Morning Star.png Kurds Continue Attack on Hassakeh James Tweedie, The Morning Star, London, 23 August 2016 Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) resumed their bid to seize north-eastern Hassakeh city yesterday. The Kurdish YPG militia and Asayish paramilitary police - armed wings of the Democratic Union party (PYD), sister organisation of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) - claimed to have captured several districts from Syrian army reservists. On Sunday Russian military officers flew from Hmeimim air base by the Mediterranean to Qamishli in Hassakeh province, the site of similar clashes in April, to mediate talks between the government and the YPG. Syrian authorities say they agreed a ceasefire, but the YPG denies entering into any truce. A Syrian military source accused the YPG of "violating the agreement by refusing to allow safe passage for the dead and wounded to reach Qamishli" yesterday. YPG commander Muhamad Saleh al-Zaher called on the US-led coalition bombing Syria to clarify its position on Syrian army and air force artillery and air strikes on its positions in Hassakeh. "In order to put pressure on Islamic State (ISIS) mercenaries, the Ba'athist regime has targeted our positions in Hassakeh, and the global coalition supporting us should make its attitude clear about these attacks," he said. Late last week the US sent fighters to warn off Syrian strike jets over Hassakeh, revealing that US special forces "advisers" fighting alongside the YPG were in the city. The presence of those troops hundreds of miles from the front line with ISIS in Aleppo province raised speculation that the US had orchestrated the offensive to seize the multi-ethnic city of some 200,000 inhabitants. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said yesterday that ISIS must be driven from the border region between the two YPG-controlled enclaves. On Sunday it was reported that Turkish-backed jihadist groups were massing north of the border for an assault on the strategic ISIS-held border town of Jarabulus, threatened by the YPG following the capture of Manbij just to the south. And Lebanon's As-Safir daily reported a deputy of Turkish National Intelligence Organisation head Hakan Fidan had flown to Damascus to meet his Syrian counterparts. <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] From: <http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-9cdb-Kurds-continue-attack-on-Hassakeh #.V7vRBPl9600> http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-9cdb-Kurds-continue-attack-on-Hassakeh# .V7vRBPl9600 __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 14003 (20160823) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.eset.com -- -- 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]. To post to this group, send an email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum. To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/yclsa-eom-forum/000c01d1fcff%24dc6d36a0%249547a3e0%24%40com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
