terrorism Archives

Armenian Activists Oppose Draft Antiterrorism Law

March 14, 2018 By administrator

Anti Terrorism Law

Activists in Armenia have voiced concern that an antiterrorism provision included in a draft criminal code could be used to criminalize criticism of the government.

The proposed amendment sets out a potential three-year prison term for publicly justifying, promoting, or financing domestic or international “crimes of terrorism.”

Artur Sakunts, head of the Vanadzor-based Helsinki Citizens Assembly, warned on March 14 that, should the law be enacted, the authorities might be able to use its provisions to punish political opponents who speak up in public debates.

He said he is not opposed to fighting terrorism, but faulted the legislation for not explicitly identifying what would be considered “terrorism.”

“Even the most extreme and offensive speech against a [government] official cannot serve as grounds for prosecution, because it is protected — it is public opinion,” Sakunts said.

He cited the 2016 standoff between police and more than 30 members of the Sasna Tsrer armed group that seized a police station in Yerevan’s Erebuni district. The group held the station for more than two weeks before surrendering to police.

Thousands of the gunmen’s supporters joined nightly rallies, occasionally clashing with police. Several dozen activists were arrested during the events.

But he said that during the standoff, many “neutral” citizens demonstrated against a potential violent storming of the police station, and he expressed concerns that people in this type of situation could be arrested under the proposed law.

Another rights activist, Avetik Ishkhanian, head of the Helsinki Committee of Armenia, also expressed concerns that such a draft law could be “applied arbitrarily.”

Justice Minister David Harutiunian, who authored the bill sponsored by the ruling Republican Party, dismissed the criticism.

“There is no criminal offense in this draft that has been included with anyone particular in mind,” he said.

“We study the experience of other countries on every step that can be seen as controversial,” he said.

“We discuss things with international experts to see the experience of courts in other countries, their interpretations.”

He added that backers of the bill are willing to listen to proposals from civil society and human rights activists on the planned provision on terrorism.

If the new criminal code reaches the parliament, its adoption will be a foregone conclusion, given that the majority Republican Party and its junior coalition partner, Dashnaktsutyun, have 65 seats in the 105-seat body.

The main opposition faction, Yelk, has just nine members, and another nominally opposition grouping, the Tsarukian alliance, has 31 members but usually votes in favor of government-backed bills.

Political Challenges

The Armenian leadership has gone through years of political challenges.

A newly created group, the Front for the State of Armenia, held its first rally in the capital, Yerevan, on March 10, with supporters calling for the creation of a provisional government and the release of political prisoners.

The group’s leaders urged opposition political parties to join hands and prevent outgoing President Serzh Sarkisian from retaining power after his second and final term expires on April 9.

Armenia’s parliament on March 2 elected Armen Sarkisian, who has no relation to his predecessor, as the country’s next president.

Following a referendum in December 2015, Armenia changed its form of government from a semipresidential to a parliamentary republic.

As a result, presidential veto powers are being stripped from the post and the presidency is being downgraded to a figurehead position elected to a single term by parliament every seven years rather than a direct popular vote.

Skeptics see the constitutional reforms as a way for outgoing President Sarkisian to maintain political control in Armenia by becoming prime minister when the mandate for his second five-year presidential term expires.

Written by Sisak Gabrielian

Erdogan in Paris Call Journalists are ‘gardeners’ of terrorism

January 6, 2018 By administrator

During a tense press conference in Paris, Turkey’s Erdogan said journalists are “gardeners” of terrorism and got into a spat with a French reporter. France’s Macron said he raised concerns about human rights in Turkey.

French President Emmanuel Macron said that during talks with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Paris on Friday, the two had disagreements about how they viewed human rights.

Macron said he’d raised concerns with the Turkish leader about the fates of teachers, students, and journalists who have been targeted by a widespread crackdown following a failed 2016 coup attempt, some of whom are currently imprisoned.

“Our democracies must be strong standing up to terrorism … But at the same time, our democracies must completely protect the
rule of law,” Macron said at a strained joint press conference with Erdogan.

