MOSCOW (Reuters) - The Russian air force will continue striking targets in Syria linked to Islamic State and other terrorist groups despite a partial withdrawal, the RIA news agency quoted Russian Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov as saying on Tuesday.

Pankov was speaking a day after President Vladimir Putin announced that "the main part" of the Russian military contingent in Syria would begin to withdraw.

"Certain positive results have been achieved. A real chance has emerged to put an end to this long-running standoff," RIA quoted Pankov as saying at a "mission accomplished" ceremony at Russia's air base in Hmeymim, Syria.

"But it is still early to talk about victory over terrorism. The Russian aviation group has the task to continue carrying out strikes on terrorist facilities."

(Reporting by Maria Kiselyova; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

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An Al Qaeda affiliate launched an attack against Western-backed rebels in a key area of Syria, bolstering the terrorist group's territorial holdings inside the war-torn country and giving more credence to the central theme of President Bashar al-Assad's continued hold on power.

In an attack over the weekend, the Nusra Front, Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, took over bases and seized US-supplied weapons from the Free Syrian Army's 13th Division in Idlib, according to The Wall Street Journal.

And as the Nusra Front gains ground in rebel strongholds in Syria, Assad has pushed the narrative that his opposition is filled with terrorists and should be discounted.

For years, Assad has been positioning himself as the last bulwark against a total jihadist takeover of Syria, pointing to the advance of groups like the Nusra Front and ISIS (also known as the Islamic State, ISIL, or Daesh) as proof that the rebels that oppose him have a terrorist agenda.

It's part of a simple strategy: Convince the West that he is fighting a war on terrorism while trying to destroy nationalist rebels who want to topple his regime. Assad wants the West to believe that it has a choice between supporting him and supporting Syrian jihadists, ignoring the moderate rebels who oppose the regime.

While Assad is indeed fighting jihadist groups in some areas of Syria, the regime's main focus is on the moderate rebels who pose more of a threat to his legitimacy.

The Nusra Front's attack in Idlib, a northwest province of Syria that has a strong rebel presence, could give Assad even more of a bargaining chip to argue that he is the best option for preventing the spread of terrorism in Syria.

Abu Faisal — a Syrian aid worker who goes by a pseudonym and has been working with locals in Maaret al Nouman, the city where the fighting this weekend was centered — said the situation there is now "chaotic."

Rebel losses to the Nusra Front could force a pivot on the ground. While in some cases moderate rebels have collaborated with Nusra against the regime, Nusra attacks on rebels will end such agreements.

Faisal predicted that rebel groups are now headed toward "war" with the Nusra Front.

"In the long-run this is good because when Al Nusra is gone, their thuggery will be gone and the coalition won't have any excuse to not fund moderates and it'll destroy Assad's 'us or them' narrative," Faisal said, referring to the reluctance of the US-backed anti-ISIS coalition's reluctance to throw more support behind the Syrian opposition.

But even if an escalated fight against the Nusra Front has the potential to wipe out the jihadists in Syria, it still could improve Assad's bargaining chip at the expense of the opposition as peace talks between the regime and the opposition continue in Geneva, Switzerland.

"In the meantime this is great news for the regime and horrible news for Syrians on the ground," he said. "The more territory Al Nusra controls, the more the 'us or them' narrative grows stronger and, ironically, the less support moderates get from the coalition."

And the Nusra Front controlling more territory in areas that were previously held by rebels could lead to more bombing in these areas, where civilians still live.

Ahmed Alwan, a senior cleric in Maaret al Nouman, told The Journal that the Nusra Front wants to be the "paramount force" in Idlib.

This week marks the fifth anniversary of the Syrian civil war, which kicked off in 2011 with protests over Assad's dictatorial rule. A tenuous ceasefire is in place while representatives from the regime and the opposition meet for peace talks in Switzerland. But since the Nusra Front is a designated terrorist group, it is not included in the ceasefire.

It's not just the Nusra Front the Syrian opposition has to worry about, either. Russia has been bombing extensively in Syria since late last year, targeting mostly anti-Assad rebels under the guise of fighting terrorism. The airstrikes have weakened the opposition, which has ceded territory to the regime.

Russia announced on Monday that it would begin withdrawing ground troops in Syria this week, but it's unclear how much that will change the situation on the ground, as airstrikes against rebels in the country are likely to continue.

