Entering Syria talks, Kerry hopes to turn all guns on ISIS

The advancing Tiger Forces, the name for the commando units in the government army, who were completing a drive that began on October 16, reportedly liberated several hundred soldiers. Holding both these positions is common in Washington, but it’s increasingly clear that they are incompatible.

Latakia has been spared the worst of Syria’s civil war but has been shelled on several occasions, said the report.

“The truth is that nothing would do more to bolster the fight against the terrorists than a broadly supported diplomatic process that would begin to de-escalate the conflict, and that would give the Syrian people a real choice – not between Assad and Daesh – but between the status quo and something far better and long overdue”, Kerry said.

The Observatory said the Kweiras battle on Tuesday left 60 Islamic State fighters dead, as well as more than 40 government troops and pro-government gunmen, including Iranian and Hezbollah fighters. But is Assad inextricably linked to the Syrian state as it exists today?

The two men discussed the possibilities of increasing trade in agricultural products despite the limitations imposed by the USA embargo on the communist island that has prevailed since 1962, although it has been eased in certain areas by President Barack Obama.

The senior State Department official said in the aftermath of the attacks, the US and other world powers had stepped up security consultations with Tunisia.

Even if the disparate nations can agree on a cease-fire plan, there are still sharp differences on the broader, thornier questions of when and how – perhaps even whether – Assad should relinquish power to a transitional authority. “We are trying to create a framework that will ignite the United Nations negotiating process”, and the Syrians have said they need help to get there.

As Middle East analyst Kyle W. Orton noted on Twitter, the fact that Assad’s future is not now at the center of the discussion in Vienna is a “glaring red warning light” that the United States and the Syrian opposition are about to be “taken to the cleaners”. Absolutely a red line. Predictably, he was mostly ignored by the American pundit class. She said Russian Federation was not consulted and the initiative caught them by surprise. But the introduction of foreign jihadists, a few of whom are funded and armed by America’s Gulf allies, makes this binary hardly recognizable anymore. Iran had been excluded from last year’s talks in Switzerland, but attended the talks two weeks ago in Vienna along with its arch regional rival, Saudi Arabia, a key backer of the rebels fighting to topple Assad.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf allies still maintain they have no moral or political complicity in the radicalization of the Syrian opposition.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor confirmed regime forces had taken control of large parts of Al-Hader, though it said fighting was ongoing inside the town. Others later spun off into ISIL.

Diplomatic officials have already started arriving in Vienna ahead of talks bringing together a few 20 countries and worldwide bodies on Saturday.

In the meantime, those pundits who will insist until the bitter end that Assad must go should at least be honest about what that means. Everyone agrees that ISIS and al-Qaida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra should not be part of any deal, and any cease-fire agreement would allow airstrikes to continue against them.