Note - Jaish al-Islam, one of Syria’s most prominent rebel groups (aided by Turkey) is ant-Assad, anti-Syrian Government.
September 27, 2018 - Far from home, a Syrian Rebel Group starts over
Far from home, a Syrian rebel group starts over | Reuters
NEAR AL-BAB, Syria - Syrian rebels forced from their towns when government forces retook eastern Ghouta near Damascus are starting over in the far north, aiming to build hundreds of homes for displaced fighters and civilians on opposition-held land near the Turkish border.
Jaish al-Islam, one of Syria’s most prominent rebel groups, likens the project to a new town for people from eastern Ghouta who have been living in camps since President Bashar al-Assad recaptured their area in April.
The project near the city of al-Bab points to preparations for a long stay in northern Syria, though Jaish al-Islam insists that the people displaced from eastern Ghouta will return. It is part of a wider effort by the group to recover in the north.
Jaish al-Islam commander Issam al-Buwaydani told Reuters in an interview that his group is reorganizing and rearming. Since arriving in the north, it is operating under the “National Army” umbrella - a Turkish-backed effort to unify numerous factions.
But civilian affairs are also a top priority: Buwaydani said a mall, a school, a mosque and a clinic would also be built at the construction site some 15 km (10 miles) from al-Bab.
“My entire combat group is working today in construction,” said Abu Jaafar al-Khouli, 25, one of the Jaish al-Islam fighters working at the construction site.
“I took part in many battles in Ghouta against the regime and the Nusra Front. Now, I have returned to my original profession,” added Khouli, a carpenter before Syria’s civil war.
The site, where the goal is to build 1,400 homes, is part of an arc of territory in the northwest at that forms the last major opposition-held area in Syria.
The eastern Ghouta rebels defended their stronghold on the Damascus outskirts through years of government siege until earlier this year, when Assad took back the area in a ferocious Russian-backed offensive.
When it fell, thousands of people opted to take safe passage to the northwest rather than live under government rule, a pattern seen elsewhere that
has left the northwest crammed with anti-Assad fighters and dissidents from all over Syria.
WE WILL GO BACK”
Jaish al-Islam headed to the area north of Aleppo rather than Idlib province because of long-standing hostility toward the jihadist Nusra Front, also known as Tahrir al-Sham, which has a strong presence in Idlib.
The housing project is being built on land that officially belongs to the Syrian state. Permission was granted by the opposition-run council in al-Bab, Buwaydani said.
Financing is being provided by Ghouta merchants with no foreign funding, he said.
He noted that some displaced Syrians had been living under canvass for three or four years, adding: “Our view is that living in tents has a negative impact on society.”
The first phase of the project will lay foundations for homes. These will then be handed free of charge to Ghouta residents who will complete the construction with financial support from relatives outside Syria, he said. But this does not signal any acceptance that they will not return to Ghouta. “We will go back to our towns. We will liberate them and topple the terrorist tyrant,” Buwaydani said, referring to Assad.
Buwaydani says his fighters are getting financial aid from Turkey in the form of salaries.
He said the group is ready for new battles against the Syrian government or other enemies, including the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia which controls much of northern Syria. Turkey views the YPG as a national security threat, and its intervention in northern Syria has been driven largely by this concern.
Though Assad has crushed many areas of rebellion, Buwaydani still believes he can be toppled. “It is not impossible that Assad falls, especially given that the opposition forces are gathered today in one place,” he said. “This is a source of strength.”
September 27, 2018 - Easier movement in Assad's Syria bring some
Easier movement in Assad's Syria brings some economic reward | Reuters
Mohammed Abu al-Khair sends 25 buses a day from the Syrian capital Damascus to Aleppo, an eight-hour trip that until recently took up to two days.
The reduction in the journey time is a result of military gains by the Syrian army which have eased the movement of goods and people in government-held areas after years of paralysis because of the civil war that began in 2011.
The opening of roads that for years were unsafe has also brought some economic payoff for President Bashar al-Assad from the army’s military successes.
“Previously it could take two days to reach Aleppo. It was very dangerous for the drivers,” said Abu al-Khair, who oversees operations for Amir bus company, including from Damascus to Aleppo, a city 310 km (192 miles) north of Damascus which was an industrial hub before the war.
Vehicles now travel day and night, not only in the half of Syria controlled by Assad, but also to the quarter of it held by a U.S.-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias.
Syria’s economy has been shattered. Whole towns lie in ruins, many workers have fled, been killed or gone to fight, and international sanctions hobble external trade.
But Assad is turning his attention toward a gradual economic recovery in areas he controls.
Finance Minister Mamoun Hamdan said last month that economic activity had picked up significantly, and that a move to issue foreign currency deposits was aimed at funding trade operations as the government moved towards reconstruction.