Erdogan fired back that some journalists are responsible for nurturing “terrorists” through their writing.

“Terror doesn’t form by itself. Terror and terrorists have gardeners,” the Turkish leader said. “These gardeners are those people viewed as thinkers. They water (terror) with the columns in their newspapers.”

“And one day, you find, these people show up as a terrorist in front of you,” Erdogan added.

Earlier, Amnesty International, whose Turkey head Taner Kilic was among those jailed after the coup attempt, urged Macron to “strongly remind (Erdogan) that human rights defenders are not terrorists.”

The trip, which was intended to improve Turkey’s relations with the European Union, was Erdogan’s first to the French capital since the failed coup attempt in July 2016. The widespread crackdown on alleged dissidents that followed has been roundly condemned by EU leaders.

Erdogan warns French journalist over question

Erdogan also grew visibly upset by a question about Syria asked by a French journalist during the press conference.

The French reporter asked him about a 2015 story by the Cumhuriyet newspaper about Turkey allegedly sending weapons to Islamist rebels in Syria. Erdogan has repeatedly blamed the resulting scandal over the story, as well as the botched coup, on US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen.

“When you ask your questions, be careful on this point. And do not speak with the words of another,” Erdogan warned the reporter, raising his hand.

“And I want you to know, you do not have someone before you who will easily swallow this.”

The French reporter could be heard saying: “I am speaking as a journalist.”

Erdogan’s visit also prompted its share of protests, most notably from women’s rights group Femen. A number of women, clad as topless waitresses, demonstrated near the Elysee Palace by handing out menus offering “minced human rights” and “boiled journalists.”

Among his numerous disparaging comments of women, the Turkish president has in the past stated that motherhood should be a woman’s priority and birth control is not for Muslims.

‘No progress’ possible on EU membership

Macron also said on Friday that progress on Turkey’s EU membership bid isn’t currently possible due to human rights concerns in the country.

“For relations with the European Union, it is clear that recent developments and choices allow no progress in the process,” Macron said.

In response, Erdogan told Macron that Turkey is getting tired of waiting for EU membership.

“This is seriously exhausting us. Maybe this will force us to take a decision,” the Turkish leader said without specifying what that decision might be.

Not always easy

Macron defended his invitation to Erdogan against criticism from the French left, saying it was necessary to “maintain dialogue” with Ankara without “covering up differences of views.”

The French leader has also emphasized the necessity to keep up relations with an “essential” partner in conflicts, including that in Syria.

However, Macron has previously spoken of his difficulties with the Turkish leader, telling Le Point magazine in August that one of the drawbacks of being French president was “having to talk to Erdogan every 10 days.”

Erdogan, for his part, told France’s LCI television on Thursday that he had got off to a “very good start” with Macron, who assumed office only in May last year.

The NATO Invented Turkish Kosovo a breeding ground for Islamists

December 24, 2016 By administrator

The two brothers arrested on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack in Duisburg come from Turkish Kosovo. Their homeland has long been concerned with growing Islamic radicalism. Authorities are trying to counteract the trend.

Almost 2 million people live in Kosovo. Since 2012, 316 people – including women and children – have left the country to join the so-called “Islamic State” terrorist militia. Of those 316 people, 58 have been killed and 117 have returned to Kosovo, said Baki Kelani, spokesman for Kosovo’s ministry of the interior. According to Kelani, 237 people are being investigated for planning and taking part in terrorist attacks outside Kosovo and also for recruiting, supporting and funding terrorists. Since 2013, 127 of the suspects have been arrested, including an alleged ringleader.

Identity shift

There is no doubt that radical Islam is a growing problem in the predominantly Turkish Muslim Balkan country, especially because Kosovar authorities have little control of the situation despite international support. Behind the numbers lie major social problems: widespread poverty, 40 percent unemployment and a lack of prospects. The ensuing frustration, combined with a growing tendency towards a strict interpretation of Islam, has never been seen before in Kosovo.

