Recent events regarding Syria and Turkey

[HermanGerman]

[16.09.13] Turkish warplanes shoot down Syrian helicopter

[HermanGerman]

Re: Recent events regarding Syria and Turkey

[17.09.13] Car bomb explosion at rebel checkpoint at Turkish-Syrian border

[Haykakan]

Re: Recent events regarding Syria and Turkey

Looks like Turkey is providing aircover for the rebels.

[Haykakan]

Re: Recent events regarding Syria and Turkey

TURKEY WANTS TO EXTEND MANDATE TO SEND TROOPS INTO SYRIA

October 2, 2013 - 19:01 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Turkish parliament is likely to extend by a year
a mandate authorizing the sending of troops into Syria if needed after
the government said the possible use of chemical weapons by President
Bashar al-Assad posed a threat to Turkey, according to Reuters.

The government motion, due to be voted on by parliament on Thursday,
Oct 3, paints a bleak picture of the conflict in its southern neighbor
and says Turkey would be the country the most affected by escalating
violence there.

"Developments show that the Syrian regime has reached a point where
it is ready to use any methods or weapons against international law,"
the motion said.

Ankara and Western nations have blamed Syrian government forces a nerve
gas attack on a Damascus suburb on August 21 that killed hundreds. The
Syrian government, backed by Russia, blames the Sunni rebels.

"Turkey is the country which will be most affected by any attacks by
the regime and the uncertainty and chaos in Syria," the government
motion said.

Through its rights drawn from international law, Turkey is obliged to
take necessary measures against any kind of action from Syria which
presents an "open and near threat," it said.

Turkey, one of Assad's fiercest critics, has advocated military
intervention in Syria and has grown frustrated over what it sees as
Western indecisiveness.

While it has the second-largest military land force in NATO, it is
unlikely to act alone in any military operation, with public opinion
largely against intervention.

A current parliament mandate allowing Turkey to send troops into Syria
expires on Friday. The ruling AK Party has a strong parliamentary
majority and the extension is expected to pass despite opposition,
especially from the main pro-Kurdish party.

Turkey, which shares a 900 km border with Syria, has seen the conflict
frequently spill across its frontier and has responded in kind when
mortars and shells fired from Syria have hit its soil, in some cases
killing Turkish civilians.

Turkish warplanes shot down a Syrian helicopter last month after it
crossed into Turkish air space, one of the most serious cross-border
incidents of the two-and-a-half year conflict, drawing a rebuke
from Damascus.

Turkey is also sheltering a quarter of the 2 million people who have
fled the Syrian conflict.

It has bolstered its defenses and deployed additional troops on its
border with Syria in recent weeks, with convoys of military vehicles
ferrying equipment and personnel and additional short-range air
defenses set up.

http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/170756/

[Haykakan]

Re: Recent events regarding Syria and Turkey

Interfax, Russia
Oct 4 2013


Insurgents from Syria could start infiltrating Caucasus soon - Russian
drug control chief

YEREVAN/MOSCOW. Oct 4


Viktor Ivanov, the chief of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service,
warns that insurgents from Syria could start infiltrating the Caucasus
region.

"Aside from the obvious process of rapid destabilization of the entire
region, it is necessary to carefully analyze the vector of expected
redeployment of foreign mercenaries from Syria overhanging the
Caucasus, which is only 600 kilometers away," Ivanov said at a
ceremony of closing Operation Channel Caucasus under the Common
Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) auspices in Yerevan on Friday.

"Our experts are predicting that foreign mercenaries in Syria, who
have been structured into paramilitary groups competing with each
other, will be out of the running in the near future and will swarm
toward the Caucasus," Ivanov said.

Once in the Caucasus, the Syrian fighters will be trying "to harness
the gold-bearing transit of Afghan drugs, which would bring them
radically larger profits than they have now," he said.

"The number of extremist international mercenaries concentrated in
Syria is extremely large. And our task is to plan systemic measures to
undermine the drug transit infrastructure in the Caucasus so as to
prevent the building of financial, organizational, and logistical
basis for this scum in the Black Sea and Caspian Sea region," Ivanov
said.

"The greater Caucasus is under strong pressure of huge masses of
Afghan heroin and hashish," he said.

