Third hospital to open in liberated areas in northern Syria

April 16, 2018

The third hospital in areas liberated from Daesh and the PKK terrorist group-affiliated People's Protection Units (YPG) in northern Syria will open next week in al-Bab as efforts to normalize life continue at full steam.

The inauguration ceremony will take place next week for the 500-bed hospital in al-Bab, which will be the largest medical institution in the area. "There will be seven operating rooms, four delivery rooms, 38 intensive care beds, 55 outpatient clinic beds and 27 emergency beds," Undersecretary of Health Ministry Eyüp Gümü? told the Turkish Sabah daily yesterday.

The hospitals, which are run by the Turkish Health Ministry, are equipped with all the necessary equipment in case of an armed conflict. Gümü? said that there will be no need to transfer patients between hospitals except for complicated diseases after the new hospital goes into service.

Turkey's first hospital opened in Jarablus in September 2016, after the town was liberated with the cross-border Operation Euphrates Shield. At the end of last year, the hospital added emergency room service and was expanded to 400 beds. Along with the two hospitals in al-Bab and Jarablus, another one also put into service in Afrin, which was liberated from the YPG on March 18 with Operation Olive Branch. The hospital had previously treated YPG terrorists, but after the liberation, explosives and mines were cleared and doctors and healthcare personnel were employed in the hospital.

Ankara launched Operation Euphrates Shield along with Free Syria Army (FSA) factions on Aug. 24 to secure Turkey's southern border. The operation was completed in late March, and more than 2,000 square kilometers of northern Syria was liberated from Daesh, including Jarablus, al-Rai and al-Bab. Since then, Turkey geared up efforts to normalize life and create a war-free environment in the liberated areas to make refugees return with infrastructure, healthcare, security and education projects. With noticeable improvement in the socio-economic condition, al-Bab's population more than doubled in a year.

Besides for health services, there has been also a rapid recovery in terms of infrastructure, security and social life in northern Syria, in the areas liberated by the Turkish and FSA forces. An administration was established with the participation of local people in the areas cleared of Daesh, including al-Rai, Jarablus, al-Bab and Azaz, through Operation Euphrates Shield, which was launched Aug. 2016 against Daesh and ended in March 2017. Moreover, local councils were established to administer the normalization process after the eviction of Daesh; regular security forces were formed, and these local councils managed projects on education, infrastructure and the economy.

Jarablus was more or less a ghost town with only around 2,000 inhabitants under Daesh rule, but after Operation Euphrates Shield, its population grew again amid a rebuilding process that Turkey actively supported. Thousands who took shelter in Turkey during the war returned. Both Ankara and nongovernmental organizations are also pursuing efforts to build new housing to accommodate the returning population. Schools in the town were also rebuilt and restored with Turkish assistance.

Source: Daily Sabah.
Link: https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2018/04/17/third-hospital-to-open-in-liberated-areas-in-northern-syria.

Syrians gather in capital in defiance after airstrikes

April 14, 2018

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — Hundreds of Syrians gathered at landmark squares in the Syrian capital Saturday, honking their car horns, flashing victory signs and waving Syrian flags in scenes of defiance that followed unprecedented joint airstrikes by the United States, France and Britain.

A few hours earlier, before sunrise, loud explosions jolted Damascus and the sky turned orange as Syrian air defense units fired surface-to-air missiles in response to three waves of military strikes meant to punish President Bashar Assad for his alleged use of chemical weapons.

Associated Press reporters saw smoke rising from east Damascus and what appeared to be a flame lighting up the sky. From a distance, U.S. missiles hitting suburbs of the capital sounded like thunder. Shortly after the one-hour attack ended, vehicles with loudspeakers roamed the streets of Damascus blaring nationalist songs.

"Good souls will not be humiliated," Syria's presidency tweeted after the airstrikes began. Immediately after the attack, hundreds of residents gathered in Damascus' landmark Omayyad square, celebrating what they said was the army's success in shooting down or derailing some of the missiles. Many waved Syrian, Russian and Iranian flags. Some clapped their hands and danced, others drove in convoys, honking their horns in defiance.

"We are not scared of America's missiles. We humiliated their missiles," said Mahmoud Ibrahim, half his body hanging outside his car window, waving a Syrian flag. The crowd then moved toward the nearby Damascus University where pro-government fighters danced, waving their automatic rifles over their heads.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced Friday night that the three allies had launched military strikes to punish Assad for alleged chemical weapons use and to prevent him from doing it again. Trump said Washington is prepared to "sustain" pressure on Assad until he ends what the president called a criminal pattern of killing his own people with internationally banned chemical weapons.

The Syrian government has repeatedly denied any use of banned weapons. A fact-finding team of inspectors from the international chemical weapons watchdog was in Damascus and had been expected to head to the town of Douma on Saturday, scene of the suspected chemical weapons attack that killed more than 40 people.

The seemingly limited strikes with no apparent future strategy for how to deal with the wider civil war was a cause for celebration by Assad supporters but criticized by the Syrian opposition. Mohammad Alloush, spokesman for the Army of Islam rebel group, called the airstrikes a "farce" in a Twitter posting. Nasr al-Hariri, a senior opposition leader, said Syrians need a strategy that leads to a political solution to "save it from the brutality of the Syrian regime."

A Syrian military statement said in all, 110 missiles were fired by the U.S., Britain and France and that most of them were shot down or derailed. Russia's military said Syrian air defense units downed 71 out of 103 cruise missiles launched by the U.S. and its allies.

The Syrian statement read by Brig. Gen. Ali Mayhoub said three civilians were wounded in one of the strikes on a military base in Homs, although the attack was aborted by derailing the incoming missile. He said another attack with "a number of missiles" targeting a scientific research center in Barzeh, near Damascus, destroyed a building and caused other material damage but no human losses. Mayhoub said the building housed an educational center and labs.

An Associated Press journalist arriving at the Center for Scientific Research on the northeaster edge of Damascus found it still smoking hours after it was hit. The three-story building appeared to be almost completely destroyed. Saeed Saeed, an official at the center, told journalists the facility was for the development of chemical and pharmaceutical industries, including the development of cancer medicines and serum.

