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Turkey says it has deported 3,300 foreigners suspected of links to jihadists

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Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan addresses visiting police officers in Ankara, Turkey April 7, 2016, in this handout photo provided by the Presidential Palace. REUTERS/Kayhan Ozer/Presidential Palace/Handout via Reuters

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey has deported more than 3,300 foreigners suspected of links to jihadi groups, particularly Islamic State militants, and another 41,000 foreigners have been barred from entering the country as part of its fight against the militant group, a top official said Monday.

Turkish profiling teams have also interviewed 9,500 people upon their arrival in Turkey, Ibrahim Kalin, a spokesman for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, told reporters. Some 2,000 of them were denied entry as a result.

Around 2,770 suspects, including 1,232 foreigners, have been caught in police sweeps and 954 of them are being prosecuted, Kalin said.

He didn't give further details. Turkish officials have refused to provide a breakdown of the jihadi suspects by nationality or give details on the countries they have been deported back to.

Separately, Turkey's state-news agency, citing unnamed military sources, said close to 900 alleged IS militants have been killed since January in Turkish artillery and air strikes against the group in Syria. The agency said 492 of the militants were killed in air raids while another 370 were killed by artillery fire. The agency didn't specify how the figures were obtained and it wasn't possible to verify them independently.

turkey borderTurkey, long accused of turning a blind eye to the extremists crossing into Syria, has now taken a larger role in the fight against IS, opening a key air base in southern Turkey to the U.S.-led coalition fighting the extremists and reinforcing its border to prevent infiltrations.

Four deadly bomb attacks in Turkey since July have been blamed on IS.

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This story has been corrected to show the number of foreigners caught in police sweeps is 1,232, not 232.

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Norway is offering refugees a £840 'bonus' to leave the country voluntarily

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norway refugee migrant

Norway is offering its asylum seekers a £840 "bonus" if they agree to leave the country voluntarily.

The Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) said the measure had been brought in as a cheaper alternative to paying for refugees to stay in immigration centres in the country.

Launched on Monday, the "offer" will run for six weeks and is paid on a first-come, first-served basis, according to Norwegian state broadcaster NRK.

Applicants must have arrived in Norway before April 1 this year and only the first 500 asylum seekers who apply will receive the extra funds.

Integration Minister Sylvi Listhaug said she hoped the move would encourage migrants and refugees to return to their home country.

The 10,000 kroner “expenses bonus” will be paid in addition to the 20,000 kroner already offered to migrants and refugees who choose to leave Norway, as part of a financial incentive brought in by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) last year.

Of around 31,000 people who applied for asylum in Norway last year, 7,825 applications were refused. Approximately a third of the total number of refugees were from Syria.

The Norwegian government agreed to take in 1,000 refugees from Syria as part of an EU agreement, but was criticised in January for attempting to send over 5,500 people back across the Russian border on bicycles.

Erna Solberg, Prime Minister of Norway

The UDI said that due to the high quantities of migrants and refugees, Norway was unable to offer protection to many of the people arriving from Syria, Iraq, the Middle East and Africa in sufficient time.

“Many cannot wait (for the asylum process to run its course). They have family at home who expect them to be able to help,“ said Katinka Hartmann, head of the UDI, in Decembe

“For a long time, Norway has not been able to forcibly return people to Somalia, but now that we can, I think that more Somalis with an obligation to leave will opt for assisted return. 

“It’s important to have more initiatives of this kind in the future,” she said.

Ms Listhaug was criticised last week after floating in the Mediterranean Sean to experience being rescued from a refugee’s “perspective”.

Last year the minister was heavily criticised for using Jesus as an explanation as to why she was against accepting high numbers of asylum seekers into Norway.

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Turkey says the US will deploy a rocket launcher on the Turkish-Syrian border to hit ISIS

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Rocket Launcher

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The United States will deploy a rocket launcher system in Turkey near the border with a part of Syria held by Islamic State, Turkey's foreign minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

Mevlut Cavusoglu was quoted by the Haberturk newspaper as saying that the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would arrive in May near a part of southeastern Turkey that has repeatedly been hit by rocket fire from Syria.

