Fighting Erupts Between Syrian Army, Rebels on Golan Heights
Reuters reports that there was “heavy fighting” between Syrian regime forces and rebel factions in the Golan Heights on Monday, as the battle to control a key frontier crossing intensified.
“Rebels of al Qaida-linked Nusra Front have been battling the Syrian army in the area and have wrested control of the crossing at Quneitra, which is operated by the United Nations,” the wire says. “Persistent small arms fire and explosions from mortar shells and other munitions could be heard on the Israeli-controlled side of the frontier of the strategic plateau.
“At least one tank belonging to the Syrian army loyal to President Bashar al-Assad was also involved and rebels could be seen a few meters (yards) away from the frontier fence. On Sunday, Israel’s military said it shot down a drone that flew from Syria into Israeli-controlled airspace over the Golan.”
The New York Times also reports that Jabhat al-Nusra has claimed responsibility for last week’s capture of 45 U.N. peacekeepers in southern Syria, near the Israeli border.
In a statement, the extremist group “accused the peacekeeping force, which has monitored the demarcation line between Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights since 1974, of protecting Israeli-controlled territory while doing nothing to stop the killing on the Syrian side.”
Elsewhere on the battlefield, the Washington Post reports that at least 81 nationalities are now fighting in Syria.
“The geographical spread of foreign fighters in the war is vast, implicating even Japan and Singapore, countries most would think are alien to the turmoil of the Middle East. Islamic State recruitment videos have been translated into myriad languages, including Urdu, Tamil, and Bahasa Indonesia. There are more Muslims in South and Southeast Asia than the Arab world,” it writes.
“Still, the majority of foreign fighters in the conflict, as the Economist’s chart shows, are from Arab countries. A deep dive into the workings of the Islamic State by the Times shows that the organization relies on local support, largely drawn from Sunnis who are embittered by the Shiite-dominated regimes around them.”
Forty-two Children Killed in String of Attacks in Syria
AFP reports that 42 children have been killed in the last 36 hours in a string of attacks across Syria. The deaths were reported by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-backed monitoring group, but were not corroborated elsewhere.
The Observatory said the children died in “regime shelling and airstrikes across the country, though most took place in the northern province of Aleppo and northwestern Idlib,” the wire says. “Many of the deaths came in raids involving the use of explosive-packed barrel bombs, a weapon that has been criticized by rights groups as indiscriminate. Among the dead on Sunday were at least five children killed along with five adults in a barrel bomb attack on the town of Hobait in Idlib province.”
U.S. and Iran Unlikely Allies in Battle Against ISIS
The New York Times reports on the emerging, unlikely alliance between Iran and the U.S., with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) a common enemy.
This weekend’s fight in Amerli, in Iraqi Kurdistan, saw Iran-aligned Shiite militia fighters take on ISIS on the ground, while U.S. planes bombed key targets. It “appeared to be the first time American warplanes and militias backed by Iran had worked with a common purpose on a battlefield against militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, even though the Obama administration said there was no direct coordination with the militias,” the paper says.
“Should such military actions continue, they could signal a dramatic shift for the United States and Iran, which have long vied for control in Iraq. They could also align the interests of the Americans with their longtime sworn enemies in the Shiite militias, whose fighters killed many United States soldiers during the long occupation of Iraq.”
Meanwhile, the Times has reported that President Barack Obama “bewildered” both lawmakers and analysts when he said that despite rampant speculation of an increased bombing campaign, he did not yet have a strategy for dealing with ISIS in Syria.
“The president harbors profound doubts that American military action in Syria will do more good than harm. At every moment when it has appeared that he might be willing to shrug off his reluctance to act militarily in Syria, he has drawn back,” the paper says.
“That reality is more important than whether Mr. Obama committed a gaffe at his news conference by saying that ‘we don’t have a strategy yet’” in Syria. Despite White House attempts to clarify the statement after the fact, the criticism showed no signs of abating on Friday. Lawmakers and television commentators expressed bewilderment and alarm that Mr. Obama had no plan for dealing with a militant group in a war-torn country where the death toll is nearing 200,000.”