civilians Archives

İYİ Party leader Akşener claims civilians receiving weapons training in camps in Turkey

January 3, 2018 by administrator

According to Akşener, they are being prepared for the election season and would be used to stir chaos if the results disappoint the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP).

İYİ (Good) Party leader Meral Akşener has claimed civilians are receiving weapons training in camps in the Black Sea province of Tokat and the Central Anatolian province of Konya, daily Sözcü reported on Jan. 2.

“We have heard about these training camps in Tokat and Konya. They should be investigated and the results should be shared with us,” Akşener said in an interview.

Akşener said some people who have been seen “moving around with long-range guns lately” are told to be linked to these training camps.

Although she said these were still speculations, Akşener warned citizens and asked for precautions to be taken starting now, before the election season begins.

Akşener mentioned a single group’s name in the interview when talking about the training camps.

“One of them is a structure called ‘SADAT,’” Akşener said.

In mid-2016, a main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) lawmaker said the SADAT International Defense Consultancy, established in the early 2000s by soldiers dismissed from the military due to “reactionary activities,” is a company close to the AKP and offers “irregular warfare training” in various fields including “intelligence, psychological warfare, sabotage, raiding, ambushing, and assassination.”

The head of SADAT, retired brigadier Adnan Tanrıverdi, denies the opposition’s allegations that the company gives weapons training to civilians.

“What they want to do is to repel voters from the elections,” Akşener said.

“They are trying to scare voters by saying SADAT members or some other armed group will be on duty in the elections,” Akşener added.

“They are worried they won’t be able receive more than 50 percent of the votes in the presidential elections. That’s where the unease is coming from,” Akşener said, referring to the AKP.

But the people should not be discouraged from voting, Akşener warned.

“I tell them not to be scared. We need serenity, and we will establish it,” the İYİ Party leader said.

When asked about the possibility of snap elections, Akşener said President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan Erdoğan would not miss the chance.

“The Erdoğan I know will have the presidential elections before the local elections, and he will do it on July 15,” Akşener said.

“Erdoğan would not miss that date for the world,” she added.

“I anticipate the presidential and parliamentary elections will be held on July 15, 2018. It falls on a Sunday, that is the expectation,” Akşener had told journalists on Dec. 28.

Turkey is scheduled to hold three elections in 2019, and the change in the governance system, stipulated by the constitutional amendments approved in the April referendum, will fully be in effect after the presidential elections and parliamentary elections.

“Erdoğan will never hold local elections before the general elections. Because they receive fewer votes in local elections,” Akşener said.

Stressing that the İYİ Party will present its own candidate in the presidential elections, she said she wants to form an alliance with the liberal Democratic Party (DP) and the conservative Felicity Party (SP).

Source: http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/iyi-party-leader-aksener-claims-civilians-receiving-weapons-training-in-camps-in-turkey-125102

Terrorist State of Turkey continued bombardment on neighboring countries Turkish jets kill three civilians in Iraq: Report

September 21, 2017 by administrator

Three civilians have been killed when Turkish fighter jets bombarded Duhok province in Iraq’s Kurdistan region, a report says.

“The Turkish aerial bombing that targeted the border area of Saidan of Amadiya city in Duhok province, left three civilians dead” on Wednesday, Iraq’s al-Sumaria news website quoted a media official in the province as saying. Mahmoud Nahily said an unspecified number of people were also injured.

Eyewitnesses had earlier said Turkish warplanes attacked border areas north of the province.

Turkish forces have been conducting ground operations as well as airstrikes against the positions of the the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in Turkey’s troubled southeastern border region and Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region for nearly two years.

The campaign began following the July 2015 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, which claimed more than 30 civilian lives. Turkish officials held the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group responsible for the act of terror.

The PKK militants, who accuse the Ankara government of supporting Daesh, launched a string of supposed reprisal attacks against Turkish security forces after the bomb attack, in turn prompting the Turkish military operations.

The militants have been waging a bloody campaign in southeastern Turkey for decades, which has left more than 40,000 people dead.

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Nearly 100 civilians dead in Turkey-backed Syria op: monitor

October 24, 2016 by administrator

BEIRUT (AFP Nearly 100 civilians have been killed in a two-month offensive by Turkey and allied rebels in northern Syria, a monitoring group said on Monday.

No comment could be immediately obtained from Turkish officials, but in the past Ankara has disputed accusations of civilian deaths in its campaign.

The “Euphrates Shield” operation was launched in northern Syria on August 24 to fight both the Islamic State jihadist group and a Kurdish militia that Ankara considers a “terrorist” group.

Since then, Turkish air strikes and shelling as part of the assault have killed 96 civilians, including 22 children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Britain-based monitor said rebels involved in the assault were leading the fight on the ground with Turkey lending heavy firepower — mostly air strikes and artillery fired from Turkish soil.

