Assad offers Eid prayers near area seized from IS

An ISIS fighter is seen in a bus as he departs from the Lebanon Syria border zone in Qalamoun
Assad gains confidence for victory in Syria's 6-year-old civil war
Author

02 September, 2017

Hadi al-Amiri, who heads the Badr Organisation, said that negotiating with the IS could save lives, and that he wished there had been a similar deal to avert the high death toll in the battle for the Iraqi city of Mosul. "The so-called caliphate was defeated", Nasrallah said during a televized address. "He can not be the solution", Le Drian said.

But in the north, the United States - which opposes Assad, Iran and Hezbollah - has led a coalition backing Kurdish and Arab militias as they assault Islamic State's former Syrian capital of Raqqa.

Robert Ford, U.S. ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014 and now a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, is more emphatic.

He also proposed a summit next year about the return of Syrian refugees to their country, a "key issue" for the stabilization of the region.

The deadliest incident investigated in July was a March 14 strike near Mosul, in which the coalition attacked an Islamic State position where fighters were firing at coalition allies. "President Assad responded to our request for the sake of Lebanon even though it was of no benefit to Syria", Nasrallah said.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura said last month that he hopes to launch "real, substantive" peace talks between the government and a still-to-be-formed unified Syrian opposition in October. But the fate of the main part of the convoy is uncertain. "We are in Turkey, because of it's safe for us here".

USA officials have criticized the transfer of hundreds of militants and civilians who are bound for an IS-held area near the Iraqi border, saying the extremists should be killed on the battlefield.

Russia, which is providing air support to Assad's forces, said capturing the oil-rich Deir el-Zour province is the current military priority.

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (5th R) attends prayers on the first day of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, inside a mosque in the town of Qara, north of Damascus, Syria, in this handout picture provided by SANA on September 1, 2017.

In Syria, the government of President Bashar al-Assad has rapidly gained ground this year as the army advanced eastwards, backed by Russian Federation and allied Iran-backed militia including Hezbollah, towards its besieged enclave in Deir al-Zor.

Hezbollah's leader, a close ally of Assad during Syria's six-year civil war, has not publicly discussed going to Damascus for a long time and his comments about the evacuation followed criticism of the deal."I went to President Assad".

"He (Assad) told me, this is embarrassing for us, but no problem", Nasrallah told supporters gathered in eastern Lebanon for a "victory rally" to celebrate the expulsion of IS from the border area.

Finally, the convoy trying to reach the town of Sukhna was blocked by US-led airstrikes on Thursday.


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