman, Parisa Hafezi in Ankara; Editing by Janet Lawrence, William Maclean)

Pompeo says U.S. open to ‘two-party solution’ for Israeli-Palestinian conflict

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Jordan's King Abdullah II at the Royal Palace in Amman, Jordan April 30, 2018. Khalil Mazraawi/Pool via Reuters

By Lesley Wroughton

AMMAN (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo suggested on Monday he was open to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, saying a “two-party solution” was likely in his first extensive comments on peace efforts since taking the job last week.

“With respect to the two-state solution, the parties will ultimately make the decision. We are certainly open to a two-party solution as a likely outcome,” he said at a news conference in Jordan after a visit to Israel.

“The Israelis and Palestinians need to have political engagement. We urge the Palestinians to return to that political dialogue,” he added.

U.S. President Donald Trump has said he would support a two-state solution if the two sides agree. The White House is preparing a new Israeli-Palestinian peace plan.

Palestinians have rejected U.S. peace-making efforts since Trump decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital and move its embassy to the city, wanted by Palestinians as capital of their own state.

Amman was Pompeo’s last stop before he returns to Washington DC, where he has not yet entered the State Department. Moments after being sworn in as Secretary of State on Thursday, Pompeo immediately left for a meeting in Brussels, followed by a visit to allies in the Middle East.

“(The Mideast peace) is an incredible priority for the United States to provide whatever assistance we can to allow the two parties to come to a resolution on this incredibly long standing and important conflict,” Pompeo said, standing alongside Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi.

Pompeo also made his first comments on the violence along the Israel-Gaza Strip border, where Israeli troops shot and killed three Palestinians in two separate incidents on Sunday after a month of Palestinian protests.

“We do believe the Israelis have a right to defend themselves,” he said.

Turning to Syria, he said the United States was “in perfect accord” with Jordan on Syria, including the preservation of a “de-escalation zone” in the south.

Pompeo said: “We believe there are many countries, including the United States, who will play an important political role in achieving the de-escalation and ultimate political resolution in Syria”.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton and Suleiman al-Khalidi, Writing by Angus McDowall in Beirut, Editing by Alison Williams, William Maclean)

Exclusive: Russian civilians helping Assad use military base back home – witnesses

A still image from a video footage taken on April 6, 2018 shows a bus transferring Russian private military contractors leaving an airport outside Rostov-on-Don, Russia. REUTERS/Stringe

By Maria Tsvetkova and Anton Zverev

MOLKINO, Russia (Reuters) – The Kremlin says it has nothing to do with Russian civilians fighting in Syria but on three recent occasions groups of men flying in from Damascus headed straight to a defense ministry base in Molkino, Reuters reporters witnessed.

Molkino in southwestern Russia is where the Russian 10th Special Forces Brigade is based, according to information on the Kremlin website.

The destination of the Russians arriving from Syria provides rare evidence of a covert Russian mission in Syria beyond the air strikes, training of Syrian forces and small numbers of special forces troops acknowledged by Moscow.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Feb. 14 Russians may be in Syria but “they are not part of the armed forces of the Russian Federation”. He referred Reuters to the defense ministry when asked why civilians fighting in Syria return to a military base. The ministry did not immediately respond.

A duty officer at the 10th special forces brigade, asked why non-military people were entering the military base, said: “Nobody enters it, as far as I am aware … You’ve seen them, okay. But you should not believe everything … You can maybe. But how can we comment on what other organizations do?”

More than 2,000 Russian contractors are fighting to help Syrian forces recapture land from their opponents, several sources, including one contractor, have said.

The contractors are transferred by Syrian airline Cham Wings, the sources said.

Reuters reporters saw a Syrian Cham Wings charter flight from Damascus land at the civilian airport in Rostov-on-Don on April 17 and watched groups of men leave the terminal through an exit separate from the one used by ordinary passengers.

They boarded three buses, which took them to an area mainly used by airport staff. A luggage carrier brought numerous oversized bags and the men, dressed in civilian clothes, got off the buses, loaded the bags and got back on.

