The Syrian military blocked the passage of a US patrol

1 Syria

The ‘SANA’ news agency reported that the Syrian forces stopped a patrol of the US troops in north of Hasakah. A convoy of US armored vehicles arrived to the village of Munsif-Takhtani — the village has a checkpoint of the Syrian army. The Syrian soldiers blocked the passage of the convoy, and forced the US troops to go back to their base in the Tell Tamer area. Similar actions took place on 2nd and 10th of June, in the nearby village of Dardara. The passage of the US patrols was repeatedly blocked by the residents of the villages of Al-Qahira and Dsheisha. The ‘SANA’ specified that the local population is protesting the presence of the US military in the provinces of Hasakah and Deir ez-Zor, in which several US bases are located. The local oil fields, located on the eastern bank of the Euphrates river, are currently controlled by the US troops, and the Kurdish fighters from the ‘Syrian Democratic Forces’.

2 Syria

The first Russian deputy representative to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, twitted that Russia put to the vote of the UN Security Council its own version of a resolution on the cross-border humanitarian aid to Syria. The draft resolution «will allow the delivery of the aid across the border to the Syrian province of Idlib via the ‘Bab Al Khava’ checkpoint, on the border with Turkey, for one year». Dmitry Polyansky underlined that 85% of the aid comes to the area via that checkpoint. The delivery format for the remainder of the aid may be changed since the de-escalation zone has decreased recently by 30%. It was also reported that Germany and Belgium submitted to the UN Security Council an updated version of their resolution, which Russia and China had vetoed earlier. The resolution proposes «to extend for 6 months, until 10th of January 2021, the access via the checkpoints of ‘Bab es Salaam’ and ‘Bab al Hava’. The document also contains proposals »on new ways to deliver the aid to the north-east of Syria». These proposals suggest a possibility of opening of new checkpoints to deliver the UN aid while bypassing Damascus.

3 Syria

The US State Department press service reported that Washington welcomes the demands towards the Syrian authorities to report on the issues, related to the use of chemical weapons. The requirement was adopted at the 94th session of the Executive Council of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. The OPCW Executive Council gave Syria 90 days, during which Syria must explain to the OPCW Technical Secretariat where exactly the chemical weapons, used during the attacks in Al-Latamn on 24th, 25th, and 30th of March, were developed. And also — to declare all currently available chemical weapons, and resolve all issues related to the initial declaration on the stockpiles of toxic substances, and their production programs. The decision of the OPCW was supported by 29 members of the council. 9 members abstained. Russia, Iran, and China voted ‘against’.

4 Afghanistan

The Chairman of the US Armed Forces Committee of Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milli, stated that Russia was, allegedly, «involved in the situation in Afghanistan», and Russia was acting in the country via the contacts with the extremist group ‘Haqqani Network’ and the ‘Taliban’ movement, associated with the group. While commenting on the alleged Russian readiness to pay the Taliban terrorists for the attacks on the coalition forces, Mark Milli underlined that the US administration doesn’t have any information about the death of the US troops in Afghanistan. During a hearing of the Armed Forces Committee of Defense in the US House of Representatives, the US Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, stated that he didn’t receive reports from the US intelligence services about the alleged Russian readiness to pay to the Taliban to kill Americans. The head of the Pentagon added that «the intelligence department of the US Ministry of Defense didn’t make reports, according to which Russia paid rewards to the Taliban».

5 Iran

The Iranian province of Tehran officially denied the reports about an explosion in the western part of the province — the state-run news agency ‘IRIB’ reported. Earlier it was reported that in the western part of Tehran, near the cities of Garmdarre and Kods, some explosions took place, and the city of Kods was cut off from the electric grid. The head of the Kods region announced that the cause of the power outage was a malfunction in one of the local hospitals — it lasted for five minutes.