Internal Trade Minister Abdullah Gharbi told Reuters that internal trade had risen by more than 30 percent since the government retook major roads.
“It’s easier. Less time, less risk,” said Majd Wehbeh, executive manager of Compass Freight and Logistics in Damascus.
For much of the seven-year conflict safe, rapid travel was unthinkable as fighting cut major routes and splintered the country into dozens of warring fiefdoms.
Conditions are still difficult - far worse than the situation before 2011. Most borders are closed. Roads are controlled by numerous checkpoints at which, companies say, soldiers routinely demand bribes.
Yet the situation is incomparable to earlier periods of the war, when travelers might be kidnapped or killed in clashes, and many areas were unreachable.
DANGER
The old network of major highways is now open from the Lebanese and - currently closed - Jordanian border through Damascus, Homs and Hama, to the ports of Tartous and Latakia, and to Deir al-Zor in eastern Syria.
It had been difficult and dangerous to reach Deir al-Zor, deep in Islamic State territory. Abdullah al-Mallah, buying a bus ticket for his hometown of al-Mayadin near Deir al-Zor, said he now traveled between it and Damascus every week or two.
When he fled Islamic State rule for Damascus in 2016, it took weeks to cross the desert. It now takes nine hours and a $12 ticket. His family might join him for a trip soon, he said.
Farah bus company runs five or six buses there a day. It occasionally sent buses even when Islamic State controlled the desert, its manager Yahya Khatib said, charging $100 a ticket.
Sometimes it took a bus two months to find a safe route back to government territory. “There’s no danger now. Things are normal,” he said.
Assad’s military gains this year suddenly eased conditions, freight and bus companies said.
The recapture of eastern Ghouta, located by the main highway that runs north from Damascus, meant traffic no longer had to traverse a 90-minute diversion through the hills outside the capital.
Qadmous company carries cargo between Damascus and the coast. “During the war we reduced our work by a lot. Now it’s 40 or 50 percent higher,” said Michel Dagher, the company overseer.
He and the Compass Freight manager Wehbeh both said the number of army checkpoints, as well as journey times, had been reduced by a lot.
BLOCKED
International routes are still blocked. Syria’s only working border now is with Lebanon, though there are talks to reopen the Nassib frontier with Jordan. The main crossing with Iraq is blocked by a U.S. military base on the Damascus-Baghdad highway. Another crossing at Albu Kamal is open for military, but not general use. Syria’s border with Turkey is open only in rebel-held areas.
Internally, it is still split. From government territory, it is possible to travel into areas controlled by a Kurdish-led administration in the northeast. In Damascus, bus companies advertised daily journeys there.
But it is hard to reach rebel-held territory in Idlib and northern Aleppo. Travelers are dropped off near a safe foot corridor across the front line, a bus driver said.
As the internal economy gradually recovers, the government wants to shift more freight off the roads onto more efficient rail lines.
The main Damascus station reopened this month, but only to serve a short route to a trade fair. Najib Fares, head of Syrian railways, said work had started to restore the main line.
“We are maintaining, repairing and reconstructing the railway line... there is very major damage on this line,” he said.
As a train pulled into the platform behind Fares, a line of shell-smashed buildings stretched back to the horizon and rusted, shell-damaged carriages lay idle in a siding.
It was a reminder of how difficult Syria’s recovery will be, and that the war still intrudes in many regions.
The highways to Aleppo from Latakia and Hama in Idlib province remain in rebel hands and travel there now involves a long detour along narrow roads.
Kamal, a Hama-based bus driver who did not want to give his surname, said restoring that road would cut hours of journey time. Army victories had already saved hours in driving between Hama and Damascus, he said.
“It used to be one trip per day and then return the next day. Now I come and go in the same day. So do some of my passengers,” he said.
(Comment: Syrian railways lay in rubble, due to bombings and missile strikes, while the Countries who fund the terrorists
Israel & Saudi Arabia just opened up new Bullet train terminals: )
Examples of continuous Israeli harassment vs Palestinians
Sept. 27, 2018 - Israel prepared to reopen Golan crossing with Syria: Defense chief
Israel prepared to reopen Golan crossing with Syria: defense chief | Reuters
Israel is ready to reopen a crossing point into the Syrian-controlled Golan Heights now that Syrian government forces have regained control from rebels, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Thursday.
But Lieberman, on a visit to the Israeli-held side of the Quneitra crossing, said any resumption of operations at the facility depended on Syria.
“The fact that we have come here, to Alpha Gate, and as far as we are concerned UNDOF forces have begun to operate and patrol with the Israeli military’s assistance, says that we are ready for the crossing to reopen,” he told reporters, in comments distributed by his ministry.
Lieberman was referring to
the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, whose monitoring operations in a demilitarized zone established in 1974 between the Israeli-occupied Golan and the Syrian sector were disrupted by Syria’s civil war.
At the moment, the ball is in the Syrian court,” Lieberman said.
Military police from Russia, a major ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, have been patrolling on the Syrian side of Quneitra, where Lieberman said Syrian police and customs officials were also present.
In the past, Lieberman said, traffic through Quneitra mainly comprised shipments into Syria of apples grown by Druze farmers on the Israeli-controlled Golan - and the entry of brides for partners on both sides of the armistice line.
Israel captured the Golan Heights in the 1967 Middle East war and fought Syria again on the strategic plateau in a 1973 conflict.
Sept. 27, 2018 - US-led fight on Islamic State killed more than 1,100 civilians: Pentagon
U.S.-led fight on Islamic State killed more than 1,100 civilians: Pentagon | Reuters
More than 1,100 civilians have been killed in U.S.-led strikes against Islamic State targets in Iraq and Syria since the operation began in 2014, the U.S. military said on Thursday.
The coalition fighting Islamic State militants said in a statement
that during the month of August it had determined that an additional 53 civilians had been killed unintentionally, bringing the total to at least 1,114 civilian deaths since August 2014.
The military’s official tally is far below those of outside organizations. The monitoring group Airwars says at least 6,575 civilians have been killed by coalition strikes.
Twenty civilians were killed in a strike on Islamic State “fighting positions,” explosives factory and a command and control center in May 2017 near Mosul, Iraq, the coalition said.
“We continue to employ thorough and deliberate targeting and strike processes to minimize the impact of our operations on civilian populations and infrastructure,” the military’s statement said.
The U.S.-led coalition, along with local partners, has largely cleared the militant group from Iraq and Syria but remains concerned about its resurgence.
Thu Sep 27, 2018 - Turkey Transfers Foreign Terrorist Commanders from Idlib
Farsnews
The non-Syrian commanders of the terrorist groups have been relocated to Turkey from Idlib province by Ankara as other militants are preparing for a battle against the Syrian army.
The Arabic-language website of Sputnik news agency quoted local sources in Idlib as saying on Thursday that
Ankara has transferred a number of the most notorious foreign commanders of the terrorists along with their family members from Jisr al-Shoqour in Idlib and Northern Lattakia to Turkey.
Meantime, a number of commanders and local members of Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at (the Levant Liberation Board or the Al-Nusra Front) have also been able to flee to Turkey from the towns of Sarmada and Atmeh by paying a Turkish businessman $10,000 for a commander and $5,000 for low-ranking militants.
The sources said that the foreign terrorists are still stationed in the villages, towns and occupied positions, adding that the foreign terrorist groups, including Turkistanti party, Ajnad al-Qoqaz and Horas al-Din, have strengthened their military preparedness to fight against the Syrian army.
Also, sources close to the terrorists' commanders in Idlib have said that
Tahrir al-Sham commander Mohammed al-Julani is due to declare his position on the Sochi agreement between Turkey and Russia on a demilitarized zone in Idlib soon.
Relevant reports said on Monday that
Tahrir al-Sham was preparing for an imminent offensive against the Syrian Army in Idlib province to sabotage implementation of Sochi agreement, an Arab media outlet reported.
Syria's al-Watan daily quoted well-informed sources as reporting that Tahrir al-Sham has been preparing its gunmen in the last two days to kick off a heavy attack on the army in Idlib.
It further said that Tahrir al-Sham has kept fighters on alert along the entire roads to Idlib, specially along the road between Ban al-Hawa passageway at border with Syria and the town of Saraqib in Southeastern Idlib, adding that the terrorist group has also dispatched a large volume of military hardware to its positions in Southeastern Idlib, the town of Kobani in Jabal al-Turkmen in Northeastern Lattakia.
It went on to say that the terrorists of Horas al-Deen have opposed strongly the Sochi agreement and called on the other terrorist groups to join attacks on the army rapidly to push the Sochi agreement into failure.
The daily further said that a fresh wave of differences have erupted among terrorists over the Sochi agreement and demilitarized zone in Idlib.
Terrorists of the National Liberation Front on Sunday opposed an agreement endorsed by Russia and Turkey over the Northwestern province of Idlib following a similar opposition by Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at and several other terrorist groups.
Thu Sep 27, 2018 - Terrorists' Military Commander Killed in Aleppo as Internal Tensions Hike
Farsnews
A military commander of terrorist groups was assassinated in Western Aleppo as tensions heightened between Nouralddeen al-Zinki and Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at (the Levant Liberation Board or the Al-Nusra Front).
Field sources in Western Aleppo reported on Thursday that Nouralddeen al-Zinki commander Mohammad Ahmad al-Khatib was killed along with one of his aides by unknown gunmen in the town of Kafr Nasih.
