The police in Cyprus have apprehended 21 individuals and had to use tear gas and a water cannon. This was in response to a group of Greek Cypriots, who were wearing hoods and holding baseball bats, attempting to attack Syrian protesters in a small village. This village has experienced a lot of tension between its residents and migrants.
On Tuesday, the police reported that two groups of people, around 250 Syrians and 250 Greek Cypriots, held protests in the village of Chloraka on Monday evening. Unfortunately, the protests turned violent when a small number of people from each group started to set fire to trash bins and a fence of a building.
The special police team kept the two groups apart during the riot. However, one officer got badly burned on his hand by a homemade bomb thrown by the rioters.
A police spokesman named Christos Andreou said on Tuesday that the fights started when some Greek Cypriots tried to attack the migrants. He said that nine people from Greece living in Cyprus and twelve people who moved to Cyprus from another country were captured by the authorities.
They are being accused of having weapons and causing violence.
On Monday night, there were fights after a violent incident the day before. Two migrants and a Greek Cypriot man were taken by authorities after hundreds of people from Chloraka marched in protest against the increasing number of migrants who have moved to their village in the past few years. The residents feel that their village has become like a ghetto because of this.
Andreou said that the protest became violent when some smaller groups of demonstrators went on a rampage in the village. They supposedly attacked a migrant, caused damage to a restaurant owned by a migrant, and flipped over a car.
On Sunday, there was a protest because the police cleared out an empty apartment building in Chloraka to remove many migrants who were living there without permission. The police did many raids in the village over the past three years because a court said that no more asylum seekers or people with international protection could live there.
The next day, migrants held their own protest because they believed that they were not being treated fairly by the authorities and locals. They were also upset about the damage done to their property. Justice Minister Anna Koukkides-Procopiou and Police Chief Stelios Papatheodorou were present to meet a group of migrant people and listen to their complaints in order to calm down the situation.
Andreou, who spoke to a TV station called Sigma, said that a man from Syria was arrested because he is being looked into for potentially encouraging people to be violent on social media.
The President of Cyprus, Nikos Christodoulides, strongly criticized the events, saying that violence doesn’t solve anything and only leads to more violence.
Christodoulides wants the police chief and the justice minister to talk to the Chloraka municipal authorities and the Syrian migrants to make sure everyone is safe. The security and well-being of the people is very important and cannot be compromised.
He also tried to calm the worries of the people living in Chloraka. He said that his government is still focusing on dealing with the large number of migrants coming to Cyprus. He mentioned that they have already taken steps that have cut the number of people coming and applying for asylum in half.
The Cyprus Republic is a member of the United Nations and European Union. We are willing to follow our obligations to the international community. However, we will not accept anyone who uses our country as a good place for illegal migration.
Tag: Syrian
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Cyprus police detain 21 persons after an attempt to harm Syrian migrants by protestors
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Israel claims to have struck a Syrian military complex with its fighter jets
Following the firing of numerous rockets from Syria, Israel stated it carried out airstrikes targeting military facilities in Syria.
According to the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), six rockets in total were fired from Syria in the direction of Israel, with three of them landing on Israeli soil.
The Israeli-occupied Golan Heights received one of the rockets.Israeli land has not yet been damaged, according to the IDF.
It is the most recent flare-up after Israel attacked Palestinian militant targets in southern Lebanon and Gaza early on Friday in retaliation for dozens of rockets fired from Lebanon into Israeli territory.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that it had begun striking targets in Syrian territory after the rockets were launched.
“A short while ago, IDF fighter jets struck additional targets in Syrian territory, including a military compound of the Fourth Division of the Syrian Armed Forces, military radars systems and artillery posts used by the Syrian Armed Forces,” the IDF said in a statement early on Sunday local time.
The strikes by the fighter jets followed earlier IDF strikes on Syrian territory using a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle or drone), which targeted the launchers thought to have fired the rockets.
The IDF said it “sees the state of Syria responsible for all activities occurring within its territory and will not allow any attempts to violate Israeli sovereignty.”
Syria said it had responded to “Israeli air attacks in the southern part of the country,” and claimed to have intercepted “some Israeli missiles.”
“Around 5 a.m. today, the Israeli enemy carried out an air attack with a number of missiles from the direction of the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, targeting some points in the southern region,” Syrian state media agency SANA quoted a Syrian military source as saying.
According to SANA, the military source added that Syrian air defenses had “intercepted the aggressors’ missiles and shot down some of them.”
