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A US AIR strike targeted a “prominent” Al-Qaeda leader in Syria today, the Pentagon said, amid reports a senior leader of the group was killed near Idlib.
Word of the strike came as regional news reports and social media postings said Ahmed Salama Mabrouk, an Egyptian also known by his nom de guerre Abu Faraj, had been killed in Idlib province in northwestern Syria.
“We can confirm that we targeted a prominent Al-Qaeda member in Syria, and we are assessing the results of the operation at this time,” Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said.
“This is a prominent Al-Qaeda leader.”
Meanwhile, the US today suspended negotiations with Russia on efforts to revive a failed ceasefire in Syria and set up a joint military cell to target jihadists.
“This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said, accusing Russia and its Syrian ally of stepping up attacks on civilian areas.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest added:
“Everybody’s patience with Russia has run out.”
“What is clear is there is nothing more for the US and Russia to talk about with regard to trying to reach an agreement that would reduce the levels of violence inside of Syria. And that’s tragic,” Earnest said.
The announcement came before a suicide bomber killed at least 14 people in an attack targeting a wedding party in the northeastern province of Hasakeh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Kirby said the Russian and US militaries will continue to use a communications channel set up to ensure their forces do not get in each other’s way during “counterterrorism operations in Syria”.
But the United States is calling back home personnel who had been sent to Geneva in order to set up a “Joint Implementation Center” with Russian officers to plan coordinated strikes.
And US diplomats will suspend discussions with Russia on reviving a 9 September deal reached between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
Under that protocol, a truce came into effect on 12 September, but it collapsed within a week amid bitter recriminations and a surge of fighting in the five-year civil war.
Washington has accused Moscow of failing to rein in Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government forces and abetting his strikes on civilian targets.
Moscow, meanwhile, says the United States failed to separate “moderate” anti-Assad rebels from jihadists linked to Al-Qaeda.
“Unfortunately, Russia failed to live up to its own commitments, including its obligations under international humanitarian law,” Kirby said.
According to the US spokesman, Russia was “either unwilling or unable to ensure Syrian regime adherence to the arrangements to which Moscow agreed.
Rather, Russia and the Syrian regime have chosen to pursue a military course, inconsistent with the cessation of hostilities, as demonstrated by their intensified attacks against civilian areas.
Kirby accused Moscow and Damascus of “targeting of critical infrastructure such as hospitals, and preventing humanitarian aid from reaching civilians in need”.
And he repeated Washington’s charge that Russia and the regime were responsible for the deadly 19 September attack on a United Nations aid convoy in northern Syria, outside Aleppo.
Response
Russia’s foreign ministry said it regretted the decision by the US to suspend the talks, saying Washington was trying to shift responsibility for the failure onto Moscow.
“We regret this decision by Washington to curtail the work of the specialist groups in Geneva, to withdraw their experts and to limit contacts only to the area of avoiding any conflicts,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
“Washington simply did not fulfil the key condition of the agreement to improve the humanitarian condition around Aleppo,” Zakharova said.
After failing to fulfil the agreements that they themselves worked out, they are trying to shift responsibility on to someone else”
She said that Russia had kept pushing throughout this period for a 72-hour pause to fighting around a key government-controlled road into rebel-held eastern Aleppo.
Russia has been bombing in Syria for the past year in support of leader Bashar al-Assad and is currently backing up a fierce regime assault on the east of Aleppo, that has drawn international condemnation.
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I don’t care about the rights or wrongs of this story but what amazes me is a case like this goes before the high court. Judges at the top of their game (allegedly) they hear all the evidence and come to a decision. Next thing is at the court of appeal. Same evidence but a completely different ruling. What does that say about quality of judges?
@Mrs parrott: it’s like a replay in the FA cup. Everyone wins except the poor clown with the check book.
@Mrs parrott: Typically it’s where there is little or no precedent in an area, conflicting precedent or where precedent is producing unwanted results. (or, of course, where the judge got it wrong). This case would be down to the first – little or no precedent. Now that the court of appeal has ruled, the high court has guidance for future cases.
@Mrs parrott: There’s a wider point: allowing appeals to higher courts on points of law establishes a firmer legal precedent, in which other similar cases in lower courts (and outside the court system) can cite and take notice of, which more markedly illustrates legal demarcations. Its how the nationwide legal and administrative framework develops
Should have said he was a ………..
@Jonathan Barry:
Oh let’s play bigot bingo!
Should have said he was a….
Muslim?
Jew?
Refugee?
Syrian?
Political asylum seeker?
Do I win?
@Finipops: Succinct
Nationality is not a gift card as the journal like make it out to be. Don’t cheapen Countries to the same standard as monopoly board which The EU has turned out to be.
Jus soli applied prior to 2005, which means anyone born on the soil of Ireland is entitled to citizenship. Anyone born since Jan 2005 must have connection to Irish blood (jus sanguinis) such as one parent being Irish.
He should have just hacked the registery
Did he not speak to his local TD ?
Or ask Putin for some help
@Fear Uisce: __ He would have kicked him in the Gulags.
Dragging the elderly from their beds and denying them citizenship.