“Ninety-two of the civilians, mostly Kurds, were killed in areas controlled by the Islamic State group,” said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

Syria: Raqqa Civilians Flee Airstrikes as Kurds, Jihadists Clash

May 25, 2016 by administrator

U.S.-led coalition warplanes carried out intense airstrikes Tuesday on Raqqa, the de facto Syrian capital of the Islamic State group, a monitoring group said, continuing days of air-raids that appear to be aimed at demoralizing jihadist fighters before an offensive by Kurdish-led forces on villages to the north of the city.

The airstrikes appear targeted mostly on IS defensive positions on the outskirts of the city. This may be to try to avoid civilian casualties, although civilian deaths have been reported.

Raqqa political activists have been warning that IS is using civilians as human shields, spreading fighters and their weaponry around civilian areas and housing militants in residential blocks.

Leaders of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-dominated coalition that also includes a mixed bag of small Sunni Arab armed groups and some Syriac and Turkmen community defense forces, announced Tuesday it had started an offensive to liberate Raqqa from the Islamic State.

Americans in combat mode?

SDF spokesmen said U.S. commandos are embedding with their fighters in the offensive and posted videos purportedly showing this. U.S. officials deny American soldiers are taking on combat roles in the fighting and insist U.S. Special Forces won’t be exchanging fire with IS.

Colonel Steve Warren, the spokesman for the U.S.-led international coalition against IS, says U.S. Special Forces personnel are only providing assistance and advice to the SDF in the battle, but they are not on the front line. “We are in their off centers and headquarters providing advice,” he said.

U.S. officials, and some Kurdish officials, are also cautioning the objective of the military operation is to seize villages and territory north and west of Raqqa rather than to seek to retake the beleaguered city. The objective, they say, is to squeeze the city and further isolate it.

Civilians urged to leave

Some Western officials concede the SDF doesn’t have the capability yet to mount a full-scale assault on the city. That has prompted political activists to question why the international coalition has been air-dropping leaflets in the past few days on Raqqa urging civilians to flee the city, implying that an assault is in the offing.

Civilians flee to countryside

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based monitoring group that relies on a network of activists inside Syria, reported Wednesday sharp clashes between SDF and IS forces around villages close to Ain Issa, 56 kilometers north of Raqqa. The monitoring group also said dozens of civilians left Raqqa city Wednesday and headed into the western countryside.

Meanwhile, Turkish military officials have warned their U.S. counterparts that Turkey will not accept American-backed Kurdish-led forces crossing the Euphrates River to mount assaults on two other IS-held towns, Manbij and Jarabulus.

Reports recently suggested the Turks may have been reducing their objections to Kurdish-led forces moving west of the Euphrates, but in a meeting with General Joseph Votel, head of U.S. Central Command, deputy chief of the Turkish general staff Yaşar Güler warned Turkey still considers the Azaz-Jarablus line as a “red line” when it comes to the Kurdish-led forces.

Thousands of Iraqi civilians flee Mosul, As Iraqi army launched a major offensive

March 28, 2016 by administrator

(AFP) MAKHMOUR— Thousands of desperate civilians were fleeing fighting Sunday on the new front opened by Iraqi forces against the Islamic State group south of the city of Mosul.

Families crammed in the back of pickup trucks, sometimes bringing dead and wounded with them, emerged from the dust after crossing the front line and were met by Kurdish forces.

Iraqi army troops and allied paramilitary fighters on Thursday launched a major offensive aimed at retaking the northern Nineveh province, the capital of which, Mosul, is the main hub of IS in Iraq.

The forces have been advancing from their base in Makhmur towards the town of Qayyarah, about 60 kilometres (35 miles) south of Mosul.

Growing numbers of civilians have been fleeing the advance to Makhmur where they are being assisted by Kurdish peshmerga forces.

“So far we have received around 3,000 people and the numbers are growing every day,” Ali Khodeir Ahmed, a member of Nineveh’s provincial council, told AFP in Makhmur.

“But there are no services offered to them by the Iraqi government, we have to put them up in a stadium in Makhmur,” he said.

The Iraqi government has described the advance as the first phase of what is expected to be a long and difficult operation to retake Mosul, the country’s second city and the largest urban centre in IS’s cross-border “caliphate”.

In the desert west of Makhmur, dust storms were whipped up by the line of vehicles fleeing IS-held territory, including a pickup carrying four women and 10 children in the back.

‘Entire families have died’

A bearded man in a yellow dishdasha traditional gown emerged from the dust, holding the body of a young girl wrapped in a blanket.

“She is dead, she is dead,” he cried, his face caked in dust.

His daughter, whose back was riddled with shrapnel when shells rained down on their escape, was covered in blood.

