Kurdish YPG fighters continued to clash with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Sham, the Al Nusrah Front, and allied forces in Hasakah; a motorbike bomb detonated in Qamishli. Fighters from the Ahrar al Sham stormed al-Shmeitiya in Deir Izzour and seized a member of Syrian parliament and an al-Bousaraya tribal sheikh. ISIS set fire to an Armenian church in Raqqah. Regime forces recaptured the strategic Christian town of Sadad in Homs after heavy fighting; the al Qaeda-linked fighters who had seized it earlier are said to have withdrawn. Thirteen rebel groups in al Bab city in Aleppo released a statement of allegiance to the sharia council of al Bab, which has refused to acknowledge ISIS as an actual state. The OPCW has inspected all but two of 23 chemical weapons sites; the remaining two are inaccessible “due to security reasons.” UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi said President Assad could help transition the country to a “new” Syria, but not as its leader.
