BEIRUT (Reuters) - Besieged residents and rebels began leaving the Damascus suburb of Daraya on Friday, Reuters witnesses said, as an evacuation to end one of the longest stand-offs since Syria's five-year war began.

Insurgents and government forces agreed a deal on Thursday to evacuate the town, which the Syrian army has surrounded since 2012. The U.N. said only one shipment of aid has reached the area since then.

A Reuters witness saw six buses leaving the town. Footage on state television showed buses carefully driving past a large group of soldiers through streets lined with rubble.

Peeping from the window of one the vehicles was a small child no older than four or five, too young to remember life before the siege.

A Syrian Army general told reporters in Daraya that around 300 families of fighters would leave the town on Friday, and in total around 700 fighters and 4,000 civilians would be evacuated by Saturday.

The plight of civilians in Daraya and other besieged areas has long been of concern to the United Nations, which has condemned the use of starvation as a weapon by both sides in the conflict.

There have been previous deals to allow similar evacuations of besieged fighters and civilians, or to let people return to their homes after ceasefires were agreed.

In February, around 4,000 people returned to their south Damascus neighborhood after a ceasefire deal, and in December hundreds of fighters and their families were evacuated from two besieged areas in northern and western Syria.

Early site of protest

In June, authorities agreed to allow U.N.-supplied food deliveries into Daraya under a cessation of hostilities deal, but just one shipment of food aid has reached the town since then.

By this spring, conditions there were so bad that, amid reports of the army burning local wheat fields, some people were reduced to eating grass and sending their children out to beg, the U.N.'s World Food Programme said.

Daraya, just 7 km (4 miles) from President Bashar al Assad's seat of power, was one of the first places to see peaceful protests against his rule.

The suburb fought off repeated attempts to retake it by government forces as the conflict escalated into civil war. It was also the scene of one of the worst atrocities of the war.

In 2012, several hundred people were killed, including civilians, many execution style, after security forces stormed the suburb after locals took up arms. Both the army and rebels blamed each other.

In recent weeks, the army has escalated its use of barrel and incendiary bombs there. Last week its only hospital was hit, rebels and aid workers said.

Daraya's local council said in an online statement that civilians will be initially taken to the town of Herjalleh in the Western Ghouta suburbs of Damascus and "will move later to places they choose".

Herjalleh is the site of a government housing project for displaced people.

The Syrian Army general said rebels who did not want to make peace with the Syrian government would be transferred to Idlib. Those who did would be taken to Herjalleh.

A Syrian military source told Reuters all civilians would leave the city and the army would enter it. People would be allowed to return to their homes once the area's infrastructure had been rebuilt.

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The Arab Spring uprisings that spread across the Middle East in 2011 eventually led to regime changes, civil society crackdowns, and several bloody conflicts.

More than five years later, new data shows life expectancy in several countries, from Libya to Syria, has also taken a hit.

Syrians can now expect to live about six years less than they would have if the civil war there had never started.

Since Libya devolved into conflict after Muammar Gaddafi's 2011 ousting, men in the country have lost nine years off their lives and women lost six years.

Life expectancy also dropped by a quarter of a year in Egypt, Tunisia, and Yemen.

These figures are according to new study on the state of health in the Middle East out of the University of Washington that analyzed 23 years of data extending to 2013.

"Our study shows that the eastern Mediterranean region is going through a crucial health phase," the study states in its summary. "The Arab uprisings and the wars that followed, coupled with aging and population growth, will have a major impact on the region's health and resources."

In Syria, where the ongoing conflict has killed 400,000 people and placed millions in dire need of humanitarian aid, war was reported as a "large contributor" to the years of life lost.

The new numbers reverse gains in the Middle East had been making in public health despite stressful domestic conditions. Before the recent declines, Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Yemen all saw life expectancies increase by about five years between 1990 and 2010.

As a whole, the Middle East saw life expectancy grow to 71 years by 2013, but the study's authors say the devastation in countries like Syria and Libya is significant enough to start rolling back these improvements as the conflict and refugee crises take their toll.

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The US will reach its target this week of taking in 10,000 Syrian war refugees in a year-old resettlement program, the US ambassador to Jordan said Sunday, after meeting families headed to California and Virginia.

The resettlement program has emerged as an issue in the US presidential campaign, with Republican nominee Donald Trump alleging displaced Syrians pose a potential security threat.

Alice Wells, the US ambassador to Jordan, said Sunday that keeping Americans safe and taking in some of the world's most vulnerable people are not mutually exclusive.

"Refugees are the most thoroughly screened category of travelers to the United States, and Syrian refugees are subject to even greater scrutiny," she said.

Wells said the target of resettling 10,000 Syrian refugees in the US in the 2016 fiscal year will be reached Monday, as several hundred Syrians depart from Jordan over 24 hours.

The Jouriyeh family, which attended Sunday's short ceremony, is headed to San Diego, California.

Nadim Fawzi Jouriyeh, 49, a former construction worker from the war-ravaged Syrian city of Homs, said he feels "fear and joy, fear of the unknown and our new lives, but great joy for our children's lives and future."

Jouriyeh, who suffers from heart problems, will be traveling with his wife, Rajaa, 42, and their four children. Their oldest son, 14-year-old Mohammed, said he is eager to sign up for school in San Diego and hopes to study medicine one day.

The resettlement program focuses on the most vulnerable refugees, including those who were subjected to violence or torture or are sick.

Close to 5 million Syrians have fled civil war since 2011. Most struggle to survive in tough conditions in neighboring countries, including Jordan, which hosts close to 660,000 Syrian refugees.

Only a small percentage of Syrian refugees have been resettled to third countries. Instead, donor countries are trying to invest more in job creation and education for refugees in regional host countries to encourage them to stay there instead of moving onward, including to Europe.

Wells said the US has taken in more refugees from around the world over the years than all other nations combined.

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Turkey has a name for its newly launched military incursion into neighboring Syria: Operation Euphrates Shield.

It sums up Ankara’s overriding priority when it comes to the war there: preventing Kurdish forces from seizing a contiguous stretch of territory along its southern flank.

The lightning operation that kicked off before dawn on Wednesday was billed as a way to push the Islamic State out of Jarablus — its last stronghold on the Turkish border.

But the timing, and subsequent statements from officials in Ankara, have made clear that Turkey is focused on the threat posed by advancing Kurdish fighters rather than on the Islamic State militants who had held the border town since 2014.

The assault by about a dozen Leopard tanks, a contingent of Turkish special operations forces, and several hundred Syrian rebels — all backed up by American F-16 and A-10 fighter planes — was touted in a brand-new English-language Turkish government Twitter account: @EuphratesShield.

As the Turkish-backed Syrian rebels consolidated their hold on the town, the account posted increasingly anti-Kurd messages, delivering propaganda tying the U.S.-backed Kurdish YPG militia battling the Islamic State inside Syria to the PKK, a Turkish-based Kurdish militant group that has been waging a bloody, decades-long battle with Ankara to gain Kurdish independence.

The PKK, an acronym for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, was formed in the late 1970s as a Marxist-inspired Kurdish independence movement, and the fighting between the group and the Turkish government has cost about 40,000 lives. The war reached a peak in the 1990s, when Turkish forces destroyed hundreds of Kurdish villages, forcing hundreds of thousands of Kurds to leave the country or flee elsewhere within Turkey.

After years of relative calm, a fragile 2-year-old cease-fire between the PKK and the Turkish government unraveled last year. The PKK has staged attacks on police stations and military bases, employing terrorist tactics with suicide bombings and roadside bombs that have claimed hundreds of lives.

