Putin's dogs cannibalizing Dotard's dogs in big Syrian Carnage

[carnage]

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43351957

Syria war: Jaish al-Islam to evacuate n of Eastern Ghouta fighters

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• Syrian civil war

Media captionA short guide to the Syrian civil war
Syrian rebel group Jaish al-Islam has agreed to evacuate jihadist fighters being held in its prisons in besieged Eastern Ghouta, a statement says.

The group says the decision was made in consultation with a delegation that entered with a UN aid convoy.

The Syrian government has stepped up efforts in retake the rebel-held enclave in recent weeks, leading to more than 900 reported civilian deaths.

Pro-government forces have now reportedly taken half the area.

Some 400,000 people are trapped and efforts to reach a deal to halt the bloodshed have gone on for weeks.

Jaish al-Islam said it had come to an agreement with a variety of parties, including the UN, to evacuate the fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) - an alliance of factions led by the Nusra Front, which sprung from al-Qaeda.

• Eastern Ghouta devastation seen from space

• Why is there a war in Syria?

Syrian state TV showed pictures on Friday of what it said was a number of fighters boarding a bus to leave the enclave.

Image copyright EPA
Image caption The first 13 were said to have been transported out using the Syrian government designated al-Wafidden corridor
Who are the rebel groups?
The rebels in Eastern Ghouta are not one cohesive group. They encompass multiple factions, including jihadists, and in-fighting between them has led to past losses of ground to the Syrian government.

The two largest groups are Jaish al-Islam and its rival Faylaq al-Rahman. The latter has in the past fought alongside HTS.

Eastern Ghouta is so close to Damascus that it is possible for rebels to fire mortars into the heart of the capital, which has led to scores of civilian deaths.

Image copyright Getty Images
Image caption International aid has been trying to get into the area in recent days
The Syrian government is desperate to regain the territory, and has said its attempts to recapture the Eastern Ghouta are directly due to the HTS presence there. HTS was excluded from a ceasefire agreed at the UN that has yet to come into effect.

• Read more: Who's fighting whom in Syria's Ghouta?

What is the situation in Eastern Ghouta?
The enclave has been beyond government control since 2012, but in recent weeks its efforts to retake the territory has markedly intensified.

Forces loyal to the Syrian government have now reportedly taken back half of the area.



Media captionFootage shows an earlier aid convoy reaching "hell on earth"
An estimated 950 civilians have been killed in the Eastern Ghouta region since the Russian-backed government assault was launched on 18 February, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitoring group, which has a network of sources on the ground. Many of the victims are children.

On Friday a UN convoy was able to successfully deliver aid to the area, after previous deliveries were halted by shelling.

Hundreds of thousands of residents are still thought to live in the Eastern Ghouta, seven years into the civil war.

Turkish push against Syrian Kurds 'imminent'
Further north in Syria, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said the Turkish army and its Free Syrian Army allies could enter the town of Afrin "at any moment" and are surrounding its centre.

• Afrin: The short, medium and long story

Their forces have been pressing an assault against the Kurdish-held enclave since January 20. They have already taken control of the nearby town of Jinderes, a few kilometres from Afrin, Turkish reports say. Kurdish fighters insist the Turkish military has not yet besieged Afrin.

Rights group Amnesty International says that scores of civilians have been killed in the area by indiscriminate shellfire since the assault began.



Media captionAfrin: What is going on in Syria's other battle?
The Turkish government has entered the area because it says the Kurdish militia holding the territory - the People's Protection Units (YPG) - are an extension of the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought for Kurdish autonomy in south-eastern Turkey for three decades.

The YPG denies any direct organisational links to the PKK - an assertion backed by the US, which has provided the militia and allied Arab fighters with weapons and air support to help them battle the jihadist group Islamic State (IS).

