The Syrian Islamist movement of Ahrar al-Sham on Tuesday issued a religious verdict justifying cooperation with the Turkish army against ISIS and the Kurdish forces in Syria, confirming it’s participation in the Turkey-led Jarabulus operation.

“It is permissible to cooperate with Turkey to fight the Islamic State, and there is a need for an Islamist group to rule there to prevent groups like YPG [Kurdish forces] from taking over,” the fatwa read.

“So Ahrar al-Sham and other factions can go ahead and cooperate with Turkey,” it added.

The Islamic Movement of Ahrar al-Sham has tried earlier to hide its participation in the Turkish-backed Jarabulus offensive launched on 24 August. This is the first time the group publically announces support for the operation.

The Obama administration has shown no interest in working with the group Ahrar al-Sham in the anti-ISIS campaign, for its ideological background, and its links and cooperation with other jihadist groups such as Al Qaida’s Nusra Front.

Tuesday’s announcement by the Ahrar al-Sham group could lead to further escalation of fighting between the Kurdish forces and pro-Turkey rebel groups in Syria. The Ahrar al-Sham was responsible for frequent attacks on Kurdish districts in Aleppo, that claimed lives of hundreds of Kurdish civilians.

aranews.net/

The Obama administration is weighing a military plan to directly arm Syrian Kurdish fighters combating the Islamic State, a major policy shift that could speed up the offensive against the terrorist group but also sharply escalate tensions between Turkey and the United States.

The plan has been under discussion by the National Security Council staff at a moment when President Obama has directed aides to examine all proposals that could accelerate the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL. Mr. Obama has told aides that he wants an offensive well underway before he leaves office that is aimed at routing the Islamic State from Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital in northern Syria.

Deciding whether to arm the Syrian Kurds is a difficult decision for Mr. Obama, who is caught in the middle trying to balance the territorial and political ambitions of Turkey and the Syrian Kurds, two warring American allies that Washington needs to combat the Islamic insurgency.

Directly providing weapons for the first time to the Syrian Kurds, whom American commanders view as their most effective ground partner against the Islamic State, would help build momentum for the assault on Raqqa. But arming them would also aggravate Mr. Obama’s already tense relations with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The United States and Turkey sharply disagree over Syria’s Kurdish militias, which Turkey sees as its main enemy in Syria.

The plan has filtered up through the Pentagon’s Central Command, which oversees American military operations in the Middle East. It calls for providing the Syrian Kurds with small arms and ammunition, and some other supplies, for specific missions, but no heavy weapons such as antitank or antiaircraft weapons.

American officials note that the proposal has not yet been presented at the administration’s highest levels for decision. White House officials declined to comment on it.

The review of the military plan comes as American commanders fear that their timetable to take Raqqa was set back after Turkey recently plunged into Syria with ground forces for the first time. The Turkish offensive cut off a crucial Islamic State supply route but also rolled back the territorial gains of Kurdish militias, who despite help on the ground from American Special Operations advisers have criticized the United States for allying with Turkey.
American commanders view the plan to arm the Syrian Kurds, a minority group whose population straddles the border with Turkey, as an incentive to keep them on board for the fight against the Islamic State. Asked if the recent volatile military and political situation around the Syrian-Turkish border had slowed the pace for taking Raqqa, Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of Central Command, said last week that it might have.

“We don’t necessarily control the timeline ourselves,” General Votel told a security conference here sponsored by the Institute for the Study of War.

Associates of General Votel say he has expressed much greater concern in private over maintaining momentum in the fight against the Islamic State, especially if the Syrian Kurds and Turkey continue to clash with each other.

General Votel said last week, “We have to play a leadership role on both sides” — Turks and Kurds — “and keep focus on the mission to defeat ISIS.”

In the past two years the Pentagon has provided small arms, ammunition and other supplies to a group acceptable to Turkey — the Syrian Arabs, a minority in the Kurdish-dominated umbrella group that is fighting the Islamic State. About 350 resupply deliveries have been made by air or by land to the Syrian Arab militias, according to the American military command in Iraq.

But out of deference to Turkey, the United States has not directly armed the Kurdish fighters themselves.

