SYRIA’S Foreign and Expatriates Ministry has addressed two identical letters to the UN Secretary-General and Head of the UN Security Council about the ‘heinous crimes that armed terrorist organisations affiliated to Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS)’ are committing against Syrian civilians in Hasaka countryside.
In its two letters, the ministry said that in a recent sweep, ISIS gangs had attacked Tal Hermez, Tal Shamiram, Tal Rumman, Tal Nassri, al-Ageibesh, Toma Yalda, al-Haouz, Tal Koran, Tal Tamar and other villages in the countryside of Hasaka province.
Many civilians were killed and over 200 civilians including children and women were kidnapped. More than 690 families were displaced and religious places were destroyed, the letters said, citing the torching of Tal Hermez historic church, one of the oldest in Syria and the world.
The ministry said that these crimes are only the tip of the iceberg of atrocities committed against Syrian people and an attempt to sow mischief, hatred and estrangement among compatriots.
These crimes are a continuation of the atrocities of armed terrorist organisations which targeted religious places, places of worship, shrines, historical and cultural landmarks with a view to inflicting as much damage as possible on Syria’s heritage, the letters noted.
‘The Syrian government stresses that these terrorist acts could not have been possible without the direct support provided for these groups by countries known to all,’ the letters added, in a reference to the US-UK imperialists and their allies, Turkey and the Gulf states.
Syria believes that it is now imperative for international community and the anti-terrorism countries to compel states which are backing terrorism against Syria to cease their support.
‘The international community is called on to prove adherence to its counter-terrorism commitments through full cooperation and coordination with Syria which is preventing the spread of international terrorism,’ added the letters.
The ministry called on the UN Security Council to genuinely enforce its counterterrorism resolutions for them ‘not to remain ink on paper’.
The letters added that the Syrian government is quite willing to cooperate with the sincere and honest parties to combat and eradicate terrorism to spare humanity its evils and horrors.
Meanwhile, Speaker of the People’s Assembly, Mohammad Jihad al-Laham, said the French parliamentarian delegation’s visit is an indicator of the emergence of political trends in France that fault the government on its hostile policy towards Syria.
The visit, which took place on Wednesday and included meetings with President al-Bashar Assad and Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem, carried a political message saying that time has come for the West to reconsider its wrong politics on Syria, said al-Laham in a statement to the Lebanese as-Safir newspaper published on Friday.
This message also encourages holding dialogue with the Syrian government and cooperating with it in the fight against terrorism, said al-Laham who also met with the delegation, noting that the French figures openly stressed that this cooperation is badly needed in order for the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to be defeated.
With the delegation including personalities from the ruling party in France, al-Laham said, their visit signals that France should review its policy which has been proved a failure having brought terrorism into the heart of the French capital.
This visit, the parliament Speaker added, could not have taken place if there was not a gap in the French position on Syria after four years of a hostile campaign Paris and other Western capitals have waged against it.
This tendency for a reconsideration of the Western policies that have backed terrorism to undermine the Syrian state has been expressed by many foreign politicians, parliamentarians and journalists who are speaking out in favour of such a shift in policy.
On Thursday, a French poll conducted by French Television 1 (FT1) came up showing that 88 per cent of the French people supported the French delegation’s visit to Syria.
The delegation included Jacques Myard, member of the National Assembly of France, deputy chairman of the Assembly’s French-Syrian Friendship Committee and Mayor of Maisone-Laffitte city and François Zocchetto, member of the Senate and Mayor of Laval city, General Inspector at the French Defence Ministry and Security Advisor at the French Embassy in Beirut.
l The UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura was due to visit Damascus on Saturday to hold talks with senior Syrian officials on new ideas proposed about his plans to freeze fighting in the northern Aleppo city.
‘De Mistura is now in Beirut and he will head for Damascus next Saturday to meet Syrian officials on freezing the combatant acts in Aleppo,’ UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said on Friday.
On his latest visit to Damascus in November, de Mistura discussed with Syrian officials an initiative to freeze fighting in Aleppo.
De Mistura told Sky News TV on February 18th that the future of the Syrian government and the form of rule in the country are ‘at the hands of the Syrian people only’.
Meanwhile, Syrian army units made more gains on Friday establishing control over more areas in Sweida province while inflicting more losses upon terrorist organisations’ ranks in personnel and equipment in other provinces across the country.
In Sweida, an army unit established control over Tal al-Majda, east of Malah town, in the southeastern countryside after killing many terrorists and wounding others, a military source said.
In Daraa, another army unit killed terrorists in Tal Antar in the southwestern countryside of the southern province of Daraa.
In Idlib, military personnel destroyed terrorists’ hideouts in Jabal al-Akrad, al-Sheghr, Ein al-Bardeh, al-Qatroun, Maaret Masrin, Tal Salmo and Um Jerin in the countryside of the northern Idlib province.
In Damascus Countryside, an army unit killed terrorists and injures others in Hassno village in the southwestern countryside of Damascus.
Kurdish fighters also made gains last Friday. They advanced on a key town in northeastern Syria which is a stronghold of the ISIL terrorists.
The move on the eastern and southeastern edges of the town of Tel Hamis in Hasaka Province came after the Kurdish fighters recaptured several nearby villages from the ISIL militants.
Hasaka borders Iraq and Turkey and its residents are predominantly Kurdish. It also has populations of Arabs, Assyrian Christians and Armenians.
Meanwhile, Nawaf Khalil, a spokesman for the Kurdish fighters known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), claimed that Kurdish forces have entered Tel Hamis and ‘totally liberated’ the town, though his claim has not been confirmed by independent sources.
The Kurdish offensive against ISIL left at least 175 militants dead, according to local witnesses.
The YPG forces have made several territorial achievements against the ISIL since liberating the Kurdish border town of Kobani after months of clashes with the Takfiri terrorists.
During the past week, Tel Hamis and other towns in Hasaka have been the scene of heavy fighting against ISIL terrorists, who, according to reports on February 24th, kidnapped an estimated 220 Assyrian Christians from the nearby villages in Tel Tamer countryside.
Assyrians, who come from one of the world’s oldest Christian communities, have been under increasing threat by the ISIL terrorists recently.
Kurdish forces say they have cut a main ISIL supply line from Iraq over the past few days.
