The international coalition fighting against Islamic State “has no reason” to reject cooperation with the Syrian government, according to Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, who said that “one can’t fight evil with illicit wars.”
"Unfortunately, we consider the [international] coalition to be built on a flawed basis. We of course share the principles of combatting terrorism, but you cannot fight evil with illicit wars," Lavrov said. "We support every action that leads to weakening the terrorist threat in the region, but any action must be taken strictly in accordance with international law," Lavrov said. He called attention to the fact that the UN Security Council, as well as the UN's human rights protection bodies, have called for action that will not let "the fight on terror turn into lawlessness."Lavrov's views were supported by Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu.
“To ignore the capabilities of the Syrian army as a partner and an ally in the fight against IS [Islamic State, formerly known as ISIS/ISIL], means sacrificing the security of the whole region to some geopolitical schemes and expectations,” Lavrov said on Thursday after a meeting with his Turkish counterpart, RIA Novosti reported. Russia’s foreign minister said the Syrian authorities are countering the militants’ aggression, and the country’s president is commander-in-chief of “probably the most competent ground forces combatting terrorism.”
“Our partners have a choice: either continue persisting that President Assad's resignation will save the region from the terrorism threat – I don’t think anyone needs convincing of how utopian that idea is,” Lavrov said, adding that another option is to start collaboration in order to “prevent the disintegration of this historically-treasured region.”source
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage captionDemonstrators attacked Hurriyet's offices last week, claiming the paper misquoted the president
Turkish prosecutors have begun an inquiry into a big media group, after photos were published of dead soldiers, state-run Anadolu news agency says.
The inquiry into the Dogan group, which owns Hurriyet newspaper and part owns CNN Turk TV, also involves an interview with an alleged Kurdish PKK militant.
A ceasefire between Turkey and the PKK unravelled in July and the conflict has escalated in recent weeks.
As tensions increased, protesters attacked Hurriyet's offices last week.
Pro-government demonstrators accused the paper of misquoting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
There were also attacks on another newspaper, Daily Sabah, as well as a number of offices belonging to the pro-Kurdish HDP party.
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage captionPresident Erdogan attended a soldier's funeral last week but Nokta magazine mocked up a picture of him taking a selfie
Anadolu news agency said prosecutors moved against Dogan after a pro-government newspaper said Hurriyet had used uncensored pictures of fallen Turkish soldiers.
On Monday, police raided a weekly news magazine, Nokta, seizing copies of its latest issue, whose cover had a mock-up picture, showing President Erdogan taking a selfie at a soldier's funeral.
Media captionMark Lowen inspects the recent scars of battle in the Turkish town of Cizre
Insulting the president is considered a crime in Turkey and carries a prison term of more than four years.
Dozens of people have been killed in the conflict in the east of the country, which is taking place as Turks prepare for another general election. In June, the ruling AK Party lost its majority in parliament and has since failed to persuade other parties to join a coalition.
Image copyrightGetty ImagesImage captionSome of the worst fighting has been in the south-eastern city of Cizre where many people have died
Some of the worst fighting has been in the mainly Kurdish city of Cizre in south-eastern Turkey, where the government says 31 militants have been killed. The HDP says 23 civilians died there.
Critics of Mr Erdogan have accused him of using the collapse of the ceasefire to curb support for the HDP, whose share of the vote in June cost his party its majority.
They also say he has tried to silence both mainstream and social media ahead of 1 November elections.
Mr Erdogan became president in August 2014, after several years as prime minister, and has vowed to bolster the powers of the presidency.
Image captionIbrahim fled to Brazil to avoid being drafted into the Syrian army
When Ibrahim landed in Brazil he spent three days sleeping on the floor and wandering around aimlessly at Sao Paulo's Guarulhos airport.
"I couldn't speak the language and I didn't know where I could find help. I was alone," says Ibrahim, who asks me not to use his family name because of fears for the safety of his relatives still in Syria.
But the 20 year old has no regrets and is glad that rather than facing a perilous journey by sea, as many Syrian refugees are forced to undertake, he chose the safer option of flying to Brazil.
It was also probably a lot cheaper.
"When I found out that the Brazilian Embassy in Beirut was offering 'laissez-passer' (right of passage) to refugees of the war in Syria, it was the best option for me. Why pay $3,000 or $4,000 (£1,955-£2,607) to get smuggled across the sea and risk drowning, when for half of that price I can fly to Brazil?"
'Obliged to act'
Ibrahim fled to Brazil to avoid being drafted into the Syrian army, a country where conscription is compulsory.
His older brother, Mohammad, was less fortunate. Indeed, it's a miracle that he is still alive and was able to escape to Brazil to be with his brother.
