UN Calls for 48-hour Local Ceasefire to Facilitate Aid Deliveries

The United Nations have asked Syria’s warring factions to commit to 48-hour local truces to facilitate aid deliveries to besieged areas, Reuters reported.

Increased fighting has obstructed the delivery of aid to many areas, said Jan Egeland, humanitarian adviser to U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura.

“A humanitarian truce could work in following manner: we get 72 hours’ notice to go and we get a pause in the fighting for 48 hours. That is what we need. That is what it takes to have a lifeline to places where people are at the brink of starvation,” he explained.

Eastern Aleppo had recently become one of those places, he added; the 300,000 people living in the opposition-held areas of the city had only weeks of supplies left. The rebel-held part of the city lost its last supply route after a government advance cut off access to the Castello Road on July 7.

“We need this lifeline to be re-established,” Egeland said.

Madaya and Darayya are other besieged towns in Syria in dire need of aid, he said. Madaya’s 40,000 residents have not received humanitarian supplies since April 30, and Darayya has received aid only once in the past four years.

A nationwide cessation of hostilities facilitated by international peace talks in February fell apart two months later. If a nationwide ceasefire cannot be implemented in Syria now, Egeland said, the alternative is local truces to facilitate humanitarian access to areas in need.

American killed in Syria fighting ISIS with Kurdish Forces

A U.S national fighting with Kurdish forces in Syria against ISIS militants has been killed during the ongoing battle to recapture the northern town of Manbij, the Guardian reported.

Levi Jonathan Shirley died on July 14, according to an online statement by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia he was fighting with.

According to the statement on the YPG website, Shirley first traveled to the Kurdish-controlled Syria northeast in February of last year to join the Kurdish faction. He then returned to the U.S. for a brief period before traveling back to Syria to fight in the ranks of the YPG, where he participated in battles against ISIS and helped defend Kurdish-held areas in the northern provinces.

Most recently, Shirley fought in the battle for Manbij. The struggle to recapture the ISIS-held town began in May led by a U.S.-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The battle for Manbij has faced a local and international backlash after U.S.-led airstrikes were reported to have killed dozens of civilians, including a number of children.

At least 12 foreign fighters have died fighting ISIS militants alongside the Kurdish forces in Syria. The YPG statement said Shirley, known as Agir Servan to his Kurdish comrades, was “known for his bravery and sense of self-sacrifice.”

Jabhat al-Nusra Executes 14 ‘Regime Prisoners’

Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaida affiliate in Syria, executed 14 men whom it accused of fighting for the Syrian government, according to Agence France Presse.

Nusra posted a video of the execution on its social media account: it shows all 14 men, many of them injured, being shot in the head simultaneously. According to the militants’ statement in the video, the execution was a retaliation against the recent advances in Damascus of forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.

“Implementation of the death sentence against a group of … regime prisoners because of their attack on Harira village in Wadi Barada,” read subtitles on the video.

Wadi Barada is in the Qalamoun region of the Damascus Suburbs province, and is largely controlled by armed opposition groups including the Nusra Front. An earlier video had warned that Jabhat al-Nusra would kill 14 captives if government forces attacked Harira.

Recommended Reads:

• The National Interest: Beheadings and Accountability in Syria
• International Business Times: Syrian Refugee Artist Uses Pokemon Go to Illustrate Tragedy of Lives Ripped Apart by War
• The Wall Street Journal: Russia Bombed Base in Syria Used by U.S.
• The Washington Institute: The Islamic State Threat in the Golan Heights
• War on the Rocks: The Logic for (Shoddy) U.S. Covert Action in Syria