Syrian army, allies surround IS ‘enclave’ in central Syria
UN backs ‘pauses’ to help civilians flee Raqqa
BEIRUT, Aug 24, (Agencies): The Syrian army and its allies have surrounded Islamic State forces in a second large enclave in the centre of the country, a military media unit run by Hezbollah said on Thursday.
The Syrian military advanced south from southern areas of Raqqa province, joining up with their forces north of the town of alSukhna in Homs province and in so doing closing the circle around the pocket of IS insurgents.
The IS enclave, located west of al-Sukhna and extending north into Hama province, totals approximately 2,000 square km (770 square miles), according to the Hezbollah military media unit.
The Syrian army secured Al-Sukhna, 50 kms (30 miles) northeast of the ancient city of Palmyra, earlier this month. It was the last major town in Homs province held by Islamic State.
Last week, Syrian forces surrounded another large IS enclave in central Syria to the west of the one encircled on Thursday.
The jihadists have lost swathes of Syrian territory to separate campaigns being waged by government forces backed by Russia and Iran, and by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia. The SDF is currently focused on capturing Raqqa city from Islamic State.
Islamic State still controls nearly all of Deir al-Zor province, which is bordered to the east by Iraq. The Syrian government holds a pocket of territory in Deir al-Zor city and a nearby military base.
Meanwhile, the United Nations called Thursday for pauses in fighting against the Islamic State group in the Syrian city of Raqqa to help civilians escape increasingly deadly battles.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters backed by US-led coalition warplanes, has retaken 60 percent of Raqqa from the jihadists, but up to 25,000 civilians remain trapped in IS areas, according to UN estimates.
“Now is the time to think of possibilities, pauses or otherwise that might facilitate the escape of civilians,” Jan Egeland, head of the UN’s humanitarian taskforce for Syria, told reporters in Geneva.
People in Raqqa face a “deadly labyrinth”, coming under fire from all sides, Amnesty International said, as the death toll from coalition airstrikes and SDF shelling continued to mount.
Egeland said any humanitarian pause would of course not involve IS, which is doing its “absolute best to use (civilians) as human shields.”
“Our urging today from the UN side to the members of the humanitarian taskforce is that they need to do whatever is possible to make it possible for people to escape Raqqa,” Egeland said.
The taskforce includes several nations supporting the SDF, including the United States.
“People that come out cannot risk (being killed by) air raids,” Egeland added.
The UN has previously pushed for such pauses on humanitarian grounds, with mixed results, at other points in the Syrian conflict, notably in the battle for Aleppo, when besieged civilians faced severe food and water shortages.
But in the Aleppo fighting between rebels and government forces the UN was able to negotiate with multiple sides, a circumstance that does not apply in IS-held Raqqa.
“I cannot think of a worse place on earth now,” said Egeland.
The US-led coalition’s reliance on imprecise and disproportionately powerful ordnance in its campaign against Islamic State militants in the Syrian city of Raqqa is exacting a significant toll on civilians, Amnesty International said in a report on Thursday.
As the fight for Raqqa intensifies, “thousands of civilians are trapped in a deadly labyrinth where they are under fire from all sides,” said Amnesty researcher Donatella Rovera who led a week-long investigation in late July into the Raqqa offensive.
Also Thursday, a top UN aid official for Syria said some 20,000 civilians are held as “human shields” by the
militants in five neighborhoods of the city while facing constant air raids and shelling by the US -led coalition and allied Syrian Democratic Forces.
Jan Egeland urged the US-led coalition to consider a humanitarian pause in the city, saying it is “time to try anything” to allow civilians to escape the clutches of the radical Islamic State group in Raqqa.
“This is the time to try anything to allow the safe escape. At the moment few people leave, because they are afraid for their lives,” he said. “There is heavy shelling from the surrounding and encircling (US, allied Syrian local) forces, and there (are) constant air raids from the coalition. So the civilian casualties are large,” Egeland added. “There seem to be no escape for these civilians.”
Coalition spokesman Col Joe Scrocca said the coalition does “everything within our powers to limit harm” to civilians.
Scrocca said in comments emailed to The Associated Press that IS militants had years to prepare Raqqa’s defense, making a house-to-house, street-by-street battle, as well as civilian casualties, inevitable.
He also dismissed Amnesty’s report on civilian deaths, saying it is based on “scant information” and plays into the hands of the militants.
“The unfortunate death of civilians is a fact of war that weighs heavy on our hearts, however, if (IS) is not defeated the cost will be even higher, and it will be paid not just in Iraq and Syria, but in our homelands across the globe,” Scrocca said.
Amnesty’s team documented 95 civilian deaths, including 41 children and 25 women, in June and July because of the US-led campaign. Amnesty said it interviewed dozens of civilians, humanitarian and medical personnel and others.
Amnesty said the United States has been providing artillery support, using Howitzers which fire 155 mm shells and GPS-directed 227 mm mortars, for the Kurdish-led Syrian forces it backs on the ground. The local forces are armed with 120 mm mortars.
“Coalition forces’ reliance to a large extent on weapons which have a wide impact radius and which cannot be accurately pinpointed at specific targets to neutralize IS targets in civilian neighborhoods has exacted a significant toll on civilians,” the report said. Resident testimonies indicate the missiles have targeted areas of hundreds of square meters, rather than specific targets “which, if true, would constitute not only disproportionate but also indiscriminate attacks.”
The report said civilians also come under fire from the Russia-backed Syrian government forces fighting IS militants to the south of Raqqa. At least 30 civilians were killed in that campaign, it said. At the same time, IS militants use civilians as human shields and hide among them from advancing forces, the group said.
The report also said that the coalition’s use of airstrikes, while more accurate than artillery fire, has often hit civilians at home or while they attempted to flee.