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A Russian diplomat sought to reassure Israel on Tuesday that its security would not be harmed by the winding down of Moscow's military intervention in Syria's civil war, but a top Israeli lawmaker said the ramifications could not yet be gauged.

Israeli officials have privately said Russian forces sent in last year to help Syrian President Bashar Assad turn the tide against an almost 5-year-old rebellion also served to restrain his anti-Israeli allies - Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah militia.

Israel was further helped by a hotline to the main Russian airbase at Syria's Hmeymim, which let it continue covert strikes to foil suspected Hezbollah or Iranian operations against it on Syrian turf without fear of accidentally clashing with Moscow.

Russia blindsided world powers on Monday by announcing that "the main part" of its forces in Syria would start to withdraw. Russia's deputy ambassador to Israel on Tuesday described the two countries' Syria coordination as remaining largely intact.

"We will try to ensure that this (Syria) crisis is resolved, and we will also do everything so that Israel's national security interests are not harmed in this process," the envoy, Alexey Drobinin, told the Ynet news site, without elaborating.

In separate remarks to Israel's Army Radio, Drobinin said Russia would maintain its military presence at Hmeymim airbase as well as a major Mediterranean naval center at Tartus.

"Israel is a neighboring country. It cannot be indifferent to what is happening in Syria. We take this into account, of course," he said. "We have an ongoing dialogue with the Israeli side on all levels - the military level and diplomatic level."

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin was due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Wednesday. Drobinin said that would be "a very good opportunity to air opinions and provide answers for any questions the Israeli side might have".

Rivlin's role is largely ceremonial. His Russia trip was set before the Syrian pullback announcement, about which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government declined to be drawn.

But Tzachi Hanegbi, a lawmaker from Netanyahu's Likud party who heads parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, told Israel Radio: "There is uncertainty here about the reason for the implementation of this withdrawal and what the practical ramifications will be."

"I am not sure - or at least, I don't know - that yesterday's declaration by President Putin did not surprise all of the sides, including Israel," Hanegbi said.

(Reporting by Dan Williams; Editing by Jeffrey Heller)

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The Syrian opposition said on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin's move to draw down his forces in the country could pave the way for an end to five years of fighting although Moscow had not informed them of the decision.

Spokesman Salim al-Muslat told reporters the withdrawal of troops could help bring about an end to Syrian President Bashar al Assad's "dictatorship and his crimes".

Russia blindsided world powers on Monday by announcing that "the main part" of its forces in Syria would start to withdraw. Russia's deputy ambassador to Israel on Tuesday described the two countries' Syria coordination as remaining largely intact.

(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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The world has what may be its best opportunity to end the five-year Syrian civil war with Russia's planned withdrawal and with peace talks resuming in Geneva, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Tuesday.

Kerry also told reporters he planned to travel to Russia next week to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss the way forward in Syria, whose civil war has killed more then 250,000 people and driven millions abroad as refugees.

On Monday, Putin called Syrian President Bashar Assad and informed him that Russia would withdraw a large portion of its forces in Syria. 

"The task assigned to the Ministry of Defense and the Armed Forces as a whole has been largely accomplished, so I order the minister of defense to begin withdrawing the main part of our military factions of the Syrian Arab Republic tomorrow," Russian news agency Interfax reports.

However, although Russia will remove a majority of its force in Syria, the Kremlin has signaled that it will still continue to carry out targeted strikes in the country against what it has termed terrorist targets.

"Certain positive results have been achieved. A real chance has emerged to put an end to this long-running standoff," Reuters reports Russian Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Pankov as having said at a mission accomplished ceremony, citing the RIA news agency. 

"But it is still early to talk about victory over terrorism," Pankov continued. "The Russian aviation group has the task to continue carrying out strikes on terrorist facilities."

Even so, the Syrian opposition has largely celebrated the Russian withdrawal as a sign that it could pave the way to the end of fighting. An opposition spokesman told reporters after Russia announced its decision that the withdrawal of Russian forces could help usher in a post-Assad Syria. 

The United States is less sanguine about the impact of the Russian withdrawal. The White House is monitoring Russia's withdrawal from Syria but it is too soon to tell what impact the move will have on the country's civil war or the region at large, the White House said on Tuesday.

"It's obviously a move that we'll be watching. The earliest indications are that the Russians are following through, but it's still too early to determine on this point what impact it will have on the broader situation," White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters at a daily briefing

He added that Russia did not give the United States direct advance notice of its decision to leave Syria.

