Extremists Withdraw From Arsal, While ISIS Make Gains in Raqqa
The BBC reports that Islamist jihadist groups from Syria have “mostly withdrawn” from the Lebanese border town of Arsal, after a truce brokered by Sunni Muslim clerics ended almost a week of fighting between the extremists and the Lebanese armed forces.
“Lebanon’s government on Thursday announced an extra 12,000 troops would be deployed to the area,” the network says. “Arsal fell to militants from Syria over the weekend, the first major incursion into Lebanon since the start of the Syrian conflict. Seventeen Lebanese soldiers have died in the fighting, and 19 soldiers are reported to still be held captive by the militants who released three soldiers and six internal security forces officers on Wednesday.”
Meanwhile, Reuters reports that ISIS stormed one of the last government-held army bases in Raqqa province, which is now almost entirely under the militants’ control.
The overnight attack killed dozens of soldiers.
“A monitoring group said over 40 people were killed in multiple suicide car bombings carried out by ISIS fighters and in ensuing clashes,” the wire says. “Raqqa is a major stronghold of ISIS, which took control of the provincial capital and expelled rival Syrian rebel groups at the start of the year.
“The group’s hardened fighters – many of them foreign – have been chipping away at government holdouts in the area since last month. ISIS fighters killed at least 50 soldiers when they took over a base outside Raqqa city about two weeks ago. They also killed around 270 soldiers, guards and staff when they overran a gas field in central Syria about a week before that.”
U.S. Says It Rules Out Working with Syria’s Assad to Counter al-Qaida
Adam Entous of the Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration “has ruled out the possibility of working with the Assad regime in Syria to counter the threat posed by al Qaida-linked militants, rebuffing suggestions that the U.S. might have to consider a counterterrorism partnership with the regime.”
White House officials dismissed the chances of a partnership last week during a meeting with Syrian opposition leaders, though Entous reports that “some officials in the Obama administration have suggested privately that now might be the time to consider cooperating with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to counter al Qaida-linked fighters who have seized large swaths of Syrian and Iraqi territory.
“Some former officials have publicly floated the idea that an Assad government is not the worst option in Syria, given the extremist-dominated opposition.”
Progress on Destroying Syria’s Chemical Stockpile
The New York Times reports that “nearly 75 percent of Syria’s known chemical arms material has been destroyed,” according to an announcement made Thursday by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the international organization responsible for policing a treaty banning the munitions.
The announcement “said a significant volume of the material had been incinerated at Ellesmere Port, a site in Britain, mainly ingredients for making the nerve agent and hydrochloric acid. Facilities in Finland, Germany and the United States are also destroying portions of the Syrian stockpile, which was exported from Syria in June after repeated delays.”
Suggested Reads from Our Editorial Team
LA Times: Islamic State’s Momentum Complicates the Fight in Syria
AP: German Intel: Extremist Flow to Syrian ‘Unbroken’
AFP: Refugees Leave Lebanon’s Arsal for Syria