According to figures from security experts, 50,000 Kosovars are now members of conservative Islamic groups. The vast majority of the population is Muslim: Albanians, Roma, Turks and Bosniaks.

Now, one sees more and more women and girls wearing headscarves in the capital Pristina and not just rural areas. Even fully covered women are no longer a rare sight. It is already obvious that the traditional, liberal Islam of the Ottoman period, strongly influenced by Sufi mysticism, is being suppressed. It is being increasingly replaced by strict forms of the Saudi Wahhabism that has made its way to the Balkans.

In the summer of 2016, the Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED) published a study about the influence of religion on Kosovar identity. According to Lulzim Peci, author of the study, 57 percent of Muslim Albanians feel Albanian and 32 percent defined themselves as Muslims first and then as Albanians. “We see a great shift in identity from ethnicity, the so-called language nation, to a religious-ethnic society,” said Peci in an interview with DW. If this process continues, the political scientist believes it may lead to the demise of “Albanianism,” i.e. Albanian nationalism, and a secular, pro-Western Kosovo.

The influence of Islamic countries

The Islamization of Albanians gradually began after the end of the Kosovo War. Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and other Islamic nations invested massively in the reconstruction of the country and the building of mosques. They sent preachers to Kosovo and helped the needy.

Today, there are 742 mosques in Kosovo, along with other Muslim buildings, such as Quran schools. But with the money and the preachers came a different kind of Islam, previously unknown in the country. Political scientist Agon Demjaha, who was involved in the study on the formation of Kosovar identity, said that politicians and parties were for a long time too indifferent and indecisive about this development. The sociologist Smajl Hasan also blames Kosovo’s poor education system. He claims it has not placed any value on developing a Kosovar identity based on religious tolerance and a multi-religious identity.

Representatives of the Islamic community refuse to be blamed for any wrongdoing. Theologian Besa Ismaili said that none of the Kosovars who joined terrorist networks came from her community and added that fighting in the name of religion is wrong. She also said that this ideology has never been widespread among Albanians. She stressed that terrorism has nothing to do with faith. “There is no extremism among the true believers; there is no violence in faith, but instead, only love,” said Ismaili.

Germany plays an important role

However, despite all attempts at educating people, social conditions remain difficult in Kosovo. Florian Qehaja, director of the Kosovar Center for Security Studies, has examined the situation and offers some explanations. He says the disastrous economic state and the weak government structures have been shaped by indecision, corruption and incompetence. According to Qehaja, young people suffer from a lack of prospects and feel increasingly isolated in Europe and subsequently, look for other ways out of their problems. To stop Islamism, said Qejaha, a broad strategy is necessary: young people need to be educated, Imams must be carefully selected, the media needs to change, as do the security infrastructures in the country. Furthermore, he added, the country needs cross-border cooperations with neighboring countries Macedonia and Albania, as well as international support, especially from the US and the EU, since these regions are highly regarded.

Germany has 700 soldiers stationed in Kosovo for the NATO KFOR mission and has police and experts working there for the European Union Rule of Law Mission in Kosovo (Eulex), which is working together with the EU to strengthen the rule of law in the country. Germany has close ties to Kosovo because of the 400,000 Kosovar immigrants in Germany. The assassin who shot two American soldiers at Frankfurt Airport in 2011 was an Albanian immigrant and the arrested terror plot suspects in Duisburg show how explosive the radicalization in Kosovo is for Germany.

Souce: http://www.dw.com/en/is-kosovo-a-breeding-ground-for-islamists/a-36898392

Armenian Genocide Institute among Turkish DDoS competition targets

December 15, 2016 By administrator

A Turkish crime group has come up with a new scheme that will create a competitive league of groups carrying out DDoS attacks. The Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute in Yerevan is among the targets, The Merkle reports.

This “league table” will only apply to groups using the crime syndicate’s own DDoS tools, though.

