Tag Archives: War

U.S. needs to balance foreign alliances: Tillerson

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson delivers remarks to the employees at the State Department in Washington, U.S., May 3, 2017. REUTERS/Yuri Gripas

By Yeganeh Torbati

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Wednesday outlined for his staff how an “America First” agenda translates into foreign policy, but did not address the Trump administration’s proposed budget cuts, which worry many diplomats.

It was the first time Tillerson had addressed all employees since his first day on the job on Feb. 2, when he spoke to hundreds of State Department officials in the building’s lobby, and the most thorough explanation yet of the Trump administration’s approach to foreign policy.

Some allies and even some U.S. officials have interpreted Republican President Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda, which puts Americans’ interests at home ahead of those of its partners overseas, as a threat to retreat from the world.

Tillerson said U.S. foreign policy priorities had gotten “a little bit out of balance” in the previous decades, with the United States too focused on promoting economic activity and trade with emerging economies.

“These are really important relationships to us, and they’re really important alliances, but we’ve got to bring them back into balance,” he said, speaking without notes and walking around the stage in a packed State Department auditorium.

He also signaled that the United States would de-emphasize human rights concerns in some of its interactions with other countries, saying that while U.S. values remain constant, its policies can adapt.

“If we condition too heavily that others must adopt this value that we’ve come to over a long history of our own, it really creates obstacles to our ability to advance our national security interests, our economic interests,” Tillerson said.

TILLERSON’S WORLD TOUR

Tillerson gave a tour of U.S. priorities around the world, including in East Asia, Russia, Africa, and the Western Hemisphere, omitting Europe.

With regard to North Korea’s nuclear program, Tillerson said the administration is willing to use so-called secondary sanctions to target foreign companies that continue to do business with Pyongyang in contravention of United Nations sanctions.

The pressure campaign on North Korea is “at about dial setting 5 or 6 right now,” Tillerson said.

On China, Tillerson said the United States has a “tremendous opportunity” to define its relationship with the superpower for the next several decades, and that he sensed great interest by the Chinese leadership to do that as well.

He and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will chair a dialogue with their Chinese counterparts in June, in addition to a dialogue focused on economics and trade and led by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Tillerson said he had told Russian President Vladimir Putin during his visit to Moscow last month that U.S.-Russia relations were at their lowest point since the Cold War.

“He did not disagree,” Tillerson said. “He shrugged his shoulders and nodded in agreement.”

But in remarks lasting nearly 40 minutes, Tillerson did not address the administration’s proposed 28 percent budget cut for U.S. diplomacy and foreign aid, which would reduce funding for the United Nations, climate change and cultural exchange programs. That proposal has made many American diplomats and aid workers anxious.

The Trump administration also has not named candidates for the vast majority of State Department positions requiring Senate confirmation, and many are being filled by career diplomats in “acting” positions. Tillerson began his remarks by thanking those officials, to applause from the crowd.

One veteran official who watched the speech criticized Tillerson’s use of the “America First” slogan. The phrase was used in the 1930s by isolationists who sought to keep the United States out of World War Two.

“The fact that they still use ‘America First’ shows they know nothing about history, and what’s worse is they don’t care.

“It’s offensive,” said the official, who requested anonymity.

Tillerson’s remarks followed an invitation to State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development employees this week to participate in an online survey to help identify “efficiency improvements,” in line with a March directive from Trump to “reorganize governmental functions and eliminate unnecessary agencies.” In his speech, the secretary urged employees to fill out the survey and give input on how to reform the agency.

Tillerson said the State Department, like many institutions, was built for the Cold War era.

He said he recognized that deep change to the State Department “is really stressful for a lot of people” and said the administration has “no preconceived notions on the outcome” of a review.

One State Department official faulted Tillerson for not talking in detail about the budget cuts, as well as for not taking questions from employees.

Previous secretaries of state, including Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, held question-and-answer sessions with State Department employees within weeks of taking office.

