Regime Air Raids Kill ISIS Fighters in Raqqa
AFP reports that 20 fighters from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) were killed when government air raids targeted one of their bases in Raqqa province. Raqqa is ISIS’s stronghold in eastern Syria and regarded as the base from which it launched its June offensive.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition-backed watchdog group, said the strike also destroyed 14 ISIS military vehicles.
“Rebels have been fighting ISIS since January,” the wire writes. “For its part, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has escalated its attacks against [ISIS] positions since the group launched an offensive in neighbouring Iraq a month ago. Syrian Kurds have been fighting ISIS since 2013.”
Also yesterday, a Tunisian jihadist carried out a suicide car bomb attack in the Kurdish town of Ain Eissa, killing four Kurdish fighters. And in Aleppo province, ISIS seized three Kurdish areas to the east of Ain al-Arab, in the Kurdish northeast, killing at least 22 jihadists and 18 Kurdish fighters.
Syrian National Coalition Names New President
Syria’s moderate opposition group, the Syrian National Coalition (SNC), has elected a new president. The move comes as the moderate opposition faces a new siege by Assad forces in Aleppo that threatens its remaining influence on the ground.
The BBC reports that the favorite, Hadi al-Bahra, was chosen at a Tuesday meeting in Turkey. Al-Bahra was the SNC’s chief negotiator at the Geneva II peace talks – widely regarded as a failure – held this spring.
“Like Ahmed al-Jarba, whom he replaces, he has close ties to Saudi Arabia,” the network says. “Though the coalition is backed by the U.S. and Gulf Arab states, it has little influence over the rebels trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad. The hardline Islamist and jihadist fighters that dominate the rebel movement reject the alliance’s exiled leadership.”
U.N. Choses New Syria Envoy: Staffan de Mistura of Sweden
The U.N. has chosen Staffan de Mistura of Sweden as its Special Envoy to Syria, the Associated Press reports. According to fellow diplomats, de Mistura will be the U.N. envoy – not the joint U.N.-Arab League envoy, as predecessor Lakhdar Brahimi was – and will have an Arab deputy.
“Brahimi resigned May 31 after nearly two years of failed efforts to end Syria’s worsening civil war. He followed in the footsteps of his longtime friend, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who resigned from the same job in August 2012 after failing to broker a cease-fire as the country descended into war,” the wire says.
“Ban [Ki-moon] cast some blame on Syria’s rebels but was especially critical of President Bashar Assad’s government, the divided U.N. Security Council and feuding influential nations for failing to help Brahimi achieve a peace agreement. That leaves de Mistura facing an immense challenge as he tries to succeed where Brahimi and Annan failed.”