As one would come to expect, the Turkish crime group has also put together a list of target organizations. For now, this list is rather small, although it contains some prominent targets. For example, the CDU Party led by Angela Merkel, and the Armenian Genocide Institute are two potential future DDoS targets.

Relations between Germany and Turkey deteriorated after the Bundestag adopted a resolution to recognize the Armenian Genocide on June 2. Merkel’s party also backed the motion then.

Surface Defence is the Turkish crime group organizing this DDoS competition. Participants who use their tools will receive 1 point for every 10 minutes of successful attacks using the Tor-hosted Sledgehammer tool. Assuming that the participants can continue their relentless attacks for an extended period, they will track up points rather quickly.

Erdogan Terrorism on Media Turkey’s post-coup crackdown sparks democracy fears

October 9, 2016 By administrator

erdogan-terrorism A dozen police officers, joined by officials from Turkey‘s treasury and the county’s broadcasting watchdog, marched into the pro-Kurdish IMC-TV television station, sealed off its control rooms and forced the channel off the air during a live program on democracy, the Associated Press reports.

The station had anticipated the raid ever since the government, using powers it acquired by declaring a state of emergency in the wake of the July 15 coup attempt, last week ordered IMC-TV and 22 other broadcasters to shut down.

The bold act of censorship nonetheless stunned staff members Tuesday in the channel’s studio.

“Long live hell for the oppressors!” IMC-TV coordinating editor Eyup Burc shouted during the live broadcast. “We stand against coups and we stand against those who use coups to carry out their own coup.”

As Turkey prepares to extend by another three months the state of emergency it imposed after July’s failed military coup, critics fear President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is using the uprising as an excuse to silence his detractors.

The government says it needs more time to eradicate a network linked to U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, which the government accuses of orchestrating the attempted coup. But Turkey already has used the emergency powers to carry out an unprecedented purge of people suspected of links to the cleric and has extended the crackdown to go after Kurdish and left-leaning media outlets.

Comments Erdogan made this month suggesting the state of emergency could last as long as a year have reinforced concerns about the president’s aims. Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition Republican People’s Party, has accused the government of leading a “counter-coup.”

The state of emergency allows the government to rule by decree with limited parliamentary involvement. Some 32,000 people allegedly connected to the coup have been arrested, while tens of thousands of teachers, soldiers, police officers, judges and prosecutors have been dismissed or suspended from government jobs for suspected links to Gulen, who denies any involvement in the coup attempt.

Hundreds of schools and foundations run by the movement, which the government has listed as a terror organization, have been shut down or taken over. Media outlets once owned by Gulen have been closed down while prominent journalists they employed have been arrested.

Authorities more recently have moved against pro-Kurdish and leftist groups, using a government decree to dismiss 11,000 left-leaning teachers and to force off the air television and radio stations accused of acting as mouthpieces for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

Among them was a children’s television station broadcasting cartoons in the Kurdish language.

“Fears that the government would make opportunistic use of the state of emergency to silence critics who have nothing to do with the July 15 coup attempt have come true,” said Emma Sinclair-Webb, the Turkey director for Human Rights Watch.

More than 100 journalists have been arrested since the state of emergency was declared and thousands lost their jobs or had press credentials canceled by the government, according to the Journalists’ Association of Turkey. Human Rights Watch said the clamp down on broadcasters “effectively ends critical television news reporting in Turkey.”

The suppression of critical voices has not been limited to news organizations.

Novelist Asli Erdogan, who wrote for the Ozgur Gundem daily newspaper, was arrested on charges of membership in an armed terror organization. Also rounded up was singer Atilla Tas, who had acquired a large social media following for his humorous criticisms of Erdogan and the government.

“What the uniformed coup plotters could not achieve on July 15, (the government) has achieved by extending the state of emergency,” Republican People’s Party legislator and spokeswoman Selin Sayek Boke said. “They usurped the parliament’s most basic powers of enacting laws on behalf of the people.”

