BRUSSELS, Jan 23 (Reuters) – The European Union on Monday imposed sanctions on more than 30 Iranian officials and organisations, including units of the powerful Revolutionary Guards, blaming them for a “brutal” crackdown on protesters and other human rights abuses.
The United States and Britain have also issued new sanctions against Iran, reflecting a deterioration in the West’s already dire relations with Tehran in recent months.
Foreign ministers from the EU’s 27 member countries agreed the measures at a meeting in Brussels.
The sanctions targeted units and senior officials of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) across Iran, including in Sunni-populated areas where the state crackdown has been intense, a list published in the EU’s Official Journal showed.
Some EU governments and the European Parliament have made clear they want the IRGC as a whole added to the bloc’s list of terrorist organisations. But the EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, noted that could only happen if a court in an EU country determined the IRGC was guilty of terrorism.
“You cannot say ‘I consider you a terrorist because I don’t like you’,” he told reporters ahead of the Brussels talks.
The new sanctions were imposed on 18 people and 19 entities. Those targeted cannot travel to the EU and any assets they hold inside the EU can be frozen.
Relations between the EU and Tehran have spiralled downwards during stalled efforts to revive talks on its nuclear programme and as Iran has moved to detain several European nationals.
The bloc has also become increasingly critical of the continuing violent treatment of protesters in Iran, including executions, and the transfer of Iranian drones to Russia.
Sweden, which currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said the new sanctions targeted “those driving the repression.”
“The EU strongly condemns the brutal and disproportionate use of force by the Iranian authorities against peaceful protesters,” Sweden’s Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said in a Twitter post by the country’s EU diplomatic mission.
The IRGC was set up shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution to protect the Shi’ite clerical ruling system. It has an estimated 125,000-strong military with army, navy and air units, and commands the Basij religious militia often used in crackdowns.
“The Iranian regime, the Revolutionary Guards terrorise their own population day after day,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock told Monday’s meeting.
The day before the Brussels meeting, over a thousand people took to the streets of the city to protest against the detention in Iran of Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele.
Iran earlier warned the EU against designating the IRGC as a terrorist entity.
Reporting by Andrew Gray, Bart Meijer Philip Blenkinsop and Parisa Hafezi, Writing by Ingrid Melander and Gabriela Baczynska, Editing by Peter Graff, Timothy Heritage and John Stonestreet
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TEL AVIV, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Israelis joined demonstrations on Saturday against judicial reform plans by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government that protesters say will threaten democratic checks and balances on ministers by the courts.
The plans, which the government says are needed to curb overreach by activist judges, have drawn fierce opposition from groups including lawyers, and raised concerns among business leaders, widening already deep political divisions in Israeli society.
“They want to turn us into a dictatorship, they want to destroy democracy,” the head of the Israeli Bar Association, Avi Chimi said. “They want to destroy judicial authority, there is no democratic country without a judicial authority.”
Netanyahu has dismissed the protests, now in their third week, as a refusal by leftist opponents to accept the results of last November’s election, which produced one of the most right-wing governments in Israel’s history.
The protesters say the future of Israeli democracy is at stake if the government succeeds in pushing through the plans, which would tighten political control over judicial appointments and limit the Supreme Court’s powers to overturn government decisions or Knesset laws.
As well as threatening the independence of judges and weakening oversight of the government and parliament, they say the plans will undermine the rights of minorities and open the door to more corruption.
[1/5] Israelis protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing coalition and its proposed judicial reforms to reduce powers of the Supreme Court, in Tel Aviv, Israel January 21, 2023. REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
“We are fighting for democracy,” said Amnon Miller, 64, among crowds of protesters, many bearing white and blue Israeli flags. “We fought in this country in the army for 30 years for our freedom and we won’t let this government take our freedom.”
Saturday’s protests, which Israeli media said were expected to draw more than 100,000 people to central Tel Aviv, come days after the Supreme Court ordered Netanyahu to fire Interior Minister Aryeh Deri, who leads the religious Shas party, over a recent tax conviction.
The new government, which took office this month, is an alliance between Netanyahu’s Likud party and a clutch of smaller religious and hard-right nationalist parties which say they have a mandate for sweeping change.
Netanyahu, who is himself on trial on corruption charges which he denies, has defended the judicial reform plans, which are currently being examined by a parliamentary committee, saying they will restore a proper balance between the three branches of government.
