Category Archives: Syria

UN: Syrian Refugee Numbers Pass 5 Million Mark in Region

Data from the United Nations refugees agency released late last month showed that the number of people fleeing Syria’s civil war to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt has passed the 5 million mark.

According to the latest data collected by UNHCR and the government of Turkey, a total of 5,018,168 people have now taken refugee in Syria’s neighbours and in other countries in the regions. Millions more have fled to other parts of the country, including tends of thousands in March, mainly women and children, who were trying to get away from a rebel offensive northwest of the city of Hama.

Since 2011, in the wake of anti-government protests, which spiralled into a full-blown conflict between rebels, Islamist militants, government troops and foreign backers Syrians have poured across these countries borders. While an initial rush of refugees in 2013 and 2014 steadied for the following two years, the numbers have again risen this year after the military victory by the government and its Russian allies in the northern city of Aleppo. Syrians have also fled to Europe in large numbers, making 884,461 asylum claims between April 2011 and October 2016, with almost two-thirds of those claims being in Germany or Sweden. Hundreds of thousands more live in Gulf countries that are no party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, such as Saudi Arabi, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, so they are not recorded as refugees. A UN-led humanitarian appeal to help Syrian refugees and support host communities has received only 6 percent of the money that it requires this year – US $298 million out of US $4.6 billion.

UN: Syrian Refugee Numbers Pass 5 Million Mark in Region

Data from the United Nations refugees agency released late last month showed that the number of people fleeing Syria’s civil war to Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt has passed the 5 million mark.

According to the latest data collected by UNHCR and the government of Turkey, a total of 5,018,168 people have now taken refugee in Syria’s neighbours and in other countries in the regions. Millions more have fled to other parts of the country, including tends of thousands in March, mainly women and children, who were trying to get away from a rebel offensive northwest of the city of Hama.

Since 2011, in the wake of anti-government protests, which spiralled into a full-blown conflict between rebels, Islamist militants, government troops and foreign backers Syrians have poured across these countries borders. While an initial rush of refugees in 2013 and 2014 steadied for the following two years, the numbers have again risen this year after the military victory by the government and its Russian allies in the northern city of Aleppo. Syrians have also fled to Europe in large numbers, making 884,461 asylum claims between April 2011 and October 2016, with almost two-thirds of those claims being in Germany or Sweden. Hundreds of thousands more live in Gulf countries that are no party to the 1951 Refugee Convention, such as Saudi Arabi, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, so they are not recorded as refugees. A UN-led humanitarian appeal to help Syrian refugees and support host communities has received only 6 percent of the money that it requires this year – US $298 million out of US $4.6 billion.

Rebel Commanders Re-take Town in Syria

Rebel commanders and monitors have reported that Turkish-backed rebels have captured the symbolically important Syrian town of Dabiq from the so-called Islamic State (IS) group.

According to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, Dabiq was under “full control” of Turkish-based Syrian rebels. The small town, which is located in the northern region of the country, holds great value for IS because of a prophecy of an apocalyptic battle and it has been heavily featured in IS propaganda. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has reported that 1,200 IS fighters had been brought in to defend Dabiq. The battle for the town has been building for weeks, with one village after another being seized from IS militants by rebel fighters who are backed by Turkish airstrikes.

The advance on Dabiq is part of a wider offensive led by Syrian rebel groups, with Ahmed Osman, the commander of the Sultan Murad rebel group, reporting that the group had also recaptured the neighbouring village of Soran.

In other Syrian developments, during a meeting of foreign ministers in London, US Secretary of State John Kerry disclosed that new sanctions were being considered against Russi and Syria because of their actions in the city of Aleppo. Meanwhile there are reports of at least one person dead and dozens injured in an explosion that occurred on the edge of the makeshift Rukban camp, where some 75,000 Syrian refugees are trapped on their country’s border with Jordan.

France Warns that IS Militants May Flee Libya Towards Egypt and Tunisia

France warned in early September that so-called Islamic State (IS) group fighters could flee towards Egypt and Tunisia after being flushed from their former Libyan stronghold of Sirte.

