Assad troops battling Daesh advance toward US-backed force Syria war crimes investigator blasts impunity in farewell speech
Deir Ezzor air base operational again
The pro-regime forces meanwhile announced that they had secured the airport in Deir Ezzor, allowing two military transport aircraft to land. Al-Manar TV, the media arm of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, quoted an unnamed general who said the airport is “90 percent secured.” Hezbollah is fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces.
Syrian state media said the Deir Ezzor military airport began functioning on Monday for the first time in nearly a year. The military base is seen as a valuable asset for the Syrian Army.
Monday’s flights carried aid to Deir Ezzor, Syrian state media said.
On Sunday, the UN said it had halted costly airdrops to the city as a land corridor opened.
The UN has estimated that some 93,000 people were living in “extremely difficult” conditions in regime-held parts of Deir Ezzor during the Daesh siege and were supplied by airdrops to the base.
Syrian regime forces broke a three-year Daesh siege of parts of Deir Ezzor earlier this month and are fighting to drive the militants from the city, their last major urban stronghold in Syria. The city is home to nearly 100,000 residents.
Russia, which has provided crucial air support to Assad’s forces, announced the crossing of the river, saying in a statement that the troops used a pontoon bridge.
“The Syrian Army storm units have pushed the Daesh militants out of several villages on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River and are continuing their offensive toward the east, extending their gains.”
US-backed and Kurdish-led forces have also been advancing on the eastern side of the river, as both sides seek to expand their control of the oil-rich province bordering Iraq. Many oil fields, including Al-Omar, Syria’s largest, are on the eastern bank.
Over the weekend, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces said its fighters were hit by Russian airstrikes on the eastern bank of the river, in an industrial area they recently liberated from Daesh. Russia denied it was behind the airstrikes.
Rami Abdurrahman, the head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed the crossing, which, he said, was preceded by intense aerial bombing on the eastern bank.
“Even if the pro-government (forces) keep up their advance in the city, it will mean nothing if they don’t control the eastern bank,” Abdurrahman said.
The US-backed offensive is focused on the Iraq border area, which is still controlled by Daesh. Washington fears that further advances by proregime forces in Syria could help Iran expand its influence across the region via a land bridge stretching through Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, all the way to Israel.
Iran is a key ally of Assad, and has provided financial and logistical support to his forces throughout the six-year civil war. GENEVA: Outgoing Syria war crimes investigator Carla Del Ponte said on Monday she had quit her post out of frustration over “total impunity,” in a fiery farewell speech.
Del Ponte, an accomplished war crimes prosecutor, announced last month that she was leaving the Commission of Inquiry (COI) for Syria, a UN-backed panel that has collected evidence of alleged atrocities committed in the country since the outbreak of civil war in 2011.
“I resign to put an end to my frustration,” Del Ponte told the Human Rights Council, after the COI presented its latest report.
“Seven years of crimes in Syria and total impunity. That is not acceptable.”
Del Ponte, a Swiss national, worked on the international tribunals that prosecuted war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
She said that when she joined the COI she did not anticipate that the international community would fail to set up a court capable of trying crimes committed in Syria.
The commission has repeatedly urged the UN Security Council to refer Syria to the International Criminal Court, an effort that has been blocked by the Damascus regime’s ally Russia.
“Why is it not possible to have a tribunal?” Del Ponte asked, addressing some of her farewell remarks directly at Syria’s UN ambassador Hussam Edin Aala.
The COI has accused all sides — including the regime and opposition fighters — of committing war crimes in Syria.
Its most recent report, submitted to the rights council on Monday, charged Damascus with carrying out a chemical attack, which killed dozens of people in Khan Sheikhun in April.
A new UN body — called the International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism — has recently started work in Geneva with a mandate to prepare cases against specific individuals.
Del Ponte called that effort “a little step toward justice.”
But the mechanism’s chief, Catherine Marchi-Uhel of France, cautioned earlier this month that her office was not a court and had no power to bring international charges.
Meanwhile, Russia has criticized the latest report by UN investigators into Syria’s war as biased and has denounced alleged “war crimes” committed by the US-led coalition.
Diplomat Alexey Goltyaev says the 14th Commission of Inquiry report on Syria “doesn’t contain a single word about war crimes committed by the US military and its coalition partners during the storming of Raqqa” to battle Daesh militants.
He did not elaborate in his brief comments to a Human Rights Council on Monday, and refused to comment further to The Associated Press.
The Sept. 6 report faulted US forces for not taking all steps to protect civilians, but alleged “war crimes” by Syrian and/or Russian forces for “deliberately” attacking medical personnel.
Goltyaev said the commission “has served the interests of its sponsors,” allegedly countries who want to oust Syria’s Russianbacked regime.
BEIRUT: Syrian regime troops battling Daesh crossed to the eastern bank of the Euphrates River in Deir Ezzor on Monday, securing their hold on the eastern city but threatening a potential standoff with US-backed forces operating nearby.