At least 17 militiants from the Palestinian Liwa al-Quds militia have been killed in a suprpise attack by Daesh (ISIS) in the Syrian desert, Jihadist news feeds reported according to zamanalwsl.net.

The attack took place east of the central Homs city when Daesh militants hit a military convoy for the regime forces and the allied al-Quds militia.

Liwa al-Quds that was formed in 2013 is one of Russia’s favorite militia groups inside Syria where its fighters get direct aid and military training by Moscow.

Arab states have condemned the Turkish invasion in northeastern Syria against the Kurdish forces in the region which was started on Wednesday afternoon.

Saudi Arabia has released a statement to condemn Turkey’s incursion into Syria, an official source in the Foreign Ministry told State TV, adding that the Syrian people, the country’s sovereignty, and territorial integrity should be protected.

The UAE has also strongly rejected the Turkish military campaign against the Syrian Kurdish forces, followed by Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, and Bahrain with similar condemnations.

Earlier on Wednesday evening, the major European countries, including France, Germany, the UK, Belgium, and Poland called for a UN Security Council meeting to discuss the Turkish incursion into Syria.

Turkey has launched the long-planned operation against the Kurds in Syria since Wednesday afternoon, while several civilians have reportedly been killed due to the continuous bombardments in northeastern parts of the country.

A total of 12 Islamic State (IS) militants were killed Wednesday in a raid and an airstrike in the Iraqi provinces of Salahudin and Diyala, security sources said.

In the central province of Salahudin, an army force raided a house used as an IS hideout at a village in northwest of the provincial capital Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, said a statement by Abdul Muhsin Hatem, commander of Salahudin operations.

During the raid, the house which appeared to be booby-trapped was detonated, killing an army officer, and after searching the destroyed house, the troops discovered a bunker where 10 IS militants were hiding, sparking a heavy clash that resulted in the killing of all the militants, the statement said.

In Iraq’s eastern province of Diyala, the Iraqi aircraft conducted an airstrike, based on intelligence reports, on an IS position in a rugged area located near the provincial border with neighboring Salahudin province, destroying the position and killing two IS militants inside, Sadiq al-Husseini, head of the security committee of Diyala’s provincial council, told Xinhua.

The Iraqi forces are continuing security operations in different areas in central Iraq to track the extremist IS militants and destroy their locations.

The security situation in Iraq was improved after Iraqi security forces fully defeated the extremist IS militants across the country late in 2017.

IS remnants, however, have since melted in urban areas or resorted to deserts and rugged areas as safe havens, carrying out frequent hit-and-run attacks against security forces and civilians.

Two British militants believed to be part of an Islamic State group that beheaded hostages and was known as “The Beatles” have been moved out of a detention centre in Syria and are in American custody, US officials say according to theage.com.au.

President Donald Trump said earlier on Wednesday that the US has moved some of the Islamic State prisoners amid fears some could escape custody as Turkey invades north-east Syria.

The two men, El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey, along with other British jihadis, allegedly made up the Islamic State cell nicknamed “The Beatles” by surviving captives because of their English accents. In 2014 and 2015, the militants held more than 20 Western hostages in Syria and tortured many of them. It beheaded seven American, British and Japanese journalists and aid workers and a group of Syrian soldiers, boasting of the butchery in videos released to the world.

US officials said the two were taken out of Syria by US military and law enforcement personnel to ensure they did not escape if security broke down as a result of the Turkish incursion. So far they are the only two IS militants removed from Syria by the US, but officials say a number of others could also be moved if needed.

Another official said the two men were taken to Iraq out of an abundance of caution, adding that the United States is still fully committed to seeing them brought to justice.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military movements.

Turkey is attacking the US-backed Syrian Defense Forces, a Kurdish force that battled the Islamic State group alongside American troops and now is responsible for guarding thousands of detained militants.

But guarding those prisoners is now expected to be less of a priority for the Kurdish forces as they rush to defend their territory against the invading Turkish military.

Trump told reporters at the White House that some of the “most dangerous” had been moved, but he provided no details. Although just the two have been relocated so far, but thousands of other Islamic State group detainees remain in custody and there are no immediate concerns the Kurds will completely abandon the facilities.

“We’re putting them in different locations where it’s secure,” Trump said.

The US officials said that some Kurds left the prisons to join the fight but did not flee in large numbers. The officials said operations against remaining members of the Islamic State group are on hold following the invasion Wednesday by Turkey, which sees the Kurds as a threat and is trying to create a buffer zone between the territory held by the SDF and the Syrian border.