Likud politicians have long accused the Supreme Court of being dominated by leftist judges who they say encroach on areas outside their authority for political reasons. The court’s defenders say it plays a vital role in holding the government to account in a country that has no formal constitution.
A survey released by the Israel Democracy Institute last week showed trust in the Supreme Court was markedly higher among left-wing Israelis than among those on the right, but that there was no overall support for weakening the court’s powers.
Reporting by Emily Rose; Writing by James Mackenzie; Editing by David Holmes and Andrew Heavens
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STOCKHOLM, Jan 21 (Reuters) – Protests in Stockholm on Saturday against Turkey and Sweden’s bid to join NATO, including the burning of a copy of the Koran, sharply heightened tensions with Turkey at a time when the Nordic country needs Ankara’s backing to gain entry to the military alliance.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the vile attack on our holy book … Permitting this anti-Islam act, which targets Muslims and insults our sacred values, under the guise of freedom of expression is completely unacceptable,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said.
Its statement was issued after an anti-immigrant politician from the far-right fringe burned a copy of the Koran near the Turkish Embassy. The Turkish ministry urged Sweden to take necessary actions against the perpetrators and invited all countries to take concrete steps against Islamophobia.
A separate protest took place in the city supporting Kurds and against Sweden’s bid to join NATO. A group of pro-Turkish demonstrators also held a rally outside the embassy. All three events had police permits.
Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom said that Islamophobic provocations were appalling.
“Sweden has a far-reaching freedom of expression, but it does not imply that the Swedish Government, or myself, support the opinions expressed,” Billstrom said on Twitter.
The Koran-burning was carried out by Rasmus Paludan, leader of Danish far-right political party Hard Line. Paludan, who also has Swedish citizenship, has held a number of demonstrations in the past where he has burned the Koran.
Paludan could not immediately be reached by email for a comment. In the permit he obtained from police, it says his protest was held against Islam and what it called Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s attempt to influence freedom of expression in Sweden.
Several Arab countries including Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Kuwait denounced the Koran-burning. “Saudi Arabia calls for spreading the values of dialogue, tolerance, and coexistence, and rejects hatred and extremism,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Sweden and Finland applied last year to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but all 30 member states must approve their bids. Turkey has said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
At the demonstration to protest Sweden’s NATO bid and to show support for Kurds, speakers stood in front of a large red banner reading “We are all PKK”, referring to the Kurdistan Workers Party that is outlawed in Turkey, Sweden, and the United States among other countries, and addressed several hundred pro-Kurdish and left-wing supporters.
“We will continue our opposition to the Swedish NATO application,” Thomas Pettersson, spokesperson for Alliance Against NATO and one of organizers of the demonstration, told Reuters.
Police said the situation was calm at all three demonstrations.
DEFENCE MINISTER’S VISIT CANCELLED
Earlier on Saturday, Turkey said that due to lack of measures to restrict protests, it had cancelled a planned visit to Ankara by the Swedish defence minister.
“At this point, the visit of Swedish Defense Minister Pal Jonson to Turkey on January 27 has become meaningless. So we cancelled the visit,” Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said.
Jonson said separately that he and Akar had met on Friday during a gathering of Western allies in Germany and had decided to postpone the planned meeting.
Akar said he had discussed with Erdogan the lack of measures to restrict protests in Sweden against Turkey and had conveyed Ankara’s reaction to Jonson on the sidelines of a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group.
“It is unacceptable not to make a move or react to these (protests). The necessary things needed to be done, measures should have been taken,” Akar said, according to a statement by Turkish Defence Ministry.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry had already summoned Sweden’s ambassador on Friday over the planned protests.
Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara’s objections to their membership of NATO. Sweden says it has fulfilled its part of the memorandum but Turkey is demanding more, including extradition of 130 people it deems to be terrorists.
(This story has been corrected to remove the erroneous reference to Morocco in the ninth paragraph)
Reporting by Omer Berberoglu in Istanbul and Niklas Pollard and Simon Johnson in Stockholm
Additional reporting by Moaz Abd-Alaziz in Cairo
Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun and Niklas Pollard
Editing by Toby Chopra and Frances Kerry
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ANKARA, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Sweden and Finland must deport or extradite up to 130 “terrorists” to Turkey before the Turkish parliament will approve their bids to join NATO, President Tayyip Erdogan said.
