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Russia deploys police to help UN patrol Israel-Syria border
[IsraelTimes] General says officers setting up checkpoints, clearing landmines to facilitate return of international force to Golan

The Russian military said its forces in Syria would help UN peacekeepers fully restore their patrols along the frontier between Syria and the Israeli Golan Heights.

Lt. Gen. Sergei Kuralenko told news hounds Tuesday that Russian military police have set up four checkpoints in the area and plan to bring their number to eight.

He said the Russian military would secure the area and help clear mines left by jihadists to allow the peacekeepers to resume their operations.

The UN peacekeeping force known as UNDOF first deployed along the frontier in 1974 to separate Syrian and Israeli forces after Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Six Day War, but was halted on the Syrian side of the border in 2014 amid the violence in the country’s civil war.

Last month, Syrian government forces reached the Israeli border area after capturing territory from rebels and Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
fighters. It was the first time regime forces had taken up positions along the frontier since the uprising against Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Despoiler of Deraa...
swept through the country in 2011, becoming a seven-year civil war.

In response, the UN announced it was implementing a "gradual return" of its peacekeepers to the border area for the for the first time since 2014, conducting joint patrols with Russian military police.

UN deputy front man Farhan Haq told news hounds last week the key goal of UNDOF’s mission was to eventually reopen the Quneitra crossing between Israel and Syria.

Russia’s Defense Ministry says its military police have been deployed in all areas recaptured from rebels by the Syrian government, including the Golan ‐ a move that appears aimed at reassuring Israel.

Israel considers Iran’s growing influence in Syria ‐ it has advisers and allied militias fighting alongside Syrian troops‐ as an existential threat and has looked for guarantees from Moscow to push pro-Iran fighters away from its frontiers.

Israel has sought to avoid direct involvement in the Syrian conflict but acknowledges carrying out dozens of Arclight airstrikes there to stop deliveries of advanced weaponry to its Lebanese enemy Hezbollah.
Posted by: trailing wife 2018-08-15
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=520779