The Jim Bakker Show

Syrian army, allies cut off Islamic State supply route near al-Bab: monitor

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syria’s army and its allies advanced towards the northern Islamic-State held city of al-Bab on Monday, cutting off the last main supply route that connects to militant strongholds further east towards Iraq, a monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based group monitoring the war, said the army and the Lebanese Hezbollah group made gains southeast of al-Bab overnight.

Backed by air strikes, government forces and their allies severed the main road that links the city near the Turkish border to other IS-held territory in Raqqa and Deir al-Zor provinces.

Islamic State militants are now effectively besieged in the area, by the army from the south and by Turkish-backed rebels from the north, as Damascus and Ankara race to capture the largest IS stronghold in Aleppo province.

The Syrian army’s advance towards al-Bab risks triggering a confrontation with the Turkish military and its allies, groups fighting under the Free Syria Army banner, which have been waging their own campaign to take the city.

In less than three weeks, Syrian army units moved to within 5 km (3 miles) of al-Bab, as Damascus seeks to stop its neighbor, Turkey, penetrating deeper into a strategic area of northern Syria.

Northern Syria is one of the most complicated battlefields of the multi-sided Syrian war, with Islamic State now being fought there by the Syrian army, Turkey and its rebel allies, and an alliance of U.S.-backed Syrian militias.

Turkey launched its campaign in August in Syria, “Euphrates Shield”, in order to secure its frontier from Islamic State and halt the advance of the powerful Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkish troops and FSA rebels clashed heavily with IS militants around the town of Bazaa, east of al-Bab, in recent days, the Observatory said. Turkish-backed forces had briefly captured the town before Islamic State suicide bombers pushed them out on Saturday.

The Observatory also reported fighting south of al-Bab on Monday between government forces and Islamic State.

Al-Bab sits 40 km (25 miles) northeast of Aleppo, where the government defeated rebels in December, its most important gain of the nearly six-year-old war.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis)

U.S. moves to resume admitting refugees, including Syrians

By Julia Edwards Ainsley

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department on Saturday moved to begin admitting refugees, including Syrians, as soon as Monday after a federal judge on Friday blocked a Trump administration temporary ban on refugee admissions.An email from the State Department’s refugee office reviewed by Reuters Saturday said the U.S. government is working with its legal team and interagency and overseas partners to comply with the ruling.

Trump’s Jan. 27 executive order had suspended refugee admissions for 120 days and indefinitely barred Syrian refugees but U.S. Judge James Robart in Seattle on Friday blocked the president’s order.

A U.S. State Department official told Reuters on Saturday that officials “expect some refugees to arrive Monday.”

The U.S. instructed the International Organization for Migration “to rebook refugees of all nationalities, including Syrians, who were” to schedule to arrive since the Trump’s order was signed, the email said.

“We are focusing on booking refugee travel through February 17. We are asking that arrivals resume this Monday, the first normal travel day of the week, if possible. We are aware that some refugees may not be ready to depart on short notice,” the email said.

A United Nations spokesman, Leonard Doyle, told the New York Times about 2,000 refugees were ready to travel.

Refugees do not usually enter on weekends, a U.S. official said, as the department hews to a strict set of rules on how their admissions are processed.

Other travelers from seven Muslim majority countries affected by President Donald Trump’s week-old curb on immigration can rework their flights after the judge’s order, as long as they have valid visas.

Refugees fleeing war, hunger and persecution have less autonomy. Advocates working on their behalf urged the government to move quickly on admitting them.

International Refugee Assistance Project Director Becca Heller called for “the instant resumption of the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to immediately take the most vulnerable refugees out of harm’s way.”

During the week of the ban, the government admitted 843 refugees – but no Syrian refugees, government figures show. Officials previously told Reuters that they were “in transit” and had already been cleared for resettlement before the ban took effect.

For refugee families, they are trying to keep expectations in check and hope they do not end up back where they started.

Ayham Oubeid, a Syrian living in Cleveland, has been waiting for over a year for his brother George’s family to come to the United States as refugees. His brother, who has health issues, is living in Dubai on a work visa that covers him, his six-year-old daughter and five-months pregnant wife.