The two British men were captured in January in eastern Syria by the Kurdish forces amid the collapse of IS. Their detention set off a debate in the U.S. and Europe over how to prosecute their citizens who joined IS.

Among the journalists they killed was American James Foley, who was first, followed by fellow Americans Steven Sotloff and Peter Kassig, British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning and Japanese journalists Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. The beheadings, often carried out on camera, horrified the world soon after IS took over much of Iraq and Syria in 2014.

In March, Kurdish and US forces cleared the last members of the Islamic State group from what was left of their self-declared caliphate, which once sprawled across a large part of Iraq and Syria.

US officials said American forces are not out doing patrols looking for Islamic State group fighters because their Kurdish partners are more focused on the Turkish fight. But they said U.S. operations could restart quickly if needed.

About 30 to 50 US troops were moved out of the way from two outposts in the border region. There are a number of US forces in other bases just outside the so-called safe zone as well as in Manbij and other locations around the country. They have not been moved but are mainly staying in place to avoid attacks.

There are about 2500 Islamic State foreign fighters being detained in Syria, along with about 10,000 fighters from Syria and Iraq.

Trump and other US officials have repeatedly pressed other nations across Europe and the Middle East to take back the detainees from their countries. But international leaders have been largely reluctant and have been slow to take any back.

“They should go back, by the way, they should go back to Europe. Many of them came from Europe. And they should go back to Germany and France,” Trump said Wednesday.

Trump said other leaders told him they didn’t want the detainees.

“We don’t want them either,” he said. “Nobody wants them but they’re bad and somebody has to watch over ‘em.”

Iran’s military has launched an unannounced military exercise near the country’s border with Turkey.

This comes amid ongoing geopolitical tensions between Turkey and Iran-allied Syria to clear the northern region of the country of Kurdish militants from the border.

Oil prices appear to be breaking higher on the above headlines, with WTI printing daily highs and fast approaches the 53 handle while Brent bounces to 58.50.

Kurdish leaders have called for a “general mobilization” along the border with Turkey after Ankara said it was about to launch an offensive into northern Syria following the pullout of U.S. forces from the area, ike reported by rferl.org.

The Kurdish-led civilian administration in northeastern Syria warned on October 9 of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in northern Syria if hostilities break out, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov warned that U.S. actions in the area could “ignite the whole region.”

“We call upon our people, of all ethnic groups, to move toward areas close to the border with Turkey to carry out acts of resistance during this sensitive historical time,” the local authority, known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, said.

Reports late on October 8 said the Turkish Army had boosted its positions on the border with Syria, with dozens of military trucks, armored personnel carriers, and tanks seen heading to the town of Akcakale.

Meanwhile, Turkish officials said that the military struck the Syrian-Iraqi border to prevent Kurdish forces using the route to reinforce its units in the region.

The SDF said Turkish forces were shelling one of their positions in the border town of Ras al-Ain — one of the places from which U.S. troops withdrew earlier this week, according to a British-based group monitoring the war.

In a column published in the Washington Post, Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan’s communications director said Turkish forces, together with the rebel Free Syrian Army, will cross the Syrian border “shortly.”

Fahrettin Altun wrote that Kurdish militants in the area could either “defect” or Turkey will “have no choice but to stop them from disrupting” its fight against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.

Ankara says it intends to create a 30-kilometer-deep “safety zone” along its border with Syria to resettle up to 2 million of the more than 3.6 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey.

About 400,000 people have been killed in Syria’s civil war, which has raged since 2011.

Turkey regards the Kurdish militias, which dominate the U.S.-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), as “terrorists.”

Kurdish forces who helped defeat IS fighters in the war-torn country have described the U.S. pullout from northeastern Syria as a “stab in the back.”

Defending his move, U.S. President Donald Trump said the withdrawal affected “only 50 soldiers,” while the Pentagon said the U.S. personnel were removed “to ensure their safety” but that they were not being sent out of Syria.

“We may be in the process of leaving Syria, but in no way have we abandoned the Kurds, who are special people and wonderful fighters,” Trump said, adding: that Washington was helping Kurdish fighters “financially [and with] weapons.”

Lavrov, however, took issue with the U.S. withdrawal, saying during a press conference in Kazakhstan’s capital, Nur-Sultan, that the Kurds were “extremely alarmed” and that a broader conflict “must be avoided at all costs.”

Describing ties between Washington and Ankara as “very good,” the U.S. president said that “any unforced or unnecessary fighting by Turkey will be devastating to their economy and to their very fragile currency.”

Trump also said Erdogan will visit the White House on November 13.

