bombers Archives

Russian long-range bombers strike ISIS from Iran’s Hamadan base

August 16, 2016 by administrator

Russia’s long-range Tu-22M3 bombers delivered their first airstrikes on terrorist targets in Syria operating from an Iranian airbase. Moscow and Tehran signed a military agreement allowing Russian aircraft to station at Hamadan Airport in western Iran, Russoa Today reports.

According to the source, the long-range bombers with full bomb payload took off from Hamadan Airfield to attack Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) and Al-Nusra Front facilities in Aleppo, Deir-ez-Zor and Idlib provinces.

The strikes have eliminated five major terrorist weapons depots and training compounds in the area as well as three command posts and a big number of terrorists, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
The long-range bombers were covered by Su-30sm and Su-35s jet fighters, which took off from Russia’s Khmeimim Airbase in Syria.

The number of military aircraft deployed at Hamadan Airbase has not been disclosed.

Russian Long-range bombers flying from Russia destroy ‘major’ ISIS camp in central Syria

July 12, 2016 by administrator

Six Tupolev Tu-22M3 strategic bombers have delivered massive airstrikes against a major Islamic State camp and ammunition depots in Syria, Russia’s Defense Ministry says. The aircraft flew from Russia and returned home after the operation.

The bombers, based at one of Russian’s southern air bases, took off on Tuesday morning, passed through Iranian and Iraqi airspace and delivered concentrated high-explosive ammunition airstrikes on terrorist targets east of the towns of Palmyra and As Sukhnah, and the village of Arak.

All aircraft have successfully returned to home base, the ministry said in a statement.

The Russian military stated that the information on the eliminated targets was acquired over the last several days and confirmed through several intelligence channels.

The US-led international antiterrorist coalition was notified of the airstrikes in advance, the ministry says.

“The strike resulted in the destruction of a large militant field camp, three depots of arms and munitions, three tanks, four infantry combat vehicles and eight vehicles fitted with heavy machine guns, also neutralizing a large number of enemy fighters,” the statement says.

#SYRIA A large militants' field camp, 3 ammo depots, 3 tanks, 4 IFVs, 8 automobile vehicles and a great number of personnel were eliminated

— Минобороны России (@mod_russia) July 12, 2016

Istanbul Bombers Said To Be Turks From Russia, Uzbekistan, And Kyrgyzstan

June 30, 2016 by administrator

An armed Turkish policeman patrols behind a police line following the attack at Ataturk international airport in Istanbul on June 29.

By RFE/RL June 30, 2016

A Turkish official has said three suspected Islamic State (IS) suicide bombers who attacked Istanbul’s Ataturk International Airport this week were from Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan.

Authorities also announced the detention of 13 more people, including three foreign nationals, in connection with the June 28 gun-and-bomb attack that killed at least 43 people and injured more than 200 more.

The attack on Europe’s third-busiest airport was the deadliest in a series of suicide bombings in Turkey this year, and the latest of more than a dozen major attacks in that country in the past 12 months.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Ankara has blamed the IS militant group.

Russia’s ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov, told journalists after the suspected perpetrators’ identities were leaked on June 30 that he had no information regarding the involvement of any Russian citizen in the attack.

“I do not have any information on that matter,” Karlov said.

Interfax quoted Russian law enforcement as disputing that one of those named had ever lived in Chechnya, as local media suggested.

A spokesman for Kyrgyzstan’s Interior Ministry, Ernis Osmonbaev, meanwhile told RFE/RL that the government was “investigating the reports.”

“At this point, we cannot say that our citizen was among [the attackers],” Osmonbaev said.

Uzbekistan’s security service could not immediately be reached for comment.

To varying degrees, all three of those post-Soviet states are said to be sources of IS recruits who have traveled to fight in the Middle East, where the group has declared a “caliphate” in swaths of conflict-torn Syria and Iraq.

INFOGRAPHIC: Foreign Fighters In Iraq & Syria — Where Do They Come From?

Russian officials say thousands of its citizens have fled to join the IS military effort in Syria — representing as much as around 10 percent of IS’s foreign fighting force. Russia has also battled a long-running Islamist-fueled insurgency in its North Caucasus region, including in Chechnya and Daghestan.

Kyrgyz authorities have reported thwarting a number of terrorist attacks in that predominantly Muslim country that they said were planned by IS members, and they have tried to crack down on alleged recruiters for the group.

Officials in Uzbekistan, which is also predominantly Muslim, have warned of IS recruiting efforts there not only for fighters but also targeting “specialists” including engineers and doctors. Authorities in Tashkent have estimated that many hundreds of Uzbek nationals have joined the fight alongside IS in Syria.

The Turkish official who was quoted by local and Western media as identifying the nationalities of the attackers on June 30 declined to be named because details of the investigation have not yet been released. He did not disclose any further details.

Links To North Caucasus

Investigators had been struggling to identify the bombers from their limited remains.

