Skip to footer

Syria attacks militants near Golan Heights border crossing

Airstrikes come the day after Al Qaeda-affiliated militants took control of the area.

|
Ariel Schalit/AP
Smoke rises following an explosion in Syria's Quneitra province as Syrian rebels clashed with President Bashar Assad’s forces, seen from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Thursday, Aug. 28, 2014.
  • By Staff Associated Press

| Beirut

Syrian government warplanes targeted rebels near the country's frontier with Israel in the Golan Heights on Thursday, a day after opposition fighters captured a border crossing point in the region.

The Syrian airstrikes hit several areas near the border in Quneitra province, including the village of Jaba, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Local Coordination Committees activist group also reported the air raids.

The Observatory said heavy clashes were raging between the rebels and Syrian military in Jaba and the surrounding countryside.

White plumes of smoke set off by exploding mortar rounds could be seen on Thursday from the Israeli side of the Golan. The sound of small arms fire could be heard echoing in the background.

An array of Syrian rebel groups, including the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front, captured the frontier crossing on Wednesday. A rebel spokesman said the opposition is focused on fighting President Bashar Assad, and poses no threat to Israel.

Wednesday, the Monitor reported this development could help bring pressure on Hamas in Gaza.

The Al Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra in Syria arrived on Israel’s doorstep Wednesday, capturing the Quneitra border crossing to the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

But the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sees a silver lining to the sobering development at the lightly-used border post: More fodder to recruit allies in its struggle against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. 

Mr. Netanyahu and his spokesmen have been pushing the line that Hamas is indistinguishable from groups like Al Qaeda or the self-styled Islamic State, a Sunni rebel group that now holds a long stretch of territory in Iraq and meaningful pockets in Syria. The Quneitra takeover serves as yet more fodder for Israel to argue that Al Qaeda-style groups are dedicated to ultimately upending all the Arab regimes as well as destroying Israel, and thus strengthens its alliance with those who see Hamas as part fo that threatening trend.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Syria attacks militants near Golan Heights border crossing
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0828/Syria-attacks-militants-near-Golan-Heights-border-crossing
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe