{"id":14777,"date":"2018-09-12T04:24:10","date_gmt":"2018-09-12T04:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=14777"},"modified":"2018-09-12T04:24:10","modified_gmt":"2018-09-12T04:24:10","slug":"us-warns-iran-it-will-respond-to-attacks-by-tehran-allies-in-iraq","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=14777","title":{"rendered":"US warns Iran it will respond to attacks by Tehran allies in Iraq"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday called on Russia and Iran to halt a looming \u201chumanitarian disaster\u201d in Idlib, saying Syrians there could not be left to the mercy of President Bashar Assad.<\/p>\n

\nErdogan has called for a cease-fire in the northwestern province of Idlib, the last opposition stronghold in Syria, as an assault by Syrian regime forces is expected any day.<\/p>\n

\nWriting in the Wall Street Journal, Erdogan said the West had an \u201cobligation to stop the next bloodshed\u201d but that regime allies Moscow and Tehran were \u201clikewise responsible for stopping this humanitarian disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

\nThe comments came four days after the Turkish president met his Russian and Iranian counterparts for a summit in Tehran, where Erdogan sought to avert a bloody assault in Idlib.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nAnalysts said Erdogan failed at the summit to achieve his aim, and his comments appear to indicate growing frustration in Turkey that Iran and Russia are not reining in Assad.<\/p>\n

\nWhile Turkey has been one of the main supporters of the Syrian opposition and called for Assad\u2019s ouster, Ankara has until now worked closely with Assad\u2019s allies Moscow and Tehran to find a political solution to the conflict.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nThe UN has warned a large-scale military operation could create \u201cthe worst humanitarian catastrophe\u201d of this century in Idlib, home to some 3 million people \u2014 about half of them displaced from other parts of the country.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe consequences of inaction are immense. We cannot leave the Syrian people to the mercy of Bashar Assad,\u201d Erdogan wrote.<\/p>\n

\nThe Turkish leader also criticized Assad\u2019s bid to legitimize the fight in Idlib as a counter-terrorism operation.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cInnocent people must not be sacrificed in the name of fighting terrorism,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\nIdlib\u2019s most powerful armed faction is the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group, which Ankara officially designated a \u201cterrorist\u201d group last month.<\/p>\n

\nErdogan acknowledged that groups such as HTS \u201cremain active in this area\u201d but insisted that such fighters \u201caccount for a fraction of Idlib\u2019s population.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\nHe called for a \u201ccomprehensive international counter-terrorism operation\u201d and said that the assistance of pro-Ankara moderate fighters will be \u201ccrucial\u201d in Idlib.<\/p>\n

\nTurkey has already taken in more than 3 million refugees from Syria and Ankara fears any large offensive will lead to a new influx of up to two million people from Idlib.<\/p>\n

\nThe civil war has claimed about 350,000 lives since 2011.<\/p>\n

\nMeanwhile, an ambush by Daesh has killed 21 regime fighters in Syria\u2019s southern province of Sweida, a Britain-based war monitor said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\nThe attack occurred late on Monday in the rural Tulul Al-Safa area of the province, about 100 km southeast of Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.<\/p>\n

\nEight radical fighters were also killed in subsequent clashes in the area, which is the militants\u2019 last bastion in Sweida, the observatory said.<\/p>\n

\nState news agency SANA reported heavy clashes with Daesh in the area, adding that regime aircraft and artillery \u201ctargeted hideouts and positions\u201d held by the group.<\/p>\n

\nRegime forces have been fighting Daesh on Sweida\u2019s arid plains since terrorists carried out a wave of attacks in the mainly Druze province on July 25, killing 250 people, according to the Observatory.<\/p>\n

\nDuring their rampage, which targeted the provincial capital as well as rural areas, the insurgents also took about around 30 hostages, mostly women and their children.<\/p>\n

\nAt least 27 are believed to still be held, according to Human Rights Watch, after Daesh said it had beheaded a 19-year-old man and announced an elderly woman had died. Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said the hostages were believed to be held captive in Tulul Al-Safa.<\/p>\n

\nA source in Sweida told AFP that families had had no word of their kidnapped relatives in weeks.<\/p>\n

\nDaesh has lost nearly all of the great swathes of territory straddling Iraq and Syria which it seized in 2014, but retains a presence in the vast desert that lies between Damascus and the Iraqi border, and holds a pocket in the Euphrates Valley in the east.<\/p>\n

\nA Kurdish-Arab alliance launched an assault on the pocket\u2019s main town of Hajjin on Monday, with support from the US-led coalition fighting Daesh.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday called on Russia and Iran to halt a looming \u201chumanitarian disaster\u201d in Idlib, saying Syrians there could not be left to the mercy of President Bashar Assad. Erdogan has called for a cease-fire in the northwestern province of Idlib, the last opposition stronghold in Syria, as an assault…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":14778,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=14777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}