Palestinians, Syrians to take joint military action against IS

Visiting Palestinian envoy to Syria Ahmad Majdalani said on Thursday that an agreement has been reached with the Syrian authorities on forming a joint military action against the extremist groups south of the capital Damascus.

In a press conference, Majdalani said a joint military operation room will be formed between the Syrian army and the Syria-based Palestinian factions to coordinate the military campaign against the Islamic State (IS) and allied extremists in the Yarmouk Camp for Palestinian refugees, Xinhua news agency reported.

He said the IS infiltration into Yarmouk had ended all political solutions to the camp crisis.

"We have agreed with the Syrian authorities and the Palestinian factions that all of the political options have been thwarted by the armed militants, such as the terrorist militants of the Islamic State," Majdalani told a press conference.

He said the Palestinian role in the battle against IS in the camp is an integrative one, adding that Palestinian factions in Syria would take part in the battle to free the camp from the extremist groups.

Yarmouk Camp, five km south of Damascus, has seen furious battles over the past week, after the IS stormed this large district with the help of the Al Qaida-linked Nusra Front.

The battles raged between those extremist groups and the rival Aknaf Beit al-Maqdes, a group of Palestinian militants who sided with the Syrian rebels against the Syrian government and has been in control of the camp for over two years.

The government and allied Palestinian factions in Damascus have repeatedly attempted to establish reconciliation with the Aknaf group, but those attempts have been hindered from involved opposition rebels inside the camp.

Sources said the Palestinian official came to Syria to ask the Syrian authorities to intervene in the camp to help thwart the IS attack, as only fighters with some of the Syria-based Palestinian factions were battling against the IS, which has controlled over 90 percent of that large district with the help of the Nusra Front.

The Yarmouk Camp is a large district in southern Damascus. Among its one million residents, 170,000 are Palestinians. Most of them fled to Syria in 1948 following the establishment of the Israeli state.