Aleppo doctors implore USA for help

Brussels / AFP

Doctors in Syria’s Aleppo made a heart-wrenching plea on Thursday for the US to help civilians in the city, hit by fresh fighting despite a promised Russian aid window.
A longtime ally of the regime in Damascus, Russia has provided air cover for pro-government forces for nearly a year, including in the escalating battle for Aleppo.
An estimated 1.5 million people still live in the battered city, including about 250,000 in rebel-held eastern districts.
Aleppo has been rocked by a recent surge in violence, with residents on both sides of the bloody front line living in fear of being trapped by renewed hostilities.
Doctors in the eastern half implored US President Barack Obama on Thursday to protect civilians from repeated atrocities in their city.
“Unless a permanent lifeline to Aleppo is opened it will be only a matter of time until we are again surrounded by regime troops, hunger takes hold and hospitals’ supplies run completely dry,” the letter said.
Moscow said it would hold fire around the city for three hours daily starting Thursday to allow access for desperately-needed aid.
The pause would see “all military hostilities, aviation strikes and artillery strikes” stop between 0700 GMT and 1000 GMT for an unspecified period.
Rebels and regime forces clashed in southern Aleppo throughout on Thursday morning, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
“There were clashes all night and throughout the morning,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.
Rebels and allied extremists broke through a three-week government siege of the city’s eastern districts on Saturday, opening a new route for goods through the southern outskirts.
But an AFP correspondent in the eastern districts said trucks carrying food and other products were unable to enter the city on Thursday because of intense bombardment.
Syrian state news agency SANA on Thursday said forces loyal to Damascus seized control of territory south of the city and “inflicted heavy losses” on the enemy.
But it made no mention of the “humanitarian windows” announced by Russia.

Turkey offers Russia joint
operations against IS in Syria
Turkey — which has backed rebel groups against President Bashar al-Assad — offered regime ally Russia the possibility of joint operations against IS in Syria.
The offer came one day after crucial talks between President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan aimed at ending a crisis in ties.

‘We do not need tears’
Signed by 15 of east Aleppo’s 35 remaining doctors, the letter to Obama accuses Washington of inaction, saying it had seen “no effort on behalf of the United States to lift the siege or even use its influence to push the parties to protect civilians.”
“We do not need tears or sympathy or even prayers, we need your action. Prove that you are the friend of Syrians,” it said.
Dr Abu Al-Baraa, a paediatrician who signed the letter and spoke to AFP in the eastern districts, said he was forced to watch children “die in our arms” because of dwindling medical supplies and repeated bombardment.
“There were children that suffered from chronic diseases that need additional tests,” he said.
“Because of our limited capability, we were forced to just watch the child die.”

Battle for IS bastion in Libya in ‘final phase’

Tripoli / AFP

Pro-government forces battled on Thursday to clear the IS group from its main Libyan stronghold of Sirte, after dealing a major blow to the extremists by seizing their headquarters.
IS fighters still control several areas of the Mediterranean city, whose capture in June last year sparked fears that the extremist group would use it as a springboard for attacks on Europe.
The fall of Sirte would be a huge setback to the extremists’ efforts to expand their self-proclaimed “caliphate” beyond Syria and Iraq where they have also suffered a string of losses.
Forces loyal to Libya’s UN-backed unity government made a significant breakthrough on Wednesday in their nearly three-month-old offensive to retake the city, seizing a conference centre where IS had set up a base.
“The battle for Sirte has reached its final phase, after the successful offensive by our heroes,” a spokesman for the forces, General Mohamad Ghassri, said on Thursday in remarks carried by the LANA news agency.
The rapid advance comes after the United States launched air strikes on IS positions in the city for the first time on August 1.
IS took advantage of the chaos that followed the ouster and killing of longtime dictator Moamer Kadhafi in 2011 to gain a foothold in the oil-rich North African country. The forces loyal to the Government of National Accord on Wednesday also seized the University of Sirte campus just south of the Ouagadougou conference centre as well as the Ibn Sina Hospital to the north.
Libyan television broadcast images of flag-waving soldiers in recaptured areas including the Ouagadougou centre, flashing victory signs as they posed for photographs.
The pro-GNA forces said 16 of their fighters were killed and dozens wounded on Wednesday in the fighting in Sirte, Kadhafi’s hometown which lies just across the Mediterranean from Italy.
It was unclear how many IS fighters were killed, but the centre said that at least 20 extremists had died in fighting for the university campus.
In total more than 300 pro-government fighters have been killed and 1,800 wounded in the operation for Sirte, according to medical sources in the city of Misrata, where the operation’s command centre in based.
They have faced determined resistance from the extremists who have struck back with sniper fire, suicide attacks and car bombings.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that US commandos were working from a joint operations centre on the outskirts of Sirte, the first time they have directly supported Libyan forces in the anti-IS fight.
Quoting US officials speaking on condition of anonymity, the Post said the US forces were operating alongside British troops, helping to coordinate American air strikes and providing intelligence.
GNA chief Fayez Al Sarraj told Italy’s Corriere della Sera in an interview published on Wednesday that his government had asked only for “air strikes which must be very precise and limited in time and geographical scope”.
“We do not need foreign troops on Libyan soil,” Sarraj said.
Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi faced criticism at home on Thursday for reportedly sending special forces to Libya to help the anti-IS fight without approval from parliament.
Renzi’s centre-left government has refused to confirm or deny reports that dozens of special forces have been deployed to help with demining and training pro-GNA forces.
France last month confirmed it had troops in Libya, saying three of the soldiers had been killed while on a mission there.
That prompted a demand from Sarraj for an explanation about the French presence, which the GNA described as a “violation” of the nation’s sovereignty.

24 civilians killed in Russia raids on IS Syria bastion

Beirut / AFP

Russian air strikes on the IS group bastion of Raqa in northern Syria on Thursday killed at least 30 people, including 24 civilians, a monitoring group said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said they were killed and dozens of people wounded when 10 Russian raids hit the city and its outskirts.
The monitor said it had not yet confirmed how many of the remaining six people killed were civilians or IS extremists.
The Britain-based Observatory — which relies on a network of sources inside Syria for its information — says it determines what planes carried out raids according to their type, location, flight patterns and the munitions involved.
Russia confirmed that six Tupolev warplanes carried out airstrikes around Raqa, but said it had demolished “a chemical weapons factory in the city’s northwestern outskirts.”
The defence ministry said the raids also destroyed a weapons storage facility and a training camp for IS fighters to the north and southeast.
The ministry said that the extremists had suffered “significant material damages” in the strikes and that “a large number of fighters have been killed.”
The raids comes a day after the ministry said it would halt fire around Syria’s ravaged city of Aleppo for three hours each day to allow humanitarian aid in, an initiative the United Nations said is insufficient to meet the city’s needs.
The UN has called for urgent aid access to Aleppo and 48-hour weekly pauses for the aid deliveries, warning that civilians are at grave risk from water shortages and disease as fighting has intensified.
Fighting between government forces and rebels in Aleppo has intensified in the past month, with both sides sending in reinforcements.