Militants of the Islamic State armed group have carried out an attack against a post of the Syrian Democratic forces in the city of Raqqa in northern Syria. The attack comes as Turkey is expected to launch an offensive against the Kurdish fighters in north-eastern Syria, following the withdrawal of US troops, like reported by rfi.fr.

The US-backed Kurdish-lead SDF said the Islamic State fighters launched three suicide attacks against its positions in Raqqa, which was once the group’s de facto capital.

Turkey has been poised to advance into northeast Syria since US troops began leaving the area in an abrupt policy shift by US President Donald Trump.

The move has been widely criticised, in the US and abroad, notably by France. The withdrawal will leave Kurdish-led forces, long backed by the US, vulnerable to attack by the Turkish army.

On Tuesday, Turkey warned of an imminent operation.

“The Turkish military, together with the Free Syrian Army, will cross the Turkish-Syrian border shortly,” Fahrettin Altun, an aide to Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a tweet extracted from a column he wrote published in the Washington Post.

“Turkey has no ambition in north-eastern Syria except to neutralise a long-standing threat against Turkish citizens and to liberate the local population from the yoke of armed thugs,” the column said.

Armoured vehicles have been massing on Turkey’s border with Syria, with a large convoy of dozens of vehicles seen in the Turkish town of Akcakale in Sanliurfa province.

The SDF said Turkish forces were attacking near the border.

“The Turkish military is shelling one of our points on #SereKaniye Border with Turkey,” the SDF said in a tweet late Tuesday, referencing the key border town of Ras al-Ain.

Turkey considers the Kurdish fighters in northeast Syria as terrorists because of their ties to Kurds waging an insurgency inside Turkey.

Turkey has said it intends to create a “safe zone” in on the Syrian side of the border where it could send back some of the 3.6 million refugees.

The plan has alarmed some Western allies as much as the risks posed by the military operation itself.

The Iraqi government sent Iranian-backed armed factions to crack down on demonstrations and kill protesters, senior Iraqi security officials and politicians told Arab News.

The groups are said to directly report to Gen. Qasim Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards.

“The general personally came to Baghdad a few days ago to manage the crisis,” said a senior security official in Baghdad. “He gave the orders to brutally deal with the demonstrators, and even kill them to sow terror in the hearts of the rest.

“On his orders, Iraqi security leaders were excluded from (dealing with the protests), the internet was blocked, most local journalists covering the demonstrations were threatened and some local and Arabic satellite TV stations were set on fire.”

There have been widespread demonstrations in Baghdad and seven southern, Shiite-dominated provinces over the past week in protest against corruption, high levels of unemployment and a lack of basic daily services. They turned violent when Iraqi riot police used live bullets and tear gas to disperse demonstrators who were trying to reach government and political party headquarters.

In the past eight days, more than 180 people have been killed and 7,000 injured, including security personnel, and dozens of government buildings, political party headquarters and military vehicles have been torched, security sources said.

Video footage recorded by demonstrators and activists reveals that many of the demonstrators who were killed were unarmed and not close enough to any security services or government buildings to pose a threat.

One of the videos seen by Arab News showed a young demonstrator running through a popular small marketplace to escape his pursuers. When he stopped to talk to someone a gunman approached and, from a distance of less than a meter, shot him in the head.

In a speech on Monday evening, Iraqi President Barham Salih acknowledged that excessive force had been used against demonstrators but added that the authorities did not give any orders to use deadly force, and the killers are criminals.

“Targeting peaceful demonstrators and security forces with live bullets … is unacceptable in Iraq, which we have accepted and pledged to be a democracy in which rights and freedoms are fostered,” he said.

“The government and the commanders of the security services assure us that there were no orders to shoot, and that these abuses, the excessive violence and the targeting (of demonstrators) with live bullets, were not (the result of) a decision by the state and its agencies. Consequently, the perpetrators are criminals and outlaws.”

Security chiefs said Prime Minister Adil Abdul Mahdi ignored their recommendations not to use force against protesters as long as they did not pose a threat to citizens or the state, and to try to calm their anger. Rather than allow some time to find a peaceful solution, he ordered armed factions allied with the government to deal with the situation, security officials said.

The factions that took to the street are said to be the Badr Organization, the largest armed Shiite group, Asaib Ahl Al-Haq, Sayyid Al-Shuhada Brigades and Saraya Al-Khorasani. Security leaders, politicians and activists said these groups played a pivotal role in cracking down on the demonstrations and the killing of demonstrators.

Iraqi authorities on Tuesday blocked internet access for an eighth consecutive day in an attempt to control the protests and prevent demonstrators from sharing videos and pictures that they hope will help gain more domestic and international support.

