Turkish troops loot shop, goods, cars in Afrin, Syria “Authentic Turkish Crime”

March 19, 2018 By administrator

Turkish troops loot shop

Syrian Turkish-backed forces went on the rampage in Afrin on Sunday, pillaging shops and homes after taking control of the northern city, AFP correspondents and a monitor said.

After chasing Kurdish fighters from Afrin, the pro-Ankara fighters broke into shops, restaurants and houses and left with foodstuff, electronic equipment, blankets and other goods, the correspondents said.

They placed the loot in cars and small trucks and drove them out of the city, they added.

Most of the city’s 350,000 residents have fled since Turkey and allied Syrian rebels on January 20 launched an air and ground offensive to chase out the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).

On Sunday, the Turkish flag was flying in Afrin after the Turkish troops and their Syrian allies drove the Kurdish militia out.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor confirmed the reports, saying Turkey’s Syrian allies “have begun pillaging private property, political and military sites and shops”.

A resident of Afrin told AFP earlier in the day that he had seen the pro-Ankara fighters breaking into shops to loot what was inside while others stole cars that had been parked on the streets.

Some fighters also set fire to shops that sold alcoholic beverages, an AFP correspondent said.

And a statue of Kurdish hero Kawa, a symbol of resistance against oppressors, was torn down as Turkish forces and their allies fanned across the city and fired into the air to celebrate their victory.

Turkey sees the YPG as a “terrorist” offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.

US to use 30,000 border troops for security in Syria, anger’s Turkey

January 15, 2018 By administrator

The US-led coalition is working with a Syrian Kurdish group to set up a new border force of 30,000 personnel, the coalition said on Jan. 14, a move that has added to Turkey’s anger over US support to the group in Syria.

A senior Turkish official told Reuters the US training of the new “Border Security Force” is the reason that the US charge d’affaires was summoned in Ankara on Jan 10. The official did not elaborate, according to Hurriyet Daily News.

The force, whose inaugural class is currently being trained, will be deployed at the borders of the area controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – made up mostly of People’s Protection Units (YPG)
militants.

In an almost immediate reaction to the American move, Presidential Spokesperson İbrahim Kalın said that Turkey has the right to defend itself against “terror groups” on its own terms and time, and that the U.S. stance on the issue is “unacceptable,” state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

“Turkey will continue to take all necessary precautions aligned with its national interest to preserve its national security,” Kalin added.

US support for the SDF has put enormous strain on ties with NATO ally Turkey, which views the YPG as a terrorist group for its link with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

In an email to Reuters, the coalition’s Public Affairs Office confirmed details of the new force reported by The Defense Post. About half the force will be SDF veterans, and recruiting for the other half is underway, the coalition’s Public Affairs Office said.

The force will be deployed along the border with Turkey to the north, the Iraqi border to the southeast, and along the Euphrates River Valley, which broadly acts as the dividing line separating the U.S.-backed SDF and Syrian government forces backed by Iran and Russia.

The coalition said the BSF would operate under SDF command and around 230 individuals were currently undergoing training in its inaugural class.

Azerbaijan reportedly lost 558 troops and 1293 wounded during the “Four Day War” in April 2016

August 18, 2017 By administrator

According to Armenpress, Armenian political scientist Hrant Mélik-Chahnazarian published on the site voskanapat.info a letter issued on 28 April 2016 by a senior Azerbaijani army official, General Nedjmedin Sadikov, to Zakir Hasanov, the defense minister of Azerbaijan in which he reported Azeri losses during the “4-day war” against the forces of the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

In this letter N. Sadikov writes that the losses of the Azerbaijani army between 2 and 6 April during the war against the Armenian forces on the frontier of Artsakh are 558 Azerbaijani soldiers killed and 1,293 wounded. Of these injured, 58 were in serious condition. It should be noted that on the Talish-Martakert front alone, Azeri losses were 98 soldiers. On the Armenian side the casualties were 102 soldiers and civilians.

