At least 70 fighters have been killed in less than 24 hours of fierce clashes between pro-regime forces, jihadists and rebels in Syria’s Aleppo province, a monitor said Wednesday.

Pro-regime fighters — backed by regime and Russian air strikes — retook the villages of Zaytan and Khalasa to the southwest of Aleppo city after losing control of them hours earlier, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

But Al-Nusra Front, Syria’s Al-Qaeda affiliate, launched a counterattack to retake Khalasa on Wednesday morning, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

“Khalasa is on a high hill overlooking large parts of the south of Aleppo province,” he said.

The area overlooks the regime’s supply road around the south of Aleppo city, linking the government-held Nayrab airport to the city’s southeast and areas controlled by regime troops to its west, he said.

Rebel- and jihadist-held areas in the south of Aleppo province faced heavy strikes and shelling overnight, said the Britain-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria to gather its information.

The regime also pounded a key supply route and areas north of Aleppo city overnight, the Observatory said.

The Al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the regime, reported Russian air strikes on the province on Wednesday.

“Russian fighter jets resumed their missions in Aleppo with force, targeting positions of Al-Nusra Front and allied militias,” it said.

Moscow launched air strikes in support of the Damascus regime in September.

Aleppo was once Syria’s commercial powerhouse, but it has been a battleground since 2012 when rebels seized the east of the city confining the army to the west.

In western Aleppo, rebel shelling killed two people and injured another three on Wednesday, official news agency SANA reported.

Syria’s war has killed more than 280,000 people and displaced millions since it started with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.

 

 

middle-east-online.com

A leading member of the Islamic State (ISIS) radical group has executed his younger brother after the group accused him of ‘apostasy’.

The pro-ISIS media office of Wilayat Al-Jazirah released a footage showing the execution of one of the group’s members on charges of apostasy and conspiring against the ISIS self-declared Caliphate.

Abu Abdullah, an ISIS Sharia official, appears in the videoexecuting his own brother after accusing him of disloyalty, apostasy and treason.

“Our loyalty to the Caliphate is greater than any family relations, and the law of Allah is above us all,” says Abu Abdullah before shooting his blindfolded younger brother in the head.

 

 

aranews.net/

A unit from the German special forces has arrived to northern Syria in order to help advise the U.S. backed “Syrian Democratic Forces” (SDF) at the battle of Menbeij.

If true, the German units will be the fourth western power to join the battle against the Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham (ISIS) in northeast Aleppo.

 

almasdarnews.com

Following months of stalemate in Latakia province, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) finally made a decisive advance on Monday towards the rebel stronghold of Kabbani.

Thus, the SAA’s special forces and National Defence Forces (NDF) managed to infiltrate rebel positions southwest of the town after militants in the area were struck by joint Syrian and Russian airstrikes.

According to a Syrian sergeant in Latakia, the SAA captured several hills that overlook Kabbani; specifically, Ruwysat al-Joz, Zyiqat mountain and hill 1112 were mentioned.

Kabbani is controlled by Islamist fighters of Ahrar al-Sham, Jabhat al-Nusra (Syrian al-Qaeda group) and Turkmen factions, according to intel obtained by Al-Masdar News.

The SAA is yet to enter Kabbani although the source said the rebel stronghold would automatically fall once all hills surrounding it were captured.

In the past, fire control has proven decisive in the mountainous Latakia governorate as it played a key role in the SAA’s capture of Salma and Rabia – the former ‘capitals’ of rebel forces in Latakia.

 

 

almasdarnews.com

Fallujah-Iraqi forces radioed the US-led coalition for air cover as they evacuated their casualties: One member of a police bomb-disposal team had been killed and two others had been wounded as they dismantled part of the complex network of booby traps on the edge of Daesh-held Fallujah.

Another team pushed on, attempting to clear a recently secured neighborhood on the southern side of the city, the occasional explosion kicking orange dust into the air as part of the painstaking work.

Nevertheless, a few hours later, that team was hit by an explosion as its members defused a bomb, and two soldiers were seriously wounded.

“It’s one of the worst jobs in the entire world,” Col. Arkan Fadhil of Iraq’s special forces said after radioing for another team, this time a group of tribal fighters trained by the US in bomb-disposal techniques.

On Friday morning alone, Iraqi engineering teams had encountered 25 improvised bombs in a stretch of just 500 feet, he said.

Notably, Daesh has had more than two years to barricade itself into Fallujah, the city west of Baghdad that was the first in the country to fall to the militant group.

After launching an offensive for the city last month, Iraqi Special Forces are now within two miles of the city’s center, but extensive tunnel networks used by the militants and deadly roadside bombs are slowing their progress.

In a group of semi-constructed buildings on the city’s outskirts, Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces have set up a makeshift base.

