Oh Syria the victory is coming

Interesting developments
https://twitter.com/Saad_Alsabr/stat...68488226963457
The people of Raqqa demanding the Kurds leave the city
https://twitter.com/jisrtv/status/1002512850005393409
Kurds and Iraqi PMU are clashing
https://twitter.com/EHSANI22/status/1002603128053694465
Kurds also say they are ready to fight Assad

Saad Alsabr auf Twitter: "#BREAKING | Demonstrations renewed in #Raqqa city against #SDF policies. The demos are demanding freedom and SDF to leave the city immediately and handing it over to its people." ...

A Syrian cleric loyal to the regime has condemned government troops and allied militias for looting homes in the recently recaptured Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp.


Sheikh Mohammed al-Omari made on the remarks on Wednesday on his Facebook page before deleting the critical post, opposition news website Zaman al-Wasl reported.
"The victory was achieved by the grace of God then by the wise leadership," Omari, a Palestinian Syrian, said.
"But the flagrant looting has frustrated people. This has hurt the feeling of many people, especially the families of the martyrs and wounded who have risen to defend the country,"
Omari also appealed to President Bashar al-Assad to take action to stop regime troops from looting in the Damascus district.
Regime troops and allied militias have long been accused of pillaging civilian homes after capturing rebel-held areas.
Syrian troops seized control of Yarmouk and other neighbourhoods in the south of the capital Damascus on Monday after a month-long assault against the Islamic State group.

The offensive for Yarmouk has left the neighbourhood, once home to about 200,000 Palestinian refugees, catastrophically damaged.
Yarmouk has been so heavily battered by fighting that it was hard to picture daily life restarting there, the United Nations' Palestine refugee agency (UNRWA) said on Tuesday.



"Today Yarmouk lies in ruins, with hardly a house untouched by the conflict," spokesman Chris Gunness said.
Fighting over the years had whittled down Yarmouk's population to just hundreds by the time Syria's army began its assault last month.
Gunness said between 100 to 200 civilians were estimated to still be in Yarmouk, including people too old or sick to flee.
Yarmouk was, for decades, a bustling district where both Palestinians and Syrians lived.
It was placed under crippling siege a year after the uprising began in 2011.

https://www.albawaba.com/news/syrian...ldiers-1136356

Syrian regime forces killed an elder woman in al Yarmouk Camp in Damascus city on May 18

Mrs. Thahabiya Fahd Abo Rashed, from al Yarmouk Camp south of Damascus city, age 85, killed due to Syrian regime forces heavy bombing on al Yarmouk Camp, on May 18, 2018.



http://sn4hr.org/sites/news/2018/05/...s-city-may-18/

15 Palestinian refugees killed in Syrian regime shelling on Yarmouk camp

The bodies of 15 Palestinian refugees who were killed by regime shelling have been found in Yarmouk refugee camp, the Working Group for the Palestinians in Syria said yesterday.
The rights group went on to demand medical and civil defence teams be allowed access to the Palestinian refugee camp to recover the bodies from under the rubble.
Following the Assad regime’s brutal air raids against Syria’s largest refugee camp, the United Nations said the regime “turned it into a death camp”.
“The Yarmouk camp in Damascus lies today in ruins, with hardly a single building that has not been destroyed or damaged. The fighting has been particularly intense in the last month or more. Almost all the Palestine refugees who were there have now fled,” United Nations Secretary-General’s Spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said last week.

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20...-yarmouk-camp/

Yarmouk, A Palestinian Tragedy Plays Out In Syria

Yarmouk: Stories of building collapses and neighbors killed reverberate around the diaspora through voice-notes and pictures sent almost the minute fleeing residents emerge from the camp. In one, an elderly Palestinian man cries into his phone, “The street has become dust … my house is gone, gone!” to the sound of shelling behind him. Others recount civilians hiding in basements for days on end with no news, or elderly neighbors dying in their homes for nobody to rescue them.

The Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees and the areas of south Damascus have been the site of a grueling “zero-hour” offensive since April 19, as the Syrian government moved to wrest back control of the area from jihadi and rebel groups. On Monday, the last Islamic State fighters pulled out from Yarmouk and Hajar al-Aswad toward the deserts in Syria’s east, marking the first time the Syrian government has been in full control of the capital since the beginning of the Syrian uprising and conflict.
Over the last month that the military operation has played out, the Syrian government’s consolidation over these areas was preceded by extensive “evacuations.” In a repeat of the kind of coercive agreements that have been imposed by the Syrian government and its allies on rebel-held, besieged areas like Daraya since 2016, the three partially besieged rebel-held villages of Yalda, Babila and Beit Sahem capitulated to reconciliation at the close of April and ultimately accepted forcible deportations north, according to the state news agency SANA. Tahrir al-Sham militants were bused out of northern Yarmouk, before Syrian rebel fighters and their families, as well as Palestinian refugees, in the last rebel-held pockets of south Damascus boarded buses bound for a series of rural camp settlements in Syria’s rebel-held north.
An earlier “de-escalation” agreement reached with Russian guarantees and Egyptian mediation in October 2017 failed to bring an end to violence. The villages have been at partial truce with the Syrian government since 2014.
While the evacuation deals are meant to offer civilians the choice to leave conflict zones and allow entry of humanitarian aid into war-afflicted areas, those in the areas view them as compulsory in the face of possible reprisals for staying.
Palestinian activist and photographer Hamada Hameed felt he had no choice but to flee south Damascus, given that the rebel-held neighborhood he had called home since fleeing Yarmouk has now been returned to Syrian government and Russian control.
“The biggest mistake someone can make is to stay behind, regardless of what [the Syrian government] says about getting people to stay. Anyone who carried a camera, was an activist at some point … defected from the Syrian military or faces military service, they should not stay,” Hameed says. “Those who leave meanwhile head toward an unknown fate.”
And against the backdrop of the military operations and evacuations are the less widely disseminated scenes captured in the voice-notes and pictures, some of which were obtained by Mada Masr, from civilians who have remained in the south Damascus suburbs and Yarmouk living under almost daily bombardment. While buildings were turned to ruin and Palestinians in and around the camp struggled to survive, the presence of various pro-government Palestinian forces in the battle may be an early indication about the future of a camp whose post-conflict reconstruction may level Yarmouk’s once varied social and political fabric.
At least 21 civilians have been reported killed, and 7,000 people — including 6,200 Palestinian refugees from Syria — displaced from their homes.
Convoy Number Five
Before the Islamic State’s departure from south Damascus, deportations did not go smoothly.
The fifth convoy to leave rebel-held south Damascus, Qafleh raqam al-khamis, was held for almost a week at the last government checkpoint on the road to northern Syria at the beginning of May because of poor coordination between the Russian negotiators who brokered the deportation deal and the Turkish military present in the north. Others, however, blamed the delay on intra-rebel clashes then happening nearby. Passengers slept on buses at night, taking shelter from the sun by the roadside during the day.

Rubble in Yarmouk — Photo: Action Group for Palestinians in Syria

New arrivals are being housed in camps for internally displaced persons in rural Idlib and Afrin that many inside the camps say are poorly serviced and far from what they signed up for as part of the April “reconciliation” agreement. Some are attempting the perilous journey to get smuggled across the border into Turkey instead.
“There’s little food in the camp … no electricity and the camp is very far from any of the local markets. The closest one is about 20 km away,” explains Palestinian human rights defender Abdallah al-Khateeb, who was in one of the first buses to head north from south Damascus. “During the negotiations, the Russians said they’d contacted the Turkish government and that everyone evacuated would be allowed to enter Jarablus. The first two convoys entered, but the fifth was not allowed.”
According to the North Syria Response Coordination, some 9,250 people eventually evacuated north. However, sources inside the rebel-held villages of Yalda, Babila and Beit Sahem tell Mada Masr that the original number of names registered for evacuation could have been as high as 17,000 until word got back to civilians in south Damascus about Convoy Number Five and the lack of services being made available in the north and some decided not to go. Families have been separated as a result.

The northern entrance of Yarmouk was transformed into a military staging-post.

Following weeks of daily bombardment by Syrian and Russian airstrikes, barrel bombs and artillery, as well as brutal street fighting, much of the south Damascus suburbs are in ruins.
Throughout the military offensive, government supporters raised doubts about the presence of civilians in the area. The pro-government Al-Watan newspaper called into question claims that there are — or were — civilians still inside Yarmouk, and the Central channel of Hmeimem military base Facebook page dismissed what it called “allegations of civilian casualties,” claiming pro-government fighters were “only faced by extremists belonging to the Islamic State terrorist organization.”
However, civilians either inside Yarmouk or who had recently fled described how “houses are being destroyed and people are trapped under the rubble.”
London-based monitor Action Group for Palestinians of Syria (AGPS) reported that Palestinian refugee Mahmoud al-Bash, his wife and infant child were rescued alive from under the rubble of their home on April 27 after it was bombarded by pro-government forces several days before. The family had been presumed dead, until Bash was discovered.
Earlier that month, husband and wife Mohamed and Haifa al-Hadba were taking shelter in their home when it was shelled, according to Yarmouk activists. With his wife injured, Mohamed made the difficult choice to carry her by night across the camp to the home of a relative. Hours after arriving, that building was also shelled and both of them died.
Local activists and AGPS say at least 35 Palestinians have been killed so far in this offensive, including 21 civilians.
Almost all of the 6,200 Palestinians who were still inside their homes in Yarmouk at the beginning of the offensive have fled into neighboring areas.
Control of Yarmouk’s future
Pro-government forces have been gearing up for the battle for south Damascus since the end of the eastern Ghouta campaign. The front lines were a who's-who of pro-government militia politics.
Aleppo-based Palestinian militia Liwa al-Quds dispatched forces to Yarmouk in April, fresh from the front-lines of Eastern Ghouta, with one of its leading commanders promising that “after the liberation of Ghouta, we will … liberate Yarmouk.” Syrian military units followed, before Suheil al-Hassan’s Russian-backed Tiger Forces arrived in the area in mid-April. They joined a polyglot Syrian and Palestinian force of some several thousand men that included National Defence Forces, a privately funded Palestinian militia, as well as old-guard Palestinian factions including Fatah al-Intifada and Ahmad al-Jibril’s Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command (PFLP-GC).

