Syrian Army Launches Operation in Southwest
BEIRUT (Dispatches) – The Syrian government attacked opposition areas of the southwest on Friday, a war monitor and militant officials said, in defiance of U.S. demands that President Bashar al-Assad halt the assault.
Assad has sworn to recapture the area bordering Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the army began ramping up an assault there this week.
The United States on Thursday reiterated its demand that the zone be respected, warning Assad and his Russian allies of "serious repercussions” of violations. It accused Damascus of initiating air strikes, artillery and rocket attacks.
The pro-terrorist so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, confirmed the attack.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says he is "skeptical” about a United Nations report accusing the Syrian government of committing alleged crimes against humanity when its troops carried out a military operation in Eastern Ghouta earlier this year.
"We are in principle very skeptical towards the methods of this sort of work, whether it comes to war crimes or the use of chemical weapons,” the top Russian diplomat said at a joint press conference with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Moscow.
Lavrov’s comments came a day after the world body released a report alleging that forces loyal to the government in Damascus had "deliberately” starved civilians during the operation between February and April this year.
Lavrov further cast doubt on the validity and reliability of the UN report, saying the research committee behind the report had neither visited the area nor carried out any investigations on the ground, and had based their report on "data obtained through social networks” and "videos filmed by witnesses.”
He also said that they had "allegedly interviewed with 140 people,” adding that Moscow did not trust any information obtained through "such remote methods.”
Terrorists belonging to a number of factions had held the Eastern Ghouta, an enclave in the vicinity of the capital Damascus, since 2012 and had practically held hostage its inhabitants, some 400,000 people.
Syrian troops and allied fighters from popular defense groups managed to fully liberate the enclave from the clutches of militants in early April, after months of intense fighting with terror groups, which had used the area as a launch pad for deadly rocket attacks against residents and civilian infrastructure in the capital.
This photo released on March 7, 2018, by the Syrian official news agency SANA shows Syrian government soldiers advancing during a battle against terrorists in Eastern Ghouta.
Assad has sworn to recapture the area bordering Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the army began ramping up an assault there this week.
The United States on Thursday reiterated its demand that the zone be respected, warning Assad and his Russian allies of "serious repercussions” of violations. It accused Damascus of initiating air strikes, artillery and rocket attacks.
The pro-terrorist so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, confirmed the attack.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says he is "skeptical” about a United Nations report accusing the Syrian government of committing alleged crimes against humanity when its troops carried out a military operation in Eastern Ghouta earlier this year.
"We are in principle very skeptical towards the methods of this sort of work, whether it comes to war crimes or the use of chemical weapons,” the top Russian diplomat said at a joint press conference with UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres in Moscow.
Lavrov’s comments came a day after the world body released a report alleging that forces loyal to the government in Damascus had "deliberately” starved civilians during the operation between February and April this year.
Lavrov further cast doubt on the validity and reliability of the UN report, saying the research committee behind the report had neither visited the area nor carried out any investigations on the ground, and had based their report on "data obtained through social networks” and "videos filmed by witnesses.”
He also said that they had "allegedly interviewed with 140 people,” adding that Moscow did not trust any information obtained through "such remote methods.”
Terrorists belonging to a number of factions had held the Eastern Ghouta, an enclave in the vicinity of the capital Damascus, since 2012 and had practically held hostage its inhabitants, some 400,000 people.
Syrian troops and allied fighters from popular defense groups managed to fully liberate the enclave from the clutches of militants in early April, after months of intense fighting with terror groups, which had used the area as a launch pad for deadly rocket attacks against residents and civilian infrastructure in the capital.
This photo released on March 7, 2018, by the Syrian official news agency SANA shows Syrian government soldiers advancing during a battle against terrorists in Eastern Ghouta.