Iraq & Syrian Civil Wars - Page 391

In the early 1950s Erbakan completed a PhD in Mechanical Engineering at Aachen University in Germany, where he ended up helping to design parts for the Leopard tank. The prejudice experienced by Turkish migrant workers in Germany at this time had a strong influence on his politics, and particularly on his suspicious stance towards the West.

On March 19 2017 16:27 Kreuger wrote:
Sure, the first thing that comes to mind is Nazi. But I doubt they have that ideology

Iran has accused Russia of giving the codes for Syria's anti-aircraft missiles to Israel, a senior official in the engineering department of Iran's Defense Department told the Kuwaiti daily Al-Jarida on Monday.

According to the report, much remains unknown about Israel's attack on a Hezbollah weapons convoy and the Syrian response to the Israeli fighter jets early Friday morning. Israel has reportedly attacked dozens of times in Syrian territory since Hezbollah joined the Syrian civil war in 2012, but Friday marked the first time that an anti-aircraft missile had been fired at an IAF jet.

Al-Jarida's Tehran correspondent, Farzad Qassemi, cited a source in the Iranian Defense Ministry as saying that Iranian experts had changed the operation codes for the Syrian air defense system, which is what enabled the anti-aircraft missiles to be used against the Israeli Air Force on Friday morning.

According to the source, Damascus and Tehran "were shocked" every time the Russian-made air defense system did not work to defend Syria's airspace, or even give notification that the air space had been penetrated in order to evacuate outposts prior to the airstrike. The systems are supposed to identify the takeoff of Israeli Air Force jets from their bases because of the small distance between the countries and is even supposed to attempt to target the planes and any missiles that are fired from them.

According to the source, three weeks ago, during Iranian military maneuvers, Iranian engineers hacked into the codes of the S-300, but when the Bavar-373 was not working in conjunction with the Russian air defense system the experiment was suspended.

The source said further that the Iranian Defense Ministry sent several engineers to Syria to change the codes of the air defense system that was under the control of the Syrian army, without Moscow's knowledge. "They succeeded in changing some of the codes last month and therefore when the Israel fighter jets took off from their bases - the air defense system succeeded in identifying them and firing interceptor missiles at them and at the missiles they had launched."

The source added that "the Syrian radar treated Israeli fighter jets as friendly planes in the past and not as enemy planes, which proves that Israel knew the codes of the missile system."

Monday’s incident came after days of escalating tensions between Israel and Syria, set off by an early morning Israeli raid last Friday on a Hezbollah weapons convoy near Palmyra, with Syrian air defenses firing missiles at the Israeli planes.

An Israeli army statement said “several anti-aircraft missiles” were fired following the raid, but that none hit their targets, dismissing a Syrian claim that one plane was downed and another damaged. One missile was intercepted by Israel’s Arrow missile defense battery, military officials said, in the first reported use of the advanced system.

It was the most serious incident between the two countries since the Syrian civil war began six years ago.

Russia's force in Syria has suffered losses since late January more than three times higher than the official toll, according to evidence gathered by Reuters, a tally that shows the fight in Syria is tougher and more costly than the Kremlin has disclosed.

Eighteen Russian citizens fighting alongside Moscow's allies, the Syrian government forces, have been killed since Jan. 29 -- a period that coincided with intense fighting to recapture the city of Palmyra from the Islamic State group.

The Russian defense ministry has publicly reported only five servicemen's deaths in Syria over the same period, and its officials' statements have not mentioned any large-scale Russian ground operations in the fight for Palmyra.

Military casualties abroad are not as politically sensitive in Russia as in some other countries but send a negative message ahead of a presidential election next year which is expected to give President Vladimir Putin a fourth term.

The toll was revealed in interviews with relatives and friends of the dead men, cemetery workers, local media reports of funerals and evidence collected by a group of investigative bloggers, Conflict Intelligence Team (CIT).

In each case, Reuters has independently verified information about the death by speaking to someone who knows the dead man.

The casualties since the end of January represent one of the highest tolls for the Russian contingent in Syria since the start of Moscow's military intervention 18 months ago.

