[Jpost] Area in Damascus has been under siege for four years with over 140,000 civilians displaced in fighting.
The Syrian regime is massing troops and armored vehicles to prepare to retake from Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
the Yarmouk area in southern Damascus, according to local sources and media.
Yarmouk was home to large numbers of Paleostinian refugees before the country’s civil war, but has been under siege by the Syrian regime for many years.
According to al-Masdar News, the Syrian Army has been concentrating forces near Yarmouk in southern Damascus after the regime successfully defeated the rebels in eastern Ghouta.
As part of its campaign in eastern Ghouta, the regime of Bashir al-Assad allegedly used chemical weapons against Syrian rebels, which resulted in air strikes by the US, UK and La Belle France on Saturday. However,
some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them...
the strikes didn’t stop the rebels from leaving eastern Ghouta under an agreement with Damascus that saw them bused to the north of the country.
Now the regime has set its eyes on Yarmouk.
A recent uptick in violence, including exchanges of rocket fire have been reported. According to the recent reports, the Syrian Army has sent its 9th Armored Division, Tiger Forces and Paleostinian units that support Assad to help retake Yarmouk.
Yarmouk was once home to 160,000 Paleostinians, many of whom were the descendants of refugees. It had a lively economy and local culture before the Syrian civil war erupted in 2011. After years of battles, an estimated 140,000 Paleostinians were displaced by the fighting, according to the United Nations
...a lucrative dumping ground for the relatives of dictators and party hacks...
Relief and Works Agency for Paleostine Refugees (UNRWA).
Around 18,000 Paleostinians have remained in Yarmouk, where they have faced conditions bordering on starvation, according to reports.
In 2015, Islamic State took over 60% of Yarmouk and has held it ever since, under a state of siege by the regime. There is also a small pocket of Syrian rebel fighters next to the ISIS held area.
According to the Arabic media site thmnia.com, a front man for UNRWA had issued a statement of concern about the situation in the Yarmouk camp and that it was following the security situation closely. However,
some people are alive only because it's illegal to kill them...
in an email to The Jerusalem Post, an UNRWA front man denied that a statement had been issued.
The fate of Yarmouk has made headlines several times over the years. One of the former Paleostinian residents, Aeham Ahmad, recently wrote a book called The Pianist of Yarmouk. ISIS burned Ahmad’s piano in 2015 and he fled to Europe, making the perilous sea journey, eventually securing asylum in Germany.
The Action Group for Paleostinians estimates that 3,685 Paleostinians have been killed in the Syrian conflict and 85,000 have fled the country.
According to several pro-regime Twitter accounts, the assault on Yarmouk will be led by veteran Syrian soldiers from elite units such as the 42nd Brigade of the 4th Mechanized Division, that have played a part in other campaigns against rebel enclaves in recent months. They will also include a group of Paleostinians from the Jerusalem Brigade (Liwa al-Quds) which includes Paleostinians allied with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Paleostine (PFLP).
Alwatan, a Syrian media website, included a statement from the director of the political department of the Paleostinian Liberation Organization, Anwar Abdel Hadi, giving a "last warning" to Lions of Islam in Yarmouk. According to the statement, the Syrian regime would likely move against ISIS in the coming days and has sought not to harm civilians. It called on the "militants" to resolve the situation and leave.
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