Syria Direct: News Update 01-15-2014

 * Kuwait pledged $500 million, the United States $390 million, Saudi Arabia $250 million and Sweden $30 million at an international conference in Kuwait Wednesday to meet the United Nation’s $6.5 billion humanitarian appeal for Syria, the largest it has ever launched. “The humanitarian situation in Syria is an outrage that should offend every reasonable conscience,” U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said, reported Voice of America.

* The Islamic State in Iraq and a-Sham (ISIS) extended their power across the entire city of A-Raqqa Tuesday, after the Jabhat a-Nusra-affiliated A-Raqqa Revolutionaries Brigade withdrew from the neighborhood of Ramila, All4Syria reports. The Islamic Front-affiliated Ahrar al-Sham had previously pulled out of A-Raqqa. 

ISIS fighters march in central a-Raqqa in an undated photo. Courtesy of Twitter user @UmmShamil.

*  Violent clashes continued Tuesday between ISIS and rebel brigades at ISIS’s final remaining headquarters in the Aleppo province city of Jarablus. Rebel battalions are targeting the ISIS headquarters in the Jarablus Cultural Center with mortar shelling, Zaman al-Wasl reported.

* The pro-government People’s Committee militias in the al-Sabeel village of Dara’a province kidnapped six citizens Tuesday amidst government bombardment of the city, the Syrian National Coalition said in a statement on its website. The same day, government helicopters dropped barrel bombs on the city of Ankhil in Daraa.

* Syrian state news agency SANA reported Tuesday the Syrian army had killed “terrorists” from Jabhat a-Nusra and the Islamic Front in Adra al-Amalia, Douma, Jobar, Arbeen, Zabdani, Daraya, Khan al-Sheikh and Yarboud in the Damascus suburbs.

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