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ISIL re-enters Syrian Kurdish town Kobane

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At least 12 killed in bomb blast in battleground border town, as fighting flares in several other key Syrian cities.

ISIL fighters attacked the battleground town from three sides [Getty Images]

ISIL fighters attacked the battleground town from three sides [Getty Images]

by Al Jazeera

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters have launched attacks on two fronts in northern Syria, re-entering the Kurdish town of Kobane and seizing parts of the city of Hasakah.

Dozens of ISIL fighters attacked Kobane on the border with Turkey, where at least 12 people were killed in a car bomb attack at the start of the offensive on Thursday morning.

ISIL fighters were wearing Kurdish and Free Syrian Army uniforms, the sources told Al Jazeera, as they attacked from three sides and took several positions inside the battleground town.

Al Jazeera’s Nisreen El Shamayleh, reporting from Amman, said several ISIL fighters “carried out suicide attacks; decimated themselves and caused a lot of casualties” after entering the city.

“There’s a lot of fighting going on there, that we understand is ongoing,” our correspondent said.

“Dozens of people have been trying to flee.”

The Kurdish group YPG asked civilians to stay home as it sent reinforcements to the town.

The fighting prompted Kurdish activists and Syrian state television to accuse Turkey of allowing ISIL to attack Kobane from its side of the border.

A Turkish foreign ministry spokesman later “strongly denied” that the ISIL fighters crossed into Syria from Turkey.

Kurdish forces in January had reclaimed Kobane from ISIL in a victory touted by Anwar Muslim, the prime minister of the self-declared Kurdish canton of Kobane, as “the beginning of the end for Daesh [ISIL]”.

Losing Kobane after more than four months of intense fighting was seen as a significant propaganda blow to ISIL after it had invested extensive military resources to capture the isolated border town.

“Daesh [ISIL] took most of the places it wanted in Syria and Iraq but could not capture Kobane,” Muslim told Al Jazeera at the time.

ISIL storms Hasakah

Meanwhile, ISIL launched an overnight offensive on the largely Kurdish city of Hasakah in northeast Syria where dozens of Syrian and ISIL fighters were reportedly killed, sources told Al Jazeera.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights group estimated that at least 30 Syrian soldiers and 20 ISIL fighters died in the raid.

Dozens of people fled Hasakah towards the northern countryside after the sudden offensive, Al Jazeera’s sources reported.

Fighting was ongoing on Thursday morning as ISIL stormed the city from its southern entrance in its attempt to take control of more territories in Hasakah.

A suicide bomber also blew up a car bomb at the city’s western entrance.

Fighting in Aleppo and Deraa

Meanwhile, after two years of fighting for Layramoun Square in Aleppo, rebels were saying on Thursday that they had seized the area from government forces.

They also took control of a surrounding government barracks northwest of the city, Al Jazeera’s sources said.

Syrian rebels and groups including the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front also attacked government-held areas of the southern city of Deraa overnight.

Rebels previously held Deraa’s eastern half while the Syrian government held western areas of the city.

Heavy fighting in Deraa is continuing, according to Al Jazeera’s sources.

ISIL prisoners beheaded

In a separate development, ISIL beheaded 12 men from rival Syrian rebel movements accused of fighting against them, in a video released on Thursday.

It is the latest in a long series of mass beheadings by ISIL, and comes two days after the group released a video showing it killing 16 people in neighbouring Iraq, drowning some of them in a cage.

Four men were killed with a rocket-propelled grenade fired at a car and seven by wrapping explosive cord around their necks and detonating it.

Three of those killed in the new video were from Jaysh al-Islam, one of the main rebel groups in the Damascus area, and a fourth from al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate and ISIL’s main rival in the country.

'Elephant rockets' kill dozens in Damascus suburb

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Activists say improvised bombs dropped on rebel stronghold of Douma leave at least 36 people dead.

Men search for survivors at a site hit by what activists said was heavy shelling by the Syrian government on Douma [Reuters]

Men search for survivors at a site hit by what activists said was heavy shelling by the Syrian government on Douma [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The Syrian government has used so-called elephant rockets in an attack on the Damascus suburb of Douma, killing at least 36 people, including children, according to activists.