Elsewhere,
Turkey-backed Nouralddeen al-Zinki group affiliated to the National Liberation Front terrorist group arrested three militants for affiliation to Tahrir al-Sham in the town of Dar al-Izza in Western Aleppo.
After the development, Tahrir al-Sham terrorists sent their military equipment to the regions near Dar al-Izza, detaining a number of Nouralddeen al-Zinki militants in the village of Tal Adah in Western Aleppo.
Tahrir al-Sham militants also launched heavy attacks on the positions of Nouralddeen al-Zinki in Dar al-Izza with mortar fire.
Based on the report
hundreds of residents of Dar al-Izza have staged protest rallies against Nouralddeen al-Zinki terrorists.
In a relevant development on Tuesday, one of the notorious foreign commanders of Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at was gunned down by unidentified assailants in Southern Idlib.
Abu Talhah Araqi, a notorious Iraqi commander of Tahrir al-Sham, and his aide were killed after unknown attackers opened fire at them near the village of al-Tah in Southern Idlib.
In the meantime, a number of people were killed or wounded after a bomb went off near the town of Saraqib in Southeastern Idlib.
On Monday, Sayaf, one of the notorious commanders of Horas al-Deen terrorist group, was gunned down by unknown assailants in the village of Kansafrah Northwest of the town of Kafr Nubl in Southern Idlib.
In the meantime, two gunmen of the National Liberation Front were killed after unknown raiders targeted their position in the village of al-Habit in Southern Idlib.
Also, several gunmen of Tahrir al-Sham Hay'at and National Liberation Front sustained injuries in infighting between the tow rival groups in the village of Ma'arat Harmah in Southern Idlib.
2018-09-27 - Turkish-backed rebels and Kurdish forces clash near Manbij
Breaking: Turkish-backed rebels and Kurdish forces clash near Manbij
The Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) reportedly clashed outside the town of Manbij this morning after a relatively quiet few months.
According to local activists,
the FSA and SDF clashed inside a town located north Manbij, as both forces exchanged gunfire and artillery shells. No ground has been gained by either side, despite the intense exchange.
Currently, the U.S. Coalition and Turkish military patrol the Manbij area as part of a deal that was established between Washington and Ankara earlier this year.
2018-09-27 - Russian, Iranian security chiefs meet to discuss Syria
Russian, Iranian security chiefs meet to discuss Syria
The Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev and Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Shamkhani met on Wednesday evening to discuss a number of topics, including the war in Syria.
“Nikolai Patrushev and Ali Shamkhani shared opinions on the situation in the Middle East and the Syrian settlement regarding the recent summit between the Russian, Iranian and Turkish leaders,” the office of Nikolai Patrushev said on Wednesday evening, as
quoted by Tass News Agency.
The two parties also discussed issues of Russian-Iranian cooperation in the sphere of security.
This meeting between the Russian and Iranian security chiefs comes as both nations aid Turkey in implementing the Idlib buffer zone agreement.
2018-09-27 - Russia rejected Israel’s offer to send high-level security delegation to Moscow: Haaretz
Russia rejected Israel's offer to send high-level security delegation to Moscow: Haaretz
Russia rejected an offer from the Israeli government to send a high-level security delegation to Moscow after the downing of the IL-20 reconnaissance aircraft on September 17th, the Haaretz newspaper
reported this week.
The Haaretz report said that the Russian Federation rejected an offer by the Israeli government to send a high-level security delegation that would have been led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman.
The report added that
Russia told Israel they prefer to keep their contacts with the latter on a professional level, adding that there is no need to send such a delegation to Moscow. 
2018-09-27 - Russia to supply Syria with up to eight S-300 units – report
Russia to supply Syria with up to eight S-300 units - report
Russia is planning to supply Syria with up to eight S-300 air defense systems, the Russian newspaper ‘Kommersant’ reported on Tuesday.
According to the Kommersant report,
Russia will deliver at least two and up to four S-300 systems in the next two weeks.
The Russian military will then transfer another four S-300 systems in the weeks that follow, as they increase the strength of the Syrian air defenses.
The Kommersant article added that the Russian military is planning to deploy the first S-300 systems in the Latakia Governorate; however, the others will be placed around the country.
2018-09-27 - Syrian Army to receive short-range defense missiles along with S-300 system: report
Syrian Army to receive short-range defense missiles along with S-300 system: report
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) will be receiving a batch of short-range defense missiles, along with the S-300 system from the Russian military, the Al-Watan newspaper reported this morning.
According to the Al-Watan report,
the Syrian military will be receiving Russian and Belarusian defense missiles, including the Pantsir-1S system and Pechora-2M.
The Al-Watan report did go into detail regarding this alleged supply of short-range defense missiles; however, a new shipment of the Pantsir-1S system is not surprising, given the Syrian military is already receiving the S-300.
It's hard to talk to people who confuse Austria with Australia, after all.
