As U.S. attacks Islamic State, Syria steps up assaults on moderate rebels - The Washing... - 0 views
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Syrian government forces have dramatically intensified air and ground assaults on areas held by moderate rebels, attempting to deliver crippling blows as world attention shifts to airstrikes by a U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.
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Rebels in Aleppo say President Bashar al-Assad’s military has escalated attacks in northern areas of the city, trying to cut the supply lines of opposition fighters inside Aleppo. “During the last three days, we have been hit by over 120 barrel bombs,” said Ahmed Abu Talal, a rebel belonging to the Islamic Front group, referring to particularly deadly high-explosive bombs that are often dropped by helicopter. Syria’s military has virtually encircled the city with the help of Shiite militias from Lebanon and Iran, the Assad regime’s chief ally.
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Abu Talal said pro-government forces are trying to take the village of Handarat, which is located just north of Aleppo and next to one of the last roads connecting the city’s rebels with reinforcements and food brought in from the Turkish border. The fall of that road would constitute a major blow to Assad’s opposition in a three-year-old civil war that has killed nearly 200,000 people.
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I take this article more as an indication of what the current line of pro-war propaganda is in the U.S. than an indication of what is really happening in Syria. Bear in mind that there is no moderate opposition to the Syrian government and all sources for this article are opposition spokesmen and the "Syrian Observatory for Human Rights" in the UK, a one-man show that functions as a U.S. government propaganda mouthpiece.