U.N. Security Council, in Unanimous Vote, Allows Aid Delivery to Syrians in Rebel Areas
The New York Times reports that the U.N. Security Council has voted 15-0 to allow cross-border convoys of aid into Syria. An estimated 10.8 million Syrians need assistance, with roughly half of them in rebel-held areas, targets of government air strikes.
“Monday’s resolution strengthened the provisions of another adopted five months ago and signified a rare unanimity among the Security Council members over how to deal with the civil war,” writes Rick Gladstone. “The conflict has left more than 150,000 people dead, spread instability in the region and created what international aid officials are calling one of the world’s biggest humanitarian disasters.
“The resolution was the Council’s response to the repeated frustrations of relief officials from the United Nations and other emergency relief groups over their inability to reach these civilians, who are trapped in besieged areas or otherwise hard-to-reach parts of the country because of the fighting.”
ISIS Consolidates Ground in Eastern Syria, Expels al-Qaida-Linked Rivals
The AP reports that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) took control of opposition-held areas of Deir Ezzor on Monday after expelling fighters from al-Qaida-linked rival Jabhat al-Nusra.
The developments effectively consolidate ISIS’s territory in eastern Syria. The group is almost in full control of Deir Ezzor province, but Assad troops still maintain control over half half of Deir Ezzor city.
ISIS’s march through Syria’s oil-rich province, along the border with Iraq, “brings the extremist Sunni group closer to a showdown with President Bashar Assad’s forces,” the wire says. “The group recently captured cities and towns in northern Iraq and merged them with much of the territory under its control in eastern Syria.”
Syria’s Allies Are Stretched Thin by Widening War
Sam Dagher of the Wall Street Journal reports that Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group fighting alongside Bashar al-Assad across Syria, and now stepping up its involvement in Iraq, has stretched itself thin. This could erode its success in Syria, where it has helped the regime clinch victories from Damascus to Qalamoun.
“A Sunni rebellion against the Shiite-dominated government in neighboring Iraq is drawing home Iraqi Shiites who have been fighting alongside Hezbollah in Syria,” he writes. “The confrontation between Palestinian militants, whom Hezbollah regards as allies, and Israel, now entering its second week, also raises the potential for fresh violence along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel.”
And on the outskirts of Damascus, “hanging from lampposts and plastered on walls, was evidence of the costs to Hezbollah of its decision to enlist on the side of Mr. Assad: posters commemorating the Lebanese, Iraqi and Syrian Shiite fighters who have been killed in recent battles with rebels fighting to oust the regime.”
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