Syrian regime forces launched on Wednesday a military operation aimed at cutting off opposition-held villages and towns in the southwest of the country, mainly in areas committed to a de-escalation agreement between the US, Russia and Jordan. “Regime forces continued shelling areas in the eastern countryside of Daraa, particularly the towns and villages of Al-Harak, western Al-Mulayha, western Al-Gharya, Busr al-Harir, Busra al-Sham, Nahte and Al-Musayfirah, as well as areas in Msikah and Jadal, killing 6 people and raising to 9 the number of people who have died in regime attacks in the past 24 hours,” the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Syrian government forces and their Iran-backed allies will face “volcanoes of fire” if they launch a threatened offensive in the opposition-held southwest, a rebel commander told Reuters. Separately, a UN-linked Commission of Inquiry (for human rights in Syria) said that regime forces committed crimes against humanity, including deliberately starving civilians, during the siege of Eastern Ghouta near the capital, Damascus. The UN Human Rights Council tasked the COI in March to urgently investigate recent events in eastern Ghouta. "Following the end of the longest running siege in modern history, the UN Commission of Inquiry has condemned this method of warfare in Syria as barbaric," the COI said in a 23-page report. Commission head Paulo Pinheiro said in the statement, "It is completely abhorrent that besieged civilians were indiscriminately attacked, and systematically denied food and medicine.” Meanwhile, sources confirmed that Ireland decided to send dozens of its peacekeeping troops serving on the Golan Heights to the Syrian side after being withdrawn from there in 2014. Ireland announced the decision to relocate the troops from their current position on the Israeli side of the Golan back to Syria later this year, following a Cabinet meeting held Wednesday.