Syrian Observatory for Human Rights

Over 230,000 killed in Syrian conflict since 2011

June 9, 2015 by Nasheman

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.

Syria's war 'killed 76,021' in 2014

January 2, 2015 by Nasheman

Monitoring group says nearly half of those killed in the conflict last year were civilians.

A medic stitches the head of a wounded Syrian boy at a makeshift clinic after a mortar reportedly fell in the besieged rebel town of Douma, 13 kilometers (eight miles) northeast of Damascus, on November 11, 2014. AFP/ Abd Doumany

by Al Jazeera

The conflict in Syria killed 76,021 people in 2014, just under half of them civilians, a group monitoring the war has said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday 33,278 civilians were killed last year in the conflict, which started with protests in 2011 and has spiralled into a civil war.

The majority of the deaths were combatants, including nearly 32,747 anti-government fighters and 22,627 government soldiers and militiamen, it said.

The United Nations says around 200,000 people have been killed since 2011.

No group enjoys significant momentum going into 2015 and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said last month he expected the conflict to be long and difficult.

Assad visited a district on the outskirts of Damascus and thanked soldiers fighting “in the face of terrorism”, his office said on Twitter late on Wednesday, posting pictures of the rare trip.

Assad, who is commander in chief, is not frequently pictured in public, though he has visited troops in the past, according to state media.

The presidential website said the latest visit was to Jobar, northeast of Damascus.

“If there was an area of joy which remained in Syria, it is thanks to the victories that you achieved in the face of terrorism,” Assad told troops, according to the Twitter account.

State news agency SANA said he “wished a speedy recovery to the wounded” and praised their sacrifices.

Peace talks

In another development, Russia invited 28 Syrian opposition figures to Moscow for talks later this month, an opposition source told the AFP news agency, in preparation for a dialogue with the regime.

They include the head of the key Syrian National Coalition opposition grouping, Hadi al-Bahra, as well as two former Coalition chiefs, Moaz al-Khatib and Abdel Basset Sida.

The list also includes members of the tolerated domestic opposition, including Hassan Abdel Aazim, Aref Dailia Fateh Jamous and Qadri Jamil, a former deputy prime minister who was sacked in 2013 but has good ties with Russia.

Two successive rounds of UN-brokered talks between the regime and opposition have failed to achieve agreement.

U.S.-led strikes have killed 910 people in Syria: monitor

November 24, 2014 by Nasheman

Thick black smoke rises over an eastern Kobani neighborhood following an air strike on November 8, 2014. CREDIT: REUTERS/YANNIS BEHRAKIS

by Reuters

Beirut: Air strikes by U.S.-led forces in Syria have killed 910 people, including 52 civilians, since the start of the campaign against Islamic State and other fighters two months ago, a group monitoring the conflict said on Saturday.

The majority of the deaths, 785, were Islamic State fighters according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Islamic State, a hard-line offshoot of al Qaeda, has seized land in Syria and neighboring Iraq, where it has also been targeted by U.S.-led strikes since July.

Eight of the civilians killed were children and five were women, the Observatory said. The United States has said it takes reports of civilian casualties seriously and says it has a process to investigate any reports of such deaths.

The Observatory, which gathers its information from a network of contacts on the ground, said 72 members of al Qaeda’s Syria wing Nusra Front were also killed in the air strikes, which started on Sept. 23.

The United States has said it has targeted the “Khorasan Group” in Syria, which it describes as a grouping of al Qaeda veterans under the protection of Nusra Front. Most analysts and activists do not differentiate between the groups in this way.

According to the United Nations, around 200,000 people have been killed in Syria’s conflict, which is in its fourth year.

(Reporting by Sylvia Westall; editing by Susan Thomas)

Syrian rebels reject UN's Aleppo truce plan

November 14, 2014 by Nasheman

FSA commander says proposal only serves Assad regime, amid reports of fresh violence and arrest of prominent dissident.

Images of a reported strike in Aleppo’s al-Marjeh district showed men digging through rubble. Photo: Reuters

by Al Jazeera

The opposition-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) in Aleppo has rejected a UN truce proposal that seeks to suspend fighting in Syria’s second city, a day after the government hinted at considering it.