Israel seized the Golan Heights from Syria during the 1967 Six-Day War and annexed the narrow strip of land in 1981. The Golan Heights are considered occupied territory under international law and UN Security Council resolutions.
The rocket launches come amid heightened tensions in the region following Israeli police raids on the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem.
Israeli police raids of the mosque are considered by Muslims as a major provocation.
Israeli police raided the mosque twice on Wednesday last week, claiming that “hundreds of rioters and mosque desecrators (had) barricaded themselves” inside.
On Saturday night, the Israeli police again alleged that, “many youngsters [had] entered the mosque and closed the doors, for no reason.”
Israel’s neighbor Jordan warned of “catastrophic consequences” if Israeli forces were to storm the mosque again.
Should the Israeli police, “assault worshipers again, in an attempt to empty [the mosque] of worshipers, in preparation for major incursions into the mosque,” it would, “push the situation towards more tension and violence, for which everyone will pay the price,” the Jordanian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Ambassador Sinan al-Majali, said in a statement late on Saturday local time.
“The Israeli government bears responsibility for the escalation in Jerusalem and in all the occupied Palestinian territories and for the deterioration that will worsen if it does not stop its incursions into the holy al-Aqsa mosque… and its terrorization of worshipers in these blessed days,” al-Majali said.
The warning from Jordan was followed by a statement from the Israeli Foreign Ministry early on Sunday, saying that people who “barricade themselves inside [the al-Aqsa mosque] are a dangerous mob, radicalized and incited by Hamas and other terror organizations.”
The Israeli Foreign Ministry called on Jordan’s Waqf guards, “to immediately remove from the al-Aqsa Mosque these extremists who are planning to riot (on Sunday) during Muslim prayers on the Temple Mount and the Priestly Blessing at the Western Wall.”
The Waqf is the Jordan-appointed body that manages the al-Aqsa mosque compound, known as the Temple Mount by Jews.
In a separate development on Saturday night, the IDF killed a 20-year-old Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank town of Azzoun, according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health.
The man, Ayed Azam Salim, was shot and killed by live Israeli bullets in the abdomen and chest in the Qalqilya district, according to the ministry.
“Following routine activity, multiple suspects hurled an explosive device towards IDF soldiers at town of Azzun,” the IDF said in a statement. Soldiers responded “with live ammunition towards them” and a person was hit, the statement added. No IDF soldiers were injured, according to the statement.
Salim was taken to a hospital in Qalqilya where he died, according to Palestinian News Agency WAFA.
On Friday, one person was killed and seven others injured in a car-ramming attack in Tel Aviv. Police said that the car was driven by a 45-year-old resident of Kfar Kasem, a predominantly Arab city east of Tel Aviv.
The victim, an Italian tourist, was named by Israeli and Italian authorities as Alessandro Parini. Italian media said he was a 35-year-old lawyer. Israeli authorities described the incident as a “terror attack.”
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Syria denies holding journalist Austin Tice after White House claims otherwise
The Syrian government on Wednesday denied it is holding or has any information on the whereabouts of Austin Tice, an American journalist who vanished a decade ago while reporting on the Middle Eastern nation’s civil war.
Syria’s foreign ministry said in a rare statement that the country “denies that it has kidnapped or is hiding any American citizens who entered its territory or resided in areas under the sovereignty and authority of the Syrian government.”
The comments come a week after US President Joe Biden said that Washington knows “with certainty” that Tice is being held by the Syrian government.
The Syrian government has denied on multiple occasions that it’s holding Tice, but before its statement Wednesday, it had not addressed the journalist’s whereabouts publicly since 2016.
Tice disappeared in Damascus, the Syrian capital, while he was working as a freelance journalist for CBS, The Washington Post and The McClatchy Company.
Tice’s family said Austin was traveling in the Damascus suburb of Darayya to work on one of his final pieces for the summer on August 13, 2012, when he was detained at a checkpoint. He was supposed to leave for Lebanon the following day. The Texas native and veteran of the US Marine Corps was supposed to come home to finish his final year of law school at Georgetown University.
Since then, the only information Tice’s family has received from his captors was a 43-second video that surfaced five weeks after his disappearance. It was titled “Austin Tice is Alive” and showed Tice and a group of armed men, but contained no other information.
In its statement Wednesday, the Syrian government denied it had ever arrested Tice.
10th anniversary of disappearance
Tice was among the first journalists to disappear after Syria’s peaceful pro-democracy protests, sparked by the Arab Spring, were violently crushed by Bashar al-Assad’s government.