The rockets, named after the distinctive noise they make when they are launched, are improvised weapons made by attaching rocket motors to much larger bombs – a process that increases their destructive power while greatly reducing accuracy.

This greatly increases their destructive effect, while accuracy is lost and range is limited.

On Wednesday, activists accused the government of using surface-to-surface missiles in Douma as clashes continued between opposition fighters and government forces.

In video posted online of Tuesday’s attack, residents were seen scrambling to rescue a brother and sister trapped after a building was destroyed.

There were shouts of joy as the girl was pulled alive from the rubble while her brother could still be heard calling for help.

More than 60 people, including many children, were injured in the bombardment, activists said.

Syria’s state-run SANA news agency said two shells struck Arnous Park in Damascus late on Tuesday as many people were out shopping ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, expected to begin on Thursday. It says the shells killed nine people and wounded 13.

Improvised arsenal

The rebel stronghold of Douma has been under attack by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad for the last three years.

Elephant rockets are part of an improvised arsenal used by government forces, who have already been condemned for using barrel bombs and chemical weapons on civilians.

Speaking in the US on Tuesday, John Kerry, secretary of state, said he was confident Assad’s government was responsible for a “preponderance” of chemical attacks against his own people.

“I think everybody’s patience is wearing thin with respect to the extraordinary depravity of the weaponry and mechanisms for delivery which Assad has used against his own people,” he said,

Kerry said he had discussed Syria’s use of chemical weapons with Sergei Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, by phone and was confident Lavrov would raise it with Assad, who agreed in 2013 under a US-Russia brokered deal to dismantle the country’s chemical weapons arsenal.

He said chemical weapons were dropped from aircraft and the US was putting together data to support its claims that Assad’s government was responsible for the attacks.

The UN Security Council is currently debating a draft resolution that will help determine who is responsible for using chlorine as a chemical weapon. Russia questions whether a resolution, being drafted by the US, is needed.

Kerry said it was possible that Syria’s opposition may also have had access to chemical weapons “at one point in time or another”, although he emphasised that rebel forces did not have access to aircraft or helicopters.

Rescuers managed to pull several people alive from the rubble in Douma [Reuters]

Although chlorine is not a prohibited substance, its use as a chemical weapon is prohibited under a 1977 Chemical Weapons Convention, which Syria joined in 2013.

Members of the Syrian Medical Society are expected to give evidence to the US foreign affairs committee on Wednesday that shows Assad is using chlorine on civilians.

The latest developments come as the UN envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura is in Damascus pushing for a political solution to end the conflict.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, with a network of sources on the ground, says it has documented 230,000 deaths in Syria’s war, almost 70,000 of them civilians.

Over 230,000 killed in Syrian conflict since 2011

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Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates the death count could be far higher due to a large number of inconclusive disappearances. (AFP/File)

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights estimates the death count could be far higher due to a large number of inconclusive disappearances. (AFP/File)

by Arutz Sheva

Syria’s brutal conflict has left more than 230,000 people dead, including almost 11,500 children since it broke out in 2011, a monitoring group said Tuesday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had documented the deaths of 230,618 people, according to AFP.

The toll includes 69,494 civilians, among them 11,493 children and 7,371 women.

Combatants account for a majority of those killed, with 49,106 regime forces and 36,464 government loyalists among the dead.

The loyalist fighters killed were mostly members of local militias, but also included 838 from Lebanon’s powerful Shiite terror group Hezbollah and 3,093 Shiite fighters from other countries.

The Observatory documented the deaths of 41,116 rebels, Syrian extremists and Kurdish fighters.

Anti-regime foreign fighter deaths numbered 31,247, most of them extremists.

Abdel Rahman said another 3,191 of those documented killed in the conflict remained unidentified.

The Britain-based Observatory relies on a broad network of activists, fighters, and medics across the war-ravaged country.

May was the bloodiest month of 2015 in Syria, with 6,657 killed — the majority of them regime forces and extremist fighters locked in fierce clashes on several fronts.

