Qaeda in Syria executes 56 regime troops: monitor

19 September 2015 - 10H05

• Tweet
• inShare

© AFP/File | Members of Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate and its allies sit on a Syrian army MiG-21 fighter jet after they seized the Abu Duhur military airport on September 9, 2015

BEIRUT - 

by Leila Mohamed and Biodun Iginla, France24, Beirut

 
Al-Qaeda's Syria affiliate and its Islamist allies have executed at least 56 regime troops at a military airport they recently seized in the northwest, a monitoring group said Saturday.
Al-Nusra Front and the Islamists shot dead the regime fighters, who were being held as prisoners, "execution-style" inside the Abu Duhur airport, said Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
He said the killings in Idlib province had occurred earlier this week but his monitoring group -- which gathers news from sources on the ground -- confirmed them on Saturday.
Al-Nusra is a leading member of an alliance of jihadist and Islamist forces called the "Army of Conquest" that overran the Abu Duhur military airport on September 9.
When it overran the airbase, the Army of Conquest killed dozens of regime loyalists and took others captive.
The powerful coalition has seized almost all of Idlib province except for Fuaa and Kafraya, two regime-controlled villages inhabited by Shiite Muslims.
The Army of Conquest ramped up its assault on the two villages on Friday, detonating at least nine car bombs, seven of which were suicide bombers, the Observatory said.
The attack left at least 21 regime loyalists and 17 Army of Conquest militants dead.
One of the suicide bombers managed to enter Fuaa itself and killed seven civilians, including two children, Abdel Rahman said.
Fierce clashes and heavy shelling on the two villages continued on Saturday.
Fuaa, Kafraya and the rebel stronghold of Zabadani in Damascus province were at the centre of two failed attempts last month to secure broad ceasefire deals.

Islamic State crisis: Air strikes target Syria stronghold

by Leila Mohamed and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Beirut

2 hours ago

The US-led coalition against the Islamic State group says it has carried out a series of air strikes in Syria on its main stronghold, Raqqa.

The city is seen by the militants as the capital of the "caliphate" they declared in Syria and Iraq in 2014.
The US military described the 16 strikes as one of the largest assaults carried out in Syria so far.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 23 IS members were killed in the attack.
The London-based monitoring group also said a US drone strike on a Raqqa school on Saturday killed six civilians, including a child.
US military spokesman Lt Col Thomas Gilleran said: "The significant air strikes tonight were executed to deny Daesh [IS] the ability to move military capabilities throughout Syria and into Iraq."

The raids follow the release of a video, apparently by IS, showing 25 men being shot dead in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra.
Stills from the video showed the killers appeared to be young teenagers.
What difference could Syria IS strikes make?
Battle for Iraq and Syria in maps
Elsewhere in Syria, government forces are reported to have entered the town of Zabadani, as they attempt to retake it from non-IS Sunni Muslim rebels.
The Syrian troops (loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad) are being supported by the Lebanese Shia Muslim militant group, Hezbollah.

Zabadani is close to Syria's border with Lebanon.
The BBC's correspondent in Beirut, Jim Muir, says that the Syrian regime is determined to regain control of the strategic town once and for all, as is Hezbollah.
It wants to be sure that Shia communities on the Lebanese side of the border will be safe from attack by the Syrian rebels, who are mainly Sunnis, our correspondent says.
In this area they are led by the Nusra Front, an offshoot of al-Qaeda in Syria.

IS militants 'enter Yarmouk refugee camp' in Damascus

by Leila Mohamed and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Beirut

1 hour ago

Islamic State (IS) militants have entered the Palestinian refugee camp Yarmouk in Damascus, activists and Palestinian officials say.

Clashes erupted between the militants and groups inside the camp, with IS seizing control of large parts of the camp, reports said.
The UN says about 18,000 Palestinian refugees are inside the camp.
IS militants have seized large swathes of territory in eastern Syria and across northern and western Iraq.
But this is the group's first major attack near the heart of the Syrian capital.

IS fighters had seized control of large parts of the camp, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and an official with the Palestine Liberation Organisation based in Damascus, said.
Yarmouk residents told BBC Arabic that members of Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, a group formed by Palestinian militiamen opposed to the Syrian government, were leading the fight against the IS militants, along with some Free Syrian Army fighters.
Palestinian militiamen were able to retake some areas from IS later on Wednesday, residents told the BBC.
There has been no official statement from IS about the attack.