Successive US administrations have contended that Tice was alive and being held captive somewhere in Syria. There was no indication he was abducted or held by ISIS, which executed multiple American journalists it kidnapped, including James Foley and Steven Sotloff.
Though the FBI offered a reward of $1 million for information on Tice’s whereabouts, his case has languished for years.
Tice’s parents have worked diligently to bring government and media attention to their son’s disappearance. During a meeting with Biden at the White House in May, the President “reiterated his commitment to continue to work through all available avenues to secure Austin’s long overdue return to his family.”
The Biden administration has had direct engagements with the Syrian government in an effort to secure the release of Tice, according to a source and a senior administration official. There have been a number of direct interactions — none of which took place in Damascus — but they have thus far yielded no progress, the source familiar said.
Last week marked the 10th anniversary of Tice’s disappearance, which his family and the White House used to reiterate their demands for information.
“We know with certainty that he has been held by the Syrian regime,” Biden said in a statement last week. “We have repeatedly asked the government of Syria to work with us so that we can bring Austin home.
“Tice family deserves answers, and more importantly, they deserve to be swiftly reunited with Austin.”
Debra Tice, Austin’s mother, told CNN on Thursday, her son’s 41st birthday, she is happy the President mentioned his name and that it is a sign the administration is ready to negotiate his release.
“I’m just so glad that President Biden has said Austin’s name publicly,” Debra Tice told CNN’s John Berman on “New Day.” “I think that it’s an indication from the President that the United States government is ready to engage with Syria to bring Austin home.”
In a separate statement Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington “will continue to pursue all available avenues to bring Austin home and work tirelessly until we succeed in doing so.”
Among those tasked with bringing Tice home is Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens, who secretly traveled to Damascus and met with Assad regime officials in 2020 under the Trump administration. In May of this year, he met with Abbas Ibrahim, a top Lebanese security official, in Washington “to discuss US citizens who are missing or detained in Syria,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said at the time.
Ibrahim, the chief of Lebanon’s General Security Directorate, has played a role in securing the release of American detainees in the past, including Sam Goodwin from Syria and Nizar Zikka from Iran.
Source: CNN
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Syria’s brutal war enters 10th year
Syria’s brutal conflict enters its 10th year Sunday with President Bashar al-Assad’s regime consolidating its hold over a war-wracked country with a decimated economy where foreign powers flex their muscle.
When Syrians took to the streets on March 15, 2011, they could scarcely have imagined their anti-government protests would turn into a complex war entangling rebels, jihadists and outside forces.
At least 384,000 people have since died, including more than 116,000 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Saturday.
The conflict has displaced more than 11 million people internally and abroad.
“Nine years of revolution illustrate the extent of the suffering we have known, between exile, bombings and deaths,” said Hala Ibrahim, a rights activist who now lives in the town of Dana, in Idlib province.
“I left my university, my house which was bombed,” the woman in her 30s said. “We’ve lost everything.”
Originally from the northern city of Aleppo, Ibrahim left in late 2016 after the regime retook rebel-held areas and she sought refuge in Idlib.
The northwestern region — Syria’s last rebel stronghold — is the regime’s latest target.
Thanks to the military support of Russia, Iran and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, Assad has clawed back control of over 70 percent of the war-torn country.
A fragile ceasefire came into effect in the northwest earlier this month, and Turkish and Russian officials have agreed to start joint patrols in Idlib.
Syrian forces and Russian warplanes have heavily bombarded the region since December, killing nearly 500 civilians, the Observatory says, and forcing nearly a million to flee, according to the United Nations.
– ‘Ruin and misery’ –
Siham Abs and seven of her children have been living for the past two months in a camp for Idlib’s displaced near Bardaqli, not far from the Turkish border.
Many of those unable to find space in camps have been sleeping in fields or have sought shelter in schools, mosques and unfinished buildings.
In the Bardaqli camp, tents made of plastic sheeting are lined up along muddy paths.
Abs said she and her family would like to wash, but don’t know where. “I am 50 years old and I’ve never known such difficult times,” she said.
The UN special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said on the eve of the anniversary: “The suffering of the Syrian people during this tragic and terrible decade still defies comprehension and belief.”
The Syrian conflict was born of unprecedented anti-government demonstrations in the southern city of Daraa nine years ago.
Protests spread across Syria, but a violent crackdown soon saw rebels take up arms with backing from Gulf nations and wrest key areas from government control.
