Rebels are caging captured Syrian soldiers and others loyal to the regime and using them as human shields to fend off government attacks, Human Rights Watch and a Syrian opposition group reported.

“Nothing can justify caging people and intentionally putting them in harm’s way, even if the purpose is to stop indiscriminate government attacks,” said Nadim Houry with Human Rights Watch.

Videos posted to social media over the weekend show trucks transporting cages filled with up to eight men or women, the opposition Shaam News Network reported.

“Rebels … have distributed 100 cages, with each cage containing approximately seven people and the plan is afoot to produce 1,000 cages to distribute … in different parts of Douma city particularly in public places and markets that have been attacked in the past by the regime and Russian air-force,” text in one of the videos says, according to the opposition network.

The move came in the days after government attacks on a marketplace in Douma last week killed dozens and wounded hundreds.

The area, only 16 miles (26 km) east of Damascus, has been heavily shelled the past three weeks.

There was no immediate response from the regime and no word from the opposition on whether the tactic had accomplished its goals.

Tactic used before

Pro-regime militiamen also used opposition detainees as human shields in recent weeks, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The London-based group relies on activists inside Syria to document human rights violations in the country.

The Syrian Observatory said the militiamen also put detainees inside cages and put them on the roofs of houses in order to prevent the fighters for rebel and Islamist factions from targeting the towns of al- Fu’ah and Kefrayya in the countryside near Idlib. Human Rights Watch also reported the use of the opposition as human shields.

nation.com.pk

A lower court in Kuwait today sentenced five men to 10 years in jail each for raising funds for the Islamic State terrorist group.

Three of those convicted were Kuwaiti citizens, according to the court ruling.

The court ordered that the remaining two, who were foreigners, be deported after serving the jail term. Their nationalities were not immediately clear.

It also acquitted two others.

The men were charged with raising about 400,000 Kuwaiti dinars ($1.3 million) and transferring the funds to ISIS, which has seized control of large parts of Syria and Iraq and carried out attacks throughout the Middle East.

Over the past year, Kuwaiti courts have issued several rulings against ISIS supporters.

In September, a lower court sentenced seven people, including five in absentia, to death for helping a Saudi suicide bomber carry out an attack on a Shia mosque in Kuwait that killed 26 worshippers and wounded hundreds.

At a handful of elementary schools in Syria, children are learning history and religion from a textbook that depicts, on its cover, America’s Statue of Liberty with its head blown off. In its place emerges the Islamic State’s black flag.

The schools aren’t only for ISIL supporters. Parents in some parts of Deir e-Zor, in eastern Syria, are being forced to send their children to the new elementary schools under threat of arrest, claims Deir e-Zor is Being Slaughtered Silently, a local media campaign.

According to the site, students wear Pakistani-style uniforms of long-sleeved shirts and trouser. Girls—who are segregated from boys with separate classes—are only taught until the fourth grade.

Customized textbooks reportedly teach a variety of subjects, including Arabic, math, grammar, physics, Islamic manners, composition, and Qur’an interpretation, as well as “English for the Islamic State.” But the material seems to be strictly controlled.

According to Syria Direct, one former elementary school teacher reported that a colleague was lashed 30 times for failing to stick to ISIL’s particular narrative of history. “He had drawn a map of Syria and written on it the names of neighboring states,” Abu Abdullah said. “According to the Islamic State, there are no other states besides theirs.”

ISIL has already been providing several public services in Syria. Still, the operation of elementary schools, complete with packaged educational materials, signals just how deep the organization has put down roots as a governmental entity. The new curriculum comes after ISIL banned several subjects like philosophy and chemistry in some northern Syrian schools last year.

qz.com

Sources in Syria reported on Monday that the Israeli Air Force (IAF) struck an advanced missile shipment headed for the Iran terror proxy Hezbollah, as it passed through the Qalamoun mountain region on the border with Lebanon.

The shipment to the Lebanese Shi’ite terror organization included long-range Scud missiles according to the reports, as cited by Channel 10.

IAF fighter jets reportedly arrived in the skies over mountainous region in the morning and launched at least one missile at the target.

An Israeli confirmation or denial of the reports has yet to be issued.

