DAMASCUS: An Israeli air strike killed early Sunday 15 people including two Syrian civilians and badly damaged a building in a Damascus district housing state security agencies, a war monitor said.
The strike targeted a meeting that included Syrian regime officers and was “the deadliest Israeli attack in the Syrian capital” since the civil war began, said Rami Abdel Rahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The overnight strike cratered a road and wrecked the adjacent 10-story building in the Kafr Sousa district, which is home to senior state officials and Syrian intelligence headquarters, said the Britain-based Observatory.
A woman was also killed in the Mazraa district, possibly hit when Syrian anti-aircraft munitions crashed down, it added.
It was not immediately clear who was the intended target of the strike, which AFP correspondents reported shook Damascus and left a gaping hole in the street.
Other missiles overnight hit a warehouse used by pro-regime Iranian and Hezbollah fighters near Damascus, said the Observatory, which relies on a wide network of sources inside Syria.
Iranian news agency Tasnim said “no Iranian was harmed,” adding that the strikes hit “exactly the spot” where Hezbollah’s top commander Imad Mughniyeh was killed in a 2008 car bombing that the Lebanese Shiite group blamed on Israel.
Syria’s defense ministry gave an initial death toll of five, including one soldier, and 15 wounded civilians, some in critical condition.
Shortly after midnight “the Israeli enemy carried out an aerial aggression from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights targeting several areas in Damascus and its vicinity, including residential neighborhoods,” a statement said.
Defense forces “shot down several missiles,” it added.
Historic buildings near the medieval Damascus citadel were also “severely damaged,” said the head of the Syrian antiquities department, Nazir Awad, blaming “an Israeli missile.”
Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad said Sunday that the strike was “a crime against humanity, especially as Syria races against time to face the disastrous consequences of the devastating earthquake.”
Syria is currently seeking to recover from the February 6 earthquake, which did not affect Damascus but killed more than 44,000 people across the country’s north and west, and southern Turkiye.
An Israeli military spokesperson said: “Israel does not comment on reports in foreign media.”
Syrian government ally Russia condemned the strike, with foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova also urging Israel “to put an end to armed provocations” against Damascus that could endanger “the entire region.”
Israel, during more than a decade of war in Syria, has carried out hundreds of air strikes against its neighbor, primarily targeting the army, Iranian forces and Hezbollah, allies of the Damascus regime.
“We will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and we will not allow it to entrench on our northern border,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Sunday’s cabinet meeting, without referring directly to the Damascus strike.
In Tehran, foreign ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani “strongly condemned the attacks of the Zionist regime against targets in Damascus and its suburbs, including against certain residential buildings.”
The raids had left “a number of innocent Syrian citizens” dead and injured, he said.
The Gaza-based Palestinian militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad also denounced the strikes.
An Islamic Jihad official told AFP that none of its members in Damascus were killed or wounded, requesting anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to the media.
The Syrian conflict started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful protests, and escalated to pull in multiple foreign powers and global jihadists.
Nearly half a million people have been killed, and the conflict has forced around half of Syria’s pre-war population from their homes.
President Bashar Assad’s regime receives military support from Russia as well as from Iran and Tehran-allied armed Shiite groups, including Hezbollah, which are declared enemies of Israel.
Sunday’s attack comes more than a month after an Israeli missile strike hit Damascus International Airport, killing four people, including two soldiers.
The January 2 strike hit positions of Hezbollah and pro-Iranian groups, including a weapons warehouse, the Observatory said.
Israeli strike kills 15 in Syrian capital: War monitor
https://arab.news/vhn45
Israeli strike kills 15 in Syrian capital: War monitor
- Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports 15 people dead in the strike on Kafr Sousa in the capital
- Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on targets inside government-controlled parts of Syria in recent years, but rarely acknowledges or discusses the operations
Syrian army pushes into Aleppo district after Kurdish groups reject withdrawal
- Two Syrian security officials told Reuters the ceasefire efforts had failed and that the army would seize the neighborhood by force
ALEPPO, Syria: The Syrian army said it would push into the last Kurdish-held district of Aleppo city on Friday after Kurdish groups there rejected a government demand for their fighters to withdraw under a ceasefire deal.
The violence in Aleppo has brought into focus one of the main faultlines in Syria as the country tries to rebuild after a devastating war, with Kurdish forces resisting efforts by President Ahmed Al-Sharaa’s Islamist-led government to bring their fighters under centralized authority.
