Tag Archives: Syria

Syrian bomber suspected as blast kills 10 in Istanbul tourist hub

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – A suicide bomber thought to have crossed recently from Syria killed at least 10 people, most of them German tourists, in Istanbul’s historic heart on Tuesday, in an attack Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed on Islamic State.

All of those killed in Sultanahmet square, near the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia – major tourist sites in the center of one of the world’s most visited cities – were foreigners, Davutoglu said. A senior Turkish official said nine were German, while Peru’s foreign ministry said a Peruvian man also died.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the bomber was believed to have recently entered Turkey from Syria but was not on Turkey’s watch list of suspected militants. He said earlier that the bomber had been identified from body parts at the scene and was thought to be a Syrian born in 1988.

Davutoglu said he had spoken by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel to offer condolences and vowed Turkey’s fight against Islamic State, at home and as part of the U.S.-led coalition, would continue.

“Until we wipe out Daesh, Turkey will continue its fight at home and with coalition forces,” he said in comments broadcast live on television, using an Arabic name for Islamic State. He vowed to hunt down and punish those linked to the bomber.

Merkel similarly vowed no respite in the fight against international terrorism, telling a news conference in Berlin: “The terrorists are the enemies of all free people … of all humanity, be it in Syria, Turkey, France or Germany.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Islamist, leftist and Kurdish militants, who are battling Ankara in southeast Turkey, have all carried out attacks in the past.

Several bodies lay on the ground in the square, also known as the Hippodrome of Constantinople, in the immediate aftermath of the blast. It was not densely packed at the time of the explosion, according to a police officer working there, but small groups of tourists had been wandering around.

“This incident has once again shown that as a nation we should act as one heart, one body in the fight against terror. Turkey’s determined and principled stance in the fight against terrorism will continue to the end,” President Tayyip Erdogan told a lunch for Turkish ambassadors in Ankara.

Norway’s foreign ministry said one Norwegian man was injured and was being treated in hospital.

The White House condemned the “heinous attack” and pledged solidarity with NATO ally Turkey against terrorism. U.N. Secretary Ban Ki-moon said he hoped those responsible for “this despicable crime” were swiftly brought to justice.

Turkey, a candidate for accession to the European Union, is part of the U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State fighters who have seized territory in neighboring Syria and Iraq, some of it directly abutting Turkey.

“UNIMAGINABLE” SCENE

The dull thud of Tuesday’s blast was heard in districts of Istanbul several kilometers away, residents said. Television footage showed a police car which appeared to have been overturned by the force of the blast.

“We heard a loud sound and I looked at the sky to see if it was raining because I thought it was thunder but the sky was clear,” said Kuwaiti tourist Farah Zamani, 24, who was shopping at one of the covered bazaars with her father and sister.

Tourist sites including the Hagia Sophia and nearby Basilica Cistern were closed on the governor’s orders, officials said.

“They attacked Sultanahmet to grab attention because this is what the world thinks of when it thinks of Turkey,” said Kursat Yilmaz, who has operated tours for 25 years from an office by the square.

“We’re not surprised this happened here, this has always been a possible target,” he said.

Ambulances ferried away the wounded as police cordoned off streets. The sound of the call to prayer rang out from the Blue Mosque as forensic police officers worked at the scene.

“It was unimaginable,” the police officer who had been working on the square said, describing an amateur video he had seen of the immediate aftermath, with six or seven bodies lying on the ground and other people seriously wounded.

Just over a year ago, a female suicide bomber blew herself up at a police station for tourists off the same square, killing one officer. That attack was initially claimed by a far-left group, the DHKP-C, but officials later said it had been carried out by a woman with suspected Islamist militant links.

TURKEY A TARGET

Turkey has become a target for Islamic State, with two bombings last year blamed on the radical Sunni Muslim group, in the town of Suruc near the Syrian border and in the capital Ankara, the latter killing more than 100 people.

Violence has also escalated in the mainly Kurdish southeast since a two-year ceasefire collapsed in July between the state and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, which has been fighting for three decades for Kurdish autonomy.

The PKK has however generally avoided attacking civilian targets in urban centers outside the southeast in recent years.

