Zitat:USA wollen syrische Rebellen ausbilden

Stand: 19.02.2015 08:58 Uhr Im Kampf gegen den IS wollen die USA syrische Rebellen militärisch ausbilden. Das Pentagon will US-Soldaten in die Türkei, nach Saudi-Arabien und Katar entsenden. Die Ausbildung soll Mitte März beginnen, anschließend sollen die Rebellen in Syrien gegen den IS kämpfen.

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Zitat:Syria: Al Nusra front’s top military commander killed in an airstrike in Idleb
March 5, 2015
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The airstrike targeted a meeting of the Al Qaeda linked al Nusra front commanders , according to the report
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airstrike by the US-led coalition
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Update: Up to 4 Al Nusra front commanders were killd in the airstrike according to a rreport by al Arabiya

Zitat:A Nation Going Dark
An analysis of satellite photographs taken over Syria found that the country is 83 percent darker at night than before the war. Widespread migration is one of the main causes.

Zitat:Sun Mar 15, 2015 1:23
Dozens of Militants Killed in Syrian Air Raid on Al-Nusra Camp in Quneitra
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More than 120 Al-Nusra terrorists, including senior commanders, were killed when the Syrian fighter jets struck the terrorist group's Lawa Al-Ez military training camp in Manshiyeh Al-Saviseh in Quneitra countryside.

Three Al-Nusra commanders from Daraa, including Adel Al-Halqi, were among those killed in the airstrike.

The wounded militants of the Al-Nusra Front were transferred to Al-Shajara Hospital in the occupied Golan Heights near borders with Jordan.
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Zitat:...

29 March

• Landing ships NOVOCHERKASSK and ALEXANDER OTRAKOVSKIY pass the Turkish Strait southbound for another (short) deployment to the Mediterranean.
(rmks: probably transporting military goods to Syria)
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Zitat:UN-Chef: Flüchtlingslager Jarmuk wird "Todeslager"
Aktualisiert am 10. April 2015, 07:43 Uhr

New York/Damaskus (dpa) - Das von der Terrormiliz Islamischer Staat (IS) unter seine Kontrolle gebrachte Flüchtlingslager Jarmuk im Süden der syrischen Hauptstadt Damaskus entwickelt sich laut UN-Generalsekretär Ban Ki Moon zu einem "Todeslager".
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Zitat:Islamist rebels capture army base in Syria's Idlib province

(Reuters) - A coalition of Islamist rebels seized an army base in northwestern Syria at dawn on Monday after a suicide bomber from al Qaeda's Nusra Front drove a truck packed with explosives into the compound and blew it up. The capture, reported by a rebel commander and social media videos showing militants inside the base, brought the coalition closer to seizing most of Idlib province and moving toward Latakia, the ancestral home of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The army had been using the Qarmeed camp to shell rebel-held towns and villages in the strategic agricultural region bordering Turkey. Controlling it should help the rebels tighten their siege on the major Mastouma army base nearby.

Syrian state media said the army killed scores of Nusra fighters and dozens of Islamist suicide bombers from Russia's Chechnya region in fighting near the base, but did not say the compound had fallen to the militants.

Zitat:Syrian army pushed back in north by new militant coalition

Pro-government forces in Syria suffered the latest in a series of reversals when a recently formed rebel coalition captured the town of Jisr al-Shughur in the northern province of Idlib on 25 April.