Ankara makes no distinction between the PKK and the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, one of Washington’s most effective battlefield allies in Syria. The United States, though, only designates the PKK as a terrorist group, which has triggered years of tensions between the two countries.

The upshot is that Ankara is concerned about the Islamic State but is far more worried about the threat posed by its Kurdish adversaries. Despite a rash of deadly attacks within Turkey since last year, including a bombing at a wedding party on Saturday that claimed 54 lives, the Islamic State isn’t considered a major threat to the Turkish people, who have suffered terrorist attacks for decades. It sees a successful Kurdish effort to conquer and hold territory along its border as a potentially existential danger to the Turkish state. And no Turkish leader — especially President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a nationalist — wants to be accused of having allowed the Kurds to build an independent state on the country’s southern border.

“We will not allow the formation of a new ‘Qandil’ on our southern border,” Erdogan said in February, referring to the mountain range in northern Iraq where the PKK has set up bases in its insurgency against the Turkish state.

The timing of Operation Euphrates Shield carries clear political benefits for Erdogan, whose government is still reeling from a July 15 failed coup that has prompted a massive crackdown on his real and perceived foes. The coup attempt was led by a group of military officers, and the incursion into Syria has allowed Erdogan to demonstrate that the armed forces are under his authority and still able to assert Turkey’s interests, said Aaron Stein, a fellow at the Atlantic Council.

“It’s  strategically opportune and politically opportune to launch this now,” Stein told Foreign Policy.

The United States has long lobbied Turkey to take on a more decisive role in the fight against the Islamic State, and it was not until last year that the Americans secured permission to conduct airstrikes in Syria from its base in Incirlik in southeast Turkey. Ankara for the most part has preferred to arm rebel groups fighting the Damascus regime while appealing to Washington to help forge a “buffer zone” along its border.

Now, Stein said, “at least the Turks have decided to put real skin in the game.”

The immediate impetus for Wednesday’s incursion was the movement of YPG forces north toward Jarablus after having helped flush the Islamic State out of the town of Manbij this month. Both Turkish and U.S. officials have long admonished the Kurdish militia that it would have to steer clear of Jarablus given its strategic location on the Turkish frontier.

The U.S.-backed Kurds, who took Manbij with the help of dozens of U.S. airstrikes and special operations advisors, have been “leaning forward in a way that is making the Turks nervous,” said the Institute for the Study of War’s Jennifer Cafarella.

At a news conference in Ankara on Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden warned Kurdish forces to leave the town. “We have made it clear to Kurdish forces that they must move back across the river,” he said. “They cannot and will not get American support if they do not keep that commitment, period.”

The Kurds have already backed down, at least temporarily. On Wednesday, YPG fighters agreed to leave Manbij and move back to their starting line on the Euphrates.

“At the request of the U.S.-backed SDF, we are withdrawing from west of the Euphrates,” a Kurdish spokesman said.

One of the reasons the Kurds agreed to leave is that with Jarablus in Turkish hands, their forces in Manbij are for the first time within range of the Turkish army’s formidable artillery.

The fight for Jarablus appears to have been short-lived. After several hours of fighting, Turkey declared it cleared of Islamic State fighters. But early reports indicate that the militants fled to the nearby Islamic State stronghold of al-Bab, which is on the road to Aleppo.  

It remains unclear whether the relatively limited Turkish military presence will expand around Jarablus, and whether the Turks will opt to push farther into Syria. It’s possible Turkish forces will leave some tanks in the area to fend off any counterattacks by the Islamic State, experts said.

While the Turks weigh their options, their Free Syrian Army allies are likely to move soon on al-Bab, another Islamic State bastion to the southwest, as it would allow Ankara to “cut the linking of the two Kurdish enclaves” east and west of the Euphrates River, said the Washington Institute’s Soner Cagaptay, director of the group’s Turkish Research Program.

By prohibiting the Kurds from establishing an unbroken zone of influence in northern Syria, Ankara ensures that YPG fighters will be unable to form an autonomous Kurdish enclave that stretches along Turkey’s border, while also giving Turkey a zone of influence inside Syria.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu added his voice Wednesday to the chorus of Turkish officials demanding that the Kurds retreat over the Euphrates — and added a not-too-subtle threat. “The U.S. also supports this,” he said. “Otherwise, I am saying very clearly that we will do what is necessary.”

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The Obama administration has touted its negotiations to remove chemical weapons from Syria as a major diplomatic achievement.

But a new report from the UN Security Council found that the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad used chemical weapons against civilians in violation of the deal the Obama administration brokered with the help of Russia in 2013.

The report confirmed two instances of chlorine-gas attacks carried out by the Assad regime — one in 2014 and one in 2015.

"The Assad regime has learned over the past five years that the Obama administration will do absolutely nothing to protect Syrian civilians from mass homicide," Fred Hof, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a former special adviser for transition in Syria under then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, told Business Insider via email.

"That it should return to the use of weaponized chemicals is not at all surprising."

And the Obama administration was likely aware that Assad's forces were using chemical weapons before the UN report came out.

"This is not a surprise to the administration," Robert Ford, a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute and US ambassador to Syria between 2010 and 2014, told Business Insider. "We have been getting reports about this chlorine gas for more than a year. Some Syrian doctors testified [to Congress] last year. … So they've known for a long time. Now with the UN report, they're more on the hook."

An Obama administration official acknowledged that the US government had suspected the Assad regime was using chlorine gas.

The UN report "back[s] up what we have repeatedly said: time and again the Syrian regime has used industrial chlorine as a weapon against its own people in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 2118," the official said in a statement to Business Insider.

While the UN resolution on Syria's chemical weapons didn't stipulate that the regime had to get rid of chlorine as a chemical substance, it did prohibit the government from using it as a weapon.

Assad's blatant disregard for the deal doesn't look good for the US, considering that the deal was supposed to be President Barack Obama's defense against critics who blasted him for backing down on his "red line" in Syria.

Obama infamously stated in 2012 that his red line with the Assad regime would be the use of chemical weapons. And later that year, Assad's forces killed nearly 1,500 people in a chemical-weapons attack.

But the US didn't strike. It instead used the chemical weapons deal as a sort of substitute for military action.

Jeffrey Goldberg, who interviewed Obama about his foreign policy for The Atlantic earlier this year, wrote that after the deal was made, Secretary of State John Kerry had "no patience for those who argue, as he himself once did, that Obama should have bombed Assad-regime sites" to protect American credibility on the red line.

And Obama himself said that he was "very proud" of the deal.

"The perception was that my credibility was at stake, that America's credibility was at stake," Obama told The Atlantic. "And so for me to press the pause button at that moment, I knew, would cost me politically. And the fact that I was able to pull back from the immediate pressures and think through in my own mind what was in America's interest, not only with respect to Syria but also with respect to our democracy, was as tough a decision as I've made — and I believe ultimately it was the right decision to make."

Now it's evident that Assad hasn't held up his end of the bargain.

"Assad and his allies — Russia and Iran — hold this administration in absolute contempt," Hof said. "Assad rubs the 'red line' in the president's face by returning to chemical warfare; [Russian President Vladimir] Putin authorizes Russian aircraft to strike US-equipped, anti-ISIS Syrian rebel units; and [Iranian Supreme Leader Ali] Khamenei turns loose armed Revolutionary Guard speedboats to harass American naval assets in the Strait of Hormuz."

Hof concluded: "They all sense weakness and they all act accordingly."

Assad's flouting of the UN resolution puts Obama in a tough spot, Ford said.

"In any case, it seems that what the Obama administration highlighted as its biggest achievement on Syria ... is much less than the administration itself touted. The administration is now left with a response that 'at least the Syrian government is not using sarin,'" he said, referring to one of the most toxic chemical-warfare agents in the world.

Still, it's perhaps too soon to tell how this will affect Obama's legacy.

"It's too early to judge because there are a lot of events moving on the ground in Syria," Ford said. "I don't rule out the possibility that in the end, Russia, Iran, and Turkey are going to agree on the elements of the ceasefire."

For its part, the White House issued a statement condemning Assad's use of chemical weapons.

"It is now impossible to deny that the Syrian regime has repeatedly used industrial chlorine as a weapon against its own people in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention and UN Security Council Resolution 2118," Ned Price, spokesman for the National Security Council, said in the statement.

"We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Assad regime's use of chlorine against its own people."

The US will seek to enforce accountability for the chemical weapons attack at a UN Security Council meeting next week, the Obama administration official said.

The UN report underscores "the importance of the effort this administration led to ensure that Syria also joined the Chemical Weapons Convention so we can hold them to account," the official said. "That is exactly what we will be pursuing at next week's UN Security Council meeting."

It's so far unclear what the international community can do to enforce the UN resolution.

"The US and Europe already have so many sanctions on Syria," Ford said. "All of them predate the uprising. … So I’m not sure there are many additional sanctions."

Assad allies that are parties to the UN Chemical Weapons Convention, like Russia, might be able to inflict some sanctions, but it's perhaps unlikely that they will.

"It's a little hard for me to imagine," Ford said. "As a theoretical possibility, it's out there."

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BEIRUT – Afghanistan has arrested an Iranian official for recruiting Shiites to fight on behalf of the Syrian regime, according to media reports.

An Iranian outlet affiliated with the country’s reformist movement reported Sunday that Qurban Ghalambor—the representative of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's office in Kabul—was detained for “recruiting Afghan Shiite fighters and sending them to Syria.”

 Afghan security authorities transferred Ghalambor from Herat to the capital Kabul, where further investigations into his activities were launched, according to an Arabic-language translation of a Saham News report prepared by Kurdish Bas News. 

Saham News—which is linked to Iranian reformist political Mehdi Karroubi—added that Afghan Shiite figure Issa Hosseini Mazari—the head of the Afghan Voice Agency—called on authorities to release Ghalambor.

 Al-Jazeera also covered the incident, reporting Sunday that Ghalambor was the official responsible for dispatching Afghan Shiite fighters to Syria.

The news network cited Afghan government sources as saying that the Iranian was detained outside his home in Herat, which is located in western Afghanistan near Iran.

Tehran has recruited thousands of Persian-speaking Hazara Afghans refugees living in Iran to fight in the Fatemiyoun Brigade, which was formed in late 2014 and is overseen by officers in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). 

“Iran has urged the Afghans to defend Shia sacred sites and offered financial incentives and legal residence in Iran to encourage them to join pro-Syrian government militias,” Human Rights Watch said in a January 2016 report condemning Tehran for recruiting impoverished Hazara Afghans.

Afghans have been thrown into combat on the side of regime forces across Syria, with a large number of them dying in the Aleppo and Daraa provinces.

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BEIRUT/KARKAMIS, Turkey — Turkish-backed forces pushed deeper into northern Syria on Monday and drew a rebuke from NATO ally the United States, which said it was concerned the battle for territory had shifted away from targeting Islamic State.

At the start of Turkey's now almost week-long cross-border offensive, Turkish tanks, artillery and warplanes provided Syrian rebel allies the firepower to capture swiftly the Syrian frontier town of Jarablus from Islamic State militants.

Since then, Turkish forces have mainly pushed into areas controlled by forces aligned to the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition that encompasses the Kurdish YPG militia and which has been backed by Washington to fight the jihadists.

A group monitoring the tangled, five-year-old conflict in Syria said 41 people were killed by Turkish air strikes as Turkish forces pushed south on Sunday. Turkey denied there were any civilian deaths, saying 25 Kurdish militants were killed.

"We want to make clear that we find these clashes - in areas where ISIL is not located - unacceptable and a source of deep concern," said Brett McGurk, U.S special envoy for the fight against Islamic State, using an acronym for the jihadists.

"We call on all armed actors to stand down," he wrote on his official Twitter account, citing a statement from the U.S. Department of Defense.

Turkey, which is battling a Kurdish insurgency on its soil, has said its campaign has a dual goal of "cleansing" the region of Islamic State and stopping Kurdish forces filling the void and extending the area they control near Turkey's border.

It has put Ankara at odds with Washington and adds to tensions when Turkey's government is still reeling from last month's failed coup, which it says Washington was too slow to condemn. U.S. Vice President Joe Biden sought to patch up ties in a visit last week, just as Turkish forces entered Syria.

In a news conference on Monday with a visiting European official, Turkish European Affairs Minister Omer Celik said: "No one has the right to tell us which terrorist organization we can fight against." He did not however mention the U.S. comments.

On Monday, Turkish-backed forces advanced on Manbij, a city about 30 km (20 miles) south of Turkey's border captured this month by the SDF with U.S. help. The thud of artillery was heard from the Turkish border town of Karkamis.

'Ethnic cleansing'

SDF-aligned militia said they were reinforcing Manbij but insisted none of the troops in the region or the extra fighters heading to the city were from the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia.

Turkey has said its warplanes and artillery have bombarded positions held by the Kurdish YPG militia in recent days. It accuses the YPG of seeking to take territory where there has not traditionally been a strong Kurdish ethnic contingent.

"The YPG is engaged in ethnic cleansing, they are placing who they want to in those places," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in Ankara, demanding Kurdish forces withdraw east of the Euphrates river, a natural boundary with areas of eastern Syria under Kurdish control.

The YPG, a powerful Syrian Kurdish militia in the SDF that Washington sees as a reliable ally against jihadists in the Syrian conflict, have dismissed the Turkish allegation and say any of its forces west of the Euphrates have long since left.

"Turkey's claims that it is fighting the YPG west of the Euphrates have no basis in truth and are merely flimsy pretexts to widen its occupation of Syrian land," Redur Xelil, chief spokesman for the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, told Reuters.

U.S. Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook said the United States had demanded the YPG must cross back to the eastern side of the Euphrates but said Washington understood this had "largely occurred."

Turkey has not spelled out if it plans to set up a "buffer zone" in the region where it is fighting in north Syria. The region lies between two Kurdish-controlled cantons - one east of the Euphrates and the other to the west near the Mediterranean.

But Ankara fears that, if Kurdish militia create an unbroken swathe of territory, it could embolden the Kurdish militant PKK group which has fought a three-decade-long insurgency on Turkish soil to demand autonomy in Turkey's southeast.

On Monday, Turkey also launched air strikes on what it said were PKK targets in northern Iraq, a Kurdish-controlled region along another section of Turkey's southern border and where the PKK has bases.

Turkish-backed forces say they seized a string of villages south of Syria's Jarablus in a region controlled by groups aligned to the U.S.- and Kurdish-backed SDF. They also say they have taken a few places to the west in Islamic State areas.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors Syria's conflict, said Turkish-backed rebels had seized at least 21 villages to the south and west of Jarablus since Aug. 25.

Syria's conflict began in 2011 as an uprising against President Bashar al-Assad. Since then it has drawn in regional states and world powers, with a proliferation of rival rebel groups, militias and jihadists adding to the complexity.

