UN armoured vehicles cross into the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights yesterday.
Reuters/United Nations
UN peacekeepers in the Golan Heights are pulling out from four positions and a camp on the Syrian side of the Syrian-Israeli border due to a severe deterioration of security in the region, the United Nations said yesterday.
The decision to pull blue-helmeted observers back to the Israeli side of the Golan Heights comes after recent clashes between members of the UN mission, known as UNDOF, and Al-Qaeda-linked militants. The skirmishes have been due to increasing spillover from the three-year-old Syrian civil war.
“The situation in UNDOF on the Syrian side and the area of separation has deteriorated severely over the last several days,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters.
“Armed groups have made advances in the area of UNDOF positions, posing a direct threat to the safety and security of the UN peacekeepers along the ‘Bravo’ (Syrian) line and in Camp Faouar,” he said, adding that all UN personnel in those positions have been moved to the Israeli side.
According to a diplomatic source, troops pulled back from four positions in the northern part of the so-called area of separation.
“UNDOF continues to use all available assets to carry out its mandated tasks in this exceptionally challenging environment,” Dujarric said.
UNDOF, which was established in 1974, monitors a ceasefire line that has separated Israelis from Syrians in the Golan Heights since a 1973 war.
Separately, a new UN report on UNDOF submitted to the Security Council, an advance copy of which was obtained by Reuters, said the Syrian military and various armed groups have increased their presence along the ceasefire line in violation of the 1973 truce, forcing the mission to abandon key positions.
That was “significantly impacting the mission’s ability to carry out its mandate”, it added.
There was no suggestion that UNDOF was shutting down. Late last month, 45 Fijian peacekeepers were kidnapped by members of the Al Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, Islamist militants fighting the Syrian army. They were released last week. At the time the Fijians were abducted, 72 UNDOF Filipino peacekeepers were trapped by the militants, though they succeeded in escaping.
Syria and Israel technically remain at war. Syrian troops are not allowed in the area of separation, a narrow strip of land running about 70km from Mount Hermon on the Lebanese border to the Yarmouk River frontier with Jordan.
UNDOF monitors the area of separation, with about 1,220 peacekeepers from six countries.
Assad forces destroy IS-controlled bridge
Agencies /Beirut
Syrian special forces yesterday destroyed a bridge over the Euphrates River used by Islamic State to move supplies in eastern Syria, media run by Hezbollah said, a blow to the group in the swathe of Syrian territory it controls near Iraq.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war, said an explosion had destroyed the bridge in Deir al-Zor city that is of vital importance to Islamic State as the only way for it to move into parts of the city it controls.
Islamic State seized control of most of Deir al-Zor province in July as its fighters took territory from rival insurgent groups using weaponry brought in from Iraq. Parts of Deir al-Zor city, including its airport, remain in government hands.
“The Syrian armed forces destroyed the Political Bridge in Deir al-Zor in a special operation carried out by special forces and army engineers, leading to the killing of the militants who were on it,” Al Manar, a media organisation run by the Lebanese group Hezbollah, reported on its website.
Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, has been an important ally of President Bashar al-Assad in the civil war and has deployed forces to fight alongside government loyalists.
The Syrian government has been pressing an air campaign against Islamic State in eastern and central Syria as the United States seeks to assemble a coalition against the group that has seized large areas of both Syria and Iraq.
Western governments have ruled out the idea of co-operating with President Bashar al-Assad in the fight.
Elsewhere in the war-torn country, regime bombardment on rebel areas of the northern city of Aleppo killed at least 10 civilians, the Observatory said.
Aleppo has been under an intense aerial bombing campaign since December