Krikor Amirzayan

Turkey capitulate agrees to let German lawmakers visit troops

August 8, 2017 By administrator

turkey,BERLIN – Reuters,

Turkey has agreed to let German lawmakers visit soldiers serving at an air base in Turkey next month as part of a NATO trip, according to a letter from the German foreign minister showed on Aug. 8, after Ankara refused a visit there in July.

A letter from German Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel to the head of Germany’s parliamentary defense committee said Turkey had agreed to a NATO proposal for a visit to the air base near Konya on Sept. 8.

Under the plan, NATO’s Deputy General-Secretary Rose Gottemoeller would lead the delegation and take up to seven members of the parliamentary committee with her.

“The Turkish foreign minister has agreed to this proposal,” Gabriel wrote.

Details are reportedly still being worked out about which lawmakers would be included in the visit. Turkey had objected particularly strenuously to participation by members of Germany’s far-left Left party, which Ankara accuses of “supporting terrorists.”

Repeated refusals by Ankara to let lawmakers visit German soldiers at the Incirlik air base in southern Turkey prompted Berlin to relocate those troops to Jordan. Turkey also refused a visit from German MPs to the Konya base planned for mid-July.

Germany’s armed forces are under parliamentary control and Berlin insists lawmakers must have access to them.

On Aug. 7, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused Germany of “assisting terrorists” by not responding to files sent from Ankara to Berlin or handing over suspects wanted by the Turkish authorities.

The US Is Furious Turkey Published Location Of US Troops In Syria

July 20, 2017 By administrator

A senior State Department official tells BuzzFeed News that the US has raised “strong concerns” to senior Turkish officials after a report details the location and numbers of US troops in Syria.

John Hudson, BuzzFeed News Reporter

US officials accused Turkey Wednesday of putting US troops at risk after Turkey’s state-owned news agency published the locations of 10 previously secret US military outposts in Syria.

US military officials called the publication a security breach that could endanger US troops, and State Department officials said they’d expressed those concerns to Turkish officials.

“We’ve raised our strong concerns with publication of this information with senior Turkish government officials, as we do any time we have concerns about risks to US military or civilian personnel,” one official told BuzzFeed News.

The list, published Tuesday by the Anadolu news agency, detailed not just the location of US bases in Syria, but also provided the approximate number of US troops at each location – information the US has to date refused to divulge. It also provided information about French troops posted alongside them. Turkish officials verified the accuracy of the Anadolu list to The Daily Beast.

The report said Andalou reporters spotted the bases during reporting trips to Syria. The US military said it has not yet determined the source of the information.

US officials privately interpreted the publication as an expression of Turkey’s anger over the US conduct of its war against ISIS, in particular, the US alliance with Kurdish forces that Turkey says are aligned with separatists who’ve been waging a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.

The US denies working with the separatists, saying it’s providing support only to the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-created force that consists of both Kurdish and Arab fighters but that is widely acknowledged to be led by the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, a Syrian Kurdish militia the Turks say is an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or the PKK, the Turkish separatist movement. The PKK has been designated a terrorist organization by the US, the European Union, and Turkey.

The Andalou report gave little credence to US assertions about the SDF’s independence. “Despite the fact that the militants were given SDF uniforms, some of them wear uniforms with banners of Abdullah Ocalan, jailed head of PKK terrorist organization in Turkey,” the report said.

The US has deployed more than 1,000 US troops across Syria to advise, train and provide artillery and aerial support to the SDF push to capture Raqqa, ISIS’s Syrian capital. US officials stressed that they already have robust security measures in place, but the US military has cited security precautions previously in declining to release details of the US deployment.

US Central Command, which is responsible for the US operations in the Middle East, made no effort to disguise its dismay that a supposed ally would release those details.

