Syrian government forces control all of Aleppo’s historic Old City after rebel fighters withdrew in the face of army advances overnight, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

The army and allied forces hold more than 75 per cent of east Aleppo, a rebel bastion since 2012, three weeks into their operation to capture all of the second city which saw at least 80,000 people flee east Aleppo.

The Observatory said rebels had withdrawn from the last parts of the Old City under their control overnight after the army seized the neighbouring districts of Bab Al Hadid and Aqyul.

“Rebels were forced to withdraw from the Old City neighbourhoods of Aleppo for fear of being besieged,” the Britain-based monitor said.

The army has made steady gains since it began its latest bid to recapture east Aleppo.

It now controls all the areas east of the historic citadel, and parts of the Marjeh neighbourhood, the Observatory said.

Overnight, the army carried out heavy shelling of the Al Zabdiya neighbourhood and other territory still under rebel control in the southeast of the city, the Observatory said.

It said at least 15 people, including a child, were killed in government fire on east Aleppo on Tuesday.

Three children were among 11 people killed by rebel fire on government-held areas of the city.

At least 80,000 people have fled east Aleppo since the Syrian army began an operation in mid-November, the Observatory said. The figure included residents who have sought refuge in the government-held west of the city and a Kurdish-controlled enclave between the two sectors. But it does not include others who have fled south to remaining rebel-held territory, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The army has made swift progress in its operation to recapture east Aleppo and now controls three-quarters of the sector, which had been a rebel bastion since 2012.

The government has been urging civilians to leave for months, and has accused the rebels of holding residents hostage for use as “human shields.”

Before the assault began, an estimated 250,000 people remained in east Aleppo, which was surrounded by government forces in mid-July, halting deliveries of basic goods.

thenational.ae

farsnews.com

The Syrian Army and allied militias continue to make sweeping advances in the battle for Aleppo, military sources reported on Monday.

Regime forces have driven the rebels from Qadi Askar neighborhood and are now in control of approximately 60% of formerly opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

“Losing Qadi Askar neighborhood was a new blow to the rebels, who have suffered heavy losses […] over the last three weeks,” media activist Ali al-Halabi told ARA News. “At least 22 rebel fighters were killed and dozens more were injured.”

A Syrian Army detachment has also laid siege to the nearby al-Shaar neighborhood.

It appears that there will be no respite in Aleppo city. On Monday, Russia and China vetoed a UN Security Council resolution that would have imposed a seven-day truce in Aleppo.

Russia argued that the ceasefire would allow the rebels to regroup and that time was needed for bilateral talks between Washington and Moscow.

Moscow has instead opened exit corridors and provided guarantees of safe passage. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has demanded that the rebel factions withdraw from eastern Aleppo “or they’ll all be treated as terrorists.”

Saleh al-Zein, a spokesman for the Islamist al-Shamiya Front, told ARA News that they have rejected Moscow’s demands. “This is our city and we’ll fight until the last moment,” he said.

Speaking to ARA News in Aleppo, Al-Zein declared that “Russia is an occupying force and it has to withdraw from Syria instead of demanding that the rebels leave.”

aranews.net/

A senior Iranian official has warned the U.S. of a “firm and strong reaction” if it persists in actions he says are endangering a nuclear deal aimed at curbing programs Tehran could use to make atomic arms.

Iranian nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi is alluding to a bill before President Barack Obama that would extend U.S. sanctions by 10 years. The bill was submitted to Obama after the U.S. Senate voted to extend it last week.

The deal lifted international sanctions in exchange for limitations on the Iranian nuclear program. But U.S. sanctions remain and will expire on Dec. 31 if Obama doesn’t sign the extension into law.

Speaking at a nuclear security conference, Salehi urged Washington on Monday to desist from “irrational and provocative” moves.

foxnews.com

“Abu Izzam, ISIL’s oil minister, was killed by Iraqi security forces during the operations in areas and villages East of the city of Mosul,” al-Saedi said.

