Slow going for Turkish-backed forces in north Syria
BEIRUT — Turkish troops and allied Syrian opposition forces have managed to capture just one-tenth of a north Syrian town from Islamic State militants, a conflict monitoring group said Saturday, despite reaching its outskirts seven weeks ago.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group told the AP that nine-tenths of al-Bab remains under IS control. The Observatory receives its information from a network of contacts inside the war-torn country.
Meanwhile, rebels and exiled opposition figures appointed Nasr al-Hariri of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition to lead a delegation to U.N.-brokered talks with the Syrian government, planned for Feb. 20 in Geneva.
Also on Saturday, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council authorized Russia to fly its fighters over Iranian airspace to support operations in Syria, the state’s semi-official Tasnim news agency reported.