(Additional reporting by Tom Perry in Beirut, Orhan Coskun and Ece Toksabay in Ankara, and Can Sezer, David Dolan and Nick Tattersall in Istanbul; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Ralph Boulton)

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The UN has awarded contracts worth tens of millions of dollars to people closely associated with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, as part of an aid programme that critics fear is increasingly at the whim of the government in Damascus, a Guardian investigation has found.

Businessmen whose companies are under US and EU sanctions have been paid substantial sums by the UN mission, as have government departments and charities – including one set up by the president’s wife, Asma al-Assad, and another by his closest associate, Rami Makhlouf.

The UN says it can only work with a small number of partners approved by President Assad and that it does all it can to ensure the money is spent properly.

“Of paramount importance is reaching as many vulnerable civilians as possible,” a spokesman said. “Our choices in Syria are limited by a highly insecure context where finding companies and partners who operate in besieged and hard to reach areas is extremely challenging.”

However, critics believe the UN mission is in danger of being compromised.

They believe aid is being prioritized in government-held areas and argue UN money is effectively helping to prop up a regime responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of its own citizens.

UN insiders admit the relief mission in Syria is the most expensive, challenging and complex it has ever undertaken.

But the contentious decisions it has had to make are now exposed for the first time by a Guardian analysis of hundreds of contracts it has awarded since the operation began in 2011.

This shows that:

• The UN has paid more than $13m to the Syrian government to boost farming and agriculture, yet the EU has banned trade with the departments in question for fear of how the money will be used.
• The UN has paid at least $4m to the state-owned fuel supplier, which is also on the EU sanctions list.
• The World Health Organisation has spent more than $5m to support Syria’s national blood bank – but this is being controlled by Assad’s defence department. Documents seen by the Guardian show funds spent on blood supplies came directly from donors who have economic sanctions against the Syrian government, including the UK. They also show the WHO had “concrete concerns” about whether blood supplies would reach those in need, or be directed to the military first.
• Two UN agencies have partnered with the Syria Trust charity, an organization started and chaired by President Assad’s wife, Asma, spending a total of $8.5m. The first lady is under both US and EU sanctions.
• Unicef has paid $267,933 to the Al-Bustan Association, owned and run by Rami Makhlouf, Syria’s wealthiest man. He is a friend and cousin of Assad, and his charity has been linked to several pro-regime militia groups.
• Makhlouf runs the mobile phone network Syriatel, which the UN has also paid at least $700,000 in recent years. Makhlouf is on the EU sanctions list and wasdescribed in US diplomatic cables as the country’s “poster boy for corruption”.
• Contracts have been awarded across UN departments with companies run by or linked to individuals under sanctions.

These contracts show how the United Nations operation has quietly secured deals with individuals and companies that have been designated off-limits by Europe and the US.

On top of this, analysis of the United Nations own procurement documents show its agencies have done business with at least another 258 Syrian companies, paying sums as high as $54m and £36m, down to $30,000. Many are likely to have links to Assad, or those close to him.

The UN says that its relief work has already saved millions of lives and argues it has to work with the regime if it wants to operate in Syria.

It highlights the money it has spent putting up staff at the Four Seasons hotel in Damascus as a case in point.

UN agencies paid $9,296,325.59 to the hotel in 2014-15 – which is understood to still be one-third owned by Syria’s ministry of tourism, a department outlawed under EU sanctions.

The hotel is deemed the safest place for UN personnel to stay in the Syrian capital.

“Operating in Syria, with the conflict now entering its sixth year, forces humanitarians to make difficult choices,” a UN spokesman said.

“When faced with having to decide whether to procure goods or services from businesses that may be affiliated with the government or let civilians go without life-saving assistance, the choice is clear: our duty is to the civilians in need.”

The UN also points out it does not have to abide by EU or US sanctions. It only needs to abide by UN sanctions.

But one serving UN official told the Guardian there was unease within some of its agencies about the grip Assad’s government has on the relief effort.

The official, who has worked extensively inside Syria, said that while operating inside the country was challenging, the UN’s position was disappointing. Another said that all conflicts presented difficult working conditions but the “situation in Syria just doesn’t happen anywhere else”.

Another UN official who worked in Damascus early in the conflict told the Guardian: “The UN country team knew from the early days of the conflict that neither the government nor its authorized list of local associations for partnership with the UN could be considered as befitting the humanitarian principles of independence, neutrality and impartiality.

“This important consideration was stepped aside by the UN to satisfy the government’s leadership demand for the humanitarian response. This set the tone for UN entanglement with entities closely associated with the government.”

Sources also describe a worrying “culture of silence” about the internal workings of the UN’s Damascus operation.

Dr Reinoud Leenders, an expert in in war studies based at King’s College in London, said the UN needed to rethink its strategy because it had become too close to the regime.

“UN officials argue that given the complex and often dangerous realities in which they are expected to provide aid, some concessions and accommodation of the government’s demands are inevitable. Yet ... the UN’s alleged pragmatism has long given way to troubling proximity to the regime.”

Leenders said UN agencies had paid “lucrative procurement contracts to Syrian regime cronies who are known to bankroll the very repression and brutality that caused much of the country’s humanitarian needs”.

The academic has interviewed many independent aid workers for a study on Syria. They told him some UN officials were displaying signs of “clear-cut Stockholm syndrome”.

A senior member of the humanitarian community who leaked information to the Guardian said: “There are obviously questions over some of these UN procurements.

“But at least the UN publishes the names of their suppliers. Many of the international NGOs won’t even do that. Very limited transparency is a problem that affects the whole aid effort in Syria. Given that the aid industry has been talking [about] the need for more transparency for decades, it’s high time we had proper independent scrutiny of where this money is going and how it is being spent.”

In June, the Syria Campaign accused the UN of breaching its principles in the conflict by effectively letting the government control aid deliveries.

More than 50 humanitarian, human rights and civil society groups back a reportwhich said the UN had given in to demands not to help rebel-held areas, contributing to the death of thousands of civilians.

The report said the Assad government controlled aid by threatening to remove the UN’s permission to operate within Syria.

“The Syrian government has used this threat consistently since then to manipulate where, how and to whom the UN has been able to deliver humanitarian aid,” it adds.

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It has long been clear that the Obama administration will hand its successor a dangerous mess in the Middle East, centering on Syria and emanating outward. Is it now ceding so much initiative that it risks delivering the next president an outright failure?

That prospect’s just a little way out in the middle distance. All of the region’s major powers now appear intent on pushing the Americans to the side, or they stand in open defiance of U.S. policy (such as anybody can make one out). Or both.  

Secretary of State Kerry’s continuing ceasefire and cooperation talks with Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart, are just about the only American initiative left. While the success of this effort remains far from certain, working carefully but more closely with Moscow now emerges as the best chance Washington has to influence the outcome in Syria.

At this point, the magnitude of the fix the Obama administration is in, primarily due to its mistakes, can’t be exaggerated. Amid stunningly rapid realignments across the Middle East, the pre-eminence Washington assumed after the Suez crisis in 1956 suddenly appears at risk.

Big changes portend historic shifts, and those early signs are in the making.

The events of just the past few weeks must have a lot of heads spinning at State. Turkey, Iran, Russia, and even Syria—four non–Western powers—are all converging in one way or another to advance toward a solution in Syria.

There are some shockers here. Sunni-nationalist Turkey is reconnecting with Shiite Iran—this after President Erdoğan’s startling new rapprochement with Russia. Now we have reports that Turkey is conducting back-channel talks with the Assad government in Damascus; Sputnik, the Russian wire service, just published aninterview with one of the Turkish mediators.

Now there’s a set of proper pivots for you.

