Tensions continue as Daesh re-enters Idlib after clashes

BEIRUT: The Daesh group has seized territory in Syria’s Idlib province after clashes with rival militants, a monitor said Friday.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Daesh had captured the village of Bashkun after clashes with Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), a force dominated by a former Al-Qaeda affiliate.
The capture comes after days of fighting between Daesh and HTS in neighboring Hama province, during which Daesh captured a string of villages in the northeast of the region, the SOHR said.
The capture of Bashkun puts Daesh back in Idlib nearly four years after it was first expelled from the province in northwestern Syria after battles with rival militant groups.
Daesh has seen the so-called “caliphate” it declared in 2014 across parts of Syria and Iraq crumble in recent weeks, losing key cities such as Raqqa and Mosul.
More than 340,000 people have been killed in Syria’s multi-faceted war since the conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011.
Meanwhile, a delegation representing the Syrian regime returned to Geneva on Sunday for the resumption of talks with UN mediator Staffan de Mistura after more than a week’s absence, but Western diplomats voiced skepticism about its willingness to engage.
Bashar Al-Ja’afari, Syria’s ambassador to the UN and chief negotiator in talks aimed at finding a political solution to end the nearly seven-year-old war, landed in a snowstorm on a flight from Beirut, a Reuters reporter on board said. Ja’afari declined to comment.
De Mistura convened an eighth round of separate talks with the two sides on Nov. 28, focusing on constitutional reform as well as elections.
But Ja’afari arrived a day late and left after two days, saying the opposition had “mined the road” to the talks by insisting that Assad could not play any interim role in Syria’s political transition.
De Mistura told reporters last Thursday that he would assess this week whether either side is trying to “sabotage” the process.
“The opposition has been extremely constructive and willing to get down to it,” a senior Western diplomat said. “They are in a difficult place while being criticized internally and pressured by the fact that the regime is bombing away in eastern Ghouta and other places.”
The diplomat told Reuters that the government’s failure to return as scheduled on Dec. 5 had been “a clear sign of not being interested in engaging in the political process.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has suggested holding a Syrian congress in the Russian city of Sochi early in 2018. Diplomats see his plan as a bid to draw a line under the war and celebrate Moscow’s role as the power that tipped the balance of the war and became the key player in the peace process.