بواسطة Status Audio Magazine Editors | نوفمبر 30, 2019 | Featured Audio, غير مصنف
اجرت رغد المخلوف هذا القاء لمجلة الوضع مع الفنانة فادية عفاش والفنان جهاد عبدو في حديث عن الكفاح من أجل الحرية والعدالة في سوريا وكيف اضطر جهاد وفادية إلى الفرار من بلادهم والبدء من الصفر في الولايات المتحدة. بدأ جهاد، الممثل المعروف في سوريا، كرجل توصيل بيتزا، ولكن سرعان ما تم الاعتراف به لموهبته كممثل، وحصل على أدوار رائدة في أفلام مثل “ملكة الصحراء” و “صورة ثلاثية الأبعادللملك”. تروي فادية عفاش، وهي رسامة وناشطة، تحديات رحلتهم معًا، مع إدراك التأثير المهم لتلك التجارب على عملها كفنان.
تخرجت رغد من قسم التمثيل سنة 2004 وعملت في نفس المعهد كمدرسة مساعدةلمادة فن التمثيل بين عامي 2005 وحتى 2011. مخرجة مساعدة لعدة عروض مسرحية منها عرض سيليكون إخراج عبد المنعم عمايري وعرض حكاية روزالين إخراج فايز قزق. ممثلة في الكثير من العروض المسرحية مع مخرجين عدة, منها عرض تكتيك للمخرج عبد المنعم عمايري, وعرض وعكة عابرة إخراج فايز قزق وعروض أخرى مع عدة مخرجين منهم جواد الأسدي وعروة العربي. ممثلة في الكثير من المسلسلات التلفزيونية السورية مع عدة مخرجين منهم حاتم علي وهيثم حقي وشوقي الماجري وغيرهم. ممثلة في عدة مسلسلات إذاعية أشهرها مسلسل حي المطار بنسختيه العربية والانجليزية من إنتاج إذاعة ال بي بي سي. كتبت عدة مقالات لجريدتي السفير والعربي الجديد. أقامت ورشات مسرحية في لبنان لتقديم الدعم النفسي للأطفال السوريين اللاجئين هناك من خلال المسرح.
بواسطة Syria in a Week Editors | نوفمبر 13, 2019 | Syria in a Week
The following is a selection by our editors of significant weekly developments in Syria. Depending on events, each issue will include anywhere from four to eight briefs. This series is produced in both Arabic and English in partnership between Salon Syria and Jadaliyya. Suggestions and blurbs may be sent to info@salonsyria.com.
“Committee” is Better
Reuters
8 November 2019
The opening round of the first Syrian peace talks in more than a year went “better than most people would have expected”, said the UN special envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen, although delegates described a chilly atmosphere with those from opposing sides not yet shaking hands. Representatives of the Syrian government and the opposition met in Geneva to discuss a future constitution, part of plans for a political settlement to end eight and a half years of war. Expectations for the talks have been low, with Damascus and its Iranian and Russian allies having made gains on the battlefield that left them few reasons to grant concessions.
The government delegation had been seeking to hold the next round of talks in Syria’s capital, which the opposition had strongly resisted. The talks are focused on drawing up a constitution with a view to eventually hold elections in Syria, a less sweeping agenda than at UN-sponsored talks earlier in the war. In Geneva last week, the one hundred and fifty delegates agreed the composition of a smaller forty-five-member drafting body tasked with writing a draft of the constitution that would be eventually presented to Syrian voters.
After ten days of talks, there was no immediate agreement on the release of thousands of detainees, an issue that Pedersen has underscored as key to building confidence. Nor was there consensus on whether delegates from the so-called small group in charge of drafting the constitution would adapt a 2012 constitution or start afresh with a new one.
Talks between the parties were often heated, delegates said, particularly on the issue of “terrorism”, a term used by the government side to refer to insurgents, with the government body seeking to incorporate this within the constitutional reform project. The opposition side resisted this.