The attack began at 4 a.m. (0100 GMT) with missiles hitting the eastern suburbs of Damascus, shaking the grounds from a distance. The sky looked orange over eastern Damascus, apparently as a result of fires. Air defense units fired surface-to-air missiles from different directions toward incoming missiles.

Syrian TV called the attacks a "blatant violation of international law and shows contempt for international legitimacy." U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said there were no reports of U.S. losses during the initial airstrikes.

"Right now this is a one-time shot," he said but did not rule out further attacks. He said the airstrikes were launched against several sites that helped provide Assad's ability to create chemical weapons.

France's foreign minister said the "chemical escalation" in Syria is not acceptable because it violated the rules of war and of humanity. Jean-Yves Le Drian told reporters Saturday that the joint military operation in Syria is legitimate, limited and proportionate.

British Prime Minister Theresa May described the attack as neither "about intervening in a civil war" nor "about regime change" but a limited and targeted strike that "does not further escalate tensions in the region" and does everything possible to prevent civilian casualties.

The decision to strike, after days of deliberations, marked Trump's second order to attack Syria; he authorized a barrage of Tomahawk cruise missiles to hit a single Syrian airfield in April 2017 in retaliation for Assad's use of sarin gas against civilians.

Trump chastised Syria's two main allies, Russia and Iran, for their roles in supporting "murderous dictators," and noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin had guaranteed a 2013 international agreement for Assad to get rid of all of his chemical weapons. He called on Moscow to change course and join the West in seeking a more responsible regime in Damascus.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that the attack on Syria was a "crime" and declared the leaders of the U.S., France and the U.K. "criminals," according to Iran's state-run IRNA news agency. The Iranian Foreign Ministry strongly condemned the strikes and warned of unspecified consequences.

Russia's U.S. embassy released a statement warning that the airstrikes will "not be left without consequences." It said that "all responsibility" rests with Washington, London and Paris. The United Nations Security Council is set to meet later Saturday following Russia's request.

The U.S. missile strike in April 2017 was meant to deter Assad from further use of chemical weapons. That operation targeted the airfield from which the Syrian aircraft had launched their gas attack. But the damage was limited, and a defiant Assad returned to episodic use of chlorine and perhaps other chemicals.

Friday's strikes were aimed at further degrading Assad's ability to carry out such attacks. Pentagon Gen. Joseph Dunford said besides the scientific research center, a chemical weapons storage facility west of Homs was also targeted that he said I believed to be the main site of Syrian sarin production equipment. A chemical weapons equipment storage facility and an important command post, also west of Homs, were also targeted, he said.

Associated Press writers Sarah El Deeb and Zeina Karam in Beirut, Angela Charlton in Paris, and Amir Vahdat in Tehran, contributed reporting.

European leaders, Canada back the airstrikes against Syria

April 14, 2018

Many European leaders and the prime minister of Canada voiced support and understanding Saturday for the U.S.-led air strikes against Syria, but warned against allowing the seven-year conflict to escalate.

"Canada stands with our friends in this necessary response and we condemn in strongest possible terms" the use of chemical weapons in Syria. - Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

"It has always been Bulgaria's position that no cause justifies the killing of innocent people, including children; that the use of chemical weapons is a war crime and the strike on Syrian targets was a response to a war crime." Bulgarian government statement. Bulgaria currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

"Strikes by US, France and UK make it clear that Syrian regime together with Russia & Iran cannot continue this human tragedy, at least not without cost. The EU will stand with our allies on the side of justice." - Tweet by European Council President Donald Tusk.

"What has occurred in Syria in recent days goes far beyond the constant violation of cease fires. The response to these atrocities is legitimate and proportionate." - Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy.

"The people martyred by chemicals is a certain amount but the people martyred by conventional weapons is much, much more." Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan expressed support for the airstrikes but added that more must be done to hold the Syrian regime accountable for the hundreds of thousands it has killed using conventional weapons.

"We support the fact that our U.S., UK and French allies took on responsibility in this way as permanent members of the U.N. Security Council. The military strike was necessary and appropriate in order to preserve the effectiveness of the international ban on the use of chemical weapons and to warn the Syrian regime against further violations." - German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"This was a limited and targeted action to strike the capacity of building or diffusing chemical arms. It cannot and should not be the start of an escalation." - Italian Premier Paolo Gentiloni.

"The international community has the responsibility to identify and hold accountable those responsible of any attack with chemical weapons. This was not the first time that the Syrian regime has used chemical weapons against civilians but it must be the last." - European Union Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker.

"Belgium strongly condemns all use of chemical weapons which are a blatant violation of international law. Belgium therefore understands the military action in Syria of our American, French and British partners who have targeted identified production facilities." - Belgian government statement.

Local council established in northwestern Syria's Afrin

April 12, 2018

A local council, which includes Kurdish, Arab and Turkmen civilian representatives, was established Thursday in northwestern Syria's Afrin, a new step to help get life back to normal after the PKK-affiliate terrorists, the People's Protection Units (YPG), were eliminated from the province in Operation Olive Branch.

According to Anadolu Agency (AA) reporters on the ground, the city's opinion leaders have voted and formed a temporary local council in the center of Afrin. The interim council was formed to help provide local services and has a total of 20 members.

Out of the 20 members, 11 are Kurdish and eight are Arabs, while one member represents Turkmens.

Being from Afrin and living in the city were set as requirements for becoming a member of the council.

Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch on Jan. 20 to clear the PKK-affiliated YPG and Daesh terrorist groups from Afrin in northwestern Syria amid growing threats from the region. The liberation of Afrin, which had been a major hideout for the YPG and the PKK since 2012, was announced on March 18 after the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) fully cleared the town of terrorist elements. Since then, efforts to return life back to normal have accelerated to enable the safe return of locals.

Zuheyr Haydar, a Kurdish representative, was elected president of the council.

Six seats of the eight-member executive board so far have been allocated to Zakarya Mohammad, Jasim al-Sifari, Ahmet Haj Hasan, Abdurrahman Najjar, Horu Osman and Muhammad Sheikh Rashit.

"We would like to thank Turkey for providing us with this opportunity. We will serve the people of Afrin by using the Euphrates Shield [region] and Olive Branch region as examples," Haydar told AA.

Haydar called on all people of Afrin to return to their homes.

