Al Jazeera: At least 23 civilians, including eight children, have been killed in air raids on an ISIL-held village in northern Syria, according to a monitor. The fighter jets that carried out the strikes were believed to belong to the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) armed group, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said… Read more »
Since the beginning of the Syrian Civil War, at least 3,613 Kurdish soldiers have been killed fighting the totalitarian Islamic State and the little-better authoritarian alternative, Bashar Al-Assad’s government. The Kurdish YPG (“People’s Protection Units”) is the largest portion of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a military coalition of Kurds and Arabs that the United States backs through weapons sales… Read more »
(DAILY SABAH): Turkish forces have killed at least 14 Daesh terrorists in northern Syria in the last 24 hours. In a statement released on Wednesday, the Turkish General Staff said that Turkey’s land and air forces hit 110 Daesh targets as part of the ongoing Operation Euphrates Shield. A total of 89 Daesh targets, including shelters, command and control facilities, weapons… Read more »
(DEUTSCHE WELLE): An alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters has seized a dozen villages in eastern Syria. The move is part of a drive to encircle the so-called ‘Islamic State’ (IS) group’s stronghold of Raqqa ahead of new peace talks. Backed by air strikes from the US-led coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – an alliance dominated by the Kurdish People’s… Read more »
(REUTERS): The U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance has crossed into Deir al-Zor province for the first time as part of an offensive against Islamic State, a Kurdish military source said on Tuesday. The advance into the province, most of which is under the control of the ultra-hardline group, is part of an operation to encircle and ultimately capture its de… Read more »
(AL JAZEERA): The commander of Kurdish fighters in Syria’s Manbij city has told Al Jazeera that his forces will fight to defend any move by Turkey to take over the area. Adnan Abu Amjad’s comment came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that when his country’s forces finished helping Syrian opposition fighters take over Al Bab from ISIL , they… Read more »
Al Jazeera: Syrian government forces have recaptured all towns and villages in the Wadi Barada valley near the capital, Damascus, according to a statement by the Syrian military. “Units of our armed forces, together with … allied forces have achieved their mission in returning security and stability” to the area, said the statement, read out by a military spokesman on Syrian… Read more »
The United States’s relationships with Middle Eastern states have been built on economic interests. The CIA assassinated the democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran and replaced him with the US-friendly, export-friendly Shah. We spent 1990 through 1991 fighting off Saddam Hussein to defend our oil interests in Kuwait (though ostensibly for preserving Kuwait’s national sovereignty). It can also be argued that the… Read more »
(The Telegraph) At least 26 people, many of them children, have been killed in air strikes on a rebel-held village in north-western Syria, activists say. A school complex was reportedly among several locations targeted in the village of Haas, in Idlib province. It was not immediately clear if the raids were carried out by Syrian government or Russian warplanes. State… Read more »
(New York Times) An array of groups allied with the Syrian government pressed an assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Friday, as the World Health Organization said heavy bombardment of the area by Russia and Syria had killed 338 people in the last week, including more than 100 children. With more of the city’s already limited hospitals destroyed in the latest… Read more »