The deployment is part of a strategy to seal off an area around the Syrian town of Manbij, which could deprive Islamic State fighters of a logistical route they have used to bring in supplies and foreign recruits.

"We have reached an agreement with the Americans to seal off the Manbij region and our strategy on that is clear," Cavusoglu told Haberturk in an interview during a trip to Riyadh.

"As part of this deal, HIMARS systems will be arriving in Turkey's borders in May. Therefore we will be able to hit Islamic State in a more efficient way," he said.

Turkey has repeatedly fired back at Islamic State in Syria in recent weeks after a surge in cross-border attacks on the Turkish town of Kilis, which has been peppered by rocket fire since January.

turkey syria borderThe army's retaliation has been limited to cross-border fire and artillery but the U.S. deployment, if confirmed, would expand its firing range and capabilities.

"To wipe out Islamic State from this region, we need to support the moderate opposition both from the air and ground. The range of our artillery is 40 km (25 miles), while HIMARS has a range of 90 km," Cavusoglu said.

No comment was immediately available from the U.S. embassy in Turkey.

The United States and Turkey have for months been discussing a joint military plan to drive Islamic State from the border area, but until now there has been little concrete sign of progress.

Speaking in parliament, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu vowed to fortify the border and take additional military measures against Islamic State, which he said had fired a total of 46 rockets into Kilis since January.

The state-run Anadolu agency late on Monday published photos of a military convoy carrying equipment and rocket launchers to Kilis for reinforcement. The Turkish government says 17 people have been killed in the town this year.

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Watch US-led warplanes crush ISIS forces in Syria

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f 18 sunset navy

The latest footage from the Combined Joint Task Force's Operation Inherent Resolve shows the true breadth of the 66-member coalition's air operation against ISIS.

In one video, we see an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) observing ISIS fighters placing an improvised explosive device (IED) near the town of Doudyan, Syria.

The coalition then revealed the location of the IED back to friendly forces on the ground.

Another video shows an ISIS baracks near Al Hawl, Syria being wiped off the map.

SEE ALSO: See the first US Air Force B-52 airstrike against ISIS

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We just got the clearest sign yet that the Assad regime helped make ISIS very, very rich

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assad isis

Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime negotiated deals with the Islamic State's oil tycoon that at one point contributed up to 72% of the militant group's profit from natural resources, The Wall Street Journal reported this past weekend.

That is according to documents uncovered during a raid on the home of Abu Sayyaf, the Islamic State "oil minister" who was killed by US Special Forces at his compound in Syria's Deir Ezzour province in May.

Abu Sayyaf's division, which had successfully negotiated agreements with the Assad regime to allow Islamic State trucks and pipelines to move from regime-controlled fields through territory controlled by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh, helped the jihadists bring in roughly $40 million a month in oil sales alone, according to documents seen by The Journal.

Though Sayyaf was killed, his oil infrastructure remains largely intact. ISIS still controls the majority of Syria's oil fields, and the group continues to bring in roughly $1 million a day from oil sales, according to the Financial Times.

The Assad regime's oil ties to the Islamic State have been well documented. At least two Syrian government officials, including a Russian-Syrian businessman named George Haswani, were sanctioned by the US last year for serving as middlemen between Assad and ISIS for oil deals.

The Daily Beast reported in December, meanwhile, that ISIS delivers both oil and natural gas to the regime. The report said the resources were transported via "midstream" service providers who move the resources from ISIS territory to government territory for profit.

"In exchange for gas, the regime provides utilities like electricity, which ISIS taxes accordingly," wrote Matthew Reed, the vice president of Foreign Reports Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm focused on oil and politics in the Middle East.

"At natural gas fields like those around Palmyra, which produce lighter liquid hydrocarbons in addition to gas, ISIS takes whatever it can turn into fuel," he continued. "The gas goes west to Assad."

isis oilDocuments obtained in the raid on Sayyaf's compound corroborated those details.

One document, identified as Memo No. 156 and dated February 11, 2015, said agreements allowing trucks and pipeline transit from regime-controlled oil fields through ISIS-controlled territory were already in place.

