PHOTO: Samir Kantar with Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, July 2008 (Mussa al-Husseini/AFP)


LATEST

SUNDAY FEATURE

  • Developing: Russian Airstrikes Kill 50+ in Idlib

    UPDATE 1630 GMT: At least three rockets have been fired from Lebanon into northern Israel, hours after an Israeli airstrike killed a leading Hezbollah member inside Syria.

    The rockets landed in open areas near the city of Nahariya in the Western Galilee. There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

    Lebanese media reported that four rockets were launched, indicating that a fourth may have fallen into the sea off the Israeli coast.


    ORIGINAL ENTRY: An Israeli airstrike inside Syria has killed a leading member of Hezbollah, the Lebanese organization allied with the Assad regime.

    Samir Kantar was among nine people killed in a building in Jaramana area in south Damascus, reported Hezbollah’s outlet Al-Manar TV. A Syrian commander, named as Farhan Issam She’lan, was among the casualties.

    “At 10:15 p.m. on Saturday December 19, Zionist enemy planes bombed the building where he lived in Jaramana,” Hezbollah said in a statement. “The dean of liberated detainees from Israeli prisons, brother Mujahid Samir Kuntar, was martyred along with several Syrian citizens in the strike.”

    Al-Manar said two jets fired four long-range missiles.

    Kantar’s brother Bassam confirmed the death on social media: “With pride, we mourn the martyrdom of the commander Samir Kantar. We have the honour of becoming among the families of martyrs after being among the families of the prisoners for 30 years.”

    A confidante of President Assad, Ahmad Shalash, claimed Israel “painted their aircraft with letters that masqueraded it as Russian…fooling the Syrian air defense…that it’s a friendly aircraft on the way to bomb terrorists”.

    Coverage of the attack by pro-Assad al-Ikhbariya TV:

    Kantar was imprisoned and given three life terms in Israel for involvement in a 1979 Palestinian Liberation Front attack that killed four people, including a policeman and a four-year-old girl who was kidnapped and slain alongside her father.

    He was among five Hezbollah prisoners released in 2008 and four Hezbollah guerrillas were freed in 2008 in exchange for the bodies of two Israeli soldiers, whose capture by 2006 by Hezbollah sparked a 34-day war.

    During the Syrian conflict, Kantar reportedly has been recruiting fellow Druze from the south for the regime’s militia, the National Defence Forces.


    Human Rights Watch: “Many Cluster Bombs Since Start of Russian Airstrikes”

    Human Rights Watch has issued a report documenting the use of cluster munitions on at least 20 occasions since Russian airstrikes began on September 30.

    HRW posts detailed information of attacks in nine locations that killed at least 35 civilians, including five women and 17 children, and injured dozens.

    On November 9, as Syrian authorities promised to not use indiscriminate weapons, cluster munitions killed seven civilians and injured dozens in a camp for internally displaced people in Idlib Province, near the Turkish border.

    HRW documented several subsequent attacks in Idlib, Hama, and Aleppo Province and on two schools in the Damascus suburb of Douma, killing at least eight children.

    The organization said it could not determine whether the cluster bombs were dropped by Russian or regime warplanes.


    Opposition LCC Criticizes “Unclear” UN Resolution on Syria

    The opposition Local Coordination Committees have issued a statement challenging the UN resolution on Syria, unanimously adopted by the Security Council on Friday.

    The LCC says the resolution “lacks a clear vision and road map that obligates Bashar Al-Assad and his allies to stop their savage war against the Syrian people”. They claim that it “reflects the Russian position as a partner in crime through its unwavering support for Bashar al-Assad, compounded by Russia’s direct military intervention in Syria, which has targeted the civilian population in the form air strikes and rocket shelling on cities, towns, and villages”.

    The resolution envisages ceasefires and opposition-regime talks beginning in January; however, it has no statement on the future of President Assad and no indication how negotiations and the ceasefires will be established.

    See Syria Daily, Dec 19: UN Security Council Agrees Resolution, But Avoids Main Issues