“We are deeply concerned with any information that exposes coalition forces to unnecessary risk being in the public domain,” Centcom spokesman Army Maj. Josh Jacques told BuzzFeed News. “We generally do not disclose the locations of coalition forces operating in Syria to defeat ISIS due to operational security. We remain focused on maintaining the momentum in the continued annihilation of ISIS.”

The publication marks the latest dip in US-Turkey relations that have been troubled for years over US strategy in Syria. Tens of thousands of ISIS fighters used Turkey as a way station in their journey to Syria, amid allegations that the Turkish government was not doing all it could to stanch the flow.

Additionally, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the US government of protecting a Pennsylvania-based Turkish cleric, Fethullah Gulen, whom Erdogan blames for last year’s failed coup attempt. Last week, Turkey’s ambassador in Washington told reporters that his government is increasingly frustrated by the slow pace of the US proceedings against Gulen.

“It’s not moving as fast as the Turkish public opinion would like it to move,” Serdar Kılıç said. Meanwhile, the Justice Department has given no indication that it intends to press for Gulen’s extradition to Turkey.

In mid-May, the nations exchanged angry statements over Erdogan’s bodyguards’ beating of demonstrators outside the Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington. Local prosecutors in Washington eventually charged 12 members of Erdogan’s entourage with crimes in connection with the beatings, which were captured on widely viewed video. Nine people were injured in the melee.

Erdogan was in Washington for meetings with President Donald Trump.

Germany: Transfer of German troops from Incirlik Turkey to Jordan to start in July

June 18, 2017 By administrator

Transfer of German troops from Incirlik to Jordan to start in July German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen has told German media that Bundeswehr troops will begin pulling out from a Turkish air base in July. The move comes amid strained relations between the two NATO allies.

The withdrawal of German troop from the Turkish air base in Incirlik to new base in Jordan is expected to take around three months, German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen told German media on Sunday.

“Until the end of June, our flight plans as part of the anti-“Islamic State” coalition are set,” she was quoted of saying in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper. “After that, we’ll be transferring our tanker aircraft as quickly as possible to Jordan.”

Germany has more than 250 military personnel stationed at Incirlik who fly Tornado surveillance missions over Syria and refueling flights for partner nations in the coalition against IS.

Von der Leyen also warned that the transfer will temporarily put the Bundeswehr’s mission in the Middle East on hold. However, troops would be ready to be deployed from the new base in Jordan by around mid-July, she added.

Moving heavy artillery, such as Tornado surveillance aircraft and the required technology will take longer. “Starting from October, the reconnaissance Tornados will start flying again, according to our timetable,” von der Leyen said.

Most important was keeping the transition phase in which planes will be unable to fly as short as possible, as well as the security of the troops, she added.

Strained relations between NATO ally

The decision to pull out of the Turkish base at Incirlik comes on the back of difficult diplomatic relations between NATO members Germany and Turkey.

Last month, Ankara blocked a German parliamentary delegation from visiting Bundeswehr troops the base, marking the second time that Turkey had done so. Turkish officials said their decision was a response to Germany granting asylum to Turkish military personnel accused of participating in a failed coup last year – a move that reportedly enraged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

While there are fears that the dispute could have damaging implications for NATO, the organization maintains that it will have no bearing on the alliance’s military activities.

Iraq: ‘IS’ digs its heels in as Iraqi troops advance in Mosul

May 28, 2017 By administrator

Mosl destruction As the Iraqi army begins to surrounding them, the so-called “Islamic State” jihadist group has responded with a campaign of car bombs and sniper fire. Mosul was the terrorists’ last urban stronghold.

Snipers and suicide bombers fighting for the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) jihadist group targeted combatants and civilians alike in the Iraqi city of Mosul on Sunday. The terrorists seemed determined to fight to the last amidst a government push to completely retake the city.

Mosul had been the last major IS stronghold in Iraq, but recent offenses have cornered the jihadists into select pockets of the old city. Despite this, they continued their campaign of suicide car bombings and snipers placed on rooftops to making the fighting difficult in the neighborhoods they control, already a challenge because of the narrow streets and dense civilian population.

