Rights group says US-backed Kurds displacing Arabs in Syria

The formation of the alliance comes after Washington said it was abandoning a plan to train and equip rebels to fight the Islamic State group and could provide the U.S. with a new partner in the battle against the jihadist group.

All pallets successfully were recovered by friendly forces, a USA official said.

Washington has said it could direct funding and weapons to Arab commanders working with the YPG.

A Kurdish official in northern Syria told The Associated Press that forces may have committed minor violations against people suspected of ties to the IS group, but that such actions were not based on ethnicity.

It’s barely two weeks since Russian Federation intervened in the Syrian conflict on the side of President Bashar al-Assad. Washington has been trying to defeat ISIL while still calling for Assad’s downfall.

The new alliance includes the YPG, various Arab groups including Jaysh al-Thuwwar (Army of Rebels), and an Assyrian Christian group.

In a congressional hearing held in September, General Lloyd Austin, who oversees the war against the IS, told US lawmakers that only “four or five” U.S.-trained Syrian rebels now remained in fight in Syria and the USA military would not reach its goal of training 5,400 Syrian fighters any time soon. He said the group constituted a 3,200-strong, well trained fighting force which could begin using the weapons within days of their arrival.

Mr Putin met Saudi Defence Minister Mohammed bin Salman on the sidelines of a Formula One race in a Russian resort on Sunday.

Riyadh would go on supporting Mr Assad’s opponents and demand that he leave power, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

They were unable to agree on whether Mr Assad should have any role in ending the crisis but they did decide to extend sanctions by essentially freezing the assets of the spouses of senior Syrian figures.

The Russian defence ministry said it had bombed 53 Islamic State targets in the provinces of Hama, Homs, Latakia and Idlib over the past 24 hours.

The proposed USA strategy would also bolster a group of mostly Arab fighters west of the Euphrates to clear out Islamic State along a pocket of terrain along the border with Turkey.

Syrian government forces and their allies from the Lebanese Shiite militia, Hezbollah, backed by Iranian military officers, have launched a massive ground offensive in co-ordination with the Russian air support. The latest estimate by U.S. Central Command is that about 80 rebels remain in the fight against ISIS.

But Amnesty said many areas where forced displacement had occurred were not near the front lines.