Aleppo resident operates cat sanctuary in besieged city

As thousands of people are fleeing from eastern Aleppo to avoid the fighting many leave their pet cats. Aleppo resident, Mohammed Aljaleel noticed that the number of cats without owners was increasing.

Aljaleel was an electrical maintenance worker before the civil war reached Aleppo in 2012. Aljaleel who has always loved cats built a small garden for them. His sanctuary began with just a small area cordoned off to protect the cats from stray dogs in which he fed the animals. Aljaleel said: “I started with 15 cats in the house, but gradually I have ended up with more than 150 cats from all over the city. And every day I have new additions join us in the house — some of them just come to eat and then they spend the night elsewhere.” Many people when they are leaving Aleppo take their cats to the sanctuary knowing that Aljaleel will take care of them.

Aljaleel tells a touching story of one cat that was brought to him:“One time a little girl brought me a cat. Her parents wanted to go abroad. So they came here — they knew there was a cat sanctuary here. The girl had brought the cat up since she was a kitten,” he said. “She cried as she handed her over to me and they left the country. I’ve been taking photos of the cat and sending them to her in Turkey. She begs me, ‘Send me photos of her. I miss her. Please promise to return my cat back to me when we come back.’ ”

The sanctuary has survived even during the bombing campaign by Russia and the Syrian government and in spite of the fact that food, medicine and fuel are increasingly scarce. Thanks to donations from around the world Alajeel decided that he would help out Aleppo's children as well and has also set up a playground for children in addition to the cat sanctuary. Al Jaleel said: “It was enough money to expand and improve the cat house, I added trees to the garden outside, and swings and seesaws. Now, children from around the neighbourhood, and other districts as well, come and play in the park and in the cat house."

A donation drive was spearheaded by Alessandra Abidin, an Lebanese-Italiam. She said that her cat Ernesto had died last year and she donated to Aljaleel's project in his memory. She then helped him out with the difficulties of collecting money and getting it to Syria. She said: “.. because of language barriers and sending money to Syria there were a lot of problems." There are now around 70 people worldwide who donate to the project. from Europe, the United States and even South America.

Three years ago, Aljaleel was still able to purchase offcuts from butchers for around $5 a day but at present, meat is a rare luxury even for humans. He now feeds the cats what his family eats rice mixed with canned Mortadella (Italian luncheon meat). At first, the cats would not eat it but after a few days they were hungry enough to start eating it and seem to enjoy it now. Even so, Aljaleel is still able only to provide the cats with one meal a day.

Donations have been so generous that Aljaleel has been able to accumulate three months worth of food supplies and has been using suprlus funds to help others. Aljaleel said: “We help mostly orphans and widows who don’t have any way to find their daily food.” He has used some funds to dig wells and buy two vans for his work as a voluntary medic.

On call for 24 hours a day, Aljaleel transports the dead and injured to the nearest medical facility. Aljaleel said:“This is taking up a lot of my days now, as the bombardment has been so brutal. I have to go anytime, whenever I get a call saying there has been a bomb, I just go. So, all of the donations go to humanitarian work, whether it goes to the cat house or whether it is helping transfer people to the closest medical facility.”

Aljaleel wants to make his sanctuary larger and share his experience with people in other countries. He hopes some day to have an entire park in Aleppo dedicated to the city's cat where people can have their children come and play with the cats. Aljaleel, unlike many others, has no desire to leave Aleppo in spite of all the destruction. He says: “I don't want to leave the city or migrate from my country as many of my friends have done. I want to stay here with my struggling neighbours, and help them, and the cats.” He also said: ‘Someone who has mercy in their heart for humans has mercy for every living thing.’

Civilans killed as rockets and mortars hit predominantly Kurdish area of Aleppo

Attacks by rockets and mortars hit a predominantly Kurdish area in the city of Aleppo, Syria. The area is under the control of the Syrian government of Bashir Assad.

Reports on the number of casualties vary. ABC claims 13 civilians were killed and 40 wounded according the government and also one opposition group. However the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights based in the UK said that nine civilians were killed, including four children, with dozens more wounded. The Observatory also claimed more than 70 rockets and mortar shells rained down on the Sheikh Maqsoud area.

The Observatory said the firing was by insurgents including the Al-Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front. The Front did not take part in negotiations for the recent ceasefire brokered by Russia and the U.S. Spokesperson Redir Xelil from the People's Protection Unit (YPG) also claimed the attacks killed nine civilians, including four children, two women and three men. An early report by Syrian state media claimed 14 were killed.