Syria with Equal Opportunities!
Reuters
11 November 2019
Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad said the Syrian presidential elections in 2021 would be open to anybody who wants to run and that there would be numerous challengers for the presidency.
Al-Assad, who made the comment in an interview broadcast on Monday on the Russian television channel RT, faced two challengers at the 2014 election which he won by a landslide, but which his opponents dismissed as a charade. “Last time we were three and this time of course we are going to have as much as they want to nominate. There are going to be numerous nominees,” Al-Assad said.
President Al-Assad said that the Syrian government is socialist and has rejected privatization and so has the syndicates. “The majority rejected neo-liberal policies because we realized they would destroy the poor,” he said, adding “we still have the public sector and we are still supporting the poor and providing support for bread, fuel, and schools… we have not changed that policy, but we opened the doors further for the private sector. Therefore, you cannot call this a liberalization of economy.”
It should be mentioned that Syria has adopted liberal economic policies since the 1980’s, which accelerated in the 1990’s and 2000’s.
Bombardment of Idlib
Reuters
8 November 2019
UN rights spokesman Rupert Colville said on Friday that more than sixty medical facilities have been hit in Syria’s Idlib governorate in the past six months, including four this week, and appear to have been deliberately targeted by government-affiliated forces.
The Northeast Between Turkey and Russia
Reuters
8, 9 November 2019
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed Turkey’s military offensive in Syria in a phone call on Saturday, Turkey’s presidency said.
Turkey launched its cross-border offensive one month ago, saying it aimed to drive Kurdish-led forces from the border region and create a “safe zone” to settle Syrian refugees.
It halted its advance under a deal with the United States which called for the withdrawal from the border of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). Erdogan later agreed on a separate deal with Moscow, which also called for the YPG to withdraw at least thirty kilometers from the border, but has since said that neither Washington nor Moscow has been able to deliver on the deals.
The Turkish statement on Saturday said Erdogan and Putin confirmed their commitment to the accord they struck at a meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi which also paved the way for joint Russian-Turkish military patrols inside Syria.
Explosion in Suluk
Reuters
10 November 2019
Turkey’s defense ministry and local emergency workers said eight people were killed when a bomb exploded on Sunday in an area of northeast Syria controlled by Turkish troops and their Syrian rebel allies. The ministry said the bombing, which it blamed on the Kurdish YPG, took place southeast of the Syrian town of Tal Abyad which Turkey captured in a military offensive that began one month ago.
Turkey halted its military advance when it struck deals with the United States and Russia calling for the YPG to be moved at least thirty kilometers away from Syria’s border with Turkey. The village of Suluk, where Sunday’s explosion took place, is around ten kilometers south of the border. A small truck exploded outside a bakery there, an emergency worker said.
Oil is for the SDF
Reuters
6, 7 November 2019
The Pentagon said on Thursday that revenue from oilfields in northeastern Syria will go to US-backed forces rather than the United States itself.
During a news conference announcing the death of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in a US raid last month, Trump had raised the possibility of American oil companies taking over the oilfields in northeastern Syria, currently operated by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Washington’s Syrian Kurdish allies.
His comments drew sharp rebukes from lawyers and experts, who said the move was likely a legally dubious one. On Wednesday, a senior State Department official said there was no direction from the White House to pursue such a way forward.
بواسطة Salon Syria Team | نوفمبر 7, 2019 | Roundtables
Before the outbreak of the uprisings in the Arab world, the issue of the relationship between religion, state, secularism and modernity dominated discussion and debate— especially given the fact that at the same time any analysis of the authoritarian security structures of the ruling regimes was prohibited, at least in public.
Secularism is not a fully fledged project even in most Western democracies, which have often sought to restrict the issue of religion to the private sphere. This has been evident recently with the rise of the far right in several Western countries that claim to be implementing secularism, which demonstrates that the public sphere in most countries around the world is still imbued with religion, its manifestations and its symbols (albeit to varying degrees).
In the Arab world, and Syria in particular, the issue of the separation between religion and state has created severe polarization. In Syria, this polarization has led to the publication of a very many books on the topic, heated debates concerning a 2009 draft law to amend the country’s civil status legislation, as well as proposals to legitimize civil marriage and tighten penalties for so-called “honor killings.”
After the Syrian uprising erupted in 2011 and transformed into a bloody conflict that has since torn apart the country’s social fabric, the state lost many of its economic resources and became politically dependent on other regional countries and superpowers. Meanwhile, the Syrian regime claims to support secularism while killing, arresting and imprisoning people in its name. Most of the existing opposition movements became dependent on foreign agendas that are far removed from the Syrian national space. This trend particularly affected armed groups recruited to serve neighboring countries and agendas more concerned with the regional balance of power than Syria’s national interest. This led to the propagation of sectarian rhetoric, supported by forces linked to other countries in the region that use sectarian slogans. Given this military context, how can we understand the role of secularism? Can it be implemented without being turned into a repressive tool and an authoritarian mask, as is the case under most Arab totalitarian regimes—including the Syrian regime, which used secularism merely as an extension of the rhetoric of the “war on terror?”
After years of war, new realities have emerged on the ground and various possibilities presented themselves. Debates on the issue of the relationship between the (future) state and religion have re-emerged, especially with the rise of jihadist and secular movements, and the divisions and hatred left by external interventions in the Syrian context. These factors have served to only deepen the divides between Syrians.
Despite this bitter reality, many Syrians are still looking for solutions—even theoretical ones—to extricate themselves from the catastrophe left behind by the utter failure of the civil movement, the suppression of the uprising and the disaster that followed the conflict itself.
Given this tragic situation Salon Syria, Syria Untold, and Jadaliyya together invite you to consider some of the following questions, before offering your opinions on how best to enrich the debate on secularism:
1. Given the history of secularism and its problems and terms of reference, and especially its emergence, is it possible in the Syrian context to come up with a fruitful secular formula or discourse that is characterized by religious, ethnic and cultural pluralism?
2. Some people think that the secular discourse that was prevalent before the uprising focused on the concept of secularism in the face of religion. But what are the questions that need to be asked and addressed in terms of the relationship between the state and Islam, and the relationship between Islam and other religions? After all that has happened in Syria in the name of Islam and religion, can religious discourse be secularized? What about the clergy and their relationship with secularism, did they contribute to the distortion of the concept of secularism? And given what has happened in recent years in the name of religion, can that experience help expose how politics disingenuously uses the name of religion?
3. How can citizenship—which is based on equal rights under the protection of the law regardless of gender, race, religion, or sect—pose an alternative to unilateral religious and ideological arguments? Is it necessary for citizenship to become an alternative, and why? And are there alternatives to secularism if it is deemed unnecessary, on the Syrian and Arab level? What are these alternatives?
4. What needs to be done to pave the way for a secular pluralistic system in Syria, in which women enjoy their full human rights without being reduced merely to their gender?
5. Which actors can guarantee implementation of secularism, and how can they be propped up? With the increased danger of institutionalized sectarianism, as well as the changes that accompanied the armed conflict, can secularism be a starting point for a future solution in Syria that guides the country away from the risks of the current status quo?
6. How can Syrian intellectuals help pave the way in disseminating a “secular culture” that can serve as the basis for a new secular system? How can we bridge the gap between Syria and the diaspora so that, for example, cultural production in countries of asylum is not isolated from the changes and challenges facing Syrians actually inside the country?
7. In many cases, a paradox has emerged whereby secular intellectuals advocate for secularism while using a discourse of exclusion that denies the right to faith and religious commitment. How can we avoid falling into the trap of tyranny and the exploitation of political forces that dominate the secular discourse? How can we advocate for a secular project in a manner that respects the relationship with faith and religion? And how does one foster co-existence between them?