Jihadist groups also emerged, notably the Islamic State group which swept across large parts of the country and neighbouring Iraq in 2014.
“A decade of fighting has brought nothing but ruin and misery,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres wrote this week on Twitter.
“There is no military solution. Now it is the time to give diplomacy a chance to work.”
But in recent years, such efforts have failed.
Five foreign powers operate in Syria, with Russia and Iranian forces supporting the regime.
Despite an announced withdrawal of US forces last year, American troops are still stationed in the country’s northeast, in a semi-autonomous Kurdish zone.
After the fight against IS, Washington’s main objective has turned to curbing Iranian influence.
– ‘$400 billion in destruction’ –
Israel regularly carries out air strikes on Syrian, Hezbollah and Iranian military positions.
And neighbouring Turkey, which supports local armed groups, has deployed its troops across the border.
“The horrific and enduring nature of the conflict is proof of a collective failure of diplomacy,” Pedersen said.
The war has ravaged Syria’s economy and infrastructure.
The United Nations estimated in 2018 that the conflict had caused nearly $400 billion in war-related destruction.
“Basic services, hospitals and schools need to be rebuilt” across the country, the International Committee of the Red Cross said Saturday.
“Houses and land need to be cleared of unexploded ammunition. Jobs and other sources of income need to be created and maintained.”
Source: France24
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Erdogan demands ‘concrete support’ from EU, NATO over Syria
Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has demanded more support from his NATO and EU allies over the war in Syria as fighting rages in Idlib, and a refugee crisis unfolds at the Turkish-Greek border.
Erdogan flew to Brussels for talks with the European Union and NATO leaders after tension rose over the fate of tens of thousands of refugees trying to enter EU-member Greece since Ankara said last month it would no longer try to keep them on its soil.
After talks on Monday with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Erdogan said he wants Turkey’s Western partners to do more to support his country to cope with millions of refugees from Syria.
“The crisis stemming from Syria, with its security and humanitarian aspects, is threatening our region and even all of Europe,” Erdogan said. “No European country has the luxury to remain indifferent.”
Thousands of people have massed at Turkey’s land border with EU-member Greece since Erdogan’s government made good on a long-standing threat and announced it would no longer prevent migrants from crossing.
‘Critical period’
The president made the move after dozens of Turkish troops were killed in intensifying fighting in Syria’s northwestern region of Idlib amid a government offensive – backed by Russian airpower – to recapture the last rebel stronghold in the nine-year war.
“We expect concrete support from all our allies in the fight that Turkey has been carrying out alone … NATO is in a critical period during which it needs to clearly show support,” Erdogan told reporters standing alongside Stoltenberg.
They have urged the Turkish leader to halt refugee and migrant departures and negotiate a new deal under which EU members would do more to alleviate the humanitarian situation on the Syrian border.
“The events at the Greek-Turkish border clearly point to politically motivated pressure on the EU’s external border,” the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, said before talks with Erdogan.
“Finding a solution to this situation will require relieving the pressure that is put on the border.”
‘More than money’
Turkey hosts more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees, and Erdogan has demanded that Europe shoulder more of the burden of caring for them.
Erdogan was due to hold talks with EU leaders Charles Michel and von der Leyen who are expected to insist that Turkey adhere to the joint refugee agreement of 2016.
The EU-Turkey agreement of 2016 stipulates that Ankara will prevent undocumented migration towards the EU. In return, the 27-nation bloc promised six billion euros ($6.8bn dollars) to care for Syrian refugees in Turkey.
Al Jazeera’s Natasha Ghoneim, reporting from the Turkish city of Erdine on the border with Greece, said: “Erdogan had been asking NATO to give Turkey support on the battlefield and that is something he is likely to bring up during his meetings with NATO and EU leaders.
“Analyst say they do not expect him to simply resume abiding by that 2016 agreement with the European Union for billions of dollars in exchange for strict control at the borders. They say Erdogan wants to see the EU doing more than just providing financial assistance.”
Erdogan had already given NATO a list of 10 requests including greater air support on the Turkish-Syrian border, more reconnaissance aircraft, surveillance drones, and more ships in the eastern Mediterranean, according to diplomatic sources.
‘Common solutions’
On Monday, Stoltenberg said the alliance was already supporting Turkey and would continue to do so.
Stoltenberg also highlighted Turkey’s front-line role as a NATO member, saying: “No other ally has suffered more from terrorist attacks, and no other ally holds more refugees.”