Russia's airstrikes in Syria largely targeted rebel groups opposed to the Assad regime. Although Russia insisted its strikes targeted ISIS and al-Qaeda linked groups, the Kremlin equally targeted any group that posed a threat to the Assad regime — including rebel organizations that the US was supporting. 

(Reuters reporting By Arshad Mohammed; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)

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Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria are expected to declare a federal system on Wednesday, a Syrian Kurdish official said, taking matters into their own hands after being excluded so far from political talks to resolve the Syrian war.

A conference underway in Kurdish-controlled northern Syria on Wednesday aims to approve a "Federal Democratic" system of government for the area and envisions the failure of UN-led peace talks in Geneva, according to a document seen by Reuters. 

The step that will combine three Kurdish-led autonomous areas of northern Syrian into a federal system will be sure to alarm neighbouring Turkey, which fears growing Kurdish sway in Syria is fueling separatism among its own Kurdish minority.

Turkey supports Syria's national unity and unilateral moves such as declaring a federation cannot be valid, a foreign ministry official told Reuters.

The Turkish official said the form of government and administrative structure of Syria will be decided by all sections of the Syrian people with a new constitution.

The announcement would mean "widening the framework of self-administration which the Kurds and others have formed," said Idris Nassan, an official in the foreign affairs directorate of Kobani, one of three autonomous areas set up by Kurdish groups two years ago.

He told Reuters the areas would be named the Federation of northern Syria, and represent all ethnic groups living there.

The system envisions "areas of democratic self-administration" that will manage their own economic, security and defense affairs, according to the document drafted by a committee in preparation for the meeting.

Aldar Khalil, a Syrian Kurdish official and one of the organizers of the conference in the town of Rmeilan, said he expected the meeting to approve a new political system, and that "democratic federalism" was the best one.

Speaking to Reuters, he added that the details of the system would be worked out later on. The document calls for the establishment of "The Federal Democratic System of Rojava-North Syria". Rojava is the Kurdish name for northern Syria.

The Syrian Kurdish PYD party has been left out of peace talks underway in Geneva, in line with the wishes of Turkey, which sees it as an extension of the PKK group that is waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey.

The powerful Syrian Kurdish YPG militia has captured large areas of northeastern Syria from Islamic State, and has been the most effective partner on the ground for a U.S.-led air campaign against the jihadists.

Syrian Kurds effectively control an uninterrupted stretch of 400 km (250 miles) along the Syrian-Turkish border from the frontier with Iraq to the Euphrates river. They also control a separate section of the northwestern border in the Afrin area.

Syria's government in Damascus on Saturday ruled out the idea of a federal model for the country. Damascus ally Russia has said federalism could be a possible model for Syria.

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As the Syrian peace talks resumed in Geneva this week, President Vladimir Putin announced a partial withdrawal of the "main part" of Russian armed forces as of March 15, according to the state-owned TASS news agency.

Noting that the Defense Ministry had "on the whole" achieved its goals in Syria, Putin explicitly connected the withdrawal with the Geneva talks: "I hope that today's decision will be a good signal for all conflicting sides. I hope that this significantly raises the confidence of all participants in the [peace] process."

He added that Russia's Foreign Ministry would "intensify" its involvement in that process.

It is unclear exactly which forces will withdraw from Syria, particularly since Putin specified that Russia's Tartus naval facility and Hmeimim Air Base will continue to operate as usual.

The air base was established after Russia's military campaign began last September, so it will certainly require Moscow to keep more forces in Syria than it had before the intervention, even if it does make good on its pledge to withdraw some units.

As for the notion that Moscow has achieved its goals in Syria, Putin has previously stated that the purpose of the intervention was to defeat the Islamic State (IS). But the group is obviously not defeated, and Moscow's varying statements about the IS threat do not offer much clarity.

On March 14, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu claimed that Russia had destroyed over 2,000 "bandits" in Syria who had originated from Russia, including seventeen field commanders. Last year, however, the Kremlin justified the intervention in part with claims that 5,000-7,000 fighters from Russia had joined IS -- and those claims themselves diverged drastically from earlier reports citing much lower figures.

Besides the fuzzy numbers, Moscow's decision to deploy troops to Syria may have increased the IS threat to Russia rather than decreased it; only time will tell, but the group has already targeted Russian civilians in apparent retaliation for the intervention (e.g., last October's downing of a Russian passenger jet in Egypt was attributed to an IS cell).