Donald Trump is not a patch on Ireland.
Where’s the protest this evening?
@Alex Falcone: Hyperbole much?
@Fozz: Alex does a very poor impression of a troll, just ignore
Never mind hyperbole what about hypocrisy. If this was someone born in direct provision Snowflake Alex would be celebrating the victory.
@Keelan O’neill:
Ingress and egress.
Did they drag him from his bed in Russia where he lives?
How can it be so easy to kick out a normal person and yet rapists and murderers get to stay by citing the Human Rights Act ????
We don’t have a Human Rights Act
@Pablo Rojas Coppari: Er, ever heard of the European Union of which we are member ? The European Convention on Human Rights ???
I hope he can bring his own hospital bed with him.
Just leave the man alone.Its not like he’s doing anyone any harm for Gods sake
@Laurence Cavanagh: I agree. He only wants to see his grandkids. Horrible to deny that right to anyone and technically he was born in Ireland before June 2004 so he’s entitled to it. Leave the man be, the journal reporting on it doesn’t do any good story justice
Sets a precedent so the law must be followed but I know what you mean, it’s all a bit pedantic.
Why make up such a story? The man has given an undertaking not to claim social welfare here and he’s elderly so why not allow him a citizenship?
…Hang on…was he born here or conceived here .. ?????…….it wasn’t just fight’in was done in WW2, a lot of lov’in was done too…..I’m sure there was a fair few Chesnokov’s hang’in round Henrietta Street back then…… ‘go on ya bo ya..away with ya ! ‘
In before Superfiends and Jason Culligan.
He’s 76 for jaysus sake! Will ye just give him de bleedin passport.
It’s all to do with the importation of garlic and we know how that can get you in hot water here. The man’s name comes from the Russian word for garlic, if it’s been properly transcribed. Though, seriously, I hope he gets some sort of extended visa. He’s an elderly man who wants to be near his grandchildren
Maybe he should have hired a good Genealogist! …or just set him the Dublin Taxi Drivers Street test and if he passes he is in.
maybe if he was an Egyptian?
It seems a bit unfair that we make an aged grandfather’s life more difficult to establish a point of law but we expect better treatment for our own undocumented.
Maybe we should set an example, now that precedent has been established, and judge this case on its merits and how we would like our diaspora to be judged?
@Paul Brady: the hypocrisy of it all would be quite breathtaking in anywhere else but here. There’s Mr Kenny going to Washington to bring the bowl of shamroguery on a last mission because he’ll bear the brunt of the ‘disgrace’ of meeting Trump amongst the chattering classes and he can plead for the case of the undocumented/illegal Irish citizens living there. And take the blame again if it all goes South. Ironic that another Taoiseach, deV, asked Kennedy to shut the gates of the US to the Irish because he wanted to stem the brain and labour drain back in the Fifties.
Enda might be better off honouring the entire Choctaw Nation that gave its little all to help the starving Irish in the Famine by offering Irish citizenship to every Choctaw kid born henceforth if they want it. Then the Choctaw could offer the undocumented Irish sanctuary from Trump’s 10K new immigration enforcement officers when the old midnight knock sounds and ”VOS PAPIERIEN!!! BITTE!!!” or however they’ll say it. Well it’s more outside the box thinking than just bringing over an annual bowl of weed on bended knee and asking for mercy from a not too kindly stranger perhaps. THat hasn’t gotten any traction vis-a-vis the illegal Irish in the past fourteen years since Ireland threw open Her so-called neutral ports to illegal aggressive warmongering and state policies of torture for all the begging..
Surely his son could sponsor him ?
He has not been able to prove he was born in Ireland.
But there are other options. My wife is Chinese and we were able to sponsor a visa get her elderly Mum a 1 year visa, extendable to 2 years without any problem.
Once you show that you will accommodate and support financially, it’s a fairly straightforward process.
I wonder why his son has not gone down this route or are there other issues in this case not in the article, you don’t get the full story in reports like this.
..maybe if he ran for president of the united states and won…then we would have no problem tracing a connect to the “ole sod” for him… begorrah
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I thought nobody should be arbitrarily deprived of their citizenship? Is not a judge saying he disagrees with an earlier Court interpretation in favour of the man’s case not just another subjective interpretation of the evidence, albeit in an higher court? Seems arbitrary enough to me. The evidence remains what it is, unchallenged it seems to me in terms of what it is. Anyway point is moot now Roma locuta est. Loads of Brits have just been arbitrarily deprived of their EU citizenship by slightly greater loads of other Brits and nobody at the UN seems concerned so it might no longer be the human right it once was held to be.
Perhaps he’d have been better off finding a Midlands petfood factory to invest in. Or perhaps a ‘contribution’ to the upkeep of Inishvickillaune. More traditional ways of securing Irish citizenship. Million nicker starting price for both might have been a bit high for an old commie born on Henrietta Street who wouldn’t be exactly rubbing Charvet-clad shoulders with those who can sell Irish citizeship and passports for 30 pcs of foreign despot silver or a mess of FDI pottage.
The gov are handing out citizenship to every one who settled here amazing this man was refused
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