IMC-TV, which promotes Kurdish and other minority issues, also was ordered shut down for alleged links to the PKK. Like the Gulen movement, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party is outlawed as a terrorist organization by the Turkish government.

The station, which rejects the accusation, already was removed earlier this year from Turkey’s largest satellite platform for allegedly engaging in “terrorist propaganda.” It was operating through another satellite and via the internet before this week’s raid.

“The state of emergency allows them to make these accusations without any proof and without taking any one to court,” IMC-TV News Director Hamza Aktan, who was in the station’s control room at the time of the raid, told The Associated Press. “Channels they do not like and who do not follow their line are easily being disposed of.”

Nebi Mis, the political research director at the pro-government Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research think tank in Ankara, defended the purges.

“Those who carried out the July 15 coup not only infringed on human rights, but also on the people’s right to life. A policy of full purification is necessary,” Mis said.

Silencing Kurdish media outlets also was appropriate since the state of emergency encompasses other outlawed organizations, he said. Yet authorities may have “gone overboard” in some cases by going after media outlets that criticize the government, Mis said.

Erdogan and other officials acknowledge that some innocent people have been caught up in the upheaval. The government has promised to set up centers to process claims of unfair dismissals.

Pope says journalism based on fear-mongering, gossip is form of ‘terrorism’

September 23, 2016 By administrator

pope-journalism Journalism based on gossip or rumors is a form of “terrorism” and media that stereotype entire populations or foment fear of migrants are acting destructively, Pope Francis said on Thursday, Reuters reports.

According to the source, Francis, who made his comments in an address to leaders of Italy’s national journalists’ guild, said reporters had to go the extra mile to seek the truth, particularly in an age of round-the-clock news coverage.

Spreading rumors is an example of “terrorism, of how you can kill a person with your tongue”, he said. “This is even more true for journalists because their voice can reach everyone and this is a very powerful weapon.”

Francis, who has often strongly defended the rights of refugees and migrants, said journalism should not be used as a “weapon of destruction against persons and even entire peoples”.

“Neither should it foment fear before events like forced migration from war or from hunger,” he added.

French & Terrorism ‘We are at war’ – jihadism and the rule of law in France

June 19, 2016 By administrator

French police were shocked at the deaths of their colleagues

Jihadis are pushing France to its limits. Politicians are calling for a further tightening of terrorism laws and reasonable answers to the challenge are slow in coming.

“We are at war.” Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy did not mince words in describing the challenge that jihadism poses to France in a recent interview with the French newspaper “Le Figaro.”

“We are in a foreign war against ‘Islamic State’ (IS) and al Qaeda and a domestic war against those young countrymen who have dedicated themselves to radical Islam,” Sarkozy said.

In light of this war, he has set out four steps France needed to take: First, Muslim prisoners should be held in solitary confinement to hinder the radicalization of other prisoners; second, prisoners’ cells must be acoustically monitored, and prison guards be put under the control of the Interior Ministry rather than the Justice Department; third, foreigners and French citizens with dual citizenship who set upon jihadi acts must be expelled from the country, and for security reasons prison terms for jihadis must be extended; and fourth, de-radicalization centers must be established.

‘There is no miracle cure’

Sarkozy’s proposals may be partially inspired by France’s slowly approaching presidential elections, but they also highlight the difficult situation that President Francois Hollande’s administration finds itself in. It has expanded the country’s legal framework for the fight against terrorism and declared a state of emergency after last November’s attacks in Paris. Clearly, it seems, it has done both with limited success and is wondering what to do now.

The constitutional democracy is facing incredible challenges. In a recent editorial, the French daily newspaper “Le Monde” wrote that there was little more that the government could do. “We have to realize, as difficult as that may be, that there is no miracle cure,” the paper opined. This was made painfully clear by the attacks at the Bataclan concert hall and even more so in this week’s killing of a police couple outside Paris. The only option, the paper continued, is consistent, methodical and patient work – and even the success of this approach will be dependent on fortunate circumstances.