Image captionMohammad says he has at least 20 shrapnel scars
Showing me at least 20 shrapnel scars and bullet wounds on his arms and legs, Mohammad doesn't care much for who is on which "side" in the war - just that it is tearing the country apart.
That's not to say that life for Ibrahim, Mohammad - and more than 7,000 other Syrian refugees now in Brazil - is easy when they get here - far from it.
Brazil has a long tradition of accepting refugees and economic migrants from the Middle East, Africa and other countries.
Those seeking asylum can request it on arrival in the country and, as Brazil's economy grew over the last decade, work permits were readily available for those wanting a job.
Last week Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff wrote a newspaper editorial saying that while European nations prevaricated and argued over how many refugees to take in, Brazil was proud to play its part in alleviating what has become a global crisis.
"More than 10 million of us (Brazilians) are descendants of Syrians and Lebanese immigrants, so we are obliged to act in this way," wrote the president.
She concluded: "Brazil has its arms open to take in these refugees… who want to come to live and work here. And we want to offer them this hope".
Tough life
Ibrahim and Mohammed now run a popular and busy little stall in Rio de Janeiro, selling home-made humus, kibbe and other Middle Eastern pastries. The money they earn helps to look after their elderly parents and their two younger siblings.
Image captionThe Hafir family now tries to learn some basic Portuguese
The boys agree with Ms Rousseff's assertion that Brazilians have been overwhelmingly kind and receptive to the new incomers but, they say, there's almost a vacuum of official assistance once they enter Brazil.
The Hafir family, too, have few home comforts but they try to make visitors feel welcome. Amina, 23, makes coffee on a small stove as I take my shoes off and enter the small, single room they now live in together.
Jamal Hafir has been a refugee for his entire life, as a Palestinian whose parents fled to Syria in 1948.
Forced out of his Damascus home two years ago, as the neighbourhood was destroyed by the civil war, Jamal has now brought his own family half way around the world to Brazil.
"There's more help for refugees in Europe," Jamal tells me. "But we knew it would be dangerous to go by sea. So when we heard Brazil's embassy in Lebanon was offering visas, we thought it's better to come to a country that accepts you."
Syria's war has robbed the family of their home and the children of their education.
Image captionJamal Hafir - a Palestinian - has been a refugee for his entire life
While the two boys are out looking for work, the family's four girls, who haven't been to school for three years, sit in the corner of the room on mattresses that double up as sofas and study some basic Portuguese.
They've escaped the war but life in Brazil is still tough.
A local pro-Palestinian charity, not the Brazilian government, is housing the Hafir family at an abandoned office block in Sao Paulo.
The charity pays for electricity and water, but this is still essentially a squat, and like most informal housing, the family don't know how long they'll be able to remain.
But it's not just the Brazilian federal government and individual states who are being urged to do more.
Established communities should also, arguably, play their part. In the last century thousands of Syrians were among the many immigrants who helped to build modern Brazil and other South American countries like Argentina.
Their descendants have been criticised in some sections of the media for not organising and coming forward with practical help for those now fleeing the Middle East.
Back in the Sao Paulo squat, Abdul Salam Sayed plays a lament for his distant, broken homeland on his oud.
Another refugee, forced to leave his Damascus home, Abdul Salam is grateful for the shelter Brazil has afforded him.
But surviving and perhaps even settling here will be a huge challenge for people who have already gone through so much.
'Europe’s Guantanamo': Refugees in Hungary fed 'like animals in pen' (VIDEO)
Dramatic footage has emerged showing people at Hungary's main refugee camp on the border with Serbia being fed like wild animals. Crowds of refugees, children and women among them, shout to get the officers' attention, struggling to catch the bread thrown to them through the air.
Some 150 people can be seen at Roszke camp in a fenced-in enclosure inside a big hall as Hungarian police, equipped with helmets and hygiene masks, throw bags of sandwiches at them.
The video was shot secretly by an Austrian volunteer who visited the flashpoint camp earlier this week. The footage, which was uploaded on YouTube late Thursday, had over 25,000 views by Friday afternoon.
"It was like animals being fed in a pen, like Guantanamo in Europe," Alexander Spritzendorfer, whose wife, Michaela filmed the scenes, told AFP. The couple came to Roszke to bring food, clothes and medication to the refugees.
"It was inhumane and it really speaks for these people that they didn't fight over the food despite being clearly very hungry,"Michaela Spritzendorfer-Ehrenhauser said.