Bullet and mortar holes pockmark the skeletons of unfinished concrete structures, where soldiers and police officers use unfinished rooms to lie down and rest, blankets laid out on the floor next to piles of sandbags.

It’s a high-stakes fight for Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, with the battle distracting from a political crisis that has brought regular demonstrations and seen protesters ransack parliament and his office, demanding reform.

Iraqi commanders have also argued that clearing the city is a priority because of its proximity to Baghdad, just 45 miles to the east.

For his part, Lt. Gen. Abdulwahab al-Saedi, head of the Fallujah operation, pointed out the position of his men in the distance in the Shuhada neighborhood.

“See the communications tower,” he said. “They are there.”

The sound of machine-gun fire and explosions rang out. The Special Forces fighters from the police and counterterrorism units had reached Street 40, about two miles from the city’s center on the southern side, he said.

On Saturday, the Iraqi army also announced that it had recaptured two neighborhoods east of the city.

“It’s considered symbolic for ISIS,” Saedi said.

“It was the first city that fought against the Americans, and extremist Muslims have made it their shrine.”

Nearly 100 US Marines died and hundreds were wounded in a six-week battle for the city 12 years ago, their bloodiest fight of the Iraq War.

“We want to show the Americans we are able to do it, but with their support, of course,” he said.

Daesh has built an extensive network of tunnels to hide from the strikes. Meanwhile, its fighters set fires to obscure their positions from the jets overhead.

“The tunnels go right through the city,” said Brig. Gen. Ali Jamil of Iraq’s counterterrorism forces.

“They use them for transportation, away from the airstrikes, but also to ambush our forces,” he said.

The warrens of tunnels have rooms and lighting, Jamil said. One that was recently discovered stretched for about a half-mile.

The Iraqi forces do not know how far others they have found extend because they blow up the entrances so the tunnels can’t be used.

 

 

albawaba.com

The Iraqi army said on Sunday it had secured the first safe exit route for civilians to leave ISIS’ besieged stronghold Fallujah, and a Norwegian aid group said thousands of people had already used it to flee in the first day it was open.

Iraq has launched a major operation to recapture Fallujah – an ISIS bastion just an hour’s drive from Baghdad – but the United Nations fears for the fate of up to 90,000 civilians believed trapped inside with little food or water. The new exit route, known as al-Salam (Peace) Junction, was secured on Saturday, southwest of Fallujah, Joint Operation Command spokesman Brigadier Gen. Yahya Rasool told Reuters.

“There were exit routes previously, but this is the first to be completely secured and it’s relatively safe,” said Rasool. About 4,000 people had fled the city over the past 24 hours through the al-Salam Junction, said Karl Schembri, a spokesman in Iraq for the Norwegian Refugee Council, which has been assisting people who escape the city.

“We expect thousands more to be able to leave in the coming days,” he said.

The al-Salam Junction route was secured after troops dislodged insurgents from districts located on the western bank of the Euphrates river, opposite Fallujah’s city center on the east bank, said Rasool. He did not give a number for the civilians who were able to flee so far using it.

More than 20,000 people have managed to flee the city and its surrounding area since the Iraqi army began the offensive on May 23, the United Nations said on June 8. But the lack of secure routes made their escape extremely difficult and dangerous. At least a dozen people were reported to have drowned while crossing the Euphrates.

Those who managed to reach government-held lines said they walked for days to avoid sniper fire and explosive devices planted by ISIS insurgents along roads to delay the army’s advance. A government official said the militants were putting up a tough fight defending the city, long an insurgent bastion where US forces fought the heaviest battles of their own 2003-2011 occupation.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says the troops are progressing cautiously in order to protect the civilians. The army is receiving air support from the US-led coalition and ground support from Iranian-backed Shi’ite militias and Sunni tribal fighters.

The Shiite militias have deployed behind the army’s lines and did not take part directly in the assault on the city to avoid inflaming sectarian feelings. The assault on Fallujah is taking place at the same time as advances by US-backed fighters and Russian-backed Syrian government forces in Syria, at the opposite end of ISIS’ self-declared caliphate.

alarabiya.net

Iraqi troops advanced against ISIS south of Mosul on Sunday as the U.S.-led coalition intensifies its campaign against the militants on multiple fronts across their self-proclaimed caliphate.

Officers involved in the operation said Iraqi forces had moved towards the village of Haj Ali in tanks and armored vehicles under cover of coalition airstrikes and artillery fire, capturing another village on the way.

“In the beginning they resisted but when they saw the force they withdrew,” said an Iraqi officer speaking from the newly recaptured village of Kharaib Jabr, adjacent to Haj Ali.

Haj Ali sits on the eastern bank of the Tigris river, opposite the ISIS hub of Qayara, where there is an airfield that is set to serve as a staging ground for future operations to recapture Mosul, about 60 kilometers (40 miles) north.