More tellingly, the vast majority of Russia's airstrikes in Syria have been against rebels fighting Bashar al-Assad's regime, not against the Islamic State. Rescuing Assad from the rebellion and securing Russia's interests -- as Putin defines them -- has been the real goal in Syria, and on that matter he can certainly claim success.

The intervention has strengthened the regime's position in the peace talks in Geneva, with Assad reportedly stating that Russian assistance helped him achieve "victories against terrorism" and stabilize the security situation. Both Assad and Putin define "terrorist" as any armed person who opposes the regime. Assad also noted that Russia will scale back its presence but keep some forces in place.

In broader terms, Putin's seems to be laying the groundwork for casting himself as a "great world leader" -- a peacemaker who successfully carried out a limited campaign with "minimum casualties," then withdrew in order to lead international peace efforts. In doing so, he will undoubtedly seek to pressure both the United States and the Syrian opposition to stick with the Geneva process and more important, to make concessions that would benefit Putin above all else.

The Russian language has a concept that best describes this situation: "pokazukha," a facade or window dressing, something Putin knows all too well how to construct.

Anna Borshchevskaya is the Ira Weiner Fellow at The Washington Institute.

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On Mar. 15, the Russian Defence Minister General of the Army Sergei ‪‎Shoigu‬ ordered to redeploy a large part of the the Russian Aerspace Forces contingent deployed to Syria to fight terrorists.

The redeploy order saw technical staff at Hmeymim airbase, near Latakia, started preparing aircraft for the long-range flight to airfields located in mainland Russia: the aircraft, first of all Su-34“multidimensional bombers” (this is definition used by the Russia’s MoD) based on the footage released so far, are returning home with long-range flight (more than 5,000 km), inflight refueling and intermediate flight stops at the Russian Federation airfields.

The redeployment is supported by a Tu-154 or an Il-76, acting as “leader” of the formation made by the transport plane and the Russian warplanes transporting engineering and technical personnel, and logistics items.

The formation follows the assigned route over Iraq, Iran and the Caspian Sea, until it reaches the border of the Russian Federation where all the aircraft split the formation to reach their destinations independently.

According to the Russian MoD the first group of Su-34 bombers earlier today has already arrived at the military airfield of the Western military district in the ‪#Voronezh‬ region; before landing, the aircraft performed a celebratory fly over at low altitudes over the military airfield.

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Syrian Kurdish internal security forces arrested 60 members of a pro-Syrian government militia in the northeastern city of Qamishli on Wednesday, a war monitor said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian conflict through a network of sources on the ground, said the Syrian Kurdish internal security forces known as the Asayish also shelled an area containing government security buildings.

Most of Qamishli is controlled by the Kurdish security forces, though the Syrian government still has a presence in the city and controls its airport.

Syrian Kurdish officials and Syrian government officials could not immediately reached for comment.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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Just under half of Russia's fixed-wing strike force based in Syria has flown out of the country in the past two days, according to a Reuters calculation which suggests the Kremlin is accelerating its partial withdrawal.

President Vladimir Putin on Monday ordered the bulk of the Russian military contingent in Syria to be pulled out after five months of air strikes, saying the Kremlin had achieved most of its objectives.

The precise number of planes Russia kept at its Hmeymim base in Syria's Latakia province is secret. But analysis of satellite imagery, air strikes and defense ministry statements suggested it had about 36 fixed-wing military jets there.

At least 15 of those planes have flown out in the past two days, a Reuters analysis of state television footage shows, including Su-24, Su-25, Su-30 and Su-34 jets.

Reuters could not independently verify the movements of the aircraft and it was impossible to determine whether other aircraft were flying into Syria to replace those that left.

Military analysts say the departing Su-24 and Su-25 planes, aging Soviet-era planes that have undergone some modernization, have been the workhorses of Russia's Syria campaign.

They carried out 75-80 percent of the more than 9,000 sorties flown by Russian pilots, said Maksim Shepovalenko, a former Russian military officer who is now deputy director of the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategies and Technologies (CAST).

Russian television has shown four Su-25 and five Su-24 jets leaving in the past two days. Russia is thought by defense analysts to have had 12 of each in Syria. Five Su-34s, and one Su-30 have also been seen leaving.

John Kirby, a spokesman for the US State Department, told reporters on Tuesday he did not have exact details of the Russian military contingent in Syria but said Moscow had "dozens of aircraft" based there.

Ruslan Pukhov, CAST's director, said he thought Russia would have to pull out at least half of its strike force for its partial withdrawal to be regarded as genuine.

"Otherwise people, both nationally and especially internationally, will say this is not really true and it is simply a regrouping," he told Reuters. 

Heightened sensitivity

Russian sensitivity about foreign interest in the return of military equipment from Syria has heightened in recent days.

Russian news portal lifenews.ru on Wednesday reported the detention of an American aviation blogger it described as "a spy." It said he had been caught snooping around the Chkalovsky military airport north of Moscow. He was later released.

A source in the Russian security service told local media on Tuesday that two British diplomats had this month been caught covertly filming the Mozdok military air base in southern Russia. The British Foreign Office said the diplomats had been carrying out routine travel and had undergone all the necessary Russian checks.

Russia is known to maintain at least 14 military helicopters in Syria as well as fixed-wing reconnaissance drones. The helicopters, if withdrawn, are likely to be returned to Russia by air.

Russian officials have made clear that two Russian military bases will remain in Syria, as will a smaller strike force of infantry, armor and helicopters. Russia's advanced S-400 air defense missile system also looks likely to remain.

US officials have spoken of Russia having "a few thousand troops" in Syria. A Russian military source told the Interfax news agency that around 1,000 troops would stay, of whom more than half would be military advisers.

Andrey Frolov, a defense analyst at CAST, said Russia would leave behind "several" Su-30 and Su-35 jets.

Alexander Kots, a military correspondent who has worked in Syria for the pro-Kremlin Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper, says he has been told that Russia could return its entire air strike force to Syria within just 48 hours.

Heavy equipment and armor would be evacuated by sea, he said. Some of it might also be warehoused in Syria or handed over to the Syrian army, he said.

If necessary, Russia is still able to swiftly come to President Bashar al-Assad's aid by deploying long-range bombers based in Russia or by firing cruise missiles from the Caspian Sea. It also has a naval force in the Mediterranean.

According to the database of the Bosphorus Naval News project, which publishes photos of warships crossing the straits, more than a dozen Russian military vessels, including landing and missile ships and auxiliary vessels are likely to be in the Mediterranean right now.

That estimate is partly borne out by information from the authorities and publicly available shipping records.

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George and Amal Clooney met with Syrian refugees in Berlin. While the refugee families shared their stories, Amal opened up about her own family's struggles.

Story by Ian Phillips and editing by A.C. Fowler

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Iraqi security forces freed a group of Yazidi women held captive by Islamic State in a covert operation behind the group's lines, a defense ministry statement said on Wednesday.

It did not say how many women were freed, when or where.

Islamic State captured around 5,000 Yazidi men and women in the northern region of Sinjar in summer 2014.

Some 2,000 have managed to escape or have been smuggled out of Islamic State's self-proclaimed caliphate in Iraq and Syria, activists say.

Islamic State considers the Yazidis to be devil-worshippers. The ancient Yazidi faith blends elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam.

(Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)

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After the surprise announcement that Russia will withdraw its forces from Syria, Russian Colonel General Viktor Bondarev claimed that "not a single bombing raid missed the target."

Russia's bombing campaign, which started on September 30, 2015, was originally intended in targeting ISIS, but it soon became clear that the bulk of their airstrikes were on rebel-held territories in Syria.

Throughout the campaign, Russia's own Ministry of Defense footage has shown their bombers releasing "dumb bombs" or non-guided munitions.

This is in stark contrast to the US-led collation's bombing campaign, which exclusively uses guided munitions to minimize collateral damage to civilian populations.

Worse that simply using unguided munitions, which can simply be blown off target by strong winds, Russia has been accused of using internationally bannedcluster munitions in mostly civilian areas. They have also been linked to bombings of hospitals.

In fact, Russia's airstrikes on civilians have been so prolific that NATO Commander Philip Breedlove posited that terrorizing civilian-rich areas is actually an intentional tactic by Russia to exacerbate and even "weaponize" the Syrian refugee crisis against Europe.

Simply put, the only way that Russia could have hit 100% of their targets in Syria, would be if their target was the ground.

Even so, many of the bombs, and bomblets from cluster munitions, did not detonate upon hitting the ground, and will pose a threat to the Syrian people long after the bombing campaign has ended.

