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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Manbij: Retreating ISIL fighters take 2,000 civilians as human shields |
| 2016-08-13 |
| [The National] Around 2,000 civilians have been taken hostage as human shields by ISIS forces retreating from the northern Syrian town of Manbij, a coalition fighting the forces of Evil and a monitoring group said on Friday. Sherfan Darwish, a front man for the Manbij Military Council, said ISIS fighters used the civilians to ensure that they were not attacked as they withdrew north to Jarablus, an ISIS-held town on Syria’s border with ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... The council is part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish and Arab factions that have surrounded Manbij since June. In a rare move last month, the SDF offered ISIS safe passage out of Manbij in a bid to avoid civilian casualties that they feared would come with an assault on the town. ISIS ignored the offer. By the end of July, the SDF had captured most of Manbij with the help of air strikes from the US-led anti-ISIS coalition. In recent days, only small pockets of ISIS fighters remained in the town. While around 2,000 civilians were kidnapped by ISIS in their retreat, Mr Darwish, the Manbij Military Council front man, said that an additional 2,500 civilians who had been held captive by ISIS were freed by the SDF. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which relies on sources in Syria, said the civilians were placed in hundreds of cars that then headed for Jarabulus. Elsewhere in Syria, government forces continued their assault on rebels in and around the city of Aleppo, where last week a coalition of opposition factions broke a three-week government siege of the city’s east. On Friday, air strikes in Aleppo province hit a market, a hospital and a village, killing at least 18 people. Air strikes continued to target healthcare and emergency response facilities in the area. A hospital in the town of Kafr Hamra, on the northern front line between rebels and government troops in Aleppo, was hit before dawn, killing two workers. A Syrian Civil Defense centre in eastern Aleppo was also hit by an air strike. Last month, 43 health care facilities in opposition areas of Syria were partly or completely destroyed by the conflict. "With heavy bombing continuing relentlessly in Aleppo especially, hospitals and clinics need to be treated as the sacred life-saving places they are, not as additional bombing targets," Nadim Houry, the deputy Middle East director of Human Rights Watch ... During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, HRW received a pledge from the Foundation to Promote Open Society, of which George Soros is Chairman, for general support totaling $100,000,000. The grant is being paid in installments of $10,000,000 over ten years.Through June 30, 2013, HRW had received $30,000,000 towards the fulfillment of the pledge.... said. As the United Nations ...the Oyster Bay money pit... continues to urge weekly ceasefires to allow the delivery of aid to civilians trapped in Aleppo and a resumption of diplomatic talks, Turkey said on Friday that it was willing to work with Iran to resolve the conflict in Syria. "We will closely cooperate on these issues [on Syria] after this meeting. There are issues we agree on, especially on Syrian territorial integrity," said Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu Friday after meeting with Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. |
| Posted by:Fred |