Earlier on Monday, Iraqi Federal Police Commander General Shaker Judat disclosed that his forces have discovered and seized the media center of the ISIL terrorist group in the city of Mosul in Nineveh province.

“The ISIL’s media center was captured in al-Mashraq square in the Southern part of Hamam al-Alil in Southern Mosul by the Iraqi Federal Police,” the Arabic-language al-Manar satellite TV quoted Judat as saying.

Judat went on to say that his forces also seized the ISIL’s visual equipment, including cameras and videos, as well as important documents in the media center.

On Sunday, Iraq’s joint military forces recaptured a number of more villages near Mosul in Nineveh province.

“The Iraqi forces have gained control of four villages in al-Nouran region North of Mosul city,” the Iraqi defense ministry announced.

Also on Sunday, the Iraqi forces seized back villages of Qara Tapeh, Kouri Qariban, al-Deravish and Abu Jarboubeh villages in the Northern flank of Mosul city.

Commander of Nineveh Military Operation Major General Abdel Amir Yarallah said in a statement that the ISIL terrorists sustained heavy losses and casualties in the tough battle with the Iraqi government forces.

Meantime, the Iraqi Defense Ministry in a statement disclosed that the country’s joint military forces have deployed new military tactics to surprise the ISIL terrorists and prevent them from disguise, and said the Baghdad government troops have recaptured several areas by applying the same tactics.

The defense ministry said that the Iraqi forces managed to take full control of al-Entesar, Jadideh al-Mofti, al-Salam, Younes al-Sabawi and Palestine districts by purging terrorists from a large number of residential complexes.

It noted that the Syrian army and their allies still continue their military advances in different districts across Mosul city.

On Saturday, a senior Iraqi commander announced that the country’s joint military forces have seized back over 360 villages and more than 5,600 square kilometers of lands in Nineveh province since the start of the Mosul liberation operation.

“Our forces have won back 369 villages and over 5,677 square kilometers of lands since the Mosul operation kicked off,” Commander of Iraq’s Joint Military Operations Lieutenant General Abdel Amir Rashid Yarallah said.

He noted that Iraq’s joint military forces have also destroyed 632 bomb-laden military vehicles of the terrorists during the Mosul operation.

On Thursday, Iraq’s elite Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) said they are progressing steadily in their operations to liberate the ISIL-held city of Mosul from its terrorist occupants.

CTS troops have entered the Northeastern neighborhood of Qahera, where they commenced operations to purge ISIL militants from it and surrounding districts.

Major General Abdul Ghani al-Asadi, a CTS commander, told reporters that after deployment the troops split up into two groups heading South and North.

“The troops made good progress in both directions according to plan. Troops heading South secured almost 70 percent of al-Ikha neighborhood, which is an important neighborhood,” he said.

He noted that the forces had now surrounded the al-Ilam, al-Tamim and al-Noor neighborhoods, and were preparing to cut off the supply routes to the al-Quds and al-Karama neighborhoods.

farsnews.com/

An American and a German volunteer were killed in late November in purported Turkish airstrikes on the northern Syrian city of Manbij, a Kurdish military council in the city has claimed.

Michael Israel, a US national fighting under the nom de guerre Robin Agiri, and Anton Lescheck, a German national known as Zana Ziwan, were both killed on 24 November according to an official statement from the Manbij Military Council earlier this week.

Several foreign fighters volunteering with Kurdish groups such as the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have been killed fighting in both Syria and Iraq.

SDF forces – viewed by Ankara as analogous to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has waged a guerrilla war on the Turkish state since the 1980s – took control of Manbij from Islamic State group militants in August, and have maintained a presence in the area.

This presence has angered Ankara which is wary of growing Kurdish autonomy over territories close to Syria’s northern border with Turkey and in August embarked on a military campaign in Syria titled Operation Euphrates Shield.

Ostensibly aimed at combating the threat of IS, Operation Euphrates Shield has frequently clashed with Kurdish forces.

Involving both Turkish troops and Ankara-backed Syrian rebels, it is currently advancing on IS-held al-Bab with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowing to march on Manbij once the town has fallen.

