Tag Archives: Syria

Assad, allies aim to seize all Aleppo before Trump takes power

A Syrian government soldier gestures a v-sign under the Syrian national flag near a general view of eastern Aleppo after they took control of al-Sakhour neigbourhood in Aleppo, Syria

By Laila Bassam and Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army and its allies aim to seize all eastern Aleppo from rebels by the time U.S. President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, sticking by a Russian-backed timeline for the operation after big gains in recent days, a senior official in the military alliance fighting in support of Damascus said.

The official who declined to be identified in order to speak freely indicated however that the next phase of the Aleppo campaign could be more difficult as the army and its allies seek to capture more densely populated areas of the city.

The rebels have lost more than a third of the area they held in eastern Aleppo in the last few days of a government assault that has killed hundreds of people and uprooted thousands more. For the rebels, it is one of the gravest moments of the war.

Rebels meanwhile fought fiercely to stop government forces advancing deeper into the opposition-held enclave on Tuesday, confronting pro-Assad militias who sought to move into the area from the southeast, a rebel official said.

The attack on eastern Aleppo threatens to snuff out the most important urban center of the revolt against President Bashar al-Assad, who has been firmly on the offensive for more than a year thanks to Russian and Iranian military support.

Capturing rebel-held eastern Aleppo would be the biggest victory to date for Assad in the conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since it arose out of protests against his rule nearly six years ago.

As Russia and Iran have stuck steadfastly by Assad, the rebels say their foreign backers including the United States have left them to their fate in their besieged enclave of eastern Aleppo, Syria’s biggest city before the civil war.

 

Syrian government soldiers walk near a general view of eastern Aleppo after they took control of al-Sakhour neigbourhood in Aleppo,

Syrian government soldiers walk near a general view of eastern Aleppo after they took control of al-Sakhour neigbourhood in Aleppo, Syria in this handout picture provided by SANA on November 28, 2016. SANA/Handout via REUTERS

Government forces backed by Shi’ite militias from Iran, Lebanon and Iraq punched into the rebel-held area from the northeast last week. The senior, pro-Assad official said the rebel lines had collapsed more quickly than expected.

“The Russians want to complete the operation before Trump takes power,” said the official, repeating a previous timetable which pro-Damascus sources had said was drawn up to mitigate the risks of any shift in U.S. policy towards the war in Syria.

Trump has indicated that he may abandon support for Syrian rebels who have received military aid from states including the United States, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and could even cooperate with Russia against Islamic State in the country.

He will be inaugurated as president on January 20.

The United States has offered aid including military support to some rebel groups under President Barack Obama, though the rebels have always said this backing has fallen well short of what they need against better armed government forces.

THE WEST “CAN’T DO ANYTHING”

The rebel official said the outgoing U.S. administration was paying little attention to Syria. Assad and his allies were “trying to exploit the current circumstances, unfortunately, and the Western states can’t do anything”, he said.

France, another backer of the opposition, called for an immediate U.N. Security Council meeting to discuss Aleppo.

“More than ever before, we need to urgently put in place means to end the hostilities and to allow humanitarian aid to get through unhindered,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said in a statement.

Russia has consistently blocked attempts by Western states to take action in the Security Council against Damascus.

A bomb hangs on a parachute while falling over the rebel-held besieged al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria.

A bomb hangs on a parachute while falling over the rebel-held besieged al-Qaterji neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

Accounts from eastern Aleppo, where the United Nations says at least 250,000 civilians are trapped with no access to the outside world, point to a dire humanitarian situation. People have been forced to scavenge in the garbage for food as aid supplies have run out, and all the hospitals in eastern Aleppo have been repeatedly bombed.

The civil defense rescue service that operates in eastern Aleppo said on Monday it had nearly run out fuel to power the equipment it has been using to pull people from the rubble of bombed-out buildings.

Pummeled by air strikes, artillery and ground attacks, the rebels were forced on Monday to withdraw to more defensible lines along a highway that runs through Aleppo, hoping that it would be harder for the government side to make further gains.

The rebel official with one of the main Aleppo rebel groups said the opposition fighters had managed to stabilize new frontlines, but were fighting to stop pro-government militias that sought to advance from the south.

