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    Israel Strikes Military Assets Across Syria to Keep Them From Rebels

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    The Israeli military appeared to have unleashed more airstrikes across Syria overnight into Tuesday in an attempt to destroy weapons, aircraft and military facilities before the rebels controlling much of the country could take possession of them.Photographs from Syria on Tuesday showed sunken boats at a shipyard, crumbled buildings and the charred remains of a science research center that had been linked to the country’s chemical weapons program, according to the news agencies that distributed the images.It was unclear what had caused the damage in the photographs, but Israeli officials said that their country was striking weapon stockpiles in Syria, including chemical weapons and long-range missiles and rockets, to prevent Syria’s new leaders from potentially attacking Israel in the future.Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, told reporters on Monday that the leaders of Syria’s rebels “are people with an extreme ideology of radical Islam.” Israeli forces are destroying the weapons “in order that they don’t fall in the hands of extremists,” he added.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an independent group based in Britain that has tracked the civil war in Syria for years, said that it had documented 322 Israeli strikes in Syria since Sunday, when President Bashar al-Assad fled the country. It said the strikes had targeted “warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, and numerous weapons and ammunition depots,” including some as recently as Tuesday morning.The group also said that Israeli forces had pushed further into Syrian territory, past a buffer zone set up by the United Nations.Avichay Adraee, an Israeli military spokesman, said on social media on Tuesday that Israeli forces “are present inside the buffer zone and at defensive points close to the border in order to protect the Israeli border.” He added that reports that the military was “advancing or approaching Damascus are completely incorrect.”Israeli military vehicles entering the buffer zone with Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday.Jalaa Marey/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe region between Israel and Syria has been fought over for decades. Israel captured the Golan Heights during a war in 1967 and annexed most of it in 1981. Most of the world views this area as Israeli-occupied Syrian territory. Beyond the Golan Heights, into Syrian territory, there is a 155-square-mile demilitarized buffer zone that has been patrolled by U.N. troops since the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, also known as the Yom Kippur War.Israeli ground forces advanced into that zone on Saturday, their first overt entry since 1973. They took control of the summit of Mount Hermon in Syria, a strategic point to oversee the region, as well as other important locations to give them control of the area, Israeli officials said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he had ordered the incursion to protect Israeli territory.“For the time being, we are there,” Mr. Saar said. “But we define these steps as limited and temporary.”Aaron Boxerman More

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      Crowds Throng to Syria’s Sednaya Prison to Find Relatives and Friends

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      Crowds descended on a prison on the outskirts of Damascus, the Syrian capital, on Monday, desperate to learn the fate of friends and relatives detained at a place that symbolized terror and death under the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.Some hailed taxis or waited for buses from the city to the prison, Sednaya, which opened over the weekend as Mr. al-Assad fell. Others packed into cars, inching through traffic. Many appeared conflicted by hope and dread amid the euphoria that has gripped Damascus since Mr. al-Assad fled to Russia.“Seizing the city is a joy — we are joyous,” said one rebel fighter, Mohammad Bakir, who sat in the back of a mud-caked car en route to the prison, his rifle tucked between his knees. He said he had not heard from his mother, brother and cousin since they disappeared in 2012 after they protested against the government and were presumably detained.“But the real victory will be when I find my family,” Mr. Bakir, 42, said above the din of car horns.Prisons were central to Mr. al-Assad’s ability to crush the civilian uprising that began in 2011 and the rebellion that followed. He set up an industrial-scale system of arbitrary arrests and torture prisons, according to reports by human rights groups.More than 130,000 people were subjected to arbitrary arrest and detention by the government, according to a report in August by the Syrian Network for Human Rights, a nonprofit, which began its count when the conflict started in 2011. The network said that more than 15,000 people had died “due to torture” by government forces from 2011 to July this year.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Syria Fighting Worsens Already Dire Conditions in Idlib and Aleppo

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      Years of war and a powerful earthquake had led to crushing poverty, displacement and breakdowns in services. But over the last several days, the region’s misery deepened.Hospitals have been ripped apart by airstrikes. Nearly 50,000 people have fled their homes, and tens of thousands lack running water. Civilians are being laid out in body bags on hospital floors after shells struck their neighborhoods.Scenes from the bloodiest days of Syria’s civil war, which had lain largely dormant for several years, are now repeating themselves in the country’s northwest as pro-government forces try to beat back a surprise rebel offensive, according to aid workers, a war monitor and the United Nations, who warned of a rapidly worsening humanitarian situation.Conditions were already dire for civilians in the area: Years of war and a powerful February 2023 earthquake had led to crushing poverty, displacement and breakdowns in services. But over the last several days, the region’s misery deepened as Russian and Syrian fighter jets have repeatedly struck Idlib and Aleppo in northwestern Syria and rebels fought to capture more territory.The United Nations said more than 50 airstrikes had hit Idlib Province in northwestern Syria on Sunday and Monday. Four health facilities, four schools and two camps housing people displaced from earlier phases of the conflict suffered damage, it said.Stéphane Dujarric, a U.N. spokesman, said in a briefing Monday night that a strike on a water station had also cut off access for at least 40,000 people. And the Norwegian Refugee Council, which provides aid in the region, said its humanitarian workers were reporting that bakeries and shops had shut down in Aleppo, leading to food shortages.Damage at a camp for displaced people north of Idlib on Monday. The United Nations said two such camps suffered damage in recent days.Ghaith Alsayed/Associated PressWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Syria Rebels Take Aleppo Airport and Attack Hama, Officials and a Monitor Say

