Death Toll From Rebel Infighting Jumps to 68
The AP reports that the death toll from rebel infighting in oil-rich Deir Ezzor province, along the Iraq-Syria border, has climbed to 68.
“Battles are still raging on Friday, for a second day, around Bukamal town,” the wire says. Rebels from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have been fighting al-Qaida-linked Jabhat al-Nusra and other Islamic groups for weeks over territory that includes oil fields.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based watchdog, “said 51 fighters died in fighting around Bukamal on Thursday, when the flare-up started. The Islamic State captured the town, previously controlled by the Nusra Front.”
Warily, Jordan Assists Rebels in Syrian War
Ben Hubbard of the New York Times reports that despite hesitation, Jordan is becoming further entangled in Syria’s conflict.
“When rebels want to return to Syria to fight, Jordan’s intelligence services give them specific times to cross its border. When the rebels need weapons, they make their request at an ‘operations room’ in Amman staffed by agents from Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United States,” he writes.
“During more than three years of civil war in Syria, this desert nation has come to the world’s attention largely because it has struggled to shelter hundreds of thousands of refugees. But, quietly, Jordan has also provided a staging ground for rebels and their foreign backers on Syria’s southern front. In the joint Arab-American operations room in Amman, the capital, for example, rebels say they have collected salaries as an incentive not to join better-funded extremist groups.”
Aleppo Recast as a “Shrinking City”
The Los Angeles Times reports from Aleppo on the former financial capital’s struggle to survive constant shelling.
“Those still in the city have adjusted to enduring the brunt of President Bashar Assad’s military might with a resilience that borders on stubborn fatalism.
In a shoe store, a woman tries on a pair of wedge heels and deems them not comfortable enough ‘to flee’ in. A one-year-old with curly hair and big brown eyes speaks mostly in mumbles, but one word she knows clearly: tabit — it fell,” it writes.
“‘A barrel falls and 10 minutes later people return to what they were doing,’ said Muhammad, a young man working at a makeshift gas station: 12 oil drums resting on their sides serving six varieties of gasoline.
“Hours earlier, a barrel bomb had struck the Sakhour roundabout, hitting three vehicles and killing eight people. With the blood fresh on the pavement, motorists stopped and peered at the carnage. The next day people walked by without a glance; the destroyed vehicles had become one more addition to the city’s apocalyptic backdrop.”
Without Schooling, Syrian Children Falling Behind
USA Today reports that nearly half of school-aged Syrians are falling behind, as the country’s education system flounders. The country, which once had a literacy rate of 90 percent, now has more than 2 million children without access to classrooms.
“Children have fled with their families from intense fighting to regions where schools are not fully available or too dangerous to attend. Hundreds of thousands have gone to crowded refugee camps outside the country or to foreign cities where they face barriers to assimilation.
“‘There are 9-year-old kids who can’t read or write,’ said Rima Said, 29, a mother of two in the suburbs of Damascus. Before the civil war erupted in March 2011, 4.8 million Syrian children — or 97% of primary school-age children and 67% of secondary school-age children — attended classes regularly, a recent UNICEF report found.”
Suggested Reads from Our Editorial Team
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Guardian: Syria Chemical Weapons Inspections Teams Not to Investigate New Claims