Zaher al-Saket, FSA military commander in the city, said on Wednesday that the proposal only serves the regime of President Bashar al-Assad, and pledged that his troops would continue their fight.

“First I would like to say that we completely reject this so-called freeze plan and truce,” he said in an interview with Al Jazeera.

“We learned not to trust the Assad regime because they are cunning and only want to buy time. We saw what happened in Homs and we will never accept the same scenario in Aleppo.”

The news came as forces loyal to Assad dropped a barrel bomb on Wednesday on Aleppo’s al-Marjeh neighbourhood, according to activists.

Images from the aftermath of the reported strike showed men digging through a rubble of a building.

There was no immediate report on casualties from the attack.

Staffan de Mistura, UN special envoy to Syria, said on Tuesday the Syrian government had responded with “constructive interest” to the UN proposal.

De Mistura set out the plan last month that would allow humanitarian aid through, and will lay the groundwork for peace talks.

As he continues to press for a diplomatic solution, there is no sign of let-up in fighting on the ground.

Syrian state media reported on Wednesday that two rockets were fired at a school in the central province of Hama, killing seven children.

Opposition leader detained

Separately Syrian authorities detained a prominent Damascus-based writer and dissident, Louay Hussein, as he was trying to leave the country at the Syria-Lebanon border bound for Spain.

Hussein is a longtime opposition activist and the leader of Building the Syrian State.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported on Wednesday Hussein’s arrest, saying he was taken to the justice palace in Damascus.

Human rights groups said the government has rounded up tens of thousands of Syrians, many of whom disappear in custody never to be seen again.

A UN panel last year accused Assad’s government of committing a crime against humanity by making people systematically vanish.

More than 195,000 people have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011, with successive attempts at internationally backed negotiations failing to yield a peace deal.

Nearly 10 million people have been displaced by Syria’s civil war, and more than three million have fled the country.

More than 850 killed in 50 days of coalition air strikes

November 13, 2014 by Nasheman

by SOHR

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) documented the death of 865 people since the U.S led coalition started its strikes on Syria in 23/Sep until last night, including 50 civilians (8 children, 5 women), killed by coalition air strikes on oil fields and refineries in al-Hasakah and Der-Ezzor countrysides, al-Raqqa, Around Menbej northeast of Aleppo, and Idlib countryside.

68 fighters from Jabhat al-Nusra were killed by coalition air strikes on their HQs in the western countryside of Aleppo and the northern countryside of Idlib 746 fighters from the IS most of them were Non-Syrian fighters, were killed by coalition airstrikes on their HQs and groupings in Homs, Hama, al-Hasakah, al-Raqqa, Der-Ezzor, and Aleppo.

A fighter from Islamic battalions killed by coalition air strikes on ISIS HQ in Ma’dan in al-Raqqa countryside.

We, in SOHR, believed that the real number of casualties in ISIS is more than 746, because there is absolute secrecy on casualties and due to the difficulty of access to many areas and villages that have witnessed violent clashes and bombardment.

Worth to mention that the coalition air strikes targeted oil refineries and oil fields in Der-Ezzor, al-Hasakah and al-Raqqa, what led to material damages in these refineries and oil fields.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights expresses its strong condemnation, to the fall of the civilians, as a result of the coalition air strikes, and Calls neutralize civilians areas from the military operations from any party, because the the Syrian people who have lost hundreds of thousands and been displaced in millions, is looking forward to a decent safe life away from Humiliation, detention, and destruction, a life of democracy, justice, freedom and equality.

Islamic State now controls half of Syrian border town and intensifies attacks in Iraq

October 14, 2014 by Nasheman

Smoke rises from parts of Kobane bombed by US and Saudi warplanes. Photo: Getty Images

– by The Age

Mursitpinar: Jihadists have fought their way into the centre of the Syrian border town Kobane, while in Iraq more than 180,000 have fled fighting in Anbar province.

