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WAR REPORT
World leaders hail 'real progress' in Syria
By Eric Randolph with Maya Gebeily in Beirut
Paris (AFP) March 5, 2016


Turkey launches new artillery strikes on IS in Syria: report
Ankara (AFP) March 4, 2016 - Turkish armed forces launched new artillery strikes on positions of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, local media reported on Friday.

Turkish artillery fired shells from howitzers positioned in its border region against IS targets in the north of Syria's Aleppo province, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported reported.

A fragile ceasefire backed by Turkey has taken effect in Syria, but the deal does not apply to territory held by the IS group and Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front.

This was the second time within a week that Turkey had shelled IS targets in Syria, after a period of over a month when there had been no reports of Turkish strikes against the extremist group.

Turkey had on February 28 shelled six IS targets in Syria a total of 41 times, a senior government official said this week.

From mid-February, Turkish artillery had also on successive days shelled targets of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) inside Syria, with the military saying it was responding to incoming fire.

But Turkey has not shelled any positions held by Syrian Kurdish fighters inside Syria since the ceasefire was implemented from at midnight last Friday, the official said.

Washington had urged Ankara to halt its fire on the PYD and its People's Protection Units (YPG) militia.

The issue of the Syrian Kurds had caused a rare rift between Ankara and Washington, which regards the YPG as the most effective fighting force on the ground against IS and wants Turkey to focus on the fight against jihadists.

Water returns to Syria's Aleppo: official
Aleppo, Syria (AFP) March 4, 2016 - Water returned on Friday to pumping stations in Aleppo city, a water services official said, after the longest cut left residents without supplies for three months.

"Water has finally arrived from Al-Hafseh, the main water station east of the city to the pumping stations of Sleiman al-Halabi and Bab Neirab inside the city," the official said on condition of anonymity.

"Without electricity, the water will be pumped using generators with fuel provided by the Red Crescent, and water will gradually return to all parts of the city," he told AFP.

Residents had told AFP this week that they had gone about three months without steady water supply, their longest cut in the five-year war.

Once Syria's economic powerhouse, Aleppo city has been divided since 2012 between government control in the west and rebel groups in the east.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the water cut ended after the government repaired a pumping station that provided water to Al-Bab, a bastion of the Islamic State jihadist group further east.

In turn, IS fighters allowed water to be pumped through areas under their control from the Euphrates River into Aleppo city.

But Syria's state news agency SANA said water was once again being pumped from Al-Hafseh "after a 48-day cut by the terrorists of Daesh," or IS.

The clashes tearing Aleppo apart for four years have damaged power generators and pumps that bring water to residential neighbourhoods, leading to intermittent shortages.

But a Russian air strike in November on an IS-held treatment plant had left 1.4 million people in the city without any water at all.

World leaders hailed "real progress" in Syria on Friday, but fresh air strikes showed the fragility of the week-old truce as the opposition cast doubt on its attendance at talks next week in Geneva.

Warplanes struck a key rebel bastion east of the Syrian capital for the first time since the US-Russia brokered truce -- which excludes the fight against jihadists -- began last weekend, a monitor said.

"Two air strikes hit the edge of the town of Douma in Eastern Ghouta and one person was killed," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

He said either Syrian or Russian planes carried out the strikes.

Eastern Ghouta had been regularly bombarded by government forces, but has been relatively calm since the ceasefire came into force, which has also allowed the United Nations began delivering aid to three rebel towns in the area.

British, French, German and EU foreign ministers met in Paris to discuss the truce, saying there had been "real progress".

"This cessation of hostilities is by no means perfect but it has reduced the level of violence, it has created an opportunity for some humanitarian access," said British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond.

Protesters in opposition-held areas -- buoyed by the ceasefire -- also took to the streets for the first time in years to demonstrate against the regime under the slogan "The Revolution Continues!"

Waving the three-starred tricolour flag that has become the uprising's emblem, demonstrators in opposition-held areas of Aleppo, Damascus, Daraa and Homs called for Assad's downfall.

Late Friday, a group of rebel fighters seized control of a crossing on the Iraqi border, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The border point at Al-Tanaf, which is controlled on the Iraqi side by the Islamic State group.

- Focus on Geneva -

The quartet of foreign ministers said the focus now was on convincing all parties to return to UN-brokered peace talks in Switzerland tentatively set for next Wednesday.

"We want a speedy resumption of the negotiations in Geneva, but two conditions must be fulfilled: access for all Syrians to humanitarian aid, and full respect of the ceasefire," said French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.

But Riad Hijab, head of Syria's main opposition body, the High Negotiations Committee, said the opposition had not yet decided whether it would come to the talks.

Citing continued sieges and the fact that thousands still languish in regime jails, Hijab said President Bashar al-Assad would have "no place" in a political transition because he has "blood on his hands".

Speaking by phone on Friday, US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov agreed on the need for a return to the negotiating table.

"The two sides called for a speedy start to negotiations in Geneva between the Syrian government and the opposition under the UN's auspices," a Russian foreign ministry statement said.

Turkish armed forces launched new artillery strikes on positions of the Islamic State (IS) group in Syria, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

Russia however accused Turkey of continuing to bombard Kurdish positions and allowing jihadist groups to receive weapons across its border, putting "the ceasefire in danger", the Russian defence ministry said in a statement.

- 'Totally unrealistic' -

World leaders expressed a sharp difference of opinion over Assad's plans to hold elections next month -- way ahead of a roadmap agreed in November.

"The idea that there could be elections (in April) is not just provocative but totally unrealistic," said French President Francois Hollande.

But Assad's key backer, Russian President Vladimir Putin, shot back that the plan for elections "does not interfere with steps to build the peace process".

The UN envoy on the crisis, Staffan de Mistura, said that whatever the timetable, it had to be Syrians who decided their president's fate, not outsiders.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said tens of thousands of displaced Syrians along Turkey's border have not returned home despite the truce.

"Some 100,000 people gathered near the border -- including 50,000 in past weeks after the spike in violence in early February from the Syrian government coalition -- have not yet started to return home because it's too dangerous," MSF head Joanne Liu told AFP.

"We're in a transition period and I think it will take another few days for things to settle and for people to become convinced there really is a truce."

burs/ser/har/tm/as


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Beirut (AFP) March 2, 2016
More than 1,700 civilians have been killed by Russian air strikes in Syria since Moscow's air campaign began five months ago, a monitoring group said on Wednesday. "Since September 30, Russian air strikes have killed 4,408 people including 1,733 civilians," the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The civilian toll included 429 children and 250 women. More than 60 ... read more


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