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Syria army inches closer towards IS-held Palmyra
By Serene Assir and Rouba El Husseini
Beirut (AFP) March 21, 2016


Assad's fate still 'excluded' from Syria peace talks: regime negotiator
Geneva (AFP) March 21, 2016 - Syria's regime on Monday reiterated its stance that peace talks in Geneva will not address President Bashar al-Assad's future, after the UN urged Damascus to submit plans for political transition.

"President Assad has nothing to do with the... talks," lead government negotiator Bashar al-Jaafari told journalists.

Jaafari insisted that political transition in the war-ravaged country and Assad's fate were "two separate issues."

"The references of our talks do not give any indication whatsoever with regard to the president of the Syrian Arab Republic," he said.

Assad's future "is something that is already excluded from the scene", Jaafari said, following his meeting with United Nations mediator Staffan de Mistura.

The main opposition High Negotiations Committee (HNC) has made Assad's departure a non-negotiable demand before any peace deal can be agreed.

De Mistura has described political transition as "the mother of all issues" standing in the way of a breakthrough, but has not directly addressed the Assad question.

As the talks entered their second week, Jaafari said the atmosphere was "positive," even if progress was "lagging", while charging the HNC with not doing its part.

"We have clear instructions from our leadership to engage seriously in these talks but the other side is not responding seriously," Jaafari said.

De Mistura on Friday said he has been urging the regime to submit concrete proposals for its vision of a transition government that could lead Syria out of five-years of brutal conflict.

Jaafari countered on Monday that his side had given the UN a document addressing principles for a political solution to the conflict.

Battles raged around Palmyra Monday as Syrian soldiers backed by Russian warplanes sought to recapture the ancient city in what would be a major symbolic victory over the Islamic State group.

Troops and allied militia backed by Russian air power have since early March been pushing an advance around the UNESCO World Heritage Site known as the "Pearl of the Desert".

They are now just four kilometres (2.5 miles) from the gates of the city that fell to the jihadists in May last year, sending shock waves around the world.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, the advance has been "slow" despite some 800 air strikes by Russia and the Syrian regime this month alone.

Last week, the army recaptured a strategic hill at the southwestern entrance of Palmyra, four kilometres from the city.

IS has fiercely resisted the advance, killing at least 26 pro-government fighters on Monday, the Observatory said.

Aamaq, an IS-linked website, claimed that 30 troops were killed in an attack by a jihadist suicide bomber.

"Meanwhile, warplanes believed to be Russian struck parts of Palmyra city and its surroundings in the east of Homs province, as well as Al-Qaryatain in the southeast," the Observatory said.

"The battle for Palmyra is decisive for the regime, as it paves the way for the recapture of the desert area all the way up to the eastern border with Iraq," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

"IS would automatically lose the desert stretching from Palmyra to the Iraqi border -- in other words, 30,000 square kilometres (12,000 square miles)," he added.

That would cut IS's area of control from some 40 percent of Syrian territory to 30 percent, the Observatory said, adding that jihadists could then be pushed across the border into Iraq.

- Symbolic value -

Thomas Pierret, a Syria expert at the University of Edinburgh, said he doubted that the army would be able to advance much further beyond Palmyra, however.

"Let's not forget that whatever its advances in Palmyra, the regime is still fighting very difficult battles against IS in the desert west of Palmyra, in the eastern parts of the provinces of Homs and Hama," he told AFP.

But recapturing Palmyra would still be an important regime victory.

"Symbolically it would be huge, since it would enable the regime to portray itself as the protector of Palmyra's antique ruins, even if this comes at the price of turning the modern, inhabited part of the city into rubble," Pierret said.

Should the Syrian army retake Palmyra, that would also "help pro- (President Bashar al-) Assad lobbying in the West, which in the medium/long-term could be a game changer," he said.

Since IS captured Palmyra, the city has become practically deserted after most civilians took flight.

Images recently distributed by the Observatory purported to show residential areas of the city in ruins after months of air strikes.

"The regime has adopted a scorched earth policy, and is trying to advance on several sides of the city," said the Palmyra News Network, which is run by local activists.

Some families that had remained were now fleeing towards the Jordan border, fearing for their lives, the group said.

Global concern for Palmyra's magnificent ancient ruins spiked in September 2015, when satellite images confirmed that IS had demolished the famed Temple of Bel as part of its campaign to destroy pre-Islamic monuments it considers idolatrous.

The jihadists have waged a sustained campaign of destruction against heritage sites in areas it controls in Syria and Iraq, and in mid-August last year beheaded the city's 82-year-old former antiquities chief.


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Previous Report
WAR REPORT
Russian air strikes in Syria this week after all: US military
Washington (AFP) March 19, 2016
Russia did carry out air strikes in Syria this week, a US military spokesman said Friday, hours after asserting the opposite. "While we've seen no Russian air strikes in the northern areas of Syria this week, it appears the Russians have conducted some air strikes after all in southern Syria in the vicinity of Palmyra in support of the Syrian regime," US Central Command spokesman Colonel Pat ... read more


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