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The Obama administration is reportedly nearing a decision on whether to use the term "genocide" to classify the campaign of ethnic cleansing ISIS perpetrated against the minority groups in Iraq and Syria, which could have major implications for US foreign policy in the Middle East.

This week, Congress overwhelmingly approved a resolution that assigns the "genocide" designation to ISIS' atrocities, according to The Associated Press.

But the Obama administration is still awaiting a legal review and hasn't yet made an official determination on using the word, which carries a certain power as an official designation.

A 1948 treaty, signed by the US and 147 other nations, declares genocide a crime under international law and states that countries need to work together "to liberate mankind from this odious scourge."

ISIS has targeted several ethnic and religious minority groups in Iraq and Syria, but the Yazidi minority has been subjected to particularly harsh treatment.

A November report from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum said that the organization believes that ISIS — also known as ISIL or the Islamic State — "has been and is perpetrating genocide against" the Yazidis.

Even if the US accepts that the crimes against Yazidis are genocide, it's unclear what action the US and the international community would take if ISIS's crimes were officially declared as such. But it could put pressure on other countries to intervene and stop the ongoing atrocities.

"Before, we were talking about a 1948 convention on genocide that's predicated on the notion that only states commit these crimes," Cameron Hudson, director of the Holocaust Museum's Simon-Skjodt Center for the Prevention of Genocide, said at a press conference last year.

He added: "This is not a 20th-century crime anymore. It's a 21st-century crime, and that crime looks different today than it did 70 years ago. But the effect on civilian populations is the same."

ISIS accuses Yazidis of being devil worshippers who are not "people of the book"— protected religions mentioned in the Quran. Yazidi women have been used as sex slaves for ISIS fighters.

The report found that:

• ISIS targeted groups on the basis of their identity and as part of its military, economic, and political strategy.
• The Iraqi government failed to protect these groups.
• Early warning signs were misunderstood or went unnoticed.
• And some of these mass atrocities are ongoing.

If the US government attaches the genocide label to these crimes, it could open the door to prosecutions of ISIS leaders in international criminal court, Naomi Kikoler, deputy director of the Simon-Skjodt Center and author of the report, told Business Insider.

"One of the biggest obligations coming out of the genocide convention is to punish perpetrators, and it should … mean that they would hopefully try to bring this issue to the security council," Kikoler said.

But the fact that ISIS is not a state, despite governing a swath of territory across Iraq and Syria, could create some challenges.

"For genocide, it's often seen as being kind of a state-committed crime. So in many ways, it would be a new area for courts to deal with, but it's not one that creates insurmountable challenges," Kikoler said.

In any case, there are still issues that the US has to work through, considering that a genocide designation could "require an adjustment to US military strategy," according to Yahoo.

Yahoo News reported last year that the US "has historically been reluctant to invoke the genocide treaty because of concerns it might create a moral, if not a legal, obligation to act in ways that previous administrations were not prepared to do."

A White House representative told Business Insider last year that the administration welcomes "all efforts to deepen the historical record when it comes to mass atrocities, because we know that historical memory is a tool of prevention."

"In authorizing a military and humanitarian effort to help save Iraqi Yezidis trapped on Mt. Sinjar in August 2014, President Obama stated that 'When we have the unique capabilities to help avert a massacre, then I believe the United States of America cannot turn a blind eye. We can act, carefully and responsibly, to prevent a potential act of genocide,'" the statement said.

It continued: "Secretary Kerry also stated in August 2014 that ISIL's actions bore 'all the warning signs and hallmarks of genocide.' Following the President's decision, the United States launched a military and humanitarian effort to thwart ISIL's campaign against the Yezidi people."

In 2014, the US conducted airstrikes against ISIS to halt its advance on Mount Sinjar. The US also carried out airdrops of supplies in the area.

Hudson estimates that 1,500 Yazidis have been killed, 3,500 have been kidnapped, and hundreds of thousands more have been displaced since ISIS took control, according to Yahoo.

Atrocities against Yazidis differ from those against other minority groups targeted by ISIS, Kikoler said. Christians, for example, have been given the option of paying a protection tax if they refuse to convert to Islam.

"What is different is with Yazidis — there is no other option," Kikoler said. "When we do look at whether or not the Islamic State killed and enslaved other communities, we don't see that same pattern, that deliberate effort to eliminate a particular group in the same way."

Yazidis were "targeted for the harshest punishment" and "were consistently the ones who were killed and kidnapped and enslaved," she said.

