Konflikten i Syrien

Islamic State In Syria: ISIS Raises Black Flag Near Turkey Border Amid US Airstrikes


Islamic State militants have raised their black flag in the Syrian village of Kara, less than a quarter-mile from the border with Turkey. Villagers across the border in Yavuzlu raised Turkish flags from their roofs upon seeing the ISIS flag atop a hill in the distance, the Hurriyet Daily News in Istanbul reported Sunday.

Syrian President Bashar Assad said the U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria have been ineffective, and the Islamic State group – also known as ISIS or ISIL – has actually been gaining strength and expanding its reach. In an interview that aired Sunday on CBS’s “60 Minutes,” Assad said the airstrikes may "have local benefit … if you want to talk in terms of ISIS,” but that “actually ISIS has expanded since the beginning of the strikes."

The following is a script from "Bashar al-Assad" which aired on March 29, 2015. Charlie Rose is the correspondent.

Jubilant and emotional scenes as Syrian rebels storm Assad prison in Idlib, freeing political prisoners: http://bit.ly/1GEMXtM

https://twitter.com/iyad_elbaghdadi/status/582291309874036738

Aron Lund seems to argue that the fall of Idlib city is not terribly consequential. It was already nestled in the midst of rebel-held territory. The chief strategic danger to al-Assad’s forces is that the Sunni fundamentalists could use it as a launching pad to move against the Alawite Shiite populations around Latakia and to attack Latakia port to the west. The latter is important to resupply for the regime, which still controls the roads from the capital of Damascus up to Homs and over to Latakia. So far, however, the regime has managed to hold about two-thirds of the country population-wise, and these advances of rebels have sometimes been reversed, albeit with the help of Lebanon’s Shiite militia, Hizbullah. Al-Hayat also mentions the danger that the fall of Idlib could further isolate regime-held areas in the major northern city of Aleppo.

http://www.juancole.com/2015/03/changer-syrian-factions.html

Turkey helped Islamists take over Idlib, Syrian military source accuses

Idlib fell to Al-Qaida linked group Nusra Front and allies, marking the second time that Damascus lost a provincial capital.

A Syrian military source accused Turkey on Monday of helping Islamist rebels to stage an assault on Idlib, a provincial capital which fighters seized at the weekend.

The source declined to comment on the situation in Idlib, citing security considerations, but a monitoring group has confirmed the Al-Qaida linked Nusra Front and allies now control Idlib and said the Syrian air force bombed the city on Monday.

The fall of Idlib, 30 km (20 miles) from the Turkish border, marks only the second time in the Syrian civil war that Damascus has lost control of a provincial capital. The first was Raqqa, which the ultra-radical Islamic State group has turned into the de facto capital of its self-declared caliphate.

The Turkish foreign ministry declined to comment.

Turkey is one of the regional states most hostile to Assad, along with Saudi Arabia and Qatar. In an interview with the U.S. network CBS, Assad described Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan as a "Muslim Brotherhood fanatic" who was directly supporting insurgents "logistically and militarily" daily.

Syria's government has not commented on the fall of Idlib, though the pro-government Watan newspaper published in Damascus reported on Monday that the Nusra Front and its allies had raised the Al-Qaida flag over government buildings in the city.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the monitoring group, said warplanes staged a number of raids on Idlib. More than 170 people on both sides were killed in the fighting, including at least 126 Syrian insurgents, the Observatory said.