Monday’s report follows on the heels of Syrian media reports Saturday of an alleged Israeli airstrike in the Qalamoun region that took place Friday night around 11 p.m.

Friday’s reported strike was said to have targeted a unit positioned in the area of the village Ras al-Ein, as well as an army base at the edges of the village Al-Qutayfah, in strikes on both Hezbollah and the Syrian regime army.

Last April, it was reported in Arab media that IAF jets struck a Scud missile shipment as it was leaving the Syrian capital of Damascus.

The IDF has taken a policy of preventing advanced rockets from reaching Hezbollah on Israel’s northern border, which already is said to have a rocket arsenal ten times that of Hamas in Gaza.

Heading a high-ranking military delegation, Iranian Air Force Commander Brigadier General Hassan Shah Safi arrived in Beijing on Sunday.

ISIS has deployed a masked brigade of heavily-armed young boys – thought to be between 14 and 17 years old – north of Baghdad, in Iraq.

The teen terrorists – brainwashed at a training camp in the militants’ stronghold of Mosul – have reportedly be brought in to raise morale after recent setbacks.

The sickening child abuse – which follows reports the so-called caliphate is preparing female suicide bombers to defend its de facto capital of Raqqa, in Syria – may be a further sign the twisted death cult is getting increasingly desperate in the face of Russian bombing.

A local source told Iraq News: “The ISIS organisation has deployed a number of elements of what is known as Caliphate Battalion in some areas of Sharqat, in northern Salahuddin.

“The elements were young boys between the ages of 14 and 17 years – heavily armed and masked.

“Some elements of the battalion were wearing explosive belts.

“ISIS has brought them from one of its camps in Mosul in order to raise the morale of its fighters in Sharqat after the fall of Baiji.”

ISIS has horrified the world after forcing children to execute prisoners and encouraging toddlers to copy its sick beheadings.

But the group has suffered a number of recent setbacks – including the loss of prominent member, former German rapper Denis Cuspert in an airstrike.

dailystar.co.uk

Scores of Peshmerga trained in Germany are now operating heavy weapons on the frontlines against Islamic State (IS).

Peshmerga Forces’ Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Jamal Mohammed told BasNews that over 120 Peshmerga has so far received dedicated heavy weapons training, including MILAN anti-tank systems, and are now operating on the frontlines.

Mohammed explained that one of the IS insurgents’ favoured methods of attack is with armoured vehicle-bourne improvised explosive devices. “The only way to stop them is to target the car bombs with MILAN rockets,” he added.

According to the Peshmerga ministry official website, 34 more Peshmerga will soon return from Germany after completion of special military training.

Rebwar Hasan, a trainee currently in Germany, told BasNews that they started the training courses especially on MILAN missile two weeks ago, and will soon reunite with their colleagues on the frontline against IS.

The main backers of Syria’s warring factions, including for the first time Iran, are in Vienna, Austria for talks billed as a last chance to pull the country back from the brink of destruction.

The talk’s big challenge will be the hostility between Iran and its regional arch-rival Saudi Arabia, whose conflicting interests have turned the Syrian crisis into a proxy war for Middle Eastern dominance.

Saudi Arabia, which has also been battling Shiite rebels in Yemen, has been supporting its Sunni brethren in Syria with weapons and cash.

The Iranians, meanwhile, want to keep their regional ally Bashar al-Assad in place and have become de-facto allies with Russia, which also supports the Damascus regime and has been launching air strikes at rebel groups for three weeks.

US officials have played down the chances of an early Vienna agreement on forming a transitional government to pave the way for Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s exit.

Nevertheless, Secretary of State John Kerry’s success at getting his Saudi and Iranian counterparts to even sit down together at Friday’s main summit session is a sign of progress.

Kerry met envoys from two of Assad’s staunchest allies – Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and Russia’s Sergei Lavrov – in their hotels ahead of the negotiations.

“Now it is the right time to bring Iran to the table,” he said, playing down criticism that Tehran had won a seat at the talks by supporting Assad’s brutal war tactics.

Later, Kerry and Lavrov were joined by foreign ministers Feridun Sinirlioglu of Turkey and Adel al-Jubeir of Saudi Arabia to discuss the agenda of Friday’s meeting.

