US-backed fighters reinforce ‘frontlines’ in Syria’s Raqqa Attendance
Rebels accuse Syrian army of chlorine attack
BEIRUT, July 2, (Agencies): The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) deployed around a thousand additional fighters to the front lines with Islamic State in Raqqa on Sunday, the SDF media office said.
The fighters were sent to the east and west of the city, Islamic State’s de facto capital in Syria. The SDF launched its US-backed assault to capture Raqqa last month.
They had “completed their training in SDF camps in cooperation with the coalition forces, with the aim of supporting the campaign and achieving new progress”, the SDF media office said in a statement, citing SDF commanders.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based organisation that reports on the war, said the SDF had made advances on Sunday in the south of the city, and had also retaken ground lost in an Islamic State counterattack on Friday.
“The clashes are extremely violent,” Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman said.
Meanwhile, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday held talks with Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu in Istanbul as tension soared on the Syrian border between Turkish troops and a Kurdish militia.
Turkey and Russia were long at loggerheads over the Syrian conflict, with Ankara seeking the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad and Moscow remaining his chief international ally.
But cooperation had tightened markedly since last year, with the two countries jointly sponsoring peace talks in the Kazakh capital Astana.
Sunday’s meeting took place at Istanbul’s Tarabya Palace by the Bosphorus, the presidency said, with images showing Turkey’s top general Hulusi Akar and spy chief Hakan Fidan were also in attendance.
Last August, Turkey launched its Euphrates Shield cross-border operation aimed at clearing the border zone in northern Syria of both Kurdish militia fighters and jihadists.
The operation was wound up in March but Erdogan has not excluded a new cross-border offensive should the need arise.
Turkish troops and Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) have repeatedly exchanged cross-border fire in recent days and there is speculation Ankara may be planning an assault on the group in Afrin.
Ankara considers the YPG a terrorist group and the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) which has waged an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.
But Washington is arming the YPG and the group is heavily involved in the US-backed operation to oust Islamic State (IS) jihadists from their stronghold of Raqqa.
The Sabah daily said Sunday that pro-Ankara Syrian rebels were on standby for an operation against the YPG and Russia could ensure security in the air.
Asked about the possibility of an operation around Afrin, presidential spokesman Ibrahim Kalin said Saturday: “We take all measures to protect our borders and national security.”
He said the Turkey would “instantly” hit back against any threat from Syria, be it from IS, the PKK or the YPG.
In other news, a Syrian rebel group accused the Syrian army of using chlorine gas against its fighters on Saturday in battles east of Damascus — an accusation the military swiftly denied as a fabrication.
The Failaq al-Rahman group said more than 30 people suffered suffocation as a result of the attack in Ain Tarma in the Eastern Ghouta region, which government forces have been battling to take back from insurgents.
In a statement circulated by staterun media, a military source said the army command completely denied the accusation. “It has not used any chemical weapons in the past, and will not use them at any time”.
The United States said on Wednesday the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad appeared so far to have heeded a warning issued earlier in the week not to carry out a chemical weapons attack after saying it saw possible preparations for one.
Western governments including the United States say the Syrian government was behind an April gas attack in the town of Khan Sheikhoun that killed dozens. In response, the United States fired cruise missiles at the air base from which it said the attack was launched.
The Syrian government has denied any role in that attack.
On Saturday the government also dismissed a report by the international chemical weapons watchdog that said the banned nerve agent sarin was used in the April attack in Khan Sheikhoun, saying it lacked “any credibility”.
A joint United Nations and OPCW investigation has found Syrian government forces were responsible for three chlorine gas attacks in 2014 and 2015 and that Islamic State militants used mustard gas.
Elsewhere, a US Navy supercarrier anchored off the Israeli port of Haifa Saturday on a break from operations supporting the US-led coalition’s fight against the Islamic State group. It is the vessel’s first visit to Israel in 17 years, according to the Israeli military.
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President Bashar al-Assad has appeared on the Syrian currency for the first time, his portrait printed on a new 2,000-pound banknote that went into circulation on Sunday.
Central bank governor Duraid Durgham said the 2,000-pound note was one of several new notes printed years ago but the decision to put it into circulation was delayed “due to the circumstances of the war and exchange rate fluctuations”.
The new note is equal to around $4 at current exchange rates. The currency has plunged in value since the conflict began in 2011, from 47 pounds to the dollar in 2010 to around 500 pounds to the dollar at present.
Citing wear and tear of the existing notes, Durgham said the time was right to put the new note into circulation, the state news agency SANA reported.
Previously, the highest denomination of Syrian banknote was 1,000 pounds. Assad’s father, the late president Hafez al-Assad who died in 2000, appeared on coins and on an older version of the 1,000 pound note, which is still in circulation.
Durgham said the new note was put into circulation “in Damascus and a number of the provinces”.
After years of war estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of people, Assad appears militarily unassailable thanks in large part to direct military support from his allies Russia and Iran.