The two Nordic states applied last year to join NATO following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but their bids must be approved by all 30 NATO member states. Turkey and Hungary have yet to endorse the applications.
Turkey has said Sweden in particular must first take a clearer stance against what it sees as terrorists, mainly Kurdish militants and a group it blames for a 2016 coup attempt.
“We said look, so if you don’t hand over your terrorists to us, we can’t pass it (approval of the NATO application) through the parliament anyway,” Erdogan said in comments late on Sunday, referring to a joint press conference he held with Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson last November.
“For this to pass the parliament, first of all you have to hand more than 100, around 130 of these terrorists to us,” Erdogan said.
Finnish politicians interpreted Erdogan’s demand as an angry response to an incident in Stockholm last week in which an effigy of the Turkish leader was strung up during what appeared to be a small protest.
“This must have been a reaction, I believe, to the events of the past days,” Finland’s foreign minister Pekka Haavisto told public broadcaster YLE.
Haavisto said he was not aware of any new official demands from Turkey.
In response to the incident in Stockholm, Turkey cancelled a planned visit to Ankara of the Swedish speaker of parliament, Andreas Norlen, who instead came to Helsinki on Monday.
“We stress that in Finland and in Sweden we have freedom of expression. We cannot control it,” the speaker of the Finnish parliament, Matti Vanhanen, told reporters at a joint news conference with Norlen.
Separately on Monday Swedish Prime Minister Kristersson said that his country was in a “good position” to secure Turkey’s ratification of its NATO bid.
Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said on Saturday that time was running out for Turkey’s parliament to ratify the bids before presidential and parliamentary elections expected in May.
Reporting by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Gareth Jones
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DAVOS, Switzerland, Jan 16 (Reuters) – Big oil firms came under pressure at the start of the World Economic Forum (WEF) from activists who accused them of hijacking the climate debate, while a Greta Thunberg-sponsored “cease and desist” campaign gained support on social media.
Major energy firms including BP (BP.L), Chevron (CVX.N) and Saudi Aramco (2222.SE) are among the 1,500 business leaders gathering for the annual meeting in the Swiss resort of Davos, where global threats including climate change are on the agenda.
“We are demanding concrete and real climate action,” said Nicolas Siegrist, the 26-year-old organiser of the protest who also heads the Young Socialists party in Switzerland.
The annual meeting of global business and political leaders opens in Davos on Monday.
“They will be in the same room with state leaders and they will push for their interests,” Siegrist said of the involvement of energy companies during a demonstration attended by several hundred people on Sunday.
The oil and gas industry has said that it needs to be part of the energy transition as fossil fuels will continue to play a major role in the world’s energy mix as countries shift to low carbon economies.
[1/5] Climate activists display a banner during a protest ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) 2023 in the Alpine resort of Davos, Switzerland, January 15, 2023. REUTERS/Arnd Wiegmann
On Monday, a social media campaign added to the pressure on oil and gas companies, by promoting a “cease and desist” notice sponsored by climate activists Thunberg, Vanessa Nakate and Luisa Neubauer, through the non-profit website Avaaz.
It demands energy company CEOs “immediately stop opening any new oil, gas, or coal extraction sites, and stop blocking the clean energy transition we all so urgently need”, and threatens legal action and more protests if they fail to comply.
The campaign, which had been signed by more than 660,000 people, had almost 200,000 shares on Monday morning.
Sumant Sinha, who heads one of India’s largest renewable energy firms, said it would be good to include big oil companies in the transition debate as they have a vital role to play.
“If oil people are part of these conversations to the extent that they are also committing to change then by all means. It is better to get them inside the tent than to have them outside the tent,” Sinha, chairman and CEO of ReNew Power, told Reuters, saying that inclusion should not lead to “sabotage”.
Rising interest rates have made it harder for renewable energy developments to attract financing, giving traditional players with deep pockets a competitive advantage.
As delegates began to arrive in Davos, Debt for Climate activists protested at a private airport in eastern Switzerland, which they said would be used by some WEF attendees, and issued a statement calling for foreign debts of poorer countries to be cancelled in order to accelerate the global energy transition.
Additional reporting by Kathryn Lurie; Editing by Alexander Smith and Alex Richardson
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TEL AVIV, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated in three major cities on Saturday against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s judicial reform plans, with organisers accusing him of undermining democratic rule weeks after his reelection.
