According to the media office of the People’s Protection Units (YPG)–leading member of the SDF alliance–preparations are taking place, and the battle for Raqqa will start in the upcoming days.

A source close to the YPG stressed that families that escaped the ISIS-held Raqqa province in northeastern Syria demanded the liberation of their areas.

“The Raqqa campaign will begin very soon,” the press office of the SDF said in a statement.

Speaking to ARA News in an exclusive interview, official spokesman of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Talal Silo said that the battle for Raqqa “is going to be difficult”, and that they might start it by carrying out an operation to liberate parts of the Raqqa countryside.

“Because it [Raqqa] is a stronghold for the ISIS, whenever we have liberated territories the Arab tribes would join us, and now there is preparation to form a military council for Raqqa, as what we did for Manbij city,” Silo said.

Kurdish officials told ARA News that Raqqa could either join the future federal region for northern Syria and Rojava, or could have an independent local administration, similar to the local canton administrations that are now running the Kurdish areas of Syria.

According to US-led coalition sources, the Islamic State radical group has recently declared a state of emergency in Raqqa.

“We know this enemy feels threatened, as they should,” Operation Inherent Resolve spokesperson Col. Steve Warren said on Thursday. “They see the Syrian Democratic Forces along with the Syrian Arab Coalition maneuver both to their east at Shaddadi [in Hasakah province] and to their west at the Tishrin Dam [northeastern Aleppo]. Both of these areas are becoming increasingly secure. And the Syrian Democratic Forces are increasingly able to generate their own combat power in those areas,” he said in a press conference.

“So, certainly we are seeing some reactions to this. We’ve had reports of ISIL [ISIS] repositioning both their combat capabilities, I guess what they think may be coming next. And we’ve seen reports of them repositioning personnel to various other — either within the city [Raqqa] or even out of the city,” Warren added.

The coalition official says eventually the ISIS-led Caliphate announced in June 2014 “will eventually collapse”.

“So, rightfully, ISIL understands that their days are increasingly numbered. We are going to continue to keep this pressure on them, and we expect to see them collapse eventually,” Col. Warren concluded.

aranews.net

Isil has cancelled holidays for militants in its Syrian stronghold of Raqqa as it maximises available manpower ahead of a feared international assault on the city.

Over the past two weeks, the group has accelerated its drive to defend Raqqa, sources inside the area told The Telegraph, digging trenches alongside checkpoints and strengthening a network of underground bunkers.

“Isil cancelled holidays, increased the number of shifts, and asked all members to be present – even the administrators,” said a source in regular contact with civilians inside the city.

Although the extremist group is far from defeat, it is under pressure across several battlefronts, losing strongholds including the Iraqi city of Ramadi in December and the ancient town of Palmyra in March. As Kurdish and Syrian rebel forces prepare to edge towards Raqqa, the city is frequently the target of airstrikes by the US-led coalition, as well as the Syrian air force and Russian warplanes that began an air campaign in the country in late September.

In an attempt to block the view of circling drones, the militants have started hanging sheets across shop-fronts and homes. They are also believed to have moved several key headquarters underground.

Throughout territory held by Isil, the group has built tunnels. In Beiji, home of a key oil refinery and near the cities of Fallujah and Tikrit, Iraqi soldiers and Shia militiamen found underground mazes that had been used to burrow under enemy positions, create bunkers or run pipe to export illicit oil shipments. In the northern city of Sinjar, Kurdish forces said they discovered too many tunnels to count.

Flying as part of the US-led coalition, the RAF says it is now using the largest bomb in its inventory – 2,000lb Enhanced Paveway III munitions, known as ‘bunker busters’.

Colonel Steve Warren, a spokesman for the coalition, said on Friday he believed Isil had declared a state of emergency in Raqqa. “We know this enemy feels threatened, as they should,” he said. “We are going to continue to keep this pressure on them and we expect to see them collapse eventually.”

