|
Syria Fighting Eases as Safe Zones Plan Begins
[An Nahar] Fighting subsided in Syria on Saturday after a deal signed by government backers Russia and Iran and rebel supporter ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... to create four safe zones began to take effect, a monitor said. The zones still exist only on paper and the cosponsors have until June 4 to finalise their borders under the terms of the agreement struck at peace talks in Kazakhstan on Thursday. But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported only sporadic skirmishes and shelling early on Saturday in the areas covered by the deal. "Apart from a few exchanges and bombardments during the night and in the morning in Hama, Damascus and Aleppo provinces, violence was sharply reduced in the areas covered by the deal," Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP. The agreement covers four main battlegrounds between the government and non-jihadist rebels -- the northwestern province of Idlib, parts of Homs province in the centre, the south, and the opposition enclave of Eastern Ghouta near Damascus. It provides for a ceasefire, a no-fly zone, rapid deliveries of humanitarian aid  to the designated areas and the return of refugees.It builds on a ceasefire agreed between Russia and Turkey last December that reduced violence for a period but gradually fell apart. The new proposal is significantly more ambitious, proposing the deployment of monitoring forces from the guarantor countries and seeking to ground all warplanes. Some of its terms are ambiguous -- it does not specify that the safe zones take effect immediately but gives the three guarantor countries two weeks to form working groups to delineate them and then until June 4 to come up with the definitive boundaries. It also calls for a continued fight against the 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 and former al-Qaeda affiliate Fateh al-Sham ...formerly al-Nusra, the current false nose and mustache of al-Qaeda in the Levant... Front, which could pose challenges. In Idlib province in particular, Fateh al-Sham is a major component of the rebel forces that control the area. Washington has given the deal a guarded welcome. UN chief Antonio Guterres said he was "encouraged" by it. Posted by: Fred 2017-05-07 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=487500 |