Peace Talks Postponed, Opposition Needs “Credible” Delegation. Joint U.N.-Arab League Peace Envoy Lakhdar Brahimi says that Geneva II talks between the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and its political opponents will not happen this month.

“The goal of convening a Syrian peace conference was thwarted by opposition groups that aren’t ready to negotiate a political solution to the country’s civil war,” Brahimi said in a press conference, as quoted by Bloomberg News.

After weeks of intense efforts by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to firm up the talks, the opposition Syrian National Coalition said they would not attend. Opposition leaders and diplomats failed to agree on a handful of sensitive points, among them Iran’s role in the talks and whether there would be a guarantee from the outset that Assad would be removed from power.

Brahimi said he’s still hoping to convene talks by the end of this year, and that the U.S. and Russia will meet again on Nov. 25 to discuss them.

Kurds Oust Jihadists from Border Area. Kurdish militias have ousted al-Qaida-linked fighters from the area of Ras al-Ain, AFP reports. 

“The capture of Manajeer left the whole of the area around the strategic border town of Ras al-Ain in Kurdish control,” according to the wire, which cited the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “The advance came a day after reports that Kurdish fighters had driven jihadists out of 19 towns and villages across northeastern Syria, and a week after they captured the key Iraqi border crossing at Yaarubiyeh.”

Syrian Kurds have grown increasingly autonomous over the course of the civil war. They’ve taken control in swaths of Syria’s northwest, where regime troops have retreated and jihadi groups have been fought back by Kurdish militias.

After this week’s battle, the al-Qaida-linked fighters withdrew to the city of Raqqa, which is now largely under al-Qaida’s control.

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