FIERCE BATTLES

“There is no progress but the bombardment and battles remain fierce, particularly in Aziza” in southeastern Aleppo, said the official with the Jabha Shamiya rebel group, which fights under the Free Syrian Army banner. “Yesterday evening there was a big mobilization by Iranian militias in Aziza,” the official added.

The government and its allies gradually besieged the rebel-held sector of Aleppo this year before abandoning a ceasefire to launch a fierce assault in September.

The latest fighting has forced thousands to flee. Some have crossed the frontline to government-held areas, others have sought refuge in a Kurdish-controlled part of the city, and many more have fled deeper into the remaining rebel-held area.

Air strikes on Bab al-Nairab, a district in the rebel-held area, killed at least 10 people and left dozens more wounded or missing, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the civil defense rescue service said. The Syrian military could not be reached for comment.

The civil defense said government planes struck as people were trying to flee the neighborhood on foot, killing 25.

The United Nations humanitarian chief and relief coordinator said up to 16,000 people had been displaced in eastern Aleppo.

The U.N. envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said he could not say how long eastern Aleppo would hold out.

“Clearly, I cannot deny – this is a military acceleration and I can’t tell you how long eastern Aleppo will last,” he told the European Parliament.

Russia said that the army’s breakthrough in Aleppo had dramatically altered the situation on the ground, allowing more than 80,000 civilians to access humanitarian aid after years of what it described as being used by militants as human shields.

“During the last 24 hours, thanks to very well-prepared and careful actions, Syrian soldiers were able to radically change the situation,” Major-General Igor Konashenkov, a defense ministry spokesman, said in a statement.

“Practically half of the territory occupied by rebels in recent years in the eastern part of Aleppo has been completely liberated.”

A medic in eastern Aleppo who gave his name as Abu al-Abbas said however there was “intense fear of collective annihilation”.

“This week I’ve changed locations three times,” he added, speaking on Monday using a social networking site. “In the shelter, we had dead people who we couldn’t take out because the bombardment was so intense,” he said.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Angus McDowall in Beirut, Suleiman al-Khalidi in Amman, Andrew Osborn and Katya Golubkova in Moscow, John Irish in Paris, Stephanie Nebehay and Tom Miles in Geneva; writing by Tom Perry; editing by Peter Graff)

Erdogan, Putin discuss Syria as Turkish-backed rebels push to al-Bab

Rebel fighters gather during their advance towards the Islamic State-held city of al-Bab, northern Syria

By Humeyra Pamuk and Orhan Coskun

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan discussed an attack on Turkish troops in Syria with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Friday as Turkish-backed rebels pressed an offensive to take the Syrian city of al-Bab from Islamic State.

The Turkish military has said Thursday’s air strike, which killed three of its soldiers, was thought to have been carried out by the Syrian air force. It would be the first time Turkish soldiers have died at the hands of Syrian government forces.

Russia is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main military backer, while Turkey backs the rebels fighting to oust him.

Erdogan told Putin that Turkey respected Syria’s territorial integrity and that its military incursion, launched in August to repel Islamic State from the border, showed its determination to fight militant groups, sources in the Turkish presidency said.

The Kremlin said the discussion on Syria was constructive and that both sides agreed to continue active dialogue to coordinate efforts against international terrorism.

The Turkish sources said both leaders also agreed to try to resolve the humanitarian crisis in Aleppo, where a government siege of the rebel-held east, aggravated by renewed, frequent air strikes on hospitals in the past week, have left residents desperately short of medicines, food and fuel.

Rebels in east Aleppo have agreed to a U.N. plan for aid delivery and medical evacuations, but the United Nations is awaiting a green light from Russia and the Syrian government, the U.N. said on Thursday.

RISK OF ESCALATION

The killing of the Turkish soldiers on Thursday – the first anniversary of Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet over Syria – raised fears of an escalation in an already complex battlefield.

Ankara and Moscow only restored ties, which had been damaged by the jet incident, in August. They continue to pursue conflicting goals in Syria, although Turkey has of late been less openly critical of Assad than in the past.

The advance by largely Turkmen and Arab rebels backed by Turkey toward al-Bab, the last urban stronghold of Islamic State in the northern Aleppo countryside, potentially pits them against both Kurdish fighters and Syrian government forces.