The documents also confirmed previous estimates as to how lucrative the deals were. A senior US treasury official estimated in December that ISIS has made more than $500 million trading oil with the Assad regime, which amounts to roughly $40 million a month.

ISIS' oil ties to governments did not begin and end with Assad, however. Last July, The Guardian's Martin Chulov reported that separate documents uncovered in the Sayyaf raid linked Turkish officials to ISIS as well.

Flash drives seized during the raid reportedly revealed links "so clear" and "undeniable" between Turkey and ISIS "that they could end up having profound policy implications for the relationship between us and Ankara," a senior Western official familiar with the intelligence told The Guardian at the time.

Ankara, long accused by experts, Kurds, and even Vice President Joe Biden of enabling ISIS by turning a blind eye to the vast smuggling networks of weapons and fighters during the ongoing Syrian war, has vehemently denied participating in any kind of illicit oil trade with the militant group.

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Russia wants to know more about US special forces deploying in Syria

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c130 troops

Russia wants to know more details about U.S. plans to bolster its special forces in Syria, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Wednesday.

President Barack Obama announced on Monday the biggest expansion of U.S. ground troops in Syria since its civil war began.

The deployment of up to 250 Special Forces soldiers increases U.S. forces in Syria roughly sixfold and is aimed at helping militia fighters who have clawed back territory from Islamic State militants in a string of victories.

(Reporting by Andrew Osborn; Writing by Dmitry Solovyov; Editing by Denis Pinchuk)

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At least 14 killed after air strike hits MSF-supported hospital in Syria

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Civil defence members search for survivors after an airstrike at a field hospital in the rebel held area of al-Sukari district of Aleppo, Syria April 27, 2016.

Air strikes hit a hospital in a rebel-held area of Syria's Aleppo and killed at least 27 people, including three children and the city's last pediatrician, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Thursday.

Two other doctors were also among those killed, the Britain-based war monitor said. 

The hospital was supported by the international medical organisation Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), who said on its Twitter account it was destroyed after being hit by a direct air strike.

At least 14 patients and staff, including at least three doctors, were killed, MSF said.

According to hospital staff on the ground, the hospital was destroyed by at least one airstrike which directly hit the building, reducing it to rubble, MSF said in a statement. 

"MSF categorically condemns this outrageous targeting of yet another medical facility in Syria," said Muskilda Zancada, MSF head of mission, Syria. "This devastating attack has destroyed a vital hospital in Aleppo, and the main referral centre for paediatric care in the area. Where is the outrage among those with the power and obligation to stop this carnage?"

"Eight doctors and 28 nurses worked full time in the hospital, which was the main referral centre for paediatrics in Aleppo," MSF said.

Escalating violence in Aleppo is pushing people living there to the brink of a humanitarian disaster, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said in Geneva.

"Wherever you are, you hear explosions of mortars, shelling and planes flying over," Valter Gros, who heads the ICRC office there, was quoted as saying in the statement.

"There is no neighborhood of the city that hasn’t been hit. People are living on the edge. Everyone here fears for their lives and nobody knows what is coming next," he said.

Aleppo has been the epicenter of a military escalation that has helped to undermine U.N.-led peace talks in recent weeks. A cessation of hostilities agreement has unraveled and fighting has resumed on numerous fronts in western Syria.

The Observatory said air strikes on rebel-held areas of Aleppo had killed 91 citizens in the past six days while rebel shelling of government-held areas had claimed 49 lives.

People inspect the damage at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)-backed al-Quds hospital after it was hit by airstrikes, in a rebel-held area of Syria's Aleppo, April 28, 2016.The ICRC said the intense battles raging in Aleppo had worsened the humanitarian plight of tens of thousands of residents in the city, which it described as one of the worst affected in five years of conflict.

The hospital that was destroyed had 34 beds hospital and offered services including an emergency room, obstetric care, an outpatients department, an inpatients department, an intensive care unit and an operating theatre, according to MSF. 

In the hospital bombing, Bebars Mishal of the Civil Defence in Aleppo told Reuters that 40 people had been killed in a five-storey building next to the hospital.

A Syrian military source said government warplanes had not been used in areas where airstrikes were reported.

