Cae Alepo en manos del gobierno sirio

Varios portales de noticias acaban de publicar que Alepo ha caido en manos del gobierno sirio. A los lectores hispanoamericanos que miren la foto de arriba no se les va a escapar este detalle: el combatiente sirio que está a la derecha del soldado con la bandera de ese país, a punto de clavarla en uno de los últimos reductos de la sitiada Alepo, lleva el logo de "Messi" en la espalda. En fin, el fútbol es así, chicos; seguro que hay un mensaje oculto, pero por el momento se nos escapa. El mensaje que no se nos escapa es que el golpe asestado por las fuerzas sirias, rusas e iraníes al Imperio del Caos y sus pleistocénicos chicos malos es de una envergadura considerable, a pesar de la reciente toma de Palmira por parte de 4.000 combatientes del ISIS. Leemos primero en el sitio web Sputnik:


Título: Syrian Army Declares Victory in Aleppo 

Texto: The Syrian Army has officially liberated Aleppo after ousting rebels from their last bastions in the eastern part of the city. Earlier on Monday, the Syrian Arab Army made significant advances leaving only three residential blocks in the hands of anti-government forces.  The rebels had little choice but to "surrender or die," Lieutenant Gen. Zaid al-Saleh, director of Syria’s security committee, told reporters in the Sheik Saeed district.  

?The Battle of Aleppo lasted more than four years after fighting broke out on July 19, 2012. In 24 hours leading up to the victory, approximately 10,000 to 13,000 civilians fled the city, bringing the total number of refugees up to around 130,000, according to reports. After local TV outlets reported the victory, residents flooded the streets, firing guns in the air in celebration.  Syrian government television channel Sana showed President Bashar al-Assad congratulating Syrian troops following the proclamations of victory in Aleppo. 

Throughout the battle of Aleppo, government forces repeatedly urged civilians to leave the area, organizing humanitarian corridors to arrange the safe passage of those who wanted to escape furious street battles. However, terrorist groups fighting in Aleppo forcibly prevented civilians from leaving the area whilst using them as human shields. "Civilians are being used as pawns and prevented from leaving," UN spokesman Rupert Colville said recently.  

Meanwhile, on Monday morning some 4,000 Daesh militants launched an offensive on Palmyra, Syria armed with heavy weaponry, armored vehicles, and tanks. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted the offensive may have been "orchestrated," while former UK ambassador to Syria said the US and its allies "didn't lift a finger to try to stop [the Daesh offensive] happening," despite having sophisticated and well-developed surveillance capabilities that likely could have detected the regrouping of Daesh militants and their vehicles en route to Palmyra. 


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La nota que sigue es de la agencia de prensa iraní PressTV:


Título: Operation to liberate Aleppo 'reaches end, militants leave last holdouts'

Texto: Syrian forces are almost in full control of the northern city of Aleppo, nearly three weeks after Damascus and its allies launched a major offensive to recapture the militant-held part of the city, a pro-opposition monitoring group says.

The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday that the battle for Aleppo had reached its end and the government forces were making sweeping advances into the militant-held sector of the city.

The group’s director, Rami Abdulrahman, said the militants had now withdrawn from six neighborhoods in the city, their last holdouts in Aleppo. 

"The battle of Aleppo has reached its end. It is just a matter of a small period of time, no more, no less... it's a total collapse," Abdulrahman added. 


Syria opposition not to make concessions with Damascus

Meanwhile, Syria's chief opposition coordinator, Riyad Hijab, said the opposition won't make concessions with the Damascus.  

Hijab, who presides over the High Negotiations Committee (HNC), said on Monday that defeat in Aleppo would not change the position of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents, who seek his removal from power.

"If Assad and his allies think that a military advance in certain quarters of Aleppo will signify that we will make concessions, then (I say) that will not happen. We will not make any concessions," Hijab told reporters after meeting French President Francois Hollande in Paris on Monday. 

Syrian forces announced earlier on Monday that they were in the last steps of liberating Aleppo, saying almost all but two percent of the neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city, which was under the control of the militants, had been liberated.

The Syrian military said it had regained control over 98 percent of eastern Aleppo and that there were only some pockets of militants and civilians in a small sliver of territory in the center of the city.

The announcement came hours after Syrians and allied forces managed to retake Sheikh Saeed, one of the largest neighborhoods in the southern part of Aleppo’s militant-dominated east. The army also seized control of al-Fardous neighborhood, one of the most populated districts to the north of Sheikh Saeed.

Militants had earlier admitted the loss of key areas in Aleppo, saying they were being squeezed from every side. They, however, insisted that they were holding seven percent of the areas they used to control.

Maps distributed by the army on Monday showed that the tiny portion of Aleppo remaining under the control of militants was a small silver of land located adjacent to the government-held parts of Aleppo in its center.

Aleppo’s complete liberation from the foreign-backed militants would mark a significant victory for Syria in its nearly six-year-long campaign against foreign-backed militants. The liberation of Aleppo would deny the militants their main supply routes across the Turkish border while it would hugely undermine the morale of the militant groups.


34 civilians killed in Daesh-held territories in Hama

Meanwhile, reports on Monday said 11 children and 23 other people were killed in airstrikes in Daesh-held territories in the central province of Hama.

Daesh militants use civilians as human shields against the Syrian forces, preventing them from leaving militant-held areas.


US to blame for Palmyra fall

Russia, a major ally of Syria in the fight against Daesh, has warned that Daesh is still a major threat despite the terrorist group’s defeats in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Monday that the fall of the ancient city of Palmyra into the hands of Daesh over the weekend showed the seriousness of the Daesh threat.

“The threat of losing Palmyra is a loss for all civilized humankind, not just for Russia,” Peskov said, blaming the United States for the loss of the city, which the Syrians had recaptured earlier this year.
Peskov said the unwillingness of the US to work with Moscow in Syria helped the fall of Palmyra, adding that “cooperation would have probably allowed us to more effectively avoid such attacks from terrorists.”