Bestriding a religious-nationalist coalition with a solid parliamentary majority, Netanyahu, now in his sixth term, wants to rein in the Supreme Court in what he has described as a restoration of the balance of the three branches of government.
Critics say the proposed reforms would cripple judicial independence, foster corruption, set back minority rights and deprive Israel’s courts system of credibility that helps fend off war-crimes allegations abroad. Among those opposed are the Supreme Court chief justice and the country’s attorney-general.
After President Isaac Herzog appealed to polarised politicians to “lower the temperatures” of the debates, organisers of the demonstrations – held under chilly winter rain – sought to strike a note of national unity.
“Take an Israeli flag in one hand, an umbrella in the other, and come out to protect democracy and law in the State of Israel,” said centrist ex-defence minister Benny Gantz, who attended the Tel Aviv rally but, like other opposition figures, was not due to address it.
“We Are Preserving Our Shared Home,” read one demonstrator’s placard. Netanyahu was guilty of a “legal putsch”, said another.
[1/8] Israelis protest against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new right-wing coalition and its proposed judicial reforms to reduce powers of the Supreme Court in a main square in Tel Aviv, Israel January 14, 2023. REUTERS/ Ilan Rosenberg
Israeli media put the number in attendance at some 80,000, with thousands more at protests in Jerusalem and Haifa.
Social media footage showed a small number of Palestinian flags on display, in defiance of Netanyahu’s far-right allies. One of these, National Security Ministry Itamar Ben-Gvir, told Kan TV he wanted such flags removed but was awaiting the opinion of the attorney-general before ordering any crackdown by police.
The 73-year-old Netanyahu on Friday signalled flexibility on the reform plan, saying it would be implemented “with careful consideration while hearing all of the positions”.
Polls have diverged on public views of the reforms. Channel 13 TV last week found 53% of Israelis were opposed to changing the court appointments’ structure while 35% were in support. But Channel 14 TV on Thursday found 61% in favour and 35% opposed.
Critics of the Supreme Court say it is overreaching and unrepresentative of the electorate. Its proponents call the court a means of bringing equilibrium to a fractious society.
“Tens of thousands of people were at tonight’s demonstrations. In the election held here two and a half months ago, millions turned out,” tweeted Miki Zohar a senior lawmaker in Netanyahu’s conservative Likud party.
“We promised the people change, we promised governance, we promised reforms – and we will make good on that.”
Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Christina Fincher and Mark Potter
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Alireza Akbari was a former Iranian deputy defence minister
Arrested in 2019, he was accused of spying for Britain
Execution piles more strain on fraught ties with West
UK’s Sunak calls it ‘a callous and cowardly act’
U.S. joins UK in condemning ‘barbaric act’
DUBAI/LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) – Iran has executed a British-Iranian national who once served as its deputy defence minister, its judiciary said, defying calls from London and Washington for his release after he was handed the death sentence on charges of spying for Britain.
Britain, which had declared the case against Alireza Akbari politically motivated, condemned the execution, with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak calling it “a callous and cowardly act carried out by a barbaric regime”.
Akbari, 61, was arrested in 2019.
The Iranian judiciary’s Mizan news agency reported the execution without saying when it had taken place. Late on Friday, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly had urged Iran not to follow through with the sentence.
Also condemned by the United States and France, the execution looks set to further worsen Iran’s long-strained relations with the West, which have deteriorated since talks to revive its 2015 nuclear deal hit deadlock and after Tehran unleashed a deadly crackdown on protesters last year.
In an audio recording purportedly from Akbari and broadcast by BBC Persian on Wednesday, he said he had confessed to crimes he had not committed after extensive torture.
“Alireza Akbari, who was sentenced to death on charges of corruption on earth and extensive action against the country’s internal and external security through espionage for the British government’s intelligence service … was executed,” Mizan said.
The Mizan report accused Akbari of receiving payments of 1,805,000 euros ($1.95 million), 265,000 pounds ($323,989.00), and $50,000 for spying.
Cleverly said in a statement the execution would “not stand unchallenged”. He later announced Britain had summoned the Iranian Charge d’Affaires, imposed sanctions on Iran’s prosecutor general, and temporarily withdrawn its ambassador from Tehran for further consultations.