Iran’s relations with Russia, which have been on again, off again since the Safavid and Russian empires established ties in the 16^th century, are now on again. Given all the effort Kerry put into the nuclear accord with Tehran two years ago, it must have been bitter when Russian bombers flying sorties into Syria took off from Iranian airfields two weeks ago.

Still absorbing that out-of-nowhere news, the spokesperson at State managed no more than an embarrassing splutter at his daily presser the next day. The Iranians, increasingly angry as they allege the U.S. is blocking much of the business they expected to come their way, have since moved provocatively against U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf—an unmistakable poke in the Obama administration’s eye.

The ever-unpredictable Erdoğan, meantime, has Obama and Vice-President Biden in knots by way of a take-it-or-leave-it new military arrangement. Turkey, which is deeply committed to crushing the Kurdish autonomy movement in Syria and Turkey both, sent special forces into Syria last week for the first time, nominally against the Islamic State.

In evident gratitude, Biden turned on the Kurds—the best ally Washington has against ISIS—and demanded they retreat during a visit to Ankara last week. Now look: By last Friday, it was clear that Erdoğan’s priority—as it always has been—is attacking the Kurds, not the Islamic State, first and most vigorously.

On various battlefields, the Assad government just retook a key suburb of Damascusfrom U.S.–backed opposition forces. On the other side of the border, since Baghdad retook Fallujah earlier this summer, it’s awkwardly obvious that Washington’s effectively dependent on Iranian militias.

That’s quite a list of mishaps, bad calls, and reversals. But it’s what Kerry must keep in his attaché case while he’s talking to Lavrov in Geneva, as he did once again last week.

A few new realities are attaching to these talks now.

One is that Kerry has no chance of success until Washington clarifies its intentionally blurred position on Assad. Moscow has no great affection for him, but there’s no chance in hell it will accept removing him before political processes and institutions are in place to prevent Libyan-style chaos.

Another concerns the Pentagon. Kerry needs to face down those at Defense who have been effectively sabotaging his talks with Lavrov to establish some form of on-the-ground military cooperation. Generals are supposed to execute orders; policy is the purview of diplomats.

Looming over all are Washington’s hostile relations with Russia. It’s time to stop dismissing its aspirations to global influence out of hand and recognize that, like it or not, Moscow has quite a lot of clout. “It should be obvious, then, that Washington needs a better Russia policy,” Foreign Policy wrote in a clear-eyed essay published last week.  

This is now very key. And that’s nowhere clearer than in Syria and in all the political jockeying the Syrian crisis prompts. Absent a rethink of U.S. relations with Russia—toward cooperation and away from confrontation—the word we’re looking for amid the rapidly realigning Middle East may be “marginalization.”

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PARIS (Reuters) - Turkey's military push into northern Syria risks causing an escalation of the conflict, French President Francois Hollande said on Tuesday, calling on all parties to end fighting and a return to peace talks for the country.

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Key Takeaway:Turkey is unraveling America’s anti-ISIS partner in northern Syria in order to position itself as a major power broker in planned operations to retake Raqqa City. Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) crossed into Syria to seize the ISIS held border town of Jarablus alongside numerous Turkish- and U.S.-backed Syrian armed opposition groups on August 24.

The operation, titled Euphrates Shield, is a turning point in American-Turkish relations and the war against ISIS by fulfilling longstanding American demands for more Turkish involvement in the anti-ISIS fight. Euphrates Shield also aims to prevent the expansion of Kurdish control along the border, however.

The U.S. ordered the Syrian Kurdish People’s Defense Forces (YPG) to withdraw to the east bank of the Euphrates River in accordance with Turkish demands at the start of the operation. Turkey is leveraging Syrian opposition groups it trusts in Jarablus and intentionally sidelining groups that joined the Syrian YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), bringing U.S.- and Turkish- backed opposition factions into direct conflict with the American-backed SDF.

The SDF opposed the Turkish incursion and attacked the joint Turkish-Syrian opposition force on August 27. A U.S. defense official announced that the two sides agreed to a “loose” truce on August 30. An unidentified Turkish military source, however, subsequently denied the existence of any such agreement.

The Turkish intervention has meanwhile inspired local resistance against the SDF and YPG in Sunni Arab areas including Manbij City, south of Jarablus, and the northern Raqqa countryside. Turkey may exploit this local resistance to unseat the SDF from Manbij City and replace it with a military force that opposes the YPG.

Turkey is unraveling America’s anti-ISIS partner in northern Syria in order to position itself as a major power broker in planned operations to retake Raqqa City. Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) crossed into Syria to seize the ISIS held border town of Jarablus alongside numerous Turkish- and U.S.-backed Syrian armed opposition groups on August 24.

The intervention brought the TSK and U.S. backed opposition forces into direct conflict with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), America’s primary ally in the anti-ISIS fight. Turkey notified the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition, the Syrian regime, and Russia about the offensive, which it titled “Operation Euphrates Shield.”

Turkish Special Operations forces led a joint military force into Jarablus, including an armoredbattalion from Turkey’s Second Army and as many as 5,000 Syrian opposition fighters from groups based in the northern Aleppo countryside including: the Sultan Murad Brigade, Suqour al-Jebel, Jaysh al Tahrir, Jabhat al Shamiya, Nour al Din al Zenki, Faylaq al-Sham, and Ahrar al Sham.

ISIS mounted little resistance to the attack, instead withdrawing southwest to the town of al Bab. SDF fighters rejected the Turkish intervention as an “occupation” and attacked the joint Turkish/Syrian opposition force. The Turkish intervention meanwhile appears to have emboldened local elements to resist the SDF openly.

Sunni Arab elements in Manbij and the Raqqa countryside issued statements rejecting the SDF because of the YPG’s goal to establish an independent Syrian Kurdistan. Turkey likely will continue to advance south in order to unseat the SDF from Manbij and position loyal Syrian opposition forces as necessary ground partners in the operation to retake Raqqa City.

Turkey is leveraging Syrian opposition groups it trusts in Jarablus and intentionally sidelining groups that joined the Syrian YPG-led SDF. Local SDF groups from Jarablus declared the formation of the Jarablus Military Council on August 22 and stated their intent to seize Jarablus.

The leader of the Jarablus Military Council (JMC), Abdussatar al-Jadir, was assassinated the following day. The JMC accused Turkish intelligence and attacked the joint Turkish/Syrian opposition force on August 27. Turkey launched airstrikes against JMC and SDF positions south of Jarablus in response and has maintained an active air campaign targeting the area.

The joint Turkish/Syrian opposition force advanced south, seizing over a dozen villages and reaching the Sajour River by August 29. The JMC nonetheless continues to marshal support from the Aleppo countryside. The SDF-linked Manbij Military Council announced its support for the JMC on August 27.

Prominent Manbij Military Council (MMC) member Kataib Shams al Shamal deployed to reinforce the front line south of Jarablus. A delegation of tribal elders in Manbij later declared its support for the JMC on August 28.

The escalation between the joint Turkish/Syrian opposition military force and coalescing SDF elements south of Jarablus have redirected the focus of the SDF’s Sunni Arab fighting force at a time when the U.S. intended to prepare for operations to retake Raqqa City.

Turkey’s intervention aimed to sideline the SDF and check the YPG’s rising strength along the Turkish border. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated that Turkey intended to fight the YPG “with the same determination” as fighting ISIS during a visit to Gaziantep on August 28. 

He also vowed to provide “all necessary support” to Syrians living in Gaziantep who wanted to return to Jarablus, indicating his intent to repopulate Jarablus – and possibly its southern countryside – with Syrian refugees after finishing clearing operations.

