Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 174

ISTANBUL — Al Qaeda’s central leadership has officially cut ties with a powerful jihadist group that has flourished in the chaos of the civil war in Syria and that rushed to build an Islamic state on its own terms, antagonizing the wider rebel movement.

As Syrian rebels from across the political spectrum went on the attack against the extremist Islamic State of Iraq and Syria early last month, ISIS’s comrades in arms in the nearby province of Latakia didn’t miss a beat in their strange mode of war. They attacked three civilian hospitals.

In Rabiaa, a village in northwest Latakia, 15 ISIS gunmen arrived in three cars, arrested moderate rebel guards protecting the building and then stormed the hospital, according to Brig. Gen. Ahmad Rahal, who commanded the moderate rebels.

Hospital staff helped two wounded moderate rebels escape to the nearby al Yamdiah hospital. The ISIS gunmen followed them there. Then they stormed that hospital, killing one wounded rebel and abducting the second, Rahal said. The staff closed the hospital in protest, and ISIS later handed back the patient.

Meanwhile, ISIS forces attacked the al Biranas hospital, run by the Belgian branch of Doctors Without Borders, where they abducted five foreign doctors: from Belgium, Denmark, Peru, Sweden and Switzerland. All are still missing.

Breaking Reports: Another British citizen, Anil Khalil Raoufi, killed in Syria last week; prayers were said at his mosque this morning, police allegedly searching his residence.

Belgian media announced yesterday that a number of Belgians, fighting besides the armed groups and the radicalized organizations, has carried out terrorist actions against the civil Syrians.
Reports said that the Belgians had participated in the massacres, which took place near Aleppo earlier this week that killed 90 civilians.

(Reuters) - The United States is opposed to the supply of shoulder-fired missiles, capable of taking down warplanes, to rebel forces in Syria, a senior Obama administration official said on Tuesday.

The official, traveling with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in Tunisia, was responding to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Friday which said Saudi Arabia had offered to give Syrian rebels Chinese man-portable air defense systems, or MANPADS, and anti-tank guided missiles from Russia.

The newspaper cited an Arab diplomat and several opposition sources with knowledge of the efforts.

BEIRUT: Rebels in southern Syria say they are planning a spring offensive against Damascus, which regime and opposition sources say will include fighters trained by Western forces in neighbouring Jordan.

The Syrian army, meanwhile, is redeploying troops in Quneitra province located on the cease-fire line with Israel, and stepping up shelling on rebel positions in Daraa on the Jordan border to stop any advance, opposition fighters say.

The looming showdowns come after regime and opposition representatives failed last week to reach consensus at talks in Geneva, and amid reports that some Gulf Arab states have pledged to arm the rebels.

Both regime and opposition sources say the offensive on Damascus will involve thousands of rebels who have been receiving combat training for the past year from the United States and other Western countries in Jordan.