Fighting with the Islamic State and the Nusra Front continues but there has been a sharp drop in violence since the ceasefire came into effect, in spite of a number of reports of violations by both sides. The U.S. and Russia hope both sides will return to peace negotiations brokered by the UN next week. The Russian Foreign Ministry said that in a telephone conversation, both Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and John Kerry, the U.S. Secretary of State, had "an overall positive assessment of the progress toward securing the cease-fire in Syria, which is being generally observed and already has led to a sharp decrease in the level of violence." Although less aid has been delivered to besieged areas than expected, nevertheless, there has been "significant improvement" in humanitarian access. Some observers thought the Syria military might capture all of Aleppo before the ceasefire but that did not happen. The city has been contested by both sides for years and much of the city has been badly damaged.

In other Syria news, the U.S. appears to be expanding it operations in northeast Syria in areas controlled by the Kurdish YPG and is working on two separate air bases. While the U.S. Central Command issued a statement denying that the U.S. had any direct control over any airfields in Syria it did not deny that the projects were ongoing.

Islamic State moves against other rebels against key city on Turkish border

The Islamic State continued their offensive today in Aleppo province in Syria. Their forces are moving against the strategic city of Azaz just next to a key border crossing into Syria from Turkey.

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Azaz has been occupied by several different rebel groups since 2012, but of late the Islamic Front — no relation to the Islamic State — has controlled the area. The Islamic Front is an umbrella group of Islamist rebels. If the group loses Azaz to the Islamic State it will have lost the last main site they control in northern Syria and all of the border with Turkey would be under control of the Islamic State except for a few Kurdish controlled areas such as that around Kobane. The control of the border would allow the Islamic State to import foreign fighters and supplies through Turkey.The Islamic State has advanced to within 30 miles of Bab al-Salam, one of the main border crossings between Syria and Turkey and is only 7 miles from the main supply route to the south and Aleppo. The crossing had just reopened in May to commercial traffic and humanitarian aid.

The Islamic Front, desperate to avoid defeat, has called on the U.S. to provide air strikes against the Islamic State as they advance. The weekend assault caught Islamic Front rebels by surprise just as happened when the group recently took the city of Palmyra in Syria and the Iraqi city of Ramadi. In spite of more than eight months of air strikes by a US-led coalition the Islamic State is still able to advance into new territory although they have lost some ground.

Rebel commanders worry that control of Azaz by the Islamic State will cut off the main supply line to rebels in the Aleppo area. Rebels were rushing reinforcements north to the area. Leader of the rebel group Thuwar al-Sham, Abu Mohammed said: “Automatically, the Islamic State would gain control of Aleppo city. The situation is dire.” In villages recently seized by the Islamic State, rebels have been beheaded and some family members have been held hostage as well according to a defected former Syrian air force colonel now part of a rebel coalition group. The Assad regime has made no move to stop the offensive. The Islamic State attack has delayed a planned offensive by rebels against the Assad regime in Aleppo and other areas as they are now forced to send reinforcements north to fight the Islamic State.

Syria responds positively to UN proposal to suspend fighting in Aleppo

The UN special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura reports that Syria has responded positively to a UN proposal to suspend fighting in the city of Aleppo.

The Syrian President Bashar-al-Assad had said earlier that the UN proposal was worth studying. Speaking in Damascus yesterday, De Mistura said: "My meetings here with the government and with President Bashar al- Assad gave me the feeling that they are studying very seriously and very actively the UN proposal." There has been no response yet from rebel groups who will also be an important player in the UN "action plan" proposed by De Mistura.
 The Syrian state news agency SANA provided Assad's response to his meeting with De Mistura: "President Assad has been informed by de Mistura of the main points of his initiative. He said it was worthy of study and that work on it is needed … in order to re-establish security in Aleppo." Earlier comments on De Mistura's proposals in the Syrian press had been critical. Aleppo has been divided between rebel and government controlled areas since mid-2012. The UN plan would not only freeze fighting but would allow humanitarian aid into the city and also provide the foundation for peace talks even though the proposal itself is not a peace plan. At the same time, the government is fighting rebels, the Islamic State is attempting to take nearby areas held by rebels.
 An activist from Aleppo Mohammed al-Shafi said that if the government did agree to the UN proposal, there would be pressure from residents for rebels to agree as this would improve conditions for the residents. De Mistura also visited the city of Homs. He was expected to meet a group representing rebels from al-Waar the last part of Homs still held by the rebels.
 A ceasefire agreement was negotiated in Homs earlier this year. Being UN envoy to Syria has so far been a thankless, difficult role for any diplomat to fill. The last envoy Lakhdar Brahimini worked tirelessly to try to work out peace deals but progress was very limited.Two rounds of Geneva peace talks achieved little either. Only political groups attended the peace talks with many rebel fighting groups rejecting them.