The Russian defense ministry, which is also conducting air strikes in Syria in support of President Bashar al-Assad, could not immediately be reached for comment. Russia has previously denied hitting civilian targets in Syria.

U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Thursday the cessation of hostilities agreement was "barely alive".

Peace talks he has convened in Geneva were undermined last week when the main opposition alliance walked out, citing ongoing violence and calling for proper implementation of a U.N. resolution requiring full humanitarian access to besieged areas.

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Germany: Attack on Syrian hospital can 'be traced back' to Assad

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People inspect the damage at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)-backed al-Quds hospital after it was hit by airstrikes, in a rebel-held area of Syria's Aleppo, April 28, 2016.

BERLIN (Reuters) - An air strike on a hospital in the city of Aleppo that killed dozens of people was probably the work of Syrian government forces, a spokesman for the German government said on Friday.

A U.S. official has also said the attack on Wednesday night appeared to be solely the work of the Syrian government. Syria's military has denied its warplanes targeted the hospital.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert told a news conference the destruction was targeted and therefore constituted the "murder of a huge number of civilians".

"The available information suggests that this attack can, with some degree of probability, be traced back to the troops of (President Bashar al-Assad's) regime," Seibert said, adding that it was a "blatant violation of humanitarian law".

The German government warned that the escalation of fighting in Aleppo and elsewhere threatened to undermine peace talks in Geneva.

"That must be avoided," said Seibert, adding that Russia had a duty to prevent the ceasefire and the political process from failing.

The Geneva talks aim to end a war that has created the world's worst refugee crisis, allowed the rise of Islamic State and drawn in regional and major powers, but a truce intended to allow negotiations to take place has collapsed.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said in a statement on Friday: "The Syrian government must decide - does it want to take part in negotiations seriously or does it want to continue to reduce its own country to rubble?"

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The Obama administration is 'giving full cover to the Russians' in Syria — and the results are 'catastrophic'

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People inspect the damage at the Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF)-backed al-Quds hospital after it was hit by airstrikes, in a rebel-held area of Syria's Aleppo, April 28, 2016.

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad pounded the Syrian city of Aleppo in airstrikes on Thursday, targeting a hospital and killing at least 55 civilians in a new offensive that's believed to have been months in the making.

The situation has resulted in a "catastrophic deterioration in Aleppo over the last 24 to 48 hours,"Jan Egeland, the chairman of the UN humanitarian task force for Syria, told reporters Thursday.

"Doctors have been killed, health workers have been killed, and medical workers have been blocked from coming to their patients," he said. "We can now refute allegations we heard from some government people and others that there are only fighters and terrorists in Daraya. We have seen with own eyes very many children, very many other civilians."

Local truces were brokered near Damascus on Friday, but there was no mention of halting combat in Aleppo, further north.

Both Moscow and Damascus have denied that their warplanes were responsible for airstrikes on Al-Quds hospital — a facility supported by Doctors Without Borders — and continue to insist that they are only striking terrorists. US Secretary of State John Kerry called it a "deliberate strike," one that "follows the Assad regime's appalling record of striking such facilities and first responders."

But the Assad regime considers all rebels to be terrorists, making medical facilities in opposition-held territory "de-facto illegal" and therefore legitimate targets, according to The Guardian.

aleppoMany analysts argue that the cessation of hostilities (CoH) brokered by the US and Russia in February has legitimized Russia and Assad's unwillingness to differentiate between Islamic extremists and more moderate, Western-backed opposition groups. The truce, they say, has allowed forces loyal to Assad to keep bombing rebel territory, as long as they can argue that terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Jabhat al-Nusra are present.

As such, many are questioning the extent to which the agreement gave Assad and his allies cover to plan their onslaught on Aleppo.

"I was told back in February that a full Aleppo offensive would take 2-3 months to prepare," The Washington Post's Beirut bureau chief Liz Sly tweeted on Thursday. "So the CoH just filled the gap."

aleppo syria

'The administration is now giving full cover to the Russians'

So far, Washington's response to the onslaught in Aleppo has been limited t0 official statements condemning the airstrikes that destroyed Al-Quds hospital. And most say it will stay that way.