The breakthrough on Monday, nearly a month after the assault on the town on the Turkish frontier began, gave Islamic State half of Kobane, despite the desperate efforts of its Kurdish defenders, backed byUS-led air strikes.

US and Saudi warplanes targeted seven sites around Kobane, the US military said.

Fighting spread to less than a kilometre from the barbed wire frontier fence, with the jihadists carrying out three suicide car bomb attacks in the border zone, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Kobane has become a highly visible symbol of resistance to IS and its fall would give the jihadists control of a long stretch of the Turkey-Syria border. But concern has also been growing over Iraq, where IS fighters have been threatening to seize more territory.

Fighting in Iraq’s western Anbar province has forced up to 180,000 people to flee since the city of Hit fell to Islamic State militants earlier this month, the United Nations said on Monday.

IS fighters extended that advance by overrunning a military base the Iraqi army had abandoned eight kilometres west of Hit earlier on Monday, according to an army officer and members of a government-backed Sunni militia.

In Baghdad, three bombs exploded in Shiite parts of the capital on Monday, killing 30 people, police and medical officials said, continuing a wave of attacks targeting Iraq’s majority religious group.

There was no claim of responsibility for the bombings, but IS fighters earlier claimed a string of attacks in Baghdad on Sunday that left 45 dead.

As a result of the fighting and air strikes in Anbar, carried out by the Iraqi government and a US-led military coalition, up to 30,000 families or 180,000 individuals had fled Hit, the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.

In Kobane, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported more heavy fighting on Monday inside the city.

Rami Abderahman, of the Observatory, said IS militants had taken about half of the town.

“They now control the cultural centre, which means they have advanced further inside the town,” he said.

In a blow to US hopes, Turkey denied it had agreed to let the United States use its Incirlik air base in the fight against IS and sources at the Turkish Prime Minister’s office said talks on the subject were continuing.

The comments come after US national security adviser Susan Rice said Turkey had agreed to let forces from a US-led military coalition use its bases for activities inside Iraq and Syria and to train moderate Syrian rebels.

Syria’s air force, meanwhile, carried out strikes against rebels at more than double its usual rate on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The intensified air strikes by President Bashar al-Assad’s government will add to the fear among Dr Assad’s opponents that he is taking advantage of the US strikes to crush other foes, including the “moderate opposition” that Washington backs.

The Observatory said the Syrian air force had struck 40 times on Monday in areas in Idlib and Hama provinces, including dropping oil drums packed with explosives and shrapnel. Typically, Damascus has carried out no more than 12 to 20 raids a day.

AFP, Reuters

Black flags over Kobane as Islamic State forces move in

October 8, 2014 by Nasheman

– by John Beck, Vice

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that a ground operation would be needed to stop Kobane falling to the Islamic State (IS) after the jihadists overran parts of the Syrian border town in heavy street to street fighting.

Erdogan warned that the series of air strikes launched by a US-led coalition on IS targets around the city would not be enough to halt the militants’ advance and that Kobane could be seized by IS soon. “The terror will not be over… unless we cooperate for a ground operation,” Erdogan said, speaking at a Syrian refugee camp in Gazientep, according to a translation by AFP. “I am telling the West — dropping bombs from the air will not provide a solution.”

He went on to reiterate calls for a no-fly zone above Syria, introduction of a buffer zone for refugees and for more moderate rebel groups battling the Syrian government to be armed and trained for the fight against IS.

IS moved into Kobane on Monday, seizing one neighborhood, the city’s industrial area and part of the countryside east of the city, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). The group previously took control of Mistenur Hill, which overlooks Kobane from the south-east.

The observatory, which collects information from a network of local activists, reported on Tuesday morning that a relative quiet had fallen over Kobane, also known by its Arabic name of Ayn al- Arab, after heavy fighting forced IS to pull back somewhat. SOHR also said that five huge explosions had been heard east and south-east of the city, and were thought to be caused by airstrikes. US Central Command confirmed that aircraft from the American-led anti-IS coalition had “destroyed two IS fighting positions” south of Kobane on Monday.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius also urged action on Tueday to defend Kobane, telling parliament “everything must be done so that the Daesh terrorists are stopped and pushed back,” using the Arabic slang for IS.