"We can hold a more democratic election if all the people of Afrin come back. We will manage it ourselves, not others from Qandil [where the PKK has established headquarters in northern Iraq] or other places," he said.

Haydar said the local council was founded under the supervision of the Syrian Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, which was founded in Doha, Qatar in 2012, stating that it will be connected to the local council of Aleppo.

He said the local council is in favor of the territorial integrity of the country. The deputy head of the coalition, Abdulrahman Mustafa, who was in Afrin during the elections, said Turkey is working to prevent the division of Syria. "Our priority with Turkey is the same. The local council will begin its services in health and education soon. We will endeavor to bring back those who fled the terrorists in Afrin," he said.

Ankara said life in Afrin would return to normal as soon as possible. Recently, a local council of 30 members was established at the Afrin Liberation Congress, which convened in Turkey's southern city of Gaziantep with the participation of more than 100 people.

The congress made several decisions in an effort to rebuild Afrin and enable the return of displaced people. The congress announced that control of Afrin should be given to the people of Afrin and the election of local council members should be held regularly and monitored by nongovernmental organizations. It also said the public needs to be disarmed and all segments of society should be respected. According to the final declaration, local security forces will be formed and composed of people who are not members of any party.

Source: Daily Sabah.
Link: https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/2018/04/12/local-council-established-in-northwestern-syrias-afrin.

Syrian army declares victory as rebels vacate most of Ghouta

March 31, 2018

BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian army declared victory in eastern Ghouta Saturday after opposition fighters evacuated from most of the area near the capital except for the town of Douma where negotiations are still underway for rebels there to leave or face an all-out government offensive.

The government has given rebels in Douma — the area's largest town and stronghold of the powerful Army of Islam rebel group — an ultimatum to agree on leaving by late Saturday. Some pro-government new websites reported that the army is massing troops around Douma, adding that the ultimatum may be extended until Sunday.

The army statement came shortly after another group of opposition fighters and their relatives left southern and western parts of eastern Ghouta Saturday afternoon, bringing President Bashar Assad's forces a step closer to eliminating threats from insurgents groups nearby.

State TV said 38 buses left the towns of Zamalka, Ein Tarma, Arbeen and Jobar taking more than 1,700 rebels and civilians to the northwestern rebel-held province of Idlib. The channel said troops entered the towns and raised the national flag in Arbeen's main square.

"The importance of this victory lies in restoring security and stability to the city of Damascus and its surrounding areas after the suffering of its civilians from the crimes of terrorists over several years," said the army statement, read on TV by Brig. Gen. Ali Mayhoub.

Government forces taking back most of eastern Ghouta reopens a major network of roads and highways that link Damascus with other parts of the country that have been closed since 2012 when rebels captured eastern suburbs of the capital.

The army statement vowed "to wipe out terrorism and bring back stability and security to all parts of Syria." A crushing government offensive under the cover of Russian airstrikes that began on Feb. 18 has forced opposition fighters in most of eastern Ghouta to agree to evacuate and head to Idlib province.

"Arbeen, Zamalka, Jobar and Ein Tarma in eastern Ghouta are free of terrorists," shouted a correspondent for state-affiliated al-Ikhbariya TV channel from Arbeen. State news agency SANA said 38,000 fighters and civilians have already headed to Idlib over the past two weeks marking one of the largest displacements since Syria's conflict began seven years ago. More than 100,000 others headed to government-controlled areas over the past weeks.

Before the last wave of violence began in eastern Ghouta last month, the U.N. had estimated that some 393,000 people were living in the area under a tight government siege. Tens of thousands of rebels and civilians have been relocated to Idlib over the past years from different parts of Syria making it one of the most inhabited regions in the country.

The top U.N. official in Syria, Ali Al-Za'tari, told the Dubai-based al-Arabiya TV in an interview aired Saturday that "Idlib cannot take more people." The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that a vehicle carrying evacuees from eastern Ghouta had a road accident in the government-held village of Nahr al-Bared leaving five fighters and three civilians dead. It said the bus had left eastern Ghouta Friday night.

The departure Saturday from southern and western parts of eastern Ghouta comes as negotiations are still ongoing between Russian mediators and officials from the Army of Islam to evacuate Douma, but no deal has been reached so far with the rebel group which insists on staying in the town.

Army of Islam officials did not respond to requests for comment by The Associated Press. Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Observatory, said negotiations are now suggesting that thousands of Army of Islam members and their relatives could head to the northern town of Jarablous that is controlled by Turkish troops and Turkey-backed opposition fighters.

The Observatory also reported that Syrian troops have been massing troops around Douma in case negotiations collapse.

Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria contributed to this report.

Jaish al-Islam rebels refuse to leave Ghouta

2018-03-26

BEIRUT - Jaish al-Islam, the last rebel faction in control of territory in eastern Ghouta, said on Sunday it would not withdraw to other opposition-held parts of Syria as other rebel groups have done under deals negotiated with Syrian government ally Russia.

After a month-long ground and air offensive and deals under which rebel fighters agreed to be transported to northern Syria, pro-Syrian government forces have taken control of most of what had been the last major rebel stronghold near the capital Damascus.

Only the town of Douma, the most populous part of eastern Ghouta, remains under rebel control.

Jaish al-Islam is currently negotiating with Russia over the future of the area and the people in it.

"Today the negotiations taking place ... are to stay in Ghouta and not to leave it," Jaish al-Islam's military spokesman Hamza Birqdar told Istanbul-based Syrian radio station Radio al-Kul via Skype from eastern Ghouta.

Birqdar accused the Syrian government of trying to change the demographic balance of the eastern Ghouta by forcing out locals and replacing them with its allies.

He said in the negotiations with Russia Jaish al-Islam is asking for guarantees that what remains of the local population will not be forced out.

Both Ahrar al-Sham and Failq al-Rahman, two other rebel groups formerly in charge of pockets of the eastern Ghouta, have accepted deals under which they withdraw to opposition-held Idlib in northwest Syria.

Moscow and Damascus say the Ghouta campaign is necessary to halt deadly rebel shelling of the capital.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=87822.

Ghouta residents relieved to arrive in Idlib after weeks of terror

David Enders
March 25, 2018

A new round of evacuations from Syria's Eastern Ghouta took place on Sunday, with approximately 900 people bused to the northern, rebel-dominated Idlib province.

