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Agencies

Israeli troops are now engaged on “four fronts” as a result of new operations on the border of Syria and the Golan Heights, Israeli military chief of staff Herzi Halevi said on Sunday.
Halevi’s comments to newly enlisted recruits came after Israel deployed soldiers into a demilitarised buffer zone in the Golan Heights, after the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime by Islamist rebels.
Israeli forces on Sunday also took over the Syrian side of Mount Hermon in the Golan Heights.
Israel seized the area from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War. The capture was never internationally recognised, apart from the United States.

“Ground troops are engaged in combat on four fronts: against terrorism in Judea and Samaria, in Gaza, in Lebanon, and last night we deployed troops into Syrian territory,” Halevi said.
Judea and Samaria are the Israeli names for the occupied West Bank.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the overthrow of Assad in Syria was a “historic day in the … Middle East” and the fall of a “central link in Iran’s axis of evil”.
Netanyahu said the events are “a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, Assad’s main supporters. It has triggered a chain reaction across the Middle East, empowering those seeking to break free from this oppressive regime”.
He spoke on a visit to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, speaking on the same trip, said of Iran: “Its tentacles are being severed one by one”.
In recent months, Israel has killed commanders in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as well as the senior leaders of Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, both of which are backed by Tehran.


The Israeli premier said Assad’s overthrow “presents significant new opportunities” for Israel “but is not without risks”.
He said his country was “pursuing a good neighbour policy” and that: “We extend a hand of peace to our Druze neighbours, who are brothers to our Druze citizens in Israel. We also extend this hand of peace to Kurds, Christians, and Muslims who wish to live peacefully with Israel”.
“We will closely monitor developments and take the necessary steps to defend our border and our security”, Netanyahu said.
As it has frequently in recent months, Israel mounted a series of air strikes in Syria on Sunday, including the capital Damascus, a monitoring group reported.
Israeli warplanes targeted military depots in the vicinity of a scientific centre near Damascus and an army outpost in the countryside of the capital, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
On Monday, Israel’s foreign minister said Israel struck suspected chemical weapons sites and long-range rockets in Syria to prevent them from falling into the hands of hostile actors.




“The only interest we have is the security of Israel and its citizens,” Gideon Saar told reporters on Monday. “That’s why we attacked strategic weapons systems, like, for example, remaining chemical weapons, or long-range missiles and rockets, in order that they will not fall in the hands of extremists.”
Since the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011, Israel carried out hundreds of strikes in the country, mainly targeting the army and Iran-backed groups.
The military intensified such strikes after almost a year of hostilities with Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon escalated in late September, before a ceasefire took effect on November 27, the same day Syria’s rebel advance began.
Israel rarely comments on individual strikes in Syria but has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in the country.
The pace of events in Syria stunned the international community and raised concerns about more instability on top of the Gaza war.
US President Joe Biden, in a televised address, cheered Assad’s fall but acknowledged that it was also a moment of risk and uncertainty.

“As we all turn to the question of what comes next, the United States will work with our partners and the stakeholders in Syria to help them seize an opportunity to manage the risk,” Biden said.
The US Central Command said its forces conducted dozens of air strikes targeting known Islamic State camps and operatives in central Syria on Sunday.
Later in the day, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said he spoke with Turkish Minister of National Defence Yasar Guler, emphasising that the United States is watching closely.
In recent years, Turkey had backed some rebels in a small redoubt in the northwest and along its border. The United States, which still has 900 soldiers on the ground, backed a Kurdish-led alliance that fought Islamic State jihadists from 2014-2017.
The biggest strategic losers were Russia and Iran, which intervened in the Syria civil war’s early years to rescue Assad, helping him recapture most territory and all major cities. The front lines were frozen four years ago under a deal Russia and Iran reached with Turkey.
But Moscow’s focus on its war in Ukraine and the blows to Iran’s allies following the war in Gaza – particularly the decimation of Hezbollah by Israel over the past two months – left Assad with scant support.
China’s foreign ministry said on Sunday, it hopes Syria “returns to stability as soon as possible”.
“The Chinese government has actively assisted Chinese citizens who are willing to leave Syria in a safe and orderly way, and has maintained contact with … Chinese citizens who remain in Syria,” the foreign ministry said.
dpa, Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters


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Middle East

Israel calls Syria its fourth front after rushing troops to the Golan

Israeli soldiers near armoured vehicles parked along the so-called Alpha Line that separates the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights from Syria. Photo: AP

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Israel Katz visit an observation point on Mt Bental on the Golan Heights bordering Syria. Photo: Koby Gideon/GPO/dpa 

People shoot in the air as they celebrate the fall of the Syrian government in Damascus, Syria, Sunday. Photo: AP

Syrian rebels topple President Assad, prime minister calls for free elections

Members of the Syrian community wave Syrian flags on Sunday in Vienna, Austria. Photo: AFP

A Syrian Kurd waves the flag of YPG (People’s Protection Units) near Qamishli’s airport in northeastern Syria on Sunday. Photo: AFP

Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad (left) meeting with the UAE’s Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, in Abu Dhabi in 2022. Photo: AFP

Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani. Photo: Reuters

Iraqi fighters head to Syria to battle rebels but Lebanon’s Hezbollah stays out: sources

Syrian rebels on top of a military aircraft after gaining control of the Nayrab military airport in Aleppo on Monday. Photo: dpa

A tank, left behind by regime forces, on the road leading to the Syrian town of Khan Sheikhun, in the northwestern Syrian Idlib province. Photo: TNS

Opposition fighters on the tarmac of Aleppo international airport. Photo: AP

Scenes in Aleppo, Syria. Photo: ZUMA Press Wire/dpa

Syria’s rebel leader says goal is to overthrow Assad using ‘all available means’

Hama residents cheer as Syrian anti government fighters enter the city. Photo: AFP

Syrian rebel fighters celebrate as they enter the city of Hama. In little over a week, the offensive by rebel forces has seen Syria’s second city Aleppo and strategically located Hama fall from President Bashar al-Assad’s control for the first time since the civil war began in 2011. Photo: AFP

Residents cheer as Syrian anti government fighters pour into the captured central-west city of Hama. Photo: AFP

People sit in Homs. Homs was the scene of a months-long government siege of opposition areas and deadly sectarian attacks in the early years of the civil war.Photo: Reuters

A man rides past a damaged building in Homs. Photo: Reuters

A destroyed bridge and border crossing are seen from the Syrian side near Homs. Photo: Xinhua

News

World

Israel’s Netanyahu says ‘central link in Iran’s axis of evil’ has fallen in Syria


Israel’s Netanyahu says ‘central link in Iran’s axis of evil’ has fallen in Syria.