There were “sporadic” clashes on Sunday, according to Baghdad, and at least two military officers were killed in fighting near the Tigris River in the city’s Shafaa neighborhood.

IS’ remaining strongholds (click to enlarge)

On Saturday, however, US-backed Iraqi forces were able to take control of key territory as they try to surround IS from three different directions. They were able to capture the Ibn Sina hospital, which is also in the Shafaa neighborhood, providing them access to a major medical complex that the terrorists have controlled since they swept through the city in 2014.

Since Friday, the government has been working to get civilians out of the targeted areas, dropping leaflets to alert citizens to “safe passages” where they could flee with the help of “guides, protectors and (transportation).”

US admits high non-combatant casualties

The push to protect civilians came as the US military was receiving heavy criticism for the amount of civilian deaths caused by its coalition against IS.

The Pentagon recently admitted that one of its airstrikes had killed 105 non-combatants in Mosul in March, the largest single loss of civilian life since the coalition began its bombing campaign.

According to a military investigation, both Iraqi forces and US military advisors did not know there were so many people in the building that collapsed as a result of the strikes near an IS target. They were similarly unaware that IS had placed explosives at the site, the report said.

In an interview on Sunday, US Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said that “everything humanly possible” is done to avoid civilian casualties, but in this kind of asymmetrical conflict, it becomes “a fact of life” that innocents could die.

“We have not changed the rules of engagement,” Mattis clarified to the CBS program Face the Nation. “There is no relaxation of our intention to protect the innocent.”

Mattis laid the blame for the deaths in Mosul at the hands of IS, saying the way they had laid explosives under the building full of civilians illustrated their “callous disregard that is characterized by every operation they have run.”

es/rc (AP, AFP)

Syrian govt calls on UN to force Turkey to pull its troops from Syria

March 12, 2017 By administrator

DAMASCUS,— The Syrian government has called on the United Nations to force Turkey to pull “its invasion forces” out of Syria, state media said on Friday.

Turkey’s military shelled Syrian government forces and their allies in northern Syria on Thursday, causing deaths and injuries, state-run SANA news agency reported.

Turkey launched its first major military incursion into northern Syria on August 24, 2016, deploying tanks and air power in support of rebel groups of Free Syrian Army FSA opposed to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Turkey’s operation aims to stop the Kurdish YPG forces from extending areas under their control and connecting Syrian Kurdistan’s Kobani and Hasaka in the east with Afrin canton in the west and cleaning the border area from Islamic State..

Syria’s foreign ministry urged the U.N. secretary general and security council to “force Turkey to withdraw its invasion forces from Syrian land and stop the attacks”, SANA said.

The Syrian government blames Turkey for “killing tens of thousands of its innocent sons and destroying Syrian infrastructure”, it added.

Northern Syria has become an increasingly complex battlefield in the multi-sided war, with the Russian-backed Syrian army, Turkish-backed rebels and U.S.-backed militias all waging separate campaigns against Islamic State.

Ankara is particularly concerned about the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia which it considers to be an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has fought a three-decade insurgency inside Turkey.

Turkey fears the creation of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syrian Kurdistan — similar to the Kurdish region in Iraqi Kurdistan — would spur the separatist ambitions of Turkey’s own Kurds.

Syrian Kurdistan’s ruling PYD party has established three autonomous zones, or Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016 Syria’s Kurds declared a federal region in Syrian Kurdistan. On Dec. 30, 2016 Syrian Kurds approved a blueprint for a system of federal government in Syrian Kurdistan, reaffirming their plans for autonomy in areas they have controlled during the civil war.