"If the US doesn't have a plan to roll out just after official end of CoH (and Obama's comments suggest it), the perception of collusion [between Russia and the US] will grow,"saidEmile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Hokayem was likely referring to comments Obama made in a press conference from London last week, where, in reference to the CoH, he said "we are going to have to play this option out."

"If, in fact, the cessation falls apart, we’ll try to put it back together again even as we continue to go after ISIL," he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State terrorist group. "And it’s my belief that ultimately Russia will recognize that."

aleppoBut both the Defense Department and Kerry have begun using a new line that appears to validate Russia's continued attacks on Aleppo in the midst of the truce.

Tony Badran, a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, put it bluntly: "The administration is now giving full cover to the Russians."

When asked last week whether the Russian airstrikes on Aleppo meant that Moscow was preparing to end the agreement, US Army Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq, responded that it was "complicated." He said that was because Jabhat al-Nusra, the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, "holds Aleppo" and is not party to the agreement.

Some analysts, including Hokayem, wondered whether Warren had misspoken. While Nusra has indeed been building up its presence in Aleppo since February, the city is also occupied by civilians and armed opposition groups associated with the US-backed Free Syrian Army that agreed to abide by the fragile agreement.

"Al-Qaeda’s affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra does not 'hold' Aleppo, but has a comparatively small force, dwarfed by the mainstream opposition," Syria expert Charles Lister pointed out shortly thereafter.

aleppoBut Kerry repeated the line in a later interview with The New York Times editorial board, saying Russia's military buildup around the city was primarily aimed at weakening Nusra's presence there.

He added: “We are not going to sit there and let [Putin] do his thing supporting the regime and hammer at the opposition and say, 'This is working,'" he said. "Obviously, we’re not stupid about it."

But Badran believes that Washington's desire to stay out of the war will compel US officials to keep colluding with Russia in the negotiating room while turning a blind eye to its aggression on the ground.

"The White House was always deliberately leveraging Russian military operations against the opposition, translating it into political concessions" for the regime, Badran told Business Insider on Thursday. Kerry made that clear in February, Badran added, when he blamed the collapse of the first round of peace talks in Geneva on the opposition.

Kerry said, "'Don’t blame me – go and blame your opposition,'" a Syrian aid worker told Middle East Eye at the time. According to the publication, Kerry also told the aid workers that the rebels who left the talks were essentially paving the way for a joint offensive by Assad and Russia that would "decimate" the opposition.

That statement, Badran says, was not difficult to interpret.

He said: "Kerry was essentially telling the opposition: 'The United States won’t lift a finger to help you fend off the Russians.' It behooves you, then, to accept what is being offered right now, because your position will only get worse."

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The world in photos this week

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A selection of photos from some of the biggest news that you might have missed this week. 

SEE ALSO: 21 iconic photos of Kate Middleton and Prince William

A fuel pump is flooded at a gas station in Villa Paranacito, Entre Rios, Argentina, on Thursday, April 28. The Argentine Red Cross estimates that more than 30,000 people have been affected by the flooding, including more than 2,000 who were evacuated after rain swelled rivers, swamping fields and towns nationwide.



Fourteen year-old David Fargnoli has "TRUMP" shaved into his hair before a campaign rally with US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump in Warwick, Rhode Island. Trump had a big night on Tuesday, April 26, picking up 110 delegates in the five Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic Republican presidential primaries.

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A woman lays flowers at a memorial dedicated to the firefighters and workers who died after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The night service took place in the city of Slavutych, Ukraine, on April 26 — exactly 30 years after the Chernobyl tragedy.

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Why Aleppo is Syria's fiercest battleground

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aleppo

As a two-month-old cease-fire collapses and peace talks stall, the northern city of Aleppo is once again a main battlefield in Syria's devastating civil war. More than 200 people have been killed in the last nine days in airstrikes and shelling on contested neighborhoods of the city.