George left his job and moved the family out of their apartment when he was told they would be resettled in the United States on Feb. 13. But the family’s plane tickets were canceled when Trump announced the temporary ban. Without George’s job, the family could lose the work visa and be sent back to Syria in the midst of its deadly civil war.

Upon hearing of the judge’s ruling from Friday, Oubeid called George. He was careful not to be too hopeful, knowing the judge’s order could be overturned.

“I don’t want to get excited. I don’t want my brother to get excited. Because it was hard for him when he lost everything and was told he couldn’t come,” Oubeid said.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards and David Shepardson in Washington, Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Mary Milliken, Dan Grebler and Diane Craft)

Syrian army says it will press on against Islamic State near Aleppo

Syrian soldiers guarding checkpoint in area with Islamic State

By John Davison and Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army signaled on Thursday it would press on with operations against Islamic State northeast of Aleppo, in a veiled warning to Turkey which backs a separate military campaign in northern Syria.

Syrian government forces have rapidly driven Islamic State back in the last two weeks, advancing to within 6 km (4 miles) of the city of al-Bab that the jihadists are fighting to hold.

The army’s gains risk sparking a confrontation with Turkey, which has sent tanks and warplanes across the border to support Syrian insurgents who are trying to seize al-Bab in a separate offensive.

Turkey’s offensive, launched last year, aims to drive both Islamic State and Syrian Kurdish fighters away from its borders, as Turkey sees both groups as a security threat.

Syria’s military general command said government forces and their allies had recaptured more than 30 towns and villages from Islamic State, and a 16 km (10 mile) stretch of the highway that links Aleppo to al-Bab to the northeast.

“This achievement widens the secured areas around Aleppo city and is the starting point for (further) operations against Daesh (Islamic State),” a military spokesman said in a statement broadcast on state TV.

The military “confirms its commitment to … protecting civilians and maintaining the unity of the territory of the Syrian Arab Republic,” the statement added, in a remark apparently directed at Turkey.

Turkey’s offensive has brought the rebel factions it backs – some of which have also fought against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Aleppo – to the outskirts of al-Bab, according to a group that monitors the war.

Ankara last week denied that Turkey would hand over al-Bab to Assad after driving out Islamic State.

A source in the military alliance fighting in support of Assad told Reuters on Wednesday the Syrian army aimed to reach al-Bab and was ready “to clash with the FSA fighting” alongside the Turkish army if necessary.

Turkey launched its “Euphrates Shield” campaign in Syria to secure its frontier from Islamic State and halt the advance of the powerful Kurdish YPG militia. Helping rebels to topple Assad is no longer seen as a priority for Ankara.

The Euphrates Shield campaign has carved out an effective buffer zone controlled by Turkey-backed rebel groups, obstructing the YPG’s plans of linking up Kurdish controlled areas in northeastern and northwestern Syria.

The YPG, backed by the United States, is separately also battling Islamic State, and Washington’s backing for the Kurdish fighters has created tension with Turkey.

ISLAMIC STATE ASSAULTS

Fighting between Syrian forces, backed by Russia, and Islamic State has meanwhile intensified elsewhere in the country in recent weeks, with the group on the offensive in several areas of Syria while it is driven back inside its Mosul stronghold in neighboring Iraq.

Government forces clashed with the militants west of the historic city of Palmyra late on Wednesday, in an attempt to recover ground recently lost, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.

The army made some progress and took over farmland around the village of al-Tayas, 50 km (30 miles) west of Palmyra and near the T4 air base, but dozens of Syrian troops have been killed in the latest clashes in the area, the British-based Observatory said.

The jihadists seized Palmyra and some nearby oil fields in December for a second time in the nearly six-year Syrian conflict. They had been driven out by the army and its allies in March.

Further southwest the army fought Islamic State near the al-Seen military airport, the Observatory said.

Islamic State on Sunday launched an attack on the airport, 70 km northeast of Damascus, it said, adding that dozens of Syrian soldiers and militants had died in several days of fighting.