The Observatory’s toll does not include some 20,000 people who have disappeared after being arrested, 9,000 people in government detention, and at least 4,000 people held by Daesh (ISIS).

The monitoring group said thousands of people had disappeared or were unaccounted for after clashes.

As a result, the Observatory estimates that the conflict’s actual death toll is likely tens of thousands higher than its figure.

Syrian rebels seize largest army base in Deraa

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Opposition fighters take control of a major base that was used by the regime to shell all eastern areas of the province.

The majority of Deraa province is controlled by opposition fighters [Getty]

The majority of Deraa province is controlled by opposition fighters [Getty]

by Al Jazeera

An umbrella group of opposition fighters have seized the largest army base in the southern province of Deraa – the birthplace of Syria’s four-year uprising – after 24 hours of fighting, a rebel spokesman and monitoring group have said.

Essam al-Rayes, a spokesman for the Southern Front rebel alliance operating in the province, told the AFP news agency on Tuesday that the “fully liberated” base “was one of the main lines of defence for regime forces”.

“It was a nightmare, because they used it to shell all the areas to the east of the province,” he added.

He said at least 2,000 rebel forces overran the base, which lies near a major highway running from Damascus to Syria’s southern border with Jordan, in a “short and quick” assault.

Diaa al-Hariri, a spokesman for Faylaq al-Awwal, one of the armed groups in the Southern Front coalition, also confirmed the significance of the base.

“The base is also an important infantry base, from which the regime attacked towns and villages in the south,” he said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group that relies on a network of activists on the ground, reported that opposition groups had taken the 52nd Brigade base after clashes and intense shelling that left 14 rebel fighters and 20 government forces dead.

Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said regime troops withdrew to the nearby village of al-Dara.
Rebel groups control a majority of Daraa province and its capital, according to Abdel Rahman.

Syria’s official news agency SANA did not mention the capture of the base. But earlier, citing a military source, it said the air force had struck the area, killing at least 40 “terrorists”.

String of regime losses

Regime forces have suffered several defeats over the last three months at the hands of opposition fighters.

One of the most recent major losses was Idlib province, which rebels claimed full control over since Saturday.

The Observatory also said on Tuesday that it has documented the deaths of 230,000 people since the Syrian conflict began in March 2011.

The Observatory said the dead include 69,494 civilians, among them 11,493 children. The conflict has also claimed the lives of 49,106 troops, 32,533 pro-government fighters and 38,592 rebels, it said.

Abdurrahman said the real death toll could be above 300,000, since there are tens of thousands of people who are missing or were buried without being counted.

Syria’s conflict began with peaceful Arab Spring-inspired demonstrations demanding political reform, but eventually escalated into a civil war after the government responded with a violent crackdown on dissent.

Today the country is split among forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, opposition factions, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group.

Nusra leader: Our mission is to defeat Syrian regime

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Abu Mohammed al-Golani in exclusive interview to Al Jazeera says his group has no specific agenda to target West.

Abu Mohammad al-Golani

by Al Jazeera

The leader of the Nusra Front, one of Syria’s most powerful rebel groups, has said that his group’s main mission is to dislodge the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and that it has no agenda to target the West unless provoked.

“We are only here to accomplish one mission, to fight the regime and its agents on the ground, including Hezbollah and others,” Abu Mohammed al-Golani said in an exclusive interview aired on Al Jazeera on Wednesday.

“Nusra Front doesn’t have any plans or directives to target the West. We received clear orders not to use Syria as a launching pad to attack the US or Europe in order to not sabotage the true mission against the regime. Maybe al-Qaeda does that but not here in Syria,” he said.

But his statements did include a warning against the US over its attacks on the armed group, which has been blacklisted a “terrorist organisation” by the US.

“Our options are open when it comes to targeting the Americans if they will continue their attacks against us in Syria. Everyone has the right to defend themselves,” he said in an interview with the Doha-based network.

‘Khorasan fabricated’

Golani not only accused Western nations of backing the government of President Assad against the rebels, but of also fabricating the “Khorasan” group – which Washington says is a covert faction in Syria that aspires to attack the US.