Turkey also sees a threat from the PYD and YPG, Kurdish groups in Syria which are fighting Islamic State with U.S. backing, but which Ankara says have close links to the PKK.

“For us, there is no difference between the PKK, PYD, YPG, DHKP-C … or whatever their abbreviation may be. One terrorist organization is no different than the other,” Erdogan said, vowing that Turkey’s military campaign against Kurdish militants in the southeast would continue.

Davutoglu’s office imposed a broadcasting ban on the blast, invoking a law which allows for such steps when there is the potential for serious harm to national security or public order.

The attack raised fears of further damage to Turkey’s vital tourism industry, already hit by a diplomatic row with Moscow which has seen Russian tour operators cancel trips.

But Yilmaz, the tour operator, said he had sold a package to a tourist from Colombia just an hour after the blast.

“The reality is the world has grown accustomed to terrorism. It’s unfortunate, and I wish it weren’t true, but terrorism now happens everywhere,” he said.

“The agenda changes quickly in this age. If tourism is affected by this, it will be temporary. These things pass, but the Hagia Sophia and the Sultanahmet mosque are eternal.”

(Additional reporting by Orhan Coskun and Ece Toksabay in Ankara, Humeyra Pamuk, Daren Butler and Melih Aslan in Istanbul, Madeline Chambers in Berlin and Joachim Dagenborg in Oslo; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by David Stamp and Gareth Jones)

Syrian opposition casts doubt on peace talks after Russian bombing

PARIS (Reuters) – Syria’s opposition co-ordinator Riad Hijab accused Russia of killing dozens of children after a bombing raid on Monday and said such action meant the opposition could not negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

Earlier the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that at least 12 Syrian school children had been killed when suspected Russian warplanes hit a classroom in the rebel-held town of Injara in Aleppo province.

Hijab, speaking after talks with French President Francois Hollande in Paris, put the death toll at 35 children and said the Russian strikes had hit three schools in total.

There was no immediate comment from Moscow, which denies any targeting of civilians in the conflict.

“We want to negotiate, but to do that the conditions have to be there,” Hijab told reporters. “We cannot negotiate with the regime when there are foreign forces bombing the Syrian people.”

Hijab is a former prime minister under Assad who defected to the opposition in 2012. He was chosen in December as coordinator of the opposition negotiating body to lead future Syria talks.

Peace talks are scheduled to be held between the government and opposition on Jan. 25 under the auspices of the United Nations. However, opposition officials have already cast doubt on whether the talks will go ahead on schedule, citing a need to see goodwill measures from the government side.

“We do not want to go to negotiations that are condemned to failure before they start. We need to create the right climate,” Hijab said. “How could we negotiate when the Syrian people are dying? Each day there are massacres.”

He said the talks had to lead to a transitional government with the president and prime minister’s full executive powers.

“INADMISSIBLE ATTACKS”

Hijab said Russia was flaunting U.N. Security Council resolutions by bombing civilians and urged the world body to ensure Russia respected its humanitarian obligations.

He also dismissed Syrian government demands that it see a list of opposition members attending the possible talks, saying the opposition would not have choices imposed on them.

Earlier on Monday French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called on Moscow and Damascus to stop “inadmissible” attacks against civilians.

Hollande and Fabius reiterated the Western view that Assad, who has strong backing from Moscow and Tehran, must relinquish power under any peace settlement.

“Bashar al-Assad has no role in the Syria of tomorrow,” Hollande said after his talks with Hijab.

Fabius said images from Madaya showing people suffering from starvation in the besieged rebel-held town underscored why the Syrian leader should step down. On Monday an aid convoy entered the town where thousands have been trapped.

(Additional reporting By Elizabeth Pineau; Editing by Gareth Jones)

Aid convoy reaches starving Syrian town of Madaya

MADAYA, Syria (Reuters) – An aid convoy entered a besieged Syrian town on Monday where thousands have been trapped without supplies for months and people are reported to have died of starvation.

Trucks carrying food and medical supplies reached Madaya near the Lebanese border and began to distribute aid as part of an agreement between warring sides, the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross said.

“Offloading of aid expected to last throughout night,” ICRC spokesman Pawel Krzysiek tweeted.