Government forces have recaptured at least one village in the area, the Observatory and a military media unit run by Assad’s ally Hezbollah said.

Islamic State fighters have also been attacking the remaining pockets of government-held territory in the city of Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria, long besieged by the group. Heavy Russian air strikes have targeted Islamic State in the area. Deir al-Zor province is almost entirely held by Islamic State.

(Reporting by John Davison and Tom Perry; Editing by Tom Heneghan and Dominic Evans)

U.N. plans next round of Syria peace talks February 20

People walk past damaged shops in Aleppo Syria

By Ned Parker

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The next round of United Nations-based peace talks on Syria have been scheduled for Feb. 20, diplomats told reporters on Tuesday.

The talks had been planned to begin in Geneva on Feb. 8 but Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said last week that they had been postponed.

The UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said on Tuesday that he had decided to delay the UN-sponsored talks in order to take advantage of last week’s negotiations between the Syrian government and opposition in Astana, Kazakhstan, hosted by Moscow, Ankara and Tehran.

The Astana talks ended with Moscow, Ankara and Tehran agreeing to monitor Syrian government and opposition compliance with a Dec. 30 truce.

“We want to give a chance to this Astana initiative to actually implement itself,” de Mistura told reporters outside the Security Council. “If the ceasefire becomes as solid as we hope, that will only help the serious talk to achieve the concrete.”

He added invitations for the UN-sponsored talks in Geneva would go out on Feb. 8. If the Syrian opposition cannot agree on its delegates, de Mistura said the UN would choose the opposition’s representatives “in order to make sure that it can be as inclusive as possible.”

De Mistura said the United Nations would be attending a follow up technical meeting on Feb. 6 of the Russia, Iran and Turkey backed talks in Astana on the implementation and monitoring of the Syria ceasefire.

(Reporting by Ned Parker; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Iran will not use ballistic missiles to attack any country: foreign minister

Minister of foreign affairs for Islamic Republic of Iran

By John Irish

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran said on Tuesday it would never use its ballistic missiles to attack another country and defended its missile tests, saying they are neither part of a nuclear accord with world powers nor a U.N. Security Council resolution endorsing the pact.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif spelled out Tehran’s stance after a U.S. official said Iran on Sunday test-launched a medium-range ballistic missile that exploded after 630 miles (1,010 km).

In light of this, the United States requested the U.N. Security Council hold “urgent consultations” on Tuesday, after its scheduled session on Syria’s conflict.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault told reporters in Tehran that had voiced its concerns over the Iranian test, adding that it harmed the international community’s confidence in Tehran and contravened Security Council Resolution 2231.

That resolution ratified a July 2015 accord between Iran and six world powers under which Tehran curbed its nuclear activity to defuse concerns it could be put to making atomic bombs; in return, Iran won relief from crippling economic sanctions.

Zarif neither confirmed nor denied the U.S. report that it tested a ballistic missile on Sunday but added: “The missiles aren’t part of the nuclear accords. Iran will never use missiles produced in Iran to attack any other country.”

“No Iranian missiles have been produced to carry nuclear warheads,” said Zarif, speaking at a joint news conference held with Ayrault in Tehran. The Security Council resolution called on Iran not to carry out activity related to ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons.

Senator Bob Corker, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, condemned Iran on Monday and said he would work with other lawmakers and the Trump administration to hold Iran accountable.

“COMMON INTEREST”

Ayrault said at the start of his two-day trip to Tehran on Monday that France would act as a defender of the nuclear deal that new U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to tear up.

“We hope that that question of Iran’s defensive program will not be used as a pretext for the new U.S. administration … to provoke new tensions,” Zarif said.

Ayrault added it was imperative the Islamic Republic abide strictly by the conditions of the accord. He said it was in the “common interest” that all sides heeded the deal.

Ayrault is looking to reassure Tehran of France and Europe’s support for the nuclear deal, and to increase commercial ties. The deal was engineered two years ago by the United States, Russia, China, Britain, Germany and France.