However the proposals put forth by Sarkozy, “Le Monde” said, are unacceptable. The paper wrote that it is hardly possible to further expand the emergency laws without calling France’s constitutional democracy into question.

“How else could one justify the intention of preventatively incarcerating thousands of people because there are police records linking them to radical religious movements?” the paper asked.

Robespierre? Non, merci!

The question of how to appropriately deal with the terror threat was also the subject of debate in the National Assembly. At times the discussion fell along party lines determined by the upcoming election, but at others it transcended those lines.

Patrick Devedjian, a member of Sarkozy’s Republican party, said the country must not follow the example of Robespierre, adding that France must never again posit itself as the guardian of the peoples’ conscience. Never again, Devedjian said, should the country make people choose between changing their convictions or facing the harshest punishments of the state. This was the political program that Maximilien Robespierre pursued in the confusing aftermath of the French Revolution, a program that cost thousands of citizens their lives. Devedjian rejected his party boss’ proposals, saying citizens must be sentenced by regular courts. Only then could the state deprive them of their freedom.

Yet, the question of how to confront the seemingly ubiquitous threat of jihadism remains. That the question must be posed at all gives evidence of the – relative – success of jihadism.

The list of potential targets is growing, security expert Eric Delbecque wrote in “Le Monde.” Terrorists, he said, do not adhere to hierarchically organized orders but are intentionally acting in a decentralized manner. The reason is obvious: “It is about shattering our faith in finding a solution, to rob us of our cool headedness. Fear leads to all possible forms of extremism.”

The goal of the state must be to resist extreme reactions. Not only because a country of laws owes that much to itself and its citizens, but also because such a deviation from accepted norms would only serve to drive more Muslims into the hands of “IS.”

A fight against jihad, not Islam

It is no coincidence that the fight against “IS” is a fight against basic, even archaic human emotions. If those under attack follow their impulses, Dutch migration researcher Paul Scheffer warned, violence will only spiral.

“It is important that Muslims can trust in the liberal state of law and feel protected by it in order to make sure that the fight against Islamic terror does not lead to a confrontation with Islam on the whole,” he said.

Terror experts and politicians in France do not rule out the possibility of further attacks. These cannot be absolutely avoided within the means available to a constitutional democracy. But such attacks cannot be absolutely avoided by any other means either.

Only the steadfastness of a state under the rule of law, one that holds fast to its principles, Scheffer wrote, can assure itself of victory in the long run.

Buyers of Turkish goods sponsors of terrorism, Armenian economist says

April 20, 2016 By administrator

Armenian economist Tatul Manaseryan, at a meeting with reporters on Wednesday, spoke of struggle against import and sale of Turkish products in Armenia.

“Many of our citizens are seasonal migrant workers and send hard-earned money to their families in Armenia. They, in turn, buy Turkish goods thus sponsoring Turkey’s war industry,” Mr Manaseryan said.

He calls for “coming to senses” and saying “yes” to Armenian goods.

“A country that was more dependent on Turkey, severed its economic ties with Turkey for moral reasons and applied sanctions against it. I am speaking of Russia,” Mr Manaseryan said.

Armenia could do the same.

Mr Manaseryan points out the role of both the government and private sector, as well as that of civil society. Success is impossible if one of them fails.

“We must do way with the enemy within. Those buying Turkish goods are actually sponsoring terrorism,” the economist said.

As to what situation the Armenian businessmen importing Turkish goods will find themselves in, Mr Manaseryan said:

“We should not make a poor mouth and ask about what the people are going to do. We are a sovereign state and creating jobs for those people must be number one task for our country. Our country must encourage self-employment, exempt micro-businesses from taxes, and we applied to the government for that long ago. We have to launch an import substitution policy. We should be ashamed of not manufacturing the products we are importing.”

Terrorist in Syria still being Reinforced Via Turkey Despite world watching

January 11, 2016 By administrator

1032906050 Russian military aircraft hit 1097 terrorists targets in Syria and conducted 311 sorties since the beginning of 2016, the Russian General Staff announced.