Many analysts say the Pentagon’s support to the Syrian Arabs is basically cover for aid to the Syrian Kurds, who call the shots in the wider alliance, coordinate airstrikes with the United States, and are considered the most capable fighters. But arming the Kurds directly, even for just specific missions, would still be a significant shift practically and symbolically.

“If this happened, the fig leaf would disappear and it would be a very serious, contentious issue between the two countries,” said Soner Cagaptay, a specialist on Turkey at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Four senior American officials who have been briefed on the proposal discussed it on the condition that they not be identified because the plan is still under review. They all said that any direct aid to the Kurds would be one piece of a larger strategy to defeat the Islamic State in Syria.

One practical goal of the plan is to equip the Syrian Kurds after their spearheading of several fiercely fought battles against the Islamic State in the past several months, starting near Syria’s border with Iraq to, most recently, the strategically important city of Manbij, where the terrorist group had established processing centers for hundreds of newly arrived recruits. The city was also a final way-stop for more seasoned fighters heading back to Europe through Turkey.

The Kurds have also recently lost one regular source of arms — the Syrian government — as a result of the political rapprochement between Turkey and Russia, and clashes between Kurds and Syrian Army troops.

Politically, the aid would also seek to assuage the hard feelings the Syrian Kurds have felt toward their American allies since the Turkish offensive into Syria, American officials said.

Just last week, American Special Operations forces arrived in northern Syria to work alongside Turkish troops combating the Islamic State, the Pentagon said Friday, emphasizing that the approximately three dozen Americans would serve in an “advise and assist” capacity.

Turkish news outlets reported this month that Mr. Erdogan had suggested that his country was prepared to conduct a joint operation with the United States to defeat the Islamic State in Raqqa. American officials, however, have played down that discussion, and have said the United States is still trying to figure how to assemble enough ground forces to take back Raqqa.

Across the border in Iraq, security forces will be ready to push into Mosul in October, the top American general said Monday.

Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters traveling with him aboard a United States military aircraft that the final decision on when to retake Mosul rests with Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi of Iraq, according to Reuters. The general added that “our job is to actually help the Iraqis generate the forces and the support necessary for operations in Mosul, and we’ll be ready for that in October.”

nytimes.com

farsnews.com

Yemen’s Houthi group said aircraft of an Arab coalition bombed a security compound in the capital Sanaa where suspected al Qaeda militants and foreigners accused of spying, including Americans, are held.

The Saudi-led coalition has been conducting air raids against outposts and military facilities of the Iran-aligned Houthis and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh since March last year in a campaign to try to restore ousted president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

The Houthi group, in a statement carried by sabanews.net news agency, quoted a source at the country’s national security service as saying that coalition aircraft had caused a number of casualties among residents living in the vicinity of the compound that was bombed.

“This apparatus is not a military establishment but a security one concerned with fighting terrorism and to limit the spread of its organisations,” sabanews.net quoted an official at the service as saying.

“He holds the aggression (the coalition) responsible for exposing those held there to danger, be it terrorist elements or those held for spying from Arab and foreign countries, including Americans,” it added without giving any further details.

The coalition has made no comment on the report, but officials say aircraft of the Saudi-led alliance only target military facilities in Yemen.

Fighting has escalated since U.N.-sponsored peace talks in Kuwait ended without an agreement last month. The United Nations says that at least 10,000 people have been killed since March 2015, including many civilians.

reuters.com

Government forces and pro-Iranian militias allied with the Syrian regime launched a land offensive in eastern Aleppo on Tuesday morning with cover from the Russian air force, sources on the ground have said.

The reports confirm earlier reports from activists on social networks. The sources said Russian air strikes are underway against the Palestinian refugee camp of Handarat in northeastern Aleppo, while the ground troops are trying to break through the lines of insurgents that control the area.

ansamed.info

Jihadis of the Islamic State (ISIS) started moving their families from the city of al-Bab in Syria’s northern Aleppo province to Raqqa, in a bid to avoid confrontations with Turkey-backed rebel groups and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Dozens of families of ISIS militants were moved to secure locations in Raqqa province–the ISIS de facto capital in Syria.