He will ensure that the refugees that resettle in Syria are Sunni Arabs in order to block future Kurdish activity in the area. Turkey had conditioned its support for the U.S.-led SDF operation to retake Manbij beginning in April 2016 on the mandatory withdrawal of the YPG to the east bank of the Euphrates river after the SDF captured the city, but YPG forces had not withdrawn as of the launch of Operation Euphrates Shield on August 24, despite seizing the city in early August.

U.S Vice President Joe Biden was in Ankara on August 24 and expressed strong supportfor the operation. He also ordered the YPG to withdraw from Manbij to the eastern bank of the Euphrates, stating that the group, “will not under any circumstances get American support” if it does not comply. The YPG’s general command chose to back down rather than confront Turkey near Jarablus directly, but has not completely withdrawn as ordered.

The YPG released a statement confirming its intent to remain focused on the overall anti-ISIS fight on August 27, signaling its acquiescence to American demands. Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. John L. Dorrian confirmed that the main element of the YPG relocated east of the Euphrates River, but stated that some forces remained to finish IED clearing operations.

The YPG confirmed its presence near the front line south of Jarablus on August, but claimed the fighters had crossed back across the river to help evacuate civilians targeted by Turkish airstrikes. It is unclear whether the YPG is participating actively in clashes at the time of writing. U.S. secretary of Defense Ashton Carter acknowledged the YPG’s noncompliance on August 29, stating that the U.S. will “deconflict” and “clarify where the YPG elements of the SDF are and are not.”

Turkey will likely attempt to unseat the SDF’s Manbij Military Council next. The SDF formed the Manbij Military Council to recapture Manbij city on April 5. The SDF’s Manbij Military Council did not include the original Free Syrian Army-affiliated Manbij Military Council, which ISIS displaced in 2013.

Turkey’s intervention emboldened the original Manbij Military Council and elements of the local population in Manbij to oppose the SDF openly. The original Manbij Military Council released a statement on August 28 rejecting the SDF and calling forshared control with the SDF over Manbij city. Residents of Manbij reportedly also issued a letter rejecting the SDF on August 28.

Rising local dissent in Manbij follows a statement by Sunni Arab tribes in the Raqqa countryside that pledged to fight against the YPG in the area. Turkey may capitalize on local resistance to the SDF to recapture Manbij and install the original Manbij Miltiary Council. The commander of the U.S.-and Turkish-backed Sultan Murad Division, Col. Ahmed Osman, appeared to confirm this possibility. He stated that the Euphrates Shield offensive was “certainly heading in the direction of Manbij,” claiming that the YPG force in the area had not withdrawn from the city.

Col. Osman stated that he expected Turkish-backed opposition groups would be able to seize Manbij within “a few days.” Turkey expanded its involvement after the SDF began to resist the intervention and appears willing to sustain an increased deployment. The TSK sent ten additional tanks and the same number of armored vehicles on August 25 and another six tanks after hostilities escalated on August 27.

An unnamed Turkish official stated that Turkey would “continue operations until we are convinced that imminent threats against the country's national security have been neutralized” on August 25. The official added that Turkey could be willing to increase its total deployment in Syria to 15,000. A U.S. defense official later announced on August 30 that the Turkish and SDF forces reached a “loose agreement” to cease fighting and instead “focus on the [ISIS] threat.”

It remains unclear if the tentative truce will hold as an unidentified Turkish military sources and an unidentified Turkish-backed opposition commander subsequently denied the existence of such an agreement.

Composition of the joint Turkish-Syrian opposition force

Operation Euphrates Shield demonstrates Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s willingness and ability to use military force to prevent the creation of an independent Syrian Kurdistan along the Turkish border even after an aggressive purge of the TSK following the failed July 15 coup attempt.

The total initial Turkish deployment was close to 450 troops including 150 Special Forces plus 200 soldiers from the armored units and additional soldiers responsible forcoordinating Turkey’s close air support and artillery support. Turkish Special Operations Forces under the command of Lieutenant General Zekai Aksakalli led the operation.

LTG Akasakalli had remained loyal to Erdogan during the coup and was later promoted to the rank of Lieutenant General. His Deputy, Brigadier General Salih Terzi was in operational command of Special Forces  along the Syrian border before the coup. Terzi was allegedly involved in the coup attempt and was killed by pro-Erdogan security forces that night.

The Turkish mechanized component deployed to Jarablus is meanwhile likely from the Second Army’s, 5thArmored Brigade, which is based in Gaziantep and deployable on short notice. The leadership of this mechanized component is unclear.

5th Armored Brigade Commander Major General Murat Soysal was detained after the coup attempt and his replacement is unknown at the time of writing. Erdogan’s confidence in the loyalty and capability of the Turkish Special Forces and Turkish second Army indicates his success thus far in consolidating the TSK under his own personal control without completely neutering its combat effectiveness. 

Implications

Turkey’s intervention in Jarablus is a turning point in American-Turkish relations and the war against ISIS. Erdogan’s willingness to commit military force to the anti-ISIS fight fulfils longstanding American demands for Turkey to increase its contribution to the anti-ISIS mission.

The recapture of Jarablus and ongoing operations to clear remaining ISIS-held portions of the border west of Jarablus have set the desired conditions for an offensive to retake Raqqa city by eliminating ISIS’s final supply line from Turkey. The YPG’s decision thus far to avoid open war with the Turkish forces indicates that the U.S. may be able to refocus the YPG on the planned Raqqa offensive.

The infighting between the joint Turkish-Syrian opposition force and the Sunni Arab components of the SDF is a major complication, however. American planning relies on the Sunni Arab component of the SDF to provide the bulk of the fighting force for the Raqqa offensive, because a YPG-led operation would likely alienate civilians in the Sunni Arab-majority Raqqa City.

A prolonged clash between the SDF and the joint Turkish/Syrian opposition force would derail planned operations to retake Raqqa City. Turkey may now offer its own military support and that of Turkish-backed opposition forces for an operation in Raqqa as an alternative to the SDF, positioning Turkey as a major power player in northern Syria.

SEE ALSO: Turkey pushes deeper into Syria, confronting more US-backed force, less ISIS

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The US military called for an end to clashes between Turkey, Syrian rebels and Kurdish fighters as the NATO ally pushed deeper into Syria, bringing the diverging priorities of the various American allies into stark relief. 

The Pentagon said it was not supporting the Turks or the Syrian rebels against the US-backed Kurds, and that the clashes were "unacceptable and they are a source of deep concern."

The US has been providing air cover to aid Turkey's incursion into northern Syria — called Operation Euphrates Shield — in what Turkey said was an effort to move Islamic State militants away from its border with Syria and to halt the expansion of Kurdish-controlled territory. 

The problem is that the Kurdish fighters are also US allies, and lead the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces — a key ally in the fight against the Islamic State.

The US Department of Defense was quick to distance itself Monday morning from the fighting and Turkish airstrikes, which at least one independent monitor said on Sunday killed 40 civilians. 

The Turks say the dead are Kurdish fighters. The airstrikes came after Kurdish fighters ambushed two Turkish tanks in an attack that killed at least one Turkish soldier.

"The United States was not involved in these activities, they were not coordinated with US forces, and we do not support them," said Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook. "We regret all loss of life in these reported clashes and have expressed our condolences to Turkey for the apparent loss of a Turkish soldier."

Cook called on the Turks, Kurds and Syrian rebels to "stand down immediately" and "deconflict" in order to focus on defeating the Islamic state.

The various warring parties in Syria have different objectives though, and the US is now facing a splintering of what was already a shaky coalition of forces who hold wildly varying priorities.

