Syrian Army Drives Away Major Rebel Offensive in Quneitra Province

Syria’s army said it repulsed a major rebel offensive against its positions in Quneitra Province, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. “Army units have foiled efforts by the terrorist groups against these villages in the Quneitra countryside,” a Syrian army source told Reuters, claiming that soldiers had killed or wounded at least 200 insurgents.

A coalition of rebel groups – notably lacking al-Qaida’s Syria wing Nusra Front – had announced the day before they launched the offensive their intention to take over several hilltops and the government-controlled villages of Tel Shaar and Tel Bazaq, north of the deserted provincial capital of Quneitra.

Taking Quneitra would allow the rebels access to a supply route to opposition groups south of Damascus, in the opposition-controlled western Ghouta, from where they could target Assad’s seat of power, Reuters said.

Israeli PM Threatens to Intervene in Syrian Civil War Over Druze

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had given “instructions to do what is necessary” to help Syria’s Druze minority, in the clearest sign yet that the Jewish state was prepared to intervene in Syria’s civil war.

He made the comments after Syrian rebels surrounded the Druze village of Khadr, which sits near the border, and took a hilltop, according to monitors from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The prime minister also warned Syrian rebel groups operating in southern Syria not to attack and to stay away from Khadr. Druze leaders in Israel and the Golan Heights warned that they might storm the frontier to save their relatives, fearing a sectarian massacre. Local media reported that the government was considering establishing a buffer zone on the Syrian side of the border for refugees – a move that would be an unprecedented step given decades in which the frontier has been a “frozen zone”.

The warning comes as fighting intensified between al-Qaida’s Jabhat al-Nusra and Syrian rebels and the Syrian army in southern Syria. Last week, 20 Druze villagers were also killed in an altercation with members of Jabhat al-Nusra in Idlib province in the northwest. Al-Nusra have insisted they are not intent on killing Druze, a sect that hardline jihadists consider to be heretical or apostate from true Islam, and apologized for the killings in Idlib.

Syria’s Chemical Weapons Almost All Destroyed: Monitoring Group

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the monitoring group overseeing the destruction of Syria’s chemical arms stockpile, said almost all effluent from the neutralized weapons had been eliminated, the New York Times reported.

The declaration did nothing to assuage critics of the Syrian government, who say the Assad government has simply shifted increasing its use of chlorine in makeshift poison gas bombs dumped on civilians and suspected rebels. It also comes as the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in Washington heard testimony from Syrian doctors and others describing the chlorine bombs as horrific weapons that had asphyxiated young children. Assad denies that his forces have dropped chlorine bombs, which would be a war crime.

Recommended Reads

• Newsweek: Syrian Doctors Detail Horror of Chemical Weapons Attacks to Congress
• Reuters: U.S. Weighs Near-Term Assad Military Retrenchment in Syria
• Agence France-Presse: Syria Refugees Return to Border Town After IS Defeat
• BBC: Getting into Islamic State Over the Turkey-Syria Border
• Reuters: U.N. Syria Envoy Condemns Attacks by Both Sides, Seeks Greater Access