Russia Says Mission Accomplished in Syria

Moscow declared victory over the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria on Thursday, saying the country has been “completely liberated” from the militant group, Agence France-Presse reported.

“The Russian armed forces’ goal to defeat armed groups of the ISIL terrorist organization in Syria has been accomplished,” senior military officer Sergei Rudskoi told reporters, using a different acronym for Islamic State.

“There is not a single village or district in Syria under the control of ISIL. The territory of Syria has been completely liberated from fighters of this terrorist organization.”

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, however, claims that 8 percent of Deir Ezzor province remains under militant control, AFP said.

Other sources say ISIS also still controls some minor positions in northern Hama, in the Yarmouk basin and in areas adjacent to the Golan Heights.

Rudskoi said “separate sabotage bands” of ISIS could still be fighting in Syria. But he said the Syrian government, not Russian forces, would fight them – in an indication that Moscow is looking to wind down its military involvement in the war-torn country.

He said that with the defeat of ISIS in Syria, Russia will focus on “rebuilding peace” and preserving cease-fires.

Opposition Says It Is Under Pressure to Change Position Toward Assad

The Syrian opposition’s delegation to Geneva says it is coming under diplomatic pressure to “freeze” its demand for Bashar al-Assad’s departure as a precondition of a settlement, AFP reported on Thursday.

“Most of the diplomats that have visited the delegation have repeated the same call,” an opposition delegate told AFP on condition of anonymity.

“They want us to freeze the demand that Assad step down, but not abandon it completely.”

The eighth round of peace talks opened in Geneva last month. They have since fallen into disarray after the Syrian government quit negotiations last week because of the opposition’s insistence on Assad’s departure before the start of a political transition. The government delegation is expected to return to Geneva on Sunday – five days after talks resumed this week.

According to AFP, the “western envoys” that spoke to the opposition delegation have argued that freezing the demand would push the Syrian government to engage more seriously in talks. Unidentified opposition delegates who spoke to AFP said that they would not alter their position.

Meanwhile, the United Nations special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said on Thursday that he will assess next week “the behavior of both sides, government and opposition, in Geneva,” to determine whether either side is trying to “sabotage” negotiations, Reuters reported.

If either party was found to be sabotaging peace talks it could have “a very bad impact on any other political attempt to have processes elsewhere,” he said, in a possible reference to the Russian-sponsored Syrian National Congress, which is set to be held in the city of Sochi in early 2018.

‘Thousands of ISIS Fighters Left Raqqa in Secret Deal’

Thousands of ISIS fighters left the city of Raqqa under a Washington-approved secret deal in October, a former commander in the Syrian Democratic Forces told Reuters.

Talal Sillo, who defected to Turkey some three weeks ago, announced in mid-October a deal between the SDF and ISIS in Raqqa that allowed for the evacuation of less than 300 fighters and their families, only days before United States-backed forces recaptured the entire city from the extremist group.

However, in his latest interview, the former SDF commander said that about 4,000 people, all fighters except for around 500 civilians, had been allowed safe passage out of the embattled city. They headed to ISIS-held territory in Deir Ezzor province, he said.

Sillo claimed that an unidentified U.S. official approved the deal during a meeting with SDF commanders. He explained that Washington was seeking a swift end to battles in Raqqa in order to boost SDF deployment in Deir Ezzor.

The U.S. coalition has denied these allegations. “The coalition utterly refutes any false accusations from any source that suggests the coalition’s collusion with ISIS,” it said in a statement.

The BBC last month also published a report claiming that a number of ISIS fighters, many more than had been originally reported, were allowed to exit Raqqa as part of a secret deal with the SDF.

Recommended Reads

• The New York Times: Russia Balks at Cross-Border Humanitarian Aid in Syria
• Al-Monitor: Syrian Kurds Move Closer to Russia
• BBC: Syria War: U.N. Rebukes Russia and Iran Over Evacuations
• NPR: Names Written in Blood and Rust: Documenting Syria’s Disappeared
• Vanity Fair: It’s Virtually Impossible to Enter Syria. These Filmmakers Are Still Documenting It.