But Syria's Idlib is also a war zone. Fighting has displaced nearly half a million people there since December alone, and more than a million live in camps. Aerial bombardment by the Syrian and Russian air forces is a daily occurrence, and rebel groups frequently battle one another as they vie for resources and territory.

Yet as he surveyed his family’s new home on Saturday - a tent in a refugee camp designed to hold about 1,500 people - Samir Mahfouz, a doctor from the eastern suburbs of Damascus, expressed a sense of relief.

“These are big camps. They are fit for the big numbers of the arrivals. There are good services. There are organizations that offer food and water. They are helping the people. Things are ok,” he said.

It is a grim measure of Syria’s civil war, now in its eighth year, that Idlib is a respite.

Mr Mahfouz was among the thousands of Syrians bused in the last two days to Idlib from a group of besieged suburbs of Damascus, collectively referred to as Eastern Ghouta. The area had been under siege by government forces for four years before they launched an intensified campaign to retake it in February, killing at least 1,600 people in the process and reducing neighborhoods to rubble.

“For the last 45 days, most of the people were living in basements in miserable conditions. Food, water and means of life were all scarce,” said Mr Mahfouz, who left the neighborhood of Harasta on Friday on a bus bound for Maarat Al Ikhwan, a town about 20 kilometers north of Idlib city, the provincial seat of Idlib.

About 4,500 fighters and civilians were driven from Harasta to Idlib on Friday, and the first 980 of an additional 7,000 people scheduled to be moved to Idlib from other parts of Ghouta began leaving on Sunday.

Hundreds of thousands of people have now been subjected to similar transfers across Syria in the last two years, which the UN and other international organizations have called “forced displacement.”

The alternative to leaving, Mr Mahfouz and others said, is to risk arrest by the government.

Former evacuees from other parts of Syria told The National that some young men they left behind were conscripted into the government’s army, while others have not been heard from since.

“Those who left from Harasta to the regime-held areas were put in detention camps. The regime put them there in order to have the chance to separate the young men from the rest. The youth are still detained until now while women and children were released,” Mr Mahfouz said.

The camp where Mr Mahfouz is now staying is designed to be a waypoint for evacuees until they can find more permanent housing.

“People are still unsure what their destiny will look like,” Mr Mahfouz said.

“We arrived only today and we don't know what to do,” said Abu Murad, a farmer from Harasta who had left behind the land he owned and also found himself in Maarat Al Ikhwan on Saturday.

“I used to plant tomatoes, cucumber, wheat and barley. I am thinking of finding a job here now. I have six children. The oldest is 12 years old; the youngest is seven month,” he said. “Death in Harasta would have been better than coming here.”

Abu Murad said that when he and his family boarded a bus, the only thing he knew for certain was that he was leaving Harasta.

“We were not given choices and were surprised to find ourselves in Idlib. When we were still in Harasta, we heard that people will be taken to Jarablus,” he said, referring to a city further east, in Aleppo province, that is under control of Turkish-backed rebel groups. “We were surprised that they brought us to Idlib. Now we are here in the camp.”

“There are many organizations who did their best helping us here. May God reward them for that. But the situation is difficult here,” he said.

Mr Mahfouz and others said people were still attempting to reach Turkey, despite reports the Turkish military has been using lethal force to prevent refugees from entering and deporting Syrians already in southern Turkey to Idlib.

Aid groups estimate Idlib city itself has swelled from its prewar population of around 200,000 to nearly five times that many.

“Idlib can no longer receive more refugees, especially in the city. The number of displaced people has increased in a very strange way and the camps are very full. The people of the camps want to return without being able to do so. Life is very difficult and tragic,”

It is widely accepted in Idlib that as the last Syrian province largely under rebel control, it will eventually be targeted in the same way Ghouta and other places have been. Complicating the problem is the widespread presence of fighters from Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, Al Qaeda’s former affiliate in Syria. HTS has largely been left out of negotiations and ceasefires rebels have brokered with the government.

“People believe that if the presence of (HTS) in the province of Idlib will continue, our destiny will be like the fate of the rest of the cities,” said Abu Hammam, a local aid worker in Idlib.

Source: The National.
Link: https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/ghouta-residents-relieved-to-arrive-in-idlib-after-weeks-of-terror-1.715914.

HRW criticizes Jordan's end to medical protection for Syrians

2018-03-25

AMMAN - Human Rights Watch criticized on Sunday Jordan's decision to end medical protections for Syrian refugees residing outside of camps in the kingdom.

Jordan, which hosts hundreds of thousands of Syrians who have fled war in their country since 2011, took a "step forward" and another "step back for urban refugees", granting them legal status while revoking health subsidies, HRW said.

On March 4, Jordan began to regularize the status of thousands of vulnerable refugees who live outside camps, a move aimed at protecting them from arrest and facilitating better access to education and employment opportunities.

The decision came less than two months after authorities in January moved to revoke the eligibility of Syrians living outside camps to receive subsidized healthcare.

"The move to regularize the status of Syrian refugees in Jordan's urban areas means that they no longer have to live underground, promising a better future for their children," said Bill Van Esvald, senior children's rights researcher at HRW.

"Jordan and its international donors should not undermine these improvements by pulling the rug out from under refugees on health care that families are already struggling to afford."

Syrian refugees in Jordan had access to free healthcare from 2012 to 2014. Since then they had received the same subsidies as uninsured Jordanians, the watchdog said.

January's decision, which is expected to affect 30,000-50,000 Syrians, will require refugees in urban areas to pay the same rates as other foreigners at public hospitals "with 80 percent up-front", HRW said.

Jordanian officials have not explained the reasons for the change in their medical protection policy, but have in the past pointed to the exorbitant cost of providing healthcare services to refugees, it said.

From the beginning of the Syrian conflict in 2011 though 2016, Jordanian authorities spent nearly $2.1 billion (1.7 billion euro) on health services for Syrians, the rights group said.

More than 650,000 Syrian refugees are registered with the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Jordan while Amman says the kingdom is hosting more than one million refugees from Syria.

Funds provided by international donors for Syrian refugee medical care in Jordan met only 66 percent of what was needed for 2017, HRW estimated.

