Russia Deploys Surprise Military Reinforcements to Syria’s Deir Ezzor

Russian patrol in northwestern Syria | Russia Today
Russian patrol in northwestern Syria | Russia Today
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Russia Deploys Surprise Military Reinforcements to Syria’s Deir Ezzor

Russian patrol in northwestern Syria | Russia Today
Russian patrol in northwestern Syria | Russia Today

The Russian army on Saturday deployed a huge military convoy to Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria amid talks by Syrian opposition members of a potential breakout of clashes with Iran-backed militias near borders with Iraq.

Meanwhile, Turkish forces and artillery deployed in northwestern Syria reached 7,675 vehicles and 11,000 soldiers.

“Deir Ezzor 24” local channel reported on two Russian military convoys entering the city on Friday dawn. The convoys were transferred from the rural areas of Raqqa province.

According to the media report, around 60 military vehicles, among which were large trucks, had entered the Talay camp in Deir Ezzor.

Another news network, Dorar al-Shamiyyah, reported on a third Russian military convoy composed of around 30 military vehicles also entering the scene in less than 24 hours.

It is noteworthy that this is the first time a military convoy of that size enters Deir Ezzor city.

Dorar al-Shamiyyah channel pointed out to escalating conflict between militias loyal to Russia and others loyal to Iran in the region. As a result of this conflict, a security officer was killed in clashes that took place last week.

Clashes have so far killed four security officers and injured many others—they also resulted in the destruction of a military checkpoint and the burning down of militia camps.

This came after news that Iranian militias took control of Boukamal town in Deir Ezzor. Quds Force commander and successor to Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a US airstrike in Baghdad earlier this year, Esmail Qaani visited the premise set up by Iran-backed militias in the Boukamal town.

According to Deir Ezzor 24, Iran-backed militias has forced Syrian regime troops to remove their roadblocks in Boukamal.

More so, they denied the Russian-backed Liwaa al-Quds forces from setting up camp and checkpoints in the town.

According to the local channel, this comes within the frame of the Russian-Iranian struggle for power in the region.



Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
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Israeli Likud Party Ministers Urge Netanyahu to Annex West Bank

Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)
Israeli soldiers in Tubas in the north of the occupied West Bank on September 11, 2024. (AFP)

Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud party called on Wednesday for Israel to annex the Israeli-occupied West Bank before the Knesset recesses at the end of the month.

They issued a petition ahead of Netanyahu's meeting next week with US President Donald Trump, where discussions are expected to center on a potential 60-day Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal with Hamas.

The petition was signed by 15 cabinet ministers and Amir Ohana, speaker of the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

There was no immediate response from the prime minister's office. Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, long a confidant of Netanyahu, did not sign the petition. He has been in Washington since Monday for talks on Iran and Gaza.

"We ministers and members of Knesset call for applying Israeli sovereignty and law immediately on Judea and Samaria," they wrote, using the biblical names for the West Bank captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Their petition cited Israel's recent achievements against both Iran and Iran's allies and the opportunity afforded by the strategic partnership with the US and support of Trump.

It said the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack on Israel demonstrated that the concept of Jewish settlement blocs alongside the establishment of a Palestinian state poses an existential threat to Israel.

"The task must be completed, the existential threat removed from within, and another massacre in the heart of the country must be prevented," the petition stated.

Most countries regard Jewish settlements in the West Bank, many of which cut off Palestinian communities from one another, as a violation of international law.

With each advance of Israeli settlements and roads, the West Bank becomes more fractured, further undermining prospects for a contiguous land on which Palestinians could build a sovereign state long envisaged in Middle East peacemaking.

Israel's pro-settler politicians have been emboldened by the return to the White House of Trump, who has proposed Palestinians leave Gaza, a suggestion widely condemned across the Middle East and beyond.