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US Reportedly Constructing Airbase in Northeastern Syria for Airstrikes
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151218/1031939698/us-airbase-construct-north-syria.html
The US is reconstructing a disused airbase in the province of Hasakah in northeastern Syria in order to land fighter jets and supply planes there, according to reports.
US Air Force specialists are working to reconstruct and equip a disused airbase in northern Syria, the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar has reported.
Abu Hajar airport is located in Hasakah province in northeastern Syria, which is under the control of Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG). The Syrian government has not given the US permission to have a base in Syria or carry out airstrikes there.
According to the report, for around two months US experts have been in the region developing the airfield, which hasn't been used since 2010. It has a 2.5 km runway which can be used by fighter jets to carry out airstrikes, and to bring in military supplies.
The news follows a previous report that US and Kurdish forces are cooperating on the construction of a 10 hectare military airbase in Hasakah, south of the town of Rimelan. At the end of November it was reported that two US helicopters has flown over Rimelan, and landed eight US military specialists at the airports.
In August, the US began launching airstrikes against Daesh from Incirlik airbase in Turkey, after the Turkish government reluctantly gave permission for the operation following months of negotiations. Before that, US forces flew to Syria from the Muwaffaq Salti air base in Jordan, and from more distant bases in Qatar and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf.
US reportedly rebuilds airbase in Syria without Damascus 'yes'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOrsJqsV7Wk
Published on Jan 20, 2016 - Russia may soon no longer be the only foreign force operating from a base inside Syria. According to some media reports, it's claimed US specialists are working to rebuild an abandoned airfield in the North-East of the country.
Hundreds of Syrian Families Return to Homes Near Damascus
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/islamic-state-frees-270-civilians-captured-eastern-syria-36392426
Hundreds of families displaced by fighting in a neighborhood on the edge of the Syrian capital returned to their homes Wednesday as part of a truce between the government and local rebels reached last year.
Their return to the Qadam neighborhood is the latest in a series of ground-level local agreements to end fighting and ease suffering in the war-stricken country.
State news agency SANA said 25 buses transported the returnees from nearby areas after final arrangements had been made for their return to homes fled in 2013-2014 battles that transformed Qadam into a ghost town. The area was largely destroyed by intense fighting that ended with a cease-fire in August 2014 after months of negotiations.
The government has struck several similar deals with rebels in other neighborhoods and suburbs of Damascus, usually after besieging them for months and pounding them into submission, opposition activists say.
Syrian authorities tout the truces as part of the government's program of "national reconciliation" to end the conflict, which has killed more than 250,000 people since March 2011.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said around 4,000 residents returned to Qadam and surrounding areas on the southern edge of Damascus on Wednesday.
Separately, Palestinian officials said wounded fighters from the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda-linked militants have begun evacuating from a Palestinian refugee camp and surrounding areas in Damascus over the past few days, in the buildup to another deal that could see more than 3,000 IS fighters leave the area.
The evacuation from Yarmouk camp and Hajar Aswad is part of a U.N.-backed deal reached between the Syrian government and armed factions, and would see the IS fighters and their families transferred mostly to the extremist group's de-facto capital, Raqqa, in northern Syria, according to Palestinian officials.
"We are seeing the preparations. The buses are already in place. But as always, these negotiations are sensitive," said Anwar Raja, a Palestinian official in Damascus.
The Islamic State group and the Nusra Front have controlled the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, just a few kilometers (miles) from the heart of Damascus, since April 2015.
Seventeen buses have already departed over the past few days carrying some civilians and wounded people, Khaled Abdul-Majid, another Palestinian official in Damascus, told the AP.
It was not clear when remaining fighters and their families would be evacuated.
The activity around Damascus comes ahead of peace talks in Geneva scheduled for next week.
Differences over which Syrian opposition groups should be labeled terrorists and barred from the negotiations have threatened to delay the talks, the first step in a proposed 18-month political transition.
Moscow Warns Syrian Opposition Against Derailing Talks With Damascus
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941101000873
The Syrian opposition must not put forward preconditions that could hamper the launch of intra-Syrian reconciliation talks, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Thursday.
In December, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on Syrian settlement, which reaffirmed the goals of the Vienna agreements to bring the entire spectrum of the political groups in the crisis-torn country to the negotiating table and stated that the next round of the talks would take place in January, 2016.
"They [the Syrian opposition] will bear historic responsibility for derailing the talks because any preconditions for the launch of negotiations are unacceptable," Bogdanov, who is Russian President's Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa, said Sputnik reported.
"All issues are important — humanitarian, trust-building measures — but they must not be used as precondition for the start of political process…," Bogdanov stressed.
The intra-Syria talks were scheduled to take place on January 25 in Geneva. However, UN Special Envoy on Syria Staffan de Mistura told Sputnik earlier in the day that the date of the intra-Syrian talks had not been fixed.
Since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, Geneva has already hosted two rounds of UN-brokered talks between representatives of the Syrian authorities and the opposition. The Geneva negotiations failed to yield any significant results.
http://sputniknews.com/middleeast/20151218/1031939698/us-airbase-construct-north-syria.html
The US is reconstructing a disused airbase in the province of Hasakah in northeastern Syria in order to land fighter jets and supply planes there, according to reports.