Dozens are said to have died from starvation or lack of medical care in the town and activists say some inhabitants have been reduced to eating leaves. Images said to be of emaciated residents have appeared widely on social media.

At the same time, another convoy began entering two Shi’ite villages, al Foua and Kefraya in the northwestern province of Idlib 300 km (200 miles) away. Rebel fighters in military fatigues and with scarves covering their faces inspected the aid vehicles in the rain before they entered.

Madaya is besieged by pro-Syrian government forces, while the two villages in Idlib province are encircled by rebels fighting the Syrian government.

Women cried out with relief as the first four trucks, carrying the banner of the Syria Red Crescent crossed into Madaya after sunset, with civilians waiting on the outskirts of the town as the temperature dropped and it began to get dark.

The full aid operation was expected to last several days, the ICRC said.

Images said to be from Madaya and showing skeletal men with protruding ribcages were published by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group that monitors the war, while an emaciated baby in a nappy with bulging eyes was shown in other posts.

Dr Mohammed Yousef, who heads a local medical team, said 67 people had died either of starvation or lack of medical aid in the last two months, mostly women, children and the elderly.

“Look at the grotesque starve-or-surrender tactics the Syrian regime is using right now against its own people. Look at the haunting pictures of civilians, including children – even babies – in Madaya, Syria,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said on Monday.

“There are hundreds of thousands of people being deliberately besieged, deliberately starved, right now. And these images, they remind us of World War Two; they shock the conscience. This is what this institution was designed to prevent.”

The United Nations said last Thursday the Syrian government had agreed to allow access to the town. The world body is planning to convene peace talks on Jan. 25 in Geneva in an effort to end nearly five years of civil war that have killed more than a quarter of a million people.

But Syrian opposition co-ordinator Riad Hijab accused Russia of killing dozens of children in a bombing raid on Monday and said such action meant the opposition could not negotiate with President Bashar al-Assad’s government.

There was no immediate comment from Russia, which denies any targeting of civilians in the conflict.

WATER AND SALT

Madaya residents on the outskirts of the town said they wanted to leave. There was widespread hunger and prices of basic foods such as rice had soared, with some people living off water and salt, they said.

One opposition activist has said people were eating leaves and plants.

The blockade of Madaya has become a focal issue for Syrian opposition leaders, who told a U.N. envoy last week they would not take part in the proposed talks with the government until it and other sieges were lifted.

The siege began six months ago when the Syrian army and its Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, started a campaign to reestablish Assad’s control over areas along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

Hezbollah responded to accusations it was starving people in Madaya by denying there had been any deaths in the town, and accusing rebel leaders of preventing people from leaving.

SIEGE WARFARE

Blockades have been a common feature of the civil war. Government forces have besieged rebel-held areas near Damascus for several years and more recently rebel groups have blockaded loyalist areas including al Foua and Kefraya.

Aid agencies welcomed Monday’s deliveries but called for regular access to besieged areas.

“Only a complete end to the six-month old siege and guarantees for sustained aid deliveries alongside humanitarian services will alleviate the crisis in these areas,” a joint statement from several international agencies said.

The areas included in the latest agreement were all part of a local ceasefire deal agreed in September, but implementation has been difficult, with some fighting around Madaya despite the truce.

Each side is looking to exert pressure on the other by restricting entry of humanitarian aid, or evacuations, in their areas of control, the Observatory says.

The last aid delivery to Madaya, which took place in October, was synchronized with a similar delivery to the two other villages.

Aid agencies have warned of widespread starvation in Madaya, where 40,000 people are at risk.

Hezbollah has said rebels in the town had taken control of aid, which they were selling to those who could buy. The people of Madaya were being exploited in a propaganda campaign, it said.

Syria’s National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar said on Sunday that rebels had “disrupted” the entry of food supplies.

“They wanted to escalate it as a humanitarian issue ahead of the Geneva talks,” he told Al Manar TV.

A U.N. commission of inquiry has said siege warfare has been used “in a ruthlessly coordinated and planned manner” in Syria, with the aim of “forcing a population, collectively, to surrender or suffer starvation”.

One siege is by the Islamic State group, on government-held areas of the city of Deir al-Zor.