Speaking on 5 September during a defense conference in Paris, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian warned that “we should begin to look seriously at the question of the spread of the terrorists once Sirte…(is) emptied of the terrorists.” He further disclosed that “they don’t disappear. There’s a new risk that appears,” adding, “indirectly this will pose new risks for Tunisia and Egypt.” He also indicated that it was a “shame, perhaps political reasons prevent it, that all the neighbouring states of Libya don’t meet” over the issue.

Le Drian’s Tunisian counterpart, Farhat Horchani, has also called for effective regional coordination. Horchani, who attended the same defense conference in Paris, stated, “we have a large number of foreign fighters who arrived from Sirte, or from Syria. I can see no strategy, no cooperation between the states,” to deal with the problem.”

Forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA), which has been backed by weeks of US air strikes, have recaptured nearly all of what had been the jihadists’ main stronghold in the North African country. On 3 September, pro-GNA forces launched a new attack against IS in Sirte, reporting the following day that it could take several days to gain full control of the city.

IS took advantage of the chaos in oil-rich Libya in the wake of the 2011 uprising. They went on to seize Sirte in June 2015, which sparked fears that the jihadists would use it as a springboard for attacks on Europe. While the loss of Sirte would be a reversal for IS, French and US figures indicate that there are between 5,000 and 7,000 jihadists that remain in Libya, with one French security source disclosing that many “have evaporated in th south of he country.”

After a Series of Setbacks, IS Launches String of Deadly Attacks in Syria

In recent weeks, the so-called Islamic State (IS) group has suffered a series of setbacks in Syria, including the loss of access to the Syria-Turkey border and the killing of a number of top leaders. Analysts however warn that the terrorist group remains a potent force – a fact that has been demonstrated by a series of deadly attacks.

The growing pressure on IS, which includes Turkey’s decision to launch an operation against it in northern Syria, has seen the militant group lose ground at an unprecedented pace. IS however continues to maintain the capacity to obtain weapons, attract recruits and deploy fighters to carry out devastating attacks abroad.

On 4 September, the Turkish operation reclaimed the last stretch of the Syria-Turkey border from IS, effectively sealing off its self-styled “caliphate” in Syria and neighbouring Iraq and forcing the group to rely on smuggling networks instead. For IS, this was just the latest setback as the group is now under attack from Syrian and Iraqi troops, as well as Kurdish fighters, Syrian rebels, Turkish Forces, Russian warplanes and a US-led coalition. Experts believe that IS now controls just 20 percent of Iraq and 35 percent of Syria.  At the height of its expansion, after it seized Syria’s Palmyra in May 2015, IS controlled around 240,000 square kilometres (more than 92,000 square miles) in both countries – an area roughly the size of Britain. Today however experts indicate that this number has fallen by more than a third to around 150,000 square kilometres, adding that the population it now controls has also declined from some eight million people in mid-2015 to 4.5 million people today. In another major blow to the group’s mobility, in August, IS lost Jazirat al-Khaldiyeh, an area in Iraq’s western Anbar province that was a key crossroads. Meanwhile in Libya, IS is on the verge of losing its stronghold of Sirte. Along with the territorial losses, IS has been affected by a number of high-profile assassinations of its key leaders, which include senior commander Omar al-Shishani and spokesman and top strategist Abu Mohamed al-Adnani.

While these setbacks paint a picture that IS is on the decline, analysts are increasingly warning that the group is far from finished, noting that its focus may simply be shifting from territorial expansion to consolidation of population centres, such as Syria’s Raqa and Iraq’s Mosul, and to launching new attacks against civilians in the region and the West. IS has proven capable of adapting to the changing territory, and it likely that it will do the same this time around. The loss of the border with Turkey will hamper the group’s abilities to import new weapons and recruits, as well as to export resources such as oil. However this challenge is hardly a new one as pressure from Kurdish forces coupled with a Turkish crackdown on the border had already forced IS to mainly rely on smuggling networks. In regards to attaining weapons, IS has always relied to some degree on purchasing from corrupt individuals among its enemies, or capturing arms from defeated opponents.