Morning Star.png Syria: Anti-Government Forces Leave Homs James Tweedie, The Morning Star, London, 2 December 2015 Thousands of anti-government insurgents agreed yesterday to abandon their stronghold in the Syrian city of Homs yesterday. Homs Governor Talal Barazi said that a deal had been struck to allow the guerillas to leave the northern Waer district of the city. "We will implement the agreed deal in stages, with 200-300 armed men leaving in the first stage . starting on Saturday," Mr Barazi said. The deal will see the government regain control of most of the western Syrian city, whose pre-war population was around 700,000. A large pocket of rebels around the town of Talbiseh remains to the north of Homs. The Syrian army announced new advances in the north of Latakia province, where troops are fighting Turkish-backed Turkmen militias. Soldiers liberated the villages of Arafeet al-Tahta, Arafit Fawqa, Rowaiset Sheikho and Katef al-Sallat. Erdogan Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan claimed yesterday that more than 500 civilians had been killed in fighting in the mountainous border region, calling its inhabitants "Turkish descendants." The area became a flashpoint between Moscow and Ankara last week after Turkey shot down a Russian tactical bomber that they claimed had entered Turkish airspace for just 17 seconds. Putin At the Paris climate summit on Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia had additional intelligence that Turkey was acting as an oil-smuggling conduit for Islamic State (Isis) and had shot down the plane to protect its interests. Mr Erdogan responded that he would resign if the allegations were proven. At the summit yesterday, US President Barack Obama urged both countries to "de-escalate" tensions over the incident and focus on fighting Isis, while defending Turkey's aggression. Vienna But Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it would complicate 19-nation peace talks in Vienna, since parties could not agree on which so-called rebel groups should be classed as terrorists. Mr Obama also expressed the vain hope that Moscow would eventually agree to Washington's regime change agenda in Syria. Meanwhile the German cabinet agreed to send aircraft and 1,200 personnel to support French-bombing raids against Isis. And US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter said US special forces would mount raids against Isis without consulting Syria. From: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-bbb9-Syria-Anti-government-forces-leave -Homs#.Vl5vxHYrK00 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
