WarSclerotic

DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria state media said Sunday the country’s air defense systems intercepted and destroyed three “hostile” targets over a Russian air base in the country’s coastal region.

There were no more details about the suspected attack or who was behind it, but it comes amid rising violations of a cease-fire in Syria’s west negotiated by Turkey and Russia and in place since September.

On Sunday, Russia Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said on state television that the agreement with Turkey is not fully implemented, leaving the situation there as a matter of concern “first of all, by the Syrian authorities and also Moscow.” He didn’t address the suspected drone attack.

The Britain-based monitoring group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said explosions heard in the region were from air defense systems intercepting suspected attacking drones. The Observatory said such drones had previously targeted the Russian air base in Latakia province — the last such attack coming in November, despite the cease-fire deal.

The de-escalation deal in Idlib province averted a Syrian government offensive on the armed opposition enclave, which is also home to nearly 3 million people. The agreement created a security zone free of heavy weapons and monitored by Turkish troops to halt fighting.

But infighting between the armed groups in Idlib escalated into a major showdown. Earlier this month, members of the al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Arabic for Levant Liberation Committee, took over control of Idlib and the surrounding countryside and forced rival Turkey-backed insurgents to accept an HTS-controlled administration.

Last week, Russia complained that the al-Qaeda-linked group’s hold increasingly threatened its air base and urged Turkey to do more to rein in the militants in the enclave.

The Syrian government has repeatedly threatened to launch an offensive to recapture Idlib province, while Turkey had complained that Damascus was trying to undermine the deal.

An Israeli Defense Force search-and-rescue team landed in Brazil late Sunday evening where they will join forces with local rescue crews who are searching for hundreds of people missing in the wake of a catastrophic dam collapse.

The Civil Defense office in Minais Gerais state on Sunday raised the confirmed death toll to 58, with up to 300 people still missing following the avalanche of iron ore waste from a mine Friday.

The Israeli team of some 130 conscripted and reservist soldiers landed on a specially chartered El Al flight at  Belo Horizonte International Airport in South Western Brazil late Sunday.

The team was greeted on the runway by the governor of  Minas Gerais, Romeu Zema. The heads of the delegation immediately began talks with local officials in charge of the rescue to coordinate efforts, according to Brazil’s Globo TV.

An El Al airplane carrying 130 members of an IDF search and rescue team arrives in Belo Horizonte, Brazil on January 27, 2019 (Screencapture/ Globo TV)

The delegation is mostly made up of military search-and-rescue specialists and medical officers and also includes members of the Israeli Navy’s Yaltam scuba unit who were also brought in to assist in the efforts, as the military expected a significant amount of underwater missions in the flooded region.

They are expected to begin work already on Monday morning.

“Following a situational assessment and discussions with local officials, it emerged that search and rescue is the main need at the Brazilian disaster site,” the Israel Defense Forces said in a statement.

The army said the search-and-rescue teams would use radar, underwater sonar, cellular detection systems and drones to locate the missing people.

Ties between Israel and Brazil have warmed with the election of Bolsonaro, who said earlier this month that he will move his country’s embassy to Jerusalem. The Brazilian president’s confirmation of the move came after Netanyahu visited the South American country for Bolsonaro’s January 1 investiture.

Israel regularly offers aid and search and rescue help to countries both friendly and hostile, though this appeared to be the first-ever aid delegation to Brazil.

Brazilian rescue crews returned to mud-covered flats Sunday to resume the search  after the operation was suspended for several hours over fears that a second dam was at risk of breach.

Earlier Sunday, authorities stopped the search and evacuated several neighborhoods in the southeastern city of Brumadinho that were within range of the second B6 dam owned by the Brazilian mining company Vale. An estimated 24,000 people were told to get to higher ground, but by the afternoon civil engineers said the second dam was no longer at risk.

A volunteer walks next to a partially destroyed home, two days after a dam collapsed in Brumadinho, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

“Get out searching!” a woman yelled at firefighters near a refugee set up in the center of Brumadinho. “They could be out there in the bush.”

Areas of water-soaked mud appeared to be drying out, which could help firefighters get to areas previously unreachable.

Even before the brief suspension of rescue efforts, hope that loved ones had survived a tsunami of iron ore mine waste from Friday’s dam collapse was turning to anguish and anger over the increasing likelihood that many of the missing had died.

Zema, the governor said that by now most recovery efforts will entail pulling out bodies.

A cow sits stuck after a dam collapsed in Brumadinho, Brazil, Sunday, Jan. 27, 2019. Brazilian officials on Sunday suspended the search for potential survivors of a Jan. 25 dam collapse that has killed at least 40 people amid fears that another nearby dam owned by the same company was also at risk of breaching. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

The flow of waste reached the nearby community of Vila Ferteco and an occupied Vale administrative office. It buried buildings to their rooftops and an extensive field of the mud cut off roads.

Some residents barely escaped with their lives.

“I saw all the mud coming down the hill, snapping the trees as it descended. It was a tremendous noise,” said a tearful Simone Pedrosa, from the neighborhood of Parque Cachoeira, 5 miles (8 kilometers) from where the dam collapsed.

Pedrosa, 45, and her parents dashed to their car and drove to the highest point in the neighborhood.

“If we had gone down the other direction, we would have died,” Pedrosa said.

“I cannot get that noise out of my head,” she said. “It’s a trauma … I’ll never forget.”

A helicopter takes of carrying a rescued body that was found in the mud, after a dam collapse near Brumadinho, Brazil, Saturday, Jan. 26, 2019. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

In addition to the dead, 23 people were hospitalized, according to the Minas Gerais fire department. There had been some signs of hope earlier Saturday when authorities found 43 more people alive.