8. Until today, there is a prevailing narrative in the context of the Syrian uprising and conflict claiming that “some secularists” have embraced the Syrian regime because it is the “lesser evil” when compared with political Islam, and because they want to preserve what is left of state institutions to stop political Islam coming to power. To what extent does this discourse form either an instrument for tyranny or an instrument for the truth, as people on different sides of the argument claim? Has this discourse contributed to the “distortion” of secularism? And why?
9. What about the secular discourses from within religious and ethnic minorities in Syria? It’s often claimed that most Syrian minorities presumably support secularism, although the reality could be more complicated than that. What is the reason behind the spread of these claims? Are they based on facts, or are they part of the war of rhetoric among Syrians?
In the coming weeks, Salon Syria will publish a selection of articles from the new roundtable on Secularism. The full series in Arabic can also be found here.
بواسطة Syria in a Week Editors | أكتوبر 23, 2019 | Syria in a Week
The following is a selection by our editors of significant weekly developments in Syria. Depending on events, each issue will include anywhere from four to eight briefs. This series is produced in both Arabic and English in partnership between Salon Syria and Jadaliyya. Suggestions and blurbs may be sent to info@salonsyria.com.
US Withdrawal
20 October 2019
US forces withdrew on Sunday from Sarrien airport – largest US military base in northeast Syria – following Washington’s recent decision to withdraw a thousand troops from the area, according to an AFP correspondent and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
The AFP correspondent saw more than seventy military armored vehicles raising the US flag passing the city of Tal Tamr in al-Hasakeh governorate, as helicopters flying nearby accompanied them.
The SOHR chief Rami Abdul Rahman told the AFP that the convey evacuated from Sarrien airport, which US forces had used as a base – thirty kilometers south of Kobani (Ain Arab). The base is situated on the outskirts of a buffer zone that Ankara is trying to establish in northeast Syria, where it has launched, along with allied Syrian factions, an attack against Kurdish fighters since 9 October. Turkey was able to take control of a one hundred and twenty kilometer border strip.
US forces withdrew from three other bases last week, including a base in the city of Manbej and another near Kobani.
Besiege of Ras al-Ain
19 October 2019
The Syrian National Army – allied to the Turkish army – cut off the road between Ras al-Ain and Tal Tamr in the northwest countryside of al-Hasakeh governorate, effectively enforcing a total besiege of Ras al-Ain.
A source close to the Syrian army told a German news agency that armed groups attacked Syrian army posts in al-Ahras village – fifteen kilometers northwest of Tal Tamr. The Syrian army was able to repel the attack, and members of the armed groups returned to the area they came from.
Repatriation of ISIS Fighters
19 October 2019
The investigative judge David Douba –coordinator of the anti-terrorism division of the Paris court, warned in an interview with the AFP that failure to repatriate detained French jihadists in Syria “constitutes a danger on the general security” in France.
“The political instability and the ease of breaching the remaining Kurdish camps raise two concerns: a disorderly immigration of jihadists to Europe with the risk of attacks by radical ideologists on the one hand, and the reformation of militant terrorist groups which are highly trained and determined on the other hand,” Douba said in an unprecedented statement, at a time French authorities refuse the return of these jihadists.
France has around two hundred people and three hundred children in camps and prisons under Kurdish control in Syria. It refuses to repatriate them, like many other countries, because of public discontent and wants them to be prosecuted close to where they committed their crimes.
However, after Turkey launched on 9 October its offensive against Kurdish fighter in northern Syria, Western countries fear that twelve thousand jihadists detained by the Kurds in Syria, including 2,500 to 3,000 foreigners, may flee.