An official with the Russian foreign ministry referred questions about them to the defense ministry. The Russian defense ministry did not respond to Reuters questions about the casualties and about military operations in Syria. The Kremlin did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Most of the dead were not regular Russian soldiers but Russian civilians working as private military contractors under the orders of Russian commanders. Moscow has not officially acknowledged the presence of the contractors in Syria.

One of the 18 men killed was Yuri Sokalsky, a 52-year-old from the Russian Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik who, according to a person close to him, signed up to go to Syria in January with a group of private contractors.

In one of his last phone calls home, the person close to him said, he expressed surprise at the large numbers of Russian contractors being despatched to Syria, and relayed what he had been told about the intensity of the combat.

"Out of every 100 people, 50 are coming back in caskets,"

the person recalled Sokalsky as saying. The person asked not to be identified, fearing repercussions for revealing information that is sensitive for the Russian authorities.

On March 14 last year, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a partial drawdown of Russian forces in Syria, saying their mission had, "as a whole, been fulfilled." The fight for Palmyra this year tells a different story.

The 18 fatalities documented by Reuters include the five regular soldiers whose deaths were announced by the defense ministry, four private military contractors in one unit killed on the same day, seven other such contractors, and two regular soldiers whose deaths the defense ministry has not announced.

The period examined by Reuters coincided with the start of a major Russian deployment to the area around Palmyra, according to several people close to the dead fighters.

Several relatives of people killed in Syria said they had received phone calls from people involved in recruiting private military contractors warning them not to speak to media.

Out of the 18 dead, at least 10 were killed in the region of Palmyra, which Islamic State fighters seized in December for a second time in a year - a major reversal for Syrian government forces and their Russian backers.

On Jan. 10, Sokalsky, a land mine specialist, left his home in Gelendzhik and set off for Rostov, in southern Russia, to join a group of private contractors being despatched to Syria.

On his one previous tour to Syria, only fighters over 35 were being hired, selected to carry out specialist technical roles or train Syrian units rather than for out-and-out combat.

"This time they were taking everyone," said the person close to Sokalsky.

Two official documents seen by Reuters show that on Jan. 31, Sokalsky died from shrapnel injuries in Tiyas, in Syria's Homs province about 60 km west of Palmyra. Three other members of his unit, all private military contractors, were killed the same day, according to relatives, friends and cemetery officials. They were Alexei Nainodin, Roman Rudenko, and a third man whose name Reuters was not able to establish.

Another private military contractor, Dmitry Markelov, was also killed at Tiyas, site of the Syrian military's T4 air base, on Jan. 29, according to people close to him.

Four regular Russian servicemen were killed in the same area on Feb. 16, Russian state media cited a defense ministry statement as saying. The soldiers, described by state media as "advisors" to the Syrian military, were not named. A fifth regular serviceman, Artyom Gorbunov, was killed near Palmyra on March 2, state media quoted the ministry as saying.

A further eight members of the Russian contingent were killed since the end of January at unknown locations in Syria, the evidence gathered by Reuters showed.

They were contractors Konstantin Zadorozhny, Ivan Slyshkin, Vasily Yurlin, Alexander Sagaydak, Alexander Zangiyev, and Alexander Tychinin, and regular Russian soldiers Igor Vorona, and Sergei Travin.

Local media reports and social media posts point to more Russian deaths in Syria since the end of January than the 18 casualties, but Reuters has not been able to verify that information independently.

On March 23 2017 04:42 Wrath wrote:
Interesting...


Source

Rescuers are still recovering bodies from a suspected U.S. airstrike in the Iraqi city of Mosul, where more than 200 civilians are said to have been killed.

Munatha Jasim watched Iraqi civil defense workers in red suits scurry among the ruins of her neighbors’ homes Friday, extracting the dead and zipping them into blue body bags.

The massive explosion that tore through Baghdad Street last week killed nine of Jasim’s relatives, including son Firas, 7, and daughter Taiba, 4. “We recovered half his body,” she said of the 7-year-old. “The rest is still there.”

The U.S.-led coalition in Iraq is investigating whether it was responsible for an airstrike in the west Mosul neighborhood of Aghawat Jadidah March 17 that local civil defense officials said killed at least 200. It would be the highest civilian death toll from an airstrike since the battle against the militant group Islamic State began more than two years ago and among the deadliest incidents in modern warfare.