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      Forces opposed to President Bashar al-Assad have captured the Aleppo airport and are attacking the western city of Hama, according to local officials and a Britain-based war monitor.Rebel forces advanced in Syria on Sunday amid fierce fighting, capturing the airport of the major city of Aleppo and attacking the outskirts of the western city of Hama, according to local officials and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Government troops loyal to President Bashar al-Assad were trying to repel them, they said.The rebels had captured much of Aleppo a day earlier in a surprise offensive. They now control a broad swath of land across the provinces of Hama, Idlib and Aleppo, in the west and northwest of Syria, according to information from local officials and the Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor.The New York Times also observed rebels in control of parts of Hama Province as well as neighborhoods in the east of the city of Aleppo and parts of the countryside beyond it that government forces had held only days earlier.Government troops were battling to defend the city of Hama from being overrun, according to the Observatory. Syrian government warplanes were also bombing territory that was now held by the rebels, causing civilian casualties, the monitor said.It said that government forces were receiving support from Russian fighter jets, which were striking targets across the countryside near Hama and Idlib province.Russia, which is allied with Mr. Assad, has repeatedly come to his aid since early in the civil war that broke out in 2011, after protests over Mr. Assad’s autocratic rule drew a swift and bloody military crackdown. Mr. al-Assad has also counted on military and political support from Iran. More

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      Syrian Rebel Groups Launch Largest Offensive in Years

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      Scores of people were killed after forces opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad overtook a Syrian military base, a monitoring group reported.Syrian opposition forces have launched an offensive in western Aleppo district that has killed at least 89 people and overtaken a Syrian military base, a monitoring group based in Britain reported on Wednesday.The attacks are the most notable escalation in the Syrian conflict in years, expert say. Fighters from various rebel factions, including a group linked to Al Qaeda called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, had advanced by Wednesday to within about six miles of Aleppo and taken over weapons and vehicles previously held by forces loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, according to the monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.Opposition factions announced on the Telegram messaging app that they had taken Base 46, the largest Syrian government base in the area, as well as tanks, and had captured members of the pro-government forces on Wednesday. They also announced that they had taken over a number of villages in the countryside west of Aleppo district.“In the matter of about 10 hours, a wide spectrum of armed opposition groups have managed to get to within about four or five kilometers now of Aleppo city, which is of gigantic significance,” Charles Lister, the director of Middle East Institute’s Syria and counterterrorism programs, said on Wednesday.The Syrian government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The attacks are believed to be the first major effort since 2020 by the rebel groups to take territory, when Turkey, which sided with the opposition forces, and Russia, which is Syria’s ally, brokered a cease-fire to halt fighting in the Idlib region.The recent escalation is part of increasing volatility in the region, experts say.“Pro-regime militias have been upping their attacks in the area, trying to deter the rebels because Israel has been weakening the Syrian regime’s allies like Hezbollah and Iran,” said Natasha Hall, a senior fellow with the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.The success of the offensive thus far shows the vulnerability of the Syrian government and the growing prowess of the various opposition factions, experts say.“Years ago, an offense of this size would have been pushed back by the regime,” Mr. Lister said. But opposition forces like Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which traces its origins from the Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, have invested heavily in resources and training for night operations. “That basically levels the playing field,” he added.Dr. Mustafa Aledou, a pharmacist and program manager for MedGlobal, a Chicago-based nonprofit, lives in Idlib city and said he was less than 20 miles from the attacks.His family woke early in the morning to the sound of bombing, he said.“We can hear the explosions,” he said. “We can hear the attacks in the battle in the frontline between the fighting forces.”The local authorities announced the closure of schools and large markets because of the fighting.Milana Mazaeva More

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      The Shadow War Between Iran and Israel: A Timeline

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      For decades, Israel and Iran have fought a shadow war across the Middle East, trading attacks by land, sea, air and in cyberspace. A recent round of strikes — mainly an aerial barrage by Iran against Israel last weekend — has brought the conflict more clearly into the open and raised fears of a broader war.A retaliatory Israeli strike on an Iranian air base on Friday, however, appeared limited in scope, and analysts said it suggested an effort to pull back from the dangerous cycle and potentially move the war back into the shadows.Here is a recent history of the conflict:August 2019: An Israeli airstrike killed two Iranian-trained militants in Syria, a drone set off a blast near a Hezbollah office in Lebanon and an airstrike in Qaim, Iraq, killed a commander of an Iran-backed Iraqi militia. Israel accused Iran at the time of trying to establish an overland arms-supply line through Iraq and northern Syria to Lebanon, and analysts said the strikes were aimed at stopping Iran and signaling to its proxies that Israel would not tolerate a fleet of smart missiles on its borders.January 2020: Israel greeted with satisfaction the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, the commander of the foreign-facing arm of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in an American drone strike in Baghdad.Iran hit back by attacking two bases in Iraq that housed American troops with a barrage of missiles, wounding about 100 U.S. military personnel.2021-22: In July 2021, an oil tanker managed by an Israeli-owned shipping company was attacked off the coast of Oman, killing two crew members, according to the company and three Israeli officials. Two of the officials said that the attack appeared to have been carried out by Iranian drones.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More