“Some entire families have died,” the father said.

The battle has so far focused on four villages west of Makhmur. Qayyarah, an area that includes a former air base and an oil facility, lies to the west, on the other bank of the Tigris River.

Smain Nuweis fled the village of Kharbardan with his family of seven squeezed into the back of his Opel.

“We have seen a lot of suffering,” the 28-year-old said. “And it got worse now with the shelling.”

“Daesh will not allow the people to flee, they want them to stay,” said Nuweis, using an Arabic name for IS.

The provincial council official urged the government to do more for the flow of displaced people, who were given little more than water upon reaching the peshmerga.

“We need to open camps and provide urgent assistance. These people’s situation is very bad, they were barely able to take any belongings with them,” said Ali Khodeir Ahmed.

More than 3.3 million people have been displaced by conflict in Iraq since the start of 2014, according to figures from the United Nations.

IS seized control of large parts of Iraq in 2014, with Iraqi forces collapsing in the face of a lightning advance. Backed by a US-led coalition, Iraq has been clawing back territory from the jihadists in recent months.

Human Rights Watch: Over 100’s civilians killed in southeastern Turkey since July

December 22, 2015 by administrator

A house in Cizre which was damaged during the clashes between the security forces and the PKK terrorists. (Photo: Today’s Zaman)

Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday that more than 100 civilians have been killed and many more have been injured in Turkey’s Southeast since July, warning that the civilian death toll is likely to rise steeply in the coming days.

The Southeast has been the scene of clashes between Turkish security forces and terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) since a cease-fire between the two collapsed in July.

A news report published on HRW’s website said it had documented 15 civilian deaths in detail “through interviews with relatives and witnesses,” eight civilian injuries caused by gunshot wounds and shrapnel, and three cases of serious ill-treatment of those in detention. They also reported that there were wounded people who were denied access to medical treatment.

Syrian civilians helping Russian airstrikes target ISIS – Defense Ministry

October 17, 2015 by administrator

Russian military aviation at Khmeimim airbase in Syria

RT Report Russian warplanes have bombed a training camp in Syria where foreign instructors trained potential suicide bombers, the Russian defense ministry said. It was one of 49 terrorist targets hit by the Russian Air Forces over the day.

“Not far from Salma in Latakia province, a Su-24M bomber delivered a strike at a building, which was used as a terrorist training ground. According to intelligence, there were ISIL foreign instructors, who were training people, including suicide bombers, for guerrilla warfare in areas liberated by the Syrian army,” ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.

He added that the facility had its own explosives workshop, which was also destroyed by an airstrike

Russian warplanes conducted 36 combat sorties on Saturday and attacked 49 militant targets in Syria, including command points, weapons workshops, firing positions, depots and fortified bunkers, Konashenkov added.

The general said that the terrorist group Islamic State (IS, formerly known as ISIS/ISIL), which suffered serious damage from Russian bombings, is working to rebuild its infrastructure.

“The militants’ new tactics is to spread their supply and command facilities, but it does not work. All their new infrastructure objects are being identified and destroyed,” he said.

Konashenkov said the civilian population in the areas under terrorist group’s control are aiding the Russian airstrikes by providing intelligence about IS to the Syrian government.

“This information is double-checked by our aviation group with various technical means of reconnaissance. Following this, a decision is made on which objects we should target,” he said

SYRIA The Islamic State takes over 230 civilians

August 7, 2015 by administrator

The Islamic State Group (EI) has abducted at least 230 civilians, more than 60 Christians in Al-Qaryataïn, in central Syria, said this Friday, August 7th the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (OSDH ). This strategic place has been taken by the jihadist group.

The IE “kidnapped Sunnis and 170 over 60 Christians accused of” collaboration with the regime ‘during searches conducted in the conquered city Wednesday, “said Rami Abdel Rahman, the director of that organization close to the opposition to Bashar Assad.

According to Rami Abdel Rahman, the IU had a list of people quit. But the jihadists have sometimes arrested entire families trying to flee.

Flight of Christians

Before the start of the revolt in 2011, there were 18,000 Sunnis and 2000 Catholic and Orthodox Syriacs Al-Qaryataïn. But as Christians settled in Damascus and originating in that locality, there were only 300 Christians before the onslaught of EI.

Al-Qaryataïn is an important junction that connects the territories controlled by the EI: the eastern outskirts of Homs and eastern Qalamoun, near the Lebanese border.

The conquest of the city now allows IE to transfer troops and supplies between the two areas, according to the OSDH, based in Britain but that relies on an important network of activists in Syria.

In May, a Syrian Catholic priest, Father Jacques Mourad the Mar Elian monastery al-Qaryatayn, was abducted by three masked men, following the decision by the EI of the ancient city of Palmyra, near the locality.