A look at Aleppo:

HISTORY

Syria's largest city and once its commercial center, Aleppo was a crossroads of civilization for millennia. It has been occupied by the Greeks, Byzantines and multiple Islamic dynasties. As one of the world's oldest continuously inhabited cities, Aleppo's Old City was added in 1986 to UNESCO's list of World Heritage sites.

But the civil war has damaged its landmarks, including the 11th century Umayyad Mosque, which had a minaret collapse during fighting in 2012, the 13th century citadel and the medieval marketplace, where fire damaged more than 500 shops in its narrow, vaulted passageways. Some historic sites have been used as bases for fighters.

Aleppo was one of the last cities in Syria to join the uprising against President Bashar Assad's government.

Aleppo raqqa syria isis map 4/7/16

SIGNIFICANCE

Because of its strategic location near the Turkish border and symbolic significance, it is often said that whoever holds Aleppo wins the war. Although it would probably not end the war, should Assad's forces recapture Aleppo, it would mark a turning point in the conflict and deal a devastating blow to the opposition.

Aleppo is about 50 kilometers (30 miles) from the Turkish border, and Ankara enjoys wide influence in northern Syria. Most of the rebels' supplies flow across the Turkish border. If the government succeeds in completely blockading the city, it would choke off the rebels and potentially force their surrender. It would also be catastrophic for tens of thousands of civilians still living there.

aleppo

A DIVIDED CITY

A number of insurgent groups control several neighborhoods of the city, which has been rocked by airstrikes and is being attacked from the west, south and east by government forces. The only rebel supply line is a corridor that links the city with northern parts of the province leading to the Turkish border.

Government forces and their allies control most of the eastern neighborhoods as well as the international airport and the nearby Nairab air base.

Militants from the Islamic State group used to control several neighborhoods in Aleppo, but they were forced out by other rebels in early 2014.

The main Kurdish militia, known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, controls several predominantly Kurdish northern neighborhoods.

The main insurgent groups in the city are the ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham group; the Nour el-Din Zengi; the Tawhid Brigade; and the Nusra Front, al-Qaida's branch in Syria. Smaller groups also are involved in the fighting.

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State Department: John Kerry will travel to Geneva on Sunday to discuss Syria

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John Kerry

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Geneva on May 1- 2 to discuss the Syrian conflict with his Jordanian and Saudi counterparts and the U.N. special envoy for Syria, the State Department said on Saturday.

"In all of his discussions, the Secretary will review ongoing efforts to reaffirm the cessation of hostilities nationwide in Syria, obtain the full humanitarian access to which the Syrian government committed, and support a political transition," said State Department spokesman John Kirby, in a statement.

On Friday, the United States said it was in discussions with Russia about trying to renew the cessation of hostilities in Syria following the deadly bombing this week of a hospital in Aleppo. 

(Reporting by Idrees Ali; editing by Andrew Roche)

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Video appears to show the moment a Syrian hospital was destroyed by an airstrike

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A video obtained by Channel 4 news appears to show the moment al-Quds hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo was destroyed in an airstrike, killing 55 civilians and wounding many more. 

The hospital, which was supported by Doctors Without Borders, was bombed on Thursday, as a fragile ceasefire crumbled and the city erupted in a new wave of violence that has killed at least 250 people over the past nine days. The US and others have pointed the finger of blame at the Syrian government for the attack.

Business Insider cannot independently verify the authenticity of the video. But it purports to show the final moments of Dr. Mohammad Moaz, the hospital's only pediatrician, as he leaves the facility's intensive-care unit.

The man shown leaving the unit does appear to be Dr. Moaz, whose photo was released on Facebook by the hospital's director in a tribute to the 36-year-old pediatrician after he was killed.

The new government offensive on Aleppo, believed to have been months in the making, has resulted in a "catastrophic deterioration" of the city over the past three days, said Jan Egeland, the chairman of the UN humanitarian task force for Syria.

US Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Geneva on Sunday to discuss the war's escalation with his Saudi and Jordanian counterparts. He will also meet with the UN's envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, in an attempt to get the two-month-old cessation-of-hostilities agreement back on track.

