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Iraqi forces recapture iconic Nuri Mosque in Old Mosul

June 29, 2017 by administrator

The Iraqi army has recaptured the venue of the iconic Grand al-Nuri Mosque in Mosul, with the country’s state TV implying the liberation of the city, which has been under Daesh control since 2014.

“Their fictitious state has fallen,” an Iraqi military spokesman, Brigadier General Yahya Rasool, told state TV on Thursday.

Earlier, the Iraqi military announced the news as it continues to gain more advances in Mosul’s Old City.

Shortly after the announcement, the Iraqi state television reported the fall of the “mythical state,” in reference to Daesh’s so-called caliphate.

The TV said the recapture of the mosque means Mosul, as the terror group’s command center, has been liberated, while Iraqi forces are in the middle of a mop-up operation to cleanse the city of remaining Daesh elements.

Daesh extremists late on June 21 blew up the Grand al-Nuri Mosque and its Hadba (Hunchback) minaret.

Iraqi authorities and officials from the US-led coalition purportedly fighting Daesh terrorists said the destruction of the site, sometimes referred to as Iraq’s Tower of Pisa, is a sign of the extremists’ imminent loss of Mosul.

The Iraqi army forces have besieged the last Daesh positions in the southern areas of Old Mosul and they expect to purge the area of the terrorists by the next few days.

The combined pictures created by AFP on June 22, 2017 shows Nuri Mosque’s leaning Al-Hadba minaret before and after it was destroyed by Daesh Takfiri terrorists on June 21, 2017.

Iraqi government forces are nearing the end of their eight-month campaign to capture the de-facto capital of Daesh in Iraq.

The media bureau of the Iraqi Joint Operations Command announced in a statement on Wednesday that army troopers had established full control over Hadarat al-Saada and al-Ahmadiyya neighborhoods northwest of Grand al-Nuri Mosque, where purported Daesh ringleader Ibrahim al-Samarrai aka Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi announced the formation of the group’s so-called caliphate back in 2014.

Earlier on Wednesday, Federal Police Forces Commander Lieutenant General Shaker Jawdat said security forces were moving through al-Farouq district and advancing towards Bab al-Toub, Serjkhana, Bab al-Jadid and Bab al-Lakash areas in the heart of Mosul’s Old City.

He revealed that government troops were in control of more than 70 percent of Daesh’s last bastion in Mosul.

Jawdat noted that army troops were engaged in fierce battles with an estimated 300 Daesh militants in the Old City.

Iraqi forces seize more ground

Reports coming out of Mosul say Daesh terrorists have been using Mosul residents as human shields. The militants force women and children to cover them in the streets as they know that Iraqi security forces will not target civilians

Moreover, when the terrorists lose a region, they use human shields to secure their way out of the area.

The Iraqi forces took control of eastern Mosul in January after 100 days of fighting, and launched the battle in the west on February 19.

An estimated 862,000 people have been displaced from Mosul ever since the battle to retake the city began nine months ago. A total of 195,000 civilians have also returned, mainly to the liberated areas of eastern Mosul.

European Lawmakers Call to End Turkey-EU Membership Talks

November 23, 2016 by administrator

STRASBOURG, France—The leaders of the European Parliament’s two largest groups called on Tuesday for the European Union to halt membership talks with Turkey because of its post-coup purges.

“Our message to Turkey is very clear: accession negotiations should be frozen immediately,” said Manfred Weber, the head of the largest faction in the European Parliament, the center-right European People’s Party.

He was echoed by Gianni Pitella, the leader of the socialist group, the parliament’s second biggest: “We want to freeze the accession talks.”

More than 110,000 people in Turkey – including soldiers, academics, judges, journalists and Kurdish leaders – have been suspended from their positions or dismissed over their alleged backing for the plotters of a failed military coup in July.

Some 36,000 have been arrested and media outlets have been shut.

“Turkey under Mr. Erdogan is more and more drifting towards an authoritarian regime,” Pitella said, referring to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“Our political message towards Turkey is that human rights, civil rights, democracy are nonnegotiable if you want to be part of the EU.

Erdogan, exasperated with the EU’s intensified criticism of his rights record, has said the bloc would have to “live with the consequences” should it stop the talks and that Ankara could instead join a security alliance run by Russia and China.

The post-coup crackdown has taken the EU aback, annulling a period of warmer tone between Turkey and the bloc, which had promised as recently as last March to speed up Ankara’s accession talks in exchange for its help in keeping migrants away from European shores.

This cooperation, critical for the EU, is still going on but some in the EU worry it could eventually fall victim to the spiraling recriminations.

Erdogan, who blames the EU for not showing enough understanding for the gravity of the situation in Turkey, said he could put the EU talks to a national referendum next year.

Turkey still hopes to win visa-free travel to the EU but earlier promises of granting the privilege to Ankara by the end of the year now seem distant.

Among EU countries, Austria and Luxembourg have led calls to stop Turkey’s membership talks, which have only made very limited progress over 11 years in any case.

But Germany, France and most of the other EU states for now back continued engagement and fear putting at risk Turkey’s collaboration on migration.