Children at risk

Unrwa, a UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, said in a statement that the fighting would place Yarmouk's civilians, including large numbers of children, "at extreme risk of death, serious injury, trauma and displacement".
It demanded an end to the fighting and "a return to conditions that will enable its staff to support and assist Yarmouk's civilians".

Analysis: Lina Sinjab, BBC News, Beirut
Members of the self-proclaimed Islamic State stormed into the southern side of Yarmouk camp in the early hours of the morning and clashed with the Palestinian brigade, Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis.
Reports suggest they came in from the area of Hajar al-Aswad in the south of the capital.
The Palestinian Ambassador to Damascus, Anwar Abdulhadi, told the BBC that the group had seized the area of the camp near the Palestine Hospital.
Most information is coming from Palestinian officials in areas under government control.
The attack comes days before a deal to ease the humanitarian situation for civilians in the camp was set to come into operation.
Desperation in Yarmouk
Story of the Syrian conflict
What is Islamic State?

Syria's bloody conflict, which has entered its fifth year, has claimed the lives of more than 200,000 Syrians.
The battle between forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, rebels opposed to his rule and jihadist militants from Islamic State has also driven more than 11 million people from their homes.
The al-Qaeda linked al-Nusra Front captured the north-western city of Idlib from government forces on Saturday. It is only the second provincial centre to fall into rebel hands since IS seized Raqqa in March 2013.

Al-Nusra Front said on Wednesday that the city would now be ruled under Sharia, but that the group did not intend to monopolise power in the city.
Also on Wednesday, Jordan closed the Nasib border crossing, its only official crossing with Syria, due to fierce clashes between Syrian rebels and government troops.
Rebel forces were able to wrest control of the crossing from the Syrian government by Wednesday evening, reports said.
A leader of the Yarmouk Army, one of the rebel groups, said the crossing had been "liberated", Reuters reported.
A government security source also confirmed the seizure.

'Extreme hardship'

First built for Palestinians fleeing the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Yarmouk was once considered by many to be the de facto capital of the Palestinian refugee diaspora.
Prior to the Syrian civil war, it had more than 150,000 refugees living there, and its own mosques, schools and public buildings.

However, the camp has been besieged by fighting between government troops and rebel forces since 2012.
Unrwa says about 18,000 refugees remain trapped in the camp, with inadequate access to food supplies, clean water and electricity.
In March, Unrwa said: "The extreme hardship faced by Palestine refugees in Yarmouk, but also in other locations in Syria as a result of the armed conflict is, from a human point of view, unacceptable."

Syria crisis: Islamist groups' 'capture Idlib

by Leila Mohamed and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Beirut

1 hour ago

Islamist rebels have captured the north-western Syrian city of Idlib from government forces, monitors say.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that the Ahrar al-Sham, Jund al-Aqsa and Nusra Front groups had taken the city on Saturday.
Idlib is only the second provincial centre to fall into rebel hands, after Raqqa was seized by Islamic State (IS).
Syria's civil war, which began four years ago, has killed more than 200,000 Syrians and displaced 11 million.
The UK-based observatory said the militant groups seized the city after four days of intense fighting.
Syria has not confirmed the loss.
State television said: "The army is fighting fierce battles to restore the situation back to what it was."

The capture of the city, with a population of 100,000, would be a serious blow to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, correspondents say.
Idlib has been the subject of severe fighting between the government and opposition forces for months
Idlib is close to the strategically important main highway linking the capital Damascus to the commercial capital Aleppo. It is also close to the coastal province of Latakia, a stronghold of President Assad.
Supporters of Ahrar al-Sham and the Nusra Front have posted pictures of fighters celebrating in the city.
It is the second defeat of government forces in the space of a week after rebels in southern Syria seized the historical city of Busra in Deraa province.
On Saturday, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was angry and shamed by the failure to halt the Syrian civil war.
Speaking at an Arab League summit in Egypt, he promised to step up diplomatic efforts to stop the fighting.

Share this story About sharing

Islamic State conflict: Deadly strike on Syria refinery

by Leila Mohamed and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Beirut

44 minutes ago

At least 14 people have been killed in US-led coalition air strikes on an oil refinery in northern Syria run by Islamic State (IS), activists say.