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[Ang4MohTrump]

Putin's victory wining big in Syria:




https://www.rt.com/news/420907-ghouta-militants-humanitarian-convoy/

First group of militants surrender arms & leave East Ghouta after Russia-brokered talks
Published time: 10 Mar, 2018 03:17 Edited time: 10 Mar, 2018 05:53
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© RT

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The first group of militants have surrendered their arms and left East Ghouta as an increasing number of rebel fighters in Syria seek to disassociate themselves from Jabhat al-Nusra terrorists, the Russian military has announced.
“Certain representatives of illegal armed groups have intensified attempts to get in touch with the Syrian government forces and the Russian Center for Reconciliation with the aim of discussing their separation from the banned terrorist group Jabhat al-Nusra,” Major General Yury Yevtushenko, the head of the Reconciliation Center in Syria, said in a statement on Friday.

Efforts to separate the so-called moderate opposition fighters from jihadists continue in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta. The Syrian government established a humanitarian corridor which remains open to both civilians and militants who are willing to lay down their arms.

Read more
Militants shell & shoot at escapees from E. Ghouta, may use them as human shields – Syrian nun to RT
The first group of 13 militants used the gateway to leave the rebel-controlled Damascus suburb via Muhayam al-Wafideen corridor overnight. Video of the exodus under government watch shows fighters carrying their belongings and boarding vehicles to head to Idlib. Yevtushenko attributed the militant surrender to the “lengthy talks” held by the reconciliation center’s officers and jihadist groups.

No provocations followed the exit of militants, the general said, adding that those who have surrendered will be transported to Idlib, while negotiations continue regarding the surrender of other militants. The news of militants’ surrender coincided with a statement by the Jaysh Al-Islam group, which allegedly agreed to release Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) fighters from their prisons and send them towards Idlib as well.

The situation in East Ghouta remains tense, Yevtushenko said, stressing that terrorists continue shelling civilian areas of Damascus and targeting those who are trying to flee the terrorist enclave. “The attacks are carried out even during the humanitarian pauses,” the general said, noting that none of the civilians managed to safely exit the terrorist-controlled areas in the past day.

The situation is getting so dire that people are prepared to flee by bypassing the corridors which are targeted by the militants, Yevtushenko said, citing reports received through the Russian Centre’s hotline.

Despite tensions in East Ghouta, the Russian Centre for Reconciliation has ensured “safe and unimpeded delivery” of the United Nations-Syrian Arab Red Crescent humanitarian convoy on Friday. The convoy of 13 trucks delivered 74 tons of food and medical supplies to East Ghouta’s Douma, which lies just 10 km north-east of the center of Damascus.

“Teams from ICRC, Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) and UN in Eastern Ghouta delivered 2,400 food parcels that can sustain 12,000 people for one month, as well as 3,248 wheat flour bags,” the aid agency told RT in a statement. “The 13-truck delivery was part of a convoy that could not be fully unloaded on 5 March due to the security situation.”

“The needs of people remains massive,” Ralph El Hage, a representative from the Red Cross told RT. "You have medical needs, you need access to a good source of food, you also need to have access to clean water.”

Currently, the priority remains the delivery of medical supplies and food aid to the militant-controlled areas. SARC is currently waiting for “security guarantees” from the warring sides to deliver more supplies to the civilian population, El Hage added.

A Russia-backed ceasefire came into effect in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta late last month, following the UN Security Council resolution which called for a 30-day ceasefire across Syria. It envisions mutually agreed humanitarian pauses for aid deliveries and evacuation of civilians, through the specially established humanitarian corridor. However, the militants ignored the agreement and continue shelling Damascus and firing at those trying to leave the area even during those pauses. An estimated 400,000 people remain trapped in besieged Eastern Ghouta since 2013.

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http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-43357381

Eastern Ghouta: Syrian army splits enclave in three, reports say

• 53 minutes ago

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Image copyright AFP
Image caption Douma continues to be under government bombardment
The Syrian army has made a significant advance in its effort to take rebel-held Eastern Ghouta, reports say.

Troops have cut off the region's biggest town, Douma, and isolated another, according to UK-based conflict monitors the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The advance would effectively split the region into three parts.

The Syrian government began a major offensive last month to re-take Eastern Ghouta, near the capital Damascus.