The rivers of mining waste also raised fears of widespread environmental contamination and degradation.

According to Vale’s website, the waste is composed mostly of sand and is non-toxic. However, a UN report found that the waste from a similar disaster in 2015 “contained high levels of toxic heavy metals.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday said Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah was “embarrassed” in the wake of Israel’s success in identifying and destroying a series of cross-border attack tunnels from Lebanon, and said the Lebanon-based terror group is struggling financially in the wake of sanctions imposed on its sponsor Iran.

“Yesterday Nasrallah broke his silence. He is embarrassed for three reasons: Firstly, due to our tremendous success in Operation Northern Shield,” the prime minister said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting, referring to the Israeli military’s campaign to dismantle the underground infrastructure.

“He and his men invested tremendous effort in the surprise weapon of the tunnels, including digging them — contrary to what he said — in recent years and in recent months. Within six weeks we completely deprived him of that weapon,” Netanyahu said.

“Second, Nasrallah is embarrassed by financial distress. The policy we have advocated to renew the sanctions against Iran is a policy adopted by President Trump in a clear and sharp manner, severely harming the sources of funding for Iran and its proxies, first and foremost Hezbollah.

“And thirdly Nasrallah is embarrassed by our determination. Hezbollah is faced with the lethal force of the IDF, and believe me, Nasrallah has good reasons not to want to feel our blows land,” added Netanyahu.

Nasrallah, leader of the Hezbollah terror group, on Saturday said Israel’s operation to uncover and destroy cross-border attack tunnels was indicative of an intelligence failure, and said the group’s plans for an invasion of the Galilee remained intact.

Hezbollah terror group leader Hassan Nasrallah is interviewed on the al-Mayadeen Lebanese television channel, January 26, 2019 (Screen grab)

Breaking months of silence, and speaking for the first time since Israel launched Operation Northern Shield in early December to uncover and destroy the tunnels dug under its border, Nasrallah claimed during an interview with the pro-Hezbollah al-Mayadeen TV that “some of the tunnels are from before Resolution 1701 and the Second Lebanon War.”

UN Resolution 1701 ended the 2006 conflict and called for all armed groups in Lebanon besides the country’s military to remain north of the Litani River. Israel has for years claimed that Hezbollah has been violating the resolution by conducting military activities along the border.

“The Israelis discovered a number of tunnels after many years, and it’s not a surprise. The surprise is that these tunnels, they took some time to find,” Nasrallah said on the al-Mayadeen channel.

“One of the tunnels discovered in recent weeks is 13 or 14 years old,” said a smiling Nasrallah. The Israeli operation brought to light the “failure” of the country’s intelligence services, he added.

Israeli troops prepare to destroy attack tunnels dug into Israel from southern Lebanon by the Hezbollah terror group on December 20, 2018. (Israel Defense Forces)

Nasrallah’s claim regarding when work began on some of the tunnels appeared to line up with a Channel 13 report earlier this month. Israel has said it was aware of Hezbollah’s tunnel operations for several years.

Nasrallah also suggested that Israeli citizens should question the information they were being given on the tunnels, on the basis that northern residents’ concerns about the presence of attack tunnels had been dismissed for years.

“Moshe Ya’alon confirmed during Operation Northern Shield that there were tunnels,” he said, presumably referring to the former defense minister’s admission that officials had lied about the existence of the tunnels. “My question to the settlers in the north: Do you think Netanyahu, Eisenkot, and the new chief of staff are lying to you now or telling the truth?”

Nasrallah went on to claim that the tunnels were hardly central to Hezbollah’s attack plan in a future war, and that Israeli leaders had inflated their importance “to leave the [army] with a significant achievement” to boast of.

He confirmed Israeli leaders’ accusations that “part of our plan for the next war is to enter the Galilee, a part of our plan we are capable of, God willing. The important thing is that we have this capability and we have had it for years.”

But, he claimed, “The uncovering of the tunnels does not affect by 10 percent our plans to take over the Galilee. If we decide to do it — even if they’ve destroyed the tunnels — can’t we rebuild them?” He also suggested there may be attack tunnels on the Israeli-Lebanese border that Israel has not yet discovered.

Attack tunnel dug into Israel from southern Lebanon that the Israeli military believes Hezbollah planned to use in future wars, which was discovered in January 2019. (Israel Defense Forces)

Saturday’s interview with Nasrallah was an extraordinarily long one, lasting over three hours.

Despite his bluster, the terror leader would not officially confirm that the cross-border tunnels had actually been dug by Hezbollah.

“Israel is claiming that Hezbollah dug them. I don’t have to say that I or Hezbollah dug the tunnels, because we always prefer to keep ambiguity on defense. We have no reason to work for free for Israel,” he said. He added: “I won’t confirm or deny if all of the tunnels have been uncovered.”

He also insisted that Operation Northern Shield “has not ended, despite the Israelis having announced its completion. Digging is still going on.”

The IDF announced the end of Operation Northern Shield two weeks ago.

Outgoing IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot (L) and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attend a handover ceremony at the Defense Ministry for new Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi on January 15, 2019. (Jack Guez/AFP)

Nasrallah, 58, took over the Iran-backed Hezbollah group after its previous leader was killed in a 1992 targeted assassination by Israeli helicopters on his convoy.

As a precaution against a repeat of the incident, Nasrallah’s movements are shrouded in mystery with few public appearances. He instead prefers videos or live television broadcasts.

Hezbollah is designated a terror organization, either entirely or partly, by Israel, the United States, the European Union and other countries.

Nasrallah also warned Hezbollah could respond to Israeli airstrikes in Syria targeting mainly Iranian positions and what Israel says are weapons shipments.

Adam Rasgon contributed to this report.