“The West is targeting Nusra because they know we are the real threat to the Assad regime. This is why they came out and said they are only targeting this group that they called Khorasan,” the leader of al-Qaeda’s Syria branch said.

“There is nothing called Khorasan group.The Americans came up with it to deceive the public. They claim that this secret group was set up to target the Americans but this is not right.”

He also noted that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL), which has been accused of rampant atrocities and controls large parts of the country, was a main threat to the Nusra Front.

“Assad forces are fighting us on one end, Hezbollah on another and ISIL on a third front. It is all about their mutual interests.”

Alawites will not be targeted

When questioned whether the Nusra Front planned to establish Islamic state in Syria, Golani said that after the whole war is over, all factions and groups in the country will be consulted before considering
“establishing an Islamic state”.

Golani also said that his group will not target the country’s Alawite minority despite their support for Bashar al-Assad’s government.

“The battle does not end in Qardaha, the Alawite village and the birthplace of the Assad clan,” he said.

“Our war is not a matter of revenge against the Alawites despite the fact that in Islam, they are considered to be heretics.

Syria regime 'to accept de facto partition' of country

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Fighters from a coalition of Islamist forces stand on a huge portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on March 29, 2015, in the Syrian city of Idlib, the second provincial capital to fall from government control (AFP Photo/Zein Al-Rifai)

Fighters from a coalition of Islamist forces stand on a huge portrait of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on March 29, 2015, in the Syrian city of Idlib, the second provincial capital to fall from government control (AFP Photo/Zein Al-Rifai)

by Sammy Ketz, AFP

Beirut: Weakened by years of war, Syria’s government appears ready for the country’s de facto partition, defending strategically important areas and leaving much of the country to rebels and jihadists, experts and diplomats say.

 The strategy was in evidence last week with the army’s retreat from the ancient central city of Palmyra after an advance by the Islamic State group.

“It is quite understandable that the Syrian army withdraws to protect large cities where much of the population is located,” said Waddah Abded Rabbo, director of Syria’s Al-Watan newspaper, which is close to the regime.

“The world must think about whether the establishment of two terrorist states is in its interests or not,” he said, in reference to IS’s self-proclaimed “caliphate” in Syria and Iraq, and Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front’s plans for its own “emirate” in northern Syria.

Syria’s government labels all those fighting to oust President Bashar al-Assad “terrorists,” and has pointed to the emergence of IS and Al-Nusra as evidence that opponents of the regime are extremists.

Since the uprising against Assad began in March 2011 with peaceful protests, the government has lost more than three-quarters of the country’s territory, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor.

But the territory the regime controls accounts for about 50 to 60 percent of the population, according to French geographer and Syria expert Fabrice Balanche.

He said 10-15 percent of Syria’s population is now in areas controlled by IS, 20-25 percent in territory controlled by Al-Nusra or rebel groups and another five to 10 percent in areas controlled by Kurdish forces.

“The government in Damascus still has an army and the support of a part of the population,” Balanche said.

“We’re heading towards an informal partition with front lines that could shift further.”

– ‘Division is inevitable’ –

People close to the regime talk about a government retreat to “useful Syria”.

“The division of Syria is inevitable. The regime wants to control the coast, the two central cities of Hama and Homs and the capital Damascus,” one Syrian political figure close to the regime said.

“The red lines for the authorities are the Damascus-Beirut highway and the Damascus-Homs highway, as well as the coast, with cities like Latakia and Tartus,” he added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The coastal Latakia and Tartus provinces are strongholds of the regime, and home to much of the country’s Alawite community, the offshoot of Shiite Islam to which Assad adheres.

In the north, east and south of the country, large swathes of territory are now held by jihadists or rebel groups, and the regime’s last major offensive — in Aleppo province in February — was a failure.

For now the regime’s sole offensive movement is in Qalamun along the Lebanese border, but there its ally, Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement, is taking the lead in the fighting.

“The Syrian army today has become a Praetorian guard that is charged with protecting the regime,” said a diplomat who goes to Damascus regularly.

He said the situation had left Syrian officials “worried, of course,” but that they remained convinced that key regime allies Russia and Iran would not let the government collapse.