Fragile Truce
18 October 2019
Hours after Washington declared a ceasefire, Turkish war planes launched an airstrike that killed a number of civilians in Kurdish-controlled areas in northeast Syria as sporadic clashes continued in a border town, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
Kurdish fighters on Sunday said they do not intend to withdraw from all of the north-east border of Syria – which is exactly what the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expects to happen according to a ceasefire deal brokered by the United States on Thursday.
Bloomberg news agency said that the conflicting interpretations denote the fragility of the five-day ceasefire.
Drawing a Ceasefire
17 October 2019
Turkey agreed on Thursday to pause its offensive in northeast Syria and halt it all together if Kurdish fighters withdrew from the area in five days, according to a deal drawn by US Vice President Mike Pence in Ankara.
In order for Kurdish forces to withdraw “within one hundred twenty hours, all military operations of the Peace Spring operation will be paused, and they will be completely halted once this withdrawal is finalized,” Pence told reporters after talks with Erdogan that lasted for more than four hours.
Kurdish forces have to withdraw some thirty-two kilometers away from the border and the area would eventually turn into a “safe zone” – which Turkey has been seeking for months.
ISIS Liberates
17 October 2019
ISIS said on Thursday that it “liberated” a number of women detained by Kurdish fighters, after an attack on one of their headquarters in the governorate of Raqqa in northern Syria, according to a statement posted on jihadists’ accounts on Telegram.
This follows a series of incidents after Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) left their positions to repel an attack by Ankara and allied Syrian factions against areas under SDF control, in which around eight hundred people of ISIS family members fled the camp for displaced people and jihadists fled from prisons, in addition to riots in other detention centers.
Al-Assad Confronts
17 October 2019
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad vowed to respond to the attack launched by Turkey on 9 October in northeast Syria “by all legitimate means,” according to the Syrian official news agency SANA.
Al-Assad said in a meeting with an Iraqi official that the Turkish attack is “a blatant invasion and an evident aggression,” adding that Syria “will respond and confront it in all of its forms on all Syrian territory and by all available legitimate means,” after government forces deployed in numerous areas near the border with Turkey under an agreement with the Kurds.
Evacuation
16 October 2019
The Kurdish self-administration called upon the international community to intervene and open a “humanitarian corridor” to evacuate civilians and wounded people who are “besieged” in the border town of Ras al-Ain after Turkish forces and allied Syrian factions encircled it and fierce clashes erupted.
Since 9 October, Turkey has launched an attack in northeast Syria, displacing more than three hundred thousand civilians. It was able to control vast border areas, but not Ras al-Ain where the battles are concentrated.
Incursion Numbers
16 October 2019
The repercussion of the Turkish attack on the humanitarian situation in Syria in numbers:
– Three million people reside in northeast Syria.
– Seventy-two civilians were killed by the Turkish army and allied factions.
– Twenty civilians were killed on the Turkish side of the border.
– One million and eight hundred thousand people are in need of aid.
– Three hundred thousand people fled their homes in border areas.
– Eighty-three thousand newly displaced people received aid.
– Forty schools were turned into shelters.
– Around one thousand civilians fled from the Kurdish self-administration to Kurdistan in Iraq.
– Four hundred thousand people in the city of al-Hasakeh and its surrounding face water shortages.
– Sixty-eight thousand displaced people reside in al-Hol Camp for displaced people.
– Thirty-two international non-governmental organizations suspended their activities and withdrew international staff in areas under the control of the self-administration.
– Three million and six hundred thousand Syrian refugees have fled to Turkey since the onset of the conflict in 2011. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plans to repatriate a large portion of them to the buffer zone he wants to establish near the border.
– Ninety percent of Syria’s total cereal crop is produced in northeast Syria.
The House and Trump
16 October 2019
The US House of Representatives on Wednesday voted overwhelmingly (354 votes to 60 votes) to condemn President Donald Trump’s withdrawal of US forces from northern Syria, in an official embodiment of the stark position of both the Democratic and Republican parties against the controversial foreign policy of the Trump administration.
