(MENAFN- Arab Times) At least 47 fighters were killed in clashes between the Islamic State group and rival Syrian rebels, a monitor said on Saturday, in an area where the United States and Turkey are planning to open a new front against Islamic State militants. The renewed fighting raged on Friday around the rebel-held town of Marea, 20 kms (12 miles) from the Turkish border, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The area falls within a "safe zone" Turkey said last month it would set up in northern Syria to help keep Islamic State at bay. Islamic State said late Friday it had waged a fresh assault on Marea, killing "dozens" of Syrian rebels fighting against it. The group last week encircled Marea, taking several villages around the town, in a blow to rebels who are likely partners for Ankara and Washington in any ground campaign.
A loss of Marea would make it harder for Turkey and the United States to open a new front against Islamic State. Western-backed rebels have sent in reinforcements from other parts of Aleppo province to try to beat back the jihadists, according to a rebel fighter.
Islamic State holds large swathes of territory across Syria and Iraq, and has advanced in other areas of Syria in recent months. It is fighting rival insurgents, the Syrian military and Kurdish regional forces alike in Syria's four-year-old civil war. At least 15 Syrian Christians who had been held by the Islamic State group in the central village of Al-Qaryatain were released Friday, monitoring groups said. "A group of 15 Christians who had been under house arrest by IS in Al- Qaryatain were released and arrived in Fayrouzah," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. IS jihadists had taken at least 230 civilians hostage, including dozens of Christians, in the village in Syria's Homs province in early August.
The Assyrian Monitor from Human Rights confirmed that the 15 Christians had arrived in Fayrouzah, five kilometres (three miles) southeast of Homs city, on Friday afternoon. Citing a medical source, it said they "were in good health." According to Abdel Rahman, the group had been released after paying jizya, a tax imposed on non-Muslims.
Those released did not include Father Jacques Mourad, a Syriac Catholic priest who was kidnapped from a monastery in Al-Qaryatain in May by unknown assailants but who is in IS custody, he said. A Vatican's news outlet, Agence Fides, said Mourad and other Christian Syrians were in a "stable" situation and that local religious figures were negotiating their release. The release of the 15 Christians comes after news report that IS had signed a "dhimmi agreement" with Christians in the village, referring to the status of non- Muslims in the group's self-declared "caliphate."
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