Zitat: Neues Islamisten-Bündnis bedroht Syriens Diktator

Während der IS unter Druck steht, ist al-Qaida in Syrien auf dem Vormarsch. Das Netzwerk hat ein Bündnis radikaler Gruppen geschmiedet und Siege errungen. Nun steht es vor der Kernregion des Regimes.
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An der Grenze zu Assads Machtbasis steht nun ein relativ neues Bündnis radikaler Dschihadisten, das vom syrischen Al-Qaida-Ableger Nusra-Front angeführt wird. "Armee der Eroberer" nennt sich die Sammlungsbewegung, die sich im März zusammenfand. Sie kämpft ihrem eigenen Anspruch nach nicht nur um die Macht in Syrien, sondern in einem viel größeren Dschihad gegen alle Ungläubigen. Und die Sekte der Alawiten gilt ihr als Inkarnation der Ketzerei, für die die Todesstrafe vorgesehen sei. 2013 waren Dschihadisten schon einmal in die Mittelmeerregion vorgedrungen und hatten 13 Dörfer eingenommen. Damals begingen sie Massaker an den alawitischen Einwohnern. Viele wurden entführt und gefoltert. Sollte die Armee der Eroberer tatsächlich weiter in Gebiete der Alawiten vordringen, droht ein Blutbad.
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Zitat:Turkey Officials Confirm Pact With Saudi Arabia To Help Rebels Fighting Syria's Assad
AP | By DESMOND BUTLER
Posted: 05/07/2015 10:58 am EDT Updated: 3 hours ago
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A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issues, said the administration is concerned that the new alliance is helping Nusra gain territory in Syria.
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The new Turkish and Saudi push suggests that they view Assad as a bigger threat to the region than groups like Nusra. Turkish officials discount the possibility that Nusra will ever be in a position to hold sway over much of Syria.

Under Turkish and Saudi patronage, the rebel advance has undermined a sense that the Assad government is winning the civil war — and demonstrated how the new alliance can yield immediate results. The pact was sealed in early March when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan flew to Riyadh to meet Saudi's recently crowned King Salman. Relations had been tense between Erdogan and the late King Abdullah, in great part over Erdogan's support of the Muslim Brotherhood.
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The Turkish-Saudi agreement has led to a new joint command center in the northeastern Syrian province of Idlib. There, a coalition of groups — including Nusra and other Islamist brigades such as Ahrar al-Sham that Washington views as extremist — are progressively eroding Assad's front. The rebel coalition also includes more moderate elements of the Free Syrian Army that have received U.S. support in the past.
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Zitat:Syria's Mercenaries: The Afghans Fighting Assad's War

Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is running out of soldiers and is forced to rely on mercenaries in his ongoing battle against rebels. Many of his foreign fighters come from Afghanistan -- men like Murad, who is now being held in Aleppo as a prisoner-of-war.

His war only lasted from one dawn to the next. When the sun rose for the second time over the Syrian city of Aleppo, Murad, a farmer from Afghanistan, was still cowering on the second floor of the house he was supposed to defend to the death. That, at least, is what his Iranian officer had ordered him to do. [...] That was seven months ago. Since then, Murad and another Afghan have been sitting in a makeshift prison belonging to the al-Shamiya Front, one of Aleppo's larger rebel formations. They are being held in a neon-lit basement, next to a roaring generator. The walls are crumbling, a product of the myriad explosions that have shaken the city. In addition to Afghans, Pakistanis and Iranians have also been taken prisoner by other rebel groups, all of them fighting on the front lines. [...]

The Assad family dictatorship is running out of soldiers and is becoming increasingly reliant on mercenaries. Indeed, from the very beginning the Assad regime had an opponent that it could never really defeat: Syria's demography. [...]

Up to 2 million Hazara live in Iran, most of them as illegal immigrants. It is an inexhaustible reservoir of the desperate, from which the Pasdars -- as Iran's Revolutionary Guards are called -- have recruited thousands for the war in Syria over the last year and a half. [...] Murad didn't say no. He would have to join the war in Syria for two months, the officer told him, saying that he would only be given simple tasks and guard duty. When he returned, the officer promised, he may even receive a residency permit. The other Afghans in his cell also agreed to trade in the rest of their sentences for two months of service in Syria. They were promised a monthly salary of 2 million toman, the equivalent of $700.

Said Ahmed Hussein, who is being held with Murad, mentioned the same sum. Hussein had spent years working in construction in an exclusive residential district in northern Tehran. "Suddenly, there were raids and I was one of 150 illegal immigrants arrested. All of us were Hazara. Then, the Pasars came and promised us money and residence permits if we would voluntarily go to Syria. But they said 'we're sending you there no matter what.' Everybody signed up."