As of February, the UNHCR had only received $17.8 million of the $274.9 million budget it needs for Jordan in 2018, it said.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=87817.

Syrians in Manbij fear Turkey, bet on US

2018-03-24

MANBIJ - In Syria's Kurdish-controlled Manbij, salesmen shout as customers bustle through the city's packed marketplace -- an everyday scene that masks residents' deep fears of a Turkish attack.

Despite the presence of US troops nearby, Manbij could become the next target of a Turkey-led battle against Kurdish militia in Syria's north.

Ankara and allied Syrian rebels seized the northwestern city of Afrin on March 18, and Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeatedly threatened to push eastwards and take Manbij.

"Everybody's scared, me included," said Hameed al-Damalkhi, 50, bent over a sewing machine as he stitched the sole back onto a used trainer at his shop in Manbij's covered market.

He said he was still shocked by images of pro-Ankara fighters looting in Afrin, breaking into shops and homes and heading off with food, blankets and even motorbikes after Kurdish fighters retreated.

"What we hear about them is they're all thieves. You saw, they looted the whole (Afrin) area," he said, wearing a stained grey robe and graying beard.

Turkey has said it aims to dislodge the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) militia, which it labels a "terrorist" group, from the length of its border with Syria.

"Where does he think he's going?" Damalkhi said, referring to Erdogan. "There are men here who can protect the area."

The YPG has gained a reputation as a formidable force, especially as the backbone of a US-backed alliance that expelled the Islamic State group from much of Syria.

- 'Guarantees' from the US -

Since Syria's war started in 2011, Manbij has exchanged hands several times.

Rebels overran the town in 2012. IS seized it two years later, turning it into a key transit point for fighters, weapons and cash between the Turkish border and its then de facto capital of Raqa, further southeast.

The US-backed and YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) took control of Manbij last year, handing the city's management over to a civil council.

Dozens of American troops have since been stationed on the city's outskirts, with additional troops deployed there around a year ago.

Their presence offers some comfort to residents, especially after a delegation from the State Department and the US-led coalition visited the city council this week.

Ali al-Sattaf, 50, who works at a money exchange, said the presence of US troops nearby was reassuring.

"It makes us feel that nothing will rain down from the sky," he said.

The YPG retreated from Afrin in the face of formidable Turkish and rebel fire power, including air strikes that pounded the Kurdish enclave.

The US-led coalition stayed out of the battle for Afrin, but its presence outside Manbij has raised the specter of a potential conflict between two NATO allies should Turkey attack the city.

On Thursday, State Department official William Roebuck and US Army Major-General James B. Jarrard, who heads a US-led force fighting IS, visited Manbij Civil Council.

The aim of the visit was "to reassure the population", council co-chair Ibrahim al-Kaftan said after the meeting.

"There will be no attack on Manbij, and we received guarantees from the delegation on this matter," he said.

- 'We're tired' -

In Manbij's Martyrs Square hang portraits of SDF fighters -- women and men -- killed in the fight against IS.

Some of the city's wall still bear the marks of the jihadists' brutal rule, its slogans and infamous black flag.

In the market, a man wearing a red-and-white scarf walked by carts piled high with apples. Another man darted past on a motorbike, while women in long black robes inspected shoes in a shop window.

Rim, a veiled 30-year-old mother who had come shopping, said she didn't want to see fighting in Manbij.

"We live in safety now, but we fear for our kids," she said, as she clutched the hands of her two children.

"We're tired and our kids are tired from all the fear, the planes and the war," she said.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=87805.

Turkey says its forces take control of Syrian town of Afrin

March 18, 2018

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey's president said Sunday that allied Syrian forces have taken "total" control of the town center of Afrin, the target of a nearly two-month offensive against a Syrian Kurdish militia, which said the fighting was still underway.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Turkish flag and the flag of the Syrian opposition fighters has been raised in the town, previously controlled by the Kurdish militia known as the People's Defense Units, or YPG.

"Many of the terrorists had turned tail and run away already," Erdogan said. Turkey's military tweeted that its forces are now conducting combing operations to search for land mines and explosives. The army tweeted a video showing a soldier holding a Turkish flag and a man waving the Syrian opposition flag on the balcony of the district parliament building with a tank stationed on the street.

A Kurdish official, Hadia Yousef, told The Associated Press the YPG fighters have not fled the town, but have evacuated the remaining civilians because of "massacres." She said clashes in the town were still underway.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Turkey-backed forces have taken control of half the town, with intense fighting still underway. Turkey views the Kurdish forces in the Afrin enclave along the border as terrorists because of their links to the Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey.

It launched an offensive against the town and surrounding areas on Jan. 20, slowly squeezing the militia and hundreds of thousands of civilians into the town center. The Observatory says nearly 200,000 people have fled the Afrin region in recent days amid heavy airstrikes, entering Syrian government-held territory nearby.

The YPG was a key U.S. ally in the fight against the Islamic State group, and seized large areas across northern and eastern Syria with the help of coalition airstrikes. But Erdogan has repeatedly said that NATO ally Turkey will not allow a "terror corridor" along its border. At least 46 Turkish soldiers have been killed since the offensive began.

The Kurdish militia and the Observatory said Turkish jets struck Afrin's main hospital on Friday, killing over a dozen people. The Turkish military denied the allegations.

Russia: Thousands more fleeing eastern Ghouta via corridor

March 17, 2018

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia's military says more than 11,000 people have left Syria's besieged eastern Ghouta outside the capital Damascus in the past few hours as government forces step up an offensive on the rebel enclave.

Maj. Gen. Vladimir Zolotukhin was quoted by Russian news agencies as saying that some 3,000 people have been leaving every hour Saturday through a government-run humanitarian corridor monitored by the Russian military.

Zolotukhin is spokesman for the Russian center for reconciliation of the warring parties in Syria. Airstrikes in Syria killed more than 100 people on Friday as civilians fled en masse. Under cover of allied Russian air power, Syrian government forces have been on a crushing offensive for three weeks on eastern Ghouta.

The weekslong violence has left more than 1,300 civilians dead and 5,000 wounded.

