Assad defies US, presses assault in southwest Syria

BEIRUT: Syrian government helicopters dropped barrel bombs on opposition areas of the country’s southwest on Friday for the first time in a year, a war monitor and rebel officials said, in defiance of US 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 this week began ramping up an assault there, threatening a “de-escalation” zone agreed upon by the United States and Russia last year.

The US 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.

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday demanded an immediate end to military escalation in southwestern Syria, saying he was “concerned at the significant risks these offensives pose to regional security,” a spokesman for the UN chief said.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said earlier on Friday that the Syrian military escalation “unambiguously violates” the de-escalation arrangement and that over 11,000 people had already been displaced.

“Russia will ultimately bear responsibility for any further escalations in Syria,” Haley said in a statement.

A major offensive would risk a wider escalation that could draw the United States deeper into the war. The southwest is of strategic concern to US-allied Israel, which has this year stepped up attacks on militia allied to Assad.

The barrel bombs targeted a cluster of rebel-held towns including Busra Al Harir northeast of Deraa city, where the government attack threatens to bisect a finger of rebel ground jutting northwards into land held by the government.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said Syrian government helicopters had dropped more than 12 barrel bombs on the area, causing damage, but no reported deaths.

Abu Bakr Al Hassan, spokesman for the rebel group Jaish Al Thawra, which fights under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), said the munitions had been dropped on three towns and villages and that war planes had hit another.

“I believe (the bombardment) is testing two things: the steadfastness of the FSA fighters and the degree of US commitment to the de-escalation agreement in the south,” he said.

A major offensive would risk a wider escalation that could draw the United States deeper into the war

Full story @ timesofoman.com/world