PHOTO: Deir ez-Zor city in eastern Syria
LATEST
- Islamic State in Raqqa Cuts Fighters’ Salaries by 50%
- Analyst: Ahrar al-Sham & Jabhat al-Nusra “Have Not Imposed Madaya-Style Siege on Regime Enclaves”
- Picture: Yarmouk’s Piano Player at Syrian-Organized Rally in Germany
- Picture: Burnt-Out Aid Truck From Russian Airstrike in Northern Aleppo
SUNDAY FEATURE
Interview: “Breaking the Silence Around Sieges”
UPDATE 1915 GMT: The opposition, anti-Islamic State outlet Deir ez-Zor 24 is denying that ISIS killed 200 civilians on Saturday. It says that about 15 regime militia were slain in the attack by the militants.
Journalists such as Louisa Loveluck and Elizabeth Tsurkov say their sources are also denying the massacre. According to one of Tsurkov’s sources, the Islamic State kidnapped about 15 civilian smugglers who brought food into bezieged Deir ez-Zor city.
ORIGINAL ENTRY: Claims are circulating that the Islamic State killed scores of civilians during an attack on parts of Deir ez-Zor city in eastern Syria on Saturday.
State news agency SANA asserted that up to 300 civilians — many of them women, children, and the elderly — were slain amid the ISIS offensive on the al-Bughayliyah and Ayyash areas. It said that most of them were executed.
The Syrian Cabinet condemned the “heinous crime”, with Prime Minister Wael al-Halqi blaming “ISIS hordes” and “all the states that support terrorism and that fund and armor Takfiri organizations which harbor hatred for all humanity”.
The Governor of Deir ez-Zor Province, Mohammad Qaddur Ajnyyja, told Russian outlet Sputnik:
ISIL [Islamic State] militants entered in the village of al-Bughayliyah…last night and perpetrated a massacre of whole families. For this reason the army headed to this region to save the population. There were clashes with ISIL militants, they suffered significant casualties, the rest succeeded to flee to the neighboring areas controlled by ISIL.
Islamic State supporters said 35 regime troops and militia were killed in the attack that included a suicide bombing and the crossing of the Euphrates River.
ISIS and regime forces have battled throughout Deir ez-Zor Province since the militants advanced across eastern Syria in early 2014. About 200,000 civilians are reportedly in areas surrounded by the Islamic State.
The Islamic State has carried out other mass killings in the province. In the largest, they executed an estimated 700 members of the Sheitat tribe in August 2014 after a tribal leader called on fighters to leave ISIS.
Islamic State in Raqqa Cuts Fighters’ Salaries by 50%
The Islamic State administration in Raqqa Province cut fighters’ salaries in half in November-December, according to a document translated by ISIS-watcher Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi.
The order said that the reduction was necessary “on account of the exceptional circumstances, with no exemptions. It said “work will continue to distribute provisions twice every month as usual”.
Analyst: Ahrar al-Sham & Jabhat al-Nusra “Have Not Imposed Madaya-Style Siege on Regime Enclaves”
Analyst Sam Heller examines the pro-regime claim that the Syrian military’s siege of Madaya in Damascus Province, leading to the deaths of an estimated 60 people from starvation, is equivalent to pressure on two regime enclaves in Idlib Province in northwest Syria..
Heller, who writes as Abu Jamajem, notes criticism from rebel outlets that Ahrar al-Sham and the jihadist group Jabhat al-Nusra have allowed food and supplies into the enclaves, and the response from an Ahrar al-Sham media activist. He assesses:
Ahrar and Nusra have not exercised leverage on al-Fu’ah and Kafarya — and thus Iran, Hizbullah and the Assad regime — by imposing the sort of crushing deprivation we’ve seen in Madaya.
As [the Ahrar media activist] Abu Khaled argues, al-Fou’ah and Kafarya benefit not just from relief shipments that fall under the Zabadani truce [agreed in late September between the regime and rebel groups], but also from opportunistic residents of neighboring towns willing to sell supplies and from regime airdrops.
Instead, rebels have leaned on the towns by shelling them indiscriminately and threatening them through conventional military means.
Ahrar al-Sham spokesman Labib al-Nahhas declares:
Armed opposition never used starvation of civilians as weapon of war. Fua and Kefraya are combat zones but they are NOT under siege
#Madaya
— أبو عز الدين (@LabibAlNahhas) January 16, 2016
Picture: Yarmouk’s Piano Player at Syrian-Organized Rally in Germany
Ayham al-Ahmed, who achieved international renown when he played his piano amid the destruction in the Yarmouk camp in southern Damascus, performs at a rally in Cologne, Germany, on Saturday:
Hundreds of refugees, carrying a banner “We Are Cologne”, attended the Syrian-organized demonstration. The rally denounced sexism and violence, following assaults by immigrants on women in German cities on New Year’s Eve.
More photographs from the rally
Picture: Burnt-Out Aid Truck From Russian Airstrike in Northern Aleppo
Photograph of a burnt-out truck, carrying food aid, following a Russian airstrike in northern Aleppo Province:
Russian warplanes have recurrently attacked aid trucks near the Turkish border since late November.