Palestinian teen icon says she has a 'political future'

July 30, 2018

NABI SALEH, West Bank (AP) — Teenage Palestinian protester Ahed Tamimi has vowed to keep demonstrating against the Israeli occupation and says she expects to have a "political future," without elaborating.

Tamimi spoke to The Associated Press on Monday after serving an eight-month sentence for slapping two Israeli soldiers in an incident captured on film that has made her an icon among Palestinians and their supporters.

She said she hopes to pursue a law degree in order to document human rights violations. The curly-haired 17-year-old struck the soldiers outside her West Bank home in frustration after learning that troops wounded a cousin in nearby clashes. Israel views her as a provocateur.

Her case sparked debate over what constitutes legitimate resistance to Israel's half-century rule over the Palestinians.

Lebanon's shrinking freedom of expression

Sunday 29/07/2018

BEIRUT - More than seven activists have recently been summoned by Lebanese intelligence services because they posted social media comments critical of pro-Syrian and Iranian-Lebanese politicians and parties. In the past two years, human rights groups have reported a threefold increase in the arrest, prosecution and questioning of activists and journalists.

The Lebanese penal code punishes libel and defamation of officials, a justification that appears to be increasingly deployed by security officials to question and prosecute activists or harass disgruntled citizens venting their frustration on social media.

Rawane Khatib and Khaled Abbouchi were summoned July 24 by the Lebanese office for cybercrime. They were accused of publicly criticizing Lebanese President Michel Aoun and his son-in-law, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil.

In itself, that’s notable. However, it falls within the context of a wider security crackdown by Lebanese intelligence services, targeting people denouncing the actions of specific parties, activists say.

“Arrests and summoning (for interview) targets activists or journalists critical for the most part of Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil, followed by President Aoun and Hezbollah,” said Widad Jarbouh, a researcher at the SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom at the Samir Kassir Foundation.

Mohammad Awwad, an activist known for articles disparaging Hezbollah, was arrested by the Lebanese General Security. He was released after he signed a document forbidding him from criticizing the three main political positions in Lebanon — the president, prime minister and the parliamentary speaker — as well as various religious figures.

Also in July, Elie el-Khoury, 25, was summoned by Lebanon’s cybercrimes bureau for questioning. Khoury had complained about the poor level of public services in Lebanon and accused Aoun of turning the country into his “family home.”

When Khoury’s lawyer intervened, the cybercrime bureau rescinded its request without explanation, Lebanese website Naharnet said.

Journalist Fidaa Itani was sentenced in absentia to four months in prison and fined 10 million Lebanese pounds ($6,550). Itani had called out Bassil on Facebook over his alleged racist policies towards Lebanon’s Syrian refugees.

The journalist, who is also a Hezbollah opponent, uncovered numerous cases of potential corruption in which Bassil was implicated.

Other infamous cases targeting activists and journalists include the prosecution of researcher Hanin Ghaddar affiliated with the Washington Institute. In April, after intense lobbying from both local political figures and the US Embassy, sources close to the matter said, the Military Tribunal reversed its verdict, referring the case back to the Military Prosecution.

The tribunal’s decision came after Ghaddar’s lawyer filed an objection to the court’s decision to sentence her client in absentia to six months in prison for comments critical of the Lebanese Army. A vocal critic of Hezbollah, Ghaddar accused the army of distinguishing between Sunni and Shia militants, suggesting it was more tolerating of the latter.

That same month, First Investigative Judge Ghassan Oueidat issued an arrest warrant for journalist Maria Maalouf for slandering Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah.

However, elsewhere, Jarbouh noted, other segments of the population, typically those associated with parties aligned to Iran and Syria who threaten and attack activists remain untouched. “As an example, individuals who voiced death and rape threats against an American University student who was filmed protesting against the Syrian regime offensive on Aleppo two years ago were never summoned by authorities,” he said.

In May, another critic of Hezbollah, Ali al-Amin, who was running as an independent in parliamentary elections against the organization, was severely beaten. Amin is a Shia journalist and director of the news website “Al Janoubia” (“The South”). The perpetrators of the crime are yet to be identified.

“To date, most of the summons and arrests are the work of the office for cybercrime, the general security and the Lebanese army intelligence,” says Jarbouh.

SKeyes estimates that, over the past two years, arrests targeting activists and journalists increased from 10 to 30 per year. The rise in power of pro-Iran and pro-Syria figures in parliamentary elections appears to have translated into a shrinking of freedom of expression and repressive measures in Lebanon.

Source: Middle East Online.
Link: https://www.middle-east-online.com/en/lebanon%E2%80%99s-shrinking-freedom-expression.

Argentine group IDs 128th person taken during 'Dirty War'

August 04, 2018

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — DNA tests have determined the identity of a person taken from his mother as a baby by Argentina's former dictatorship, a human rights group said Friday, bringing the number of such cases to 128.

The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo said that the person who was identified only by the name Marcos is the biological son of Rosario del Carmen Ramos. Former military and police authorities in the northern province of Tucuman kidnapped Ramos and her then five-month-old son and one of his half-brothers in 1976. Ramos was forcibly disappeared and was never found, while the two boys were taken to separate homes.

Marcos, who is now 42, found out the news about his true identity Thursday night and met with family members. The announcement was made at an emotional news conference attended by two of his half-brothers.

"It was an emotional shock," said Camilo Suleiman, one of his half-siblings. "We want to know his whole life story in 20 seconds. This is the restitution of 42 years of love that has yet to be lived."

Officials during the dictatorship have been convicted of organizing the systematic theft of babies from political prisoners who were often executed. About 500 or so newborns were whisked away and raised by surrogate families. Several hundred have yet to be accounted for.

Human rights group estimate that more than 30,000 people were jailed, tortured, killed or forcibly disappeared during the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

Greece to tear down illegal fences for better fire safety

August 03, 2018

ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Authorities in Greece will start demolishing dozens of illegal fences and other structures in the wider Athens region next week in a crackdown on building without permits that follows the country's deadliest forest fire in decades.

Environment Minister Giorgos Stathakis told Greek radio channel 24/7 on Friday that authorities would tear down 61 structures, mainly fencing, at sites on beaches, streams and areas earmarked for reforestation in several regions of Attica.