Refinery workers and jihadist militants were among those who died in the raid on the facility outside Tal Abyad.
One activist group posted a video purportedly showing a fireball rising into the night sky after the attack.
Captured refineries and oil fields have played a key role in fuelling Islamic State's advance across Syria and Iraq.
Last year, the group may have earned as much as $100m (£66m) from the sale of oil and oil products to local smugglers who, in turn, sell them to the Syrian government and merchants in neighbouring countries.
However, US officials say the group's ability to use oil as a source of revenue is now believed to be diminishing due to the air strikes.

Al-Nusra base 'targeted'

The activist group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said aircraft had targeted a refinery near the village of al-Munbatih, near the Turkish border in Raqqa province, on Sunday night.
Fourteen IS militants were killed in the raid, including three foreign fighters from Saudi Arabia and Egypt, it said. Nine others were seriously wounded and have been taken to a hospital in the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the caliphate proclaimed by IS militants last June.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group, reported that about 30 people were killed, including civilians.

A spokesman for the US Combined Joint Task Force overseeing the fight against IS told the Reuters news agency that it had implemented "significant mitigation measures within the targeting process and during the conduct of operations to reduce the potential of civilian casualties".
"When an allegation of civilian casualties caused by US or coalition forces is determined to be credible, a thorough investigation would be launched to determine the accuracy of the claim and any circumstances surrounding it," he added.
On Sunday afternoon, the coalition also reportedly conducted air strikes against al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, al-Nusra Front, in the north-western province of Idlib.
The Syrian Observatory reported that an al-Nusra military base in Atmeh, a town near the Turkish border, had been hit, killing nine members of the jihadist group, four of them foreign fighters.

A civilian in Atmeh told the AFP news agency that three buildings had been "completely destroyed".
Last week, al-Nusra's top military commander and several other leaders were reported to have been killed in an air strike in Idlib province claimed by the Syrian military, but this has not been confirmed.
Meanwhile, air strikes by Syrian government aircraft in a north-eastern suburb of the capital Damascus on Sunday left 13 people dead, including two children, the Syrian Observatory said.
In a separate development on Monday, Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq launched a new offensive against IS militants to try to drive them away from positions threatening the city of Kirkuk.
The Peshmerga took control of Kirkuk last summer as the Iraqi army collapsed in the wake of the lightning IS advance.

Syria's al-Nusra Front commander 'killed in strike'

by Leila Mohamed and Biodun Iginla, BBC News, Beirut

4 hours ago

The military chief of Syria's al-Nusra Front militant group has been killed in an air strike, the group has said.

The jihadist group said on social media that three other leaders were killed along with Abu Homam al-Shami.
Syria's state-run news agency said the army had targeted Nusra leaders as they met in northern Idlib province, the Associated Press reported.
The Nusra Front is one of the most powerful groups fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
It was involved in a major attack on the Air Force Intelligence headquarters in the embattled city of Aleppo on Wednesday.
The group has long been considered an affiliate of al-Qaeda, although recent reports suggest it may be seeking to break those ties. The US lists it as a terrorist group and it is under UN Security Council sanctions.

'Unique operation'

News of the latest attack came as the UN's envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, hinted to the BBC that the UN might negotiate with al-Nusra to allow much-needed aid to enter Aleppo.
Al-Nusra named the three other leaders killed on Thursday as Abu Musab Falastini, Abu Omar Kurdi, and Abu Baraa Ansari.
Details of the attack are unclear. However, the official Syrian news agency described it as a "unique operation" carried out by the Syrian army in the al-Habit area.

Other sources quoted by Reuters said the strike had taken place in the town of Salqin, near the Turkish border.
Al-Nusra has emerged as the strongest rebel force around Aleppo, Syria's second city.
Earlier on Thursday, fierce clashes took place in Aleppo near the air force facility attacked by Nusra Front rebels on Wednesday.
Government forces reportedly launched an assault on rebel positions in the west of the city.
Wednesday's attack began with the detonation of a large quantity of explosives in a tunnel under the building.
Nusra Front fighters and other hard-line rebel groups then launched a ground assault but were repelled by government forces.
Twenty soldiers and militiamen and 14 rebels were said to have been killed.

Recent reports have suggested that al-Nusra is considering severing ties with al-Qaeda to try to secure arms and finance from wealthy Gulf states.
Correspondents says those states, like the West, are looking for allies in the fight against Islamic State as well as against President Assad's forces.
Mr de Mistura told the BBC's Lyse Doucet that he was willing to talk to everyone in an effort to save lives.
He said there were no talks now with al-Nusra but he hoped they would listen to his appeal, and there was a possibility he would talk to them too.