Since then they have reportedly taken control of half of the region, in an advance that has left around 1,000 civilians dead over the past three weeks, according to SOHR.

The UN has called the bombardment "unacceptable", saying it amounts to "the collective punishment of civilians".

The military has been accused of targeting civilians, but it says it is trying to liberate the region - one of the last rebel strongholds - from those it terms terrorists.

• Eastern Ghouta devastation seen from space
• Why is there a war in Syria?
• Read more: Who's fighting whom in Syria's Ghouta?

What's happening on the ground?
A clear strategy of the Syrian government's offensive in Eastern Ghouta has been to divide the enclave into isolated sections and so cut off rebel support and supply networks, the BBC's Arab Affairs editor Sebastian Usher says - and now the government appears to have all but achieved that goal.

The Syrian government has reportedly captured the central town of Misraba, and advanced onwards into surrounding farmland.

Misraba is located along a major road that links Douma, in the north, with another big town, Harasta, in the west.

If confirmed, the advance leaves the enclave divided into three - Douma and its surrounding towns in the north, western Harasta, and the rest of the territory in the south.

Syrian state television also said the army had splinted Eastern Ghouta, but a spokesman for one of the main rebel groups told Reuters neither Harasta nor Douma were cut off.

Meanwhile an opposition website said that a group of fighters from the jihadists Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) arrived in central Hama province from Eastern Ghouta, a day after an evacuation deal was reached.

On Friday a UN convoy was able to successfully deliver aid to Eastern Ghouta, after previous deliveries were halted by shelling.

Some 400,000 people are still thought to live in the area, seven years into Syria's civil war. It has been besieged by government forces since 2013.

Who are the rebels?
The rebels in Eastern Ghouta are not one cohesive group. They encompass multiple factions, including jihadists, and in-fighting between them has led to past losses of ground to the Syrian government.

The two largest groups are Jaish al-Islam and its rival Faylaq al-Rahman. The latter has in the past fought alongside HTS.



Media captionA short guide to the Syrian civil war
Eastern Ghouta is so close to Damascus that it is possible for rebels to fire mortars into the heart of the capital, which has led to scores of civilian deaths.

The Syrian government is desperate to regain the territory, and has said its attempts to recapture it can be attributed directly due to the HTS presence there. HTS was excluded from a ceasefire agreed at the UN that has yet to come into effect.

The group is an alliance of factions led by the Nusra Front, which sprang from al-Qaeda.

Image copyright AFP/SANA
Image caption Syrian state media showed what it described as rebel fighters being evacuated from Eastern Ghouta
What else is happening in Syria?
In January, Turkey began an offensive to oust the Kurdish YPG militia from the Afrin region in northern Syria, near the Turkish border.

Turkish troops, and some allied Syrian rebel militias, are now on the outskirts of Afrin town, the SOHR says.

Both the SOHR and an embedded news agency reporter said that Turkish forces had captured a military base from Kurdish groups and were seen taking heavy machine guns out, while exchanging fire with Kurdish fighters.

Turkey regards the YPG as a terrorist group and says it is linked to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party, which has fought an insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey for three decades.

• Turkey targets Kurds: The 100, 300 and 700-word story
• How historical Afrin became a prize worth a war

Kurdish media report that Turkish forces have blown up public water facilities, cutting off drinking water supplies to hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his troops could enter the town "at any moment". He said they would "purge" the town and then carry on further east.

 

[carnage]

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/11/...s-territory-in-eastern-ghouta-intl/index.html

Syrian regime gains ground in 'semi-destroyed rubble town'
By Kareem Khadder, Jomana Karadsheh and Ghazi Balkiz, CNN

Updated 1143 GMT (1943 HKT) March 11, 2018


/
Duration Time 1:59

Source: CNN

No End in Sight for Eastern Ghouta 01:59
(CNN)The Syrian regime captured a major town in the rebel-held enclave of Eastern Ghouta on Saturday after "hysterical" shelling and airstrikes, an activist on the ground said.