Some observers believe the defensive posture was the suggestion of Iran, which believes it is better to have less territory but be able to keep it secure.

“Iran urged Syrian authorities to face facts and change strategy by protecting only strategic zones,” opposition figure Haytham Manna said.

– Dwindling regime forces –

The shift may also be the result of the dwindling forces available to the regime, which has seen its once 300,000-strong army “whittled away” by combat and attrition, according to Aram Nerguizian, a senior fellow at the US Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“On the surface, the regime appears to have accepted that it must secure, hold and defend its core area of control… with its current mix of forces,” he said.

Those are approximately 175,000 men from the army, pro-regime Syrian militias and foreign fighters including from Hezbollah and elsewhere.

The Observatory says 68,000 regime forces are among the 220,000 people killed since the conflict began.

But the new strategy does not indicate regime collapse, and could even work in its favour, Nerguizian said.

“Supply lines would have far less overstretch to contend with, and the regime’s taxed command-and-control structure would have more margin of maneuver.”

Thomas Pierret, a Syria expert at the University of Edinburgh, said that to survive, “the regime will have to lower its expectations and concentrate on the Damascus-Homs-coast axes.

“Militarily, the regime probably still has the means to hold the southeastern half of the country long-term, but further losses could weaken it from within.”

Six months later, Pentagon admits (maybe) we killed some kids in Syria

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While notable for admitting the possibility it killed two young children, admission called “too little, too late” by expert who says deathtoll of innocent people far exceeds Pentagon statement

Five year old Daniya Ali Al Haj Qaddour and her father, alleged militant Ali Saeed Al Haj Qaddour, both killed in a US air strike at Harem, November 5th 2014 (via SNHR)

Five year old Daniya Ali Al Haj Qaddour and her father, alleged militant Ali Saeed Al Haj Qaddour, both killed in a US air strike at Harem, November 5th 2014 (via SNHR)

by Jon Queally, Common Dreams

In what one journalist described as the “first near-confirmation” of civilian deaths caused by U.S.-led airstrikes inside Syria, an official announcement by the Pentagon on Thursday that one of its bombs “likely led” to the death of two young children was met by derision and suspicion by experts who say the real deathtoll of innocent people killed in such strikes far exceeds the U.S. military’s tepid admission.

The acknowledgement of the deaths was included in a report stemming from an internal investigation conducted by the Pentagon into specific bombings that took place on or around November 5 of last year near the Syrian town of Aleppo. According to the U.S. military, the strikes were aimed not at Islamic State (ISIS) militants—the group used by President Obama to initially justify U.S. airstrikes in the Syria—but rather another militant group operating in the country known as the Khorasan group. Despite early and repeated denials surrounding the incident and a six-month long probe, the report itself states that a “preponderance of the evidence” found by the investigators suggest the bombing “likely led to the deaths of two non-combatant children.”

However, in the wake of the official statement, investigative journalist Chris Woods, who has extensively tracked the civilian impact caused by U.S. drone attacks and airstrikes around the world, was quoted by the Guardian as saying the U.S. admission was simply “too little, too late.”

Woods, who has reported for the Bureau of Investigative Journalism and more recently founded Airwars.org, a not-for-profit transparency project aimed at tracking and archiving the international air war against ISIS, said its inconceivable that U.S. military needed six months to investigate the incident and that its finding ignore widely available and key evidence. Citing his own research, Woods said last November’s attack may have killed up to four children, including five-year-old Daniya Ali al-Haj Qaddour.

“I am absolutely sure that Daniya was killed [in the November strike],” Woods said, adding that her mother and brother were also severely wounded in the bombing. The facts about this case “have been in the public domain for six months,” Woods continued, pointing to images and details of the children’s deaths which circulated on social media in the days immediately following their deaths. “I can’t see a conceivable benefit to to waiting six months to confirm this.”

According to the Guardian:

Thursday’s admission comes after several months of denials by the US that any civilians had been killed in either Syria or Iraq during the coalition’s campaign. But watchdog groups, like the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, warn that many more civilian casualties have gone uncounted. By SOHR’s count, at least66 civilians have been killed by coalition air strikes in Syria alone since last September.

