US training ex-IS fighters

The chief of the Russian General Staff has accused the United States of training former Islamic State fighters in Syria to try to destabilise the country.

General Valery Gerasimov's allegations, made in a newspaper interview, centre on a US military base at Tanf, a strategic Syrian highway border crossing with Iraq in the south of the country.

Russia says the US base is illegal and that it and the area around it have become "a black hole" where militants operate unhindered.

Islamic State has this year lost almost all the territory it held in Syria and Iraq. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said yesterday the main part of the battle with Islamic State in Syria was over, according to the state-run RIA news agency.

The United States says the Tanf facility is a temporary base used to train partner forces to fight Islamic State. It has rejected similar Russian allegations in the past, saying Washington remains committed to killing off Islamic State and denying it safe havens, reported Reuters.

But Gerasimov told the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper yesterday that the United States was training up fighters who were former Islamic State militants but who now call themselves the New Syrian Army or use other names.

He said Russia satellites and drones had spotted militant brigades at the US base.

"They are in reality being trained there," Gerasimov said, saying there were also a large number of militants and former Islamic State fighters at Shadadi, where he said there was also a US base. "They are practically Islamic State," he said. "But after they are worked with, they change their spots and take on another name. Their task is to destabilise the situation."

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan yesterday called Syrian President Bashar al Assad a terrorist and said it was impossible for Syrian peace efforts to continue with him.

"Assad is definitely a terrorist who has carried out state terrorism," Erdogan said at a televised news conference with his Tunisian counterpart Beji Caid Essebsi in Tunis.

"It is impossible to continue with Assad. How can we embrace the future with a Syrian president who has killed close to a million of his citizens?" he said.

Meanwhile, aid workers have begun evacuating emergency medical cases from Syria's besieged rebel bastion of Eastern Ghouta, the Red Cross said yesterday, after months of waiting during which the United Nations said at least 16 people died, reported AFP.