Most Iraqi and foreign journalists and activists who were reporting on or monitoring the protests left Baghdad over the past week after receiving warnings that warrants had been issued for the arrest of dozens of them under terrorism legislation, the punishment for which includes the death penalty or life imprisonment.

“We have nothing to do with any of these measures,” said a senior National Security Council official. “Everything related to the demonstrations is currently managed by the Popular Mobilization Security Directorate. Even the arrest warrants issued against journalists and activists, we have nothing to do with them. The situation gets worse day after day.”

The Popular Mobilization Forces is a governmental umbrella organization, established in June 2014, composed of pro-Iran Shiite armed factions and individuals who volunteered to fight Daesh alongside the Iraqi government. The Badr Organization, Assaib Ahl Al-Haq and several other factions form its backbone.

Abdul Mahdi on Sunday announced a package of policies he described as exceptional, including the creation of thousands of jobs, the construction of housing for poor families, loans for the unemployed, and the chance for thousands expelled from military service to return to their units and for volunteers to join the army. It coincided with large-scale arrests of protesters or anyone else involved in the demonstrations.

The protests in Baghdad have greatly diminished since Sunday. There are now only small groups concentrated in Sadr City, east of Baghdad, and the surrounding areas. However, they have been the deadliest in the city to date, with 57 killed and more than 1,000 wounded, 205 of whom are in a critical condition, security and medical sources said.

“What Abdul Mahdi and his allies have done to the protesters is particularly brutal,” a key organizer of the demonstrations told Arab News. “They may silence the demonstrations by force for now but we will soon return more strongly.

“Recent days have proven to us that we are alone and that all political forces have abandoned us, while others have traded us, so our next step is to resort to arms. They have left us no other choice.”

The Self-Administration renewed its calls on all parties concerned with Syria to take up their moral, humanitarian and ethical responsibility to take back their nationals and to carry out their duties towards displaced people and refugees in the Self-Administration areas, materially and morally, like reported by syrianobserver.com.

In a statement on Sunday, it called for the need to set up an international court in northern and eastern Syria to try Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in accordance with international law and human rights principles.

It said that al-Hol camp in eastern Hassakeh, which is one of the biggest and most dangerous camps in the Middle East and the world, holds 71,658 displaced people and refugees, according to the most recent official statistics—with people from over 60 different countries—which sees daily incidents of killing, stabbing and burning of displaced people and refugees.

The text of the statement said:

“The security and safety provided by the people of northern and eastern Syria, under the umbrella of the democratic Self-Administration, has been made clear, as a result of the harmony and unity of all elements and segments of society making great sacrifices to defend their regions in the face of the powerful terrorist organizations represented by ISIS and its sisters. They were also able to avoid engaging in fighting where the Syrians had no stake, as occurred in other parts of the Syrian homeland.

“Despite the sectarian, ethnic and social strife that has tried to tear apart the historical fabric of Syrian society, the Self-Administration has been able to shelter hundreds of thousands of displaced people and those fleeing the horrors of internal war in its cities and countryside and has shared food, clothing and housing, in addition to tens of thousands of those coming from the neighboring state of Iraq.

“We can say that the biggest and most dangerous attacks in the Self-Administration regions came during the military victories over the alleged caliphate state.

“The most recent was the battle of al-Baghouz, which was a turning point in the Syrian and Middle East crisis, with the help of the International Coalition.

“Thousands of fighters and their families—women and children—were handed over to the SDF to be sheltered in al-Hol camp, which is considered one of the largest and most dangerous camps in the Middle East. It shelters 71,658 displaced people and refugees according to the latest official statistics and they hold the nationalities of more than 60 countries.

“If Erdogan risks carrying out his daily threats and vows, the region will be in flames, and the chaos will spread, and it will be very difficult to control it.

“In particular, the fate of al-Hol camp will lead to ISIS reorganizing and getting its cards in order and then starting a new phase of killing, extremism and chaos. Its borders will not stop with any specific geography, but will spread. Faced with this dangerous scene, despite appeals by the Self-Administration, the international community must still assume its responsibilities.

“We reiterate our appeal to all parties concerned with Syria to assume their moral, humanitarian and human rights responsibilities, to take back their nationals and to fulfill their duties towards the displaced and refugees in the Self-Administration areas, both materially and morally. There needs to be an international tribunal established in northern and eastern Syria to put on trial members of the terrorist organization ISIS in accordance with international laws and human rights principles.”

