FACTORY OF DEATH

March marked the fifth anniversary of the civil war in Syria. One can talk for hours about the reasons for the beginning of this terrible period in the life of this state - "Arab Spring", opposition protests, a severe drought or foreign interference, but this does not change anything, and the black anniversary is marked with the lives of about 250,000 people, dozens of destroyed monuments and millions of refugees. According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 6.6m people are internally displaced and 4.8m have fled the country.

The flight of Syrians from their homes accelerated with the arrival of the Islamic State terrorist group. Most of the refugees were able to settle in neighbouring countries - Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon, but hundreds of thousands decided to make their way to Europe by all means, which provoked a strong migration crisis. The Old World, which initially widely opened its doors to the guests from the Middle East, began to realize that it will be difficult for it to "digest" such a number of strangers. The situation is greatly exacerbated by the fact that under the guise of refugees, militants of various terrorist groups, mainly Islamic State, began to penetrate the EU. Citing security services, the Associated Press reported that Islamic State has sent around 400 fighters to Europe and they have created autonomous cells and should choose the place, time and method for a terrorist attack. In addition, some of the young migrants who have had time to settle in Europe began to use "the refugee road" to train and gain military experience in Syria and Iraq and return back. According to the DW TV and Radio Company, in 2015, jihadists Reda Hame and Nicolas Moreau, arrested by French intelligence services, warned that Islamic State was preparing terrorist attacks. These Islamists have been trained in IS camps in Syria, returned to France and call their experience in the SAR a "real factory" for the training of terrorists to penetrate Europe. It is precisely this trace that can be seen in the 13 November 2015 Paris attacks, which claimed 130 lives, and in the terrorist attacks that rocked Zaventem airport and the Maelbeek metro station in Brussels, killing 35 people (citizens of the UK, Italy, China, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Sweden and the United States) and injuring another 250 injured.

The Brussels and Paris attacks were closely related. Molenbeek is a migrant quarter and the place where Salah Abdeslam, the organizer of the terrorist attacks in Paris, was hiding and where he was detained on 18 March. According to Belgian media, the terrorists in fact wanted to stage the explosions not on 22, but on 28 March - for the Catholic Easter, but Abdeslam's arrest confused their card and forced them to act earlier.

The attacks in Brussels were not as large-scale as the Paris ones by the number of victims, but they caused huge moral damage, because the blow was struck at the very heart of Europe, where EU institutions are located, and for the first time at a European airport. Perhaps, the terrorists had bigger plans - a local nuclear power plant.

A severe blow was dealt to the image of European security services which failed to prevent the explosions, though, as it turns out, almost all the suicide bombers and suspects previously had problems with the law, but were released out of sight for some reason. At least one of the killers lived in Belgium on a false passport. Moreover, according to Turkish media reports, Ankara, it turns out, had warned the Belgian colleagues about the unreliability of a probable suicide bomber - in June last year he was arrested near the Turkish-Syrian border and deported to the Netherlands. The security services spent a long time searching for Abdeslam, who was hiding not somewhere in the Alps, but was practically under their noses, in the so-called migrant quarter of Brussels - Molenbeek.

And this problem is not only Belgian. Many European capitals (Schaerbeek near Brussels, Saint-Denis near Paris, Neukölln in Berlin, Rinkeby and Husby in Stockholm, Tingbjerg in Copenhagen, etc.) have their own "Molenbeeks" - and everywhere the local police try to stay away from there because it is too dangerous and is fraught with social protests. Everyone remembers the migrant riots in France in 2005 triggered by the deaths of two teenage migrants chased by police. By the way, many migrant neighbourhoods formed long ago, and Europeans saw them as inevitable retribution for their colonial past. Migrants who have long received Belgian passports and allowances lived within their communities, did not strive for power, voted for a certain party, and everyone was happy. But there was no such flow of refugees into Europe at the time, Syria was a peaceful state, and Islamic State did not exist in its present form. Now, among all European countries, Belgium has the highest number of fighters per capita who go to fight in Syria. And France, which suffered last November, is not really lagging behind its neighbour.

That is to say the considerable distance from Syria and Iraq does not help Europe - the problem of terrorism has stepped into the homes of Europeans, and it is clear that they will not be able to eliminate this threat just with the help of their secret services. Unfortunately, traditional European values such as tolerance do not help either. Painting European architectural symbols and avatars on social networks in the colours of the flags of the affected countries will not help either. Nor will various marches of concerned citizens, especially as the march against fear in Belgium, which locals intended to stage in solidarity with the victims of terrorism, was cancelled for security reasons. That is to say the march against fear was cancelled because of fear. Alas, there is only one path. To ensure that Europeans are not blown up in their homes - in their theatres, airports, stadiums and cafes, it is necessary to destroy terrorism in the Middle East. But this requires at least a civil peace in Syria.