Armenia and Russia sign agreement on joint troops of two countries

November 30, 2016 By administrator

armenia-russia-join-troops Today an agreement on joint troops of the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation has been signed in Moscow, TASS news agency of Russia reports. According to the report the agreement has been signed by Defence Minister of Armenia Vigen Sargsyan and Russian Defence Minister, General of the Army Sergei Shoygu. Vigen Sargsyan has noted that the troops will include the 102nd Russian military base located in Armenia and Armenia’s armed forces units. The Defence Ministers have also signed the 2017 cooperation program. To note, the delegation headed by Vigen Sargsyan has paid an official visit to the RF. The RA Defence Ministry informed earlier that the above mentioned agreement was to be signed within this visit.

On 14 November Russia’s President Vladimir Putin approved and assigned to sign the agreement. According to the document the establishment of the joint troops of the two countries aims at “undertaking adequate countermeasures to the possible armed attack in the Caucasus, as well as other security threats and challenges.”

Mosul Update: Iraqi troops advance on more urban districts of Mosul

November 1, 2016 By administrator

Hashd al-Shaabi fighters flash the sign of victory from the back of a truck as they drive towards the village of Umm Sijan, southwest of Mosul, on October 31, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Iraqi special forces were advancing toward the more urban center of Mosul on Tuesday after entering the outskirts of the city in a bid to retake it from Takfiri terrorists.

The advance into Iraq’s second largest city in over two years marks the start of what could be a grueling and slow operation for troops, with the terrorists holed up in their positions and using civilians as human shields.

According to the commander of the special forces, troops entered the Gogjali neighborhood inside Mosul’s city limits and by noon were only 800 meters (yards) from the more built-up Karama district.

“Daesh is fighting back and have set up concrete blast walls to block off the Karama neighborhood and our troops’ advance,” Maj. Gen. Sami al-Aridi said.

Iraqi artillery, tank and machine gun fire pounded Daesh positions, with the Takfiri terrorists responding with guided anti-tank missiles and small arms in an attempt to block the advance.

Across the liberated districts, white flags fluttered to show the residents wouldn’t resist the Iraqi army advance. Some residents stood outside their homes, and children raised their hands with V-for-victory signs, the Associated Press reported.

‘Human shields’

One resident said Daesh was preventing families from moving toward the security forces and ordered them into the city center.

UN human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani meanwhile said Daesh was trying to move 25,000 civilians from the town of Hammam al-Alil to Mosul to use them as human shields.

Most of the trucks used in the operation on Monday were forced to turn back under pressure from patrolling aircraft, but some buses managed to reach Abusaif, 15 km north of the town, she added.

Shamdasani also cited reports from the field as saying that the terrorist group on Saturday killed 40 former members of the Iraqi security forces near Mosul and threw their corpses in the Tigris river.

She said the UN has no documented any reports of abuses by Iraqi troops or civilian deaths in air raids in Mosul so far.

Iraq’s Badr Organization said seven villages located to the west of Mosul were purged of Daesh on Tuesday. Iraqi forces also took control of a government building in a village in eastern Mosul.

The spokesman for Hashd al-Shaabi or Popular Mobilization Units Ahmed Assadi said 39 villages west of Mosul have been purged of Daesh since the beginning of the operation about two week ago.

According to the Defense Ministry, as many as 27 Daesh terrorists were killed in fresh operations and their weapons and equipment seized or destroyed.

Meanwhile, a military source said a senior terrorist commander was killed in an airstrike in the center of Mosul on Tuesday.

Abu Tareq al-Hayali, the commander of the Daesh-affiliated Jund al-Khilafah, and seven of his companions were killed as Iraqi aircraft bombed their positions, he added.

With the advances gaining momentum, Takfiri militants are resorting to more desperate measures. On Monday, Iraqi forces thwarted a Daesh car bomb attack and another terrorist attack on the Asyla village west of Mosul, killing 12 terrorists and capturing two others.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi announced the start of the operations to liberate Mosul on October 16. The city fell to Daesh in June 2014 as the Takfiri group crossed the Syrian border to expand its so-called caliphate.

The loss of Mosul would be a major defeat for the Takfiri terrorists because it is the last major Daesh bastion in Iraq.