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Syrian, Russian Forces Boosted after Turkey Signals Operation

Russian and Syrian national flags flutter on military vehicles near Manbij, Syria October 15, 2019. (Reuters)
Russian and Syrian national flags flutter on military vehicles near Manbij, Syria October 15, 2019. (Reuters)
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Syrian, Russian Forces Boosted after Turkey Signals Operation

Russian and Syrian national flags flutter on military vehicles near Manbij, Syria October 15, 2019. (Reuters)
Russian and Syrian national flags flutter on military vehicles near Manbij, Syria October 15, 2019. (Reuters)

Russia and Syrian government forces have been bolstered in northern Syria where Turkey may soon launch an offensive against Kurdish fighters, Turkish and opposition Syrian officials said, as Ankara prepares for talks with Moscow.

President Tayyip Erdogan said two weeks ago Turkey would launch new military operations in Syria to extend 30-km (20-mile) deep "safe zones" along the border, aiming at the Tal Rifaat and Manbij regions and other areas further east.

Russia, which warned at the weekend against military escalation in northern Syria, is sending Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for talks in Ankara on Wednesday.

The two countries have close ties and Ankara has sought to mediate talks over Russia's war in Ukraine, but their support for opposing sides in Syria may test President Vladimir Putin's relations with the only NATO member not to impose sanctions on Moscow over the invasion.

The stakes are also high for Erdogan. Without at least tacit approval from Russia, President Bashar al-Assad's powerful ally in the Syria conflict, a Turkish offensive would carry additional risk of casualties. Russia and Turkey have checked each other's military ambitions at various points in Syria's war, at times bringing them close to direct confrontation.

There have not yet been signs of a significant Turkish military build-up in the border region, but reports of rocket and artillery exchanges have become more frequent in the past two weeks.

Any Turkish operation would attack the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), a key part of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that controls large parts of north Syria and is regarded by Washington as an important ally against ISIS. Ankara sees it as a terrorist group and extension of the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

A spokesman for the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA )said Russia was reinforcing positions near Tal Rifaat, Manbij, the southern outskirts of Kobani, and Ain Issa - all towns within 40 km (25 miles) of the Turkish border.

"Since the announcement of the operation, the Syrian regime and its Iranian militias have mobilized and (are) sending reinforcements to the YPG," Major Youssef Hammoud told Reuters.

Their intelligence had spotted Russian helicopters landing at an air base close to Tal Rifaat, he added.

Turkey's state-owned Anadolu news agency cited local sources on Saturday as saying Russia was making deployments in north Syria to "consolidate its control", flying reconnaissance flights over Tal Rifaat and setting up Pantsir-S1 air defense systems in Qamishli, a border town nearly 400 km further east.

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi told Reuters on Sunday Damascus should use its air defense systems against Turkish planes and his forces were "open" to working with Syrian troops to fight off Turkey, but said there was no need to send more forces.

Talks with Lavrov
Ankara says it must act because Washington and Moscow broke promises to push the YPG 30 km (18 miles) from the border after a 2019 Turkish offensive. With both powers seeking Turkey's support over Ukraine, the conflict may offer it a degree of leverage.

Washington, whose backing for the SDF has long been a source of strain in ties with Turkey, has voiced concern, saying any new operation would put at risk US troops - which have a presence in Syria - and undermine regional stability.

Russia also said last week it hoped Turkey "refrains from actions which could lead to a dangerous deterioration of the already difficult situation in Syria".

A senior Turkish official said Lavrov would be asked about intelligence that he said pointed to Syrian government and Iran-backed forces either arriving at Tal Rifaat or heading there.

"Turkey will do this operation one way or another," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Asked whether Russia was strengthening positions in northern Syria, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters it was the Syrian armed forces that "are reinforcing, to a greater or lesser extent, certain facilities on their territory."

The Syrian government does not comment on troop movements, but the pro-government newspaper al-Watan on Monday cited sources in northern Raqqa - near the Turkish border - as saying Syrian troops, tanks and heavy weaponry deployed over the weekend in response to Turkish moves.

The Turkish official and the SNA's Hammoud said attacks from SDF-controled areas against those under Turkish and SNA control had increased. Hammoud said Turkish and SNA forces were responding.

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Arab World

In Lebanon, a Family's Memories are Detonated Along With Their Village

Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
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In Lebanon, a Family's Memories are Detonated Along With Their Village

Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura
Destroyed buildings lie in ruin on Lebanon’s side of the border with Israel, amid ongoing hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Mount Addir, northern Israel, November 4, 2024. REUTERS/Violeta Santos Moura

Ayman Jaber’s memories are rooted in every corner of Mhaibib, the village in southern Lebanon he refers to as his “habibti,” the Arabic word for “beloved.” The root of the village’s name means “the lover” or “the beloved.”
Reminiscing about his childhood sweetheart, the 45-year-old avionics technician talks about how the young pair would meet in a courtyard near his uncle's house, The Associated Press said.
“I used to wait for her there to see her,” Jaber recalls with a smile. "Half of the village knew about us.”
The fond memory contrasts sharply with recent images of his hometown.
Mhaibib, perched on a hill close to the Israeli border, was leveled by a series of explosions on Oct. 16. The Israeli army released a video showing blasts ripping through the village in the Marjayoun province, razing dozens of homes to dust.
The scene has been repeated in villages across southern Lebanon since Israel launched its invasion a month ago with the stated goal of pushing Hezbollah militants back from the border. On Oct. 26, massive explosions in and around Odaisseh sparked an earthquake alert in northern Israel.
Israel says it wants to destroy a massive network of Hezbollah tunnels in the border area. But for the people who have been displaced, the attacks are also destroying a lifetime of memories.
Mhaibib had endured sporadic targeting since Hezbollah and Israeli forces began exchanging fire on Oct. 8 last year.
Jaber was living in Aramoun, just south of Beirut, before the war, and the rest of his family evacuated from Mhaibib after the border skirmishes ignited. Some of them left their possessions behind and sought refuge in Syria. Jaber's father and two sisters, Zeinab and Fatima, moved in with him.
In the living room of their temporary home, the siblings sip Arabic coffee while their father chain-smokes.
“My father breaks my heart. He is 70 years old, frail and has been waiting for over a year to return to Mhaibib,” Zeinab said. “He left his five cows there. He keeps asking, ‘Do you think they’re still alive?’”
Mhaibib was a close-knit rural village, with about 70 historic stone homes lining its narrow streets. Families grew tobacco, wheat, mulukhiyah (jute mallow) and olives, planting them each spring and waking before dawn in the summer to harvest the crops.
Hisham Younes, who runs the environmental organization Green Southerners, says generations of southerners admired Mhaibib for its one-or two-story stone homes, some built by Jaber’s grandfather and his friends.
“Detonating an entire village is a form of collective punishment and war crime. What do they gain from destroying shrines, churches and old homes?” Younes asks.
Abdelmoe’m Shucair, the mayor of neighboring Mays el Jabal, told the Associated Press that the last few dozen families living in Mhaibib fled before the Israeli destruction began, as had residents of surrounding villages.
Jaber's sisters attended school in Mays al-Jabal. That school was also destroyed in a series of massive explosions.
After finishing her studies in Beirut, Zeinab worked in a pharmacy in the neighboring village of Blida. That pharmacy, too, is gone after the Israeli military detonated part of that village. Israeli forces even bulldozed their village cemetery where generations of family members are buried.
“I don’t belong to any political group,” Zeinab says. “Why did my home, my life, have to be taken from me?”
She says she can't bring herself to watch the video of her village’s destruction. “When my brother played it, I ran from the room.”
To process what’s happening, Fatima says she closes her eyes and takes herself back to Mhaibib. She sees the sun setting, vividly painting the sky stretching over their family gatherings on the upstairs patio, framed by their mother’s flowers.
The family painstakingly expanded their home over a decade.
“It took us 10 years to add just one room,” Fatima said. “First, my dad laid the flooring, then the walls, the roof and the glass windows. My mom sold a year’s worth of homemade preserves to furnish it.” She paused. “And it was gone in an instant.”
In the midst of war, Zeinab married quietly. Now she’s six months pregnant. She had hoped to be back in Mhaibib in time for the delivery.
Her brother was born when Mhaibib and other villages in southern Lebanon were under Israeli occupation. Jaber remembers traveling from Beirut to Mhaibib, passing through Israeli checkpoints and a final crossing before entering the village.
“There were security checks and interrogations. The process used to take a full or half a day,” he says. And inside the village, they always felt like they were “under surveillance.”
His family also fled the village during the war with Israel in 2006, and when they returned they found their homes vandalized but still standing. An uncle and a grandmother were among those killed in the 34-day conflict, but a loquat tree the matriarch had planted next to their home endured.
This time, there is no home to return to and even the loquat tree is gone.
Jaber worries Israel will again set up a permanent presence in southern Lebanon and that he won't be able to reconstruct the home he built over the last six years for himself, his wife and their two sons.
“When this war ends, we’ll go back,” Ayman says quietly. “We’ll pitch tents if we have to and stay until we rebuild our houses.”