Many still believe they will return to the camp one day.

The northern entrance of Yarmouk was transformed into a military staging-post where tanks and armored vehicles sat side-by-side and troop movements were soundtracked by pro-government dabke songs. A so-called “camp of return” hosted by ageing Palestinian resistance fighters was set up to receive newly arrived fighters and calibrate the future of a place once known as the “capital of the Palestinian diaspora.”
Since then, former residents and observers tell Mada Masr that Yarmouk runs the risk of being erased. Should this happen to what was once Syria’s largest Palestinian community, questions will be raised as to the future of the Palestinian-Syrian community itself. Others believe the camp as it existed has gone forever, but that it will ultimately be rebuilt in some form.
An estimated one-fifth of Syria’s pre-war population of 560,000 Palestinians have fled the country. Almost all of the 438,000 who remain are largely reliant on aid. Internally displaced Palestinians in Damascus often talk of impossibly rising rents and prices, while in a post-conflict Syria, Palestinians will likely encounter similar legal difficulties as Syrian citizens attempting to return to their homes or recreate stable lives. Law 10/2018, effectively the blueprint for the reconstruction of Syria, could dispossess those unable to prove ownership of their homes. And even then, vast swathes of Yarmouk and other camps around the country have been badly destroyed.
Despite all that the civilians of Yarmouk Camp have suffered — military offensives, siege, starvation, detention and displacement — many still believe they will return to the camp one day. Seventy years after partition plans and machine guns in olive groves brought the first Nakba, today it arrives by bus. But with the destruction and possible erasure of Yarmouk, the possibility of rebuilding the political and social history of the camp may already have been demolished forever.

https://www.worldcrunch.com/syria-cr...s-out-in-syria

There's only one thought that comes to Rami al-Sayed's mind when asked to describe an ongoing Syrian government offensive against an ISIL pocket south of the capital, Damascus.
"Doomsday," says the 35-year-old. "It's like Judgement Day."
Al-Sayed is a former resident of Hajar al-Aswad, one of the neighbourhoods of the besieged Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk which is currently under attack by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian fighter jets.
Activists say at least 15 civilians have been killed and more than 100 wounded since the fierce push to retake Hajar al-Aswad, Tadamun and Beit Sahem - which make up a considerable chunk of Yarmouk - began on April 19.
Before the Syrian war started in 2011, the camp was home to Syria's largest Palestinian refugee population.
In the years that followed, most of its residents fled to other parts of Syria or neighbouring countries seeking refuge. In 2015 Yarmouk came under the control of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.
The six-day operation by Syrian government forces and their allies to drive out ISIL fighters has now turned the camp into a "ghost town", al-Sayed, who is currently based in the nearby rebel-held town of Yalda, told Al Jazeera on Monday.
"No clinics, no doctors, no supplies - it's pretty much empty," he added.
"People are not able to leave to purchase things they need. If they leave, they have to walk miles before seeing another person in the street; it is that uncommon to see people outside."
'Bigger siege'

The United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) estimates that over the past few days some 5,000 Palestinians from Yarmouk have been displaced to Yalda. The agency, which cited "reports" for the figure, has not been able to provide assistance to the camp since 2015.
Local activists say there have been no "formal" evacuations, and those who managed to make it to neighbouring Yalda did so under a rebel-brokered agreement.
UNRWA spokesperson Chris Gunness told Al Jazeera that only 1,200 people remain inside Yarmouk, while activists in nearby towns held by rebel factions have given a similar figure.
READ MORE
Syria: Qalamoun fighters arrive in Aleppo after evacuation deal