SEE ALSO: The Obama administration is 'giving full cover to the Russians' in Syria — and the results are 'catastrophic'

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Devastating photos offer a glimpse inside Syria's fiercest battleground — one of the 3 oldest cities in human history

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The epicenter of Syria's brutal civil war shifted decisively last week to the country's largest city, Aleppo, which remains divided between regime loyalists in the west and rebel forces in the east.

Since April 22, 250 people have been killed— 140 of them in airstrikes and 96 by rebel shelling, according to The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. At least 40 children have been among the dead.

aleppo

The violence has continued into the weekend: roughly 30 airstrikes pounded Aleppo on Saturday, marking the ninth-consecutive day of deadly bombardments.

SEE ALSO: The Obama administration is 'giving full cover to the Russians' in Syria — and the results are 'catastrophic'

Aleppo — along with Syria's capital, Damascus, and Sana'a, in Yemen — is one of the three oldest inhabited cities in human history.



The Citadel of Aleppo, a medieval fortified palace in the center of the old city, is one of the oldest and largest castles in the world. Its usage dates back at least to the middle of the third millennium BC.



In 2004, Aleppo was chosen by the Islamic conference organization to become the capital of Arab-Islamic culture.

Source: Reuters



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REPORT: ISIS has stepped up its attacks as it's lost territory

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A flag belonging to the Islamic State fighters is seen on a motorbike after forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad  recaptured the historic city of Palmyra, in Homs Governorate in this handout picture provided by SANA on March 27, 2016. REUTERS/SANA/Handout via Reuters

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Islamic State attacks have increased this year, particularly in Iraq and Syria as the group responds to substantial territorial losses, a U.S.-based analysis firm IHS said on Sunday.

There were 891 attacks during the first quarter of 2016 in neighbors Iraq and Syria, more than in any three-month period since the militants' sweeping advance in mid-2014, IHS said in a new report.

Those attacks killed 2,150 people, a 44 percent rise over the previous three months and the highest quarterly toll in nearly a year.

"The group is resorting more and more to mass-casualty violence as it comes under heavy pressure from multiple angles," said Matthew Henman, head of IHS Jane's Terrorism and Insurgency Center.

The U.S. military estimates Islamic State's territory in Iraq has shrunk by about 40 percent from its 2014 peak and 20 percent in Syria.

Iraq's military routed the militants from the western city of Ramadi four months ago and then pushed further west towards the Syrian border. The northern offensive has been slower, with army and Sunni Arab tribal forces taking only four villages over the past month south of Mosul.

In Syria, government-aligned forces backed by Russian air power have recaptured territory from Islamic State, including the ancient city of Palmyra. The group is also under pressure from a separate U.S.-led air campaign in the north and northeast, where Kurdish fighters have advanced.

The IHS report also noted a rise in Islamic State attacks in Libya, where the militants have grown in strength, taking over the central city of Sirte and attacking oilfields. Analysis showed almost as many attacks in the first three months of this year as in the preceding six months.

IHS said Islamic State activity has also spiked around the northwestern town of Sabratha it described as a key staging ground for attacks in neighboring Tunisia.

"High profile, mass casualty attacks are a tried and tested method of changing the narrative and deflecting attention away from the problems it is facing," said Henman. "This is done for internal consumption just as much as external." 

(Reporting by Stephen Kalin; Editing by Raissa Kasolowsky)

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The refugee who sold pens to feed his daughter now owns 4 businesses

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Abdul Halim al-Attar runs a restaurant, two bakeries, and a kebab shop in Beirut, Lebanon.

Only a few months ago, he was photographed trying to sell pens while carrying his sleeping daughter. The picture went viral and sparked a fundraising campaign for al-Attar's family. The goal was to raise $5,000, but people donated more than $191,000.

Story by Allan Smith and editing by Chelsea Pineda

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A prisoner revolt has reportedly broken out at Syria's Hama jail

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Syrian government troops surrounded Hama prison in the west of the country on Monday and fired tear gas after inmates revolted, seizing several guards, a monitoring group reported.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said inmates were protesting against a planned transfer of prisoners from Hama to Sednaya military prison north of Damascus. Those held in the Hama jail include political and Islamist prisoners, it said.

