Carnage in Syria a Product of US Empowerment of Saudi Arabia

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12. 'Every brigade is striving to build their dreams on our guts'

AMMAN: The Islamic State and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are separately attacking the rebel-held city of Marea from three directions, local journalists told Syria Direct Thursday.

Located in the northern Aleppo countryside, Marea is controlled by a number of rebel factions including the Northern Front and the FSA-affiliated Aleppo Operations Room. It is encircled from the south and west by the SDF, and from the east by the Islamic State.

Marea, the easternmost rebel-held city in northern Aleppo, sits at a nexus of Islamic State and Kurdish territorial ambitions. The city has suffered Islamic State attacks for more than a year as a result of IS’s effort to expand its caliphate by moving west. Kurdish forces see Marea as a stepping stone in their campaign east into Islamic State territory, with the eventual goal of linking up Afrin and Kobani cantons.

IS mounted an attack on the city Wednesday, but the rebels “were able to fight them off,” Abu Khalid, a journalist embedded with Ahrar a-Sham in northern Aleppo told Syria Direct Thursday.

http://syriadirect.org/news/is-and-sdf-each-attack-rebel-held-marea-%E2%80%9Cevery-brigade-is-striving-to-build-their-dreams-on-our-guts%E2%80%9D/