"It was around 8 o'clock and they were giving dinner to people," she said. "There were maybe 100 people trying to catch these plastic bags with sausages... They were not able to organize a camp and treat them like human beings," Reuters quoted Spritzendorfer-Ehrenhauser as saying.
Hungarian police said Friday they had launched an urgent investigation into the video.
Meanwhile, government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs claimed that people were spending only a few hours in an "optimal case" at this detention center. But they can remain there for up to two days under a procedure permitted by the EU.
"I can see policemen who have been performing their duties for months, trying to take care of 23,000 migrants arriving continuously day by day, while there is no cooperation whatsoever on their part," Kovacs told Reuters. "I can see they are trying to maintain order among those who are unable to line up for food."
With Europe experiencing an escalating refugee crisis, Hungary is bearing the brunt of the latest influx as thousands of refugees flee violence in the Middle East and North Africa. Tens of thousands of asylum seekers are entering the European Union, using Hungary as a transit country as they seek to reach better-off countries such as Germany, Austria and Sweden.
On Wednesday, a journalist for Hungary’s N1TV channel, associated with the far-right Jobbik party, was fired after her colleagues filmed her kicking and tripping up migrants, including children, fleeing from the police. Camerawoman Petra László was filming at a migrants’ center near the village of Roszke on the Hungarian-Serbian border when hundreds of migrants broke through a police cordon in a field.
At one point, she found herself in the middle of a throng of people running from the police. After a couple of migrants accidentally bumped into László, she moved to one and aimed a kick at a young refugee girl passing by. Later on, filming a police officer trying to detain a man carrying a young boy, the journalist apparently deliberately stuck her leg out and tripped the man up, causing him to fall on the ground along with the child.
With the fog of war swirling around Russia’s military intentions in Syria, a growing body of evidence pointing to the actual units being deployed suggests Moscow may have much bigger plans in the works, security experts say.
Photographs and videos compiled by bloggers in recent days have yielded images of Russian tanks, aircraft, artillery, and other equipment in Syria, as well as naval ships traversing Turkey’s Bosphorus.
Meanwhile, Russian blogger Ruslan Leviyev has discovered evidence on Russian social=media sites pointing to Moscow’s deployment to Syria of troops from a brigade prominently involved in the stealth campaign to seize Ukraine’s Crimea Peninsula last year.
Leviyev found a post on the popular Russian social-networking site Vkontakte by a man identified as Anatoly Golota, who said he belonged to a subunit of the 810th Naval Infantry Brigade. The VKontakte profile has since been deleted, but in an archived September 1 post, the user wrote: “Off to Syria.”
Another Vkontakte profile featured a “contract” soldier named Maxim Mazhnikov, who also appears to be serving with the 810th brigade. One photograph appears to show Mazhnikov standing in shorts, a T-shirt, and flip-flops next to an illustrated poster showing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian President Vladimir Putin with the caption “The Time Of Courage And Real Men.”
‘Power-Projection Operation’
Military observers say the 810th brigade consists of around 2,500 troops and is considered a capable unit that in the past has participated in operations in Georgia, antipiracy efforts off Somalia, and in Chechnya, where it suffered casualties during Russia’s second war with separatists that began in 1999.
“These are the guys who would go in first. Probably the case is that a bigger contingent will be coming sooner,” said Stephen Blank, a Russian foreign policy and defense expert at the Washington-based American Foreign Policy Council. “These are the guys who would go first in a power-projection operation.”
Mark Galeotti: "It’s clear the Russian are upping the ante in Syria."
Mark Galeotti, a professor at New York University who researches Russia’s security and military structures, said the 810th brigade not only performed effectively in Crimea, but its subunits may have also rotated through front lines in eastern Ukraine, where Kyiv’s forces have battled pro-Russian separatists in a bloody war that erupted in April 2014.
This would mean that more of the brigade’s officers have actual combat experience, he said.
“It’s clear the Russian are upping the ante in Syria, including combat troops rather than just specialists and trainers and tactical advisers,” Galeotti told RFE/RL. “Yes, it’s noteworthy, but it’s not something that will tilt the battlefield for Syria, for Assad’s forces.”
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova this week confirmed the presence of Russian military personnel in Syria, Russia’s longtime ally. But she said they are merely specialists assisting with arms deliveries, something Moscow has provided Syria with for years.
WATCH: What Are Russian Troops Doing In Syria?
Zakharova also said that the Russian deployment was aimed at combating terrorism and the Islamic State militant group in particular -- an argument that fits into the Kremlin's insistence that backing Assad is essential to defeating the militants.
Both NATO and the United States have expressed concerns over reports of a growing Russian military presence in Syria.