He said NATO support would continue but expressed “great concern” about events on the Turkish-Greek border. “The issue of migration and refugee flows is a common challenge that requires common solutions,” he said.
European leaders are considering taking in 1,500 child refugees to ease pressure on overwhelmed camps on Greek islands facing a new wave of arrivals from Turkey.
Von der Leyen said there was no immediate concrete offer of new funding to revive a deal with Turkey to keep refugees from Syria and beyond.
“We will restart the dialogue,” she said, adding there would be “considerable discussions in the next few days and weeks”.
In 2016, Turkey and the EU agreed to a deal whereby Brussels would provide billions of euros in aid in exchange for Turkey curbing the flow of migrants.
But Ankara has repeatedly accused the bloc of not fulfilling promises made as Europe suffered its worst refugee crisis since World War II, when one million people fled to the continent in 2015.
Source: aljazeera.com
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Turkey targets Syrian planes, airports in escalating Idlib fight
Turkey shot down two Syrian warplanes over Idlib on Sunday and struck a military airport well beyond its frontlines in a sharp escalation of its military operations following the death of dozens of Turkish soldiers last week.
Ankara has ramped up its attacks, including drone strikes, against the Russian-backed Syrian forces since Thursday, when 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an air strike by Damascus.
It has already deployed thousands of troops and military vehicles in northwest Syria’s Idlib province in the last month to stem advances by Syrian government forces which have displaced 1 million people close to Turkey’s southern border.
Already hosting 3.6 million Syrian refugees, Ankara is determined to prevent any further influx from Syria. It has also let migrants cross its borders into the European Union, in an apparent effort to press for EU support in tackling the Syria crisis.
Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said in the last four days Turkish forces destroyed eight helicopters, 103 tanks, 72 howitzers, rocket launchers, a drone and six air defence systems. He dubbed Turkey’s operation, its fourth incursion in Syria in four years, “Operation Spring Shield”.
In response, Syria’s army said it shot down three Turkish drones and warned it would take down any aircraft breaching the air space over the northwest, which has been controlled for years by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main ally Russia.
Despite the warning, Turkish warplanes downed two Syrian warplanes, while Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu agency said the Turkish military had targeted and rendered unusable Nayrab airport, west of Aleppo city.
Turkey-backed opposition commanders also said Kuweires airport, east of Nayrab, had been bombed since midnight. Both airports are well inside Syrian government controlled territory, marking a significant expansion of Ankara’s targets.
The fighting has risked drawing Russia and Turkey, who cooperated for years to contain the fighting despite backing rival sides in Syria’s nine-year war, into direct conflict.
“We have neither the intention nor the notion to face Russia. Our only intention there is for the (Syrian) regime to end the massacre and thereby prevent … radicalisation and migration,” Turkey’s Akar said.
He said that 2,212 members of the Syrian forces had been “neutralised”, a term used to designate killed, wounded or captured. The Syrian Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor, said 74 Syrian government troops and pro-Damascus fighters had been killed since Feb. 27.
Fifty-five Turkish troops were killed in Idlib in February.
Crisis diplomacy
Diplomatic efforts by Ankara and Moscow to defuse tensions have failed to agree a ceasefire in Idlib, part of Syria’s last major rebel stronghold.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Saturday that while there was progress in talks between Turkish and Russian delegations, the Idlib issue would only be resolved between presidents Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin.
A senior Turkish official and a security official said the meeting would be held on Thursday in Moscow. The officials said the two leaders would discuss steps to take in Idlib and that they were expected to reach a mutual agreement.
The Kremlin said it hoped Erdogan and Putin would meet on Thursday or Friday. Cavusoglu and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov agreed on the need to create a “favourable atmosphere” to improve working relations between their countries, Russia’s foreign ministry said.
The latest fighting in Idlib has uprooted 1 million civilians since December, many of them women and children fleeing towards the Turkish border.
Turkey said it would allow migrants to cross into Europe in anticipation of an imminent new migrant influx from Idlib, lifting restraints on movement in place since 2016 under a deal with the European Union.
Greek police fired tear gas to repel hundreds of stone-throwing migrants who sought to force their way across the border from Turkey on Sunday, witnesses said, with thousands more behind them after Ankara relaxed curbs on their movement.
Turkey’s borders to Europe were closed to migrants under the accord between the Turkish-EU deal that halted the 2015-16 migration crisis, when more than 1 million people crossed into Europe.
Source: France24