Analysts believe it is now a matter of time before the regime takes control of the entire besieged enclave situated on the outskirts of Damascus, and one of the last major rebel-held areas in the country.
"The Syrian regime was able to capture the town of Misraba after turning it into semi-destroyed rubble town," media activist, Bilal Abu Salah, told CNN Sunday.
He described the shelling and airstrikes on Misraba, at the center of Eastern Ghouta, as "hysterical."
Douma, the largest city in Eastern Ghouta, has also been subjected to nonstop airstrikes and artillery shelling since Saturday evening, he added.

Syrian state media also reported the regime had captured Misraba, airing footage of tanks in the town and claiming troops had secured surrounding farmland.
Since launching its offensive against the rebel-held enclave in mid-February, the Syrian regime has steadily been gaining territory, starting with villages and towns in the east.
Troops were now headed toward the centrally located area of Madyara "to cut off the terrorists' supply lines between the north and the south parts of Ghouta," the Syrian state media report added.

Night from hell for doctors in Eastern Ghouta 01:22
Eastern Ghouta is home to some 400,000 people. Over 1,000 people were killed and 4,800 wounded in just the first two weeks of the offensive, humanitarian group Doctors Without Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said last week.
The numbers, which do not take into account people not treated at MSF medical facilities, are believed to be a fraction of the total death toll.
The regime maintains that its offensive is against Al-Nusra Front, a former Qaeda affiliate, which it accuses of holding civilians against their will to use as human shields.
Armed rebel groups in the besieged enclave deny both accusations, saying Al-Nusra's presence is limited and that civilians fear regime retaliation if they leave.
Some fighters deported from Eastern Ghouta
A number of Al-Nusra Front fighters were on Friday deported from Eastern Ghouta to the rebel-held province of Idlib, in northern Syria, according to the armed rebel group Jaish Al-Islam (JI) and Syrian state TV.
This was "based on consultations between JI and the United Nations and a number of international actors," JI said on Friday, adding that these fighters have been held in its prisons since April 2017.
Syrian state TV showed an undisclosed number of fighters leaving on buses at the Wafideen Crossing, a designated humanitarian corridor for aid and evacuations that has largely been ignored by all sides of the conflict.
Horror beyond words
The United Nations Security Council and, separately, Russian President Vladimir Putin, had issued calls for a pause in fighting to allow civilians to leave, but both calls were ignored. Rebel fighters in Eastern Ghouta and Syrian government forces have accused each other of breaking the truce.
Meanwhile, Eastern Ghouta's residents describe a torrent of air and ground strikes. Doctors say they're struggling to keep up with the injured.

Hossam Hawari, eight, is treated for a shrapnel wound at a makeshift clinic in Eastern Ghouta.
"In Ghouta there are no words, not a camera that can describe what's happening. The night that Ghouta lived yesterday... was in every way taken out of the apocalypse and put on earth," said Firas Abdullah, Ghouta, spokesperson for the White Helmets relief group, on Friday.
"You can't even hear the screams of women and children because the sound of the shelling and the bombs are louder than their screams."
Amid the shelling, 13 aid trucks did enter manage to enter Douma on Friday for the second time since the offensive began.
Eastern Ghouta: Fast facts

Ghouta: Hell on Earth 02:08
Eastern Ghouta is one of the last major rebel-held areas of the country, which has been ravaged by civil war for almost seven years.
Observers fear the area could face a similar fate to eastern Aleppo, which was all but destroyed in a government offensive in December 2016.
The regime's capture of that city marked a turning point in the war, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad taking back control of all four major cities in the country -- with the help of Russia.
Russia's intervention in the country's civil war in 2015 -- with troops and weaponry -- has helped tilt the balance in Assad's favor, with the push for Eastern Ghouta now more intense than ever.
The main rebel units actively holding territory in Eastern Ghouta are the Islamist Jaish al-Islam and Faylaq al Rahman, which have taken part in peace negotiations in the past. According to activists, there are small pockets of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an al-Qaeda affiliate, still in the area.
CNN's Sheena McKenzie and Tamara Qiblawi contributed to this report

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