Eurasia Press & News
Syria has seized drones and explosives from a suspected ISIS hideout in Damascus, in a swoop it said “confirms” it is capable of fighting extremists.
The raid, in which a suspected member of ISIS was arrested, was one of two against the group announced in the space of 24 hours. It came as US President Donald Trump prepared to receive the bodies of two Americans killed in an attack in Palmyra that authorities blamed on ISIS.
Four Syrians were killed in a separate attack in Idlib claimed by ISIS. Syrian authorities have also stepped up surveillance and seized rocket launchers bound for Lebanon.
The two attacks were the latest setback to President Ahmad Al Shara’s effort to restore calm in Syria with American backing. While US Syria envoy Tom Barrack has said Washington is sticking to that policy, two Republicans on Wednesday supported Israeli calls to carve out a buffer zone within Syrian territory.
Syrian officials played down those calls as they announced moves to reinforce security. In the Damascus raid, Brig Gen Osama Muhammad Khair Atika said the local forces he commands swooped on “a hideout belonging to the ISIS terrorist organisation”.
The raid led to one arrest and “the seizure of explosive devices prepared for use, in addition to various weapons and ammunition, suicide drones, and explosive materials used in preparing those drones for bombing purposes”, Brig Gen Atika said.
He said the operation “confirms the ability of the security services to deal with terrorist threats and protect the security and stability of the nation and its citizens”.
In an earlier raid, Syria’s Interior Ministry said government troops arrested eight suspected members of an ISIS cell suspected of carrying out attacks on security and military personnel in Idlib and Aleppo.
The ministry said it had increased surveillance and intensified its investigations after the attack in Idlib, which led to a vehicle used by the suspects being identified.
“Through monitoring and surveillance operations, security units were able to arrest three individuals, while another was neutralised. During interrogations, the detainees confessed to the involvement of four other individuals who participated in carrying out the terrorist operations,” the ministry said.
That was followed by a second operation in which troops arrested five other people. During interrogation, the suspects confessed to carrying out three “terrorist operations”, the ministry claimed, including the attack on Sunday, an assault on Defence Ministry personnel in Idlib, and an attack on customs officers in the Zarba area of Aleppo.
Explosive belts, silencers, M-16 unguided missiles and M4 machine guns were confiscated.
Why the fatal Palmyra attack on US forces is testing Washington’s alliance with Syria’s new government
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Unity or division
Syria has made considerable efforts to win US backing since Mr Al Shara took power last year, persuading Mr Trump to waive sanctions. The US House of Representatives last week voted in favour of their permanent repeal.
The US wants Syria and Israel to agree a deal to calm tensions. Both have indicated they are willing to talk, but Israel is seeking a demilitarised buffer zone stretching well into Syrian territory, all the way to Damascus.
Lindsey Graham, a Republican US Senator, said Israel was “right to insist on security zones” as he warned Syrian security personnel could be “more radical than they are being billed”. A member of Syria’s government forces was blamed for the attack in Palmyra.
“While I support trying to help this new government in Syria, we have to do it with eyes wide open,” Mr Graham said. Walid Phares, a former foreign policy adviser to Mr Trump, said a demilitarised zone should be a condition of any agreement between Israel and Syria.
A deal should also include “self-determination” for large parts of Syria, he said, including the Druze minority’s heartland in the south and a north-east region with a significant Kurdish presence. Mr Al Shara has previously rejected the idea of a federal Syria.
One Syrian official played down Mr Graham’s comments, telling The National they “do not have much influence” on Mr Trump’s policies towards Syria. But “those particularly close to [Israel] tend to think this way”, the official said.
A second Syrian official, at the Foreign Ministry, told The National of Mr Graham’s comments: “I don’t see this as representing the overall vision of the American administration.”
Across Syrian cities, billboards carry slogans promoting unity instead of geographical and social division. They appear to counter what many Syrians see as the Assad regime’s creation of social barriers as a way to divide and rule.
“One nation, one people,” reads an enormous billboard by the Saadallah Al Jabiri square in Aleppo. People affected by fighting involving a Kurdish militia in the north-east, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), are also wary of its demands for some level of autonomy, especially as it would control most of Syria’s scarce water and energy.
“They are depriving all the Syrian people of these resources, which they don’t own,” said one man, who requested anonymity, near the front line between SDF and government forces.
Others also reject a federal system for their country. “They [the SDF] want self-administration and a federal system and they want to split,” said Mohammed Hussein, who was displaced in fighting between pro-government forces and the SDF just after the Assad regime fell last year.
“As a citizen, if I can’t reach Deir Ezzor or Raqqa, I’ll remain displaced, no problem,” he added, referring to cities under SDF control. “But I don’t want a federal or decentralicised system. We want a united Syria.”
The anti-ISIS raids followed the attack on Sunday claimed by ISIS, in which the ministry said four security personnel were killed while on patrol on the Maaret Al Numan road in Idlib.
Damascus and Washington also accused a lone gunman, who killed two US troops and an interpreter in Palmyra on Saturday, of having links with the group. ISIS has not claimed responsibility for that attack.
In a second announcement, the ministry said its forces had ambushed smugglers and seized a cache of weapons in the border town of Serghaya, near Lebanon. It said they found a “large quantity” of rocket-propelled grenade shells intended for smuggling.
The weapons were confiscated. “This operation comes as part of the Ministry of Interior’s continued efforts to combat smuggling, secure Syria’s borders, and maintain national security and stability,” it said.
The ministry did not say who was allegedly smuggling or receiving the weapons. But Mr Al Shara’s government has previously carried out raids against Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
On December 2, it said it thwarted an attempt to smuggle more than 1,000 explosives to the group. In September, Syria arrested members of Hezbollah in a raid against the militant group that supported the former regime of Bashar Al Assad. Rocket launchers and ammunition were seized.
The Idlib region was a bastion of rebel and extremist groups, including foreign fighters, during Syria’s civil war. Rebels led by Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, an iteration of a militant group formerly affiliated with Al Qaeda, toppled the regime of former president Al Assad in a lightning offensive in December last year.
A US-led coalition has, at times, carried out strikes in the Idlib region, usually saying it is attacking ISIS members.
Syria’s new government announced operations against the group, including one launched on Sunday alongside the coalition to attack sleeper cells in the desert after the Palmyra killings.
ISIS controlled large areas of Syria before its territorial defeat in 2019, but it maintains a presence in the country, particularly in its vast desert regions, experts say.