Fabius added that he had spoken with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and that French President Francois Hollande would talk with Erdogan on Tuesday.

Turkey has previously said that it would stop Kobane falling to IS and last week, the country’s parliament passed a motion which would allow military action against IS in Iraq and Syria and allow foreign forces to launch missions against the jihadists from Turkish soil. However, no further details have been announced. Ankara is wary of the idea of a powerful Kurdish presence on its doorstep, especially the YPG, which has links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group that fought for more than 30 years for greater autonomy within Turkey and is considered by authorities to be a terrorist organization.

IS has effectively surrounded Kobane on three sides for well over a year but launched a large-scale offensive more than three weeks ago. It would be a major prize for IS and allow the extremist group to connect territory held in the Syrian province of Aleppo with its stronghold of Raqqa further east. It would also destroy the threat to their rear posed by the Kurds and give the group full control of a large stretch of the Turkish border, aiding the passage of fighters and oil in and out of the country.

Kurdish activists and military officials in Kobane have been warning that it could fall to IS at any moment, but this now looks closer than ever. Nevertheless, the Kurdish YPG fighters defending the city have remained defiant.

Idris Nassan, a senior official in Kobane, insisted to BBC Radio that Kurdish fighters had the advantage over IS in the city.

He said: “Kobane is not going to fall. Kobane resists and the resisting will be for a long time.

“They know the geography, they know how to fight in the streets and even tanks and other heavy weapons will not work in the small and narrow streets of Kobane,” Nassan said.

However Cahit Storm, a computer engineer who left Kobane for the Turkish border five days ago but remains in close contact with those left behind, said the city was about to fall. He said Turkey needed to allow access to Kobane in order to get provisions such as water, food and ammunition to the Kurdish fighters.

“Now that the city is completely locked by IS in the south and the Turks to the north it’s probably already lost,” he told the BBC. “Kobane right now is about to fall in one, maybe two days. Nothing more.”

Kurdish forces have arguably been the most effective force facing off against IS on the ground. However, the jihadists have modern weapons and armor, much of it looted from the Iraqi army during a shock advance in June. As a result they are hard to stop, especially for the YPG, which is mainly armed with elderly Soviet guns and RPGs and unable to access heavier ordnance.

Security forces in border regions have clashed with Turkish Kurds and refugees who believe that Turkey is backing IS and are infuriated that it has closed the border to those wishing to join the YPG in defending Kobane.

One man was killed and at least two others were reportedly injured during protests on Tuesday. Hakan Buksur, 25, was shot with live ammunition as police moved on demonstrators in the eastern Mu? Province, the English language Hurriyet Daily reported. Authorities declared a curfew at 5 pm in southeastern Mardin and eastern Van.

The fighting in Kobane has been clearly visible from the Turkish border and in some cases even spilled over. Five people were wounded when a mortar round hit a house in Turkey on Sunday, prompting authorities to evacuate part of the area.

Turkish Defense Minister Ismet Yilmaz said on Monday that NATO had prepared a strategy to defend Turkey, a NATO member, if it is attacked along its border with Syria.

More than 230 killed in Syria since U.S. led attacks launch

October 1, 2014 by Nasheman

A still from a video from a plane camera shows smoke rising after an air strike near Kobani. Photograph: Reuters

– by Latin American Herald Tribune

Beirut: At least 233 people have died in Syria since the start of airstrikes launched by the U.S.-led international coalition against positions of the Islamic State (IS), the manager of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), Rami Abderrahman, told Efe on Tuesday.

Abderrahman said during the phone conversation that at least 211 jihadists had died since September 23 when the coalition started its bombardments in Syria.

The activist added that this figure includes at least 60 members of al- Nusra Front, the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria.

Twenty-two civilians have also been killed by the coalition.

The attacks have targeted positions and bases of the IS in the northern Syrian provinces of Raqaa, Deir al-Zur, al-Hasakah, Aleppo, and Idleb, along with oil fields which had been seized by the radical jihadists.

