Syrian rebels accused of holding civilians back in Ghouta

The warning came a day after US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said Washington was ready to unilaterally “act” against Syria, just as it did past year when it bombed a Syrian government air base over allegations of a chemical weapons attack.

The U.S. responded militarily previous year to reported Syrian government use of sarin gas, and Mattis was asked whether the administration is now considering retaliating for chlorine gas use.

“If Turkey’s concerns over the border are legitimate. this absolutely does not justify the action by Turkish troops deep inside the Afrin area”, French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said. I refuse to lose my hope to see Syria rising from the ashes, he said, “To see a united, democratic Syria able to avoid fragmentation and sectarianism with its sovereignty and territorial integrity respected and to see a Syrian people able to freely decide their future and choose their political leadership”. Oman is a longtime security partner of the USA, though some question whether it is facilitating, or turning a blind eye to, the movement of Iranian weapons to Yemen to aid Houthi rebels. It said Washington and Ankara are committed to working out outstanding issues and that detailed discussions are still underway and still require approval.

There was no comment from the Turkish or Syrian government.

Even as she spoke the thud of an air strike she said was from a Russian plane could be heard in the background, ending the brief respite.

Turkey is riled by USA support to the YPG, and accuses the US of allegedly not fulfilling a promise to move the Syrian Kurdish fighters in Manbij east of the Euphrates River. They would go to a shelter nearby on the outskirts of the Syrian capital Damascus.

“We need heavy machinery to get them out, but we can’t bring the machines out into the streets because the regime may bomb them”, he said.

The civilians used a corridor established by the Syrian army amid military gains that have effectively divided eastern Ghouta into three parts.

The UN says up to 400,000 people remain in the besieged areas, including the town of Douma.

They include more than 300 militants from the extremist Ajnad al-Sham group and their families.

Troops pressed on with the assault on Tuesday and took some farmland around the town of Jisreen, said a military media unit run by Iran-backed Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which fights alongside the Syrian army. The CMM says the army also launched raids on IS-held areas in Yarmouk camp and Hajar al-Aswad.

Haley said Russia’s behavior was a “mockery” of everything the U.N.is striving to achieve to reach a peaceful resolution of the Syrian civil war.

Washington has not confirmed any such plan – and a small contingent of USA forces is already in Manbij. “For hundreds of thousands of children in Syria, this is the worst point of the conflict so far”, the report says. About 85 percent were killed by government forces and their allies, it said.

Earlier in the day, Syrian state TV showed a group of civilians, including sick and injured people leaving militant-held areas in Eastern Ghouta into government territory on Tuesday.

She reminded the council that President Donald Trump had ordered missile strikes against a Syrian government airbase in April 2017 after accusing forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad of using sarin gas against civilians.

“We will allow civilians.to leave so they will not be hurt in case (Kurdish) fighters hold out in the villages, neighbourhoods, or buildings inside Afrin”, he said.

“No sieges have been lifted …”

The enclave has been under rebel control since mid-2013.

“Our Western partners, who don’t hide the close contacts they have with [militant groups] in Eastern Ghouta, have failed in their commitment under the UNSC Resolution 2401, which was to influence their proteges, rein them in, and make them stop shelling residential areas [in Damascus]”.

With Russian support, Assad forces have retaken almost 60 percent of eastern Ghouta.

Hamza Birqdar, Jaish al-Islam’s military spokesman, said in a video online that the fighters would continue to defend their territory until the end.

But Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia hit back at the United States and its allies for “doing nothing but constantly blaming the Syrian regime and putting demands on Russia”.