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President Vladimir Putin on Thursday declared his country's Syria mission a resounding success, but stressed Russia would continue to support the Syrian government and could build up its military presence in the region again within hours if necessary.

Speaking in the Kremlin at a medal ceremony for military personnel who served in Syria, Putin sought to dampen any talk of a rift with Damascus, saying Moscow's partial withdrawal from Syria had been agreed with President Bashar al-Assad.

Although he stressed his preference for a negotiated diplomatic solution to the conflict, he made clear Russia could easily scale up its forces again.

"If necessary, literally within a few hours, Russia can build up its contingent in the region to a size proportionate to the situation developing there and use the entire arsenal of capabilities at our disposal," said Putin.

The Russian leader on Monday ordered the bulk of the Russian military contingent in Syria to be pulled out after five months of air strikes, saying the Kremlin had achieved most of its objectives.

Russia would finish withdrawing most of its Syria aviation strike force "any day now" and no later than by the end of this week, Viktor Bondarev, the head of the Russian air force, told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper in an interview published on Thursday.

(Reporting by Denis Dyomkin, Andrew Osborn, Katya Golubkova and Dmitry Solovyov; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Christian Lowe)

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The latest findings of the World Happiness Report, an annual survey that assesses the state of global wellbeing, have been released ahead of the United Nations' International Happiness Day on March 20.

To determine its results, the report gauged the happiness levels of thousands of individuals from 156 nations from their responses to the Gallup World Poll.

Countries were ranked according to six key criteria: GDP per capita, social support, life expectancy, freedom to make life choices, generosity, and freedom from corruption.

The report also considered happiness inequality, to see how happiness levels varied between people from the same countries.

"The reports review the state of happiness in the world today and show how the new science of happiness explains personal and national variations in happiness,"the report reads. "They reflect a new worldwide demand for more attention to happiness as a criteria for government policy."

Here are the 19 unhappiest countries in the world. 

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19. Ivory Coast

Though residents of this West African nation earn a relatively high income, according to the BBC, the country has experienced steady violence since its 2002 rebellion.

Life expectancy is also low; men live to an average of 52 years, while women live to 54, according to figures from the World Health Organization.

18. Cambodia

Residents of Cambodia expressed little faith in its politics, according to the results of the report.

The Southeast Asian country's current Prime Minister Hun Sen reclaimed power in 2013, despite mass protests and claims of fraud, according to the BBC.

17. Angola

Poll respondents from Angola reported a very low level of freedom to make life choices.

Residents' life expectancy is also low. On average, men live to just 50 years, while women live to 53 years, according to the World Health Organization.

The Syrian Civil War is continuing to grind towards its six year, and the horrors of the conflict are becoming ever harder to quantify. 

Due to the nature of the conflict, exact numbers are hard to come by. But as of the end of 2014, the United Nations estimated that almost half of Syria's civilian population had been uprooted by the conflict with over 3 million Syrians becoming refugees and a further 6.5 million having become internally displaced people. 

The immeasurable suffering of so many people is impossible to grasp. But in an effort to humanize those numbers, Associated Press photographer Muhammed Muheisen visited Syrian refugee camps in Jordan. In an effort to capture the life of refugees, Muheisen took a series of portraits of the displaced children of Syria. 

We have featured some of Muheisen's most powerful photos below. Each photo features a quotation from the portrait's subject, as well as the subject's name, age, and home city in Syria. 

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"I remember nothing from Syria"— Mayada Hammid, 8, from Hassakeh.

"I want to become a doctor to be able to help people"— Mohammed Bandar, 12, from Hama.

"I want to grow up and be educated"— Sajjida al-Hassan, 8, from Hama.

A new video secretly filmed by two women inside Raqqa, Syria shows an inside view of what ISIS has made its de facto capital.

Militants captured the northern Syrian city in 2014. Since then, foreign militants have flocked to the city and other strongholds under their control, instituting strict control over those who live there.

Minor infractions can carry major punishments, and women have few rights under ISIS' strict enforcement of Shariah law.

"I can't wait to dress the way we used to in the past," says one of two women who filmed there, at the risk of being killed by militants if discovered. The video was shot in late winter for Expressen TV, a Swedish affiliate of CNN.

Here is the terrifying world they are forced to live in.

The women are forced to wear veils in public, under threat of public flogging or worse. They are covered and have their voices changed for interviews, since they remain in Raqqa.