A U.N. Security Council adopted on Dec. 18 setting out a road map for peace talks calls on the parties to allow aid agencies unhindered access throughout Syria, particularly in besieged and hard-to-reach areas.

A newly formed opposition council set up to oversee negotiations has told U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura that this must happen before the talks he plans to hold on Jan. 25.

They also told him that before negotiations, Assad’s government, which has military support from Russia and Iran, must halt the bombardment of civilian areas and barrel bombing, and release detainees in line with the resolution.

(Reporting by John Davison and Lisa Barrington in Beirut; additional reporting by Kinda Makieh on the outskirts of Madaya and Suleiman Al-Khalidi in Amman; Editing by Giles Elgood and Mark Trevelyan)

Syrian refugees face another winter in flimsy shelters

BAR ELIAS, Lebanon (Reuters) – Syrian refugee Hussein Hammoud is banking on a broom handle to protect his 12 children from the winter cold. He is using one to prop up the flimsy shelter that has already collapsed once this year under the weight of snow in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley.

“The snow brought down the tent on our heads, it broke the wooden frame,” said the 37-year-old from southern Aleppo, a refugee from the war that has been raging in neighboring Syria for nearly five years. “The assistance reaching us is very little in winter – no blankets, no mattresses.”

More than 1 million Syrians are enduring another winter as refugees in Lebanon. For some, it is their fifth in a row, displaced by a war that has driven 4.4 million Syrians into neighboring states from where many are trying to reach Europe.

While the first snow has melted at Hammoud’s camp in Bar elias, rainfall permeates the plastic sheets that fail to fully shield those underneath from the elements. Some bear the emblems of U.N. aid agencies. Others are advertising hoardings.

The snow-capped mountains of nearby Mount Lebanon are visible from the camp comprising around 30 tents separated by a dirt pathway that turns to mud in winter. It is one of more than 3,000 such settlements scattered across Lebanon.

“We have no fuel. Nobody is giving us fuel, and the water in the tent is this much,” said a woman in a purple scarf who gave her name as Umm Khalaf, holding her hands apart to show how badly it had flooded.

The winter brings other problems, too. Refugees in remote areas stranded by snow cannot reach shops to buy food and water.

“Clean water freezes in the tanks, sanitation becomes an issue, and diseases can spread more easily,” said Fran Beyrtison, Lebanon representative of aid agency Oxfam.

“Lebanon and the UN recently issued an appeal to help up to 2.9 million vulnerable people. The international community needs to fund this appeal urgently to allow aid to reach people in need,” she said. The appeal, for $2.5 billion, includes vulnerable Lebanese in addition to Syrian refugees.

UNHCR, the U.N. refugee agency, has provided support including stoves, blankets, mattresses and “insulation kits” that include insulating foam and timber, though these are designed for refugees living in larger buildings, said Dana Sleiman, UNHCR spokeswoman in Lebanon.

“We did our best to make sure that refugees are able to stay as warm and dry as possible this winter and avoid some of the issues we saw last year, like flooding,” she said.

For Umm Khalaf and others at Bar elias, another problem is explaining the situation to their children.

“The children cry and ask ‘Why is this happening’? We reply ‘God will take care of it’. What can we do?” she said.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Twin Explosions Kill At Least 19 in Syrian City

At least 19 people were killed and another 43 were severely injured when two coordinated explosions rocked a Syrian city on Monday, the nation’s official news agency reported.

According to the Syrian Arab News Agency, or SANA, a car bomb exploded in Homs, a city in western Syria. As people gathered around site of the initial explosion, apparently to survey the blast’s damage, a suicide bomber entered the crowd and detonated another explosive device.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British organization that monitors the ongoing conflict in Syria, reported a higher death toll of 32 and said at least 90 people had been injured.

It wasn’t immediately clear who was responsible for the attacks.

The explosions come about two weeks after 16 people died and 54 more were injured in other blasts in Homs. The Islamic State said it was behind the Dec. 12 attacks, Reuters reported.

Both terrorist attacks came after the United Nations helped implement a Dec. 5 ceasefire truce that allowed 700 people to evacuate the final rebel-controlled part of the city, one of the most heavily damaged in the bloody civil war that has caused millions of people to flee their homes.