Supply-Line Hurdles
It remains unclear exactly what Russia’s longer plan for its presence in Syria might be.
Galeotti said a sustained operation could prove difficult because Russia has few good supply lines. Moscow lacks the equipment to airlift large numbers of troops or heavy weaponry like tanks, so the materiel would have to be sent by ship, which is more time-consuming and more visible to surveillance in passing through Istanbul, he said.
Galeotti added that Russia’s best-trained combat units and related forces have been stretched thin by the fighting in eastern Ukraine over the past year, though Russia denies accusations by Kyiv and the West that it is supporting the rebels with troops, training, and weapons.
If a larger contingent were to be deployed to Syria, it would potentially hamper Russian actions in Ukraine unless the Syria deployment involved conscripts, which is highly unlikely, Galeotti said.
Earlier this week, Dmitry Gudkov, one of the only independent legislators in Russia’s lower house of parliament, sent a letter to the Russian Defense Ministry asking specifically if Russian soldiers were being sent to Syria.
“I doubt that the Sunnis, or Shi’a, or the Alawites of the Middle East ought to be more valuable to Russia than its own citizens,” Gudkov wrote in an accompanying Facebook post.
“Enough with us fulfilling our ‘international obligations,’” Gudkov added, before making reference to the disastrous Soviet war in the 1980s. “We paid in full in Afghanistan.”
UK to take in 20,000 Syrian refugees over next 5 years
British Prime Minister David Cameron pledged on Monday to take in up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the next five years, while also announcing the UK has launched its first airstrike in the country whose civil war has driven millions to flee.
"We are proposing that Britain should resettle up to 20,000 Syrian refugees over the rest of this parliament. In doing so, we will continue to show the world that this country is a country of extraordinary compassion,” he said in a statement to parliament.
Cameron has been under pressure to take in a far greater number of refugees to help with the widermigrant crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people arrive in mainland Europe.
The figure is still well below the numbers being taken by some other European countries however, withGermany expecting to receive around 800,000 refugees and migrants this year.
Britain has so far taken in only 216 Syrian refugees under a UN-backed relocation scheme and about 5,000 other Syrians who have made their own way to Britain and been granted asylum.
Cameron said the refugees would be taken from camps in Syria and neighbouring countries. Since 2011, millions of Syrians have been displaced by civil war, with more than 4 million ending up in refugee camps in surrounding countries like Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon.
“We will continue with our approach of taking refugees from the camps and from elsewhere in Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon,” he said. “This provides refugees with a more direct and safe route to the United Kingdom.”
UK launches first airstrike in Syria
Cameron also revealed that Britain has for the first time conducted an airstrike in Syria, killing two of its own nationals suspected of fighting for the Islamic State (IS) group, despite not having a parliamentary mandate to take military action in the country.
Britain conducts regular attacks in neighbouring Iraq and flies drones over Syria to gather intelligence on the hardline IS group. But unlike some other coalition partners, it does not target IS group positions in Syria.
Cameron told parliament that, as an act of self defence, one Briton had been targeted and killed in a precision airstrike carried out by an RAF remotely piloted aircraft in August. Two others travelling with the man – including another Briton – were also killed.
Cameron said the Briton targeted in the strike, Reyaad Khan, had been suspected of planning terrorist attacks against the UK.
“There was a terrorist directing murder on our streets and no other means to stop him,” Cameron said. “We took this action because there was no alternative.”
Russian aircraft are delivering military supplies as well as humanitarian aid to Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov confirmed on Thursday, but denied that Moscow had increased its activities in the war-torn country.
The United States and NATO have expressed concerns in recent days about a possible Russian military buildup at a Syrian airfield.
Russia has backed the regime of President Bashar al-Assad since the 2011 start of Syria's civil war, providing weapons and military experts to help train Syria's military throughout the more than four-year-long conflict.
Lavrov on Thursday once again confirmed that Russia has military personnel in Syria, but said that current deliveries were in line with existing contracts when asked about Russian planes flying to the airfield near the Syrian city of Latakia.
"Russian planes are sending to Syria both military equipment in accordance with current contracts and humanitarian aid," Lavrov told reporters.
The State Department said that Secretary of State John Kerry had aired the US concerns to Lavrov for a first time on Saturday, telling him that if there was indeed a Russian buildup, "these actions could further escalate the conflict". Kerry spoke to Lavrov for a second time on Wednesday to discuss "the problems of regulating the conflict in Syria", the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement, without providing further details.
Three Russian military transport planes landed in Syria and new housing units had been set up at the airport in the port city of Latakia, US officials said on Tuesday, moves that suggest a possible increase in Russia's military support for Assad's regime.