This comes just a few days after the radical group evacuated its headquarters in al-Bab city. Informed sources in al-Bab reported that major ISIS headquarters in the city were seen empty last week.

The evacuated ISIS headquarters in al-Bab included the Sharia Court, al-Hisba police department, jihadi training camps and weaponry storage centres.

“The Islamic State members started moving their families on Saturday. Since then, dozens of vehicles were seen existing al-Bab, carrying women and children believed to be family members of the ISIS jihadis,” local media activist Nassim Babi told ARA News.

The evacuation also included families of foreign militants.

“They have secured a route towards Raqqa, where their families could be safer after the group lost much of its power in northeastern Aleppo,” the source reported.

This comes as the Kurdish-led SDF forces continued their advance towards the al-Bab city in northern Aleppo. Also, the Turkey-backed rebels of the Euphrates Shield Brigades announced readiness to fight ISIS in al-Bab and other areas in northern Syria.

“ISIS has been under heavy pressure in al-Bab. The decision of evacuating their headquarters comes after the SDF forces made further advance towards the key city after retaking Manbij from the radical group,” SDF officer Habun Osman told ARA News.

In the meantime, activists said that clashes may erupt between the SDF and Turkish-backed rebels if both forces tried to storm the city of al-Bab after ISIS departure. Sporadic clashes took place earlier in August between Turkey-backed armed forces and Kurdish-led SDF troops near Jarablus city in northern Syria.

Al-Bab city has been under ISIS control since 14 October, 2014.

aranews.net/

Syria’s military command has declared the U.S-Russian brokered cease-fire over, blaming the country’s rebel groups for undermining the agreement.

In a statement Monday, the Syrian military said that “armed terrorist groups” repeatedly violated the cease-fire which came into effect last week. It said the armed groups also took advantage of the truce to mobilize and arm themselves while attacking government-held areas. The statement said the rebels wasted a “real chance” to stop the bloodshed.

chicago.suntimes.com

After losing most of its financial sources in Iraq, the ISIS has increased its trafficking of human organs in Mosul.

A local source in the major city informed the Iraqi News that the militant group have stolen around 23 human organs of its members and the injured ones in the hospitals of the province for the purpose of trafficking.

The business comes after losing many of its funding sources, particularly the oil fields in Qayyara district in southern Mosul.

A special medical unit of the organization proceeded to remove the human organs from about 23 IS militants who have been hospitalized in Mosul, the source said, noting that the organs stolen from those members include kidneys, intestines and more.

“They were transferred under tight control to a hospital on the outskirts of the city where they are being smuggled into the black markets.”

The extremist group has already been carrying out the practice of trading with human organs, but it has vastly increased it after the loss of the majority of its financial sources, particularly the crude oil, which it used to provide about 80% of the organization’s budget.

Earlier in 2015, the Iraqi Ambassador to the United Nations urged the organization to investigate “IS’ bloody trade with human organs.” He revealed at that time that a large number of civilian corpses, with missing body parts, have been recovered from mass graves, “and it proves that the allegations are true.”

Sources from Mosul previously said that IS takes the captives who are sentenced to death to a special hospital where all their organs like kidneys, eyes, and hearts are removed and then smuggled into the international black markets.

abna24.com

Warplanes of the US-led coalition on Sunday bombed ISIS positions in Syria’s northern Aleppo Governorate.

A major command centre for the Islamic State (ISIS) radical group was destroyed in an airstrike by the coalition’s airforces, military sources reported.

“The targeted building in Barih district of Aleppo was a key command centre for ISIS, where high ranking militant leaders used to meet to discuss military plans in the northern countryside of Aleppo,” Syrian opposition forces’ spokesman Salih al-Zein told ARA News.

At least 24 ISIS militants were reportedly killed in the attack, including jihadi leaders.

“The building was hit with at least two rockets fired by a US-led coalition’s warplane, causing heavy losses in ISIS ranks,” al-Zein said.

Also on Sunday, the coalition bombed an ISIS weaponry storage centre in Aleppo, local sources reported.

aranews.net