An insurgent group operating near Hama, located 210 km (130 miles) from Damascus, said it was ready to shell government militias in towns nearby in response to mistreatment of the inmates, who it said were demanding "basic rights" including trial, the British-based Observatory reported.

The Ajnad al-Sham group said prisoners had urged the armed opposition to "break the siege" by government forces.

Insurgents later shelled Maharda, one of the towns Ajnad al-Sham threatened to attack, the Observatory reported. It was not immediately clear if the shelling was linked.

An interior ministry official denied "reports from some media about Hama central prison", state news agency SANA said, without elaborating.

In August last year hundreds of inmates at the prison rioted in protest against conditions and harsh sentences.

International rights groups say thousands of detainees are held in Syrian government prisons without charge and many of them are subjected to torture, a claim denied by the authorities.

The Syrian conflict began in 2011 with popular protests against President Bashar al-Assad and spiralled into civil war after a crackdown by security forces.

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Norway to send 60 troops to train Syrian fighters

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Norway will send some 60 troops, including special forces soldiers, to train, advise and give operational support to Syrian fighters battling Islamic State militants, the country's prime minister said on Monday.

The troops will be based in Jordan. The Norwegian Parliament will need to be consulted if the troops are to operate within Syria, Prime Minister Erna Solberg said.

Norway had previously sent 120 soldiers to Iraq to help to train Iraqi and Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State in northern Iraq. Those troops are still in Iraq.

Norway's decision comes a week after the United States announced its biggest expansion of US ground troops in Syria since its civil war began.

The US military has led an air campaign against Islamic State since 2014 in Iraq and Syria, but its effectiveness in Syria has been limited by a lack of allies on the ground, in a country where a multi-sided civil war has raged for five years.

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SEE ALSO: A prisoner revolt has reportedly broken out at Syria's Hama jail

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The Assad regime reportedly struck an ominous deal with ISIS to take back a strategic city

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New documents obtained by Sky News revealed that the Syrian government's recapture of the ancient city of Palmyra from Islamic State militants was apparently part of a pre-arranged deal that allowed ISIS to remove its heavy weaponry from the city before withdrawing.

Sky News reported that the documents came from a Free Syrian Army group comprised of ISIS defectors originally from Raqqa, ISIS' de facto capital in Syria. 

"Withdraw all heavy artillery and anti-aircraft machine guns from in and around Palmyra to Raqqa province," read one document that was dated just before the Syrian Arab Army recaptured Palmyra at the end of March. 

Stuart Ramsay, Sky News' chief correspondent, said he asked one of the defectors if ISIS was coordinating its movements directly with forces loyal to Assad — and even with Russia, which backed the assault on Palmyra with heavy airstrikes. 

"Of course," the ISIS defector told Ramsay.

The documents obtained by Sky News provide more evidence that the Assad regime has been colluding with the jihadists, who have captured more than half of Syria's territory since 2012. 

The Wall Street Journal reported last month on files uncovered during a raid on the home of Abu Sayyaf, the Islamic State "oil minister" who was killed by US Special Forces at his compound in Syria's Deir Ezzour province last May. The files revealed deals the Assad regime supposedly made with Sayyaf that, at one point, contributed up to 72% of ISIS' profits from natural resources.

Abu Sayyaf's division had successfully negotiated agreements with the Assad regime to allow Islamic State trucks and pipelines to move from regime-controlled fields through territory controlled by the group, which is also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh. The division helped the jihadists bring in roughly $40 million a month in oil sales alone, according to documents seen by The Journal.

The natural-gas fields surrounding Palmyra were a particularly important source of revenue for the jihadists. They turned the gas into fuel which they then sold to Assad, according to Matthew Reed, the vice president of Foreign Reports Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm focused on oil and politics in the Middle East.

The documents smuggled out of Raqqa to Sky News appeared to provide corroboration. 

"One document requests safe passage for a driver through IS checkpoints 'until he reaches the border with the Syrian regime to exchange oil for fertilizer,'" Ramsay wrote.

He added: "The defectors claim that this is a trade agreement between the two sides that has been going on for years."

SEE ALSO: 'A signature blot on Obama's foreign policy record' is brewing in Iraq

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