Government officials have blamed illegal construction for contributing to the July 23 disaster, when a fast-moving wildfire swept through a seaside resort near Athens, killing at least 87 people. But criticism has also mounted over how authorities responded to the blaze.

There have been allegations that police diverted drivers from a main road into the area where the wildfire later swept through. Many survivors have also complained of the lack of an official evacuation order, saying they were left on their own to figure out how to get to safety.

Hundreds of people fled to beaches, but even there the flames and choking smoke from the wildfire forced many to swim out to sea despite gale-force winds. Many survivors spent hours in the water until they were rescued by the coast guard, fishing boats and other boats. Several drowned.

Coroner Ilias Bogiokas said the temperatures of the wildfire were such that "there was almost nothing left" of many of the bodies. "For the bodies to be in this state, with full carbonization and with parts often turned to ashes ... the temperatures must have been very high in a very short period of time," he told The Associated Press. "Whatever happened, happened in minutes."

Eleven days after the fire, the exact death toll was still unclear, with figures diverging between coroners and the fire department. On July 27, coroners announced they had performed autopsies on the remains of 86 people, while one more person died that day in a hospital. Three days later on July 30, coast guard divers recovered the body of a man from the sea off the coast of the decimated resort area, which would bring the number of dead to 88.

The fire service, however, which has been issuing the official death toll, put the number of dead on Thursday night at 87, including two unidentified, unclaimed bodies and four people who died in hospitals.

Neither the coroners' office nor the fire department could explain the discrepancy.

Kantouris reported from Thessaloniki, Greece.

Zimbabwe opposition says soldiers search for its supporters

August 04, 2018

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — Zimbabwean soldiers were searching parts of the capital for opposition supporters to detain after the disputed election, the country's main opposition party said Saturday, as some already were in court.

Nkululeko Sibanda, a top official in the Movement for Democratic Change party, spoke at a courthouse in Harare where about 20 detained supporters awaited a hearing. Sibanda said they were accused of inciting public violence.

"A lot of people are hiding," Sibanda said. "It's scarier than the Mugabe times." There was no independent confirmation of the allegation. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said he wants to work with the opposition to rebuild the country after decades of repression under his former mentor, Robert Mugabe.

Sibanda said he was concerned that the government could try to implicate opposition supporters in the deaths of six people who were killed during a military crackdown in Harare on Wednesday. Soldiers opened fire on protesters, some of whom were rioting.

As riot police circulated in the capital on Saturday, supporters of opposition leader Nelson Chamisa urged him to keep fighting a day after he forcefully rejected Mnangagwa's election victory and alleged manipulation. Zimbabwe's electoral commission has said the president won with 50.8 percent of the vote while Chamisa received 44.3 percent.

Chamisa has said the opposition's own count shows he won the vote and that they would challenge the election results in court. "We're doing all to secure your vote & defend your WILL," he said Saturday on Twitter.

"What we want Mr. Nelson Chamisa to do for us is to not give up on our vote," said one supporter in the capital, Tisi Habis. "No matter what the (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) says, Mr. Chamisa is our president."

International election observers who were invited by Mnangagwa's government after years of being banned by Mugabe were pulling out after issuing mixed reports on Monday's vote. While the election itself was called peaceful, the observers expressed concern over the lack of transparency in the voters' roll and the "extreme bias" of state-run media in favor of Mnangagwa. And in a joint statement the observers criticized the military's "excessive" use of force.

A credible election is a crucial step for lifting international sanctions and attracting badly needed foreign investment in Zimbabwe's long-collapsed economy. Mnangagwa on Friday claimed the vote had been free and fair, praising the "unprecedented flowering of freedom and democracy in our beloved homeland" while saying he wanted an independent investigation into the deadly unrest.

The U.S. State Department late Friday encouraged the release of fully transparent election results and said anyone with grievances should pursue them through legal channels, adding that "we encourage all political leaders to show magnanimity in victory and graciousness in defeat."

Exoplanets where life could develop as on Earth

Cambridge UK (SPX)
Aug 03, 2018

Scientists have identified a group of planets outside our solar system where the same chemical conditions that may have led to life on Earth exist.

The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology (MRC LMB), found that the chances for life to develop on the surface of a rocky planet like Earth are connected to the type and strength of light given off by its host star.

Their study, published in the journal Science Advances, proposes that stars which give off sufficient ultraviolet (UV) light could kick-start life on their orbiting planets in the same way it likely developed on Earth, where the UV light powers a series of chemical reactions that produce the building blocks of life.

The researchers have identified a range of planets where the UV light from their host star is sufficient to allow these chemical reactions to take place, and that lie within the habitable range where liquid water can exist on the planet's surface.

"This work allows us to narrow down the best places to search for life," said Dr. Paul Rimmer, a postdoctoral researcher with a joint affiliation at Cambridge's Cavendish Laboratory and the MRC LMB, and the paper's first author. "It brings us just a little bit closer to addressing the question of whether we are alone in the universe."

The new paper is the result of an ongoing collaboration between the Cavendish Laboratory and the MRC LMB, bringing together organic chemistry and exoplanet research. It builds on the work of Professor John Sutherland, a co-author on the current paper, who studies the chemical origin of life on Earth.

In a paper published in 2015, Professor Sutherland's group at the MRC LMB proposed that cyanide, although a deadly poison, was in fact a key ingredient in the primordial soup from which all life on Earth originated.

In this hypothesis, carbon from meteorites that slammed into the young Earth interacted with nitrogen in the atmosphere to form hydrogen cyanide. The hydrogen cyanide rained to the surface, where it interacted with other elements in various ways, powered by the UV light from the Sun. The chemicals produced from these interactions generated the building blocks of RNA, the close relative of DNA which most biologists believe was the first molecule of life to carry information.

In the laboratory, Sutherland's group recreated these chemical reactions under UV lamps, and generated the precursors to lipids, amino acids and nucleotides, all of which are essential components of living cells.

"I came across these earlier experiments, and as an astronomer, my first question is always what kind of light are you using, which as chemists they hadn't really thought about," said Rimmer. "I started out measuring the number of photons emitted by their lamps, and then realized that comparing this light to the light of different stars was a straightforward next step."