Monday’s blasts came as at least 300 families were being evacuated from three other Syrian communities under similar United Nations-backed agreements, according to SANA. Two of the cities are located in Idleb province and another is located near the Syrian capital of Damascus.

United Nations officials have publicly said the organization hopes such agreements, aimed at getting relief to particularly embattled Syrian communities, will foster a nationwide ceasefire.

Syria Ready to Take Part in Geneva Peace Talks: Minister

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING (Reuters) – Syria is ready to take part in peace talks in Geneva and hopes that the dialogue will help it form a national unity government, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said on Thursday during a visit to Beijing.

The U.N. Security Council last Friday unanimously approved a resolution endorsing an international road map for a Syrian peace process, a rare show of unity among major powers on a conflict that has claimed more than a quarter of a million lives.

The U.N. plans to convene peace talks in Geneva toward the end of January.

Moualem, who spoke to reporters in English, said he had told Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi that Syria was “ready to participate in the Syrian-Syrian dialogue in Geneva without any foreign interference”.

“Our delegation will be ready as soon as we receive a list of the opposition delegation,” he said.

“We hope that this dialogue will be successful to help us in having a national unity government,” Moualem said, standing next to Wang at the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

“This government will compose a constitutional committee to look for a new constitution with a new law of election so the parliamentary election will be held within the period of 18 months, more or less.”

Friday’s resolution gives U.N. blessing to a plan negotiated earlier in Vienna that calls for a ceasefire, talks between the Syrian government and opposition and a roughly two-year timeline to create a unity government and hold elections.

But the obstacles to ending the war remain daunting, with no side in the conflict able to secure a clear military victory. Despite their agreement at the United Nations, the major powers are bitterly divided on who may represent the opposition as well as on the future of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Wang over the weekend invited Syrian government and opposition figures to come to China as it looks to ways to help with the peace process.

CHINESE CONCERNS

Wang declined to answer directly when asked if China thought Assad should remain in power or step down.

“China’s position is very clear. We believe Syria’s future, its national system, including its leadership, should be decided and set by the people of Syria,” he said.

“China’s role on the Syrian issue is to promote peace and negotiations … China hopes to see peaceful, stable and developing Middle East,” Wang added.

China has played host to both Syrian government and opposition figures before, though it remains a peripheral diplomatic player in the crisis.

While relying on the region for oil supplies, China tends to leave Middle Eastern diplomacy to the other permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, namely the United States, Britain, France and Russia.

China has its own security concerns in Syria, though it has not joined in the bombing of Islamic State.

“China believes that any and all efforts to combat terrorism should be respected and supported,” Wang said.

China has expressed concern that Uighurs, a mostly Muslim people from western China’s Xinjiang, have ended up in Syria and Iraq fighting for militant groups there.

(Writing by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie, Robert Birsel)

Amnesty: Russian Airstrikes in Syria ‘May Amount to War Crimes’

Russian airstrikes in Syria killed at least 200 civilians and the Russian government might have lied to cover up the deaths and widespread damage to residential areas, according to a new Amnesty International report.

The human rights organization said Tuesday that some of the strikes seemed to be directly launched at civilian areas, with no clear military target to be found, and “show evidence of violations of international humanitarian law.” In a statement, Philip Luther, who directs Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, said the strikes “may amount to war crimes.”

The Russian Defense Ministry disputes the allegations in the report, which it says includes “fake information” and “trite clichés,” a ministry spokesman told Reuters.

Russia has been performing airstrikes in Syria since Sept. 30, independent of the United States-led coalition that is dedicated to destroying Islamic State interests. Russian government authorities have publicly stated that the airstrikes are only aimed at terrorist targets.

However, the Amnesty report cites interviews with witnesses and survivors of those attacks, as well as analysis from weapons experts, as evidence that some of the airstrikes occurred in areas where “there were no military targets or fighters in the immediate vicinity.”

The report references six specific attacks in Homes, Idleb and Aleppo between September and November. Amnesty alleges five of those strikes targeted residential areas, while the sixth occurred very close to a hospital.