It marks a rare case of the Islamic Republic executing a serving or former senior official. One of the last occasions was in 1984, when Iranian navy commander Bahram Afzali was executed after being accused of spying for the Soviet Union.
British statements on the case have not addressed the Iranian charge that Akbari spied for Britain.
Iran’s foreign ministry summoned the British ambassador over what it called London’s “meddling in Iran’s national security realm”, the state news agency IRNA reported.
Iranian state media, which have portrayed Akbari as a super spy, broadcast a video on Thursday which they said showed he played a role in the 2020 assassination of Iran’s top nuclear scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh, killed in an attack outside Tehran which authorities blamed at the time on Israel.
In the video, Akbari did not confess to involvement in the assassination but said a British agent had asked for information about Fakhrizadeh.
Iran’s state media often airs purported confessions by suspects in politically-charged cases.
Reuters could not establish the authenticity of the state media video and audio, or when or where they were recorded.
Akbari was a close ally of Ali Shamkhani, now the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, who was defence minister from 1997 to 2005. Akbari fought during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s as a member of the Revolutionary Guards.
Alireza Akbari, Iran’s former deputy defence minister, speaks during an interview with Khabaronline in Tehran, Iran, in this undated picture obtained on January 12, 2023. Khabaronline/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS
Ramin Forghani, a nephew of Akbari, told Reuters the execution had come as a shock.
“I don’t think a person who spent all his life, from an early age, to serve the country – since the Iran-Iraq war – would spy for any country,” he said, noting Akbari had the rank of colonel in the Revolutionary Guards.
Speaking by phone from Luxembourg, he said Akbari’s wife, who lives in London, had tried but failed to persuade Iranian officials to spare his life. Reuters was unable to reach her.
‘DESPICABLE AND BARBARIC’
The U.S. State Department described the execution as politically motivated and unjust. The U.S. ambassador to London called it “appalling and sickening”. French President Emmanuel Macron called it a “despicable and barbaric act”.
Iran’s ties with the West have also been strained by its support for Russia in Ukraine, where Western states say Moscow has used Iranian drones.
Along with other Western states, Britain, which has a long history of fraught ties with Iran, has been fiercely critical of Tehran’s crackdown on anti-government protests, sparked by the death in custody of a young Iranian-Kurdish woman in September.
Iran has issued dozens of death sentences as part of the crackdown, executing at least four people.
A British minister said on Thursday Britain was actively considering proscribing the Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organisation but had not reached a final decision.
In the recording broadcast by BBC Persian, Akbari said he had made false confessions due to torture.
“With more than 3,500 hours of torture, psychedelic drugs, and physiological and psychological pressure methods, they took away my will. They drove me to the brink of madness… and forced me to make false confessions by force of arms and death threats,” he said.
Amnesty International said the execution displayed again Tehran’s “abhorrent assault on the right to life”. In Akbari’s case, “it is particularly horrific given the violations he revealed he was subjected to in prison”.
The Iranian authorities have not responded to accusations Akbari was tortured.
An Iranian state TV report – details of which Reuters could not independently verify – said he was arrested on espionage charges in 2008 before he was freed on bail and left Iran.
In an interview with BBC Persian broadcast on Friday, Akbari’s brother Mehdi said he had returned to Iran in 2019 based on an invitation from Shamkhani.
($1 = 0.9235 euros)
($1 = 0.8179 pounds)
Reporting by Dubai newsroom, Michael Holden in London, Tassilo Hummel in Paris and Kanishka Singh in Washington; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by William Mallard, Angus MacSwan, Tomasz Janowski and Christina Fincher
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China reopens borders in final farewell to zero-COVID
Hopes of slower U.S. interest rate hikes boost risk sentiment
Oil’s gain follows more than 8% drop last week
LONDON, Jan 9 (Reuters) – Oil extended gains on Monday, rising more than 3% after China’s move to reopen its borders boosted the outlook for fuel demand and overshadowed global recession concerns.
The rally was part of a wider boost for risk sentiment supported by both the reopening of the world’s biggest crude importer and hopes for less-aggressive increases to U.S. interest rates, with equities rising and the dollar weakening.
Brent crude was up $2.38, or 3.03%, at $80.95 a barrel by 1312 GMT while U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude rose $2.36, or 3.2%, to $76.13.
“If recession is avoided, global oil demand and demand growth will remain resilient,” said Tamas Varga of oil broker PVM, adding that developments in China were the main reason for Monday’s gains.