Over 12 tonnes of drugs, including 10.5 tonnes of Afghan opiates,
among it over 600 kilos of heroin, was seized during Operation Channel
Caucasus, in which 50,000 security officers from Armenia, Belarus,
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan took part, Ivanov said.

Ivanov said earlier that up to 100,000 people die in Russia yearly
from drugs. He said also that 8.5 million people in Russia take drugs
regularly or sporadically, and 18.5 million Russians have tried drugs
at least once in their life.

va

[Haykakan]

Re: Recent events regarding Syria and Turkey

The Washington Post
October 5, 2013 Saturday
Regional Edition


Christians in Syria face growing hostility

by Loveday Morris
IN AJALTOUN, LEBANON


When radical Islamists tore down a cross and hoisted a black flag
above a church in the northern Syrian city of Raqqah last week, their
action underscored the increasingly hostile environment for the
country's Christians.

Although Syria is majority Sunni Muslim, it is one of the most
religiously and ethnically diverse countries in the Middle East, home
to Christians, Druze, and Shiite-offshoot Alawites and Ismailis. But
the country's conflict, now in its third year, is threatening that
tapestry.

While the primary front in the war has pitted Sunni against Shiite,
Christians are increasingly caught in the line of fire. The perception
that they support the government - which is in many cases true - has
long made them a target of rebel groups. Now, Christians say radical
Islamist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an
affiliate of al-Qaeda, are determined to drive them from their homes.

"The Christian community in Syria is stuck between two fires," said
Nadim Nassar, a Syrian from Latakia who is director of the Awareness
Foundation, an interfaith charity based in Britain. "One fire is a
corrupt regime, and everybody agrees there needs to be a change. And
on the other hand, there's a fragmented and diverse opposition on the
ground who can't control jihadist forces coming from outside the
country."

Syria is not the only place in the wider region where Christians are
being targeted. Coptic churches in Egypt have been attacked, and
Pakistan last week experienced the deadliest church bombing in the
country's history. The militants who attacked a mall in Nairobi last
month singled out non-Muslims.

The rash of assaults has led some to question the future of
Christianity in Syria, where adherents make up about 10 percent of the
population, and in the wider Middle East.

Syria's ruling Assad family, which belongs to the Alawite sect, has
long painted itself as the protector of Syria's minorities. Though
leaders of Syria's opposition have pledged to provide minorities with
equality in a new Syria, they are unable to control the growing number
of hard-line Islamist forces on the ground.

The Western-backed Syrian Opposition Coalition denounced the
desecration of the churches in Raqqah, calling it an act that showed
"complete disregard to holy sites and religious and cultural
heritage."

But the rejection of the opposition coalition by 13 rebel factions
that announced an Islamic alliance last week highlighted the group's
lack of influence.

In Syria's war, bishops have been kidnapped and priests have been
killed. When the fighting last month reached the ancient town of
Maaloula - where residents still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus
- it struck at the heart of Syria's Christian community.

Most residents have fled since rebels swept through the picturesque
town, which clings to the mountains northwest of the capital,
Damascus.

"Maaloula is like Jerusalem to Syrian Christians," said Ibrahim
Doushi, a Syrian Christian shop owner who moved to neighboring
Lebanon. "When the war reached there, it was heartbreaking for all the
Christians in the Middle East."

The fighting in Maaloula was followed by the images from Raqqah, where
the ISIS desecrated the Greek Catholic and Armenian Catholic churches,
according to activist groups. The radical Islamist group also has
attacked Shiite shrines and mosques.

For Doushi, who fled to Lebanon last year from the town of Ras al-Ayn,
near the Turkish border, the footage of the ISIS's black flag flying
above the Armenian church was confirmation that he and his family have
no future in his home country.

"Christians are being torn from our roots," he said. The ISIS
militants "are proud of it. They are targeting the Christians and they
are publicizing it. The regime cannot protect us."

Doushi said he was forced to leave Ras al-Ayn after Islamist fighters
entered the town late last year and targeted the homes and businesses
of Christians. The 61-year-old's new, temporary residence, housing
seven members of his extended family, is St. Gabriel's monastery in
the mountain village of Ajaltoun, 12 miles north of Beirut.

Many at the monastery say they are pinning their hopes on obtaining
European visas, citing doubts that there will ever be a day that Syria
can offer security to its minorities, at least in rebel-held areas.

