Foreign

Ousted Assad Loyalists Kill 14 Security Personnel in Ambush

By Web News 209

Syria’s new rebel-led authorities say 14 interior ministry personnel have been killed and 10 injured in an “ambush” by forces loyal to ousted President Bashar al-Assad in the west of the country.

They say the fighting took place near the Mediterranean port of Tartous on Tuesday.

Reports say the security forces were ambushed as they tried to arrest a former officer in connection to his role at the notorious Saydnaya prison, close to the capital Damascus.

Just over two weeks ago, Assad’s presidency fell to rebel forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) faction.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said three militants were also killed in the clashes.

The SOHR added that the security forces later brought in reinforcements.

In a separate development, the Syrian authorities imposed an overnight curfew in the central city of Homs, state media reported.

Reports say this followed unrest after a video purportedly showing an attack on an Alawite shrine.

Syria’s interior ministry said it was an old video, dating back to the rebel offensive on Aleppo in late November, and the violence was carried out by unknown groups.

The SOHR said one demonstrator was killed and five wounded in Homs.

Demonstrations were also reported in areas including the cities of Tartous and Latakia, and Assad’s hometown of Qardaha.

Alawites are the minority sect from which the Assad family originates, and to which many of the former regime’s political and military elite belonged.

The HTS-led lightning offensive that started from Syria’s north-east and spread all over the country ended the Assad family’s more than 50-year rule.

Assad and his family were forced to flee to Russia.

HTS has since promised to protect the rights and freedoms of many religious and ethnic minorities in Syria.

HTS is designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, the US, the EU, the UK and others.

On Tuesday, protests broke out in the country over the burning of a Christmas tree, prompting fresh calls for the new authorities to protect minorities.

Foreign

Assad, Family Arrive Russia after Ouster, Granted Asylum

By Web News 257

Syria’s ousted president Bashar al-Assad and his family are in Moscow, a Kremlin source told Russian news agencies, hours after he fled the country as Islamist-led rebels entered Damascus.

The announcement comes as Russia, a key Assad ally, called for an emergency meeting of the UN security council on the fast-changing situation on the ground in the war-torn country.

“Assad and members of his family have arrived in Moscow,” the source told the TASS and Ria Novosti news agencies. “Russia granted them asylum on humanitarian grounds,” he added.

Asked whether Assad was confirmed to be in Moscow, a Western official said they believed that was likely the case and had no reason to doubt Moscow’s claim.

The Kremlin source also said the rebels who ousted Assad in a lightning offensive “guaranteed the security of Russian army bases and diplomatic institutions on Syria’s territory”.

Russia, Assad’s biggest backer along with Iran, holds a naval base in Tartus and a military airfield in Khmeimim.

Moscow’s forces became militarily involved in the Syrian conflict in 2015, providing support for Assad’s forces to crush the opposition in the bloody civil war.

“Russia has always been in favour of a political solution to the Syrian crisis. Our starting point is the need to resume negotiations under the auspices of the UN,” the Kremlin source added.

A Russian representative to the United Nations announced that Moscow had requested an emergency closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in Syria for Monday afternoon.

“The consequences (of the events in Syria) for this country and the whole region have not yet been measured,” the official said on Telegram.

Vanguard/Simeon Ugbodovon

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