|
Syrian warbirds hit Kurd areas in Aleppo
[ARA News] ALEPPO – The Syrian regime’s air force hit a Kurdish-populated district in the northern Aleppo city with several barrel bombs, killing and wounding a number of civilians, local sources reported on Wednesday.At least five civilians were killed, including two children, and nine others were injured in the regime’s bombardment in Sheikh Maqsoud district. Speaking to ARA News in Aleppo, civil rights activist Hozan Haddo said that three barrel bombs dropped by Syrian military helicopters hit a crowded market in central Sheikh Maqsoud in Aleppo. “The bombardment has caused a mass destruction in the targeted market and left more than 15 civilian casualties,” Haddo reported. Some of the victims were pulled from the rubble of destroyed shops in the district. Sheikh Maqsoud is under the control of the Kurdish forces the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The YPG has repeatedly clashed with Islamist fighters of al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front in the vicinity of Sheikh Maqsoud district, as the Kurdish forces have been trying to defend the district for more than a year against al-Qaeda offensives. This is the first time that the Syrian air force bomb the Sheikh Maqsoud district with barrel bombs.
Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, Al-Nusra Front, has boosted its presence in the country's divided former economic capital of Aleppo, a monitoring group said on Wednesday. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Al-Nusra has erected new positions in several districts of the northern city after having sent in a convoy of 200 vehicles loaded with fighters. The group has deployed in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, said the Britannia-based Observatory which relies on a vast network of sources on the ground for its information. Al-Nusra itself posted on Twitter a video of dozens of four-wheel-drive vehicles transporting gunnies through Aleppo. "This show of force could signal that Al-Nusra is preparing to take over command of future battles in Aleppo" against government forces, the Observatory said. The monitoring group's head, Rami Abdel Rahman, said other rebel movements in the city were weakening, among them the Nureddin Zinki group of moderate Islamists that was running out of funds to repair its vehicles or feed its 4,000 fighters. Al-Nusra's reinforcements were dispatched from Idlib province, a bastion of the group in northwest Syria bordering ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... , the Observatory said. In mid-January, a security source said pro-regime forces were poised to launch a major offensive to retake Aleppo province and sever supply routes to rebels in the placid provincial capital. Much of Aleppo province is held by Al-Nusra and its Islamist allies, or controlled by Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group jihadists. Posted by: badanov 2016-01-28 |
|
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=443528 |