BEIRUT: Syrian regime air strikes have killed six civilians in southern Damascus where government forces are fighting the Daesh group, a war monitor said Wednesday.
The six, including two men and their wives, were killed in the strikes on the Palestinian camp of Yarmuk late Tuesday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.
Regime strikes and rocket fire Wednesday morning targeted the neighboring districts of Hajjar Al-Aswad and Qadam, the Britain-based monitor said.
The latest civilian deaths bring to 18 the total of non-fighters killed in regime bombardment on the capital’s southern neighborhoods since Thursday last week.
Yarmuk, which is now Daesh’s last urban redoubt in Syria or Iraq, was once Syria’s biggest Palestinian refugee camp, home to around 160,000 people.
But the United Nations’ agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA says most of the 6,000 refugees still living in the camp last week have since fled.
At least 52 pro-regime fighters have been killed in fighting to expel Daesh from the capital’s southern suburbs since April 19, the Observatory says.
Syrian officials do not usually disclose losses within army ranks.
The monitor has said at least 35 militant fighters were also killed during the same period.
There are an estimated 1,000 Daesh fighters left inside Yarmuk and the adjacent districts of Hajjar Al-Aswad and Qadam.
Daesh swept across large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq in 2014, declaring a cross-border “caliphate” in areas the jihadists seized.
At its height their pseudo-state covered an area the size of Italy, but Daesh has since lost most of the land it controlled in both countries.
More than 350,000 people have been killed since Syria’s war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-regime protests.
Syria regime strikes kill 6 civilians in south Damascus, war monitor says
Syria regime strikes kill 6 civilians in south Damascus, war monitor says
Trump warns Iran of ‘very traumatic’ outcome if no nuclear deal
- Speaking a day after he hosted Netanyahu at the White House, Trump said he hoped for a result “over the next month”
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump threatened Iran Thursday with “very traumatic” consequences if it fails to make a nuclear deal — but Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he was skeptical about the quality of any such agreement.
Speaking a day after he hosted Netanyahu at the White House, Trump said he hoped for a result “over the next month” from Washington’s negotiations with Tehran over its nuclear program.
“We have to make a deal, otherwise it’s going to be very traumatic, very traumatic. I don’t want that to happen, but we have to make a deal,” Trump told reporters.
“This will be very traumatic for Iran if they don’t make a deal.”
Trump — who is considering sending a second aircraft carrier to the Middle East to pressure Iran — recalled the US military strikes he ordered on Tehran’s nuclear facilities during Israel’s 12-day war with Iran in July last year.
“We’ll see if we can get a deal with them, and if we can’t, we’ll have to go to phase two. Phase two will be very tough for them,” Trump said.
Netanyahu had traveled to Washington to push Trump to take a harder line in the Iran nuclear talks, particularly on including the Islamic Republic’s arsenal of ballistic missiles.
But the Israeli and US leaders apparently remained at odds, with Trump saying after their meeting at the White House on Wednesday that he had insisted the negotiations should continue.
- ‘General skepticism’ -
Netanyahu said in Washington on Thursday before departing for Israel that Trump believed he was laying the ground for a deal.
“He believes that the conditions he is creating, combined with the fact that they surely understand they made a mistake last time when they didn’t reach an agreement, may create the conditions for achieving a good deal,” Netanyahu said, according to a video statement from his office.
But the Israeli premier added: “I will not hide from you that I expressed general skepticism regarding the quality of any agreement with Iran.”
Any deal “must include the elements that are very important from our perspective,” Netanyahu continued, listing Iran’s ballistic missile program and its support for armed groups such as the Palestinian movement Hamas, Yemen’s Houthi rebels and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
“It’s not just the nuclear issue,” he said.
Despite their differences on Iran, Trump signaled his strong personal support for Netanyahu as he criticized Israeli President Isaac Herzog for rejecting his request to pardon the prime minister on corruption charges.
“You have a president that refuses to give him a pardon. I think that man should be ashamed of himself,” Trump said on Thursday.
Trump has repeatedly hinted at potential US military action against Iran following its deadly crackdown on protests last month, even as Washington and Tehran restarted talks last week with a meeting in Oman.
The last round of talks between the two foes was cut short by Israel’s war with Iran and the US strikes.
So far, Iran has rejected expanding the new talks beyond the issue of its nuclear program. Tehran denies seeking a nuclear weapon, and has said it will not give in to “excessive demands” on the subject.
