BEIRUT: Syria’s vital Tabqa Dam, the country’s biggest, has become a major part of a Kurdish-Arab assault to cut off Daesh stronghold of Raqqa.
Located in Raqqa province, the dam is built on the 2,800-km-long River, which flows from Turkey through northern Syria and east into Iraq.
The dam is 4.5-km-long, 60-meter-high and 512-meter wide at its base.
Its reservoir, Lake Assad, stretches along 50 km and covers a surface of 630 sq. km. Its total capacity is 12 billion cubic meters of water, making it Syria’s main reserve.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are fighting for the dam and the nearby town of Tabqa before they can advance on Daesh’s de facto Syrian capital, Raqqa.
SDF forces and their allies from a US-led coalition were airlifted behind Daesh lines last week by US helicopters to launch an assault on the dam, around 55 km west of Raqqa.
The SDF have already captured Tabqa’s military airport.
The dam fell into the hands of Syrian opposition fighters in February 2013, before Daesh seized control of Raqqa and its eponymous province in early 2014.
On Tuesday, the situation was relatively calm around the dam, which is still held by Daesh.
The facility went out of service over the weekend after bomb damage to its power station, risking rising water levels if the situation continues, according to a technical source.
The UN’s humanitarian coordination agency OCHA has warned that damage to the dam “could lead to massive scale flooding across Raqqa and as far away as Deir Ez Zor,” a province downstream.
Syrian farmers near the Euphrates say they are terrified Daesh will blow up the dam to defend Raqqa, drowning their tiny villages in the process.
“If this happens, it means most of Raqqa and Deir Ez Zor will drown, while other towns die of thirst and crops and livestock die,” one told AFP.
The Tabqa Dam, also known as the Euphrates Dam, and Al-Thawra Dam (Dam of the Revolution) is as important for Syria as the massive Aswan Dam is for Egypt.
Like the latter, it was built with help from the former Soviet Union, a longtime ally of the Syrian regime.
Building began in 1968, and it was inaugurated in July 1973 during the reign of President Hafez Assad, father of the current leader Bashar Assad.
The Euphrates is the main source of water for agriculture and livestock in the region, and the dam has given Raqqa an important role in the Syrian economy.
It was designed to generate 880 megawatts of electricity and provide irrigation for more than 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of land.
But high salt levels in the surrounding land have reduced the amount actually irrigated to less than a third.
Syria’s Tabqa Dam: A strategic prize
Syria’s Tabqa Dam: A strategic prize
US plans meeting for Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ in Washington on Feb 19, Axios reports
- The Axios report cited a US official and diplomats from four countries that are on the board
- The plans for the meeting, which would also be a fundraising conference for Gaza reconstruction, are in early stages and could still change, Axios reported
WASHINGTON: The White House is planning the first leaders meeting for President Donald Trump’s so-called “Board of Peace” in relation to Gaza on February 19, Axios reported on Friday, citing a US official and diplomats from four countries that are on the board.
The plans for the meeting, which would also be a fundraising conference for Gaza reconstruction, are in early stages and could still change, Axios reported.
The meeting is planned to be held at the US Institute of Peace in Washington, the report added, noting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to meet Trump at the White House on February 18, a day before the planned meeting.
The White House and the US State Department did not respond to requests for comment.
In late January, Trump launched the board that he will chair and which he says will aim to resolve global conflicts, leading to many experts being concerned that such a board could undermine the United Nations.
Governments around the world have reacted cautiously to Trump’s invitation to join that initiative. While some of Washington’s Middle Eastern allies have joined, many of its traditional Western allies have thus far stayed away.
A UN Security Council resolution, adopted in mid-November, authorized the board and countries working with it to establish an international stabilization force in Gaza, where a fragile ceasefire began in October under a Trump plan on which Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas signed off.
Under Trump’s Gaza plan revealed late last year, the board was meant to supervise Gaza’s temporary governance. Trump thereafter said it would be expanded to tackle global conflicts.
Many rights experts say that Trump overseeing a board to supervise a foreign territory’s affairs resembled a colonial structure and have criticized the board for not including a Palestinian.The fragile ceasefire in Gaza has been repeatedly violated, with over 550 Palestinians and four Israeli soldiers reported killed since the truce began in October. Israel’s assault on Gaza since late 2023 has killed over 71,000 Palestinians, caused a hunger crisis and internally displaced
Gaza’s entire population.
Multiple rights experts, scholars and a UN inquiry say it amounts to genocide. Israel calls its actions self-defense after Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took over 250 hostages in a late 2023 attack.
