The main Islamist rebel groups in Aleppo, a key front line in Syria’s civil war, on Monday rejected the newly formed opposition bloc, saying they want an Islamic state, as clashes raged countrywide.
“We, the fighting squads of Aleppo city and province, unanimously reject the conspiratorial project called the National Coalition and announce our consensus to establish an Islamic state” in Syria, a spokesman announced in an Internet video.
“We reject any external coalitions or councils imposed on us at home from any party whatsoever,” he said.
Photo: Reuters
The unidentified speaker sat at the head of a long table with at least 30 other men and a black Islamist flag on the wall.
He listed 14 armed groups as signatories to the statement, including the al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham and Liwa al-Tawhid.
However, the Ahrar al-Sham group rejected the proclamation on its official Web site, saying that its leadership did not endorse the statement.
The al-Nusra Front, a formidable fighting force, has claimed the majority of suicide bombings in Syria’s deadly 20-month-old conflict.
Abdel Jabbar al-Okaidi, the head of the mainstream rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) in the embattled northern city of Aleppo, said the statement did not represent the opinion of all rebel groups in the province.
“These groups represent a number of military factions on the ground and reflect their position, but not all military forces in Aleppo agree with this,” the defected former army colonel said by telephone.
“The military council has announced its support for the National Coalition and is collaborating with them,” Okaidi added.
The new National Coalition aims to present a united front to the international community and is lobbying for weapons supplies to help topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
On the ground, fighting flared along the Turkish border after rebels took control of the large army Base 46 in the northern province of Aleppo that had been besieged for weeks.
Six rebels were killed in clashes with Kurdish fighters and the head of the local Kurdish People’s Assembly was shot dead in the town of Ras al-Ain, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.
The clashes erupted after a Kurdish demonstration demanding that all rebels not from Ras al-Ain leave after they took the town last week.
The Kurdish fighters belonged to the People’s Defense Units, the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is linked to Turkey’s rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
“The rebels burned a flag of the [Kurdish] Democratic Union Party and the Kurds reacted by burning the FSA flag,” an activist told AFP.
Rebels accuse Kurdish groups of negotiating directly with al-Assad’s regime, while Kurds question why the rebels entered a safe area.
“The Kurdish regions provide safe havens to thousands of refugees from Damascus, Hama and Homs,” PYD leader Saleh Muslim said by telephone.
“We are not looking for a confrontation with the FSA, but its members who provoked the incident today in Ras al-Ain receive their orders from Turkey,” he said.
Elsewhere, the Observatory said a general it named as Abdullah Darawi was killed in a rebel attack on the town of Nabak, north of Damascus, along with four policemen accompanying him.
The official SANA news agency blamed “terrorists” for the killings.
Fighting also erupted at a border post near the town of Kasab in Latakia Province, the Observatory said.
In the mountainous region of Jabal al-Turkman, eight rebels and four soldiers were killed after insurgents attacked an army convoy en route to Kasab.
The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists and medics, said at least 96 people were killed nationwide on Monday — 45 rebels, 26 civilians and 25 soldiers.
It puts the death toll in more than 20 months of conflict at more than 39,000.
The Burmese junta has said that detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi is “in good health,” a day after her son said he has received little information about the 80-year-old’s condition and fears she could die without him knowing. In an interview in Tokyo earlier this week, Kim Aris said he had not heard from his mother in years and believes she is being held incommunicado in the capital, Naypyidaw. Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was detained after a 2021 military coup that ousted her elected civilian government and sparked a civil war. She is serving a
China yesterday held a low-key memorial ceremony for the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) not attending, despite a diplomatic crisis between Beijing and Tokyo over Taiwan. Beijing has raged at Tokyo since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last month said that a hypothetical Chinese attack on Taiwan could trigger a military response from Japan. China and Japan have long sparred over their painful history. China consistently reminds its people of the 1937 Nanjing Massacre, in which it says Japanese troops killed 300,000 people in what was then its capital. A post-World War II Allied tribunal put the death toll
‘NO AMNESTY’: Tens of thousands of people joined the rally against a bill that would slash the former president’s prison term; President Lula has said he would veto the bill Tens of thousands of Brazilians on Sunday demonstrated against a bill that advanced in Congress this week that would reduce the time former president Jair Bolsonaro spends behind bars following his sentence of more than 27 years for attempting a coup. Protests took place in the capital, Brasilia, and in other major cities across the nation, including Sao Paulo, Florianopolis, Salvador and Recife. On Copacabana’s boardwalk in Rio de Janeiro, crowds composed of left-wing voters chanted “No amnesty” and “Out with Hugo Motta,” a reference to the speaker of the lower house, which approved the bill on Wednesday last week. It is
FALLEN: The nine soldiers who were killed while carrying out combat and engineering tasks in Russia were given the title of Hero of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea North Korean leader Kim Jong-un attended a welcoming ceremony for an army engineering unit that had returned home after carrying out duties in Russia, North Korean state media KCNA reported on Saturday. In a speech carried by KCNA, Kim praised officers and soldiers of the 528th Regiment of Engineers of the Korean People’s Army (KPA) for “heroic” conduct and “mass heroism” in fulfilling orders issued by the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea during a 120-day overseas deployment. Video footage released by North Korea showed uniformed soldiers disembarking from an aircraft, Kim hugging a soldier seated in a wheelchair, and soldiers and officials
RSS