Amnesty referenced a Nov. 29 incident in which three missiles hit a busy public market in Idleb, killing 49 civilians. One man told the group that he spoke to a woman who was “crying beside a line of dead bodies” after her husband and three children died in the attack. In researching the report, Amnesty said it determined that there were no apparent military targets in the area.

Amnesty’s report also references an Oct. 1 airstrike against a mosque in Idleb, which caused the deaths of two civilians. A witness told Amnesty there weren’t any military targets within 500 meters of the mosque. But the report cites comments Russian officials publicly made about the airstrike, which the officials said targeted Islamic State interests and destroyed a command post.

Weeks later, after reports surfaced that the mosque had been destroyed, Russian officials said the claims were fabricated and showed a satellite picture of the mosque supposedly still intact. However, Amnesty reported the picture showed a different mosque than the one destroyed in the attack.

Amnesty called for independent investigations into the alleged transgressions, saying Russian leaders “failed to take feasible precautions to avoid, or at least minimize, harm to civilians and damage to civilian objects.”

Amnesty said it also has evidence Russia used unguided bombs in civilian areas, as well as widely criticized cluster bombs. Reuters reported Russia’s Defense Ministry denied using any cluster bombs in Syria.

Amnesty reported that it is also “researching and documenting its concerns” about the airstrikes conducted by the United States-led coalition.

New U.N. Data Suggests Record 60 Million People Displaced Worldwide

The number of people forced to flee their homes in 2015 likely “far surpassed” 60 million, a new record for global displacement, a new report from the United Nations Refugee Agency indicates.

The report, published Friday, projects that about 1 in every 122 people in the world have been forcibly displaced from their homes as a result of conflict or persecution. It’s based on data from the first half of the year, which indicated global surges in refugees, asylum-seekers and so-called internally displaced persons, or people who fled their homes but still live in their own countries.

According to the report, there were 20.2 million global refugees at end of June. It was a rise from last year’s total of 19.5 million, and the first time that number hit 20 million since 1992.

The U.N. report also documented a 78 percent increase in applications for asylum during the first half of 2015, from last year’s total of 558,000 to this year’s figure of 993,600. And the number of internally displaced people hit 34 million, an increase of about 2 million over 2014.

“Never has there been a greater need for tolerance, compassion and solidarity with people who have lost everything,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.

The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, which analyzes global conflict, reported 46 highly violent conflicts in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available.

The U.N. report indicates Syria’s civil war remains the single largest driver behind displacement, with about 4.2 million people fleeing the war-torn nation and another 7.6 million forced out of their homes but still in the country as of mid-2015. But the report notes that even without Syria included in the totals, there still would have been a 5 percent global rise in refugees since 2011.

There was also a rise in new refugees this year — about 839,000 in six months, or 4,600 a day. About half came from Syria and the Ukraine, the site of another armed conflict. Globally, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Myanmar, Eritrea and Iraq were the 10 countries that produced the most refugees.

A large number of refugees flee to neighboring countries, the report indicated. Turkey hosts the most refugees — 1.84 million in all, 1.81 of them from Syria — followed by Pakistan with 1.5 million, “virtually all of them from Afghanistan.” Lebanon is third with 1.2 million — 99 percent of them from Syria — followed by Iran, Ethiopia, Jordan, Kenya, Uganda, Chad and Sudan.

The United Nations warned that countries hosting the refugees are facing growing pressure, which, if unmanaged, “can increase resentment and abet politicization of refugees.” The report also indicated refugees in this day and age are less likely to return home than at any other point in the past 30 years, according to a statistic the United Nations calls the voluntary return rate.

In terms of asylum, Germany was the runaway leader in new applications. It received 159,900 in the first six months of 2015, nearly equaling the 173,100 it received in 2014. The country is known for having extremely favorable, yet often criticized policies for those who seek to resettle there. Russia was next with about 100,000 — fueled by conflict in Ukraine, the report indicates.

The United States was third with 78,200. While that was an increase of 44 percent from last year, the report indicated that most people who sought asylum in the United States were from countries like El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and China. Syria wasn’t mentioned.

Other countries in the top 10 for most new asylum applications were Hungary, Turkey, South Africa, Serbia, Italy, France and Austria.