A feared Turkish invasion of Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) in northeast Syria could spark a resurgence of the Islamic State group, analysts and Kurdish forces have warned, despite Ankara’s pledge to prevent the jihadists’ return, like reported by ekurd.net.

Ankara has threatened an offensive in Syria against Kurdish militias and US forces on Monday pulled back from Turkish border areas, opening the way for an invasion President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said could come at any moment.

An open assault would reverse years of successful Kurdish-led operations to defeat IS and allow some of its surviving leaders to come out of hiding, said the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish militia that controls much of northeastern Syria.

With little other leverage left in the regional game, Sam Heller of the International Crisis Group think tank, told AFP the SDF has an “interest” in warning of an IS threat if open conflict breaks out with rival Turkey.

“But the fact is that ISIS is still a threat, one that seems likely to metastasise if the SDF is forced to divert attention and resources… to a defensive battle against Turkey,” he said, using another acronym for IS.

While a Kurdish-led operation earlier this year saw the death of IS’s territorial caliphate, the organisation isn’t dead and sleeper cells have been active in SDF-held areas and in Syria’s vast desert where they continue to hit regime forces with deadly attacks and ambushes.

Charles Lister, director of the US-based Middle East Institute, said US President Donald Trump was “granting IS the gift of rebirth”.

The US military itself has warned that, short of sustained international pressure, IS would soon have the ability to regroup.

“The battle against IS is not over,” Abdulkarim Omar, the top Kurdish foreign affairs official, told AFP Monday.

“There are hundreds of sleeper cells in recently liberated areas,” he said.

Camps and detention centres

The SDF, with backing from the US-led coalition, has scored major victories against IS near the Turkish border in the Kurdish Kobani and in the jihadists’ former Syria capital of Raqqa.

This year, they declared the territorial defeat of the group after seizing Baghouz, the final IS bastion in eastern Syria.

The Kurdish forces expelled the Islamic State from its last patch of territory in the eastern Syrian village of Baghouz in March 2019.

The SDF is now concerned that jihadists could replenish their ranks by freeing thousands of fighters and their families who are being held in detention centres and informal settlements in Syria’s northeast.

The Kurds consistently warned that they would be unable to guard IS fighters if their forces were busy fighting off a Turkish offensive.

On Monday, Omar said that detention centres are not heavily fortified.

“They are only buildings… in the event of any security vacuum, these criminals could have an opportunity to break free,” he said.

The official also said he was concerned about displacement camps, namely Al-Hol, the largest of the settlements, which he described as a “time bomb”.

Security incidents have been on the rise in the crowded camp, which houses more than 3,000 IS families among its more than 70,000 residents, according to the Kurdish administration in northeast Syria.

The thousands of foreign IS brides held in Al-Hol, are “as dangerous as the thousands of IS fighters being held in SDF detention centres”, it said this week, noting daily stabbings, killings and attempts to break free.

IS chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has urged followers to free detained jihadists and family members held at camps in Iraq and Syria, vowing “revenge” in an audio recording released on September 16.

SDF spokesman Mustefa Bali last month said IS militants “have stepped up their regrouping efforts through women in the camp recently”.

Turkish assurances

The Institute for the Study of War last week said IS is bribing prison guards and raising funds to smuggle women out of camps, including Al-Hol.

“ISIS is likely preparing more coordinated and sophisticated operations to free its detained members,” it said in a report citing incidents in which prisoners and IS brides managed to break free.

Turkey, however, assured Monday that it “would not allow IS to return in any shape and form”.

But analysts argue that Ankara could unintentionally help boost jihadists.

“Turkey will not intentionally target camps and prisons but it could inadvertently strike them in the process of intervention,” Syria expert Samuel Ramani told AFP.

Heller also said a direct Turkish attack on camps and prisons was unlikely.

“What seems more likely is that these facilities, which are already vulnerable to riots and attempted jailbreaks, will be left vulnerable as the SDF redeploys the forces securing them to fight Turkey,” he said.

“If ISIS cadres escape in the ensuing chaos, they could catalyse ISIS operations locally. Or, if they flee the Syrian battlefield, they could augment militant groups internationally.”

The Kurdish PYD and its powerful military wing YPG/YPJ, considered the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and U.S. has provided them with arms. The YPG, which is the backbone of the SDF forces, has seized swathes of Syria from Islamic State.

Syria’s Kurds have established a semi-autonomous region in northeastern Syria during the country’s eight-year war.

In 2013, the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD — the political branch of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) — has established three autonomous Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016, Kurdish and Arab authorities announced the creation of a “federal region” made up of those semi-autonomous regions in Syrian Kurdistan.