{"id":29476,"date":"2019-01-17T02:22:53","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T02:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29476"},"modified":"2019-01-17T02:22:53","modified_gmt":"2019-01-17T02:22:53","slug":"un-security-council-approves-hodeidah-ceasefire-monitoring-force-in-yemen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=29476","title":{"rendered":"UN Security Council approves Hodeidah ceasefire monitoring force in Yemen"},"content":{"rendered":"<div readability=\"108\">\n<p>\nJARABLUS, SYRIA:\u00a0Opposition commander Adnan Abu Faisal and his army are encamped near the frontline in northern Syria, waiting to launch an offensive on his home city of Manbij.<\/p>\n<p>\nBut they are not the ones who will decide whether to march on the strategically important city, held for more than two years by Kurdish forces supported by the US.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe decision will depend on Turkey, the main backer of Abu Faisal\u2019s group, and on how contacts evolve between Washington and Ankara over the US plans to withdraw forces from Syria, a move set to reshape a major theater of the war.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe US and Turkey are allies both in the NATO defense alliance and in the fight against Daesh, but Ankara sees the Kurdish People\u2019s Protection Units (YPG) forces that helped the US-led coalition drive Daesh out of Manbij in 2016 as a security threat.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe YPG fear the US withdrawal will open the way for a threatened Turkish attack into northern Syria, including Manbij, but US President Donald Trump has warned Turkey of \u201ceconomic devastation\u201d if it goes ahead with the attack.<\/p>\n<p>\nAbu Faisal\u2019s fighters are awaiting orders near Jarablus, a town held by Turkey and its Syrian opposition allies about 35 km south of Manbij. The frontline in the area runs through open farmland where wheat and corn are usually grown.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cWe are ready with our forces &#8230; for \u2018zero hour\u2019 to begin any military action,\u201d Abu Faisal, whose forces have more than 300 vehicles including pickup trucks and armored vehicles provided by Turkey, told Reuters.<\/p>\n<p>\n\u201cPreparations are going at full speed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\nAbu Faisal, 36, was an army captain before Syria\u2019s civil war began in 2011 but defected from the Syrian Army in 2012 to join the fight against Bashar Assad.<\/p>\n<p>\nAbu Faisal helped wrest control of Manbij from the Syrian Army early in the conflict but fled when it was seized by Daesh in 2014 and has not set foot there since then.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe YPG have also left Manbij but retain influence over the Kurdish-allied groups that hold the city 30 km from the border with Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>\nManbij lies near the junction of three separate blocks of territory that form spheres of Russian, Turkish and, for now, US influence.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe US military pullout will not only leave Kurds exposed to possible confrontation with Turkey but will also open the way for the expansion of Russian and Iranian sway into the areas that US forces will be leaving.<\/p>\n<p>\nThe US military deployed into Syria as part of the fight against Daesh but officials later indicated wider objectives included containing Iran, Assad\u2019s main regional ally.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\nLate last month, the YPG called on Assad\u2019s forces to protect Manbij from attack by Turkey. Syrian government forces, which are backed by Russia, answered the YPG appeal by deploying outside Manbij.<\/p>\n<p>\nAbu Faisal\u2019s fighters, backed by Turkish forces, made their own advance toward the city the same day but stopped short of an attack.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>JARABLUS, SYRIA:\u00a0Opposition commander Adnan Abu Faisal and his army are encamped near the frontline in northern Syria, waiting to launch an offensive on his home city of Manbij. But they are not the ones who will decide whether to march on the strategically important city, held for more than two years by Kurdish forces supported&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":29477,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29476\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}