Kurdish forces that have been entrusted by Washington with leading assaults on IS-held Raqqa, the extremist group’s de facto capital, have said they will turn back from Raqqa to defend Manbij if Turkish aggression on the city continues.

Israel, who was from California and a member of the Industrial Workers of the World – a revolutionary anti-capitalist union – was in Syria fighting with Kurdish forces for the third time, having made two previous trips.

“I am back in Rojava again and will be here for the next several months to do my part in defending the revolution,” Israel wrote on a Facebook in July.

“The Rojava struggle is the most dynamic and ground-breaking revolutionary movement of our time. I am determined that it is the job of leftist allies and internationalists to rally behind this movement, to help build it up and learn from it… the gains of the revolution under such austere and harsh conditions is truly remarkable.”

Leschek – who had been embedded with Kurdish forces since September – was described in a statement by Manbij Military Council as “fearless”.

Describing why he had joined Kurdish forces in Syria before his death Leschek said:  “It’s a true fight in Rojava for me, because here people neither surrender to tyranny nor to terror. I will support this democratic revolution to the end.”

alaraby.co.uk

Daesh snipers have shot dead at least 15 children fleeing a militant-held neighborhood in Mosul which is besieged by the Iraqi army as part of a massive offensive to retake the city, a security source says.

The unnamed source told al-Sumaria television network on Thursday that the victims were heading to government security checkpoints along with their families when they were hit.

Daesh militants, he said, had planted roadside bombs to prevent civilians from fleeing Mosul, located 400 kilometers north of the capital Baghdad, in order to use them as human shields.

On Wednesday, Iraqi Special Forces wrested the control of the al-Shaqaq neighborhood from Daesh fighters following fierce skirmishes.

albawaba.com

The Iraqi government’s effort to integrate a Shia militia group in the country’s security forces is concerning as it might increase Iran’s influence with Baghdad, a US general said Wednesday.

“It will increase obviously Shia — potentially Iranian — influence over the government of Iraq and we have to be concerned about it,” the head of Central Command, Gen. Joseph Votel said during a panel discussion at the Foreign Policy Initiative, a neoconservative Washington-based think tank.

Iraq’s parliament passed a law last weekend that formally recognized controversial Iran-backed Shia militia group, Hashed Al Shaabi, as an “independent military entity” operating within the Iraqi Army.

Votel believes the nuclear deal inked between the world powers and Iran last year did not help change Tehran’s actions such as sponsoring terror groups and fueling sectarian conflicts.

“It is implemented appropriately but it addresses only one of our concerns,” he said of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Votel said since the deal, Iran has sponsored more than 100,000 Shia militias in conflicts, including in Yemen and Iraq.

“I would probably say there is a little bit of uptick,” he said.

Votel also indicated that military-to-military relations between the US and Egypt did not slow following a military coup by Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in 2013.

“Frankly I think the military-to-military relationship like all other relationships has its highs and has its lows but I think it remained pretty steady,” he said.

Votel’s comments follow severe criticism by Washington of Egypt’s military’s crackdown on hundreds of demonstrators and arrests of thousands of others, including political leaders and activists, in the wake of the coup.

The general also commended Turkey’s efforts to help his command that is leading the anti-Daesh fight.

“Recently, we could not do the things that we are been doing, particularly in Syria, without the support we get from Turkey on a daily basis,” he said.

Like others in the region, Turkey has concerns, he said, noting the US should recognize Turkey’s concerns about the PKK and Daesh terror groups.

Turkey has opened its bases to the US-led coalition and launched Operation Euphrates Shield in August in support of moderate Syrian opposition groups against Daesh in northern Syria.

Two Turkish soldiers were allegedly captured Tuesday by Daesh. The deputy commander of anti-Daesh coalition, British Maj. Gen. Jones Rupert, told reporters via a video conference from Baghdad the coalition would help Turkey recover the soldiers.

He did not elaborate about what kind of support the coalition would provide.

middleeastmonitor.com