The past week's conflict arises from the US dependence on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as its ground force in the fight against the Islamic State. 

The SDF is dominated by the YPG, which is the Syrian wing of the PKK, a Kurdish guerrilla group in Turkey that the US and Turkey both classify as a terrorist organization. 

The US has helped the SDF push Islamic State from key Syrian towns like Manbij, but the Turks don't want the Kurds to remain in those towns, for fear the Kurds will try to create their own autonomous enclave. The Turks worry that if the Kurds in Syria achieve quasi-independence, then Turkey's Kurds — against whom it is already fighting a bloody insurgency in its southeast — will want the same.

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said on Monday that the goal of Euphrates Shield was to prevent the Kurds from "completing an end-to-end corridor" across Syria. 

"If that happens, it means Syria has been divided," he said, according to AFP.

Other Syrian observers criticized the deteriorating situation in northern Syria on social media.

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Russia's Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that Russian air strikes in Syria had killed one of Islamic State's most prominent leaders, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani.

The ministry said that Adnani was one of up to 40 rebels killed on Tuesday by air strikes carried out by a Russian Su-34 bomber in Maaratat-Umm Khaush in Aleppo province.

Islamic State said on Tuesday Adnani had been killed in what appeared to be an US air strike in Syria. A US defense official told Reuters the United States targeted Adnani in a strike but stopped short of confirming his death.

Russia's Defence Ministry said Adnani's killing by the Russian air strike had been confirmed "through several intelligence channels".

Islamic State's Amaq News Agency reported on Tuesday that Adnani was killed "while surveying the operations to repel the military campaigns against Aleppo".

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KARKAMIS, Turkey (Reuters) - Turkey will not agree a truce with Kurdish militias in Syria as it considers them terrorists, officials said on Wednesday, after strains emerged with the United States over clashes between Turkish forces and the U.S.-backed Syrian fighters.

Washington has been alarmed by Turkey's week-long incursion into Syria, saying it was "unacceptable" for its NATO ally to hit militias loyal to Kurdish-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) that Washington supports to fight against Islamic State.

U.S. officials on Tuesday welcomed what appeared to be a pause in fighting between Turkish forces and rival militias, although Ankara denied assertions from Kurdish fighters in Syria that a temporary truce had been agreed.

"The Turkish Republic is a sovereign state, a legitimate state. It cannot be equated with a terrorist organization," EU Affairs Minister Omer Celik told state-run Anadolu news agency, adding this meant there could be no "agreement between the two."

His comments were echoed by President Tayyip Erdogan's spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, who said Turkey would continue striking Kurdish militia until they withdrew from the region where Turkish forces are fighting.

Turkey's aim was to drive Islamic State out of a 90 km (56 miles) stretch of Syrian territory running along the border, Kalin said. Turkey has long said it wants a "buffer zone" in the area, although it has not used the term during this incursion.

After days when the border area reverberated with warplanes roaring overhead into Syria and artillery pounded Syrian sites, only the occasional thud of explosions in the distance was audible from the Turkish frontier town of Karkamis on Wednesday.

Karkamis lies just across the border from the northern Syrian town of Jarablus, which was swiftly captured from Islamic State by Turkish-backed forces when they launched the offensive dubbed "Euphrates Shield" on Aug. 24.

Since then, the Turkish army with its allies have pushed further south, seizing a string of villages in areas controlled by militias loyal to the Kurdish-backed SDF, which drove Islamic State out of the city of Manbij this month with U.S. help.

Turkey, which is battling a decades-long Kurdish insurgency at home, fears Kurdish-aligned forces will capture areas previously held by Islamic State, giving them control of an unbroken swathe of territory running along the Turkish border.

'Unnacceptable'

Since the start of the campaign, the Turkish army has said it has bombarded dozens of targets that it says were held by the Kurdish YPG militia, a powerful force in the SDF. The YPG says its forces withdrew from the area long before Turkey's assault.

Turkey has demanded the YPG cross the Euphrates river into a Kurdish-controlled canton in Syria's northeast. U.S. officials have threatened to withdraw backing for the YPG if it did not meet that demand, but said this had mostly happened.

Turkey's EU affairs minister said some Kurdish fighters were still on the western side and called that "unacceptable."

Eager to avoid more clashes between Turkey and U.S.-backed Syrian fighters, the Pentagon said the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State was establishing communications channels to better coordinate in a "crowded battlespace" in Syria.

Turkey insists that it has not relented in the fight against Islamic State, which has been responsible for launching a spate of bombings inside Turkey.

Islamist militants bombed Istanbul international airport in June, killing 45 people and hammering Turkey's already struggling tourist industry. In July, the group was blamed for an attack on a wedding in southeast Turkey that killed 56.

Interior Minister Efkan Ala said Turkey had arrested 865 people since the start of 2016, more than half of the foreigners, in its crackdown on Islamic State and preventing the would-be jihadists crossing to join militants in Syria or Iraq.

As well as driving away Islamic State out of the border area, it is determined to ensure Kurdish forces do not link up two Kurdish-controlled cantons in north Syria - one east of the Euphrates and the other in the west near the Mediterranean.

Ankara fears that, if Kurdish militia control the entire area along Turkey's southern border with Syria, it could embolden the Kurdish militant PKK group which has fought a three-decade-long insurgency to demand autonomy on Turkish soil.

(Additional reporting by Asli Kandemir in Istanbul, Ercan Gurses in Ankara; Writing by Edmund Blair; Editing by Nick Tattersall and Anna Willard)

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Moscow's claim that Russian airstrikes in Syria had killed prominent Islamic State leader Abu Muhammad al-Adnani is false, US defense officials told Reuters on Wednesday.

"Russia's claim is a joke," one of the US defense officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Pentagon on Tuesday said it had targeted Adnani, who Islamic State has said was killed in Syria's Aleppo province.

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A United Nations mandated investigatory body has officially implicated the Syrian Air Force in chemical weapon (CW) attacks in Syria.

The report also accuses the Islamic State (IS) of one CW attack – but, in a depressingly predictable turn of events, those findings which point the finger of blame at the Assad regime have been brought into question by Syria and her allies.

The investigation focused on a handful of the many dozens of CW attacks that the regime is alleged to have carried out since it submitted to the scrutiny of the international chemical weapon watchdog in 2013.

'This has led to further calls for action through the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) to hold the regime accountable and prevent further use.

It has also reignited calls for Syria to be referred to the International Criminal Court (ICC). But, yet again, we have seen Russia, Syria and Iran seeking to prevent or hamstring any process to prosecute the Assad regime. Indeed, this inquiry could have provided a video of Assad himself dropping chlorine barrel bombs from a helicopter and it would not have made the prospect of regime prosecution any more likely in the near term. This is despite calls from the Russian and Syrian governments on the need to “name names” of specific units and commanders in the most recent report.

The Joint Investigative Mechanism’s (JIM) leadership panel has argued that there is overwhelming evidence that the regime and IS carried out specified attacks. The fact that this body was even in a position to carry out these rigorous and independent investigations is testament to the unique attention garnered by chemical weapons in a sprawling and horrific conflict. The investigation is also unprecedented in terms of its UNSC mandate to ascribe responsibility for atrocities.

But this fact seems to have generated a false sense that the regime might somehow be dramatically held to account for this specific type of war crime. We must remember, that Syria’s allies have consistently resisted sanctions against the regime which could hurt Syria’s war effort. This has included any attempt to punish the Assad regime, or even launch an official UN mandated investigation into culpability for the Ghouta chemical weapon massacre of 2013 – a massacre which killed hundreds of civilians and injured thousands.

