Monitor: Russian jets bomb Syrians in Ghouta town, Kremlin denies

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Syrian civilians escaped from the bombing of Eastern Ghouta, gather at a school in the regime-controlled Adra district, on the northeastern outskirts of the capital Damascus on Mar 16, 2018. (AFP)
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Syrian civilians escaped from the bombing of Eastern Ghouta, gather at a school in the regime-controlled Adra district, on the northeastern outskirts of the capital Damascus on Mar 16, 2018. (AFP)
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Syrian civilians escaped from the bombing of Eastern Ghouta, gather at a school in the regime-controlled Adra district, on the northeastern outskirts of the capital Damascus on Mar 16, 2018. (AFP)
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Syrian civilians escaped from the bombing of Eastern Ghouta, gather at a school in the regime-controlled Adra district, on the northeastern outskirts of the capital Damascus on Mar 16, 2018. (AFP)
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Syrian civilians escaped from the bombing of Eastern Ghouta, gather at a school in the regime-controlled Adra district, on the northeastern outskirts of the capital Damascus on Mar 16, 2018. (AFP)
Updated 16 March 2018
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Monitor: Russian jets bomb Syrians in Ghouta town, Kremlin denies

MOSCOW: The Russian military said its planes had not taken part in the Syrian regime’s assault in Eastern Ghouta where a monitoring group says airstrikes killed 80 civilians in rebel-held zones on Friday.
“The claims of the SOHR (Syrian Observatory of Human Rights)... on the so-called Russian strikes in Eastern Ghouta are only one more piece of ‘fake’ (news),” Russia’s defense ministry said, according to news agencies.
“Russian aviation has no military mission in Eastern Ghouta and has not undertaken any” in this region, it added.

The British-based Observatory, which says it determines whose planes carry out raids according to type, location, flight patterns and munitions used, said at least 76 civilians were killed in Russian air strikes on the southwestern Ghouta pocket on Friday.
A month-long government offensive on the rebel-held enclave on the outskirts of Damascus has killed at least 1,346 civilians, according to the Observatory, despite a United Nations cease-fire calling for an end to the onslaught.

Meanwhile, thousands of civilians poured out of Eastern Ghouta on Thursday after a month-long bombardment brought the Syrian regime closer to recapturing the devastated rebel enclave close to Damascus. UN special envoy to Syria Staffane De Mistura said that UN teams were not coordination the civilian evacuation from eastern Ghouta towns.

Defying expectations and calls to step down, Syria’s President Bashar Assad was strengthening his grip on power as the conflict entered its eighth year.
His troops advanced in a ferocious assault on Ghouta, once the opposition’s main bastion on the outskirts of the capital.
A war monitor said regime forces now control 70 percent of the area, splitting the remaining rebel territory into three shrinking pockets.
After a fierce air and ground assault, regime forces on Thursday captured Hammuriyeh town, in an isolated southern part of Ghouta.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, said rebels later launched a counter-attack and regained parts of the town, killing 14 regime fighters.
Elsewhere, however, it said the regime overran Al-Rihan town in an assault led by Russian officers and advisers.
The regime’s advance into Hammuriyeh had punched a corridor through the town into government-controlled territory.

Streams of women and children escaped through that corridor on Thursday, carrying plastic bags stuffed with clothes and pushing strollers piled high with suitcases and rugs.
They reached a regime checkpoint in Adra district, where ambulances and large green buses waited to take them to temporary shelters.
The Observatory said nearly 20,000 people fled the enclave in 24 hours before the flow stopped on Thursday evening.
It called the exodus “the largest displacement since the beginning of the assault on Ghouta.”
The United Nations said it was trying to determine how many people have left the enclave.

 


Lebanese army says soldier killed by Israeli fire

Updated 5 sec ago
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Lebanese army says soldier killed by Israeli fire