“They wanted to make this look like he was talking to us, but it was more about the appearance than any substance,” said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Two other State Department officials, however, spoke highly of Tillerson’s remarks, saying it was early to expect him to take questions from the rank and file and saying he provided guidance both on foreign policy and on the challenge of reorganizing the department.

“I can understand folks wanting more details. I just don’t think we are in a place where he can provide more details,” said one of these officials about the expected State Department budget cuts. “My big takeaway was put on your big-girl britches, and when you look back you will feel like you were part of making this reform happen.”

(Additonal reporting by Arshad Mohammad, Jonathan Landay and John Walcott; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

Mosul offensive gains fresh momentum as army attacks IS from northwest

A wounded displaced man is evacuated by Iraqi forces as he crosses the Tigris by a military boat after the bridge has been temporarily closed, south of Mosul, Iraq May 4, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Ahmed Aboulenein and Ahmed Rasheed

SOUTHWEST OF MOSUL, Iraq/BAGHDAD (Reuters) – The U.S.-backed Iraqi offensive to take back Mosul from Islamic State gained fresh momentum on Thursday, with an armored division trying to advance into the city from the northern side.

The militants are now besieged in the northwestern corner of Mosul which includes the historic Old City center, the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque, and its landmark leaning minaret where their black flag has been flying since June 2014.

The Iraqi army’s 9th Armoured Division and the Rapid Response units of the Interior Ministry have opened a new front in the northwest of the city, the military said in a statement.

The attack will help the elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) and Interior Ministry Federal Police troops who are painstakingly advancing from the south.

“Our forces are making a steady advance in the first hours of the offensive and Daesh fighters are breaking and retreating,” Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, a spokesman for the joint operations command, told state television. He was referring to Islamic State by an Arabic acronym.

Federal Police and Rapid Response forces advanced 1,400 meters and keep pushing ahead in the Hulela area toward the Haramat district northwest of Mosul. They were trying to reach the Tigris river bank and surround the Fifth Bridge north of the Old City, the Federal Police said in a statement.

A U.S.-led international coalition is providing key air and ground support to the offensive on Mosul, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Iraq, which started in October.

It was from the pulpit of the Grand al-Nuri Mosque that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi revealed himself to the world in July 2014, declaring a “caliphate” that spanned parts of Syria and persecuted non-Sunni communities as well as Sunnis who did not abide by its extreme interpretation of Islam.

“An armored division should not be going into narrow alleyways and streets but we will,” said Lieutenant General Qassem al-Maliki, commander of the 9th Armoured Division.

“There are sometimes troop shortages or orders that require us to do so and we will do our duty,” he told Reuters in an interview at a base southwest of Mosul.

“We will enter with Rapid Response forces and CTS and we will enter as one front.”

The Iraqi army said on April 30 that it aimed to finish the battle for Mosul, the largest city to have fallen under Islamic State control in both Iraq and Syria, this month.

Islamic State’s defeat in Mosul will not mean the end of the hardline Sunni group which remains in control of parts of Syria and vast swathes of Iraqi territory near the Syrian border.

SHAPING THE BATTLEFIELD

Close U.S. support should help the involvement of the armored division and reduce the risk for civilians, U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel James Browning, the partnered advisor to the Iraqi 9th Armoured Division, told Reuters at the base.

“Everything I am trying to do is try to shape the battlefield for him,” Browning, a battalion commander from the 82nd Airborne Division, said referring to Maliki.

“I am looking at trying to strike right in front of him as well as deep, even into Old Mosul.”

U.S. support is essential for getting rid of suicide car bombs, known as VBIEDs, driven by the militants as road torpedoes before crashing into troops.

A typical conversation between Browning and Maliki would go like this: “What are you seeing on the screen? Do you see civilians?” Browning recalls Maliki asking.

“And sometimes I say ‘yes’ and he (Maliki) says ‘don’t strike’. I go through that process every time. We scan, we take a look, we make sure,” Browning said.

The war is taking a heavy toll on civilians trapped behind Islamic State lines and used by the militants as shields.