Yarmouk residents have had little access to the outside world, owing to a lack of cell service and a government-imposed siege in place since 2012. Activists in the area say these obstacles have made documenting the number of people killed and wounded in the camp a daunting task.
"The humanitarian situation in Yarmouk is simply indescribable," Ammar al-Midani, one of several Yalda-based activists who work on compiling information from Hajar al-Aswad through their communication with trapped civilians, told Al Jazeera on Monday.
"From surface-to-surface missiles to barrel and cluster bombs and mortar fire, simply disastrous," al-Midani said.
At times, al-Midani says activists like him are unable to reach residents who are hiding underground, other times, he says, they manage to get through to their friends and family in the area.
"People are terrified, mostly hiding in man-made bunkers. No one is able to reach those in the heart of the camp because of ISIL's control of the area - it's a new kind of siege."
Since last week, Syrian government forces and their allies have intensified efforts to regain all ground near Damascus.
Besides Yarmouk, their goal is to also drive out fighters from rebel groups Jaish al-Islam and Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham, which remain in control of pockets such as the towns of Yalda, Babbila, and al-Qadam - all of which lie south of Damascus and only one kilometre away from Yarmouk.
Palestinian leadership's silence

On Tuesday, government forces launched air raids in Yalda, killing 10 fighters from Jaish al-Islam, according to activists.
Meanwhile, state-news agency SANA said on Tuesday that government forces were targeting ISIL "tunnels and trenches" in Yarmouk.
According to activists, more than 580 air raids struck Hajar al-Aswad and Tadamun since Thursday evening, the majority of which targeted "civilian basements".
On Sunday, Yarmouk's only hospital was totally put out of service after being destroyed in an air raid.
READ MORE
UN tries to restart Syria talks after regime advances

Both al-Midani and al-Sayed said the toll of 15 victims so far included only those whose deaths were able to be documented, while others remain "unfound, and unaccounted for under the rubble".
Residents of the besieged camp have called on Palestinian leaders, including the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) - an umbrella of major Palestinian political parties - to help bring relief to the people of Yarmouk.
A journalist based in neighbouring Babbila, who identified himself only as Youssef, said people in the camp are puzzled as to why no one from the Palestinian leadership has spoken out about recent events affecting thousands of Palestinian refugees.
'A war on stomachs'

The escalation is the latest in a series of devastating episodes to have hit civilians in Yarmouk.
The camp was home to 160,000 Palestinian refugees before 2011. But as Syria slid into war, fighting between rebels and Syrian forces quickly extended to Yarmouk too, with residents paying the price of a deteriorating humanitarian situation.

Residents in Yarmouk line up to receive food supplies in 2014 [AP/UNRWA]

Over the years, the lack of food and medicine amid the siege, coupled with heavy battles - including between rebel groups - and the seizure of the camp by ISIL in 2015, pushed many to negotiate evacuation deals.
Among those forced to leave was Majd al-Masry. Born in the camp, the Palestinian former paramedic is now based in Yalda and among those documenting violations taking place in Yarmouk.
The closure of the camp's only "lifeline", a corridor that led to Yalda, during the siege was one of the cruelest war tactics, al-Masry said.
"A war on stomachs; a war on health; and a psychological war," he said, summarising the three years he witnessed at the camp before leaving in 2015.
"Managing attacks from multiple fronts, and diseases like salmonella, kidney failure, typhoid fever, and more - this was my life," al-Masry said.
'Annihilation'

The Syrian government has since 2015 regained control of the majority of Syria, with opposition groups now restricted to the northern part of the country, namely Idlib province.
It has thus far managed to regain large swaths of land through a series of evacuation deals that usually come amid a military offensive.
On Monday, Syrian state TV reported that government forces were moving to encircle ISIL fighters from the nearby rebel-held suburbs in an attempt to land an evacuation deal or a withdrawal.
Activists Al Jazeera spoke to said the "destruction" campaign in Yarmouk was a "classic" tactic employed by the government before such a deal.
Amid similar circumstances earlier this month, the government regained control of Eastern Ghouta, a major Damascus suburb that was once home to 400,000 people.
With the offensive in southern Damascus likely to mark the latest rebel defeat, the balance of power in Syria's war- now in its eighth year, keeps tilting in favour of Assad and his allies.
However, activists say the situation in Yarmouk cannot be described as a "war".
"We can't say this is a war. In war, there are emergency medical teams, hospitals, shelters, a chance for a truce and for safe corridors," al-Sayed said.
"But here, it's annihilation."

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/...212111918.html


What's the difference between Assad and Israel?

New group in Afrin demands East Ghouta refugees leave or face death

https://www.almasdarnews.com/article...or-face-death/





BEIRUT, LEBANON (6:00 P.M.) – A new group in the Afrin region of northwest Aleppo issued a stern warning to the refugees from the East Ghouta about staying in this area.
The group calls themselves the “Afrin Hawks” – they are rumored to be a sleeper cell militia that is comprised of fighters from the People’s Protection Units (YPG).
According to the their statement, they demand that all East Ghouta refugees leave Afrin or face death at the hands of the Afrin Hawks.