BEIRUT: The Lebanese army said Israeli fire killed a soldier on Wednesday, a day after it said three other personnel died in a strike on their position in south Lebanon.
South Lebanon has seen intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants whose group holds sway in the area.
A soldier “died of his wounds sustained due to the Israel army targeting of an army vehicle” in south Lebanon, a statement on X said, after reporting two personnel wounded in the incident near Qlayaa in south Lebanon.
On Tuesday, the military said three soldiers were killed when “the Israeli enemy targeted an army position in the town of Sarafand,” where the health ministry said eight people were wounded.
AFP images showed destruction at the site in Sarafand on the Mediterranean coast, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the southern border, with a concrete structure destroyed and a vehicle among the debris.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its bombing campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops, after almost a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.
South Lebanon and the capital have seen heavy strikes in recent days, though the situation was calmer in Beirut on Tuesday and Wednesday, with US envoy Amos Hochstein visiting for truce talks.
Lebanon’s official National News Agency reported Israeli shelling and air strikes in south Lebanon overnight and on Wednesday, saying Israeli troops were seeking to advance further near the town of Khiam.
Hezbollah on Tuesday said it had attacked Israeli troops near the flashpoint border town.
The NNA also said that Israel forces were “attempting to advance from the Kfarshuba hills... to open up a new front under the cover of fire and artillery shells and air strikes.”
“Violent clashes are taking place” between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, it added.
Hezbollah said it carried out several attacks on Israeli troops near the border Wednesday.
On Tuesday, it claimed more than 30 attacks on troops, positions and locations in central and northern Israel and south Lebanon.

Israel attacks Syria’s Palmyra: SANA

Updated 23 sec ago
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Israel attacks Syria’s Palmyra: SANA

DUBAI: An Israeli attack on Wednesday targeted residential buildings and the industrial zone in central Syria's city of Palmyra, the Syrian state news agency reported.
State media reported there was initial information on a number of wounded.
Explosions were heard earlier in the vicinity of Palmyra, the state news agency said.


Erdogan says Turkiye prepared if US withdraws from Syria

Updated 28 min 4 sec ago
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Erdogan says Turkiye prepared if US withdraws from Syria

ISTANBUL: President Tayyip Erdogan said Turkiye is prepared if the United States decides to withdraw troops from northern Syria, broadcaster CNN Turk and other media cited him as saying on Wednesday.
In an interview with reporters on his way back from the G20 summit in Brazil, Erdogan said Turkiye’s security is paramount and it is holding talks with Russia on the issue of Syria.


40 killed in central Sudan paramilitary attack on village

Updated 20 November 2024
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40 killed in central Sudan paramilitary attack on village

PORT SUDAN: A medic on Wednesday said 40 people were killed “by gunshot wounds” during a paramilitary attack on the Sudanese village of Wad Oshaib in the central state of Al-Jazira.
Eyewitnesses in the village told AFP the Rapid Support Forces, at war with the army since April 2023, attacked the village on Tuesday evening. “The attack resumed this morning,” one eyewitness said by phone Wednesday, adding that paramilitary fighters were “looting property.”


Turkish indictment seeks prison for bank CEO in soccer stars case, state media says

Updated 20 November 2024
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Turkish indictment seeks prison for bank CEO in soccer stars case, state media says

  • The new indictment relates to a previously opened case on the alleged defrauding of players including Turkiye’s Arda Turan and Uruguay’s Fernando Muslera by a former Denizbank branch manager

ISTANBUL: Turkish prosecutors have prepared an indictment seeking a prison sentence of 72 to 240 years for the chief executive of lender Denizbank for the alleged fraud of soccer stars, state-owned Anadolu news agency reported.
The new indictment relates to a previously opened case on the alleged defrauding of players including Turkiye’s Arda Turan and Uruguay’s Fernando Muslera by a former Denizbank branch manager. Denizbank has denied any role in wrongdoing.
Anadolu on Tuesday reported Denizbank CEO Hakan Ates and former assistant general manager Mehmet Aydogdu, who faces similar charges, had denied the allegations against them in the indictment, prepared by the Istanbul chief prosecutor’s office.
Responding to the widely reported details on the indictment, Denizbank said late on Tuesday: “We have not received any information regarding the prosecutor’s investigation reflected in some press and publication outlets today.”
The bank said the disclosure of the indictment details violated the confidentiality of the case. Details of indictments are regularly released via Anadolu news agency.
Denizbank said last week that Aydogdu had resigned.
“I do not accept the allegations,” CEO Ates is quoted as saying in the indictment.
Aydogdu was quoted as saying: “I have no connection with or knowledge of the matter.”
No arrests have been made or court appearances set in relation to the new indictment.
Under the case opened last year, prosecutors sought a 216-year prison term for Secil Erzan, the former branch manager charged with defrauding soccer celebrities including Turan, a former Barcelona midfielder, and Galatasaray goalkeeper Muslera.
According to last year’s indictment, Erzan defrauded some $44 million from 18 individuals, promising substantial returns on their investments in a “secret special fund.” There are 24 complainants in the latest indictment.
Erzan convinced them to invest in the fund in part by telling them that former Turkish national team coach Fatih Terim had also invested, according to that indictment.
Erzan has been jailed as the case against her continues.