Local officials and eyewitnesses have said as many as 240 people may have died in March in the Al-Jadida district of western Mosul when a blast resulted in a building collapsing.

The U.S. military has acknowledged that the U.S.-led coalition probably had a role in the March 17 explosion, but said Islamic State also could be to blame.

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein southwest of Mosul and Ahmed Rasheed in Baghdad; Additional reporting by Isabel Coles in Erbil; Writing by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Ralph Boulton)

Russian, Turkish leaders re-affirm their pact on Syria

Russian President Vladimir Putin (L) shakes hands with his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan during a meeting in Sochi, Russia. Sputnik/Alexei Nikolsky/Kremlin via REUTERS

By Denis Pinchuk

SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) – The leaders of Russia and Turkey on Wednesday publicly re-affirmed their commitment to working together to end the conflict in Syria, despite a gas attack on a Syrian city that tested their fragile alliance.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan, both subject to mounting criticism from Western governments over their rights records, have formed a pact on Syria despite backing rival sides in the civil conflict there.

They met on Wednesday in the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, their first meeting since a deadly April 4 chemical attack on the Syrian city of Khan Sheikhoun.

Erdogan at the time blamed the attack on Russia’s ally, the Syrian government, while Putin suggested the attack had been faked to discredit Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Speaking to reporters after their talks, Putin and Erdogan said they were still focused on working together to end the conflict in Syria, which has turned the country into a breeding ground for violent Islamist militant groups.

“We stand by our Russian friends in the fight against terror,” Erdogan said at a joint press conference, standing alongside Putin.

Both leaders said they would maintain their support for a stop-start peace process, based in the Kazakh city of Astana, in which Moscow, Ankara and Tehran are co-sponsors.

In the latest round of talks there, representatives of Syria’s armed opposition said they were suspending their participation.

SAFE ZONES

Erdogan and Putin also voiced support for a proposal, backed by U.S. President Donald Trump, to create so-called safe zones in Syria to protect civilians from the fighting.

“We all take the view that we need to… create mechanisms that would guarantee a cessation of bloodshed and create the conditions for the start of a political dialogue. In this respect our position and that of the Turkish president totally coincide,” Putin said.

On the gas attack, Putin and Erdogan did not mention previous differences over who was to blame. Instead, Erdogan said that he had reached agreement with Putin that whoever was responsible should be punished.

Russia’s military intervention in support of Assad has kept the Syrian president in power, while Turkey backs the armed opposition groups who are trying to oust him.

Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet in 2015 near the Turkish-Syrian border, creating a diplomatic crisis and prompting trade sanctions. Putin and Erdogan say they have put that crisis behind them.

Some diplomats see the alliance between Erdogan and Putin as offering at least a chance of steering the warring sides in Syria towards talks after six years of fighting that has killed hundreds and thousands of people and displaced millions.

Some of the trade restrictions introduced after the Russian jet was shot down are still in place, a lingering irritation in Russian-Turkish relations.

After the talks in Sochi on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich said Turkey had agreed to lift restrictions on imports of Russian wheat within days. There was no immediate confirmation of this from Turkish officials.

Turkey is the second largest Russian wheat importer after Egypt. For Turkey’s flour millers, Russian wheat is one of the most important sources of supply.

Putin, at his joint news conference with Erdogan, said though that Russia would leave in place for now some of its restrictions on Turkey — an embargo on tomato imports and curbs on entry visas for Turkish citizens.

Putin said that Russia would resume buying Turkish tomatoes, but it needed time to make sure that Russian farmers who sank money into growing tomatoes at home did not lose out on their investment.

(Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu and Ece Toksabay in ANKARA; Writing by Christian Lowe; Editing by Ken Ferris)

Five years, billions of dollars needed to rebuild Mosul: officials

Iraqis workers repair sewage line in eastern Mosul, Iraq May 2, 2017. REUTERS/Suhaib Salem

By Ahmed Aboulenein

MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) – Mosul’s wrecked roads, bridges and broader economy will take at least five years to repair and need billions of dollars of development that Iraq’s government will struggle to afford, officials returning to the battle-scarred city said.