The pro-government Yeni Safak newspaper said the Russian bomber was from Daghestan, which borders restive Chechnya in Russia’s long-beleaguered North Caucasus region.

Yeni Safak said the suspected organizer of the attack was a man of Chechen origin called Akhmed Chatayev. Chatayev is identified on a United Nations sanctions list as an IS leader responsible for training Russian-speaking militants, and he is wanted by Russian authorities.

Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper named one of the attackers as a Chechen, Osman Vadinov, and said he had come from Raqqa, the de facto capital of IS militants in Syria and Iraq.

But Interfax quoted Russian law enforcement as disputing anyone with that name had ever lived in Chechnya.

The Dogan news agency said the Russian attacker had entered Turkey one month ago and left his passport in a house the men had rented in the Istanbul neighborhood of Fatih.

The Karsi newspaper, quoting police sources, said the three suspected attackers were part of a seven-person cell who entered Turkey on May 25. The attackers raised the suspicion of airport security on the day of the attack because they showed up in winter jackets on a summer day, local media reported.

The Turkish government confirmed the attackers arrived at the airport by regular taxi. Hurriyet newspaper quoted sources as saying the taxi driver told the authorities the assailants spoke a foreign language.

Revelations of the suspects’ nationalities came shortly after Turkish police said they had detained three foreigners among 13 individuals being held in connection with the attack.

In separate large-scale police operations, nine suspects believed to be linked to IS were also detained in the coastal city of Izmir. It was not clear if those suspects had any links to the carnage at the airport.

NATO member Turkey shares long, porous borders with both Syria and Iraq. Ankara has blamed IS militants for several major bombings over the past year, including in the capital and against tourists in Istanbul.

Critics say Turkey woke up too late to the threat from IS militants, focusing instead on efforts to oust President Bashar al-Assad, arguing there could be no peace without his departure.

Ankara adjusted its military rules of engagement this month to allow NATO allies to carry out more patrol flights along its border with Syria.

With reporting by RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz, Russian, and Uzbek services, AP, Reuters, and Interfax

15-year-old witness says Azerbaijanis were among Ankara suicide bombers

October 14, 2015 by administrator

A 15-year-old witness of the October 10 terrorist attack in Ankara told the police that the alleged suicide bombers spoke with each other in Azerbaijani, Turkish newspaper Milliyet reports, according to the Azerbaijani information portal Modern.az.

The witness, a female whose name is not revealed, told the police that the terrorist attack suspects first went to the restroom by the mosque. Then two women in hijabs went out from it, while four people remained inside. The girl says there were Azerbaijanis among those terrorists because those four people spoke in Azerbaijani and Kurdish.

She says the terrorists wrapped the bomb in a black piece of cloth, and one of the women tied it to herself. They also had bags.

“When we saw them, me and my friend, we went out. I told the police about those people but they did not listen to me. Four people remained inside, and another four were in the street. They all went in the same direction. They were ‘living bombs.’ One of them blew up behind, another – in the pool, the third one blew up in the crowd among the activists of the Peoples’ Democratic Party. The rest of the terrorists picked up the pieces of the exploded human bodies and smeared their faces and hands with their blood. The terrorists threw a bomb on my friend. He was torn to pieces. His head fell at my feet,” the girl recalls.

After the October 10 terrorist attack in Turkey, the names of 21 members of the IS group, who were wanted for a long time, again appeared on the agenda. According to the outlet, there is an Azerbaijani woman, Ulker Mammadova, wanted in Turkey, in the list of the six women in the group, who could have become the “living bombs.”

Commenting on the information that there is an Azerbaijani citizen in the Turkey intelligence list of potential IS kamikazes, political scientist Tofig Abbasov told Sputnik Azerbaijan that the Azerbaijanis’ presence in the IS is not a secret any more.

Kamil Salimov, an Azerbaijani expert on fight against terrorism, told Oxu.az that the people taking part in the terrorist activities of the IS can come back to their country where they have connections and resources to carry out any terrorist attack, and expose the society and the whole country to a great danger. This is a matter of concern, the expert highlighted.

The relationship between international terrorist groups and Azerbaijan originated in the early 1990s. That time, the Azerbaijani army, having failed in the aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), retreated with losses. Trying to save the situation, the Azerbaijani leadership, headed by Heydar Aliyev attracted to the war against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh international terrorists and members of radical groups from Afghanistan (groupings of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar), Turkey (“Grey Wolves”, etc.), Chechnya (groupings Basayev and Raduyev etc.) and some other regions.

Despite the involvement of thousands of foreign mercenaries and terrorists in the Azerbaijani army during the war, the Azerbaijani aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh Republic failed, and the Baku authorities were forced to sign an armistice with the NKR and Armenia. However, international terrorists established ties in Azerbaijan, and used them in the future. The Azerbaijanis were recruited and sent to Afghanistan and the North Caucasus, where they participated in the battles against the forces of the international coalition and Russian organizations. Over the recent years, the citizens of Azerbaijan have been actively engaged in terrorism and extremist activities in Russia, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq.