Men inspect the wreckage of a Russian helicopter that had been shot down in the north of Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, Syria August 1, 2016. As Patrick Cockburn, in The Rise of Islamic State, states: “A blind spot for the USA and other Western powers has been their failure to see that by supporting the armed uprising in Syria, they would inevitably destabilize Iraq”.
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The latest advance by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) opened the way for some 2,300 additional civilians to evacuate the town, the monitor said.
Also on Friday, the United Nations said it had for the first time in weeks delivered aid to thousands of Syrian refugees stranded on the border with Jordan.
The group’s statement showed what appeared to be identity cards belonging to those killed in the crash.
Several Syrian opposition groups are embedded with Nusra, and Kerry said Washington had a responsibility to control them, while Russian Federation has to control Assad. On July 27, in the northeastern city of Qamishli, people look for survivors under debris after two bomb blasts, which ISIS claimed responsibility for.
This augurs more conflict for the country until the government can secure what some analysts call “useful Syria” – a portion containing the four largest cities and Syria’s Mediterranean coast – while leaving the fates of the jihadi-controlled northwest, the Kurdish-controlled north, and the Islamic State-controlled east to the chess game of global diplomacy.
Russian Federation and Syria did not make any immediate comment on the demand.
A rebel alliance that includes the Jabhat Fatah al-Sham group – which was formerly the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front – and the Ahrar al-Sham group said it had taken army positions in the southwestern government-held parts of the city within the first few hours of launching a battle to break the siege imposed on rebel-held areas.
One of the air strikes destroyed an ambulance and a number of tents were also damaged or burned in the strikes.
President Barack Obama on Thursday cast extreme doubt on whether the United States could trust Russian Federation as a partner to end the Syrian civil war.
The horrors of life in rebel-held eastern Aleppo are worsening, residents say, describing acute food shortages and increased aerial bombardment in the battle for control of the key Syria city.
While burning tires is hardly a longterm air-defense strategy that any military commander would approve, it certainly could complicate Russian and Syrian bombing runs as they fly low and drop unguided munitions.
A quarter of a million civilians still live in Aleppo’s opposition-controlled eastern neighbourhoods, effectively under siege since the army, aided by Iranian-backed militias, cut off the last road into rebel districts in early July.
The UN has recently expressed its frustration at the lack of aid entering the country.
When the fighting erupted on Sunday, many people fled to parks, mosques, and wherever “they can feel a bit safe”, Mr Dwyer said.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011.
A terrorist attack on the Old City of Aleppo with shells containing toxic gas led to the deaths of five and suffocation of eight more civilians, the outlet quoted the citys health director, Mohamad Hazouri, as saying.
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The UN’s concerns will come as a blow to the efforts of Moscow, which has sought to alleviate criticism of the siege it has abetted in Aleppo by pointing to the humanitarian corridors as an alternative for civilians, though there is no evidence that any within opposition territory have taken it seriously.