The airport, railway station and university were all destroyed in the long fight to dislodge Islamic State militants from their main Iraqi stronghold.

Iraqi government forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition have now retaken the eastern half of the city – letting regional councillors return for the first time in 2-1/2 years to survey the damage.

“After Mosul is fully liberated, we need a working plan to restore things to the way they were before 2014 when Islamic State took over,” Noureldin Qablan, deputy chairman of the council covering the surrounding Nineveh province, told Reuters.

He sat back in his office in the heart of Mosul, the province’s regional capital, an unremarkable building apart from its new concrete fortifications and the teams of armed guards surrounding it.

A gun lay on his desk, next to his phone and piles of paperwork.

Outside, bustling markets have sprung back into life on the eastern banks of the Tigris river. Over on the other side of the river, Islamic State fighters are holed in, defending the densely-populated Old City with snipers and suicide bombers.

At the heart of their territory sits the medieval Grand al-Nuri Mosque and its famous leaning minaret, where Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared his caliphate in July 2014. Experts fear the fragile brick structure could still succumb to the fighting raging around it.

Iraq’s army has said it expects to expel Islamic State from the rest of the city by May.

“WE ARE NOT GETTING ENOUGH SUPPORT”

The 34 Nineveh councillors, who have been meeting in other cities during the occupation, have already started drawing up plans to rebuild Mosul, though they are still were not sure where the money will come from, said Qablan.

For the first six months, local authorities would focus on restoring security, water, electricity and fuel, and on the return of those displaced by the war.

Under the plan, there would then be a two-year period of reconstruction and the initiation of a reconciliation process followed by 30 months focused on attracting investment and developing the economy.

Some of the early repair work could cost as little as $5,000 a house, Qablan said.

But even that would strain budgets that he said were under-funded by the central government in Baghdad.

“Honestly, we are not getting enough support. What has been allocated to Nineveh in 2017 was 52 billion Iraqi dinars ($44.5 million) which is a very small sum for a province this size,” Qablan said.

“In 2013 we were allocated 738 billion dinars, yet after all this destruction we get just 52. It is very hard to reach our goals with this sum, so we are counting on foreign grants.”

Council officials are in talks with the United Nations, international aid groups and friendly states, he said. Italy was already helping rebuild a hospital.

Outside on the eastern side of the river, foreign investment was already flowing back in, in the form of market stalls heaving with Turkish and Iranian fruit and vegetables, replacing the less plentiful Syrian produce that had dominated under Islamic State.

Tobacco shops, banned by the ultra-hardline Sunni Muslim group, have reopened.

Dozens of men sipped coffee or tea inside The Golden Cafe, looking at their phones and surfing the web – activities that Islamic State had limited to monitored internet centers.

“We are happy and comfortable. Life is good,” said one customer Emad, smoking hookah outside. “I feel out of this world.”

(Reporting by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Maher Chmaytelli and Andrew Heavens)

Bomb in northern Syria kills five outside opposition headquarters: spokesman, monitor

A still image taken from a video posted to a social media website said to be shot on May 3, 2017, shows what is said to be the site of a car bomb in what is said to be Azaz, Syria. Social Media Website via Reuters TV

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A car bomb killed at least five people and wounded several others in a rebel-held town in northern Syria on Wednesday in an attack Syria’s political opposition said targeted its officials and local headquarters.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also put the death toll at five and said it was expected to rise due to the number of people seriously wounded by the blast in Azaz. The town near the Turkish border has long been a major base for rebels, including groups backed by Ankara.

“A booby-trapped car exploded in front of a headquarters for the interim government,” a spokesman for the Turkey-based Syrian National Coalition (SNC), Ahmad Ramadan, told Reuters by phone.

One of those killed was a guard, Ramadan said. He blamed the attack on Islamic State.