Another Turkish soldier was killed and five wounded in clashes with Islamic State on Friday, the military said.

The latest casualties bring the number of Turkish soldiers killed in Syria to 17 since Ankara launched an incursion three months ago to try to push Islamic State and Kurdish fighters from Syrian territory along its border.

The Turkish military also said four Syrian rebels had been killed and 25 wounded in clashes in the 24 hours to Friday morning. Turkish fighter jets were continuing to strike Islamic State targets near al-Bab, it said.

Al-Bab is of particular strategic importance to Turkey because Kurdish-dominated militias have also been pursuing a campaign to seize it. Ankara is determined to prevent Kurdish forces from joining up cantons they control along the Turkish border, for fear it will stoke Kurdish separatism at home.

Turkey is backing the Syrian rebels with troops, tanks and artillery, as well as reconnaissance flights along the border. Washington has said the U.S.-led coalition, of which NATO member Turkey is a part, is not providing support for the operation.

(Additional reporting by Tulay Karadeniz in Ankara and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow; Writing by Nick Tattersall; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Russian tankers defy EU ban to smuggle jet fuel to Syria

Russian military jets are seen at Hmeymim air base in Syria,

By Guy Faulconbridge and Jonathan Saul

LONDON (Reuters) – Russian tankers have smuggled jet fuel to Syria through EU waters, bolstering military supplies to a war-torn country where Moscow is carrying out air strikes in support of the government, according to sources with knowledge of the matter.

At least two Russian-flagged ships made deliveries – which contravene EU sanctions – via Cyprus, an intelligence source with a European Union government told Reuters. There was a sharp increase in shipments in October, said the source who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.

A separate shipping source familiar with the movements of the Russian-flagged vessels said the ships visited Cypriot and Greek ports before delivering fuel to Syria.

The Russian defense and transport ministries did not respond to requests for comment.

A spokeswoman for EU foreign affairs and security policy said the implementation of EU restrictions lay with member states. “We trust that competent authorities are complying with their obligation to ensure respect of the restrictive measures in place and to pursue any circumvention attempts,” she added.

Greece’s foreign ministry declined to comment. The Cypriot government said its authorities had not approved the docking of any Russian tankers carrying jet fuel bound for Syria. “We would welcome any information that may be provided to us on any activity that contravenes U.N. or EU restrictive measures,” the Cypriot foreign ministry added.

Syria’s civil war, which began in 2011, has become a theater for competing global powers, with Russia and Iran supporting President Bashar al-Assad, and the United States, Gulf Arab and European powers backing rebels who want to depose him.

Russia changed the course of the conflict in favor of Assad’s government last year when it intervened with air strikes. Moscow says it targets only Islamic State militants and other jihadist fighters.

EU Council Regulation 1323/2014, introduced two years ago, bans any supply of jet fuel to Syria from the EU territories, whether or not the fuel originated in the European Union.

Over one two-week period in October, Russian tankers delivered 20,000 metric tonnes of jet fuel to Syria – worth around $9 million at today’s world prices – via the European Union, according to the EU government intelligence source.

“The jet fuel shipments from these vessels have played a vital role in maintaining Russian air strikes in the region,” said the source. “This points to a sustained Russian build-up of resources needed to support their military operation and ambitions in Syria.”

Some of the shipped fuel also went to the Syrian military, helping to “keep Assad’s air assets operational”, the source added.

The shipping source and a third person, an intelligence consultant specializing in the Mediterranean area, also said the fuel was likely intended for Russian and Syrian military use.

TRANSPONDERS OFF

Publicly available ship-tracking data confirms that at least two Russian tankers, the Yaz and Mukhalatka, made one trip each between September and October, stopping in Greece and Limassol in Cyprus. In Greece, the Yaz stopped at Agioi Theodoroi port but it is unclear where the Mukhalatka stopped.

From Cyprus, they sailed towards Syria and Lebanon. Their tracking transponders were switched off near the coasts of those countries, according to the data.

The EU intelligence source said the Mukhalatka went on to deliver jet fuel to Syria, while the other two sources said the Yaz almost certainly carried fuel to the country. All the people declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter.

It was unclear where the fuel might have originated.

