Erdogan says Turkey to warn Syrian Kurdish group over "dangerous" moves

Syrian rebels said they have overrun army positions in the north and south of the country this week, in an offensive in which a rights monitoring group said 51 soldiers were executed.       

Insurgents have focused on taking isolated army outposts, mostly in rural areas while forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have made gains in recent months around the capital Damascus and the central city of Homs.             

One video, posted on YouTube on Wednesday by a rebel group calling itself the Supporters of the Islamic Caliphate, shows around 30 bodies of young men piled up against a wall.        

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights cited activists on Friday in Khan al-Assal as saying that more than 150 soldiers were killed on Monday and Tuesday in and around the town.                 
The Observatory said that figures included 51 soldiers and officers who were executed. Another video, posted by a rebel group in the village of Hara in the southern province of Deraa, shows several dead soldiers in a room, lying in a pool of blood with head injuries.                   
Regime forces also clashed with rebels on the outskirts of the capital on Friday. A resident of Damascus said warplanes were targeting the northern Barzeh district.                  

On another note, officials said pro-government gunmen are advancing in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus. Fighting in the camp broke out earlier this week.      

It has been mostly under rebel control since late last year. Anwar Raja, a spokesman for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, said Friday the Palestinian Popular Committees want to "cleanse" the camp of "terrorist gangs."    

Khaled Abdul-Majid of the Popular Struggle Front, another pro-government faction, said Popular Committees have captured nearly a third of the mostly empty camp. Thousands of refugees have fled.        

Syrian National Coalition:         

The Syrian National Coalition's newly elected president, Ahmad Al-Jarba described the situation in Syria as "desperate" and urged the United States to quickly supply promised weapons to prevent a military victory by Assad.                       

Al-Jarba said the coalition "fully understands" those concerns but "we need American direct support to save democracy in Syria and to lead the world to force Assad at last to stand down."         

Turkey to warn over "dangerous" moves:       

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that Turkey's intelligence agency will warn the head of a Syrian Kurdish group that has seized control of areas of northern Syria near the Turkish border that it is taking "wrong and dangerous" steps.     

"Necessary warnings will be made to them that these steps they are taking are wrong and dangerous," Erdogan told reporters, as intelligence agents met with the head of Syria's Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Istanbul.              

Turkey is keen to extract assurances from the PYD that it will not seek to carry out actions on Turkish soil, will not try to carve out an autonomous region on the border, and that it will maintain a stance of firm opposition to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.           

Positions:

The US government opposed providing any lethal assistance to Syria's rebels until last month but is moving ahead now with sending weapons to vetted rebels after securing the approval of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.              

President Barack Obama and his national security team have yet to say publicly what weapons they'll provide and when they'll deliver them.              

There has also been concern in the West that U.S. weapons could end up in the hands of al-Qaeda-linked groups.      

The US decision to start sending arms to the rebels has further dimmed peace prospects and the comments at the U.N. appeared at odds with what was happening inside Syria.      

On another note, the US Secretary of State John Kerry told reports at the United Nations that there is no military solution to Syria adding that the only solution is political and will require leadership in order to bring people to the table.             

Kerry spoke ahead of talks with U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who said the death toll had risen from nearly 93,000 just over a month ago to more than 100,000. Syrian opposition groups had made that same estimate a month ago.


REUTERS/AP