Accounting problems

For these reasons, those who had hoped to see Assad behind bars as a consequence of the report will be disappointed. While the idea that sitting heads of state should be held accountable for this kind of violation has gained momentum since the ICC was established in 2002, the problems associated with the practice are more than evident. Indeed, if a referral came, it could also have unintended consequences. Something which is evident from experiences with Sudan, Kenya and Libya.

The ICC charged Omar al-Bashir for crimes in Sudan dating back to 2003. But after five years, Fatou Bensouda, chief prosecutor at The Hague, announced a suspension of the investigation, and went as far as blaming the UN for lack of cooperation on the matter.

This suspension came just a week after the Court dropped the charges against Uhuru Kenyatta in Kenya, blamed for the 2007 wave of political violence that left thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.

So to date, despite attempts to see justice done, it seems that holding a head of state responsible for his deeds is beyond the reach of the ICC.

Unintended consequences

These two investigations also had other consequences that are worth remembering. In both situations, the reputation of those under investigation received a significant boost domestically. By politicizing the actions of the court and infusing the debate with allegations of neo-imperialism, both al-Bashir and Kenyatta gained popularity in their own countries.

The two investigations were also followed by a tightening of governmental grip on dissent. This is particularly evident in the mass expulsion of international NGOs in the two countries, which has resulted in the eviction of roughly 20 relief organizations from Sudan and more than 500 from Kenya. This is extremely worrying since these organisations not only help sustain prosecution efforts (as clearly stated in the JIM report), but also provide clean water, food, and basic healthcare services to millions. To date, not only have investigations against sitting heads of state been inconclusive, they also appear to have contributed to domestic crises in the states they have occurred in.

While the Sudanese and Kenyan situations have been characterized by a general lack of cooperation, the disastrous situation in Libya is another matter entirely. When, in 2011, the UNSC adopted Resolution 1970 to refer the case of Libya to the ICC, many saw this act, combined with NATO airstrikes, as the peak of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine.

These two operations contributed to the death of the Libyan president and the collapse of the state. Five years later, the Libyan situation is hardly ever recalled as a model to follow. Recently, even the US president, Barack Obama, is reported to have stated publicly that Libya was the worst mistake of his presidency, following Russian assertions that Libya was something not to be repeated.

Weight of evidence

In the short term, pursuit of criminal justice for these specific crimes is a secondary priority, and at worst a distraction from the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Syria. That said, while criminal justice will not fix the current conflict, evidence-gathering processes will hopefully be essential in a post-conflict future. In terms of immediate possibilities, it is apparent that one option might be to place pressure on the security council to mandate further investigation into cases which have occurred since the launch of the official investigation, cases not fully investigated by the JIM, as well as other lines of enquiry suggested in the third as well as the final report of the body – which looks set to provide further technical evidence.

Lessons might also be drawn from the design and methodology of this investigation for future UN initiatives into the wide range of atrocities of which the Assad regime and others stand accused. It is a depressing commentary on the state of international politics that this is perhaps the best we can hope for.

Brett Edwards, Lecturer in Security and Public Policy, University of Bath and Mattia Cacciatori, Teaching Fellow in International Security, University of Bath

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

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Ankara (AFP) - Turkey on Saturday sent more tanks into the northern Syrian village of al-Rai to fight Islamic State extremists, opening a new front after its intervention last month against the group, state media reported.

The tanks crossed into the village from the Turkish border town of Kilis to provide military support to Syrian opposition fighters after ridding northern villages of extremists in its "Euphrates Shield" operation launched on August 24, state-run Anadolu news agency said.

At least 20 tanks, five armoured personnel carriers, trucks and other armoured vehicles crossed the border, Dogan news agency said.

Turkish Firtina howitzers fired on IS targets as the fresh armoured contingent advanced, Dogan said.

Ahmed Othman, a commander in pro-Turkey rebel group Sultan Murad, told AFP in Beirut that the group was now "working now on two fronts in al-Rai, south and east, in order to advance towards the villages recently liberated from IS west of Jarabalus".

Last month's operation was Ankara's most ambitious during the five-and-a-half-year Syria conflict and has continued since with tanks, war planes and special forces providing support to rebels.

Within 14 hours on August 24, Turkish-backed Syrian rebels recaptured the border town of Jarabulus from IS and continued to make gains in villages nearby.

According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, Turkey-backed rebels also took control of three villages close to the border on Saturday, two on the Jarabulus front and one on the new al-Rai front.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said that "they are trying to take control of the border area between Jarabulus and Rai from IS". 

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There's no question that ISIS forces are losing ground in territories in Syria and Iraq— after making so many enemies from several countries and across numerous ethnic lines, the group might have bit off more than it could chew.

Forces seem to be losing territory so fast that they resorted to tactics such as kidnapping civilians to form a "human shield" during hasty retreats.

And the death of ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani this week will likely hasten problems within the group. Adnani helped spur recruitment for the group, as well as planned external operations.

Images taken of abandoned ISIS strongholds in Syria and Iraq suggest that the trove of valuable intelligence materials left behind, such as ordnance components, could be analyzed by experts to thwart ISIS in the future.

Here's what its safe houses in Syria and Iraq looked like:

SEE ALSO: This is what ISIS' 'human shield' looked like during their retreat

A billboard with Quranic verses in the historic city of Palmyra, Syria.

An ISIS flag hangs on the wall of an abandoned building in Tell Hamis, Syria, after the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, took control of the area from ISIS militants.

Tripods and a projector inside an ancient hammam, or steam bath, that was used by ISIS as a media center in Manbij, Syria.

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkey will never allow the formation of an "artificial state" in northern Syria, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Sunday, referring to the U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters whose advance Ankara is now aiming to stop.

Turkey and its allies opened a new line of attack in northern Syria on Saturday, as Turkish tanks rolled across the border and Syrian fighters swept in from the west to take villages held by Islamic State and check the advance of the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish YPG.

Turkey launched its operation in Syria, called Euphrates Shield, on Aug.24 to drive out Islamic State and stop the YPG militia, fearing its growing control of northern Syria.

"We will never allow the formation of an artificial state in the north of Syria," Yildirim said in a speech in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, where he announced an investment programme to rebuild parts of the largely Kurdish region that have been destroyed by security operations.

"We are there with Euphrates Shield, we are there to protect our border, to provide for our citizens safety of life and property, and to ensure Syria's integrity."

Turkey is fighting a three-decade-old Kurdish insurgency in the southeast and fears that the YPG's advances will embolden militants at home. Turkey considers the YPG a terrorist organization and an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

While the United States and Europe also regard the PKK as a terrorist group, Washington sees the YPG as a separate entity and as its most effective partner in the fight against Islamic State in Syria. That position has caused friction with Turkey, a NATO member and a partner in the fight against Islamic State.

OBAMA MEETING

Yildirim's comments echoed those of President Tayyip Erdogan at the G20 gathering of world leaders in China, who told reporters following a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama: "It is our wish that a terror corridor not be formed across our southern border".

Erdogan has repeatedly said that Turkey's allies should not be making a distinction between Islamic State and the YPG as both groups pose a threat to Turkey.

Separately, state-run Anadolu Agency said Turkish jets hit four Islamic State positions late on Saturday evening in Syria's northwestern Aleppo province as part of the operation, citing security sources.

The warplanes hit three targets in the al-Kaldi area and another in the Wuguf region, Anadolu said, citing the sources. 

(Writing by David Dolan, editing by Louise Heavens)

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