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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| Syria: 18 Dead as Kurds Battle Regime Forces in Hasakeh |
| 2015-01-19 |
| [AnNahar]. At least 18 people have been killed in unprecedented fighting between Kurdish forces and Syrian government troops in the northeastern city of Hasakeh, a monitoring group said Sunday. The festivities, which erupted in the early hours of Saturday, were continuing for a second day, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. "So far, eight Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters and security police have been killed, along with nine regime soldiers and militiamen," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman. A woman civilian was also killed in the fighting on Saturday. The festivities broke out after Kurdish fighters detained around 10 regime loyalists they accused of seizing part of a demilitarized zone. Under a deal agreed last year, Kurdish forces control around 30 percent of the city's Kurdish and mixed Kurdish-Arab districts, with regime forces controlling most of the city's majority-Arab neighborhoods. Certain districts are off-limits to both sides under the deal. The two sides have fought together to keep 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 Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not reallyMoslems.... group jihadists out of Hasakeh, a historic provincial capital of some 200,000 people, but Kurdish relations with government forces are complicated. The regime withdrew from most Kurdish-majority areas of Syria in 2012, focusing its forces on fighting the burgeoning Sunni Arab-led rebellion. Since then, the Kurds have worked to build autonomous local governments in the three regions where they form the majority population. Kurdish forces have taken over most security responsibilities in those areas. |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #9 :) |
| Posted by: Shipman 2015-01-19 20:28 |
| #8 I don't refer to it as 'cynicism.' I refer to it as compassionate dialogue. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2015-01-19 17:02 |
| #7 To be blunt - the Kurds hold no political usefulness for the administration. They aren't "Muslim" enough. They're a thorn for the Iranians, the mullah's temporary military aid to the Kurds aside. That doesn't help with trying to get a legacy-setting nuke deal with the theocracy. They're not (Shiite) Iraqis. The Kurds are also a pain for the Turks, which by extension, means a political liability with the Muslim Brotherhood and its US groups. Domestically, the Kurds don't appeal to the Left. They aren't the right demographic, the right 'color'; their marxist groups aren't marxist enough. There's no photogenic (and university-educated) Kurds advocating the downfall of the West. I've probably left something out, but I'll stop before my cynicism really takes hold and I get in trouble. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2015-01-19 16:57 |
| #6 OS, you've described all the reasons Obama and ValJar oppose helping the Kurds. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2015-01-19 14:58 |
| #5 The answer should be "Yes we will support the Kurds". Notice what they did: set up autonomous local governments. Not take over, not lord it up, not lay down dictatorial laws or martial laws. These people should be our natural allies - they hold far more of the ideals we Americans hold dear(excepting the progressives and their President, Obama and his puppeteers VallJar and Soros), in a region that is generally bereft of them. |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2015-01-19 14:47 |
| #4 The US has been arming the resistance to the Syrian regime. Will the US support the Kurdish forces with air support when attacked by the Assad regime just as they supported the effective Kurdish resistance to ISIS? This is an issue Centcom is now faced with. |
| Posted by: Ebbomosh Hupemp2664 2015-01-19 12:20 |
| #3 Kurds battle Syrian Baathist Regime tank in Hasakeh. |
| Posted by: Ebbomosh Hupemp2664 2015-01-19 12:11 |
| #2 Russian is siding with the Syrian regime against the Kurds at least on the so called diplomatic level, regardless of the fact that Kurdish forces have killed numerous Chechen terrorists who went to Syria to fight the Kurds. |
| Posted by: Ebbomosh Hupemp2664 2015-01-19 12:01 |
| #1 Kurds are accusing the Syrian regime of using cluster bombs against them which are banned by 111 countries in an Oslo International agreement. |
| Posted by: Ebbomosh Hupemp2664 2015-01-19 11:55 |