All stress, however, that the talks would come to an end should Turkey reinstate the death penalty.

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham Ends Republican Presidential Bid

December 21, 2015 by administrator

Gram “While we have run a campaign that has made a real difference, I have concluded this is not my time,” he said in a statement Monday.

“I am suspending my campaign but never my commitment to achieving security through strength for the American people,” he said,

Graham, who first told CNN of his decision in an interview, faced a deadline Monday to be removed from the GOP primary ballot in his home state of South Carolina. Graham has been mired at the bottom of polls – both nationally and in his home state – and could have faced an embarrassing showing in the state’s February primary.

A supporter of comprehensive immigration reform and an aggressive interventionist foreign policy, Graham never gained traction as a presidential candidate despite his extensive national security experience and the quick wit he displayed on the campaign trail.

Glendale man Agasi Vartanyan ends 55-day fast for Armenian Genocide victims

May 29, 2015 by administrator

By Susan Abram, Los Angeles Daily News

“Agasi Vartanyan, completes 55 day fast for Armenian Genocide

After 55 days spent in a small enclosure with no food and only jugs of water, a thinner and thick-bearded Agasi Vartanyan emerged from his perch Thursday, his voice weak but his spirit swelling with victory for a mission accomplished.

Vartanyan needed no help as he used a ladder to climb down from a glass enclosure built on a high platform outside St. Leon Armenian Cathedral in Burbank. A flock of doves was released and a crowd of people clapped as he stepped on the ground, raised his arms to give the peace sign, then sat in a wheelchair. The 55-year-old Glendale man had entered the 12-foot-by-12-foot enclosure on April 3 promising to fast for 55 days to draw attention to the victims of the Armenian Genocide.

He went in weighing 224 pounds and emerged nearly 60 pounds lighter. After a quick check-up by a medical crew, Armenian television reporters swooped in and Vartanyan told the crowd he felt well and that he was grateful for all their support.

“I have great satisfaction,” the Armenian man said through a translator. “You wouldn’t believe the reaction I had from around the world.”

• PHOTOS: Agasi Vartanyan ends his 55-day fast to bring attention to Armenian Genocide

Vartanyan’s hunger strike was meant to cast global attention on what he and many have called an injustice to the 1.5 million Armenians killed under the command of the Ottoman Turks starting a century ago this year. From 1915 to 1923, Armenians were forcibly deported from their homes and killed as part of a systemic ethnic cleansing that also affected Assyrians and Pontic Greeks.

Historians, scholars, human rights activists and even Pope Francis call it the first genocide of the 20th century, but the Turkish government maintains the deaths were a result of betrayal and civil unrest in what was then a collapsing Ottoman Empire.

Vartanyan couldn’t participate in the March for Justice last month when more than 100,000 people walked for six miles through the streets of Los Angeles to mark the April 24 centennial. But he said he watched television and saw news reports and was filled with pride when he learned of the great outpouring.

His efforts were supported by the nonprofit Crimes Against Humanity — Never Again (CAHNA), which formed to raise global awareness on genocides past and present. The organization set up a live stream camera of Vartanyan, which drew some 19 million viewers.

That sort of attention will help the organization’s next goal, which will move away from trying to garner recognition of the Armenian Genocide to fighting for justice for those who are descendents, said CAHNA’s president Harut Sassounian, who lost relatives to the genocide. That includes pursuing legal actions against the Turkish government, which has refused to call the events of that time a genocide.

“We Armenians went through hell,” Sassounian said. “We’re continuing the struggle. We want to get back all the lands we lost, the churches that are gone.”

Vartanyan said his goal was to encourage the Armenians of the diaspora to keep fighting for justice. More than 200,000 people of Armenian descent call Los Angeles County home. It is the largest Armenian diaspora outside of the Republic of Armenia.

“I believe you’ll never achieve anything unless you fight for it, struggle for it,” he said. “I did this so that no one will forget the genocide that was committed against my people.”

Vartanyan said he prepared a year for this fast, although he had gone on a similar hunger strike almost 10 years ago in Russia. Back then, he abstained from food for 50 days, in part he said to break illusionist David Blaine’s 44-day fast in London.

It was unclear Thursday if Vartanyan broke any records.

“We do not have a current record holder as we do not currently recognize this category,” said a spokeswoman from Guinness World Records in an e-mail reply.

But those in the crowd said they were proud of him and inspired by his efforts.

“I was very worried about what he was doing,” said Hamlet Pogosian, Vartanyan’s cousin. “I didn’t like what he was doing for health reasons, but I’m proud of what he did for our nation.”

Vartanyan would not discuss the mental and physical struggles he endured, saying he preferred to let the public use their imagination. But halfway through the ordeal, he admitted to reporters he thought a lot about “meat, all kinds of meat.” The front of the enclosure where he spent all his time had one glass wall, allowing the public to see him day and night, though there was some privacy. He was given 55 gallons of water, a few clothes, a cot and a television. He often could be seen pacing back and forth or looking out on the street.

He also wouldn’t say what his first meal would be, but offered a hint through a smile.

“Whatever I eat will be the most delicious thing in the world,” he said.

Source: Daily-news

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