A family of five was killed in April in a suspected coalition-led air strike in Iraq,the Guardian has reported.

Since 8 August, the US-led coalition, which includes, Canada, Britain, France, Jordan and other countries, has carried out several thousand air strikes as part of the campaign to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the Islamic State militant group, which last year declared it had established a caliphate across vast swaths of Iraq and Syria. The coalition has launched nearly 4,000 air strikes in both Iraq and Syria.

Earlier this month, Al-Jazeera was among those who reported on a U.S. airstrike in northern Syria which may have killed more than fifty civilians. In a response to the Pentagon’s Thursday anouncement posted on Airwars.org, the monitoring group said it will soon publish its own major report on civilians allegedly killed by the coalition since U.S.-led bombing in both Iraq and Syria began last August. It said:

Our provisional findings show that between 384 and 753 civilians have been reported killed in some 97 problem incidents, according to local and international media, and Iraqi and Syrian monitoring groups.

Verifying these claims can be extremely difficult. Most areas being bombed by the coalition are occupied by Islamic State. Civic society has often collapsed, and local people live in fear of retaliation for speaking out. Even so, evidence linking the coalition to civilian deaths can often be compelling.

“The first claims of civilian deaths from coalition actions emerged just days after air strikes began in August 2014,” said Woods. “Since then, hundreds of likely non-combatant deaths have occurred, many in incidents better documented than the November 5th incident which CENTCOM has now conceded.”

Despite the fact the children were killed during the airstrike, U.S. Army Lt. Gen. James Terry, commander of the military operations against the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria, said that “From the investigation it can be determined that sound procedures were followed and must be followed in the future.”

Targeting ISIS, US-led strike kills 52 civilians, including 7 children

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Edited U.S. Air Force image of two F-15E fighters after conducting airstrikes in Syria on Sept. 23, 2014. U.S. Central Command directed the operations. (Photo by Senior Airman Matthew Bruch/USAF via Stuart Rankin/cc/flickr)

Edited U.S. Air Force image of two F-15E fighters after conducting airstrikes in Syria on Sept. 23, 2014. U.S. Central Command directed the operations. (Photo by Senior Airman Matthew Bruch/USAF via Stuart Rankin/cc/flickr)

by Lauren McCauley, Common Dreams

A U.S. military strike on Friday targeting fighters with the Islamic State has killed 52 civilians, including 7 children and 9 women, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Saturday.

According to the human rights watchdog group, an additional 13 Syrian civilians are missing following the attack on a village in the northern province of Aleppo. The deaths mark the highest civilian loss from a single attack since the U.S.-led coalition began its war against the Islamic State, or ISIS, in September 2014.

“[We] condemn in the strongest terms this massacre committed by the U.S led coalition under the pretext of targeting the IS in the village, and we call the coalition countries to refer who committed this massacre to the courts, as we renew our calls to neutralize all civilians areas from military operations by all parties,” the group said in a statement.

Coalition airstrikes have killed an estimated 118 civilians. However, Reuters notes, the U.S.-led attack has “had little impact on the hardline Islamic State group, slowing its advances but failing to weaken it in areas it controls.”

“Washington and its allies say their aim is to support what they call moderate rebels fighting against both Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Isis,” Reuters continues. “But four years into Syria’s civil war, no side is close to victory. A third of the population has been made homeless and more than 220,000 people have been killed.”

Doctors testify at UN over Syria chemical attacks

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Security Council members were shown footage of children dying following a reported chemical weapon attack in March. (AFP/File)

Security Council members were shown footage of children dying following a reported chemical weapon attack in March. (AFP/File)

by Andolu Ajansi

The U.N. Security Council listened Thursday to Syrian doctors who attempted to rescue children affected by alleged chlorine attacks in Idlib province of Syria.

Behind closed doors, Council members were shown footage of children dying following an alleged chemical weapon attack in Sarmin, near Idlib in northern Syria in March.

According to international watchdog Human Rights Watch, more than 200 civilians including 20 civil defense workers were exposed to toxic chemicals in several barrel bomb attacks between March 16 and 31.

In a press conference following the meeting with the doctors, U.S. representative to the U.N. Samantha Power said all members of the Security Council were moved by the footage.

