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The violence in Paris overnight appears to be connected with the ongoing conflict in Syria. France is, of course, a NATO ally and part of the coalition fighting Islamic State militants there. World and regional powers are meeting in Vienna today to try to step up diplomatic efforts to end the four-year-long conflict. The US Secretary of State John Kerry is there. He says the walls of mistrust remain thick and high. Quentin Sommerville's just been to northeast Syria, close to the border with Iraq, where a new alliance of fighters has had some success against IS.
"Come and have a look at this." the Kurdish and Arab fighters said, giggling. I should have known better, but I wandered over to the group regardless. I peered down into the Syrian dot and there was a fleshy human jaw bone, and I counted the teeth, four, no, five still attached, a colossal green line in the sand, crawling with ants.
We were on the frontline of an offensive against the Islamic State group southeast of Hassake in Syria. The day before at the base, IS, in a textbook move, had driven a car bomb towards it. The two suicide attackers were stopped by automatic gunfire and rocket-propelled grenades, before they could breach the defences. Their bomb went off killing only them. And now, there was a jaw bone here, a long-haired scalp there and an engine block blown through a mud wall.
To my left was Iraq, just on the horizon. I could see Mount Sinjar, and to the south, oil wells burning, an IS ploy to disrupt the US planes which roar over head, and every now and then, would bomb the militants. |
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发表于 2016-12-23 22:39:52