“This deal has to be rigorously kept to,” Ayrault said. “I want this deal to last and that no badly chosen initiatives are taken that could put the accord in jeopardy.”

During the U.S. election race, Trump branded it “the worst deal ever negotiated”, telling voters he would either rip it up or seek a better agreement.

Paris took one of the hardest lines against Tehran in the talks, but has been quick to restore trade relations since then.

Major French corporations including planemaker Airbus <AIR.PA>, oil major Total <TOTF.PA> and car companies Peugeot <PEUP.PA> and Renault <RENA.PA> have all signed contracts.

Ayrault said trade between the two countries had surged by 200 percent since the July 2015 deal.

He added that a deal between Turboprop maker ATR with IranAir for the sale of at least 20 aircraft was “practically sealed”, and that a contract with construction group Vinci <SGEF.PA> for two regional airports was also making progress.

Ayrault also sought to reassure Zarif over the potential return to Iran of major Western banks, which have hesitated for fear of possible U.S. fines if they do business with Iran.

“Some banks are reticent, but we are working on this,” Ayrault said.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Syrian groups see more U.S. support for IS fight, plan new phase

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A U.S.-backed alliance of Syrian militias said on Tuesday it saw signs of increased U.S. support for their campaign against Islamic State with President Donald Trump in office, a shift that would heighten Turkish worries over Kurdish power in Syria.

A Kurdish military source told Reuters separately the next phase of a campaign by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance — which includes the Kurdish YPG militia — aimed to cut the last remaining routes to Islamic State’s stronghold of Raqqa city, including the road to Deir al-Zor.

The YPG has been the main partner on the ground in Syria for the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State, fighting as part of the SDF that has driven Islamic State from swathes of northern Syria with the coalition’s air support.

The YPG also has links to a Kurdish party, the PKK, designated by Turkey as a terrorist group.

It forms the military backbone of autonomous regions that have been set up by Kurdish groups and their allies in northern Syria since the onset of the war in 2011, alarming Turkey where a Kurdish minority lives just over the border. The main Syrian Kurdish groups say their aim is autonomy, not independence.

SDF spokesman Talal Silo told Reuters the U.S.-led coalition supplied the SDF with armored vehicles for the first time four or five days ago. Although the number was small, Silo called it a significant shift in support. He declined to give an exact number.

“Previously we didn’t get support in this form, we would get light weapons and ammunition,” he said. “There are signs of full support from the new American leadership — more than before — for our forces.”

He said the vehicles would be deployed in the campaign against Islamic State which has since November focused on Raqqa city, Islamic State’s base of operations in central Syria.

The first two phases of the offensive focused on capturing areas to the north and west of Raqqa, part of a strategy to encircle the city.

The third phase would focus on capturing remaining areas, including the road between Raqqa city and Deir al-Zor, the Kurdish military source said.

IS holds nearly all of Deir al-Zor province, where it has been fighting hard in recent weeks to try to capture the last remaining pockets of Syrian government-held territory in Deir al-Zor city.

Cutting off Raqqa city from IS strongholds in Deir al-Zor would be a major blow against the group.

“The coming phase of the campaign aims to isolate Raqqa completely,” said the Kurdish military source, who declined to be named. “Accomplishing this requires reaching the Raqqa-Deir al-Zor road,” the source said.

“This mission will be difficult.”

Silo of the SDF said preparations were underway for “new action” against IS starting in “a few days”, but declined to give further details.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Janet Lawrence and Sonya Hepinstall)

Trump talks to Putin, other world leaders about security threats

By Jeff Mason

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump discussed Syria and the fight against Islamic State with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in one of several calls with world leaders that the new U.S. president used to put his stamp on international affairs.

Trump’s call with Putin was their first since the New York businessman took office and came as officials said he was considering lifting sanctions on Moscow despite opposition from Democrats and Republicans at home and European allies abroad.

Neither the White House nor the Kremlin mentioned a discussion of sanctions in their statements about the roughly hour-long call.