But Syrian media activists said reports of a state of emergency were overblown, and life for civilians remained unchanged. “The main difference is that fighters are speaking a lot of the big battle that is coming,” said Abu Ibrahim al-Raqqawi, a member of Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently. He said militants were seen piling onto buses, apparently moving them to nearby battlefronts.

On Saturday, Isil overran a government-controlled hospital in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, killing 20 pro-regime forces and taking medical staff hostage as they pushed to cement control of the oil-rich city and its airbase.

As pressure increases on Isil elsewhere, it is falling back on the tactics of a guerrilla-style insurgency that relies increasingly on suicide attacks. More than 100 people have been killed in a string of bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere since Wednesday.

Violence continued on Sunday as Isil launched a dawn assault on a gas plant north of the Iraqi capital.

At least 12 people were killed in the attack, after a car bomb hit the main gate of the plant in the town of Taji, followed by several suicide bombers and a wave of militants who broke into the plant and clashed with security forces.

telegraph.co.uk

A HORRIFYING ISIS clip shows two baby-faced kids using pictures of world leaders as target practice before killing two prisoners

dailystar.co.uk

ISIS snipers are targeting humanitarian corridors established by Iraqi security forces to relieve suffering in the ISIS-held city of Fallujah, a Pentagon official said Friday.

Baghdad-based military spokesman Colonel Steve Warren said the shooters were preventing residents from escaping Fallujah, which is only about 30 miles (50 kilometers) west of Baghdad and is facing major shortages of basic supplies including medicine.

“We know that the Iraqis have attempted on several occasions to open up humanitarian corridors to allow some of those civilians to come out,” Warren told Pentagon reporters in a video call.

“Those have met with generally not much success. ISIL has done things like set up snipers to cover down on those corridors, to kill people as they’re trying to get out. So that has really discouraged their use,” he added, using an acronym for ISIS.

Warren later said Iraqi forces had tried to set up three corridors, but these have been all but abandoned because of the snipers.

“Word must have spread because no civilians have tried to use the corridors in the last few weeks,” he said.

Anti-government fighters took control of Fallujah in early 2014 during unrest that broke out after security forces demolished a protest camp farther west, and it later became an ISIS stronghold.

Warren said Iraqi security forces now “generally” surround Fallujah and have begun to slowly “chip away” at it.

“This is the very first city that ISIL gained control of,” he said.

“ISIL’s been there for more than two years, so they are dug in and dug in deep. This is a tough nut for us to crack here. This is a tough nut for the Iraqis to crack.”

US forces are training and advising Iraqi partners as they try to repel ISIS jihadists from the country.

The Pentagon says the ISIS group is losing ground, and the jihadists have suffered major defeats in Iraq, including the loss of the cities of Heet and Ramadi.

But they remain in control of Iraq’s second-largest city Mosul and it is not clear when Iraqi troops will mount an assault to retake it.

Warren said there was no “no military reason” for Iraqi forces to liberate Fallujah before they could tackle Mosul.

aranews.net

Extremists of the Islamic State (ISIS) have forced a number of civilians in Mosul to take part in executing hostages from the Iraqi security forces, eyewitnesses and local activists reported.

“Islamic State’s jihadis brought five hostages from the Iraqi security forces to the Bab al-Toub square in central Mosul to execute them in public on Thursday,” media activist Abdulla al-Malla told ARA News in Mosul.

“The group then asked for volunteers from the audience to participate in the execution of the hostages, who were described by ISIS as ‘apostates’ and ‘enemies of the Caliphate’,” the source continued. “When nobody volunteered to help the militants in the execution, the group chose five men from the public and forced them to shoot the hostages in the head.”

Speaking to ARA News, head of the Nineveh media center Raafat al-Zarari said that ISIS is trying to involve innocent civilians in its brutal acts in order to support its propaganda.

