Syrian troops capture areas along Israeli Golan Heights
Assad forces launch offensive south of Quneitra as UN Security Council calls for humanitarian aid access everywhere in Syria
February 22, 2014, 7:53 pm
A UNDOF peacekeeper on a watch tower at the Quneitra Crossing between Syria and Israel. (photo credit: Ariel Schalit/AP)
BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian government
forces captured Saturday two rebel-held areas on the edge of the
Israeli-occupied Golan Heights after days of intense fighting near a
decades-old cease-fire line between Syria and Israel, state TV said.
The
violence came as the UN Security Council unanimously demanded immediate
access everywhere in Syria to deliver humanitarian aid to millions of
people in desperate need.
Russia and China, strong supporters of the
Syrian government, joined the rest of the council Saturday in sending a
strong message to President Bashar Assad’s government that civilians
caught in the three-year conflict must be helped.
The resolution doesn’t threaten sanctions but
it does express the council’s intention to take “further steps” if the
resolution isn’t implemented. The government and rebels hold several
areas in the country under siege, leaving tens of thousands of people
suffering from lack of food and medicine.
The Syrian TV report, citing a military
official, said troops and pro-government gunmen known as National
Defense Forces captured the areas of Rasm al-Hour and Rasm al-Sad, south
of the town of Quneitra. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory For Human
Rights confirmed troops were on the offensive, adding that the air
force was taking part in the attack.
The Syrian army has been reinforcing its
positions in Quneitra as part of efforts to drive rebels from the area,
which is near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, since the opposition
named a new military chief on Monday.
Brig. Gen. Abdul-Ilah al-Bashir hails from
southern Syria and was an army commander in Quneitra until 2012, when he
defected to the opposition.
In December, the UN Security Council strongly
condemned all military activity on the Golan Heights by the Syrian army
and opposition fighters, warning that it could “jeopardize the
cease-fire” between Syria and Israel.
The council then approved a resolution
extending the mandate of the UN peacekeeping force until the end of
June. The force, known as UNDOF, was established after the 1973
Arab-Israeli war. Israel occupied the Golan Heights during the 1967
Mideast war and annexed it in 1981.
Also Saturday, Syrian activists said Kurdish
fighters captured a northeastern town near the Iraqi border after days
of combat with members of an al-Qaeda breakaway group.
The Observatory and a Syria-based activist who
identified himself as Salar al-Kurdi said members of the so-called
People’s Protection Units captured Tel Brak earlier in the day. It was
the latest gain by Kurds in almost a year of fighting with the Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant.
“There are few civilians in the areas since
many of them fled because of the fighting over the past months,”
al-Kurdi said via Skype.
The units are dominated by members of the
Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD, Syria’s most powerful Kurdish
group. Since mid-2013, Kurdish fighters have been on the offensive
capturing wide areas in northeastern Syria from the Islamic State.
The Tel Brak battle left some 19 people dead, of which 16 were Islamic State fighters, the Observatory said.
Kurds are the largest ethnic minority in
Syria, making up more than 10 percent of the country’s 23 million
people. They are centered in the impoverished northeastern province of
Hassakeh, wedged between the borders of Turkey and Iraq. The capital
Damascus and Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, also have several
predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods.
Copyright 2014 The Associated Press
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