"The Christians are never going back," said Johnny Chamoun, 42, also
from Ras al-Ayn, who works at the monastery coordinating assistance
for Syrian Christian refugees.

Nassar, the interfaith foundation director, said it is the first time
in centuries that Christians in Syria have been targeted for their
faith.

"We are not imported there. Christ was not born under Big Ben or in
Paris," he said. "This is the cradle of Christianity that we are being
pushed from."

[Haykakan]

Re: Recent events regarding Syria and Turkey

ERDOGAN URGES CABINET TO HIDE NEWS ON TIES WITH ISRAEL

FARS News Agency, Iran
October 8, 2013 Tuesday

TEHRAN (FNA)- Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called
on the senior political and security members of his cabinet to keep
secret any news about Ankara's relations and cooperation with Tel
Aviv on different issues, including Syria, sources said.

"Erdogan had a very important meeting with his cabinet members,
including Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Interior Minister
Muammar Guler, National Defense Minister Ismat Yilmaz, Security
Chief Hakan Fydan, Head of the IHH (Turkish Islamic charity known
as the Freedom Flotilla) Fahmy Bulent Ildirim and a number of his
advisors on September 21," one of the aides present at the meeting
told FNA on Tuesday. The source who asked to remain anonymous due
to the sensitivity of his information added that during the meeting,
"Erdogan voiced extreme displeasure with the leak of information about
different aspects of Turkey's relations with Israel, and called on all
the relevant governmental bodies to keep such news secret and punish
those who disobey the order even if they are close people to Erdogan".

Other officials attending the meeting also raised the issues which
are being pursued by the Turkish and Israeli officials, to be
further discussed, the source said, adding that the issues included
"cooperation between Israel and Turkey on the outlawed Kurdish Workers'
Party (PKK), the Syrian issue, peace talks between the Palestinians
and Israel and foiling Armenian lobby's attempts in the US against
Turkey as well as consultations between Tel Aviv and Ankara to
persuade Washington to wage military attack on Syria". Syria has
been experiencing unrest since March 2011 with organized attacks by
well-armed gangs and foreign-backed terrorist groups against not just
the Syrian police, border guard and army troops, but also people being
reported across the country. Tens of thousands of people, including
members of the security forces, have been killed since some protest
rallies turned into armed clashes. The government blames outlaws,
saboteurs, and armed terrorist groups for the deaths, stressing that
the unrest is being orchestrated from abroad. In October 2011, calm
was almost restored in the Arab state after President Assad started a
reform initiative in the country, but Israel, the US, its Arab allies
and Turkey sought hard to bring the country into chaos through any
possible means. Tel Aviv, Washington, Ankara and some Arab capitals
have been staging various plots to topple President Bashar al-Assad,
who is well known in the world for his anti-Israeli stances.

[Haykakan]

Re: Recent events regarding Syria and Turkey

ISLAMISTS SET FIRE TO ARMENIAN CHURCH IN SYRIAN TOWN

October 29, 2013 - 16:52 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net - Islamists set fire to Surp Khach Armenian church
in Tel Abyad town in northeast Syria.

According to Beirut-based Aztag daily, the arson was committed by
members of al Qaeda-linked Islamic State in Iraq and Levant group,
who took the cross off the church and torched it.

Armenians have been living in Tel Abyad since 1915. The church was
built in 1932 and reconstructed in 1996. Before the war, it also
hosted a Sunday school.

10,000 Armenians fled to Armenia while 5,000 found shelter in
neighboring Lebanon.

More than 115,000 people have been killed in Syria war, including
tens of thousands of soldiers, rebels and civilians.

Photo: aztagdaily.com

http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/news/171930/Islamists_set_fire_to_Armenian_church_in_Syrian_town

[Haykakan]

Re: Recent events regarding Syria and Turkey

A U.S. official has confirmed Israeli aircraft carried out a strike near the Syrian coastal city of Latakia. The unnamed official told the BBC Israel targeted Russian-made missiles it believed were bound for the militant group Hezbollah. It is believed to be the sixth Israeli attack on Syria this year.

[londontsi]

Re: Recent events regarding Syria and Turkey

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Where was the Russian veto/threats etc etc.

Looks like a game of nerves rather than anything conclusive.

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