But Moscow denies that its activities in the country have gone beyond its known deliveries on commercial contracts and activities at the Soviet-era naval facility in the coastal city of Tartus.
'Hundreds' of people
At least three Russian aircraft landed at the airport in Latakia on Syria's Mediterranean coast over the past several days, US officials told AFP on Tuesday on condition of anonymity. Two of the aircraft were giant Antonov-124 Condor planes and a third was a passenger flight, one officials said.
The Russians have installed modular housing units -- enough for "hundreds" of people -- at the airport, as well as portable air traffic control equipment.
"All of this seems to be suggesting that Russia is planning to do some sort of forward air-operating hub out of this airfield," the official said.
Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook was quick to condemn the reported moves, saying that any "effort to bolster the Assad regime right now would potentially be destabilizing".
Syria has also denied the reports of increased military activity by Russian troops on its soil.
Russia tells Washington: talk to us over Syria or risk 'unintended incidents'
Russia called on Friday for Washington to restart direct military-to-military cooperation to avert "unintended incidents" near Syria, at a time when U.S. officials say Moscow is building up forces to protect President Bashar al-Assad's government.
The United States is leading a campaign of air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syrian air space, and a greater Russian presence would raise the prospect of the Cold War superpower foes encountering each other on the battlefield.
Both Moscow and Washington say their enemy is Islamic State. But Russia supports the government of Assad, while the United States says his presence makes the situation worse.
In recent days, U.S. officials have described what they say is a buildup of Russian equipment and manpower.
Lebanese sources have told Reuters that at least some Russian troops were now engaged in combat operations in support of Assad's government. Moscow has declined to comment on those reports.
At a news conference, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia was sending equipment to help Assad fight Islamic State. Russian servicemen were in Syria, he said, primarily to help service that equipment and teach Syrian soldiers how to use it.
Russia was also conducting naval exercises in the eastern Mediterranean, he said, describing the drills as long-planned and staged in accordance with international law.
Lavrov blamed Washington for cutting off direct military-to-military communications between Russia and NATO over the Ukraine crisis, saying such contacts were "important for the avoidance of undesired, unintended incidents".
"We are always in favor of military people talking to each other in a professional way. They understand each other very well," Lavrov said. "If, as (U.S. Secretary of State) John Kerry has said many times, the United States wants those channels frozen, then be our guest."
U.S. officials say they do not know what Moscow's intentions are in Syria. The reports of a Russian buildup come at a time when momentum has shifted against Assad's government in Syria's 4-year-old civil war, with Damascus suffering battlefield setbacks this year at the hands of an array of insurgent groups.
Moscow, Assad's ally since the Cold War, maintains its only Mediterranean naval base at Tartous on the Syrian coast, a strategic objective.
In recent months NATO-member Turkey has also raised the prospect of outside powers playing a greater role in Syria by proposing a "safe zone" near its border, kept free of both Islamic State and government troops.
COMMON ENEMY
The four-year-old multi-sided civil war in Syria has killed around 250,000 people and driven half of Syria's 23 million people from their homes. Some have traveled to European Union countries, creating a refugee crisis there.
Differences over Assad's future have made it impossible for Moscow and the West to take joint action against Islamic State, even though they say the group, which rules a self-proclaimed caliphate on swathes of Syria and Iraq, is their common enemy.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said on Friday it was too early to judge what exactly Russia's motivations at present were in Syria, but that "adding war to war" would not help resolve the Syrian conflict.
"If it's about defending the base in Tartous why not? But if it's to enter the conflict ...." he said, without finishing the thought.
BARGAINING POWER
Diplomats in Moscow say the Kremlin is happy for the West to believe it is building up its military in Syria, calculating that this will give it more bargaining power in any international talks about whether Assad stays in power.
Western and Arab countries have backed demands from the Syrian opposition that Assad must give way under any negotiated settlement to the war. Assad refuses to go and so far his enemies have lacked the capability to force him out, leaving the war grinding on for years. All diplomatic efforts at a solution have collapsed.
Assad’s supporters have taken encouragement this week from an apparent shift in tone from some European states that suggests a softening of demands he leave power.
Britain, one of Assad’s staunchest Western opponents, said this week it could accept him staying in place for a transition period if it helped resolve the conflict.
France, another fierce Assad opponent, said on Monday he must leave power “at some point or another”. Smaller countries went further, with Austria saying Assad must be involved in the fight against Islamic State and Spain saying negotiations with him were necessary to end the war.
The pro-Syrian government newspaper al-Watan saw Britain’s position as “a new sign of the changes in Western positions that started with Madrid and Austria”.