The two groups performed a series of laboratory experiments to measure how quickly the building blocks of life can be formed from hydrogen cyanide and hydrogen sulphite ions in water when exposed to UV light. They then performed the same experiment in the absence of light.

"There is chemistry that happens in the dark: it's slower than the chemistry that happens in the light, but it's there," said senior author Professor Didier Queloz, also from the Cavendish Laboratory. "We wanted to see how much light it would take for the light chemistry to win out over the dark chemistry."

The same experiment run in the dark with the hydrogen cyanide and the hydrogen sulphite resulted in an inert compound which could not be used to form the building blocks of life, while the experiment performed under the lights did result in the necessary building blocks.

The researchers then compared the light chemistry to the dark chemistry against the UV light of different stars. They plotted the amount of UV light available to planets in orbit around these stars to determine where the chemistry could be activated.

They found that stars around the same temperature as our Sun emitted enough light for the building blocks of life to have formed on the surfaces of their planets. Cool stars, on the other hand, do not produce enough light for these building blocks to be formed, except if they have frequent powerful solar flares to jolt the chemistry forward step by step. Planets that both receive enough light to activate the chemistry and could have liquid water on their surfaces reside in what the researchers have called the abiogenesis zone.

Among the known exoplanets which reside in the abiogenesis zone are several planets detected by the Kepler telescope, including Kepler 452b, a planet that has been nicknamed Earth's 'cousin,' although it is too far away to probe with current technology. Next-generation telescopes, such as NASA's TESS and James Webb telescopes, will hopefully be able to identify and potentially characterize many more planets that lie within the abiogenesis zone.

Of course, it is also possible that if there is life on other planets, that it has or will develop in a totally different way than it did on Earth.

"I'm not sure how contingent life is, but given that we only have one example so far, it makes sense to look for places that are most like us," said Rimmer. "There's an important distinction between what is necessary and what is sufficient. The building blocks are necessary, but they may not be sufficient: it's possible you could mix them for billions of years and nothing happens. But you want to at least look at the places where the necessary things exist."

According to recent estimates, there are as many as 700 million trillion terrestrial planets in the observable universe. "Getting some idea of what fraction have been, or might be, primed for life fascinates me," said Sutherland. "Of course, being primed for life is not everything and we still don't know how likely the origin of life is, even given favorable circumstances - if it's really unlikely then we might be alone, but if not, we may have company."

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Exoplanets_where_life_could_develop_as_on_Earth_999.html.

Pair of colliding stars spill radioactive molecules into space

Charlottesville VA (SPX)
Aug 02, 2018

When two Sun-like stars collide, the result can be a spectacular explosion and the formation of an entirely new star. One such event was seen from Earth in 1670. It appeared to observers as a bright, red "new star." Though initially visible with the naked eye, this burst of cosmic light quickly faded and now requires powerful telescopes to see the remains of this merger: a dim central star surrounded by a halo of glowing material flowing away from it.

Approximately 348 years after this event, an international team of astronomers using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the NOEMA (Northern Extended Millimeter Array) radio telescopes studied the remains of this explosive stellar merger - known as CK Vulpeculae (CK Vul) - and discovered the clear and convincing signature of a radioactive version of aluminum (26Al, an atom with 13 protons and 13 neutron) bound with atoms of fluorine, forming 26-aluminum monofluoride (26AlF).

This is the first molecule bearing an unstable radioisotope definitively detected outside of our solar system. Unstable isotopes have an excess of nuclear energy and eventually decay into a stable, less-radioactive form. In this case, the 26-aluminum (26Al) decays to 26-magnesium (26Mg).

"The first solid detection of this kind of radioactive molecule is an important milestone in our exploration of the cool molecular universe," said Tomasz Kami?ski, an astronomer with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., and lead author on a paper appearing in Nature Astronomy.

The researchers detected the unique spectral signature of these molecules in the debris surrounding CK Vul, which is approximately 2,000 light-years from Earth. As these molecules spin and tumble through space, they emit a distinctive fingerprint of millimeter-wavelength light, a process known as "rotational transition." Astronomers consider this the "gold standard" for molecular detections.

These characteristic molecular fingerprints are usually taken from laboratory experiments and then used to identify molecules in space. In the case of 26AlF, this method is not applicable because 26-aluminum is not present on Earth. Laboratory astrophysicists from the University of Kassel/Germany therefore used the fingerprint data of stable and abundant 27AlF molecules to derive accurate data for the rare 26AlF molecule.

"This method of extrapolation is based on the so-called Dunham approach," explained Alexander Breier from the Kassel team. "It allows researchers to precisely calculate the rotational transitions of 26AlF with an accuracy far beyond the needs of astronomical observers."

The observation of this particular isotopologue provides fresh insights into the merger process that created CK Vul. It also demonstrates that the deep, dense inner layers of a star, where heavy elements and radioactive isotopes are forged, can be churned up and cast into space by stellar collisions. "We are observing the guts of a star torn apart three centuries ago by a collision," observed Kami?ski. "How cool is that?"

The astronomers also determined that the two stars that merged were relatively low-mass, with one being a red giant star with a mass somewhere between 0.8 and 2.5 times that of our Sun.

"This first direct observation of this isotope in a stellar-like object is also important in the broader context of galactic chemical evolution," noted Kami?ski. "This is the first time an active producer of the radioactive nuclide 26Al has been directly observationally identified."

It has been known for decades that there is about three entire Suns' worth of 26Al spread across the Milky Way. But these observations, made at gamma-ray wavelengths, could only identify that the signal was there; they couldn't pinpoint individual sources and it was unclear how the isotopes got there.

With current estimates on the mass of 26Al in CK Vul (about a quarter the mass of Pluto) and the rare occurrence of mergers such as this, it seems rather unlikely that mergers are solely responsible for this galactic radioactive material, the astronomers conclude.

However, ALMA and NOEMA can only detect the amount of 26Al bound with fluorine. The actual mass of 26Al in CK Vul (in atomic form) may be much greater. It is also possible that other merger remnants may have far greater amounts. Astronomers may also have underestimated the current merger rates in the Milky Way. "So this is not a closed issue and the role of mergers may be non-negligible," speculated Kamiski.

Source: Space Daily.
Link: http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Pair_of_colliding_stars_spill_radioactive_molecules_into_space_999.html.