Syrian troops on Thursday entered the ancient city of Palmyra and Iraqi forces launched an offensive against Mosul as pressure mounted on key strongholds of the Daesh, the so-called Islamic State for Iraq and the Levant (Isil), group.

US Secretary of State John Kerry, meanwhile, held talks with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin and agreed to push for a political settlement in the war-torn country, but the future of its Moscow-allied leader Bashar al-Assad remains a sticking point.

Unless Assad agrees to step down, there are concerns that the Syrian opposition could drop out of peace talks in Geneva, which UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said he was aiming to restart on April 9.

Backed by Russian warplanes and allied militia on the ground, the Syrian army advanced into Palmyra after launching a desert offensive early this month, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The defence ministry in Moscow said Russian aircraft carried out 146 strikes on “terrorist targets” in the Palmyra area between Sunday and Wednesday, killing 320 “terrorists” and destroying six command posts and two ammunition dumps.

Daesh overran Palmyra – known as the “Pearl of the Desert” – last May and it has since blown up UNESCO-listed temples and looted relics that dated back thousands of years.

“Regime forces have entered the Hayy al-Gharf neighbourhood in the southwest of Palmyra. They are advancing very slowly because of mines planted by Daesh,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said, adding troops were also advancing from the north.

‘Nightmare is nearly over’

Palmyra’s recapture would be a major strategic and symbolic victory for Assad, since whoever holds it also controls the vast desert extending from central Syria to the Iraqi border.

A Syrian military source said the army had entered Palmyra from the northwest after seizing control of part of the historic Valley of the Tombs.

“The clashes, which are ongoing, are fierce,” he told AFP.

IS had earlier urged civilians to flee the city, where about 15,000 of its 70,000 original residents remained after the jihadist takeover.

Syria’s antiquities chief Maamoun Abdelkarim hailed the “imminent” recapture of Palmyra, vowing to rebuild monuments the jihadists destroyed.

“I am so happy that the liberation is imminent… before the total destruction of the ancient city,” he said.

UNESCO chief Irinia Bokova welcomed the push to recapture Palmyra.

“For one year, Palmyra has been a symbol of the cultural cleansing plaguing the Middle East,” Bokova said.

Mosul offensive

Across the border, Iraqi forces announced the start of an offensive to retake the second city of Mosul, Daesh’s main hub in Iraq.

The army and the Popular Mobilisation paramilitary force “have begun the first phase of conquest operations” in the northern province of Nineveh, of which Mosul is the capital, Iraq’s joint operations command said.

It said four villages had been taken between the town of Qayyarah, which is held by IS, and Makhmur, where US-backed Iraqi forces have been massing.

Experts have warned any battle to retake Mosul would be difficult, given the significant number of jihadists and civilians in the city and the time IS has had to prepare defences.

Rare talks with Putin

At the US-Russia talks in Moscow, some consensus appeared to be achieved over a framework and timeline for a political transition.

“We agreed on a target schedule for establishing a framework for a political transition and also a draft constitution, and the target is August,” Kerry said at a joint news conference with Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the talks.

Lavrov told journalists that Moscow and Washington would now step up efforts to get the Syrian regime and opposition to hold “direct talks” in Geneva, where a round of negotiations that saw a United Nations mediator shuttle between the delegations concluded on Thursday.

But Kerry appeared to back away from comments made before the meeting that suggested he would sound out the Russian leader about pressuring his ally Assad to step aside.

“Russia will have to speak for itself as what it’s going to choose to do in order to help Mr Assad make the right decisions,” he said.

Syria’s main opposition said the Geneva talks “laid the basis” for substantive negotiations next month, but warned any real progress depended on Russia pressuring the Assad government.

“This is a unique moment, a precious moment and we hope Russia will seize this moment and use its leverage,” High Negotiations Committee spokeswoman Bassma Kodmani said.

Assad’s future has been a key obstacle in the latest talks, with the government insisting any discussion of him leaving is “excluded” and the opposition saying any talk of allowing him to stay is “absolutely unacceptable”.

gulfnews.com

Syrian government forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, on Thursday pushed into the ancient town of Palmyra, which has been held by the Islamic State group since May, state TV reported.

The advance came after the troops managed this week to capture several hills and high ground around the town, famed for its priceless archaeological site and Roman ruins. Syrian troops have been on the offensive for days in an attempt to capture the town.

The state TV broadcast footage of its reporter, embedded with the Syrian military, speaking live from the entrance of Palmyra and saying that as of midday Thursday, the fighting was concentrated near the archaeological site on the southwestern edge of the town.

