In Syria, Daesh withdraws to Raqqa

The town of Kobané has been almost entirely liberated by the forces of the PYG (Syrian Kurds allied with the Turkish PKK), with aviation support from the international anti-Daesh Coalition.

It seems that two thirds of all the bombing done by the Coalition were aimed at Kobané.

An early estimation numbers at least 1,200 dead on the jihadist side, and 800 on the Syrian side, but the final toll could be much heavier.

At the same time, the Syrian Arab army has completed the encirclement of the zones occupied by jihadist forces in Aleppo and its suburbs. As a result, the jihadists will no longer be able to rely on re-supply from Turkey.

The Syrian Arab army is continuing its attack against Daesh in Deir-es-Zor, where the jihadists still hold the military airport.

Finally, the jihadists are falling back to Raqqa, where the battle began.
Meanwhile, consultations have begun in Moscow between the non-armed opposition formations and the government of the Syrian Arab Republic. Under the presidency of the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, the talks aim at defining a « road map» in three points :
– the fight against terrorism :
– reconciliation at the local level (in other words, amnesty and the reinsertion of ex-fighters) :
– the creation of a government of national union.

The process, while conforming to the communiqué of Geneva (30th June 2012) [1], infringes on Western demands - formulated at the Conference for the Friends of Syria in Paris (6th July 2012) – for the overthrow of the Republican regime.