PHOTO: Palestine Street in Yarmouk
LATEST
- Rebels: We Are Rebuilding Captured Border Crossing with Jordan
- Reports: 2 Islamic State Suicide Bomb Kill Dozens of Rebels in Northern Aleppo Province
- Regime Delegation in Moscow Talks: We Expect “Real Action for Dialogue & Action Against Terrorism”
A week after the Islamic State entered the Yarmouk section of southern Damascus, Palestinian militias say they are still defending the area. However, activists claim the defense is being threatened not only by the jihadists, but also by collaborators with the Islamic State and by regime bombing and shelling.
Reports indicate the Islamic State now occupies most of Yarmouk, where about 18,000 people — mainly Palestinian refugees — remain after four years of conflict and siege.
Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, the Palestinian faction first challenged by the Islamic State inside Yarmouk, released a statement on Tuesday accusing units of Jabhat al-Nusra — the Islamist faction which fights alongside rebels elsewhere in Syria — of assisting the Islamic State’s entry. It also published the names of battalions and fighters inside Yarmouk who allegedly “facilitated the ISIS takeover of large parts of the camp”.
Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis said there was no significant change in the military situation on Tuesday.
The Palestinian Network of Civil Rights in Syria, which has reported all week from Yarmouk, said the Syrian air forces continued its attacks on Tuesday with raids through the afternoon and nine bombs just after midnight. Rockets fell near the electricity center, and “many mortars have been shelled on different areas of the camp”.
On Wednesday morning, Syria’s Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar called for a regime ground assault on Yarmouk.
The priority now is to expel and defeat militants and terrorists in the camp. Under the present circumstances, a military solution is necessary.
The Network said that about 4,000 people have been able to flee to nearby rebel-held Damascus suburbs in the past, but that medical staff were appealing for the intervention of the Red Cross and Red Crescent to evacuate those who had been wounded amid clashes. It accused the Islamic State and Jabhat al-Nusra of stealing relief supplies from an area already crippled by Syrian military siege since July 2012.
BBC Arabic Assaf Abboud reports from inside Yarmouk:
The Islamic State attacked Yarmouk from a suburb to the south after the escalation of a dispute with Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis, which began with the assassination of a prominent Palestinian activist inside Yarmouk. Palestinian groups and rebels, including the prominent faction Jaish al-Islam, are facing other Palestinian factions who are fighting alongside the Islamic State.
A citizen journalist near Yarmouk, Matar Isamaili, provides context about Jabhat al-Nusra’s support for the Islamic State:
Tjey really did facilitate IS’s entry from those areas under their control, like the vicinity of Palestine Hospital and Mashham Amir that looks over Street 30 in the camp.
Subsequently, Nusra participated in the fighting on IS’s side, after they prevented the [rebel groups] Jaish al-Islam, Liwa Sham a-Rusul, and Jaish al-Ababil’s reinforcements from breaking the [IS] siege on Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis.
This is because Aknaf Beit al-Maqdis helped [the rebel faction] Liwa Sham a-Rusul a while ago to expel Jabhat a-Nusra from [the southern Damascus suburb of] Beit Sahem and push them into Yarmouk.
The journalist goes farther with the assertion of a Jabhat al-Nusra alliance with the Islamic State in the area:
The relationship between IS and Nusra in southern Damascus specifically is good. It didn’t witness any strain during the past two years. Nusra even intervened to save IS when it was besieged in [nearby] Yelda a year ago, when the rebel brigades initiated an attack on IS after the latter arrested leaders in Jaish al-Islam and Ajnad a-Sham.
Nusra intervened and saved 75 IS fighters from their besieged positions, on the basis that they would be tried in a fair trial afterwards. That never happened. Quite the opposite, they were smuggled out indirectly. They consider each other brothers who follow the same doctrine.
Rebels: We Are Rebuilding Captured Border Crossing with Jordan
Southern Front rebels said on Tuesday that they are rebuilding the Nassib border crossing with Jordan, captured last week.
“Rehabilitation and reconstruction of the border is continuing,” Major Assam a-Rais told Syria Direct. He said that “the border’s crossing will be civilian, not military, [staffed] by employees specialized in crossings and border points”.
Video showed rebels handing over trucks and cargo to their owners on Monday. Thehe Southern Front released six truck drivers who happened to be present during the battles for the crossing
“They were proven to be drivers, with no relationship to the regime,” a spokesman for the pro-opposition Daraa Media Office said, adding that the rebels will release the other drivers taken during the fighting soon.
Reports: 2 Islamic State Suicide Bomb Kill Dozens of Rebels in Northern Aleppo Province
Two Islamic State suicide bombers reportedly killed dozens of rebels, including commanders, in northern Aleppo Province on Tuesday night.
One car-borne suicide bomber targeted a headquarters of the Joint Force for Repelling Injustice, a coalition including Jabhat as-Shamiya and Jabhat al-Nusra, in the town of Mare’, killing eight and wounding 15.
Among the dead were leaders in Jabhat as-Shamiya and Abu Maria al-Babi, a Jabhat al-Nusra emir.
Mare’ has been the frontline between rebels and the Islamic State in northern Syria for months.
A second suicide bomber drove a vehicle into a Free Syrian Army-affiliated rebel base in Hur Kilis, killing at least 30 people, among them civilians, reported pro-opposition Halab News Network.
Appeals on aid indicated “three or four buildings were all leveled to the ground”.
Regime Delegation in Moscow Talks: We Expect “Real Action for Dialogue & Action Against Terrorism”
The Assad regime delegation at the second round of the Moscow talks has issued a statement about its discussions with selected members of the domestic opposition.
The head of the delegation, Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari, said during the first session that Damascus is looking for a “clear and unambiguous” position from its “partners in the opposition”: “The compass of our meeting is the interest of the Syrian people and ending their suffering.”
He called on the opposition to work together with the regime for a national dialogue that leads to a political solution.
The first round of talks in Russia in January made no progress, as most Syrian opposition groups, both those based inside the country and those outside, refused to attend. The Assad regime maintained a cautious distance from any commitment beyond al-Jaafari’s rhetoric.
Five members of a leading domestic opposition group, the National Coordinating Change, are in Moscow for this round; however, the Assad regime has barred the attendance of another prominent activist, Louay Hussein, who was recently released from prison on bail after a three-month detention.