“The positive call was a significant start to improving the relationship between the United States and Russia that is in need of repair,” the White House said. “Both President Trump and President Putin are hopeful that after today’s call the two sides can move quickly to tackle terrorism and other important issues of mutual concern.”

Former President Barack Obama strongly suggested in December that Putin personally authorized the computer hacks of Democratic Party emails that U.S. intelligence officials say were part of a Russian effort aimed at helping Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton in the Nov. 8 election.

Trump’s relationship with Russia is being closely watched by the European Union, which teamed up with the United States to punish Moscow after its annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Trump spoke to two top EU leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande, on Saturday in addition to Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.

His call with Merkel, who had a very close relationship with Trump’s predecessor, former President Barack Obama, included a discussion about Russia, the Ukraine crisis, and NATO, the U.S. and German governments said.

Trump has described NATO as being obsolete, a comment that has alarmed long-time U.S. allies. A White House statement said he and Merkel agreed NATO must be capable of confronting “21rst century threats.”

Trump’s executive order restricting travel and instituting “extreme vetting” of visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries already puts him at odds with Merkel, whose embrace of Syrian refugees was praised by Obama even as it created political problems for her domestically.

Trump has said previously that Merkel made a “catastrophic mistake” by permitting more than a million refugees, mostly Muslims fleeing war in the Middle East, to come to her country.

In his call with Hollande, Trump “reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to NATO and noted the importance of all NATO allies sharing the burden on defense spending,” the White House said.

Hollande warned Trump against taking a protectionist approach, which he said would have economic and political consequences, according to a statement from the French president’s office.

The refugee order created confusion and chaotic scenes in airports on Saturday and largely overshadowed the news of Trump’s calls with foreign leaders, which took place throughout the day and which photographers captured in photos and video outside the Oval Office.

During his call with Japan’s Abe, Trump affirmed an “ironclad” U.S. commitment to ensuring Japan’s security. The two leaders also discussed the threat posed by North Korea. They plan to meet in Washington early next month.

Trump spoke to Australia’s Turnbull for 25 minutes and emphasized the close relationship between the two countries.

(additional reporting by Roberta Rampton, Andrea Shalal, Andrew Osborn, Alexander Winning, and Kiyoshi Takenaka; Editing by Nick Zieminski)

Trump’s hopes for Syria safe zones may force decision on Assad

By Phil Stewart

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s push to create safe zones in Syria could force him to make some risky decisions about how far to go to protect refugees, including shooting down Syrian or Russian aircraft or committing thousands of U.S. troops, experts said.

Trump said on Wednesday he “will absolutely do safe zones in Syria” for refugees fleeing violence. According to a document seen by Reuters, he is expected in the coming days to order the Pentagon and the State Department to draft a plan to create such zones in Syria and nearby nations.

The document did not spell out what would make a safe zone “safe” and whether it would protect refugees only from threats on the ground – such as jihadist fighters – or whether Trump envisions a no-fly zone policed by America and its allies.

If it is a no-fly zone, without negotiating some agreement with Russia Trump would have to decide whether to give the U.S. military the authority to shoot down Syrian or Russian aircraft if they posed a threat to people in that zone, which his predecessor, former President Barack Obama, refused to do.

“This essentially boils down to a willingness to go to war to protect refugees,” said Jim Phillips, a Middle East expert at the Heritage Foundation think-tank in Washington, noting Russia’s advanced air defenses.

Trump promised during his campaign to target jihadists from Islamic State, and he has sought to avoid being dragged deeper into Syria’s conflict – raising the question of whether he might be satisfied by assurances, perhaps from Moscow, that neither Russian nor Syrian jets would target the zone.

In Moscow, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump did not consult with Russia and warned that the consequences of such a plan “ought to be weighed up.”

“It is important that this (the plan) does not exacerbate the situation with refugees,” he said.

Phillips and other experts, including former U.S. officials, said many refugees would not be satisfied by assurances from Moscow, while any deal with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who also is backed by Iran, might not go over well with America’s Arab allies.