There, this core group will be joined by Iran and around a dozen more parties with an interest in ending a four-year war that has claimed a quarter of a million lives.

But there will be strong disagreements ahead. Jubeir, in an interview with the BBC, made it clear that Riyadh is sticking by its view that Assad must leave office quickly.

“He will go either through a political process or he will be removed by force,” he warned. Saudi Arabia has supplied arms to rebel groups battling Assad’s regime.

Russia and Iran have made it equally clear that Assad has a right to play a role in an eventual transition towards a mooted transitional unity government and later elections.

“Apparently those who have tried to solve the Syrian crisis reached the conclusion that without Iran’s presence there will be no possibility of reaching a rational solution,” Zarif said, according to Iranian state news agency IRNA.

According to Russian news agency RIA-Novosti, Lavrov welcomed Zarif’s involvement, telling him Iran’s presence made for “a group that is truly representative”.

The United States and its Arab and Turkish allies have long been at odds with Assad’s backers Russia and Iran over if and when the Syrian strongman should step down.

But a refugee exodus and the rise of the Islamic State jihadist group have forced the world to look again at a conflict that shows no sign of slowing.

US officials expressed cautious hope that the players would agree the outline of a transition that would see Assad step aside in favour of an interim unity regime.

Friday will be the first time that all the major foreign players in the conflict – the United States, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Turkey – are in the same room.

Representatives from Britain, Egypt, France, Germany, Italy, Lebanon, the European Union and possibly other Arab states were also expected to attend.

“The only solution for finding an end to the Syrian crisis is to put as many parties as possible around the table,” a senior European diplomat said.

“In doing that, the opening of negotiations – even if it’s just a start – is a good thing.”

So far there has been no mention of either the Syrian government or the opposition taking part.

A ‘course out of hell’

Kerry has warned that this week’s talks may not secure an immediate political solution but nevertheless represent the best and probably only hope available.

“The challenge that we face in Syria today is nothing less than to chart a course out of hell,” he added, in a speech shortly before he set off for Austria.

Washington accuses Russia of concentrating its air campaign in Syria on moderate opposition groups opposed to Assad’s rule and backed by the West.

Moscow says its bombing campaign targets only IS jihadists and other “terrorist” organisations.

But Kerry insists the rivals also share “common ground”, arguing that both want “a united, secular Syria” in which citizens choose their own leader through elections.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said Wednesday that France and its allies had agreed on the need for a “precise timetable” for Assad’s departure.

The dynamic in the Syrian conflict shifted after Russia launched its air campaign on September 30, saying it was targeting Islamic State group fighters.

Iran and Lebanon’s Shiite armed movement Hezbollah also have troops in Syria to advise or support Assad’s forces.

france24.com

Iran is planning to send a fleet of warships to the Atlantic Ocean in the near future, its Navy Commander Rear Admiral Habibollah Sayyari announced on Wednesday, according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.

“Our warships will soon berth at ports in the Atlantic Ocean,” he declared while addressing a welcoming ceremony in Iran’s northern port city of Anzali for the Iranian warships returning from a voyage to the Caspian Sea and Russian port of Astrakhan.

He pointed to the presence of Iranian warships in the Caspian Sea and Astrakhan port, and said, “The presence of Iranian warships in international ports shows the Iranian Navy’s prowess.”

Iran’s second fleet of warships, including a home-made destroyer, returned to the country’s territorial waters after a voyage to Russia on Wednesday, Fars reported.

According to the report, the voyage by the Iranian warships spotlighted an expansion of naval cooperation between Tehran and Moscow.

Iran often boasts in its media outlets of its military capabilities, though many times it is unclear whether these capabilities are real or whether the boasting is done to influence public opinion.

Two years ago, for example, Iran presented a new fighter jet, claiming it is able to evade radar systems.

Israeli experts subsequently cast doubt about the authenticity of the fighter jet, noting that Iran has no capability to build aircraft.

Recently, Iran held a real ballistic missile test which the United States and France later said violated UN sanctions.

The United States, Britain, France and Germany subsequently called on the United Nations Security Council’s Iran sanctions committee to take action over the test, saying the ballistic missile was “inherently capable of delivering a nuclear weapon.”