“It was a direct targeting of the (interim) government because the center includes departments of various ministries and local councils,” he said.

There was no claim of responsibility for the blast.

The opposition’s interim government, allied with the SNC, carries out technical and administrative functions of government from within opposition-held Syria. SNC members also sit on the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), the main Syrian opposition body which represents both political and armed groups.

Rebel groups clashed in Azaz in November, one of many incidents that has shown the division among some of the armed opposition, which ranges from Western-backed moderate factions to hardline Islamists, including al Qaeda-linked fighters.

In separate insurgent in-fighting around Damascus since last week, factions are clashing east of the capital in violence that has killed scores of fighters and a number of civilians.

Syria’s six-year-old civil war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million.

(Reporting by John Davison and Ellen Francis; Editing by Louise Ireland)

Germany must lift border controls, EU executive says

FILE PHOTO: Syrian refugees arrive at the camp for refugees and migrants in Friedland, Germany April 4, 2016. REUTERS/Kai Pfaffenbach/File Photo

BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Germany, Austria, Denmark and Norway should lift border controls within six months, the European Commission said on Tuesday, hours after Sweden said it was also planning to end frontier checks.

Part of the European Union’s response to a surge of refugees and migrants in 2015, the bloc allowed controls in its passport-free area, despite concerns about the impact on trade, but EU home affairs commissioner Dimitris Avramopoulos said they should now end.

“The time has come to take the last concrete steps to gradually return to a normal functioning of the Schengen area,” he said of the passport-free area named after a town in Luxembourg and meant to be a symbol of free movement in the bloc.

“Schengen is one of the greatest achievements of the European project. We must do everything to … protect it,” Avramopoulos said in a speech.

More than a million people sought asylum in Europe’s rich north in 2015, mostly in Germany but also in large numbers in Sweden, straining the capacity of countries to cope.

A contentious deal with Turkey to stop Syrian refugees from reaching Greece and the overland route to Germany, in return for EU funds, has reduced flows to a trickle, although thousands of migrants still try to reach Europe from Libya via sea routes.

The Swedish government said on Tuesday it would remove ID checks on journeys from Denmark into Sweden. However, its policy was not immediately clear after it said it would also maintain surveillance cameras and x-raying vehicles passing over the border.

Germany has argued it needs the controls despite the fall in migrants coming through Greece and the Western Balkans to combat the threat of Islamic militancy in Europe.

Under EU rules, the countries were allowed to impose the emergency controls for up to two years in September 2015.

The EU executive approved six-month extensions of controls at the German-Austrian border, at Austria’s frontiers with Slovenia and Hungary and at Danish, Swedish and Norwegian borders. Norway is a member of Schengen but not the EU.

EU governments must now agree to the recommendations.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; editing by Francesco Guarascio)

Veteran aid expert Egeland warns of ‘Biblical’ famine in Yemen

A family eat breakfast outside their hut at a camp for people displaced by the war near Sanaa, Yemen September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – Yemen faces a “famine of Biblical proportions”, veteran aid expert Jan Egeland warned on Wednesday during a visit to the war-battered nation, expressing fury over the failure of the “men with guns and power” to end the crisis.

Yemen’s two years of civil war have pitted the Iran-aligned Houthi rebel group against a Saudi-backed coalition, causing economic collapse and severely restricting the food and fuel imports on which Yemen traditionally depends.

The United Nations conservatively estimates that more than 10,000 people have been killed, according to data from the health facilities that are still functioning. Experts fear the real figure is much higher.

Egeland, who heads the Norwegian Refugee Council and also advises the U.N. on Syrian humanitarian operations, told Reuters by telephone from the Yemeni capital Sanaa that although Yemen’s war was smaller than Syria’s, it had led to an epic disaster.

“All our efforts through the World Food Programme reached 3.1 million of 7 million people who are on the brink of famine. So it means basically that 4 million people got nothing in April and these people are staring into the naked eye of starvation.

