Israeli air strikes hit Conflict in Ethiopia Damascus, Syria says destabilising region
DAMASCUS: The Syrian army said yesterday Israel launched air strikes on an area in the southern outskirts of the capital Damascus, the second such attack within a week.
The Israeli aerial strike on a strategic area it had hit in the past came from the occupied Golan Heights and caused only material damages, the army statement said.
Military defectors said the strike targeted a military base in Jabal Mane Heights near the town of Kiswa, where Iranian Revolutionary Guards have long been entrenched in a rugged area almost 15km south of Damascus.
Strikes in July also hit towns near Kiswa, where Lebanese proIranian Hezbollah militia are deployed with other proIranian militias in strength, a senior army defector said.
The area has antiaircraft missiles stationed to defend the Syrian Golan Heights along the border with Israel, the military sources said.
‘‘We don’t comment on these kind of news reports,’’ an Israeli military spokesman said.
The aerial strikes hit a territory in a zone that extends from the southern countryside of Damascus to the Israelioccupied Golan Heights where the growing Iranian presence is viewed as a strategic threat by Israel.
Israel launched air raids against what it called a wide range of Syrian and Iranian targets in Syria last week, sending a signal that it will pursue its policy of striking across the border, despite US President Donald Trump’s election defeat.
Syrian President Bashar alAssad’s government has never publicly acknowledged Iranian forces are operating on his behalf in Syria’s civil war, saying Iran only has military advisers on the ground. — Reuters
ADDIS ABABA: Fighting between Ethiopia’s military and regional forces from the northern Tigray region is seriously destabilising the East African region and hostilities should halt, European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell says.
Hundreds have been killed since fighting began on November 4 and more than 41,000 refugees have fled to Sudan.
‘‘I expressed my great concern regarding increasing ethnictargeted violence, numerous casualties and violations of human rights and of international humanitarian law,’’ Borrell said yesterday.
Ethiopia has described it as an internal law enforcement matter, a position Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed reiterated yesterday.
‘‘We reject any interference in our internal affairs,’’ he said.
Ethiopian soldiers have been pulled from peacekeeping work.
In Somalia, Ethiopia has disarmed several hundred
Tigrayans in an African Union peacekeeping force fighting Al Qaedalinked militants. Three soldiers of Tigrayan ethnicity were also sent home from a UN peacekeeping force in South Sudan, a diplomatic source said.
A spokeswoman for the Ethiopian prime minister’s office said the situation in South Sudan ‘‘would be the same’’ as in Somalia, meaning the soldiers sent home were under investigation for links to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the party spearheading the fighting.
Yesterday, Ethiopia’s stateappointed human rights watchdog accused a Tigrayan youth group of killing about 600 civilians, as forces on both sides claimed advances. — Reuters