ISIS overran Mosul two years ago and went on to proclaim a caliphate straddling Iraq and Syria but has come under increasing pressure in recent months, losing ground to an array of forces.

Iraqi forces are also advancing on the edge of the ISIS bastion of Fallujah further south, while in Syria U.S.-backed forces are encircling the militant-held town of Manbij.

Iraqi troops were deployed to the northern Makhmour area earlier this year and launched an operation in March touting it as the beginning of a bigger campaign to retake Mosul — the largest city under militant control.

Since then, Iraqi forces have made modest gains, capturing a handful of villages on the eastern bank of the river Tigris.

The commander of the operation blamed the slow pace on a lack of tanks and said he did not have enough men to hold ground after it was retaken from the militants.

Last week, Iraq deployed an armored division along with boats and bridges to cross the river to Qayara, control of which would also isolate Mosul from territory the militants control further south and east.

 
haaretz.com

With gelled hair spiked high and wearing a Dolce & Gabbana shirt, the young Afghan man looks more like a fashionista than a religious warrior ready to give his life for jihad in Syria.

The man wanted to leave Afghanistan for personal reasons, but the Afghans and Iranians who facilitated his trip to Iran, and hosted him in Tehran, saw a recruiting opportunity. For two and a half months, an Iranian recruiter visited nearly every day to convince him to fight on the Syrian frontline with an all-Afghan unit in exchange for promises of a better life.

As he felt the pressure grow, he finally acquiesced.

“We will send you to Syria; when you come back we will give you an Iranian passport, a house, and money,” the 21-year-old Afghan was promised when he got to Tehran. He was told he would be fighting a “religious war” in Syria.

His is one of many stories heard here in Herat, an ancient and largely Shiite city in northwest Afghanistan, that gives rare insight into how far the Islamic Republic is going to deploy a largely Shiite mercenary force of Afghans in Syria alongside its own troops, Hezbollah fighters from Lebanon, and Shiites whom Iran has marshaled from Iraq and Pakistan.

Their presence has helped bolster Iran’s ally, President Bashar al-Assad, and – backed up by eight months of Russian airstrikes – enabled him to defy international predictions of his regime’s certain demise.

Iran’s use of Afghan fighters to bolster pro-government ranks in the Syrian war is no longer a secret, and is increasingly publicized inside Iran. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, met in March with families of Afghans killed in Syria, praised their sacrifice, and said: “I am proud of you.”

Some Afghans fight willingly for religious reasons, eager to take up a cause of “defending” Shiite shrines in Syria. Others fight for cash, upwards of $700 per month, or choose to realize promises of Iranian citizenship, schooling for their children, and jobs, if they survive the frontline – benefits usually beyond reach for Afghan migrants in Iran.

Still other Afghans report coercion and intimidation, and say their second-class status inside Iran – among an estimated 3 million Afghans, only one-third are legal migrants – is taken advantage of. Afghans’ “vulnerable legal position in Iran and the fear of deportation may contribute to their decision [to join militias in Syria], making it less than voluntary,” Human Rights Watch said in a January report.

‘You will die a martyr’

The young man from Herat says he was not threatened. But he asked not to be named, and exudes fear as he recounts the failed recruitment by Iranians that he says believed in their cause, and were clearly tasked with the job.

“I thought, ‘If I do not accept, they will kidnap me and kill me.’ It was very dangerous,” recalls the would-be recruit. “In front of them I accepted everything, I said, ‘I am ready to leave for Syria and take part in the war.’ But I thought to myself, ‘What should I do? How to escape?’”

Shaking with anxiety and sweating at first, he tells how his plan to leave Afghanistan was diverted by Iranian recruiters; about how he felt compelled to agree to join the war; about how he lied to flee Iran to escape that commitment; and about why – now months later, and back in Afghanistan – he fears retribution and covers his face in public to avoid being recognized.

While in Tehran, he came up with an excuse of visiting an aunt in northern Iran before his deployment to Syria – and never came back. He claims that a fellow Afghan in Herat with official ties, who helped the young man make the trip to Tehran, was an “agent of Iran” whose job is to “collect young people” for the war in Syria.

Iran’s public praise of Afghan brigade

Iran has created an entire unit of Afghans in Syria – known as the Fatemioun Brigade, named after the Prophet Mohammed’s daughter, Fatima, and estimated to number several thousand. They have also created a religious narrative of defending Shiite shrines to encourage and justify their presence on the battlefield.

For years, Iran denied their existence, or any role in their creation. Yet beyond Mr. Khamenei’s recent praise, the public profile of Afghan fighters in Syria has grown in Iranian media coverage since last year.