“We will have a famine of Biblical proportions, if it continues like now with only a portion of those in greatest need getting humanitarian relief,” he told Reuters after visiting Sanaa, the port of Aden and the town of Amran.

Egeland, a former head of the U.N. humanitarian office, said the crisis was not getting the international attention it needed because few journalists or diplomats could get into the country.

“MAN-MADE CRISIS”

“I’m coming out of here angry with those men with power and guns, inside Yemen, in regional capitals and international capitals who are not able to fix this man-made crisis,” Egeland said. “It’s not rocket science.”

Half a million children could die at any time, and many are already doing so “quietly and tragically” in their homes, he added.

Egeland urged the United States and Britain to help stop the war. They are allies of Saudi Arabia, leader of the alliance seeking to restore the internationally recognized Aden-based government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

In a separate statement, he also appealed to Saudi Arabia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates to stop adding “fuel to this fire”. The Sunni Muslim Gulf Arabs see Shi’ite Iran, their arch foe, as bent on regional domination, something Tehran denies.

Egeland said all relevant countries should work toward securing a ceasefire and “meaningful peace talks” as well as the lifting of economic restrictions and sanctions that have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis.

Last month a U.N. pledging conference for Yemen raised promises of $1.1 billion, about half of what is needed for the year. Without an immediate and massive injection of new cash, Egeland said, the aid flow will halt by July.

But the key to ending the humanitarian crisis is reviving the shattered, economy, as it is not possible to maintain a nation of 27 million people with aid injections, he said.

“When people have no income and the prices of food in the market have tripled, hungry people can only afford to look at the food in the market. They cannot afford to buy it,” Egeland said, adding that there were no food stocks left in Yemen.

“There are no reserves, there are no warehouses there like in many of the other wars I have visited. Everything goes straight into hungry mouths,” he said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Israeli strikes raise stakes in face-off with Hezbollah

Israeli soldiers stand on top of a tank (front) and an armoured personnel carrier (APC) as they take part in an exercise in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, near the ceasefire line between Israel and Syria, March 20, 2017. REUTERS/Baz Ratner

By Luke Baker and Laila Bassam

JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (Reuters) – Two Israeli air strikes against Hezbollah targets in Syria in recent weeks seem to mark a more openly assertive stance toward the group after years of shadow boxing, requiring careful calibration to avoid escalation into a war that neither wants.

For most of the six-year-long conflict in Syria, Israel has stuck determinedly to the sidelines, not wanting to get sucked into the chaos unfolding to its northeast. While it is suspected of carrying out occasional attacks against minor targets, it has tended not to confirm or deny involvement.

But it is determined to stop Lebanon’s Hezbollah, with which it fought a 2006 war, and which it sees as the top strategic threat on its borders, from using its role in the Syrian war to gain weapons and experience that could ultimately endanger Israel.

Since early in the conflict, the Shi’ite movement’s energies have been focused on propping up President Bashar al-Assad in alliance with Iran and Russia, throwing thousands of its fighters into battle against Syrian rebels.

But although this strategy makes the prospect of a new war with Israel unwelcome to Hezbollah, it has not altered its view of the country as its foremost enemy, or stopped it strengthening its position for any new conflict.

In the past six weeks, two Israeli attacks appear to have marked a shift, underscoring Israel’s intent to squeeze Hezbollah and coming as the Trump administration carried out its own missile strikes in Syria.

In both cases, Israeli officials have also been less guarded about acknowledging who was behind the attacks.

On March 17, Israel struck a site near Palmyra, prompting Syria’s army to retaliate with Russian-supplied anti-aircraft missiles and on April 27, it hit an arms depot in Damascus where Hezbollah was suspected of storing weapons supplied by Iran.

“The incident in Syria corresponds completely with Israel’s policy to act to prevent Iran’s smuggling of advanced weapons via Syria to Hezbollah,” Intelligence Minister Israel Katz said of the strike last week, but without explicitly confirming Israel carried it out.

