Morning Star.png Syria: Army Puts Nusra Front on Back Foot Republic's forces launch attacks to secure crucial city of Aleppo James Tweedie, The Morning Star, 5 December 2015 Syrian troops moved to cut off Islamist fighters in the city of Aleppo and to its north on the Turkish border yesterday. The army moved against the town of Hraytan, occupied by the al-Qaida-affiliated Nusra Front. The town lies between west Aleppo to the south, the Sheik Najjar industrial city to the north-east and Zahraa to the north-west. Army sources told the government-linked Sana news agency that their forces targeted Islamist positions and troop movements in Hraytan, destroying several armed vehicles. Rebel sources said Russian jets bombed supply convoys outside the town. Government forces also struck out from Zahraa and districts of Aleppo. Capturing Hraytan could turn the rebel-held east of Aleppo into a modern-day Stalingrad. It could also cut off a corridor of territory north of the city up to the Turkish border round the town of Azaz, one of the major routes of the oil-for-arms trade with Turkey. In the last week the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) have been pushing into the Azaz corridor from their western stronghold around Afrin. Some reports claimed that Russian forces had aided the YPG's advance with air strikes and helicopter arms drops. Islamic State (Isis) has been attacking from the east in a race to grab the Nusra-held territory. Saudis undermining Vienna talks Saudi Arabia has announced it will host a conference of Syrian rebel forces next week in a bid to agree a common position ahead of peace talks with the government of President Bashar al-Assad. The extremist Jaysh al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham militias have been invited but, pointedly, not the YPG. "We will be negotiating Assad's departure," insisted Turkish-based Syrian National Coalition vice-president Mustafa Osso. "If this regime stays, violence will continue in Syria and there will be no stability." But Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian warned: "The action will divert political effort on Syria from its natural path and will drive the Vienna talks toward failure." On Thursday US Secretary of State John Kerry said the war against Isis could be over within months once a ceasefire with rebels was struck. From: http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/a-4029-Syria-Army-puts-Nusra-Front-on-bac k-foot#.VmJqh7h9600 -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
