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A new alliance of Islamist rebel groups, the Islamic Front, seized headquarters and warehouses belonging to the Syrian opposition’s Supreme Military Council, including capturing the Free Syrian Army’s bases at Bab-al-Hawa northwestern border crossing into Turkey, prompting the United States and United Kingdom to suspend non-lethal aid to northern Syria. The non-lethal aid includes, “medicine, vehicles and communications equipment,” but does not affect humanitarian aid.
According to State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki, the U.S. suspended all deliveries of nonlethal assistance into northern Syria, while the U.S. “evaluate[s] the situation on the ground and gather[s] additional details.” Psaki suggested that the suspension of aid occurred because “the headquarters and warehouses belonging to the SMC” that were taken “is certainly something concerning and has left us to, given that, suspend all deliveries at this point,” but noted that other aid to the rest of the country will continue.
Meanwhile, thirteen news organizations including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal authored a letter to the Syrian opposition urging for assurances that reporters will not be abducted. The letter indicates that there has been ”a disturbing rise in the kidnapping of journalists while on assignment” in Syria, with more than 30 journalists currently being held. The letter contended, “We understand that, as in any war zone, reporters face great risk of injury and death… and we accept those risks, but the risk of kidnapping is unacceptable, and the leadership is in a position to reduce and eliminate risk.”
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), in response to the letter, noted that even “the Iraq War, the deadliest conflict for journalists” since CPG’s founding, “did not reach such chilling numbers.”
In Lebanon, authorities banned the box shelters Syrian refugees have been using for shelter out of concern they look too permanent and might encourage Syrian refugees to stay. Makram Malaeb, a manager in the Syrian refugee crisis unit at the Ministry of Social Affairs, argued that the fear of permanence is “very embedded in the Lebanese political psyche,” noting that Palestinian refugees, “who were supposed to stay here for a month in 1948, and now they are a population of 500,000. And we went through a 15-year civil war where the Palestinians were a large player.”