Hezbollah has also bared its teeth, conducting a media tour along the Lebanon-Israel border that was widely interpreted as a message that it was unafraid of a new war, and hinting that any coming conflict might involve attacks on Israeli settlements.

A larger strike by Israel, or one that misses its target with unintended consequences, might provoke an escalation, further destabilizing Syria and sucking Israel into an already complex conflict.

It’s an outcome that neither Israel nor Hezbollah wants, but in a war that has already produced many unpredictable outcomes, it is not out of the question either.

RULES OF THE GAME

Hezbollah is an Iranian-backed movement that was formed to combat Israel’s 1982-2000 occupation of Lebanon. Its battlefield prowess, extensive social works among Lebanese Shi’ites and its alliance with powerful regional states have helped it secure a dominant role in the country’s politics.

Since the 2006 war with Israel, which killed more than 1,300 people, displaced a million in Lebanon and up to 500,000 in Israel, both sides have engaged in brinkmanship but avoided renewed conflict.

Both say they do not want another war, but don’t shy away from saying they are ready for one if it does end up happening.

Last month, Hezbollah took Lebanese journalists on a tour of the southern frontier with Israel, allowing pictures to be taken of soldiers posing with weapons and staring across the border.

Israel runs patrols along the same frontier, sends up drones and is constantly bolstering its defenses. In March, Israeli minister Naftali Bennett, a hardliner, threatened to send Lebanon back to the Middle Ages if Hezbollah provoked another war.

An official in the military alliance that backs Assad said Israel’s recent air strikes had hit Hezbollah targets but played down the damage done. As for retaliation, they drew a distinction between Israel striking Hezbollah units deployed to fight on behalf of Assad in Syria and those at home in Lebanon.

“If Israel hits a Hezbollah convoy in Syria, Hezbollah will decide if it will respond or not according to the circumstances in Syria because, despite everything, Syria is a sovereign state and Hezbollah cannot respond in a way that embarrasses the regime,” the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

“If Israel strikes Hezbollah in Lebanon, definitely it will respond. If Hezbollah responds, what is the size of its response that Israel can accept? This could mean an escalation to war. So Israel avoids hitting Hezbollah convoys or rockets inside Lebanon and prefers to strike it inside Syria.”

That analysis fits with how Israel broadly sees the situation, too. Keeping any fallout from the war in Syria away from its territorial interests is one thing. But going after Hezbollah in Lebanon would be the trigger for renewed conflict.

“A clash with Hezbollah is always an active possibility,” said one Israeli diplomat.

While the enmity is fierce on either side, past experience seems to have made both Hezbollah and Israel sharp analysts of one another’s positions and pressure points.

“Sometimes there is a measured response which maintains the balance of deterrence and the rules of the game and sometimes there is a response which opens the door to escalation,” said the official from the alliance backing Assad.

“Right now, the desire of both sides is to not get dragged into a war or to open a new front, either in Golan or the south. But at any moment events can develop and things can escalate into war without either side wanting it.”

RUSSIA-ISRAEL AXIS

Russia – an ally of Hezbollah in the Syrian conflict but which has also coordinated closely with Israel – has also taken note of Israel’s actions.

For the past two years, Israel and Russia have coordinated closely on Syria, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meeting face-to-face with Russian President Vladimir Putin and often speaking by phone to ensure there are no misunderstandings and that the risk of aerial confrontations is minimized.

For the most part, the system has worked, even if it requires Israel to be delicate in balancing ties with the United States and Russia at the same time. But the most recent incidents appear to have angered Moscow.

After the March strike, Russia summoned Israel’s ambassador for consultations, and after the Damascus airport attack the foreign ministry issued a statement calling it unacceptable and urging Israel to exercise restraint.

“We consider that all countries should avoid any actions that lead to higher tensions in such a troubled region and call for Syrian sovereignty to be respected,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

A new war between Israel and Hezbollah could distract the Shi’ite movement from its central role in the Syrian conflict, thereby undermining a military campaign in which Russia has staked great resources and prestige.