Power called for action against the Syrian regime’s chemical attacks by overcoming division at the fifteen-member council.

A Syrian doctor Mohammed Tenari said most of the dead in the attacks were women and children. “Sounds of helicopters were heard during the attacks and bleach-like odors were felt,” said Tenari.

Another doctor Zaher Sahlul said all members of the council including Russia, China and Venezuela should hold those responsible accountable and called for action from the international community.

“Some representatives at the council burst into tears and what is important is to turn this emotional atmosphere into action,” said Sahlul.

On Friday, the doctors are due to visit Russia’s U.N. delegation in an effort to persuade Moscow not to use its veto against measures to be taken against the Syrian regime.

The Syrian opposition has repeatedly accused the Assad regime of using chemical and toxic weapons against civilians since August 2013, when a single attack reportedly killed more than 1,400 civilians.

The regime denies this accusation, pinning the blame on its adversaries.

The Syrian civil war, which entered its fifth year this month, has claimed more than 220,000 lives so far, according to the UN.

Do Something, Anything: Naming and Shaming in Yarmouk

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Residents wait to receive food aid distributed by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at the besieged al-Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus on January 31, 2014. (Photo: unrwa.org)

Residents wait to receive food aid distributed by the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) at the besieged al-Yarmouk camp, south of Damascus on January 31, 2014. (Photo: unrwa.org)

by Ramzy Baroud

The population of Syria’s Palestinian Refugee Camp, Yarmouk – whose population once exceeded 250,000, dwindling throughout the Syrian civil war to 18,000 –  are a microcosm of the story of a whole nation, whose perpetual pain shames us all, none excluded.

Refugees who escaped the Syrian war or are displaced in Syria itself, are experiencing the cruel reality under the harsh and inhospitable terrains of war and Arab regimes. Many of those who remained in Yarmouk were torn to shreds by the barrel bombs of the Syrian army, or victimized by the malicious, violent groupings that control the camp, including the al-Nusra Front, and as of late, IS.

Those who have somehow managed to escape bodily injury are starving. The starvation in Yarmouk is also the responsibility of all parties involved, and the “inhumane conditions” under which they subsist – especially since December 2012 – is a badge of shame on the forehead of the international community in general, and the Arab League in particular.

These are some of the culprits in the suffering of Yarmouk.

Israel

Israel bears direct responsibility in the plight of the refugees in Yarmouk. The refugees of Yarmouk are mostly the descendants of Palestinian refugees from historic Palestine, especially the northern towns, including Safad, which is now inside Israel. The camp was established in 1957, nearly a decade after the Nakba – the “Catastrophe” of 1948, which saw the expulsion of nearly a million refugees from Palestine. It was meant to be a temporary shelter, but it became a permanent home. Its residents never abandoned their right of return to Palestine, a right enshrined in UN resolution 194.

Israel knows that the memory of the refugees is its greatest enemy, so when the Palestinian leadership requested that Israel allow the Yarmouk refugees to move to the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had a condition: that they renounce their right of return. Palestinians refused. History has shown that Palestinians would endure untold suffering and not abandon their rights in Palestine. The fact that Netanyahu would place such a condition is not just a testimony to Israel’s fear of Palestinian memory, but the political opportunism and sheer ruthlessness of the Israeli government.

The Palestinian Authority (PA)

The PA was established in 1994 based on a clear charter where a small group of Palestinians “returned” to the occupied territories, set up a few institutions and siphoned billions of dollars in international aid, in exchange for abandoning the right or return for Palestinian refugees, and ceding any claim on real Palestinian sovereignty and nationhood.

When the civil war in Syria began to quickly engulf the refugees, and although such a reality was to be expected, President Mahmoud Abbas’s authority did so little as if the matter had no bearing on the Palestinian people as a whole. True, Abbas made a few statements calling on Syrians to spare the refugees what was essentially a Syrian struggle, but not much more. When IS took over the camp, Abbas dispatched his labor minister, Ahmad Majdalani to Syria. The latter made a statement that the factions and the Syrian regime would unite against IS – which, if true, is likely to ensure the demise of hundreds more.

