Aleppo countryside: Rebel army takes over Sheikh Issa village while opposition forces stop ISIS advance on Mare’.

Saturday morning, armed resistance fighters stopped an ISIS offensive on Mare’ town. According to informed sources, seeking to besiege and conquer Mare’ with three axes, ISIS attacked Kurdistan Street. The attack started from the direction of the explosive device launching villages of Harbal, Umm al-Hawsh, and Talalin. The armed opposition forces deactivate all the explosive devices and detonate them from a distance before they can reach their objective, though.

According to the sources, conflicts between the previously stated armies are still ongoing without any advancement either way. Following their takeover of the strategic towns of Kaljabrin and Kafr Kalbin, situated on the Mare’-Azaz road, ISIS elements have besieged Mare’ city.

Conversely, under the Syrian Democratic Forces’ flag, the Army of Revolutionaries seized possession of the settlement of “Sheikh Issa,” next to Mare’s town, without firing a single bullet. This was agreed upon with the armed opposition factions in exchange for allowing them and the civilians safe passage to the areas called “Al-Shahba areas” under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces, and to the town of Mare’s defense and prevention of organization takeover. Reports of the opposition groups seizing control of the research yesterday evening indicate that clashes are still raging in the town of “Al-Nada and Scientific Research”.

In a parallel vein, Afrin is seeing another wave of migration. Local sources inside the city verified to Kurdistan Street that some 6,101 persons had arrived in the past few days; some were traveling to the city of Azaz, others to the western Aleppo countryside and the Idlib countryside, and a third to the Robar camp in the Basalhaya district.

Journalist Nidal Hanan informed Kurdistan Street that despite their challenging living circumstances and security concerns and economic worries about the matter, the attitude of the Afrin government and citizens toward the displaced displays humanitarian reasoning. Still, they have paid mostly attention to the humanitarian side.

This posture must be developed by all Syrians, Hanan continued, not be responded to by opposition groups committing a massacre in the mostly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, which claimed the lives of three children and a young man and wounded at least 17 people.

Regarding the rebel army’s entrance into the town of Sheikh Issa, Hanan remarked that their arrival into the aforementioned village was meant to guard it from ISIS, therefore safeguarding the Syrian Democratic Forces from potential takeover of Mare’.

Hanan also mentioned that he anticipates the Syrian Democratic Forces will target the group preemptively in order to stop it from developing any more. Considering media hype meant to distort the positive position of these troops, he refuted any rumors and stories of a deal struck between the rebel army and opposition factions over the village of Sheikh Issa.

General coordinator of the Syrian National Democratic Alliance and member of the Syrian Democratic Council, lawyer Alaa Al-Din Khaled verified to Kurdistan Street that the claims of conditional access to the village of Sheikh Issa are absolutely unfounded. He underlined that the intervention was based on an appeal from the people of Mare’ and Sheikh Issa firstly, and secondly, to block the western side of the city of Mare’ and protect it from the advance of ISIS, and to bypass the city of Mare’ from the western side, which is the only outlet Mare’ and its people have towards the areas of al-Shahba, which are under the Syrian Democratic Forces, specifically the Army of Revolutionaries control.

Although the Syrian Democratic Forces have tried multiple times over the past few months to take over and attack the community of Sheikh Issa, they have not advanced because of opposition from both the Islamic State armed opposition and the Free Syrian Army.

Leave a Comment