Alexander Yaroshenko, general director of the owner of the Yaz and Mukhalatka ships, St Petersburg-based Transpetrochart, declined to comment when asked by Reuters about the shipments. Transpetrochart asked for written questions, which were supplied, but did not provide an immediate response.

Transpetrochart says on its website that it was founded in 2002 and specializes in shipping crude oil, fuel oil, diesel oil, gasoline and other oil products. It operates seven oil tankers.

The intelligence consultant said the Yaz was investigated by Greek authorities for possible EU sanctions violations during its stay in the port of Agioi Theodoroi in September, but that it was allowed to leave bound for Turkey.

The Greek coastguard service said in September that it had investigated the Yaz for possible breaches of EU regulations regarding Syria and had pressed charges against the ship’s captain. A spokesman did not give further details about the investigation when contacted by Reuters.

One coastguard official said separately the captain was charged and released pending trial.

The EU government intelligence source said Russia was also using ships flying the flags of other countries to carry jet fuel to Syria. Reuters was unable to corroborate that allegation with other sources, or with ship-tracking data.

(Additional reporting by Michele Kambas and Renee Maltezou in Athens and Maria Tsvetkova in Moscow; Editing by Pravin Char)

Death toll among Iran’s forces in Syrian war passes 1,000

Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) take part in an operation against Islamic State militants on the outskirts of the town of Hammam Al-Alil, south of Mosul, Iraq

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

BEIRUT (Reuters) – More than 1,000 soldiers deployed by Iran to Syria to back the government side in its civil war have been killed, an Iranian official said, underlining Tehran’s increasing presence on front lines of the conflict.

It was a major increase in the reported death toll from just four months ago, when the Islamic Republic announced that 400 of its soldiers had died on Syria’s battlefields.

Iran has been sending fighters to Syria since the early stages of the more than five-year-old war to support its ally, President Bashar al-Assad, against rebels and Islamist militants including Islamic State trying to topple him.

Although many of the soldiers the Shi’ite Muslim Iran sends are its own nationals, it is casting its recruitment net wide, training and deploying Shi’ites from neighboring Afghanistan and Pakistan as well. Half of the death toll reported in August were Afghan citizens.

“Now the number of Iran’s martyrs as defenders of shrine has exceeded 1,000,” Mohammadali Shahidi Mahallati, head of Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs, which offers financial support to the relatives of those killed fighting for Iran, was quoted as saying by Tasnim news agency.

Iran alludes to its fighters in Syria as “defenders of the shrine”, a reference to the Sayeda Zeinab mosque near Damascus, which is where a granddaughter of the Prophet Mohammad is said to be buried, as well as other shrines revered by Shi’ites.

Many Iranians initially opposed involvement in Syria’s war, harboring little sympathy for Assad. But now they are warming to the mission, believing that the Sunni jihadist Islamic State is a threat to the existence of their country that is best fought outside Iran’s borders.

With public opinion swinging increasingly behind the cause, numbers of volunteer fighters have soared far beyond what Tehran is prepared to deploy in Syria.

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; editing by Mark Heinrich)

Obama, Putin talk about Syria and Ukraine in quick summit meet

Obama and Putin

LIMA (Reuters) – U.S. President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin spoke for around four minutes on Sunday at the APEC summit about Syria and Ukraine, in what is likely to be their last in-person meeting before Obama leaves office.

The two men met at the start of the summit meeting in Lima, Peru’s capital. They exchanged pleasantries and remained standing as they spoke.

Obama later said at a news conference he told Putin the U.S. is deeply concerned about bloodshed and chaos in Syria “sown by constant bombing attacks” by the Syrian and Russian militaries, and that a ceasefire and political transition were needed.

“As usual I was candid and courteous but very clear about the strong differences we have on policy,” Obama said.

Putin said at a separate news conference he thanked Obama during Sunday’s meeting in Lima “for the years of joint work”.

“I told him that we would be happy to see him (Obama) in Russia anytime if he wants, can and has desire”, Putin said.

Obama and Putin have had a challenging relationship. The U.S. president said last week he had warned Putin about consequences for cyber attacks attributed to Moscow that were seen as trying to influence the U.S. election.

Obama said he also urged President Putin to help implement the Minsk peace agreement by working with France, Germany, Ukraine and the United States to halt the conflict in Donbass region of Ukraine.

