Car bomb kills 16 including 3 Turkish personnel in NE Syria

Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies last year seized a 120-km stretch of land inside the Syrian border from Kurdish forces. (AFP)
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Updated 11 December 2020
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Car bomb kills 16 including 3 Turkish personnel in NE Syria

  • Turkey said two of its gendarmes had been killed and a further eight wounded

A car bomb killed 16 people including two civilians and three Turkish personnel on Thursday at a checkpoint in the Turkish-held border town of Ras Al-Ain in northeast Syria, a war monitor said.
The other 11 killed were local security forces or members of a Turkish-backed faction manning the checkpoint, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Twelve more were wounded, it said.
Turkey said two of its gendarmes had been killed and a further eight wounded.
Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies last year seized a 120-km stretch of land inside the Syrian border from Kurdish forces, running from Ras Al-Ain to Tal Abyad. Such bombings are common in Ras Al-Ain.
In July, the blast from an explosives-rigged motorbike ripped through a vegetable market there, killing at least eight people, including six civilians.
The Kurdish-led People’s Protection Units (YPG), from whom the Turks and their allies seized the territory, played a key role in the US-backed fight against Daesh in Syria.

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Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies last year seized a 120-km stretch of land inside the Syrian border from Kurdish forces, running from Ras Al-Ain to Tal Abyad. Such bombings are common in Ras Al-Ain.

But Ankara views them as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has waged a deadly insurgency in southeastern Turkey since 1984.
In a separate incident, Daesh killed nine Iran-trained Syrian fighters in an attack on one of their positions in eastern Syria on Thursday, a war monitor said.
The Observatory said a Daesh sleeper cell carried out the dawn attack on the desert outpost outside the Euphrates Valley town of Al-Mayadeen.
Observatory head Rami Abdul Rahman said the fighters killed were Syrians led and trained by Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards.
At least two Daesh fighters were killed in ensuing clashes.
Since March 2019, intermittent fighting has killed more than 1,000 government troops and allied Iran-backed militiamen, most of them in sparsely populated areas of the Syrian Desert, the Observatory says.
More than 580 Daesh militants have also died, the monitor says.
Daesh overran large parts of Syria and Iraq and proclaimed a cross-border “caliphate” in 2014, before multiple offensives in the two countries led to its territorial defeat.
Syria’s civil war has killed more than 387,000 people and displaced millions from their homes since erupting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
The dead include more than 130,500 pro-government fighters, among them foreigners.


Explosion occurs at Turkish oil refinery during drills

Updated 53 min 21 sec ago
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Explosion occurs at Turkish oil refinery during drills

  • A fire was quickly brought under control by the privately owned company’s own emergency crews

ANKARA: An explosion occurred at an oil refinery in northwestern Turkey on Tuesday, an official said, adding the situation was “under control” and there were no reports of any casualties.
Mayor Tahir Buyukakin told private NTV television that the blast occurred at the Turkish Petroleum Refineries company, Tupras, in Izmit provicince during “routine drills.”
A fire was quickly brought under control by the privately owned company’s own emergency crews and no request for help was made, he said.
Video footage from the site showed smoke rising from the refinery.
It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion.


Lebanon media reports strike on residential building south of Beirut

Updated 05 November 2024
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Lebanon media reports strike on residential building south of Beirut

BEIRUT: Lebanese state media reported a strike on an apartment in the Jiyeh coastal area south of Beirut on Tuesday, more than a month into the Israel-Hezbollah war.
The official National News Agency said “a raid targeted a residential apartment in a building in the town of Jiyeh,” where an AFP correspondent said a large plume of grey smoke covered the area.


Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says killed eight militants since attack on police in province bordering Pakistan

  • Militants from the Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid in Sistan-Baluchistan province on October 26
  • Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces

TEHRAN: Iran’s military has killed eight militants in an operation in the restive southeast since a deadly attack last month on a police station, state media reported Tuesday.
Militants from the Pakistan-based Jaish Al-Adl group killed 10 police officers during a raid on October 26 in Sistan-Baluchistan province — one of the deadliest attacks in the region in recent months.
Sistan-Baluchistan, which straddles the border with Afghanistan and Pakistan, is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces.
It has long been a flashpoint for cross-border attacks by separatists and extremists, opposed to the authorities in Iran.
Revolutionary Guards commander Ahmad Shafahi said “a total of eight terrorists have been killed” since the beginning of operations in the province, according to the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.
“Fourteen other terrorists have been arrested,” including key figures involved in the attack, he said, adding security forces seized weapons and ammunition.
Shortly after the attack in Taftan county, some 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) southeast of the capital Tehran, a report on the Tasnim news agency said four militants had been killed and four others arrested.
Late on Monday, IRNA quoted Guards ground forces commander Mohammad Pakpour as saying the attackers “were not Iranian,” though he did not specify their nationalities.
In early October, at least six people including police officers were killed in two separate attacks in the province.
Jaish Al-Adl said on Telegram they had carried out the attacks.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, the group is proscribed as a “terrorist organization” by both Iran and the United States.
 
 


Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

Updated 05 November 2024
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Over 100 patients to be evacuated from Gaza, WHO says

  • The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing

GENEVA: More than 100 patients including children suffering from trauma injuries and chronic diseases will be evacuated from Gaza on Wednesday in a rare transfer out of the war-ravaged enclave, a World Health Organization official said.
“These are ad hoc measures. What we have requested repeatedly is a sustained medevac (medical evacuation) outside of Gaza,” said Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, adding that 12,000 people were awaiting transfer.
The patients will travel in a large convoy on Wednesday via the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel before flying to the United Arab Emirates, he added, and then a portion will travel to Romania.


Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

Updated 05 November 2024
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Iran says two French detainees held in good conditions

  • In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security

DUBAI: Two French citizens detained in Iran since May 2022 are in good health and being held in good detention conditions, Iran’s judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said on Tuesday, according to state media.
Last month, France’s foreign ministry said the conditions that three of its nationals were being held in by Iran were unacceptable.
“According to the relevant authorities, these two people have good conditions in the detention center and are in good health, so any claim regarding their conditions being abnormal is rejected,” Jahangir said.
The spokesperson was referring to Cecile Koehler and Jacques Paris, who he said were arrested on charges of espionage and will have their next court hearing on Nov. 24.
Jahangir did not mention the third French national detained in Iran. French media have disclosed only his first name, Olivier.
In recent years, Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards have arrested dozens of dual nationals and foreigners, mostly on charges related to espionage and security.
Rights groups have accused Iran of trying to extract concessions from other countries through such arrests.