This joint resolution is the first condemnation by Congress of Trump’s decision, which was considered by opponents as a green light for Turkish forces to invade northern Syria and attack Kurdish forces.
Kobani and Damascus
15 October 2019
Syrian government forces entered the city of Kobani (Ain Arab) in northern Syria under an agreement with the Kurdish self-administration to confront the ongoing Turkish attack against areas under Kurdish control, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Kobani possesses a special symbolism as it was witness in 2015 to the first prominent battles in which Kurdish fighters, with support from the US-led international coalition, defeated the Islamic State.
Since then, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) have become the spearhead in the fight against the radical group. The YPG’s relation with Washington strengthened as the latter continued to provide support after the YPG joined the Syrian Democratic Forces coalition.
After an attack by Turkey and allied Syrian faction on 9 October and in face of Washington’s determination to withdraw its troops from areas under Kurdish control, the Kurds had no solution but to resort to Damascus and its ally Moscow.
The outcome unfolded on Sunday, as the Kurdish self-administration announced a deal with Damascus that provides for the deployment of Syrian government forces along the border with Turkey to support the Syrian Democratic Forces in confronting the Turkish attack.
Under the deal and in the last two days, government forces deployed in the city of Manbej (northeast of Aleppo), the town of Tal Tamr (northwest of al-Hasakeh), and the surrounding area of Ain Issa (north of Raqqa).
بواسطة Syria in a Week Editors | أكتوبر 9, 2019 | Syria in a Week, غير مصنف
The following is a selection by our editors of significant weekly developments in Syria. Depending on events, each issue will include anywhere from four to eight briefs. This series is produced in both Arabic and English in partnership between Salon Syria and Jadaliyya. Suggestions and blurbs may be sent to info@salonsyria.com.
US Abandons the Kurds
7 October 2019
The United Nations cautioned on Monday that it is “preparing for the worst” in north eastern Syria after the United States said it would allow the Turkish army to carry out a military operation in the area.
“We do not know what will happen … we are preparing for the worst,” UN Syria Humanitarian Coordinator Panos Moumtzis said in Geneva, adding that the United Nations is in contact with all parties on the ground. He said the UN has a contingency plan to address any additional civilian suffering, but “it hopes it will not have to resort to it.”
In recent weeks, Turkey has sent reinforcement to the border area with Syria, as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that the operation alluded to by Turkey for some time could begin “any night without warning.”
His comments came after Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday that his country was determined to “cleanse” Syria of “terrorist” who are threatening Turkey’s security, referring to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – which Kurdish fighters make the backbone of.
The United States began withdrawing its troops from the border strip with Turkey in northern Syrian on Monday, paving the way for Ankara to carry out its threat to launch an attack against Kurdish fighters and undermine efforts to fight the Islamic State.
The Kurdish units are a major partner in the US-led international coalition to fight ISIS, and they have managed to defeat the radical group in vast areas in north and east Syria.
The SDF cautioned that “the Turkish military operation in north and east Syria will have a huge negative effect on our war against ISIS (the Islamic State),” stressing their determination to “defend our land no matter the price.”
Call Between Erdogan and Trump
6 October 2019
Ankara said on Sunday that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan agreed, during a phone call with his US counterpart Donald Trump, to hold a meeting in Washington next month to discuss the “safe zone” in northern Syria.
Erdogan told trump that he “feels disappointed because of the failure of the US military and security bureaucracy to implement the deal” made by the two sides in August on a buffer zone on the Syrian border with Turkey, the Turkish presidency said in a statement.
Russian Airstrike in Idlib
5 October 2019
At least nine jihadist fighters were killed on Sunday in Russian airstrikes that targeted positions for two extremist factions, Horras al-Din and Ansar al-Tawheed, in eastern Idlib, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
These airstrikes came despite Idlib and its surrounding being included in a ceasefire since late August that was declared by Moscow and agreed to by Damascus. Due to this ceasefire, military jets have been absent from the air, however, artillery and missile breaches have continued intermittently.
Russia, which backs Syrian government forces, often launches strikes against the mobilization and headquarters of extremist organizations in Idlib and its surrounding.
Turkish Universities in Syria
4 October 2019
Turkey’s Gaziantep University will open three faculties in small northern Syrian towns, Ankara’s Official Gazette said on Friday, reflecting a growing Turkish presence in the region.
An Islamic sciences faculty will be opened in Syria’s Azaz, an education faculty in Afrin, and a faculty of economics and administrative sciences in al-Bab, Turkey’s official state publication said.
All three towns are in north-western Syria, west of the Euphrates river and broadly north of Aleppo, in regions to which Turkey has twice sent forces in the last three years to drive back the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and ISIS fighters, in a bid to protect its own border.
The towns have been struck in the past by bomb attacks, some of which have been blamed on ISIS and others on Kurdish fighters.
Ankara has previously built hospitals, restored schools, and trained fighters in northwest Syria, and Turkish media reports say it is planning to build an industrial zone in the region to create jobs for seven thousand people.
Mines and Explosive Devices
3 October 2019
At least one hundred and seventy-three people, including forty-one children, have been killed since the beginning of the year as a result of mines and explosive devices in various areas in Syria, according to a tally by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). This represents a new challenge created by the war that threatens the lives of millions of people.
Mines and explosive devices are some of the complicated issues that emerged from the Syrian war which has been ongoing for more than eight years.
The victims include at least forty-four civilians, mostly women, who were killed during the truffle season in rural areas, according to the SOHR.
Mines have also left dozens of victims, mostly women, with injuries that ranged from amputation to severe injuries.
According to the United Nations, 10.2 million Syrians are in danger of getting hurt by an explosive device left behind in the country as a result of the war.
Planting mines was a strategy followed by several parties in the Syrian conflict, most notably ISIS which booby-trapped various objects such as buildings, cars, household items, and food containers.
The Syrian government and the United Nations signed a memorandum in July to support Damascus’s demining efforts.
Sports, Gardens, and Churches
2 October 2019
Four years after the onset of Russia’s military intervention in Syria, Russian soldiers are enjoying a lavish life in their main base in the coastal city of Tartous, and there is nothing to suggest that their stay will not be long.
A Russian officer points to little plants planted in a garden in the naval base. “They will have enough time to grow,” he confidently says.
Announcements of Russia withdrawing its troops and decreasing its operations significantly have been continuously coming, without this having an effect on its long-term presence in Syria, which seems key to the country’s future.
Russian soldiers can visit gyms, saunas, bakeries, and dry cleaners, in addition to a small Orthodox church. Soldiers have “all necessary leisure means,” said a Russian officer, who requested to remain anonymous as he is not authorized to speak to journalists.
The intervention of the Russian air force in the Syrian conflict since September 2015 allowed the balance to tip in Damascus’s favor, as government forces managed to advance at the expense of both militant and jihadist factions and retake control of large swaths of the country.
According to official statistics, three thousand Russian soldiers are deployed in Syria, in addition to jets, helicopters, warships, and submarines. The new S-400 air defense system provides protection for the facilities.
The Russian Hmeimim base, which was hastily built near the outskirts of a civil airport, has turned into a permanent base since 2017. The same thing happened in Tartous, as this Russian naval facility situated at the port has turned into a “permanent naval base.”
In both sites, Moscow has a forty-nine-year lease, cementing its presence in the Middle East and enabling it to exercise its influence, especially against the United States.
Testing the “S-500”
1 October 2019
The Russian Izvestia newspaper said that the Russian army has carried out successful tests on the most important components of the S-500 air defense missile system.
The newspaper said, citing sources in the Russian ministry of defense and the military and industrial complex, that “tests have revealed a number of gaps in the work of the system’s equipment which were quickly filled,” adding that “the tests are over and they were deemed successful.”
