Day 1,119: The Syrian conflict is filled with ... Australians?

GlobalPost

Today is Day 1,119 of the Syria conflict. The UN's refugee agency has just announced that, in a "rare and risky" operation with the Syrian Red Crescent, it has successfully delivered the first humanitarian aid to Aleppo in almost a year.

Both sides agreed to and respected a ceasefire "for the duration of the operation," while "food, medicine, blankets, plastic sheeting, hygiene kits and kitchen sets" were unloaded at a checkpoint and then hauled in "270 separate trips" into the contested city, using pull-carts. The press release was not loaded with details, but judging by the photos available on Getty, this operation began yesterday. Those are a few of the 75 aid workers, above, pictured arriving at the checkpoint.

Now on to the rest of the roundup.

Australia's attorney general made news yesterday when he told folks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in DC that he was "sorry to have to tell [the audience] that per capita, Australia is one of the largest sources of foreign war fighters to the Syrian conflict outside the region."

"We also know that Australians are taking up senior leadership roles in the conflict," he added.

As you might imagine, this statement caused a few double takes among Syria observers, media types, and, luckily, The Guardian's editorial staff: They looked into the matter and have produced a must-see chart that lays the whole matter out in detail, and very cleanly. Going by the highest estimates of the number of Australian fighters in Syria, The Guardian ranks Australia seventh among Western nations, adjusted for population. But it's European countries with the truly shocking rates: In terms of confirmed fighters in Syria, adjusted for population size, Belgium leads the pack, closely followed by Norway. If you go by reliable reports rather than confirmed cases, however, Kosovo's and Albania's rates far exceed even those. If you're interested in why that's so, head over to GlobalPost's on-the-ground coverage last month of Albania's Al Qaeda problem.

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Lassana Diara (Epsilon/Getty)

While on this topic: One of the stranger stories this week has been the inexplicable social media rumors that French soccer star Lassana Diarra, formerly of Chelsea and Arsenal, had left his current team Lokomotiv Moscow and was now fighting in Syria on the side of Islamist rebels. Yesterday, to clear things up, his lawyer not only denied the rumors "in the most formal, the most categoric, the most absolute fashion" but pointed out that Diarra has "never set foot in Syria" and is expected to play in Lokomotiv's game this coming Sunday. 

In other news:

- Secretary of State John Kerry's apperance before the Senate Committe on Foreign Relations yesterday involved some tense exchanges about the US's Syria policy.

- Iran is sending the Syrian government 30,000 tons of food supplies.

- Patrick J. McDonnell of the Los Angeles Times has interviewed some of the Armenians who fled Kasab as it fell. Their story is worth a read.

Pope Francis this morning expressed his "profound pain" over the killing of Dutch priest Frans van der Lugt in the Syrian city of Homs earlier this week. He said it made him think again of the "many people who suffer and die in that tortured country."

"I send a concerned call to those responsible in Syria and to the international community," the pope continued: "Put down your arms, end the violence!"

The conflict continues.


A picture of slain Dutch priest Frans van der Lugt in a Jesuit church in Amsterdam. (Inge van Mill/AFP/Getty Images)

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