Russian combat aircraft carried out over 300 missions in Syria since the beginning of 2016, hitting about 1,100 terrorist targets in ten provinces, the Russian General Staff said Monday.

“With the help of the Russian aviation the Syrian Democratic Forces under the command of Ayman Flyat al-Ganim continue the advance on the Daesh capital — Raqqa. They have taken control over al-Salhiya, Rdzheman-Alaia, el-Qria and Hadriyat-Ayn-Isa,”Rudskoy said.

Terrorist groups operating in Syria continue to receive reinforcements coming through Turkey, despite all efforts by the global community the Russian General Staff announced.

“However, despite all the efforts by the international community to stop supplies to terrorists, reinforcements continue to reach regularly northeastern Latakia from the Turkish territory,” Rudskoy said.

“Russian jets are striking the terrorists’ strongholds in Syria. We have conducted 311 sorties and destroyed at least 1,097 targets in the provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Homs, Damascus, Deir-er-Zor, Hasakah, Daraa and Raqqa,” Rudskoy said.

“As a result of the Russian airstrikes the terrorists continue to suffer losses”, head of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces Sergei Rudskoy added.

Over 150 towns and villages in Syria have been freed over the last 1.5 months thanks to the support provided to Syrian troops by Russian aviation, the Russian General Staff said Monday.

Russian jets have supported 11 different democractic militia forces in their advance against terrorist positions.

“We support people’s militia who are fighting against terrorism in Syria. Today our bomber jets strike to help the Democratic opposition in their advance,” the head of the General Staff said.

“In December 2015, militants were driven out of 134 towns and villages, and from another 19 during the first days of this year. The most success has been reached in the regions of Aleppo, Latakia, Hama, Homs and Raqqa,” Lt. Gen. Sergey Rudskoy, chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said.

The general also added that the Syrian army regained control over 6 key positions in Latakia.

The airstrikes mainly targeted terrorist infrastructure, oil facilities, large groups of militants and military equipment with the goal to provide effective support to Syrian army units and groups of patriotic opposition fighting Islamic State (Daesh in Arabic) on the ground.

Syria has been torn by a civil war since 2011, as government forces have been clashing with opposition factions and extremist groups operating in the country.

Since September 30, Moscow has been conducting pinpoint airstrikes in Syria on the positions of Islamic State (Daesh), a terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries, at President Bashar Assad’s request.

The Russian forces coordinate their actions with the Syrian army which is operating on the ground. The Syrian Armed Forces have repeatedly hailed the Russian air campaign, saying the airstrikes have inflicted irreparable damage on the terrorists in Syria.

Source: sputniknews.com

Terrorist State of Turkey in conflict with almost every country in the Region

December 8, 2015 By administrator

Iraq, Iran, Syria, Armenia, Greece, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Russia, just to mention few..

Setting up a military base near Mosul with neither permission nor approval from the central government in Baghdad, Ankara has been given an ultimatum: “Withdraw your soldiers within 48 hours!” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu has written Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi a letter underscoring Ankara’s commitment to and recognition of Iraq’s land unity and its sovereignty. But clearly, the letter really hasn’t helped. Baghdad has reiterated the timeframe it has given Turkey to withdraw its troops and has made it clear that it is not going to soften on this front.

the Iraqi government is now convinced that activities outside the category of “training” are going on in Bashika which is a christian Town. Of course, another major reason for the angry reactions from the central Iraqi government is that there has been no attempt to coordinate these developments with it; this is why it has cut off monthly payments to its own paramilitary forces being trained at the Bashika camp. To wit, there is no agreement or contract with the Baghdad government as to any of this.

It should also be noted that the paramilitary forces organized and put together by Nujaifi have, to date, not participated in any military action against the local ISIL presence. Thus, it seems likely that the determination to maintain a military training camp — a camp whose plug has been pulled by the Baghdad government and whose presence is clearly opposed by the state — is kept alive with other intentions.