At least nine civilians have been killed and more than 140,000 have fled their homes in Aleppo, where Kurdish forces are trying to cling on to several neighborhoods they have run since the early days of the war, which began in 2011.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Standoff pits government against Kurdish forces
• Sharaa says Kurds are ‘fundamental’ part of Syria
• More than 140,000 have fled homes due to unrest
• Turkish, Syrian foreign ministers discuss Aleppo by phone
ِA ceasefire was announced by the defense ministry overnight, demanding the withdrawal of Kurdish forces to the Kurdish-held northeast. That would effectively end Kurdish control over the pockets of Aleppo that Kurdish forces have held.
CEASEFIRE ‘FAILED,’ SECURITY OFFICIALS SAY
But in a statement, Kurdish councils that run Aleppo’s Sheikh Maksoud and Ashrafiyah districts said calls to leave were “a call to surrender” and that Kurdish forces would instead “defend their neighborhoods,” accusing government forces of intensive shelling.
Hours later, the Syrian army said that the deadline for Kurdish fighters to withdraw had expired, and that it would begin a military operation to clear the last Kurdish-held neighborhood of Sheikh Maksoud.
Two Syrian security officials told Reuters the ceasefire efforts had failed and that the army would seize the neighborhood by force.
The Syrian defense ministry had earlier carried out strikes on parts of Sheikh Maksoud that it said were being used by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to launch attacks on the “people of Aleppo.” It said on Friday that SDF strikes had killed three army soldiers.
Kurdish security forces in Aleppo said some of the strikes hit a hospital, calling it a war crime. The defense ministry disputed that, saying the structure was a large arms depot and that it had been destroyed in the resumption of strikes on Friday.
It posted an aerial video that it said showed the location after the strikes, and said secondary explosions were visible, proving it was a weapons cache.
Reuters could not immediately verify the claim.
The SDF is a powerful Kurdish-led security force that controls northeastern Syria. It says it withdrew its fighters from Aleppo last year, leaving Kurdish neighborhoods in the hands of the Kurdish Asayish police.
Under an agreement with Damascus last March the SDF was due to integrate with the defense ministry by the end of 2025, but there has been little progress.
FRANCE, US SEEK DE-ESCALATION
France’s foreign ministry said it was working with the United States to de-escalate.
A ministry statement said President Emmanuel Macron had urged Sharaa on Thursday “to exercise restraint and reiterated France’s commitment to a united Syria where all segments of Syrian society are represented and protected.”
A Western diplomat told Reuters that mediation efforts were focused on calming the situation and producing a deal that would see Kurdish forces leave Aleppo and provide security guarantees for Kurds who remained.
The diplomat said US envoy Tom Barrack was en route to Damascus. A spokesperson for Barrack declined to comment. Washington has been closely involved in efforts to promote integration between the SDF — which has long enjoyed US military support — and Damascus, with which the United States has developed close ties under President Donald Trump.
The ceasefire declared by the government overnight said Kurdish forces should withdraw by 9 a.m. (0600 GMT) on Friday, but no one withdrew overnight, Syrian security sources said.
Barrack had welcomed what he called a “temporary ceasefire” and said Washington was working intensively to extend it beyond the 9 a.m. deadline. “We are hopeful this weekend will bring a more enduring calm and deeper dialogue,” he wrote on X.
TURKISH WARNING
Turkiye views the SDF as a terrorist organization linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party and has warned of military action if it does not honor the integration agreement.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking on Thursday, expressed hope that the situation in Aleppo would be normalized “through the withdrawal of SDF elements.”
Though Sharaa, a former Al-Qaeda commander who belongs to the Sunni Muslim majority, has repeatedly vowed to protect minorities, bouts of violence in which government-aligned fighters have killed hundreds of Alawites and Druze have spread alarm in minority communities over the last year.
The Kurdish councils in Aleppo said Damascus could not be trusted “with our security and our neighborhoods,” and that attacks on the areas aimed to bring about displacement.
Sharaa, in a phone call with Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani on Friday, affirmed that the Kurds were “a fundamental part of the Syrian national fabric,” the Syrian presidency said.
Neither the government nor the Kurdish forces have announced a toll of casualties among their fighters from the recent clashes.
