UN envoy warns Syria conflict not over yet

DAMASCUS: A UN envoy has warned that Syria’s protracted conflict “has not ended yet”, even as victorious rebels stepped up contacts with governments that deemed ousted president Bashar al-Assad a pariah.

Assad fled Syria just over a week ago following a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), more than 13 years after his crackdown on democracy protests precipitated one of the deadliest wars of the century.

However, the United Nations’ special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said on Tuesday “there have been significant hostilities in the last two weeks, before a ceasefire was brokered”.

“I am seriously concerned about reports of military escalation. Such an escalation could be catastrophic,” said Pedersen, referring to fighting between the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and Turkish-backed groups who have captured several Kurdish towns in recent weeks.

Washington later announced it had brokered an extension to the ceasefire in the flashpoint town of Manbij and was seeking a broader understanding with Ankara.

The Manbij truce “is extended through the end of the week and we will, obviously, look to see that ceasefire extended as far as possible into the future”, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters.

That came amid fears of an assault by Turkey on the Kurdish-held border town of Kobane, also known as Ain al-Arab.

SDF leader Mazloum Abdi proposed in a post on social media platform X the establishment of a “demilitarised zone” in Kobane under US supervision.

Washington regards the SDF as an important ally in its war against the Islamic State group in Syria, although the new Damascus authorities have made clear their opposition to continued Kurdish self-rule in the northeast.

The HTS military chief said in an AFP interview on Tuesday that Kurdish-held areas of Syria would be integrated under the country’s new leadership.

“The Kurdish people are one of the components of the Syrian people… Syria will not be divided and there will be no federal entities,” said Murhaf Abu Qasra, known by his nom de guerre Abu Hassan al-Hamawi.

Abu Qasra also called on the international community to “find a solution” to repeated Israeli strikes on military targets and its “incursion” into the UN-patrolled buffer zone on the Golan Heights.

Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes on Syrian military assets since Assad’s overthrow in what it says is a bid to prevent them falling into hostile hands.

Israeli troops also occupied strategic positions in a UN-patrolled buffer zone in a move UN chief Antonio Guterres described as a breach of the 1974 armistice.

Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held a security briefing on Tuesday on Mount Hermon, Syria’s highest peak, one of the areas of the buffer zone that Israel seized this month.

Netanyahu visited “outposts at the summit of Mount Hermon for the first time since they were seized by the military”, Katz’s office said.

UN warns against mass returns

The UN’s migration chief, Amy Pope, warned against a “large-scale return” of refugees to Syria, saying it “will only destabilise the country further”.

She told AFP “Tens of thousands” had fled Syria and “we are hearing that especially religious minorities are leaving”, pointing to reports that members of the Shiite Muslim minority had fled because of “the possible threat”.

Members of the UN Security Council — which includes Assad ally Russia as well as the United States — called on Tuesday for an “inclusive and Syrian-led” political process.

“This political process should meet the legitimate aspirations of all Syrians, protect all of them and enable them to peacefully, independently and democratically determine their own futures,” a Council statement said.

It also “underlined the need for Syria and its neighbours to mutually refrain from any action… that could undermine each other’s security”.