“By showing civilians as partners in executing what the group considers as apostates and enemies, ISIS is actually trying to show that it still has a social incubator in Mosul and that people are supporting the group’s alleged Caliphate,” Zarari said.

More than one million and a half of civilians are still stranded in the ISIS-held city of Mosul in Iraq’s northwestern Nineveh province, according to local activists.

aranews.net

A day after announcing the killing of its top commander in Syria, the militant group Hezbollah says insurgents are to blame.

The group says Mustafa Badreddine was killed at “one of our positions near the Damascus International Airport” as a result of “artillery bombardment carried out by Takfiri groups stationed in the region,” in a statement carried by its official media outlet, al-Manar.

Hezbollah, which is Shiite, refers to hardline Sunni militant groups as “Takfiri.” It did not specify which group it is accusing. Hezbollah fights in support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and are seen as an important force behind keeping him in power after five years of war.

Hezbollah did not initially accuse anyone of killing Badreddine, Hezbollah’s highest-profile leader to be assassinated since 2008, as we reported. Questions had been raised about whether Israel was involved — and top Israeli officials had declined to comment. Israel has “carried out a number of strikes against [Hezbollah’s] weapons convoys and commanders over the course of the war,” NPR’s Alison Meuse told our Newscast unit yesterday.

Hezbollah said in its statement that the “outcome of the investigation” only increases its resolve to continue fighting in Syria.

Still, big questions remain about the circumstances of Badreddine’s death. The group doesn’t specify when he was killed. However, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, multiple individuals on the ground in the area say there was no shelling at the airport or surrounding areas in recent days, apparently casting doubt on Hezbollah’s version of the events.

As we reported, “Badreddine is believed to be responsible for the group’s extensive military operations inside Syria since 2011, along with numerous other attacks. According to the U.S. Treasury Department, which has sanctioned Badreddine, his responsibilities included moving the group’s fighters from Lebanon to Syria as well as leading a major group offensive.”

npr.org

Amnesty International said that groups armed by Turkey attacking the Kurdish neighbourhood of Sheikh Maqsoud in Aleppo since February have killed at least 83 civilians, and called on Turkey, Gulf states and others to stop the transfer of arms to the Aleppo Conquest operations room–an umbrella for Syrian Islamist rebels.

“Armed groups surrounding the Sheikh Maqsoud district of Aleppo city have repeatedly carried out indiscriminate attacks that have struck civilian homes, streets, markets and mosques, killing and injuring civilians and displaying a shameful disregard for human life,” Amnesty said on Friday.

The organization has gathered strong evidence of serious violations from eyewitnesses, and obtained the names of at least 83 civilians, including 30 children, who were killed by attacks in Sheikh Maqsoud between February and April 2016.

More than 700 civilians were also injured, according to the local field hospital. Video evidence shows artillery shelling, rocket and mortar attacks carried out by the Fatah Halab (Aleppo Conquest) coalition of armed Islamist groups in the area, targeting the Kurdish People’s Protection Unit (YPG) controlling the district.

“The relentless pummelling of Sheikh Maqsoud has devastated the lives of civilians in the area. A wide array of armed groups from the Fatah Halab coalition has launched what appear to be repeated indiscriminate attacks that may amount to war crimes,” said Magdalena Mughrabi, interim Deputy Director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Amnesty International.

There are around 30,000 civilians living in Sheikh Maqsoud which is a predominately Kurdish part of Aleppo city.

Eyewitnesses said that the rebel groups killed civilians in their houses. According to the YPG, the neighbourhood has been continually bombed since November 2015, killing hundreds of civilians.

“There are no [military] checkpoints near my house. It is a residential street and there are even people displaced by fighting or who fled airstrikes in Aleppo city living on the same street,” Mohammed told Amnesty International, whose 18-month old daughter, his two sons, aged 15 and 10, and an eight-year old nephew were killed by a rocket on 5 April in his house, some 800 metres away from the frontline.

