International News

MOSCOW, (APP/AFP) – Russia has asked the United Nations
to blacklist a major rebel group that is playing a key role in peace talks to end the Syrian civil war, its ambassador to the UN said.
Mohammed Alloush, a leading figure in Jaish al-Islam (Army of Islam),
is the chief negotiator for the High Negotiations Committee, the war-torn
country’s main opposition group, at UN-brokered peace talks in Geneva.
Russia, the key backer of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime, has
also asked that another Islamist rebel group, Ahrar al-Sham, be blacklisted.
“The Russian delegation submitted to the UN Security Council’s
Counter-Terrorism Committee a request” to add “two organisations: Jaish
al-Islam and Ahrar al-Sham,” to a blacklist that includes the Islamic State
group and Al-Qaeda, Russia’s ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin said in a
statement Tuesday.
Churkin said that the two groups are “closely linked to terrorist
organisations, primarily the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda.”
The groups “both give (the IS and Al-Qaeda) and receive from them
financial, material, technical and military support,” he said.
An unprecedented ceasefire deal brokered by Moscow and Washington saw
Syria’s government and non-jihadist rebel groups agree to halt attacks while
pursuing peace talks.