Cracks of gunfire and explosions echoed as the reporter spoke. The TV also aired footage showing soldiers walking and SUVs driving near a building that appears to have been a hotel.

bostonglobe.com

The Iraqi military launched a long-awaited operation Thursday to take back the northern city of Mosul from the Islamic State.

The operation, backed by a U.S.-led coalition, Kurdish Peshmerga troops and a Shiite-dominated paramilitary force, began at dawn on Thursday by taking back several villages on the outskirts of Makhmur, located east of Mosul. An Iraqi flag has been hoisted.

U.S. military spokesman Col. Steve Warren, with Operation Inherent Resolve, said the Iraqi military hopes to isolate Mosul by taking surrounding areas first.

“The Iraqis have announced an operation in Makhmur to liberate several villages in the vicinity. The coalition is supporting the operation with air power,” he told USA Today.

Mosul, the country’s second largest city, was taken over by the IS, also known as ISIS, ISIL and Daesh, in June 2014. With a population of about 2 million, it is the largest city in the IS’ self-declared caliphate.

Officials said they hope to completely seize the land within a year, but it is unclear if Iraqi forces have the ability to do so.

upi.com

The international coalition forces announced on Tuesday, that two members of the so-called ISIS were killed in an armed clash with the guards of the US forces base in Makhmur south of Mosul (405 km north of Baghdad), while pointed out that this is the second attack that was carried out by ISIS on the headquarters in the last three days.

The international coalition spokesman in Iraq Steve Warren said in a press statement followed by IraqiNews.com, “Ten members of ISIS attacked the external security point of the American base in Makhmur using light weapons, without causing any casualties.”

Warren added, “The base guards repulsed the attack and killed at least two members of ISIS,” pointing out that, “Washington believes that ISIS targeted the base deliberately.”

iraqinews.com

At least 100 Daesh militants have been killed in the two-day airstrikes in Iraq’s Mosul city, according to the Iraqi Army.

The Iraqi Army on Sunday tweeted that international airstrikes targeted key Daesh militants at various locations in the city, including Mosul University.

According to them, there were no students inside the university and the army also claimed that the varsity’s building is being used for training purposes.

Meanwhile, CNN reports that it has confirmed the strikes, the first with someone inside the Mosul University and the other with the former governor Athil Al Nujayfi of Nineveh Province in which Mosul is located.

Nujayfi said that 17 senior Daesh fighters and numerous locals were killed in the strikes.

albawaba.com

The United States will deploy a detachment of marines to support Iraqi government in its fight against Daesh militant group, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement on Sunday.

Three Israelis were among the five people killed in a suicide bombing at a main shopping center in Istanbul, Turkish officials said.

At least 11 Israelis were among the 36 people who were wounded in the blast Saturday.

Turkish Deputy Health Minister Ahmet Baha Ogutken confirmed in a statement to the Daily Sabah newspaper that an Israeli woman was killed in the explosion. Eli Bin, head of Israel’s Magen David Adom rescue services, also confirmed to Israel’s Channel 2 that “there is one Israeli killed whose family has been notified.”

The Israeli victims were part of a 14-member tour group, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry.

The ministry feared two or three Israelis were among the dead, but declined to confirm reports of Israelis killed in the attack, according to The Times of Israel.

“We fear for the lives of three Israelis who were hurt in the attack,” ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said on Saturday afternoon.

Two Israelis injured in the blast were seriously hurt. One was undergoing surgery in an Istanbul hospital, Channel 2 reported.

The explosion rocked Istiklal Avenue in the heart of the Turkish city, a wide pedestrian boulevard with a historic tram running down the middle and lined with international stores and foreign consulates. Police sealed off the street after the attack and ambulances carried the injured away.

Turkish media identified the suicide bomber as Savaz Yildiz, 33, from the Turkish city of Adana, saying he was known to Turkish authorities.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing. But Turkish officials pointed to the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, fighting for Kurdish autonomy in the southeast, or to Islamic State.

A CCTV camera appears to have captured the blast, and the footage was posted online by the private Dogan news agency.

A wounded Israeli, Naami Peled, spoke to Hebrew-language media from the hospital after the attack. Israeli tour guide David Cailfa, who was apparently leading the group of 14 Israelis around Turkey, confirmed on social media that he had also been hurt.