US Air Force specialists are working to reconstruct and equip a disused airbase in northern Syria, the Lebanese daily Al-Akhbar has reported.
Abu Hajar airport is located in Hasakah province in northeastern Syria, which is under the control of Kurdish People's Defense Units (YPG). The Syrian government has not given the US permission to have a base in Syria or carry out airstrikes there.
According to the report, for around two months US experts have been in the region developing the airfield, which hasn't been used since 2010. It has a 2.5 km runway which can be used by fighter jets to carry out airstrikes, and to bring in military supplies.
The news follows a previous report that US and Kurdish forces are cooperating on the construction of a 10 hectare military airbase in Hasakah, south of the town of Rimelan. At the end of November it was reported that two US helicopters has flown over Rimelan, and landed eight US military specialists at the airports.
In August, the US began launching airstrikes against Daesh from Incirlik airbase in Turkey, after the Turkish government reluctantly gave permission for the operation following months of negotiations. Before that, US forces flew to Syria from the Muwaffaq Salti air base in Jordan, and from more distant bases in Qatar and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf.
US reportedly rebuilds airbase in Syria without Damascus 'yes'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOrsJqsV7Wk
Published on Jan 20, 2016 - Russia may soon no longer be the only foreign force operating from a base inside Syria. According to some media reports, it's claimed US specialists are working to rebuild an abandoned airfield in the North-East of the country.
Hundreds of Syrian Families Return to Homes Near Damascus
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/islamic-state-frees-270-civilians-captured-eastern-syria-36392426
Hundreds of families displaced by fighting in a neighborhood on the edge of the Syrian capital returned to their homes Wednesday as part of a truce between the government and local rebels reached last year.
Their return to the Qadam neighborhood is the latest in a series of ground-level local agreements to end fighting and ease suffering in the war-stricken country.
State news agency SANA said 25 buses transported the returnees from nearby areas after final arrangements had been made for their return to homes fled in 2013-2014 battles that transformed Qadam into a ghost town. The area was largely destroyed by intense fighting that ended with a cease-fire in August 2014 after months of negotiations.
The government has struck several similar deals with rebels in other neighborhoods and suburbs of Damascus, usually after besieging them for months and pounding them into submission, opposition activists say.
Syrian authorities tout the truces as part of the government's program of "national reconciliation" to end the conflict, which has killed more than 250,000 people since March 2011.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said around 4,000 residents returned to Qadam and surrounding areas on the southern edge of Damascus on Wednesday.
Separately, Palestinian officials said wounded fighters from the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda-linked militants have begun evacuating from a Palestinian refugee camp and surrounding areas in Damascus over the past few days, in the buildup to another deal that could see more than 3,000 IS fighters leave the area.
The evacuation from Yarmouk camp and Hajar Aswad is part of a U.N.-backed deal reached between the Syrian government and armed factions, and would see the IS fighters and their families transferred mostly to the extremist group's de-facto capital, Raqqa, in northern Syria, according to Palestinian officials.
"We are seeing the preparations. The buses are already in place. But as always, these negotiations are sensitive," said Anwar Raja, a Palestinian official in Damascus.
The Islamic State group and the Nusra Front have controlled the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk, just a few kilometers (miles) from the heart of Damascus, since April 2015.
Seventeen buses have already departed over the past few days carrying some civilians and wounded people, Khaled Abdul-Majid, another Palestinian official in Damascus, told the AP.
It was not clear when remaining fighters and their families would be evacuated.
The activity around Damascus comes ahead of peace talks in Geneva scheduled for next week.
Differences over which Syrian opposition groups should be labeled terrorists and barred from the negotiations have threatened to delay the talks, the first step in a proposed 18-month political transition.
Moscow Warns Syrian Opposition Against Derailing Talks With Damascus
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13941101000873
The Syrian opposition must not put forward preconditions that could hamper the launch of intra-Syrian reconciliation talks, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov said Thursday.
In December, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution on Syrian settlement, which reaffirmed the goals of the Vienna agreements to bring the entire spectrum of the political groups in the crisis-torn country to the negotiating table and stated that the next round of the talks would take place in January, 2016.
"They [the Syrian opposition] will bear historic responsibility for derailing the talks because any preconditions for the launch of negotiations are unacceptable," Bogdanov, who is Russian President's Special Representative for the Middle East and Africa, said Sputnik reported.
"All issues are important — humanitarian, trust-building measures — but they must not be used as precondition for the start of political process…," Bogdanov stressed.
The intra-Syria talks were scheduled to take place on January 25 in Geneva. However, UN Special Envoy on Syria Staffan de Mistura told Sputnik earlier in the day that the date of the intra-Syrian talks had not been fixed.
Since the start of the Syrian conflict in 2011, Geneva has already hosted two rounds of UN-brokered talks between representatives of the Syrian authorities and the opposition. The Geneva negotiations failed to yield any significant results.