Their hidden spy cameras show what life is like on Raqqa's streets.

One goes into a shop, just as a fighter armed with an AK-47 walks past.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A New York state resident was sentenced on Thursday to 22-1/2 years in prison for trying to recruit fighters to join Islamic State in Syria - the longest prison term handed out yet to an American convicted of supporting the militant group.

Mufid Elfgeeh, 32, of Rochester, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford of the Western District of New York. The district's U.S. attorney, William Hochul, called Elfgeeh "one of the first ISIL recruiters ever captured," using another acronym for the militant group.

A North Carolina federal judge last May issued the second-longest sentence for Islamic State-related activity – 20 years and three months in prison – to Donald Ray Morgan, 44, for trying to provide material support to Islamic State, and for unlawfully possessing a firearm.

A Reuters analysis, confirmed by the U.S. Department of Justice, found they were the two stiffest such sentences yet issued.

Convictions for Islamic State-related activity by Americans have become more frequent in recent months as more than 80 such cases brought by U.S. prosecutors since 2013 work their way through federal courts.

An Arizona man was convicted by a jury on Thursday of conspiring to support Islamic State and other terrorism-related charges, while two men in unrelated cases in Mississippi and Ohio pleaded guilty on Friday and Wednesday to trying to join or convince others to join Islamic State. They have not yet been sentenced.

Although Elfgeeh pleaded guilty in December only to trying to recruit two individuals to join Islamic State, he was also originally charged with trying to kill U.S. service members and unlawfully possessing firearms and silencers.

Beginning in 2013, the FBI paid two informants to help investigate Elfgeeh, according to court records. The informants recorded conversations in which Elfgeeh talked about wanting to kill members of the U.S. military and Shi'a Muslims in New York. One of the informants eventually sold Elfgeeh firearms and ammunition.

Elfgeeh tried to send the two individuals to Syria to fight on behalf of Islamic State, buying them a laptop computer, a high-definition camera, an expedited passport and other travel documents, according to his plea agreement.

He used Facebook and WhatsApp to activate a network of Islamic State sympathizers in Turkey, Syria and Yemen who could facilitate their trip, the plea agreement said.

During the same months, Elfgeeh also helped the alleged commander of a Syrian rebel battalion contact Islamic State leadership so that the battalion could join the larger group, prosecutors said.

 (Reporting by Julia Harte; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — The American Islamic State group fighter who handed himself over to Kurdish forces in Iraq's north earlier this week said he made "a bad decision" joining IS, according to a heavily edited interview he gave to an Iraqi Kurdish television station that aired late Thursday night.

Mohamad Jamal Khweis, 26, from Alexandria, Virginia detailed his weeks-long journey from the United States to London, Amsterdam, Turkey, through Syria and finally to the IS-controlled Iraqi city of Mosul, where he was moved into a house with dozens of other foreign fighters.

Khweis said he met an Iraqi woman with ties to IS in Turkey who arranged his travel into Syria and then across to Mosul.

There Khweis said he began more than a month of intensive Islamic studies and it was then he decided to try and flee.

"I didn't agree with their ideology," he said, explaining why he decided to escape a few weeks after arriving. "I made a bad decision to go with the girl and go to Mosul."

Khweis said a friend helped him escape Mosul to nearby Tal Afar. From there he said he walked toward Kurdish troops. "I wanted to go to the Kurdish side," he said, "because I know they are good with the Americans."

The surrender took place on the front lines near the town of Sinjar, which was retaken by Iraqi forces from IS militants late last year. In the past year IS fighters have lost large amounts of territory in Syria and Iraq. Khweis is currently being held by Kurdish forces for interrogation.

Though such defections are rare, Syrian Kurdish fighters battling IS have told The Associated Press that they are seeing an increase in the number of IS members surrendering following recent territorial losses. As the militants lose territory, U.S. officials predict there will be more desertions.

"I wasn't thinking straight," Khweis said. "My message to the American people is that the life in Mosul is really, really bad," he said, adding that he doesn't believe the Islamic State group accurately represents Islam.

The United Nations estimated that around 30,000 so-called foreign fighters from 100 countries are actively working with the Islamic State group, al-Qaida or other extremist groups. An earlier estimate by the International Center for the Study of Radicalization, a think tank at King's College London, said IS fighters include 3,300 Western Europeans and 100 or so Americans.

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