The Pentagon declined comment on Thursday, saying no formal directive to develop such plans had been handed down yet, and some U.S. military officials appeared unaware of the document before seeing it described in the media on Wednesday.

“Our department right now is tasked with one thing in Syria, and that is to degrade and defeat ISIS,” said Captain Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman.

TENS OF THOUSANDS OF TROOPS

Trump’s call for a plan for safe zones is part of a larger directive expected to be signed in coming days that includes a temporary ban on most refugees to the United States and a suspension of visas for citizens of Syria and six other Middle Eastern and African countries deemed to pose a terrorism threat.

During and after the presidential campaign, Trump called for no-fly zones to harbor Syrian refugees as an alternative to allowing them into the United States. Trump accused the Obama administration of failing to screen Syrian immigrants entering the United States to ensure they had no militant ties.

Any safe zone in Syria guaranteed by the United States would almost certainly require some degree of U.S. military protection. Securing the ground alone would require thousands of troops, former U.S. officials and experts say.

Anthony Cordesman, a military expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, cautioned that a safe zone inside Syria could become a diplomatic albatross that would force a Trump administration to juggle a host of ethnic and political tensions in Syria indefinitely.

Other experts said jihadists could be attracted to the zone, either to carry out attacks that would embarrass the United States or to use the zone as a safe haven where militants could regroup.

Such a zone also would be expensive, given the need to house, feed, educate and provide medical care to the refugees.

“I think these people really have no idea what it takes to support 25,000 people, which is really a small number, in terms of the (internally displaced) and refugees” in Syria, Cordesman said.

The draft document gave no details on what would constitute a safe zone, where one might be set up and who would defend it.

Jordan, Turkey and other neighboring countries already host millions of Syrian refugees. The Turkish government pressed Obama, without success, to create a no-fly zone on Syria’s border with Turkey but now is at odds with Washington over its support for Kurdish fighters in Syria.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; additional reporting by Rodrigo Campos; editing by John Walcott and Cynthia Osterman)

Jihadists crush Syria rebel group, in a blow to diplomacy

Damaged house after attack from jihadists in syria

By Tom Perry

BEIRUT (Reuters) – A powerful jihadist group has crushed a Free Syrian Army rebel faction in northwestern Syria, in an attack that threatens to deal a critical blow to the more moderate wing of the Syrian rebellion and derail new Russian-backed peace talks.

The Jabhat Fateh al-Sham jihadist group, formerly known as the Nusra Front, launched an attack on a number of FSA groups in northwestern Syria on Tuesday, accusing them of conspiring against it at peace talks in Kazakhstan this week.

The fighting has engulfed the rebels’ last major territorial stronghold in northwestern Syria, prompting a major Islamist insurgent faction to warn on Wednesday that it could allow President Bashar al-Assad and his allies to capture the area.

Officials with two FSA factions said Fateh al-Sham had overrun areas held by the Jaish al-Mujahideen group west of Aleppo. One of the officials said he expected other FSA factions to face the same fate unless they could get better organized to defend themselves – something they have so far failed to do.

Fateh al-Sham later on Wednesday attacked the central Idlib prison on the outskirts of the city which has been controlled by another rebel group, partly in an attempt to free inmates there, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported.

Fateh al-Sham said in an online statement the Alwiyat Suqour al-Sham group had handed it control of the prison, and rebel fighters guarding it had been allowed to withdraw without being detained. Reuters could not independently verify the statement.

The Syrian insurgency has been hamstrung from the outset by divisions among rebel groups fighting Assad, including the ideological split over whether to pursue Sunni jihadist goals or the more nationalist agenda backed by FSA groups.

“Nusra wants to end the FSA,” said the FSA official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. If it succeeded, “the ones who attended Astana will be finished”, he added, referring to the talks in Kazakhstan.

Those talks were backed by Assad’s two main allies – Russia and Iran – and by Turkey, which has supported many of the FSA groups in northern Syria. Russia mobilized the new talks after helping Assad to defeat the rebels in Aleppo last month.