“The international community must not turn a blind eye to the mounting evidence of war crimes by armed opposition groups in Syria. The fact that the scale of war crimes by government forces is far greater is no excuse for tolerating serious violations by the opposition,” said Magdalena Mughrabi.

Amnesty International called on Gulf states, Turkey and others believed to be providing support to armed groups in Syria to immediately block the transfer of arms to armed groups “if there is credible evidence that they carry out human rights abuses”.

“Only those groups that meet stringent reliability tests which demonstrate that they can act consistently with full respect for international human rights and humanitarian law should be considered for future supply,” Amnesty said.

Islamists Punish Kurdish Civilians

The Kurds in Sheikh Maqsoud suffer from the absence of many services as a result of the blockade imposed by Islamist rebel groups on their district, mainly by the Nusra Front (al-Qaeda branch in Syria).

Speaking to ARA News, Luqman Ismail, one of the stranded citizens in Sheikh Maqsoud, said that electricity outage continues for nearly three years because of the barbaric bombardment led by Islamist rebels on the main network of power outside the district.

“These groups are apparently punishing the people of Sheikh Maqsoud for their support to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), who are engaged in fighting with Islamist rebels around the city of Aleppo,” he reported.

“People now depend on power generators that work only 4-5 hours per day. We also suffer from the lack of fuel to run these generators,” Ismail added.

Bombing Water Wells 

Sabah Alo, a 30-yrear-old woman from the Kurdish district, told ARA News that the water station had been under control of Islamists for a more than a year. “That’s why we suffer from water scarcity in the area.”

“Also, there were two water wells on the outskirts of the neighborhood but one of them was targeted by terrorists and completely destroyed,” she said.

“Since water’s shortage, people resorted to the movable tankers to secure clean water for drinking,” Alo told ARA News.

Diseases Spread Among Civilians

With the approaching of summer and inability of removing the garbage out of the neighborhood, diseases spread among civilians as insects and rats filled in the place. People have appealed to the humanitarian organizations to help them receive pesticides and medicines.

Speaking to ARA News in Sheikh Maqsoud, Laila Hamo, a Kurdish citizen, said that flies, mosquitoes and cockroaches as well as mice and rats fill the district. “Due to the blockade imposed by these barbaric groups [Islamist rebels], there is no route leading to the landfill to throw the garbage,” she said.

Hamo pointed out that various kinds of diseases spread among civilians, including skin diseases, and bacteria received from the water tankers, appealing to the United Nations and relief organizations to hastily intervene and save people’s lives.

On April 17, Syrian rebel groups launched indiscriminate attacks on the Kurdish neighborhood in Aleppo, killing at least 18 civilians, including seven children, five women and injured 68, Kurdish officials told Human Rights Watch.

“Islamist rebels think that they could easily take control of the Kurdish neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsoud; they must know that the Kurds do not trust the majority of Syrian opposition forces,” Khorshid Abdi, Kurdish journalist based in Aleppo, told ARA News.

“The Human Rights Watch and UN should bear their responsibility regarding Islamists-led attacks on the Kurdish residential neighborhoods in Aleppo,” he said. “Islamists must lift the siege imposed on our people in order to receive humanitarian aid, especially food and medicine.”

“What the barbaric Islamists have done to Kurds in these five years has exceeded the regime’s suppression against them over four-decades,” he concluded.

aranews.net

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was informed by intersecting sources that 16 commanders in the Jabhat Al-Nusra (al-Qaeda in Levant), including “Amir of al-Badiyah Section” and another Jordanian commander were killed in the intensive bombardment by warplanes (it is unknown whether the warplanes were Russian or for the International coalition) during a meeting for “al-Badiyah Section” in Abu al-Duhur airbase in the eastern countryside of Idlib yesterday, the airbase was controlled by Jabhat Al-Nusra and the Islamic Turkestan Party in the 9^th of September 2015.

syriahr.com