During his race for the White House, Republican President-elect Donald Trump praised Putin. Putin said on Sunday that Trump had confirmed to him that he was willing to mend ties.

(Reporting by Jeff Mason, additional reporting by Denis Pinchuk, Caroline Stauffer and Mitra Taj; Editing by Alan Crosby and Simon Cameron-Moore)

U.N. says Syria’s Aleppo faces ‘bleak moment’, all aid convoys blocked

A girl makes her way through the debris of a damaged site that was hit yesterday by airstrikes in the rebel held al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria

By Tom Miles

GENEVA (Reuters) – Around 250,000 civilians in Syria’s besieged eastern Aleppo have run out of aid supplies and none of the warring sides have agreed safe passage for a relief convoy, a senior U.N. humanitarian official said on Friday.

Air strikes and shelling in the rebel-held east of Syria’s largest city has killed dozens this week, a monitoring group says. The bombardment resumed on Tuesday after a four-week pause, part of a wider military escalation by the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, against insurgents.

U.N. humanitarian adviser Jan Egeland said civilians trapped by the siege were out of food and medical stocks and bracing themselves for an increasingly fierce attack.

“My understanding is that virtually all warehouses are now empty and tens of thousands of families are running out of food and all other supplies,” Egeland told Reuters. “So this is a very bleak moment, and we are not talking about a tsunami here, we are talking about a manmade catastrophe from A to Z.”

The United Nations has proposed a humanitarian relief plan, with medical workers, medical supplies and food going into eastern Aleppo and evacuations of the sick and wounded.

The rebels had given positive signals, Egeland said, but he could not understand why they could not simply state their approval and pledge to guarantee the security of U.N. humanitarian operations.

“Earlier on their side they were quarrelling over the correct access road and many of the technical and logistical elements of both the 48-hour convoy and the medical evacuations. It’s not really rational,” he said.

Russia had said it is positive in general about the plan but it has not given an official green light, he said. At the same time, Egeland said, Moscow had stepped up its air campaign in support of Syrian and allied ground forces.

The United Nations had hoped to send convoys with aid for 1 million Syrians in besieged or hard-to-reach areas this month, but so far not one has reached its destination.

“The needs are exploding and a killer winter is coming to the exhausted and vulnerable Syrian civilians. We have the trucks, we have relief workers that are willing to go, even though it’s dangerous, and we have very concrete plans,” Egeland said, and he was angry and frustrated at the “outrageous” situation.

He blamed arbitrary bureaucracy and the insistence of combatants that the convoys use roads known to be insecure or mined. Although the Syrian government was doing most of the besieging and was responsible for most of the obstacles, Egeland said rebel groups also often did little or nothing to help.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Strikes on rebel-held east Aleppo kill 25

Children collect firewood amid damage and debris at a site hit yesterday by airstrikes in the rebel held al-Shaar neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Air strikes and shelling killed at least 25 people in rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Thursday on the third day of renewed bombing, a monitoring group said, and the mayor of the besieged sector warned of a total lack of fuel and food as winter encroached.

The bombardment of eastern Aleppo restarted on Tuesday after a weeks-long pause, part of a wider military escalation by the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, against insurgents.

Moscow is using an aircraft carrier and missiles fired from  another warship against targets around Syria but says it is not bombing Aleppo. Syria’s government said on Tuesday it was striking what it called “terrorist strongholds” in the city.

The United Nations says 250,000 civilians remain in Aleppo’s opposition-controlled neighborhoods, effectively under siege since the army, aided by Iranian-backed militias and Russian jets, cut off the last road into rebel districts in early July.

Frequent air strikes on hospitals, and the disruption and pollution of water supplies, have worsened the humanitarian crisis. Medicines, food and fuel are all severely depleted.

“There is only enough to keep the bakeries going to give people at least some bread. People are only getting about 15 percent of what they need,” Brita Hagi Hassan, president of the city council for opposition-held Aleppo, told Reuters.

Hassan is outside eastern Aleppo and cannot return because of the siege but he is still running the council remotely, he said.

International charity Oxfam said it had moved a large electricity generator to the Suleiman al-Halabi water station that is located on the frontline between east and west Aleppo and still serves both sides of the city under an agreement.