The group added that they will also be targeting both women and children.

Salaam

Another update

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More on the general conflict.

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URGENT!
https://twitter.com/MGhorab3/status/1004340688081874944

YPG-PKK is burning civilian houses in Tell Rifat

MOHAMMED GHORAB auf Twitter: "#YPG burning civilian houses in #TelRifat city north of #Aleppo… " ...

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Amnesty International says US-led strikes on Raqqa may amount to war crimes

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/05/middleeast/us-led-coalition-raqqa-war-crimes-intl/index.html
(CNN)Airstrikes by the US-led coalition in Raqqa, Syria, probably breached international humanitarian law and potentially amount to war crimes, according to a report by Amnesty International that is being hotly contested by the Pentagon.

The rights group accuses the coalition of killing and injuring thousands of civilians in attacks that were at times "disproportionate or indiscriminate," during its offensive to flush ISIS militants from their de facto capital.
"The coalition's claims that its precision air campaign allowed it to bomb (ISIS) out of Raqqa while causing very few civilian casualties do not stand up to scrutiny," said Amnesty's senior crisis response adviser, Donatella Rovera.
"On the ground in Raqqa we witnessed a level of destruction comparable to anything we've seen in decades of covering the impact of wars."
Syrians move along a destroyed street in Raqqa on February 18.




A spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting ISIS slammed the report, saying that Amnesty never approached the Pentagon about its findings and was out of line for suggesting the coalition has violated international law.








"They are literally judging us guilty until proven innocent, that's a bold rhetorical move by an organization that fails to check the public record or consult the accused," Col. Thomas Veale told reporters at the Pentagon via a video briefing from Baghdad.
"They never asked us for a comment, an interview, or a courtesy check of the draft, they also failed to check the public record thoroughly," Veale said.
He also criticized Amnesty for recommending that the coalition develop a process for canceling a strike if it's deemed indiscriminate or disproportionate, saying that the coalition already had this process in place.
Veale added that the number of civilian casualties can't ever be really known.
"As far as how do we know how many civilians were killed -- I'm just being honest, no one will ever know," Veale said. "Anyone who claims they will know is lying."
The report, "War of Annihilation," details the loss of civilian life in Raqqa, based on interviews with 112 civilians at the sites of 42 coalition airstrikes.
It illustrates the cases of four civilian families who, between them, lost 90 relatives and neighbors, including 39 from one family alone. Almost all were killed by coalition airstrikes, the report alleges.
"They are part of a wider pattern and provide a strong prima facie case that many coalition attacks that killed and injured civilians and destroyed homes and infrastructure violated international humanitarian law," the report states.
The report illustrates the difficult choice many civilians faced of either choosing to flee and be killed by ISIS snipers or risk being hit in coalition strikes.
The US-led coalition says it does everything it can to minimize harm to civlians in its airstrikes.




The Badran family, which lost 39 members and 10 neighbors in four separate coalition strikes, fled from place to place as front lines in the city rapidly shifted.
Rasha Badran, one of the survivors, told Amnesty that she thought the coalition forces would target only ISIS militants.
"We were naive. By the time we realized how dangerous it had become everywhere, it was too late; we were trapped," she told Amnesty.
Veale said that the coalition was willing to work with anyone to assess allegations of civilian casualties.
"I can tell you with confidence we are always willing to re-evaluate cases based on new or compelling evidence," Veale said, adding that, "as I speak people are looking at that article and trying to correlate those claims to the strike log and how the battle of Raqqa unfolded as our participation went in it."
"We are open to working with anyone," Veale said. "We are just as willing to work with Amnesty International, as I said I wish we had worked with them earlier but they didn't come to us, they just went ahead and published"
Coalition 'leveled' Raqqa

The coalition's offensive in Raqqa began a year ago, with US, British and French forces taking part.
Tens of thousands of airstrikes were carried out in the city, Amnesty said, adding that US forces "admitted to firing 30,000 artillery rounds during the offensive." It said US forces were responsible for 90% of coalition strikes.
Amnesty said that ISIS' four-year rule in Raqqa was "rife with war crimes," but that did not relieve the coalition of its obligation to minimize harm against civilians.
"What leveled the city and killed and injured so many civilians was the US-led coalition's repeated use of explosive weapons in populated areas where they knew civilians were trapped. Even precision weapons are only as precise as their choice of targets," Rovera said.
Responding to the report, the US-led mission to Syria said it made rigorous efforts to avoid civilian casualties.
"The coalition applies rigorous standards to our targeting process and takes extraordinary efforts to protect non-combatants," it said in a statement sent to CNN.
It added that it had been transparent about its strikes and routinely assessed any allegations of civilian casualties. It is committed to transparency "when civilian casualties unintentionally occur," the statement said.
Amnesty International is accusing the US-led coalition of flattening the city of Raqqa.