ISLAMIST AHRAR AL-SHAM CALLS UP FIGHTERS

Fateh al-Sham was al Qaeda’s official wing in the Syrian war until it announced it had cut those ties last year. Internationally viewed as a terrorist group, it has been excluded from all diplomatic efforts to end the Syrian conflict, including a recent truce brokered by Russia and Turkey.

Since the new year, Fateh al-Sham has been targeted by a spate of U.S. air strikes. That included an attack by a B-52 bomber which the Pentagon said killed more than 100 al Qaeda militants.

Fateh al-Sham said in a statement published on Tuesday it had been forced to act preemptively to “thwart conspiracies” being hatched against it. It said “conferences and negotiations” were “trying to divert the course of the revolution towards reconciliation with the criminal regime (of Assad)”.

It also accused rebel factions that attended the Astana talks of agreeing to “isolate” and fight it, and said its foes were giving away its positions to the U.S.-led coalition.

Fateh al-Sham is one of the most powerful groups in the remaining territory held by the rebels in northwestern Syria, including Idlib province. While it has often fought in close proximity to FSA rebels against Assad, it also has a record of crushing foreign-backed FSA groups.

Ahrar al-Sham, a major Islamist faction that also fights in the Idlib area, issued a general call-up of fighters to “stop the fighting in any form”. Coming down on the side of the FSA groups, it accused Fateh al-Sham of rejecting mediation efforts that the FSA groups had accepted.

Ahrar al-Sham, a conservative Islamist group, is widely believed to be backed by Turkey. In a voice message posted on YouTube on Wednesday, Ahrar al-Sham leader Abu Ammar al-Omar said:

“If the fighting continues and if one party continues to do an injustice to another, then we will not allow this to pass, regardless of the cost, even if we become victims of this.”

(Additional reporting by John Davison and Ali Abdelaty in Cairo; Editing by Larry King and Dominic Evans)

Prosecutor urges Arizona man’s conviction for Islamic State support

By Nate Raymond

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A federal prosecutor on Wednesday urged jurors to convict an Arizona man who she said played a vital role in helping a New York college student travel to Syria, where he died fighting for Islamic State.

In her closing argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Negar Tekeei told a federal jury in Manhattan that Mohammed El Gammal, 44, was a “steadfast and enthusiastic supporter” of Islamic State who in an online message had said he was “with the State.”

Tekeei said the Egyptian-born Phoenix resident shared his support in encrypted messages with Samy Mohammed El-Goarany, a 24-year-old student at Baruch College in Manhattan, who like El Gammal had become “obsessed” with Islamic State.

She said El Gammal, settled in his American life, decided to guide the student toward his goal, traveling to New York in October 2014 to vet El-Goarany before putting him in touch with a friend in Istanbul who helped him get to Syria.

“It was the defendant who paved the way for that,” she said.

But Sabrina Shroff, El Gammal’s lawyer, said he did not know about El-Goarany’s plan, saying the student misled people into believing he was planning to do humanitarian work in Syria and followed steps in an Islamic State manual to join it.

While El Gammal was not shy in his views, Shroff said no evidence existed showing he took any actions. She also said El Gammal’s friend in Turkey belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood and would not have helped El-Goarany join Islamic State.

“Samy, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is the only terrorist in this case,” she said.

El Gammal is one of more than 100 people to face U.S. charges since 2014 in cases related to Islamic State, which controls parts of Syria and Iraq and has claimed responsibility for bombings and shootings of civilians in other countries.

According to prosecutors, El-Goarany ultimately flew to Istanbul from New York in January 2015, and sometime after arrived in Syria, where he received religious and military training and fought with Islamic State.

Prosecutors said that in November 2015, an unidentified person via an instant messaging platform contacted El-Goarany’s brother to report that he had been killed fighting in Syria.

In a photograph of the hand-written note shown to jurors, El-Goarany wrote that “if you’re reading this then know that I’ve been killed in battle and am now with our Lord Insha’Allah.”

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Bernard Orr)

Shop Our Affiliates!

Jim Bakker Show

Tag Archives: Syria