Since 27 February, a cease-fire agreement has been in place in the SAR on the initiative of Russia and the United States. Great efforts have been made in the format of the International Syria Support Group. But the main hopes are, of course, are indirect internal Syrian talks, which took place in Geneva from 14 to 24 March. UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura met with representatives of Damascus and various opposition groups, who, as observers note, were widely represented. As a result, it was possible to develop some semblance of a common position. Then they will be talking about the specific conditions of the political transition of power and a new constitution.

And here begins the most interesting and most difficult thing. It would seem that following Russia's decision to withdraw its main forces from Syria, Assad's positions in the negotiations were to falter. Also, it was suggested that, during the offensive on Aleppo, it became clear how the Syrian army was limited in its capabilities. But a few days after the completion of the next round of the Geneva talks, the Syrian army with the support of the remaining Russian aircraft freed the ancient city of Palmyra, which Islamic State militants seized in May last year. This first major defeat of Islamic State in more than two years, of course, is of great symbolic significance, not to mention the "advertising campaign" for Assad and Moscow.

Against this background, the bargaining for the future of Syria continues. In early March, Moscow was visited by CIA Director John Brennan, while Secretary of State John Kerry paid a visit at the end of the month. His visit was accompanied by a mysterious red suitcase (which contained either valuable information, a gift, "money for bargaining," as Putin joked, or a compromising dossier as Russian social networks suspect), cryptic jokes and allusions by the sides. The near future will show how this meeting will end, but immediately after the four-hour talks with Putin and Lavrov, the US secretary of state noted that cooperation between Moscow and Washington has led to serious results in resolving the Syrian crisis. Putin replied that Russia is indebted to the US position for all its successes in Syria. Such "flattery" in the conversation between Moscow and Washington at this stage of their "cold" relations cannot but cause concern. The two countries still have major differences on the future of Syria, and the most important of them is the fate of Bashar al-Assad. For example, US State Department Press Secretary John Kirby said on the results of Kerry's visit to Moscow that the Syrian army under his command cannot bring peace to Syria. Further negotiations between the parties involved in the Syrian conflict continued in Washington, DC during a meeting between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. Almost at the same time, the situation in Syria was discussed by telephone by the presidents of Russia and Iran, Vladimir Putin and Hassan Rouhani.

At a minimum, the parties have yet to resolve the so-called "Kurdish issue" - the Kurds were not represented at the talks in Geneva, but remain a significant force within the country, which is difficult to ignore. According to the WSJ, after the bombings in Brussels, the US stepped up pressure on Turkey to close the last corridor used by Islamic State to exit Syria via Turkey with refugees, with the help of precisely Kurdish fighters. The media reported that US military facilities are being actively created in so-called Syrian Kurdistan. This is logical. The US needs a "way out of Syria and the region", and if coastal areas are under the control of Assad and Russia, this scenario has actually been implemented. But this situation is unlikely to suit Iran and especially Turkey, which insisted in the negotiations with the EU over migrants on the creation of a "safe zone" in the north of Syria – a shelter for refugees from the combat zones and a base for friendly opposition forces that are not linked to Islamic State and other terrorist groups.

At the same time, it became known that the Iraqi military, supported by the aircraft of the international US-led coalition, began the long-awaited operation to retake Mosul - Iraq's second largest city captured by Islamic State militants almost two years ago and located 360 km from the capital Baghdad. In both Syria and Iraq, the terrorists are losing territory, checkpoints and sources of funding. This is good news, but observers warn - defeat could prompt the militants to commit new acts of terrorism, and it is difficult to predict where they will take place. The Sky News TV channel, citing sources in the intelligence agencies, said that Islamic State has developed plans to commit terrorist attacks against Jewish schools, kindergartens and youth centres in Turkey. The most likely target of terrorists is a synagogue in Istanbul's Beyoglu district, which operates a school and a cultural centre. Previously, there was information about a possible threat of terrorist attacks in the United States.

The war goes on, and unfortunately, new victims, perhaps, are inevitable. But it seems that the international community, no matter how fragmented it is, has no other way but to somehow agree on Syria and begin to deal closely with terrorism in the Middle East. This is the only way to defeat it in other parts of the world.