A British Ministry of Defense spokesperson said its mission in Syria fully complied with international humanitarian law, also adding it had been open and transparent throughout the offensive and detailed each of its nearly 1,700 strikes.
"We do everything we can to minimize the risk to civilian life through our rigorous targeting processes and the professionalism of the (Royal Air Force) crews but, given the ruthless and inhuman behavior of (ISIS), and the congested, complex urban environment in which we operate, we must accept that the risk of inadvertent civilian casualties is ever present," the spokesperson said in statement.

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Syria's Assad Raises Possibility Of Conflict With U.S. Forces, Allies

https://www.rferl.org/a/syrian-presi.../29262810.html

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has raised the possibility of conflict between his army and U.S. forces in Syria if they do not withdraw from the country soon -- prompting a warning from the Pentagon.
In an interview with Russia's RT television on May 31, Assad asserted that he is willing to negotiate with Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that are allied with and embedded with U.S. forces and currently hold about one-quarter of Syria's territory.
But he said he will reclaim their territory by force, if necessary.
"The only problem left in Syria is the SDF," Assad told RT, adding he sees "two options" for solving the "problem."
"The first one: We started now opening doors for negotiations. Because the majority of them are Syrians, supposedly they like their country. They don't like to be puppets to any foreigners," Assad said in English.
"We have one option: to live with each other as Syrians. If not, we're going to resort...to liberating those areas by force."
Assad added that "the Americans should leave." He said Washington should learn a "lesson" from its experience in Iraq.
"People will not accept foreigners in this region anymore," he said.
Assad's threat to use force against U.S. allies in Syria and about 2,000 American troops providing them with air support and training prompted a warning from the Pentagon.
"Any interested party in Syria should understand that attacking U.S. forces or our coalition partners will be a bad policy," Lieutenant General Kenneth McKenzie, director of the Joint Staff, said at a press conference in Washington on May 31.
The U.S. State Department also said that while Washington is not seeking conflict with Syria, it would use "necessary and proportionate force" to defend U.S. and partner forces, which have teamed up to fight Islamic State militants in the region.
Meanwhile, SDF spokesman Gabriel Kino replied to Assad's remarks by saying the Syrian Kurdish-led militia would "fight back fiercely" against "any attack."
'"But we all know that a new battle will not do any good for anyone," Kino said on June 1. "It will just add more miseries to the people of Syria."
In the RT interview, Assad responded sharply to U.S. President Donald Trump's recent description of him as an "animal," saying, "What you say is what you are."
Backed by Russian air power and Iranian and Hizbullah militias on the ground, Assad's forces have gained significant ground in recent months in the seven-year civil war that has killed an estimated half a million people and driven another 5 million abroad as refugees.
After regaining control of Syria's two largest cities -- Aleppo and Damascus -- Assad this spring set his sights on areas in the country that remain outside his control and in rebel hands.
The Kurdish militia group SDF that is backed by the United States holds the largest area of Syrian territory outside government control, but it has tried to avoid direct clashes with the government during the multisided war.
Kino Gabriel, a spokesman for the SDF, said in response to Assad's comments that a military solution would "lead to more losses and destruction and difficulties for the Syrian people."
The SDF wants a "democratic system based on diversity, equality, freedom, and justice" for all the country's ethnic and religious groups, he said in a voice message to Reuters.
Assad in the RT interview also sought to minimize the extent of Iran's presence in Syria. Israel, which is alarmed by what it claims is a growing Iranian military presence in Syria, has recently destroyed dozens of military sites that it claimed were occupied and used by Iranian forces and Hizbullah militias.
But Assad said Iran's presence in Syria has been limited to officers assisting the army. Apparently referring to a May 10 air strike by Israel, Assad said: "We had tens of Syrian martyrs and wounded soldiers, not a single Iranian casualty."
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an independent Britain-based war-monitoring group, has said at least 68 Iranians and pro-Iranian forces have been killed in Israeli air strikes since April.

Salaam

Another update

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Should never expect anything from the 'Superpowers'

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Salaam

Another update

format_quote Originally Posted by Junon

Salaam



Looks like Silas has a point

Russia wants Iran out of Syria. Iranians aren't so happy about that

First, Moscow said all foreign forces should leave Syria. Now only Syrian soldiers should be on Israel's border. Iranians ask: Can Putin be trusted?

