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It's so nice to warn the enemy, isn't it. Ready or not, here we come!
What the heck is wrong with this picture?!?
Syria war: ISIL given '48 hours' to leave Manbij
It's so nice to warn the enemy, isn't it. Ready or not, here we come!
What the heck is wrong with this picture?!?
Syria war: ISIL given '48 hours' to leave Manbij
rat hide under ground, they don't don't stand on the hill tops out in the open
Something learned during the Battle of Britain, it's easy to survive bombings with sufficient warning.
Well that's a given. How else can they execute children for not fasting during Ramadan?They get to take their light weapons with them, too.
Isn't that nice?
...
The council said that ISIL fighters would be allowed to take individual light weapons with them.
Something learned during the Battle of Britain, it's easy to survive bombings with sufficient warning.
The Manbij Military Council, which is part of the U.S.-supported Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, said the initiative represents the "only and last" opportunity for IS militants to "leave the town alive." Backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes, SDF fighters have encircled Manbij and seized western parts of the IS-held town but have so far avoided an all-out assault to minimize civilian casualties. However, airstrikes in the Manbij countryside blamed on the coalition have killed scores of civilians in the past few days, including children.
The statement accused IS of using civilians as human shields and said it would allow the group a last opportunity to leave the town with their "individual weapons" to a location of their choice. Manbij is an IS hub and lies on a key supply route to the Islamic State group's de facto capital of Raqqa. If Manbij is captured by the U.S.-backed fighters, it will be the biggest strategic defeat for IS in Syria since July 2015, when the extremist group lost the border town of Tal Abyad. The fighting around Manbij coincides with an uptick in fighting in the contested city of Aleppo where government forces have completely encircled the eastern, rebel-held parts of the city, trapping hundreds of thousands of people inside.
Smoke rising from the city of Manbij, Syria.
Stephen O'Brien, the U.N.'s emergency relief coordinator, said he is "gravely alarmed" by developments in eastern Aleppo. "Food in east Aleppo is expected to run out by the middle of next month," he warned. The head of delegation for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria described the situation as "devastating and overwhelming," with heavy and indiscriminate shelling and an "untold numbers of civilian casualties." "The bombing is constant. The violence is threatening hundreds of thousands of people's lives, homes and livelihoods," said Marianne Gasser, according to an ICRC statement. It said Gasser was in Aleppo.
Meanwhile, the U.N.'s children agency condemned the killing of children amid Syria's ongoing civil war following brutal incidents in the country's north. In a statement distributed Thursday, UNICEF said dozens of children were among those killed in airstrikes in and around Manbij in the past few days. The U.S.-led coalition has not commented on the accusations but has stepped up its airstrikes on the area, which is controlled by the Islamic State group. "No matter where they are in Syria or under whose control they live - absolutely nothing justifies attacks on children," UNICEF said. UNICEF also condemned the killing of a 12-year-old boy who was beheaded on-camera in Aleppo this week by a Syrian rebel group. The Nour el-Din al-Zinki group, which has so far been known as a relatively moderate group that fights the Syrian government and the Islamic State group, called the killing of the Palestinian boy an "individual mistake" and said it will open an investigation into his murder.
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The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights is reporting fighting in the town of Manbij Friday. Members of the predominantly Kurdish U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces have been on the offensive in Manbij for weeks, backed by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
On Thursday, the Manbij Military Council — part of the SDF — said IS fighters had 48 hours to leave the town with their "individual weapons," saying this was their last opportunity to leave alive. Sherfan Darwish of the SDF says the extremists did not respond to the offer.
Fighting in north Syria town after IS ignore offer to leave
Syria's civil war came late to Aleppo. It was July 2012. But after four years of bitter bloodshed between its government-held west and rebel east, the beating heart of Syria's commercial and industrial capital has entered cardiac arrest. The Castello Road, last rebel artery north towards the Turkish border, has been choked off by President Bashar al-Assad's forces backed by Russian air support, Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian militia. Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah last month declared Syria's "real, strategic, greatest battle is in Aleppo and the surrounding area."
Man walks through rubble in Aleppo
Aleppo is no stranger to sieges - there have been at least eight recorded across its turbulent history. But this one promises to last longer than all the others put together. Many of the 300,000-plus unfortunates trapped inside face the prospect of slowly starving as extortionately-priced food, medicine and fuel supplies are systematically blocked. Some will die before then from the Syrian and Russian government barrel-bombing. Latterly supplemented by incendiary cluster munitions burning to 2,500C, the bombers are steadily eradicating schools, hospitals and markets from above with impunity. Months of such punishment lie ahead for Aleppo, as the stage is prepared for the Syrian endgame - a game the rebels look doomed to lose, along with their entire anti-Assad revolution.
Broken promises
Aleppo's dramas have gone largely unnoticed by Europe and the West, preoccupied with their own dramas closer to home - the Nice attacks, the US shootings, the Turkish coup attempt, the Brexit fallout. Last week, a report by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) accusing the Syrian government of failing to declare its stocks of sarin and other illegal warfare agents for the Russian-brokered 2013 chemical weapons deal, raised barely a murmur in the Western media. Syria's moderate opposition groups have suffered years of broken promises of support from the international community. Myriad proclamations of "Assad must go" were followed by handwringing from the sidelines.
But even the rebels were not prepared for the latest twist that took place in Moscow a few days ago; when John Kerry agreed with Sergei Lavrov to coordinate US-Russian military strikes on the so-called Islamic State (IS) and Syria's al-Qaeda-affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. Nusra's aim has always been to set up Islamic emirates inside Syria, an ideology at odds with Syria's Free Syrian Army (FSA)-linked moderate opposition, yet the two have often found themselves allies of convenience in the fight against President Assad. The dynamics of the battlefield are such that, were Nusra to withdraw their military support or be targeted, the FSA rebels would be left even more vulnerable to attack. North of Aleppo they are already battling on three fronts - against IS, the Kurds and the Syrian government. In Aleppo itself there is no IS presence and very little Nusra either - yet civilians on the ground do not trust the bombs will stop simply because of the new US-Russian deal.
Destabilising factors
