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Israel has been suspected of launching an air attack on the coastal Syrian city of Baniyas, the Syrian state news agency said on Tuesday. This is the latest strike on targets thought to be linked to Iran.
The Israeli air force has intensified a more than decade-long campaign against military bases and storage facilities in Syria overseen by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps since the Gaza war started in October.
One such strike in April on Damascus, which killed most of the IRGC senior command in Syria, almost brought Israel and Iran to direct war, with Tehran launching several hundred missiles and drones at Israel.
In the latest attack over Syria, the state-linked Sana news outlet said air defence systems intercepted and shot down some of the missiles, which were launched just past midnight from the sea. A fire broke out after the strikes.
It was aimed at “one of the points in the vicinity of the city of Baniyas, resulting in some material losses”, the agency said, citing a military official.
Several Baniyas residents identified the area of the attack as Arab Al Mulk bay, five kilometres north of the city, according to their Facebook pages.
Baniyas, which borders the Alawite Mountains, heartland of President Bashar Al Assad's minority sect, is home to a critical oil refinery, which provides much of Syria's fuel demand. Iranian tankers often dock at its port and a number of them have suffered suspected Israeli attacks in recent years.
The city's 105,000 population has a large proportion of Sunnis, who formed the core of the 2011 Syrian revolt. Mass demonstrations calling for the downfall of the regime broke out in Baniyas that year, but the authorities swiftly used force to crush the protest movement in Baniyas and other urban centres across Syria.
A reconnaissance specialist in the Syrian opposition said he believes an Iranian air defence system, equipped with electronic jamming capabilities, was installed in Baniyas this year and was the target of the latest Israeli attack.
He told The National that Iran has been setting up similar systems in Syria after a visit by Mr Assad to Tehran in late may to offer condolences for the death of president Ebrahim Raisi.
“Ironing out issues related to increasing Iranian defence capabilities in Syria seems to have been discussed on the visit,” the opposition member said.
The port is also thought by military analysts to be one of the main weapons supply points in Syria. In 2017, Israeli security firm ImageSat International released satellite imagery it said showed ballistic missile production close to the port.
The images were strikingly similar to ballistic missile production sites previously identified in Iran.
Israel has not confirmed the strike and rarely comments on operations, but it has repeatedly said it will not allow Iran to expand its presence in Syria.
Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on sites in Syria since 2012. The targets have mainly been Iran-backed forces, including militants from Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iraqi militias, as well as Syrian army air defence sites.
In May, a Syrian officer was killed in a car bomb in Damascus. A relative and other sources told The National that he served in electronic warfare, in an army department linked to Iran and North Korea.
Iran has been a crucial ally of the ruling elite in Damascus, providing elite IRGC commanders and proxy militias who have acted as a main ground component on the side of the regime in the Syrian civil war.
Russia also intervened on the side of the regime, after loyalist forces suffered major losses in 2015.
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A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
- 2018: Formal work begins
- November 2021: First 17 volumes launched
- November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
- October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
- November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
Where to apply
Applicants should send their completed applications - CV, covering letter, sample(s) of your work, letter of recommendation - to Nick March, Assistant Editor in Chief at The National and UAE programme administrator for the Rosalynn Carter Fellowships for Mental Health Journalism, by 5pm on April 30, 2020.
Please send applications to nmarch@thenational.ae and please mark the subject line as “Rosalynn Carter Fellowship for Mental Health Journalism (UAE programme application)”.
The local advisory board will consider all applications and will interview a short list of candidates in Abu Dhabi in June 2020. Successful candidates will be informed before July 30, 2020.
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The biog
Name: Atheja Ali Busaibah
Date of birth: 15 November, 1951
Favourite books: Ihsan Abdel Quddous books, such as “The Sun will Never Set”
Hobbies: Reading and writing poetry
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Tenet
Director: Christopher Nolan
Stars: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Dimple Kapadia, Michael Caine, Kenneth Branagh
Rating: 5/5
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Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
The burning issue
The internal combustion engine is facing a watershed moment – major manufacturer Volvo is to stop producing petroleum-powered vehicles by 2021 and countries in Europe, including the UK, have vowed to ban their sale before 2040. The National takes a look at the story of one of the most successful technologies of the last 100 years and how it has impacted life in the UAE.
Read part four: an affection for classic cars lives on
Read part three: the age of the electric vehicle begins
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Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
Red flags
- Promises of high, fixed or 'guaranteed' returns.
- Unregulated structured products or complex investments often used to bypass traditional safeguards.
- Lack of clear information, vague language, no access to audited financials.
- Overseas companies targeting investors in other jurisdictions - this can make legal recovery difficult.
- Hard-selling tactics - creating urgency, offering 'exclusive' deals.
Courtesy: Carol Glynn, founder of Conscious Finance Coaching
Zayed Sustainability Prize
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
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MATCH INFO
Juventus 1 (Dybala 45')
Lazio 3 (Alberto 16', Lulic 73', Cataldi 90 4')
Red card: Rodrigo Bentancur (Juventus)
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