TEHRAN - Partners in the Syrian war and arch sceptics of Washington, Russia and Iran have come together in recent years as both countries pursue a more hands-on role in the Middle East.

Yet doubts about Russia’s reliability are surfacing in Tehran, as a host of regional players begin to pick their way through tensions in southern Syria.

For weeks, there have been signs that Russia is trying limit Iran’s military activity in Syria.

On 17 May, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that with the Syrian army’s recent victories, foreign forces should withdraw from Syria. When asked for clarification, Putin’s envoy said that the president was referring to Turkish, American, Iranian and Hezbollah soldiers.

Then on Monday, days after the Syrian army dropped leaflets warning rebels in Daraa to put down their weapons, both Israeli and Russian officials said publicly that only Syrian soldiers should be present as the government seeks to retake the southern province.

From Tehran, Russia’s about-face has been a surprise, triggering fierce reaction and a debate over whether Moscow can be trusted any longer.

"As long as terrorism exists and the Syrian government wants, Iran will have a presence [in Syria]", said Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi on 21 May.

He added: "No one can force Iran to do something. Iran is an independent country and its policies are determined based the interests of the Islamic republic in the world."

Ali Shamkhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, said on 27 May that Iran is in Syria at the request of the government in Damascus.

Conservatives' silence, reformists' criticism

Perhaps not surprisingly, reformist media – which is typically critical of Tehran’s relationship with Moscow – has expressed concern over the Kremlin’s remarks, while hardline outlets, which prefer that Iran avoid the West and approach Russia and China instead, have stayed silent.

According to reformist daily Etemaad, Russia’s new position is a reflection of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Moscow on 9 May, a day after US President Donald Trump announced that America would withdraw from the nuclear deal.

Ahead of the trip, Netanyahu said: “In light of what is happening in Syria at the moment, it is necessary to ensure the continued security coordination between the Russian army and the Israeli Defense Forces.”

And, as Etemaad noted on 20 May, after the meeting, Putin’s envoy named Hezbollah and Iranian forces as those that must leave Syria, but not Israeli forces.

“It has been many years that the Zionist regime has occupied a part of the soil of Syria in the Golan Heights, and [they] have attacked the different parts of the Syrian land in offensive operations in the past few months," the paper said.

Meanwhile, moderate-conservative Tabnak news site - which belongs to Mohsen Rezai, the former commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard - tied Putin's position to the US withdrawal from the nuclear deal.

"On the heels of US withdrawal from the JCPOA and Iran's need for Russia's support, it is likely that Moscow seeks to get concessions from Iran in Syria, concessions which can make the Russian position regarding the Syrian crisis closer to the West, because one of the West's conditions for negotiations with Russia over Syria has been [forcing] Iran to retreat from Syria,” argued Tabnak on 18 May.

In another reaction, reformist Shargh newspaper reported that Iran’s arch-enemy Saudi Arabia is investing in Moscow to gradually influence Russia’s position towards Tehran.

Shargh wrote on 23 May: "Undoubtedly, Riyadh is pursuing a strategic goal by approaching Moscow. Russia, along with Iran, managed to strengthen its hand in Syria and then along with Tehran and Ankara, [succeeded in] setting up the Sochi summit as an alternative to the Geneva talks.

“Under such circumstances, Riyadh seeks to take advantage of its extensive investments in [Russia] as a leverage against Tehran by consolidating its economic relations with Moscow."

‘Neither ally, nor advocate’

Iranian reformists who spoke to Middle East Eye believe that Russia is seeking to further isolate Iran, now that the US has withdrawn from the nuclear agreement.

Tehran, they said, should seek to strengthen its relationship with Europe and remember that Moscow has a history of stabbing Tehran in the back.

Rasool Hosseini, a reformist foreign policy analyst, told MEE: "Russia has concluded that Iran and the Americans will have more serious tensions. Therefore, it seems that the possibility of more agreements between Tehran and Washington has faded away. Putin is now rest assured that Tehran doesn’t have too many options and it [Russia] seeks to take advantage of this situation."

He added: "Under such circumstances, Tehran should strengthen its ties with Europe in order to prevent Russia from playing with Iran's card during its conflicts with US."

Fereidoun Majlesi, a former Iranian diplomat, urged the government not to rely fully on Russia or any other country.

"Russia is neither an ally, nor an advocate of Iran. A number of figures in Tehran count on Russia while this is not in the interest of the country. Russia will never sacrifice itself for Iran and it will make a decision based on its own interests,” he said.

Russia, Majlesi said, wants to stay in Syria without any rivals.

“If Iran stays in Syria, this will give a pretext to America to deploy its forces there too. That’s why Putin's envoy said all the countries must leave Syria,” he said.