“To all those dear people who are worried, I am sorry that I cannot answer you,” Califa wrote in Hebrew on Facebook. “Naama and I are lightly wounded and being treated. The rest of the group members are dispersed among four hospitals. Please pray with us for their well being.”

A spokesman for the Joint Arab List said that six Israeli Arabs were wounded in the attack. Turkish sources told Haaretz that Israeli Arabs were among the wounded.

A Magen David Adom emergency service delegation was leave for Istanbul to bring the wounded Israelis home. Members of the Israeli consulate in Ankara were dispatched to visit the wounded Israelis, who were being treated at five different hospitals.

The Foreign Ministry said it has yet to make contact with six Israelis thought to have been at the site of the attack.

Ministry Director-General Dore Gold, who is in the United States for the annual AIPAC conference, will leave early to travel to Istanbul on Sunday afternoon in coordination with the Turkish government.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu instructed the Foreign Ministry to ask Turkey to condemn a tweet by a senior official in its ruling party, who reportedly expressed hope that the Israelis hurt in the attack would die.

The explosion comes after two recent suicide bombings in the capital, Ankara, which killed a total of 66 people. Thirty-seven people were killed and 125 wounded Sunday in a suicide car bombing in Ankara. On Feb. 17, a car bomb attack in central Ankara killed 29 people. PKK militants claimed responsibility for both attacks.

And Islamic State was blamed for a suicide bombing in Istanbul in January that killed 12 German tourists.

http://forward.com

https://youtu.be/yxOEuCrBqYc

Two Syrian women have used hidden cameras to make a short film on everyday life in Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic State’s “caliphate”, documenting the horrors of the brutal regime led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

The video, commissioned by the Swedish tabloid Expressen, features Oum Mohammed and Oum Omran – the pseudonyms used by the women – as they shop for hair colour, take taxis and walk around the city.

At all times, their bodies are fully covered by burqas and their faces veiled. The women’s voices were electronically altered so that no one can identify them, and Expressen said both knew they would be “stoned to death if they are exposed”.

The footage, shot over the course of several weeks in late winter, shows the streets of Raqqa being patrolled by armed men and women of the Islamic State. One sequence features what looks like a normal couple walking with a child in a stroller till the camera focuses on the barrel of an assault rifle sticking out of the woman’s burqa.

“We want the world to know,” the women say, talking about a brutal beheading and an execution of a gay man that they have witnessed.

“They execute with bullets, desecrate the body, decapitate it, stick the head on a spike and put it on display at the roundabout,” one woman say. “Or they will put the body on the road and force cars to run it over until nothing is left.”

In one sequence, the women are stopped by the Hisbah or the female religious police force and one of them is asked to fix her veil.

Even shopping for hair colour becomes an excursion into the bizarre, as the faces of models on the packages have been scribbled over with black markers – because of the strict rule that the uncovered faces of women can’t be seen in public.

A taxi driver tells the women about IS members wanting to flog his daughter after she was caught without a ‘niqab’.

The film also shows the women walking past the rubble of the Uwais al-Qarni shrine, which was blown up by the IS, the Armenian Catholic Church of the Martyrs, which has been turned into the Islamic police’s headquarters, and a section of the city that was once home to the wealthy but has now been taken over by foreign fighters from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, France and Afghanistan.

The civil war in Syria, which began five years ago, has claimed more than 250,000 lives and displaced more than 10 million, according to the UN. The IS captured Raqqa in 2013.

The film ends with Oum Mohammad, shot from the back, removing her veil and exposing her hair. “All women like to show their faces. We’ve lost that option. We’ve lost our femininity,” she says.

“I long to take off the niqab and the darkness that cloaks us,” she adds. “Nothing matters more than freedom.”

hindustantimes.com

Russia has withdrawn most of its strike aircraft from Syria, the U.S. military said on Friday, adding that it was now entirely carrying out strikes in support of Syrian government forces using artillery instead of aircraft.

“They still have helicopters and some transport aircraft. But what we’ve seen is that the majority of Russian strike aircraft have left Syria,” Colonel Patrick Ryder, a spokesman at the U.S. military’s Central Command, told Pentagon reporters.

Ryder said the United States had not seen Russia carrying out any air strikes in recent days, including around the Syrian city of Palmyra and was instead using artillery.

“In the last week, we have not seen any Russian aircraft conducting any strikes in Syria. And that any counter-ISIL strikes that may have been done, would have been — from a Russian standpoint — would have been via artillery systems,” Ryder said, using an acronym for Islamic State.

reuters.com

alalam.ir