Confident of victory in eastern Ghouta, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad on Sunday visited army positions around the besieged and trisected enclave. The Turkish offensive has routed the US-recruited, trained and armed Kurdish Popular Protection Units, Ankara regards as a terrorist organisation due to its connection with Turkey’s separatist Kurds. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan proclaimed his forces – comprised of Turkish army soldiers and Syrian militiamen – had captured the enclave’s main town and would soon conclude the conquest of the canton. An army officer supervising arrivals in the industrial town of Adra, north of eastern Ghouta, said 25,000 had been settled in schools and were receiving food, water and medicine. Three armed groups in Eastern Ghouta – Saudi-sponsored Jaish al-Islam, Faylaq al-Rahman, and Ahrar al-Sham – have called for negotiations with Russia in a bid to halt the army’s offensive.

Source: The Irish Times March 18, 2018 17:37 UTC