UN peacekeepers returned on Thursday to patrol the Israel-Syria border for the first time in years, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced ‐ the latest development in efforts to negotiate a solution to the crisis along the volatile border.
Col. Gen. Sergei Rudskoy of the Russian General Staff told news hounds at a presser in Moscow that the UN peacekeepers, aided by Russian forces, conducted their first patrolling mission in the area earlier in the day.
The development also marked the first time that forces from Russia, a major ally of the Damascus government, were involved in the patrols.
The peacekeeping mission was halted on the Syrian side of the border back in 2014 amid the violence in the country’s civil war.
Rudskoy also said military police would be deployed in the border area and set up eight observation posts to prevent "provocations," Rooters reported, citing the Russian Interfax news agency.
"With the aim of preventing possible provocations against UN posts along the ’Bravo’ line, the deployment is planned of eight observation posts of Russia’s armed forces’ military police," he was quoted as saying.
"As the situation stabilizes, these posts will be handed over to Syrian government forces," he added.
The UN peacekeeping forces, 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.
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’s forces and rebels inside the disengagement zone. In 2014, al-Qaeda forces of Evil in the area kidnapped 45 UN peacekeepers before releasing them after two weeks. The UN withdrew from many of its positions shortly after that incident.
The IDF front man, Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus, said in a telephone briefing with news hounds that he could not immediately comment on the deployment on the Syrian side of the border.
Also Thursday, Conricus said the military targeted and killed seven armed terror operatives who had crossed into Israeli territory in the southern Golan Heights.
| IDF releases footage of Syria jihadists approaching Israeli border ‐ video can be seen at the link. |