BEIRUT: Syrian rebel and opposition forces in Aleppo Sunday rejected U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura’s plan for a freeze in fighting in the divided northern city, dealing a blow to his peace efforts.“We refuse to meet with Mr. Staffan de Mistura if it is not on the basis of a comprehensive solution to Syria’s drama through the exit of [President] Bashar Assad and his chief of staff, and the prosecution of war criminals,” a newly formed Aleppo revolutionary commission said.
The political and military grouping was set up Saturday at a meeting in the Turkish border town of Kilis attended by the president of the National Coalition opposition-in-exile, Khaled Khoja, as well as other opposition figures and Aleppo civil society representatives.
De Mistura’s proposal “falls short of an initiative to resolve the humanitarian crisis of our people targeted by the regime’s use of chemical weapons and barrel bombs prohibited by the international community,” it said.
The Italian-Swedish diplomat, who has made the Aleppo freeze the centerpiece of his mediation efforts since he was named in July as special envoy to Syria, angered the opposition last month by describing Assad as “part of the solution” to the conflict.
Aleppo’s opposition forces Sunday also turned down preferential treatment for their region over other areas of Syria stricken by the four-year conflict.
“Syria and its people are one and indivisible. The blood of our brothers in Deraa [in the south], in Ghouta [near Damascus], in Homs and in other Syrian provinces are no less important than our blood in Aleppo,” they said.
De Mistura Saturday held talks in Damascus to try to finalize a deal to freeze fighting in the battered city.
He met Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and agreed to send a delegation from his office in the capital to Aleppo on a fact-finding mission, state news agency SANA said, without giving a date.
The envoy “hopes to set in motion as soon as possible his project” to halt fighting in Aleppo for six weeks, a member of his delegation said.
He has met government officials and opposition chiefs in recent weeks to promote his plan for a temporary truce in Aleppo to move aid into the northern city, as a starting point to be expanded to other regions.
U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said De Mistura would also continue talks with government officials to try to implement the local truce.
“The mission will aim to assess the situation on the ground and to ensure that, once the freeze is announced, humanitarian aid can significantly increase, and to prepare arrangements to follow up on violations of the freeze,” Dujarric said in a statement.
Anti-regime activists based in Aleppo issued a statement by local human rights group, which said that Aleppo and its surrounding province were targeted by a total of 242 airstrikes and 116 barrel bombs dropped by helicopter during the month of February.
The activists also noted that the electricity situation has recently deteriorated because the authorities are transferring power supplies to other parts of the country.
De Mistura also made a surprise visit Sunday to a church near Damascus in a show of solidarity with the country’s Christian minority targeted by jihadis.
An AFP photographer said De Mistura went to a Greek Catholic church in Jaramana, southeast of the capital, before winding up his mission and leaving for Lebanon.
His visit to Syria coincided with a mass of solidarity with the Assyrians kidnapped in the Tal Tamr area of Hassakeh where ISIS, and came hours before the release of some 19 of the hostages was reported.
ISIS frees 19 Assyrians after tax paid: activists
BEIRUT: ISIS militants freed 19 of the 220 Assyrian Christians they took hostage in Syria last week, after a ransom was paid for their release, activists said.
“Nineteen Assyrian hostages arrived Sunday at the Church of Our Lady in Hassakeh after they were released by ISIS,” said Osama Edward, the director of the Assyrian Network for Human Rights.
“They arrived on two buses from Shaddadi,” the ISIS stronghold in the northeastern province of Hassakeh where they had been detained, he told AFP.
Edward said an ISIS religious court decided Saturday to release the Christians in exchange for a sum of money for each family that ISIS considers as jizya, or tax, paid by non-Muslims.
He was unable to say how much was paid but recalled that in November ISIS released Assyrians after receiving payments of $1,700 per person.
The activist said negotiations for the release of all hostages began Saturday between Assyrian officials and Arab Muslim tribal chiefs.
Last week, ISIS kidnapped 220 Assyrians in the Tal Tamer area, where the extremist Islamist group has seized control of 10 Christian villages, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Almost 5,000 people have since fled to Kurdish- and government-controlled areas.
Before Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, there were around 30,000 Assyrians in the country, among an estimated Christian population of about 1.2 million.
Bashir Saedi, a senior official in the Assyrian Democratic Organization, said all of the 19 who were released were around 50 years of age or older.
Also unclear is the fate of the more than 200 other Christian Assyrians who were taken captive by ISIS fighters last week in sweep through a string of villages along the Khabur River.
In the Vatican, Pope Francis led tens of thousands of people in prayer in St. Peter’s Square for Christians and others who have been kidnapped or are victims of other “intolerable brutality” in Syria and Iraq.
He also appealed for “everyone, in line with their possibilities, [to] act to alleviate the suffering.”
Francis called for silent prayers for “these sisters and brothers who suffer for their faith in Syria and Iraq.” The packed square fell silent for a minute or so.
The pope said he wanted to assure the victims of kidnappings, abuse and other violence that “we don’t forget them.”
The development came as ISIS militants continued to clash with a Kurdish militia and its allies in northeast Syria.
While recent days have seen the Kurdish YPG militia and an Assyrian militia push back the ISIS fighters in the towns of Tal Hamis and Tal Brak, the YPG has also been accused of burning the homes of residents in the Tal Hamis area after its seizure of the town.
The opposition-in-exile National Coalition denounced the actions, as did the Observatory, which said it had received photographs showing Kurdish fighters standing in front of a number of burning homes.
The jihadis are losing ground near the city of Jarablus in Aleppo province, near Ain al-Arab.
The Observatory said Sunday that the YPG and smaller Free Syrian Army militias had taken over around 300 villages in the Ain al-Arab area since ISIS pulled out in late January.
The allied militias were now moving toward Jarablus and encountering only token resistance as they approach the town, on the western bank of the Euphrates River – unlike the fierce fighting that has accompanied the YPG and its allies when they pushed south and east of Ain al-Arab, also known as Kobani.
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