Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro de la Prensa-Basin Ozeti
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««raUÏÏÏsSrifcuni! Monday, march 11,2013
Syria crises multiply,
but one is averted
ANTAKYA, TURKEY
Rebel fighters release
peacekeepers who were
seized in Golan zone
BY ANNE BARNARD
AND HANIA MOURTADA
Syrian rebels have released 21 detained
United Nations peacekeepers to Jorda¬
nian forces, ending a three-day standoff
that raised new tensions in the region
and new questions about the fighters
just as the United States and other na¬
tions were grappling over whether to al¬
low more arms to flow to the rebel
movement.
The peacekeepers, from the Philip¬
pines, arrived "well and unharmed,"
U.N. officials said on Saturday.
The release of the troops ended a
drama that began on Wednesday when
a rebel faction that has long operated in
the south of Syria, known as the Mar¬
tyrs of Yarmouk, seized the soldiers,
part of a four-nation U.N. force that
monitors the demilitarized zone be¬
tween Syria and the portion of the Golan
Heights that Israel captured in 1967.
Fighting from the Syrian conflict in re¬
cent months has occasionally spilled
over into the zone and the surrounding
Syrian area the peacekeepers patrol,
raising concerns about instability along
the sensitive border.
The seizure created a political chal¬
lenge for the leadership of the disparate
rebel movement that has been trying to
assert tighter control of the loose-knit
fighters under their command, and
drew criticism from some anti-govern¬
ment activists who said .that taking the
peacekeepers hurt their cause.
The Martyrs of Yarmouk initially ac¬
cused the peacekeepers of aiding the
Syrian military, which rebels said was
attacking villages in the area, and de¬
clared it would not release them until
the army pulled out. But apparently
under pressure from the opposition's
leadership the rebels quickly dis¬
avowed those claims and demands, say¬
ing they had detained the troops to pro¬
tect them from the fighting in the area.
The rebels then began negotiations to
turn the peacekeepers over to the
United Nations.
The stakes for the handoff were high:
ifit went well, opposition leaders could at
least point to a successful transfer of the
U.N. soldiers as proof that rebel units,
even if they make mistakes, can respond
to orders responsibly. If the soldiers had
come to harm, it could have further un¬
dermined the willingness of nations to
send peacekeepers to the Golan Heights,
where Israel has said it will not hesitate
to intervene ifit feels threatened.
After a tense 24 hours in which the
United Nations said a convoy tried to res¬
cue the soldiers but turned back because
of Syrian government shelling in the area
the rebels themselves transported the
prisoners to the Jordanian border.
"They are safe now; we have de¬
livered them across the border, praise be
to God," said the rebel commander, who
gave only his nickname, Col. Abu Mah¬
moud, for security reasons. "We took
them to keep them safe because they
were going through a very dangerous
area and they were our guests, and we
protected them with our own chests."
The Filipino soldiers were turned
over to the Jordanian Army, given
checkups in a military hospital, then
handed over to U.N. officials and the am¬
bassador from the Philippines, accord¬
ing to Samih Maaytah, Jordan's minis¬
ter of state.
Government strikes kill 14
Syrian government airstrikes killed at
least 14 people in the northern province
of Raqqa less than a week after rebels
seized the area's provincial capital, ac¬
tivists said Sunday, according to The
Associated Press.
Government airstrikes have often
shown the limits of rebel control. Even if
they hold the ground, they can do little
about the government's air force, which
bombards recently captured areas,
killing fighters and civilians alike.
Also on Sunday, the U.N. High Com¬
missioner for Refugees, Antonio Gu¬
terres, said in Ankara that the number
of people fleeing Syria could increase by
"two or three times" by the end of the
year if the conflict continued. This
month, the United Nations said the
number of registered Syrian refugees
had reached one million.
. NrerownoxM.
fteralbiiSfeSribtu» Tuesday, march 12, 2013
Sunni group in Iraq claims
ambush of Syrian troops
BEIRUT
BY HANIA MOURTADA
AND RICK GLADSTONE
A Sunni militant jihadist group in Iraq
on Monday claimed responsibility for
the March 4 ambush that killed dozens
of Syrian soldiers who had sought tem¬
porary safety on the Iraqi side of their
border, boasting of the massacre in a
harshly worded Internet posting that
used demeaning references to Shiites
and President Bashar al-A'ssad's Alaw-
ite sect.
The message from the group, the
Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq,
reflected the hardened sectarian
hatreds spreading from the two-year-
old Syrian conflict, in which insurgents
from the Sunni majority are battling to
topple the Alawite minority, an offshoot
of Shiite Islam.
The group's claim of responsibility for
the killings, one of the worst cross-bor¬
der spillovers of violence in the conflict
so far, coincided with news of a fatwa, or
religious decree, from Syria's grand
mufti, Ahmad Badr al-Deen Hassoun,
the highest religious authority in the
country, exhorting "all mothers and fa¬
thers in the homeland" to enlist their
children in the Syrian Army to vanquish
a conspiracy of foreign enemies.
Such a religious decree in itself was
notable because it was a marked depar
ture for Mr. Assad's government, which
has always sought to portray itself as
secular and tolerant; and has de¬
nounced the Sunni extremist religious
extremism propagated by some ele¬
ments of the insurgency.
In Geneva, meanwhile, United Na¬
tions investigators said Monday that
"Popular Committees," local-communi¬
ty groups used by Syrian government
troops as auxiliary forces, had been re¬
ported to have committed mass killings,
some of them sectarian in character.
"The war displays all the signs of a
destructive stalemate," Paulo Pinheiro,
leading the four-person U.N. Commis¬
sion of Inquiry, told the U.N. Human
Rights Council in Geneva. "Neither
party seems able to prevail over the oth¬
er militarily. The result has been an es¬
calation in the use of force in the falla¬
cious belief that victory is within
reach."
As a result, the areas in which civil¬
ians could find refuge from violent con¬
flict had shrunk dramatically in the past
two months, the panel said in its latest
update on the conflict. "Active hostili¬
ties are increasingly spreading into re¬
maining enclaves of stability," accord¬
ing to the report.
Rick Gladstone reportedfrom New
York. TimArango contributed reporting
from Istanbul, and Nick Cumming-
Brucefrom Geneva.
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