If Abbas had invested 10 percent of the energy he spent in his “government’s” media battle against Hamas or a tiny share of his investment in the frivolous “peace process”, he could have at least garnered the needed international attention and backing to treat the plight of Palestinian refugees in Syria’s Yarmouk with a degree of urgency. Instead, they were left to die alone.

The Syrian Regime

When rebels seized Yarmouk in December 2012, President Bashar al-Assad’s forces shelled the camp without mercy while Syrian media never ceased to speak about liberating Jerusalem. The contradictions between words and deeds when it comes to Palestine is an Arab syndrome that has afflicted every single Arab government and ruler since Palestine became the “Palestine question” and the Palestinians became the “refugee problem”.

Syria is no exception, but Assad, like his father Hafez before him, is particularly savvy in utilizing Palestine as a rallying cry aimed solely at legitimizing his regime while posing as if a revolutionary force fighting colonialism and imperialism. Palestinians will never forget the siege and massacre of Tel al-Zaatar (where Palestinian refugees in Lebanon were besieged, butchered but also starved as a result of a siege and massacre carried out by right-wing Lebanese militias and the Syrian army in 1976), as they will not forget or forgive what is taking place in Yarmouk today.

Many of Yarmouk’s homes were turned to rubble because of Assad’s barrel bombs, shells and airstrikes.

The Rebels

The so-called Free Syria Army (FSA) should have never entered Yarmouk, no matter how desperate they were for an advantage in their war against Assad. It was criminally irresponsible considering the fact that, unlike Syrian refugees, Palestinians had nowhere to go and no one to turn to. The FSA invited the wrath of the regime, and couldn’t even control the camp, which fell into the hands of various militias that are plotting and bargaining amongst each other to defeat their enemies, who could possibly become their allies in their next pathetic street battles for control over the camp.

The access that IS gained in Yarmouk was reportedly facilitated by the al-Nusra Front which is an enemy of IS in all places but Yarmouk. Nusra is hoping to use IS to defeat the mostly local resistance in the camp, arranged by Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, before handing the reins of the besieged camp back to the al-Qaeda affiliated group. And while criminal gangs are politicking and bartering, Palestinian refugees are dying in droves.

The UN and Arab League

Cries for help have been echoing from Yarmouk for years, and yet none have been heeded. Recently, the UN Security Council decided to hold a meeting and discuss the situation there as if the matter was not a top priority years ago. Grandstanding and concerned press statements aside, the UN has largely abandoned the refugees. The budget for UNRWA, which looks after the nearly 60 Palestinian refugee camps across Palestine and the Middle East, has shrunk so significantly, the agency often finds itself on the verge of bankruptcy.

The UN refugee agency, better funded and equipped to deal with crises, does little for the Palestinian refugees in Syria. Promises of funds for UNRWA, which frankly could have done much better to raise awareness and confront the international community over their disregard for the refugees, are rarely met.

The Arab League are even more responsible. The League was largely established to unite Arab efforts to respond to the crisis in Palestine, and was supposed to be a stalwart defender of Palestinians and their rights. But the Arabs too have disowned Palestinians as they are intently focused on conflicts of more strategic interests – setting up an Arab army with clear sectarian intentions and aimed largely at settling scores.

Many of Us

The Syrian conflict has introduced great polarization within a community that once seemed united for Palestinian rights. Those who took the side of the Syrian regime wouldn’t concede for a moment that the Syrian government could have done more to lessen the suffering in the camp. Those who are anti-Assad insist that the entire evil deed is the doing of him and his allies.

Both of these groups are responsible for wasting time, confusing the discussion and wasting energies that could have been used to create a well-organized international campaign to raise awareness, funds and practical mechanisms of support to help Yarmouk in particular, and Palestinians refugees in Syria in general.

But we ought to remember that there are still 18,000 trapped in Yarmouk and organize on their behalf so that, even if it is untimely, we need do something. Anything.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His work has been published in many newspapers, journals and anthologies around the world. His is the author of The Second Palestinian Intifada: A Chronicle of a People’s Struggle (Pluto Press, London). His latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press, London).

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