“The gradual reopening of the Chinese economy will provide an additional and immeasurable layer of price support,” he said.
The rally followed a drop last week of more than 8% for both oil benchmarks, their biggest weekly declines at the start of a year since 2016.
As part of a “new phase” in the fight against COVID-19, China opened its borders over the weekend for the first time in three years. Domestically, about 2 billion trips are expected during the Lunar New Year season, nearly double last year’s and 70% of 2019 levels, Beijing says.
In oil-specific developments, China issued a second batch of 2023 crude import quotas, according to sources and documents reviewed by Reuters, raising the total for this year by 20% from the same time last year.
Despite Monday’s oil rebound, there is still concern that the massive flow of Chinese travellers could cause another surge in COVID infections while broader economic concerns also linger.
Those concerns are reflected in oil’s market structure. Both the near-term Brent and U.S. crude contracts are trading at a discount to the next month, a structure known as contango, which typically indicates bearish sentiment. ,
Reporting by Alex Lawler
Additional reporting by Florence Tan and Jeslyn Lerh
Editing by David Goodman
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STOCKHOLM, Jan 8 (Reuters) – Sweden is confident that Turkey will approve its application to join the NATO military alliance, but cannot fulfil all the conditions Ankara has set for its support, Sweden’s prime minister said on Sunday.
“Turkey both confirms that we have done what we said we would do, but they also say that they want things that we cannot or do not want to give them,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told a defence think-tank conference in Sweden.
Finland and Sweden signed a three-way agreement with Turkey in 2022 aimed at overcoming Ankara’s objections to their membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
They applied in May to join NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but Turkey objected and accused the countries of harbouring militants, including from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party
One sticking point has been extraditions of people Turkey regards as terrorists. Ankara expressed disappointment with a decision late last year from Sweden’s top court to stop a request to extradite a journalist with alleged links to Islamic scholar Fetullah Gulen, blamed by Turkey for an attempted coup.
Reporting by Johan Ahlander and Simon Johnson; editing by Barbara Lewis
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AMMAN, Jan 2 (Reuters) – The Syrian army said on Monday an Israeli missile strike had briefly put the Damascus International Airport out of service, the latest in a string of strikes targeting Iran-linked assets.
A volley of air-launched missiles had hit the airport at 2 a.m., the army said in a statement. They had come from the direction of Lake Tiberias in Israel.
Missiles had also hit targets in the south of Damascus, killing two members of the Syrian armed forces and causing some damage, the army said.
The transport ministry said in an online statement that workers had removed debris from the strikes and that flights would resume by 9 a.m.
Earlier, two regional intelligence sources said the strikes had hit an outpost near the airport of Iran’s Quds Force and militias it backs. Their presence has spread in Syria in recent years.
The Israel Defence Force did not immediately comment on the attack.
Last year, Israel intensified strikes on Damascus International and other civilian airports to disrupt Tehran’s increasing use of aerial supply lines to deliver arms to allies in Syria and Lebanon, including Hezbollah.
Syria halted flights to and from the airport in June for nearly two weeks after Israeli strikes caused extensive damage to infrastructure, including a runway and a terminal.
Israel fired missiles at Damascus International again in September, when it also struck the country’s second-largest civilian airport in the northern city of Aleppo, putting it out of operation for several days.
Western and regional intelligence sources say Tehran has adopted civilian air transportation as a more reliable means of ferrying military equipment to its forces and to allied fighters in Syria, following Israeli disruption of ground supply.
Israel says its so-called “campaign between wars” in Syria began a decade ago, on Jan 30, 2013, with a strike against Russian-supplied SA-17 air-defence batteries that Damascus had intended to hand over to Hezbollah.
Four such strikes took place that year, but the pace had accelerated to around one a week currently, the chief of Israel’s armed forces, Lieutenant-General Aviv Kohavi, said last month.
Iran’s proxy militias, led by Lebanon’s Hezbollah, now hold sway in vast areas in eastern, southern and northwestern Syria and in several suburbs around the capital.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government has never publicly acknowledged that Iranian forces operate on his behalf in Syria’s civil war, saying Tehran has only military advisers on the ground.
Kohavi last month claimed credit for an air strike on a convoy that had entered Syria from Iraq, saying the target had been a truck carrying Iranian weaponry. read more
Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Bradley Perrett
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