The report indicated there were 6.5 million internally displaced people in Columbia, 4 million in Iraq and 2.3 million in Sudan. Pakistan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria and Ukraine also had more than 1.4 million internally displaced people. Yemen, the site of an ongoing civil war, and Afghanistan also saw surges in their figures, the report indicated.

Kerry Working With Russians to Fuel Syrian Peace Talks

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with key Russian leaders on Tuesday in an attempt to work past their philosophical differences and find a diplomatic solution to the Syrian civil war.

Kerry met with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov.

The talks came ahead of a planned meeting of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), a collection of countries looking to put an end to the ongoing conflict in Syria. The nations, which include the United States and Russia, are scheduled to meet this coming Friday in New York.

Russia and the United States haven’t been on the same page about how to end the conflict, particularly about the fate of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The controversial leader has been the main point of contention in the conflict, which began with an uprising in 2011 and subsequently led to millions of Syrians fleeing their homes to escape the war-torn nation.

U.S. President Barack Obama has publicly said Assad must be out of office before the war can end. It’s been widely reported that Russia is one of Assad’s biggest allies, and Moscow believes Syria’s residents — and not any other nation — should ultimately get to determine what happens.

Complicating the issue is the fact that the Islamic State terrorist organization has taken control of territory in both Syria and Iraq, and the United States is leading a 65-nation coalition that is conducting airstrikes in the region. Russia has also been carrying out some airstrikes on its own.

Speaking to reporters at a joint news conference with Lavrov, Kerry said the two nations “did reach some common ground today,” but it wasn’t appropriate for him to elaborate further because they ultimately needed the entire ISSG to come together to discuss the future of Syria.

“We are cooperating now in Syria because (the Islamic State) is a threat to all of us,” Kerry told reporters, adding he expected Friday’s ISSG meeting in New York to proceed as scheduled.

Kerry’s visit to Russia came days after a collection of Assad’s critics gathered in Saudi Arabia to and developed a unified vision as to how they could politically resolve the multi-year conflict.

The Syrian Coalition said it’s seeking a new democracy built upon equality, transparency, law and accountability, but took a firm stance that neither Assad nor the members of his current regime could take part in any transitional government “or any future political settlement.”

That coalition wants to meet Assad’s government for peace talks, potentially next month.

34 Islamic Nations Team Up to Fight Terrorism

A group of 34 Islamic nations have formed a military alliance to fight terrorist organizations.

​Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Defense, confirmed the announcement at a news conference Monday night in Riyadh, where the alliance will be based.

Operating out of a room in the Saudi capital, the group will “coordinate and support efforts to fight terrorism in all countries and parts of the Islamic world,” according to a news release.

Perhaps the most notable Islamic terrorist group is the Islamic State, which has seized territory in Iraq and Syria as it tries to spread its radical interpretations of the religion through violence.

At the news conference, Abdulaziz said the new military alliance won’t just fight the Islamic State, but will take action “against any terrorist organization (that) emerges before us.” He called Islamic extremism a “disease which infected the Islamic world first” and spread internationally.

The Saudi Arabian news release did not specify the 33 other nations that joined the anti-terrorism alliance. Reuters reported those countries included Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, Malaysia, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates and multiple nations in Africa.

Abdulaziz said each country will contribute according to its capabilities and that he hoped more nations would join soon. While he offered concrete little details on how exactly the alliance would work, he stressed that collaboration and coordination would be important pillars.

“Today, every Islamic country is fighting terrorism individually,” Abdulaziz told reporters at the news conference. “The coordination of efforts is very important; and through this room, means and efforts will be developed for fighting terrorism all over the Islamic world.”

The United States is currently providing equipment and training to forces in Iraq and Syria that are fighting the Islamic State, and have urged for more help in the fight against the group. The U.S. also heads a 65-nation coalition that carries out airstrikes against ISIS-linked targets there.

Before Saudi Arabia’s announcement, U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter was travelling to Turkey as part of a plan to get other countries to boost their efforts to defeat the Islamic State.

According to Reuters, Carter told reporters at the Incirlik airbase that he wanted to learn more about Saudi Arabia’s alliance, but more anti-ISIS involvement from Islamic nations generally appears to be “very much in line with something we’ve been urging for quite some time.”