Two moderate Syrian rebel groups surrender to Al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front

Two of the main moderate rebel groups who had received weapons from the US have surrendered to the Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front after defeats in battle.There are reports that Islamic State forces joined the Nusra Front in at least one attack.

When the US bombed Islamic State positions in Syria they also bombed Nusra Front positions claiming they were attacking a group called Khorasan said to be threatening attacks on the west. However, the result has been disastrous. Not only were almost all rebel groups furious but the move appears to have led to the Nusra Front cooperating with the Islamic State rather than fighting it along with other rebel groups. The Harakat Hazm and the Syrian Revolutionary Front were two major rebel groups to become part of the vetted moderate rebel forces chosen to fight the Islamic State. The Hazm movement had even received heavy weapons including Grad rockets and TOW anti-tank weapons and they had in turn supplied weapons to the Syrian Revolutionary Front(SRF).
 On Saturday, Jabhat al-Nusra or the Nusra Front stormed villages controlled by Hazm in the northern province of Idlib. The group surrendered their bases and weapons supplies to the group. A day earlier the Nusra Front had captured the home town of the Revolutionary Front's leader Jamal Marouf. The Nusra Front claims to have captured TOW missiles when it took over the home town of Marouf. His group fled into the mountains.
 Aymen al-Tammimi an analyst of the Syrian situation said:"As a movement, the SRF is effectively finished. Nusra has driven them out of their strongholds of Idlib and Hama." Marouf had become a prominent rebel leader praised in the west because he had launched the rebel offensive that had driven the Islamic State forces from most of the territory in two northern provinces they had wrested mostly from other rebel forces. Now jihadist forces linked to Al-Qaeda have driven him from his own strongholds into the mountains and taken over his home village. The US has from the beginning been wary of supplying any heavy weapons to the Syrian rebels in case they should end up in the hands of militant groups they oppose.
  Some reports indicate that Harakat Hazm simply decided to surrender to the Nusra Front without a shot being fired and that some members of Hazm joined the jihadist group. Even the moderate rebel groups were furious that the US is bombing groups fighting the Assad regime, especially Al Nusra Front who had been working with them. Even moderate rebels are primarily interested in the overthrow of Assad. The Hazm group still exists in Aleppo but only after they gave up some of their checkpoints to Al Nusra and signed a ceasefire agreement with them. One of the conditions for giving Hazm weapons was that the group would not work with Jabhat al-Nusra. The Al-Qaeda group felt that Hazm's close relations with the US made it a threat and that may be one of the reasons they attacked the group.
Obama announced that part of his fight against the Islamic State will involve training, arming, and equipping 5,000 Syrian rebels to fight against the Islamic State. The US appears to have completely misread the situation. The rigorous vetting process will take several months before training can even begin and it will be up to a year before the force is prepared to fight. Just last month a US official said that they would hasten the process by choosing rebels from groups already vetted. Included among those were Harakat Hazm.
 Apparently the operation rooms in Turkey that funnel weapons to rebels have been revamped and have representatives from the US, Britain, France, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE. A Syrian source said that Qatar had been thrown out of the group over suspicions that it had been helping Jabhat al-Nusra but was being allowed back. The system for supplying weapons is complicated and is intended more to ensure that donor countries have confidence that the weapons were used for their proper purposes rather than providing effective aid to commanders. The US is intending to develop its own elite forces but these forces also could become victims of jihadist rebels who are interested only in attacking Assad and will only attack the Islamic State if IS attacks them.

US bombings in Syria anger almost all Syria rebels

The Islamic State(IS) has captured territory held by other rebel groups and fought against them. Surely the rebels should welcome the strikes. However, the strikes were directed not only against IS but other radical rebel groups as well.