The three buses then left the airport in convoy and headed south; two made stops near cafes along the way and one on the roadside. All three reached the village of Molkino, 350 km (220 miles) south, shortly before midnight.

In the village, each bus paused for a minute or two at a checkpoint manned by at least two servicemen, before driving on. About 15-20 minutes later the buses drove back through the checkpoint empty. Publicly available satellite maps show the road leads to the military facility.

A still image from a video footage taken on April 6, 2018 shows a bus transferring Russian private military contractors passing a checkpoint before entering the Defence Ministry base in Molkino near Krasnodar, Russia. REUTERS/Stringer

A still image from a video footage taken on April 6, 2018 shows a bus transferring Russian private military contractors passing a checkpoint before entering the Defence Ministry base in Molkino near Krasnodar, Russia. REUTERS/Stringer

EXCURSION?

The buses took men along the same route from the airport to Molkino on Mar. 25 and Apr. 6, a Reuters reporter saw.

Several relatives, friends and recruiters of fighters told Reuters Russian private contractors have had a training camp in Molkino since the time they fought in eastern Ukraine alongside pro-Russian separatists.

The military facility is known for its recently renovated firing range, where the military trains for counter terrorist operations, tank battles and sniper shooting, the Russian defense ministry website says.

Reuters contacted the owners of some of the buses transporting the groups of men from the airport. They said they rent out their buses but declined to say who to: one said a trip to Molkino could have been an excursion.

One of the buses, a white 33-year-old Neoplan with a slogan of a tourist company on its boards, was imported into Russia in 2007 and initially registered in the town of Pechory. Dmitry Utkin, identified by three sources as leader of the contractors, previously commanded a special forces unit based in Pechory.

Graphic https://tmsnrt.rs/2K5I3MR

(Writing by Maria Tsvetkova; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

Syria is death trap for civilians, U.N. refugee chief warns

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi adresses the media with German Chancellor Angela Merkel (not pictured) following their talks in Berlin, Germany, April 23, 2018. REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

By Robin Emmott

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Civilians can no longer flee fighting and bombing raids in Syria because borders are so tightly controlled and neighboring countries are overwhelmed by refugees, creating some of the worst suffering in modern times, a top U.N. agency chief said.

U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi was warning of a new disaster if the rebel-controlled Syrian city of Idlib was the next target of the Syrian military.

“The country is becoming a trap, in some places a death trap for civilians,” Grandi told Reuters during a donor conference for Syria.

“There is an entire population out there that cannot bear its refugees anymore, that is suffering from one of the worse ordeals in modern history.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said last month about 511,000 people had been killed in the war since it began in March 2011.

Some 5.5 million Syrians are living as refugees in Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, and now account for a quarter of Lebanon’s population. Another 6.1 million people are still in Syria but have been forced to flee their homes.

Grandi is hoping to raise $5.6 billion from international donors for emergency humanitarian aid for Syrian refugees this year, but that money is not for Syria itself, instead going to help host countries such as Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Lebanon.

Meanwhile, the United Nations estimates that more than 400,000 civilians trapped in besieged areas throughout Syria.

That the number could rise dramatically because 2 million people live in northwestern Idlib region, the largest populated area of Syria in the hands of insurgents fighting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government in Damascus.

Some aid agencies are predicting suffering on an even greater scale than during the siege of Aleppo last year and in eastern Ghouta and Raqqa this year if the Syrian army and its Russian and Iranian backers turn their full fire on Idlib.

Tens of thousands of fighters and civilians have fled to the area from parts of the country which the army has recaptured with the help of Russia and Iran.

“Idlib is where an area where a lot of fighters have transferred,” Grandi said. “If fighting moves more decisively to that area, it could be very dangerous for civilians.”

However, Grandi and other aid agencies predict they will have nowhere to flee to because Turkey’s southern border with Syria at Gaziantep is tightly controlled, mainly letting aid supplies through to Idlib, forcing refugees deeper into Syria.

“I think we are going to lose not only a generation but a population,” Grandi said.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Alison Williams)