Israeli analysts think Netanyahu’s government must exercise caution. “Israel still has to walk on eggshells and attack only if the destruction of the target is vital and pertains directly to Israeli security,” military specialist Alex Fishman wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper last week.

Israeli ministers, several of whom have a Russian background, also appear determined to avoid provoking Moscow. “We’ll do nothing fast and loose when it comes to the Russians,” said the Israeli diplomat. “We’ll be super-careful in Syria.”

(Writing by Luke Baker; Editing by Angus McDowall and Pravin Char)

Islamic State attack kills at least 32 in northeast Syria: monitor

BEIRUT (Reuters) – An Islamic State attack in an area held by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeast Syria killed at least 32 people on Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The attack on Rajm al-Salibi, the location of a checkpoint and refugee camp near the border with Iraq, led to fierce clashes, injuring dozens, the Britain-based war monitor said.

The SDF has been battling Islamic State since dawn in nearby areas of Hasaka province, which Kurdish forces largely control, it said.

An adviser to the SDF, Nasser Haj Mansour, confirmed that several civilians had died, including people fleeing Islamic State in Syria’s Deir al-Zor and in Iraq.

The SDF, an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias, has seized large swathes of northern Syria from Islamic State in a campaign to drive the jihadist group out of Raqqa city, its base of operations in Syria.

This week, the SDF said it captured most of the strategic town of Tabqa, 40 km (25 miles) west of Raqqa along the Euphrates.

The SDF said fighting continued on Tuesday to capture the last few districts of Tabqa as well as an adjacent dam, Syria’s largest, and the last major obstacle as the militias prepare to launch an assault on Raqqa.

The Islamic State attack in Hasaka was targeted at the Asayish, a Kurdish internal security force that operates in northeast Syria, the Observatory said.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall and Ellen Francis; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Rights group accuses Syria of several likely nerve agent attacks

A civil defence member breathes through an oxygen mask, after what rescue workers described as a suspected gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in rebel-held Idlib, Syria April 4, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Human Rights Watch on Monday accused Syrian government forces of likely dropping bombs containing nerve agents at least three times elsewhere in the country before an April 4 attack that killed dozens of people and sparked a retaliatory U.S. strike.

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons. The Syrian U.N. mission was not immediately available to comment on the allegations by Human Rights Watch, which cited interviews with witnesses and medical personnel.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical weapons, a global watchdog, has said sarin or a similar banned toxin was used in the April 4 strike.

Human Rights Watch said that before the April 4 attack on Khan Sheikhoun, government warplanes also appeared to have dropped nerve agents on eastern Hama on Dec. 11 and 12, 2016, and northern Hama, near Khan Sheikhoun, on March 30, 2017.

“All four of these attacks were in areas where opposition or ISIS forces were launching an offensive that threatened government military air bases,” Human Rights Watch Executive Director Ken Roth told a news conference at the United Nations.

“The decision to ratchet up to this level seems to have been related to that unfavorable battlefield situation,” he said.

The report said an opposition-affiliated activist and local residents provided the names of 64 people they say died from exposure to chemicals in the December attacks, which were in an area controlled by Islamic State militants.

It said no one died in the March 30 attack but dozens of people were injured, according to residents and medical workers.

“The pattern shows that the Syrian government retained sarin or some similar nerve agent after its August 2013 eastern Ghouta attack despite having agreed to hand over all chemical weapons to U.N. inspectors,” Roth said.

Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Moscow and Washington.

Roth said Human Rights Watch found that the remnants of a bomb at the site of the April 4 attack “appear consistent with the characteristics with a Soviet-made air-dropped chemical bomb specifically designed to deliver sarin.” The report said the remnants of the bomb appears similar to a KhAB-250.

Human Rights Watch called on the U.N. Security Council to impose an arms embargo and targeted sanctions on Syria and refer the situation in the country to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Russia and China blocked a Western bid for a referral to the ICC in 2014 and this February blocked a bid to impose sanctions over accusations of chemical weapons attacks.

(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)