Meanwhile, Iranian conservatives still reason that if Russia is eventually going to fully align with Israel or the US, it needn’t have intervened in Syria in the first place.

Hossein Kanani Moghaddam, a conservative analyst and the secretary of Green Party, told MEE: "If Putin was willing to ally with the US or Israel, they [the Russians] wouldn’t definitely stay in Syria and witness the death of at least 100 Russian military advisers."

However, in remarks indicative of Iran's increasing caution towards the Kremlin, Moghaddam emphasised: "Russia is a strategic partner of Iran, but if [the Russians] are supposed to turn to Israel or America, Iran will revise its relationships with Russia.

"As long as [Syrian President] Bashar al-Assad wants, Iran will stay in Syria. What is important is the Syrian government’s decision. Russia can't decide for Syria and only the government of Syria can make a decision about the presence of military forces."

Whether Russia is serious about Iranian forces leaving Syria or not, decision-makers in Tehran will be watching with guarded concern.

http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/ru...out-1850822925

And May Allah divide their ranks until they are at each others throats and May Allah cause them to destroy one another, and May Allah reduce Tehran and Moscow to ruble and May Allah cause their nations to experience grief and sorrow on a level a thousand times worse than Syria, Ameen.

format_quote Originally Posted by Silas

I remember when Israel opened prison camps for Palestinians with help from the Soviets. Shine Bet worked with Russian guards to maintain secret compounds where Palestinians were tortured.

Russia has always been willing to involve itself in the Middle East, depending who is giving them what they want. They have no love or respect for Arabs or Iranians.

As I have mentioned before, Putin would like to turn Iran into a Russian puppet state in order to establish a large naval base in the Strait of Hormuz, thus enabling him to cut off oil shipments from the Middle-East, and drive up the price of crude to new heights, filling his empty coffers.

We then have the Jewish-financed and controlled infiltration of Muslim groups in the west and Middle-East, aka the "socialist Muslims". The tactic here is to steer Muslims away from their faith and principles, and into the fold of Marxist radicalism. I once went to a meeting of the Arab American Action Network (AAAN) in the states, and sat there listening to a couple guys talk about the revolution of the proletariat, the abolishment of private property (as if that is in the Quran) , the punishment of white people, etc., and I was like "what does this have to do with Islam, Arabs, or the situation in the Middle East?" --I later discovered that mahy of the donors to this organization were Marxist Jews and Zionists. It is controlled-opposition.

In other words, there are always people out there who will be willing to "help you", when in reality, they are furthering their own agenda.

Very well said

Salaam

Perceptive comment. Its the same with many popular movements. They get hijacked by those intelligent,intellectual (or sociopaths) types who will lead the masses to a glorious future that they are too stupid to understand. Whats interesting is that many revolutionary movements (wittingly or unwittingly) are backed by the rich and powerful (financiers etc) who use these movements to further their own agendas, (ever heard the term champagne socialists?)

Just one example of how the real grievances of African American community were subverted and used by powerful interests to further their schemes.

Dr. E. Michael Jones returns to discuss his piece "Soros or Cyrus: The Violent Legacy of the Black/Jewish Alliance." We talk about how Jewish support for the Civil Rights Movement was really an attempt to turn black Americans into revolutionaries. When that project failed in the late 1960s, the CIA and Hollywood went to work producing a series of "blaxploitation" films promoting criminal behavior and sexual promiscuity among black youth with the goal of destroying the already weakened black family. Later we discuss how the militarization of the country's police departments and the creation of a black "lumpenproletariat" are part of a divide-and-conquer strategy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kjDo-5NRX8

I didn't realise how sophisticated the techniques the old USSR developed to undermine/subvert societies and nations for its own benefit. Old but relevant.

Deception was my job

Isn't it enlightening that the governments of countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran were allowing men and women to move freely within basic Islamic moral norms - but the strictness appeared when western leaders, media, and ngos began to stir up turmoil?
I've visited Arabia three times in the past and noticed that there were women dressed in headscarves and in niqab according to their own family structure choice and the police never harassed them.
It was only when certain people over-did it and tarted up that those with sound minds in authority stepped in to avoid undue fitnah - after the problem-reaction-solution model.
I know very well that it is possible to fishnet/sheer and stiletto up under niqab and tight burka gowns that leave little to the imagination and still cause fitnah in society - and that also has to be policed if necessary - and that there is usually not much of a problem if men and women are conducting themselves decently and clean-minded in society despite simple headscarves - and this was never policed by sound minded leaders as long as Islamic morality and conduct was respected.

I think it's necessary for females to wear niqab in a society where predatory secularist perverts roam about, and that they must be removed in women only areas where female policing based on taqwa of Allah is present.
And i also believe that any men disguising themselves as women by wearing niqab should be severely punished or even executed.