BEIRUT // Syrian forces yesterday seized a suburb of Damascus from rebels fighting to overthrow Bashar Al Assad in a push that has shored up government control of the capital’s outskirts, state television reported.
Mr Al Assad’s forces, backed by Shiite fighters from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran, have been gaining ground around Damascus since last month, storming several rebel-held suburbs and choking off supplies to others in the east and south.
Although neither side appears to have the strength to gain a decisive edge over the other in the conflict, the government’s offensive has bolstered its position ahead of expected international peace talks.
Syrian state television said the army had “extended full control” over Hatetat Al Turkman, south-east of Damascus near the airport road, cutting off an arms and ammunition supply route to rebels occupying a crescent of suburbs around the capital.
The armed forces seized the area in a 48-hour assault from five directions, the report said, showing live footage of Syrian soldiers deployed in the area.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Lebanese Shiite group Hizbollah had assisted in the assault. Hizbollah is backed by Mr Al Assad’s ally Iran and has sent fighters into Syria to support government forces.
The pro-opposition Observatory, which verifies reports through a network of sources around Syria, said about 17 rebels were killed in the fighting, including several from groups with links to Al Qaeda such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. About 25 government fighters were killed, it said.
The United Nations says Syria’s conflict has killed more than 100,000 people. Fighting has continued despite an international deal for Syria to eliminate its chemical weapons and efforts to bring both sides to a peace conference.
Insurgents have pushed back against government gains around Damascus but have failed to regain the momentum that helped them seize some suburbs and launch bomb and rocket attacks into the city centre several months ago.
Rebels yesterday shelled the Jaramana district, a government-held area that links a ring of rebel-held suburbs and is also near the airport road, state media and rebels said.
“This area is very important to both sides,” said a rebel fighter in the area known as Anas. “Control over Jaramana means control over the airport road, and control over the airport road means destroying an important supply route for the regime.”
Rebels blew up a gas pipeline on Wednesday, knocking out power in much of Syria, including Damascus.
Outside the capital, a car bomb exploded in a heavily guarded district in the central city of Homs, killing three people and wounding about 60, a doctor at a local hospital said.
The blast was on one of the main streets in the Nozha district, inhabited by members of Mr Al Assad’s Alawite sect and guarded by paramilitary forces loyal to the government.
Residents said women and children were wounded in the blast, which occurred as pupils were leaving primary schools.
In a sign of how regionalised and entangled the conflict has become, Kurdish militants clashed with fighters from Jabhat Al Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq over a series of villages along the northeastern border with Iraq.
Meanwhile, an activist said that Syria has freed 64 women prisoners this week, or half the number expected to be released under a weekend hostage deal.
Nine Lebanese Shiite hostages held for 17 months by a rebel group in northern Syria were exchanged on Saturday for two Turkish pilots abducted in Lebanon in August.
The release of 128 female detainees held in Syrian regime jails formed part of the deal brokered by Turkey, Qatar and Lebanon.
“Since Tuesday the Syrian authorities have released 64 of the 128 prisoners due to be freed as part of the agreement,” activist Sima Nassar said.
“We have received assurances that the others will be released by the end of the week,” she added.
The latest batch was freed on Wednesday from the notorious Adra prison, northwest of the Syrian capital, and most of them hail from Damascus province.
“Syrian authorities have ordered some prisoners to leave Syrian territory while others were given a choice to stay or leave,” she added.
Among those released were a Lebanese, two Palestinians and a Syrian who had been imprisoned because her uncle is a dissident and her father a dissident lawyer, Ms Nassar said.
* Reuters with additional reporting by Agence France-Presse
Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
French Touch
Carla Bruni
(Verve)
First Person
Richard Flanagan
Chatto & Windus
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
Tips to avoid getting scammed
1) Beware of cheques presented late on Thursday
2) Visit an RTA centre to change registration only after receiving payment
3) Be aware of people asking to test drive the car alone
4) Try not to close the sale at night
5) Don't be rushed into a sale
6) Call 901 if you see any suspicious behaviour
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