It said all other aid to the besieged area remains cut off.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based organization that monitors the war, said shelling and air strikes from helicopters and jets hit the eastern half of the city, causing severe damage. Air strikes also hit rebel-held areas west and south of Aleppo.

Shelling of government-held western Aleppo by rebels during a failed counter-attack they staged earlier this month killed dozens of people, the United Nations said.

Syria’s civil war pits President Bashar al-Assad against mainly Sunni rebels seeking to oust him. It has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced around half the country’s pre-war population since it began in 2011.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Angus McDowall and Mark Trevelyan)

Food production in Syria hits all time low

Farmers harvest wheat in a field at night, fearing shelling in daylight, in the rebel held besieged town of Douma, eastern Ghouta in Damascus, Syria early morning

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – Food production has dropped to an all-time low in Syria where millions of hungry civilians are struggling through their sixth winter in a war zone, U.N. agencies said on Tuesday.

Many farmers have had to abandon their land, unable to afford the soaring cost of seeds, fertilisers and tractor fuel, the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Food Programme said.

Wheat output – vital for making flat loaves of bread which are a staple of the Syrian diet – dropped from an average 3.4 million metric tonnes harvested before the war began in 2011 to 1.5 million this year, they said in a joint report.

“There is an estimated shortfall of about 838,000 tonnes in the country’s national wheat requirement of 3.854 million tonnes taking into account commercial imports,” it said.

The area planted for cereals in the 2015-16 cropping season is the “smallest ever”, they added. Field visits and surveys showed higher than average production of barley, which some farmers switched to as the rain-fed crop is more resistant than wheat, and “large patches of cropland affected by drought”.

“Food production in Syria has hit a record low due to fighting and insecurity but also bad weather conditions,” World Food Programme spokeswoman Bettina Luescher told a news briefing.

Food shortages are particularly worrying in east Aleppo, the rebel-held part of the city besieged by government forces where the U.N. says 250,000-275,000 civilians still live.

“The last food rations provided by the U.N. have been given out (in east Aleppo). It is very hard to say how people will be coping there. Of course it is a very different situation than in the capital where food is readily available at the markets,” Luescher said.

Reuters reported last month that Syria’s state grain buying agency Hoboob struck a deal to purchase one million tonnes of wheat from political ally Russia, covering the needs of government-controlled areas for a year.

Before the war, Syria was an exporter of livestock. “Now herds and flocks have shrunk significantly, there are 30 percent fewer cattle, 40 percent fewer sheep and goats and a staggering 60 percent less poultry which of course is the most affordable source of animal protein,” Luescher said.

More than 7 million people in Syria are classified as “food insecure”, meaning they are not always sure where their next meal is coming from, she said, adding: “Eighty percent of the households across Syria struggle with a lack of food or lack of money to buy food.”

The World Food Programme is distributing rations to more than 4 million people in Syria each month.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Richard Balmforth)

Exclusive: Watchdog condemns Syrian government, Islamic State use of banned chemical weapons

car parts to make car bombs

By Anthony Deutsch

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The executive body of the global chemical weapons watchdog voted on Friday to condemn the use of banned toxic agents by the Syrian government and by militant group Islamic State, a source who took part in the closed session said.

Roughly two-thirds of the 41 members on the Executive Council of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), endorsed a U.S.-tabled text, the source told Reuters.

The OPCW’s Executive Council, which meets behind closed doors, seldom votes on such matters, generally operating through consensus. But this text was supported by 28 members, including Germany, France, the United States and Britain.

It was opposed by Russia, China, Sudan and Iran. There were nine abstentions. Russia and Iran are Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main allies against rebels seeking to overthrow him. Western and Gulf Arab states back the rebels.

The U.S.-Russian split over Syria was striking as it was those two countries that in 2013 took the lead in getting the Damascus government to join the OPCW and avert threatened U.S.-led military intervention in Syria’s civil war.

A 13-month international inquiry by the OPCW and United Nations concluded in a series of reports that Syrian government forces, including helicopter squadrons, were responsible for the use of chlorine barrel bombs against civilians.

The OPCW-U.N. mission found that the Syrian government carried out three toxic attacks in March and April of last year, while Islamic State militants had used sulfur mustard gas.