According to U.S. officials, the target of the first airstrikes in Syria were members of the Khorasan group which includes veteran al-Qaeda fighters and is seen as a major threat by the United States.

The United States and its coalition allies began airstrikes last week on the IS in Syria, adding targets there to its weeks-old air campaign against the jihadists in Iraq.

U.S-led raids hit grain silos in Syria, kill workers: monitor

September 30, 2014 by Nasheman

A pair of U.S. Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles fly over northern Iraq after conducting airstrikes in Syria, in this U.S. Air Force handout photo taken early in the morning of September 23, 2014. REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Senior Airman Matthew Bruch/Handout

– by Sylvia Westall and Andrew Heavens, Reuters

Beirut: U.S.-led air strikes hit grain silos and other targets in Islamic State-controlled territory in northern and eastern Syria overnight, killing civilians and wounding militants, a group monitoring the war said on Monday.

The aircraft may have mistaken the mills and grain storage areas in the northern Syrian town of Manbij for an Islamic State base, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. There was no immediate comment from Washington.

The United States has targeted Islamic State and other fighters in Syria since last week with the help of Arab allies, and in Iraq since last month. It aims to damage and destroy the bases, forces and supply lines of the al Qaeda offshoot which has captured large areas of both countries.

The strikes in Manbij appeared to have killed only civilians, not fighters, said Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the Observatory which gathers information from sources in Syria.

“These were the workers at the silos. They provide food for the people,” he said. He could not give a number of casualties and it was not immediately possible to verify the information.

Manbij sits between Aleppo city in the west and the town of Kobani on the northern border with Turkey, which Islamic State has been trying to capture from Kurdish forces, forcing tens of thousands of Syrian Kurds to flee over the frontier.

Syria’s army also carried out air raids in Aleppo province overnight, targeting areas east of Aleppo city with barrel bombs and other projectiles, the Observatory said. The army also carried out air strikes in Hama in western Syria.

Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have been battling Islamist fighters around Aleppo, which is held by a number of groups in Syria’s war

In eastern Syria, U.S.-led forces bombed a gas plant controlled by the Islamic State outside Deir al-Zor city, wounding several of the militant group’s fighters, the Observatory said.

The United States has said it wants strikes to target oil facilities held by Islamic State to try to stem a source of revenues for the group.

The raid hit Kuniko gas plant, which feeds a power station in Homs that provides several provinces with electricity and powers oil fields generators, the Observatory said.

U.S.-led warplanes also hit areas of Hasaka city in the north east and the outskirts of Raqqa city in the north, which is Islamic State’s stronghold.

8 civilians, including 3 children, killed in US-led strikes on Syria

September 24, 2014 by Nasheman

People inspect a shop damaged after what Islamist State militants say was a U.S. drone crashed into a communication station nearby in Raqqa September 23, 2014. (Reuters/Stringer)

– by RT

Eight civilians, three of them children, have been killed in the US-led air strikes on Al-Qaeda Nusra front positions, Reuters reported, citing Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Washington carried a series of airstrikes on the city of Raqqa in the early hours of Tuesday. At least 30 militants died in the strikes, which were carried out on IS positions in Syria. Washington informed Damascus about the operation, according to a representative of Syrian Foreign Ministry.

“There is an exodus out of Raqqa as we speak. It started in the early hours of the day after the strikes. People are fleeing towards the countryside,” one local resident told Reuters.

The strikes targeted residential buildings in Aleppo allegedly used by Al-Nusra Front, according to Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The US-led coalition’s targets also included training camps, headquarters and weapon supplies in northern and eastern Syria, with many IS locations “destroyed or damaged” around the cities of Raqqa, Deir al-Zor, Hasakah and the border town of Albu Kamal, Reuters reported.

In particular, “[Islamic State] fighters, training compounds, headquarters and command and control facilities, storage facilities, a finance center, supply trucks and armed vehicles” were hit.

Raqqa (Al-Raqqa) is a city with a population of over 200,000 people, and is strategically located just 40km east of the largest Syrian dam. Raqqa is believed to be the IS headquarters.

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