“The coalition has opened a formal civilian casualty credibility assessment on this allegation, and we are currently analyzing conflicting allegations and all possible strikes in that area,” said U.S. Army Col. Joe Scrocca, a Baghdad-based spokesman for the coalition, who added that coalition forces routinely strike Islamic State targets in that area.

U.S. officials, who weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the ongoing investigation, said initial indications are that a truck loaded with fuel or explosives may have been inadvertently hit, causing a massive explosion that killed over 200 people.

“We will continue to assess the allegations and determine what if any role a coalition strike may have had in that area,” Scrocca said.

Nearly 50 bodies could be seen Friday in the area of the alleged airstrike, where relatives helped recover remains.

One man approached a bag that contained the body of a pregnant woman, touched it, talked to it, then began to cry and wail. Civil defense workers had to lead him away.

In a nearby garage where bodies were being stored, another man who lost 32 relatives tried to identify them based on what had been recovered: some government identification cards, a brown wallet and a black purse. But he started to sob, and had to step outside, sit on the curb and hang his head.

Jasim walked down a dirt street that reeked of death. Bodies were still pinned under houses; blackened hands and a pair of feet in yellow high-top sneakers protruded from one place in the rubble. Finally, she stopped and pointed to the ruins of her home. She said a militant sniper had set up across the street from her house before the attack.

“Just because one Islamic State [fighter] was on our house, the aircraft bombed us,” she said tearfully.

This month, The Pentagon substantiated nine of 19 alleged instances of airstrikes with civilian casualties from January, resulting in two injuries and 21 deaths.

The Pentagon has acknowledged 220 civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since the U.S. campaign against Islamic State began in 2014.

Airwars, a London-based nonprofit that monitors civilian deaths from coalition air raids, put the casualty figures much higher, at about 2,700 civilians killed in airstrikes in both countries during that time.

Chris Woods, director of Airwars, said his analysts were overwhelmed with the spate of recent allegations.

“Reported civilian deaths from coalition strikes have been rising for some months, but where we're at now — with more than 1,000 claimed fatalities so far this month — is unprecedented,” he said. “I don't think any of us at Airwars expected to see allegations against the Coalition running so high — even with the predicted high risk to civilians during the Mosul assault.”

The Iraqi government was also looking into the alleged airstrike last week, said Brig. Gen. Tahsin Ibrahim, spokesman for the ministry of defense.

“If we hit civilians there is a big investigation,” and if the investigation finds sufficient evidence, the case may be referred to a military court, he said.

Civil defense workers and witnesses at the scene of the alleged airstrike late Friday said it came in response to militants who had fired on aircraft in the area. Some said they saw only a few militants, others said they saw 10.

The US has said it carried out an airstrike in Syria against an al-Qaida meeting but denied deliberately targeting a mosque where 46 people were reportedly killed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said most of the dead were civilians in the Thursday evening raid on the village of Al-Jineh, in the northern province of Aleppo.

The US has been bombing jihadists in war-torn Syria as part of an international coalition since 2014, with hundreds of civilians unintentionally killed in the country and in neighbouring Iraq.

“We did not target a mosque, but the building that we did target – which was where the meeting took place – is about 50ft (15 metres) from a mosque that is still standing,” said Col John J Thomas, spokesman for US Central Command.

According to a Centcom statement: “US forces conducted an air strike on an Al-Qaeda in Syria meeting location March 16 in Idlib, Syria, killing several terrorists.”

The Centcom spokesman later clarified that the precise location of the strike was unclear – but that it was the same one widely reported to have hit the village mosque in Al-Jineh, in Aleppo province.

“We are going to look into any allegations of civilian casualties in relation to this strike,” he added.

The US-led coalition striking the Islamic State group in Iraq and Syria did not mention the raid in its daily roundup for Thursday, indicating that the strike was carried out unilaterally by the US.

An AFP correspondent saw rescue workers in white helmets working under spotlights with picks and shovels late on Thursday to dig people out of the rubble.

Much of the building, identified by a black placard outside as a mosque, had been flattened.