The US bombing attacks also targeted Jabhat al-Nusra(JaN), an Al-Qaeda-linked radical group but one that has mostly fought in cooperation with the FSA and other rebel groups such as the Islamic Front. There are reports that the bombing attacks were directed also at Ahrar al-Sham in the Aleppo area. The group is not linked to Al-Qaeda at all and operates in tandem with the Free Syrian Army that is supported by the west.
One US official explained: "We're characterizing our targets as Khorasan and ISIS but its possible others were there. It is a toxic soup of terrorists". Khorasan is a jihadist group that has migrated to Syria. It is associated with Al Qaeda and apparently includes a bomb-maker from Yemen. It hopes to hit targets in the west. James Clapper, Director of US National Intelligence claims that "in terms of threat to the homeland Khorasan may pose as much of a danger as the Islamic State (IS)".
While attacking the Nusra Front and Khorasan mayl seem quite reasonable from the point of view of the US war against terror, it makes no sense to Syrian rebels. Just when the rebels need all the help they can get against the Assad regime, the US actions appear to help him out in key areas such as Aleppo where the rebels are already having difficulties holding their ground and radical groups are an important fighting force. The US has claimed that it was bombing the Islamic State in Syria but instead it is attacking any radical rebel group that it does not like even though those groups are helping the Free Syrian army and other rebels against Assad.
The bombings are cheered on by the Asssad regime which originally opposed them as violations of its sovereignty and against international law. Syrian minister for national reconciliation, Ali Haidar, praised the attacks although Syria was still watching developments with caution: "As for the raids in Syria, I say that what has happened so far is proceeding in the right direction in terms of informing the Syrian government and by not targeting Syrian military installations and not targeting civilians.Notification of the Syrian government happened. Confirmation that they would not target Syrian military installations, and confirmation they would not target civilians happened." Civilians are not typically targeted in any event but are just collateral damage.
 Rebel groups of all stripes condemned the bombings. The Syrian Revolutionaries Front, a major secular coalition in the north-west of Syria that drove ISIS out of Idlib in January along with other rebel groups condemned the bombings claiming:"You help Bashar" Although bombing strikes targeted Idlib there are no IS forces there any more. One of the first condemnations of the strikes was by Harak Hazm an FSA militia operating mostly in Hama and numbering about 7,000:“The Hazem Movement rejects the external intervention of the US Coalition, which launched its first airstrikes on Tuesday in the governorates of Deir el Zour, Raqqa, al Hasaka, Aleppo, Idlib and Homs, with 11 civilians killed in rural Idlib province and five others in rural Homs province, as well as fighters from Jabhat al Nusra and the ISIS.These air attacks amount to *an attack on national sovereignty* and work to *undermine the Syrian revolution...We of the Hazem Movement hereby reaffirm our full commitment to the principles of the revolution, and emphasize that *our actions are guided solely by revolutionary principles and national interest, not by the demands of the international coalition...The only beneficiaries from the US coalition’s military intervention will be the Assad regime,.."
There have been demonstrations against the bombings in many rebel areas. While many are in support of the Nusra Front there are others which even express sympathy with the Islamic State: The enclosed You Tube video shows damage in bombings of Al Nusra Front positions: The only clear support for the bombings among rebel groups was the group supported by the west and Gulf state the Syrian Opposition Coalition(SOC) and the Supreme Military Command(SMC). The latter group supported "all earnest national forces and free international forces who are fighting terrorism but said that this should begin with attacking "the Assad Gang" whom the group claimed created the Islamic State.
 The aim of the US may to be to weaken or eliminate rebel groups it does not favor even though they are fighting cooperatively along with other rebel groups against Assad. The type of force that they will train will play the role of the Sons of Iraq in Iraq who were paid by the US government to fight against Al Qaeda in Iraq. This worked as long as the US continued to foot the bill. It may not work in Syria. The main rebel groups see radicals as allies as long as they work together against Assad. Destroying rebel's allies will not win any friends among the majority of the rebels even moderates. The ultimate aim of US policy may not be to defeat the Assad regime but to create a situation where there are more pro-western moderate rebels but who will be willing to negotiate with a war-weary and weakened Assad regime. Assad will be convinced to step aside and there will be a political settlement with the new government committed to fighting radical jihadists throughout Syria. Much of the material in this article derives from a long and very interesting article plus many links by Michael Karadjis from the University of Western Sydney to be found here.