Syria seizes key DAESH bastion

DAMASCUS, April 3, (Agencies): Syrian troops on Sunday seized the key Islamic State group bastion of Al-Qaryatain, dealing the jihadists a new blow in the country’s centre a week after expelling them from Palmyra, state television said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group however said fighting was still raging in the east and southeast of the town, which is located in the desert in Homs province.

“The army with backing from supporting forces (proregime militia) brings back complete security and stability to the town of Al-Qaryatain, after crushing DAESH terrorists’ last remaining positions there,” state television said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

But the Britain-based Observatory said the army was still fighting the jihadists in the town.

“Clashes are still ongoing in the east and southeast of the town,” it said.

The advance came after the Russian-backed Syrian army dealt IS a major blow on March 27 by seizing the ancient city of Palmyra, known as the “Pearl of the desert”, from the jihadists.

Al-Qaryatain is located some 120 kms (75 miles) southwest of Palmyra.

Its recapture will allow the army to secure its grip over the ancient city, where jihadists destroyed ancient temples and executed around 280 people during their 10-month rule.

Once Al-Qaryatain returns to government control, “of the whole of Homs province, IS will only hold its bastion in Sukhna” northeast of Palmyra, Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said.

“The recapture of Al-Qaryatain will also allow the army to reclaim the whole of the Syrian desert” spreading all the way south to the Iraqi border, Abdel Rahman added.

A ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia but which does not apply to the fight against jihadists has enabled the Syrian army to focus its efforts on IS.

The group has also lost a string of high-ranking commanders in recent weeks to strikes by the US-led coalition which launched an air campaign against the jihadists in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

A drone strike on Wednesday, likely by the coalition, killed Abu al-Haija, a Tunisian commander summoned by IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi from Iraq.

Fifteen IS commanders accused of revealing Abu al-Haija’s position have since been executed by the jihadist group, the Observatory said Sunday.

The fate of another 20 men accused of collaborating with the US-led coalition remains unknown, it added.

“This is the highest number of executions of security officials by IS,” Abdel Rahman said.

The Observatory said on Sunday that 12 fighters from Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah were killed fighting the al-Qaeda-affiliated Al-Nusra Front and allied rebels in the northern province of Aleppo.

They died “in shelling and fighting in the south of Aleppo province, during the fierce offensive by Al-Nusra ... and rebels the day before yesterday (Friday),” the group said.

Hezbollah has since 2013 been openly fighting in Syria in support of President

Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

A Syrian activist group says fighting in northern Syria the previous day killed several fighters belonging to the Lebanese militant Hezbollah group.

Hezbollah has been fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s troops in Syria’s civil war.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 12 Hezbollah fighters were killed and dozens were wounded in Saturday’s attack by militants led by al-Qaeda’s Syria branch — known as the Nusra Front — on the northern village of al-Ais.

In southern Lebanon, social media postings on Sunday carried photos of seven Hezbollah fighters said to be among those killed in al-Ais.

Though Nusra Front is not part of a US-Russia-engineered truce between the Syrian government forces and Westernbacked rebels, the fighting has threated to undermine the cease-fire that has held for over a month.

Meanwhile, a rustic, three story-Arabic bookstore in old Istanbul has become an anchor for many Syrians who have stayed put in Turkey but crave a taste of home.

The founder and owner of Pages, Samer al-Kadri, a refugee himself, says the store strives to be a bridge between Syrians, Turks and the myriad of foreigners who visit the city.

Its weekly program includes music concerts and, starting soon, language exchanges in Arabic, English and Turkish. Books are available in all three languages. Al-Kadri is acutely aware that the language barrier “has made it difficult for Syrians to really integrate into society.”

Turkey is hosting 2.7 million Syrian refugees and is due to receive many more under a plan with the European Union that aims to halt the smuggling of migrants into Europe. The deal stipulates that for every Syrian returned, another Syrian in Turkey will be relocated to a European country.

The plan has drawn considerable criticism from human rights groups, who worry that Turkey is not a suitable haven for asylum-seekers and fear it could pave the way for mass deportations. Amnesty International says Turkey has already scaled down its registration of Syrian refugees and is illegally sending back refugees to its war-torn neighbor.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry denies this and says the country maintains its open-door policy and adheres to the principle of not returning Syrians.

In the eyes of many Syrians, the deal has rendered them pawns in a political bargain that benefits everyone but them.

Ola Suleiman, a new employee at the bookstore, says there’s a touch of “evil”

to the deal because “they are deciding the fate of a people.”

While her middle-class family is among the Syrians who are doing better for themselves in Istanbul, it hasn’t been easy. The cost of life in Turkey is far higher than in pre-war or even post-war Syria. Most Syrian refugees live outside the camps and largely fend for themselves.

Suleiman and her siblings work six days a week without vacation just to keep their household afloat. Technically many Syrians do not have the right to work. Suleiman does not have a work contract let alone health insurance. This, she says, leaves Syrian workers vulnerable to exploitation while allowing Turkish business owners to evade taxes.