Damascus to Send Troops to Afrin: Kurdish Official

Damascus has reportedly agreed to send troops to the Kurdish enclave of Afrin to help defend Kurdish forces fighting a Turkish offensive, Reuters reported on Sunday, citing a Kurdish official.

Turkish troops and allied rebels have been battling the Kurdish YPG militia in Afrin, Syria, since Ankara launched “Operation Olive Branch” last month.

Senior Kurdish official Badran Jia Kurd told Reuters on Sunday that Syrian troops could enter Afrin “within the next two days” and would deploy along some border positions.

Syrian state media said Monday that pro-government forces will start entering Afrin “within hours,” according to the Associated Press.

On Friday Kurdish forces in Afrin accused Turkey of carrying out a chemical attack against them.

Turkey dismissed the accusations as “baseless,” but a spokesman for the Kurdish YPG militia in Afrin told Reuters that six people suffered breathing problems after Turkish bombardment hit a village in the northwest of Afrin, near the Turkish border.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) and Syria’s state-run SANA news agency also claimed that Turkish shelling had led to six cases of suffocation.

Syrian Government Prepares for East Ghouta Ground Offensive: Monitor

The Syrian government is purportedly preparing for a ground offensive against the East Ghouta suburbs of Damascus, Agence France-Presse reported on Sunday.

President Bashar al-Assad has been sending reinforcements to the area since February 5, ahead of a potential ground push against the last opposition holdout near Damascus, AFP said, citing the SOHR.

“The reinforcements are complete; the attack is just waiting for a green light,” SOHR head Rami Abdulrahman told AFP on Sunday.

The SOHR and pro-government media are reporting negotiations between rebels and the Syrian government over the evacuation of al-Qaida-linked militants from the besieged rebel enclave as part of a last-ditch effort to spare the region a full-out attack, AFP said.

However, the main rebel groups in the region have denied holding talks with the government over the withdrawal of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance from a small sliver of territory in the opposition holdout.

The SOHR said that the failure of Russian-sponsored negotiations would signal the start of a ground offensive against the besieged rebel enclave.

Meanwhile, the Syrian government has stepped up airstrikes and artillery attacks on the region. More than 260 rockets, heavy artillery fire and airstrikes targeted several parts of the suburb on Sunday, killing at least 14 civilians, including four children, AFP said, citing the SOHR.

Israel Ready to Act Against Iran: Netanyahu

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that Israel may act directly against Iran, and not only its proxies in the Middle East, after the two rivals almost engaged in a direct confrontation in Syria last week, Reuters reported.

Netanyahu’s address to the annual Munich Security Conference comes more than a week after Syrian air defenses shot down an Israeli warplane that had launched strikes at a military base near Palmyra.

“Israel will not allow the regime to put a noose of terror around our neck,” he said. “We will act if necessary not just against Iran’s proxies but against Iran itself.”

Iran’s foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, responded to Netanyahu’s comments by saying that Israel’s reputation of “invincibility” had been shattered by the downing of the Israeli warplane.

“What has happened in the past several days is the so-called invincibility (of Israel) has crumbled,” Zarif said, after describing Netanyahu’s address to the security conference as “a cartoonish circus, which does not even deserve a response.”

Recommended Reads:

• Open Democracy: It’s About Time We All Admit That Putin Has Prevailed in Syria
• The Guardian: Amid the Chaos of Syria, Will Israel and Iran Launch an All-out War?
• National Geographic: Amid the Rubble, Syrian Cities Seek a Postwar Normalcy
• Reuters: Promising Money, E.U. Tries to Woo Assad Into Syria Peace Talks
• Agence France-Presse: Fears of Syrian War Expanding Might Trigger Peace Deal