The hard-line Kayhan newspaper describes how Fatemioun recruits spend 25 to 35 days at a “special training base” inside Iran before being dispatched to Syria, and there are frequent, increasingly advertised burials of Afghan “martyrs,” especially in Iran’s northeast shrine city of Mashhad.

Video footage and interviews of Afghans captured by Syrian rebels in Western media depict hapless Afghans serving as cannon fodder, lost wide-eyed in a foreign war and not speaking Arabic, though some Iranian media reports describe specific victories made possible by Afghan warriors.

Iran’s parliament voted last month to provide citizenship to families of foreign martyrs who have died on its behalf from the 1980s onwards – a rule that would apply to Afghans fighting in Syria.

Some Afghans in Herat allege that Iran’s “infiltration” has grown in part because of local recruiting efforts, from a low three years ago when Iran appeared to be making little strategic headway winning hearts and minds, despite providing extensive charity aid, from cash for newlyweds and student care packages, to cut-price electricity.

Remarkably, Iran’s volunteer Basij militia – a force of ideological devotees that operates under the Revolutionary Guard – publicized the opening of a new “headquarters” in Herat on its Basij News website last September. The photographs, since taken down, did not give away the location, perhaps to indicate a degree of caution about their operations in a neighboring country, but they show a ribbon-cutting ceremony and several uniformed Iranian officers with a handful of Afghans, most of them teenagers.

A son fighting for cash

Rokhiya, an Afghan mother with a sad face and wearing very conservative hijab and long robes, is not sure Iran’s promise of benefits will ever reach her, even though her son Rasoul ended up in Syria and died there.

“I am proud of this, that my son became a martyr for religious reasons, that he participated in this war for God,” says Rokhiya, a staunchly Shiite and desperately poor mother, speaking upstairs in a Herat restaurant and escorted by a male relative. “He knew he was fighting a religious war.”

But how Rasoul got there was a mystery to this mother. Her son had been married for a year, then left for Iran to find work. That was seven years ago. In Rasoul’s last construction job, the Iranian boss told the 20 Afghans working there that they would not be paid unless they did a war-zone tour in Syria. She claimed the man was from “Revolutionary Guard intelligence,” a common, catch-all target of blame used by Afghans whenever they perceive Iranian influence.

“He put Rasoul under pressure, ‘Don’t tell anything to your mother; no one should know,’” recalls Rokhiya, recounting the story she learned from cousins inside Iran.

The first she knew he was in Syria came when he called home. Rasoul said he was “in a very bad position” but “had no choice, there was so much pressure.”

The next and last time Rasoul called, he spoke to his mother for eight minutes. He told her to borrow money; he would soon be able to pay her back. He promised to return to Iran, and would bring her there.

“They will pay for a home and we will live well, have financial support and citizenship,” Rasoul told her of Iranian promises. Relatives knew of fellow Shiite Afghans who fought in Syria, and had been rewarded.

“We are in war and are fighting. I have a gun, that is my work here. I don’t have any other way to make money,” Rasoul told his mother, adding that his faith would protect him. She says of that final conversation: “He was really unhappy and really afraid. It was his first time in war.”

Weeks later, a cousin in Iran phoned with news: “Pray for your son, he has died,” Rokhiya was told. The body never came home; any benefits remain undelivered so far.

A rare Sunni recruit

Another surprise Afghan fighter was Yousef, a rare Sunni and ethnic Pashtun recruited by Iran to fight from his job site west of Tehran, according to his cousin Hassan, who wears a bushy beard and embroidered skull cap.

Hassan and Yousef worked often in Iran, and last year their group of Afghan construction workers was often visited by an Iranian recruiter. Once the Iranian had a private conversation with Yousef, who then told his cousin he wanted to work “far away” and would be gone for two months – without mentioning the Syrian war.

There is open recruiting in Iran for Shiite Afghans, the Hazaras, and Iranian government benefits were for them, says Hassan. But finding Sunni Pashtuns willing to fight is far less common.

“Pashtuns don’t participate, but they go one-by-one like my cousin, for the money,” says Hassan. “Most who leave Afghanistan are workers, so if the pay is higher in the war, they do it.”

Word filtered through from Hazara friends at the Syrian front that Yousef was with them, and was killed. “He did not tell us he wanted to go to Syria,” says Hassan. “He never came back.”

That does not surprise the spike-haired, name-branded Afghan who made it to Tehran, refused to go to Syria, and now hides his identity in Herat, which he calls a “big recruiting center” for Iran’s war in Syria.

“They are collecting young people in Herat, and say, ‘Let’s go sightseeing in Iran,’” says the Afghan fashionista. Does he belief the Iranian promises of benefits?

“If people go to Syria, they will never come back, so for whom do they issue these things?” he asks.

 

 

csmonitor.com

 

 

aawsat.com