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Diplomats Suggest Expansion of Buffer Zone between Lebanon and Israel

A UN peacekeeper vehicle passes a destroyed car in the southern outskirts of Tyre, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zaatari)
A UN peacekeeper vehicle passes a destroyed car in the southern outskirts of Tyre, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zaatari)
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Diplomats Suggest Expansion of Buffer Zone between Lebanon and Israel

A UN peacekeeper vehicle passes a destroyed car in the southern outskirts of Tyre, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zaatari)
A UN peacekeeper vehicle passes a destroyed car in the southern outskirts of Tyre, Lebanon, Wednesday, March 13, 2024. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zaatari)

United Nations diplomats said that some recent suggestions are focusing on the expansion of the buffer zone between Lebanon and Israel as a precaution to prevent further escalation between Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and Israel, or a spillover of the Gaza war into Lebanon.
These suggestions were raised during a closed-door meeting held by the UN Security Council on Tuesday that discussed the latest report of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the ongoing efforts to implement UN Resolution 1701, amid the daily exchange of fire between Lebanon and Israel.
A diplomat of the five permanent members of the Council told Asharq Al-Awsat that interlocutors expressed “concern over the escalation along the Blue Line in recent weeks”, and stressed the need for the full implementation of resolution 1701. They also reiterated the need to support UNIFIL's role to prevent further deterioration.
UNIFIL’s Role
Another diplomat also expressed worry saying “we are gravely concerned about the situation on the border”, warning against any kind of “provocations that could aggravate things further”.
He said a “more effective” role and UNIFIL “preparedness” is essential in order to tune down the tension, adding that they seek to find a way to expand the buffer zone to protect Israel from attacks from the Lebanese side, and for the Lebanese armed focus to to control the situation in south Lebanon.
Dangerous Threat
Guterres had expressed concern in his report about the tension along the Blue Line amid increasing hostilities and an almost daily exchange of fire between Hezbollah and other non-government armed groups on one hand and Israel on the other.
He said the conflict entails a dangerous threat for the stability of Lebanon, Israel and the region, and demanded a political approach to address the root of the conflict based on UN resolution 1701.
Lebanese Army
The diplomats agreed on the necessity to address the tension along the Blue Line, appease the security situation and stop the provocations on both sides of the border. This would help thousands of displaced people on both sides of the border to return to their villages.
To that end, bolstering the role of the Lebanese army and UNIFIL is essential.
Representatives of the UN countries have therefore underscored that to achieve that end, Lebanon’s state institutions must be restored, mainly the election of a new president and the formation of a government capable of performing the needed financial and economic reforms.

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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
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US Pulls Out of Two More Bases in Syria, Worrying Kurdish Forces

SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)
SDF forces in Syria. (AFP file)

US forces have pulled out of two more bases in northeastern Syria, visiting Reuters reporters found, accelerating a troop drawdown that the commander of US-backed Syrian Kurdish forces said was allowing a resurgence of ISIS.

Reuters reporters who visited the two bases in the past week found them mostly deserted, both guarded by small contingents of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) - the Kurdish-led military group that Washington has backed in the fight against ISIS for a decade.

Cameras used on bases occupied by the US-led military coalition had been taken down, and razor wire on the outer perimeters had begun to sag.

A Kurdish politician who lives on one base said there were no longer US troops there. SDF guards at the second base said troops had left recently but declined to say when. The Pentagon declined to comment.

It is the first confirmation on the ground by reporters that the US has withdrawn from Al-Wazir and Tel Baydar bases in Hasaka province. It brings to at least four the number of bases in Syria US troops have left since President Donald Trump took office.

Trump’s administration said this month it will scale down its military presence in Syria to one base from eight in parts of northeastern Syria that the SDF controls. The New York Times reported in April that troops might be reduced from 2,000 to 500 in the drawdown.

The SDF did not respond to questions about the current number of troops and open US bases in northeastern Syria.

But SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, who spoke to Reuters at another US base, Al Shadadi, said the presence of a few hundred troops on one base would be "not enough" to contain the threat of ISIS.

"The threat of ISIS has significantly increased recently. But this is the US military’s plan. We’ve known about it for a long time ... and we’re working with them to make sure there are no gaps and we can maintain pressure on ISIS," he said.

Abdi spoke to Reuters on Friday, hours after Israel launched its air war on Iran. He declined to comment on how the new Israel-Iran war would affect Syria, saying simply that he hoped it would not spill over there and that he felt safe on a US base.

Hours after the interview, three Iranian-made missiles targeted the Al Shadadi base and were shot down by US defense systems, two SDF security sources said.

ISIS ACTIVE IN SYRIAN CITIES

ISIS ruled vast swathes of Iraq and Syria from 2014 to 2017 during Syria’s civil war, imposing a vision of religious rule under which it beheaded locals in city squares, sex-trafficked members of the Yazidi minority and executed foreign journalists and aid workers.

The group, from its strongholds in Raqqa in Syria and Mosul in Iraq, also launched deadly attacks in European and Middle Eastern countries.

A US-led military Coalition of more than 80 countries waged a yearslong campaign to defeat the group and end its territorial control, supporting Iraqi forces and the SDF.

But ISIS has been reinvigorated since the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad in December at the hands of separate opposition factions.

Abdi said ISIS cells had become active in several Syrian cities, including Damascus, and that a group of foreign extremists who once battled the Syrian regime had joined its ranks. He did not elaborate.

He said ISIS had seized weapons and ammunition from Syrian regime depots in the chaos after Assad's fall.

Several Kurdish officials told Reuters that ISIS had already begun moving more openly around US bases which had recently been shuttered, including near the cities of Deir Ezzor and Raqqa, once strongholds for the extremist group.

In areas the SDF controls east of the Euphrates River, ISIS has waged a series of attacks and killed at least 10 SDF fighters and security forces, Abdi said. Attacks included a roadside bomb targeting a convoy of oil tankers on a road near the US base where he gave the interview.