The findings set the stage for a U.N. Security Council showdown between the five veto-wielding powers, likely pitting Russia and China against the United States, Britain and France over how those responsible for the attacks should be held accountable.

Syrian authorities deny having used chemical weapons in the conflict. Islamic State has not commented.

(Reporting by Anthony Deutsch; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Year-old Paris attack probe sights new suspect, but mastermind elusive

People mourning outside of Paris attacks

By Chine Labbé

PARIS (Reuters) – French investigators believe they have identified a Belgian militant in Syria as a coordinator of the deadly Islamic State (IS) attack on Paris, but a year on they are still struggling to pinpoint the mastermind.

Just ahead of the Nov. 13 anniversary of an assault that killed 130 people and injured hundreds, victims and relatives of the dead still seek answers. And the only living person believed to be part of the hit-team, now behind bars, refuses to talk.

A painstaking investigation led by an exceptionally large team of six judicial magistrates has inched forward in search of the “remote-controllers” – those who pulled the strings from abroad, at IS bases in Iraq and Syria or elsewhere.

A source close to the investigation told Reuters this week that a new name had been added to the web of militants involved as coordinators – Oussama Atar, a 32-year-old from a Brussels suburb, now believed to be in Syria.

“It’s a very strong suspicion,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We are wary of being definitive while the investigation is still under way.”

Atar was jailed in Iraq on arms-trafficking charges before ultimately joining IS ranks in Syria in 2012, and is suspected of playing a key coordination role in the Nov. 13 rampage, but not of being “mastermind in chief”, the source said.

In particular, Atar is suspected of having recruited two Iraqis who blew themselves up outside the Stade de France sports stadium north of the French capital as part of a broader series of assaults in the heart of Paris on Nov. 13 last year.

He is also suspected of being the person to whom other suicide bombers reported before blowing themselves up in further attacks in Belgium that killed 32 on March 22 this year.

SURVIVORS DISSATISFIED WITH PROBE

Atar, the latest addition to France’s suspects list, was identified in a group of photos shown to a militant arrested in Austria. But that advance means little for the survivors of the attacks, in which 90 of the 130 killed were shot or blown up by armed suicide bombers at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris.

“Even if there’s little chance of bringing the attack mastermind to justice, it would be nice to know his name,” said Emmanuel Domenach, who was at the Bataclan when it was attacked.

Sting, a veteran English pop star who has used his celebrity to champion social campaigns such as defense of forest tribes in South America, is scheduled to play on Saturday at the historic venue to mark its post-attack reopening.

Bernard Bajolet, head of France’s foreign intelligence service, told a parliamentary inquiry in May that the orchestrators of the Nov. 13 attack had been identified but declined to name names to protect his sources.

Investigators, however, have yet to make such an identification, another source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters, and do not know who Bajolet was referring to.

At one stage, it was assumed that the mastermind of the attacks was Abdelhamid Abaaoud, a Belgo-Moroccan killed by elite French police in a spectacular assault on a flat close to Paris a few days after the Nov. 13 killings.

He was subsequently relegated by investigators to a coordinator role like Atar’s.

Three teams took part in the attack – suicide bombers at the Stade de France, gunmen who opened fire on cafes in Paris, and the squad that killed 90 at the Bataclan.

Salah Abdeslam, captured in Belgium after fleeing Paris on the night of the attack and later transferred back to France, is in solitary confinement in a jail on the edge of Paris, but refused to speak at court hearings. He is believed to be the sole survivor of the IS hit team.

The Nov. 13 attacks and subsequent assaults this year have shaken French society.

A state of emergency imposed after the Paris killings was about to be lifted when, on France’s July 14 national holiday, an IS devotee ploughed a truck into a crowd of revelers in the Riviera resort city of Nice, killing 86. About two weeks later, an Islamist slit a priest’s throat in a church in Normandy.

As armed soldiers continue to patrol the Paris landmarks where tourist numbers have thinned, Europe’s largest community of Muslims lives in greater fear of mistrustful neighbors.

Meanwhile the ruling Socialist party has torn itself apart over an abortive attempt to introduce a law stripping people convicted of terrorism of their nationality, and security and immigration promise to be major issues in next year’s presidential election.

(Additional reporting by Gerard Bon; writing by Brian Love; editing by Andrew Callus and Mark Heinrich)