Kurds - Page 12

In a decision bound to infuriate Turkey, a senior Trump administration official said that heavier weapons would be approved for Syrian Kurdish forces as they close in on the Islamic State capital of Raqqa.

In the latest incendiary comments from the Turkish government, a senior adviser to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned on Wednesday of the possibility of future Turkish attacks on American forces operating in the region.

Contents: Kurdish forces in Syria take Tabqa city en route to Raqqa; US military moves to protect Syrian Kurds from Turkey’s military

According to Turkey’s Hurriyet Daily News, the United States may “press the Raqqa” button after President Donald Trump’s May 16 meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey has expressed its condolences to the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) after airstrikes led to the deaths of several Peshmerga soldiers but vowed to continue operations in the region following attacks on Syrian Kurdish and Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in both countries this week.

This story originally appeared at the Clarion Project: By Ryan Mauro The Syriac Military Council, a Christian militia in Syria opposed to the Assad regime, condemned Turkey for bombing its U.S.-backed Kurdish allies who are fighting ISIS. The Christians accused

The Turkish military has launched a series of airstrikes against the U.S.-allied Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) in Syria and the U.S.-designated terrorist group Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Iraq, which Ankara considers the same organization.

In an interview with the Russian state outlet Sputnik, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad argues “there’s no difference” between American soldiers and “terrorists on the ground” in Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his first interview since Sunday’s referendum to implement a presidential system in Turkey, protested those who noted his party won the vote by a slim margin, comparing the vote to a soccer game.

The UK Daily Mail reports that an April 11 airstrike in Syria by U.S. coalition planes accidentally hit a Syrian Democratic Forces unit, killing 18 “friendly fighters.”

Women for Women International has posted an astonishing interview conducted by its founder, Zainab Salbi, of two eyewitnesses to the horrors of the Islamic State.

Contents: Migrant camp in northern France housing 1,600 people burnt to the ground; The Le Touquet treaty, which moves Britain’s border into France, will be reconsidered

Just after the election, Breitbart published an analysis arguing that President Donald J. Trump was a cause for hope for Kurdish national aspirations. It has been 81 days since the inauguration, so, has the outlook improved for the American-Kurdish alliance?

Turkey’s Kurdish minority is suffering from a “slow-motion genocide” at the hands of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government as he pushes the country towards an “authoritarian system of governance,” the U.S. representative of a pro-Kurdish opposition party told a House panel.

On Thursday, following the publication of gruesome images of the victims of an apparent chemical attack on civilians, reports surfaced that President Donald Trump ordered a missile attack on a base in Syria. The reports follows a week in which President

WASHINGTON – Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told Breitbart News that, while his country does not have “any problems with the Kurds,” they are not amenable to an independent, Kurdish state at the moment.

The Netherlands is on high alert after a number of Kurds were attacked and stabbed outside the Turkish consulate in Brussels while trying to cast their votes in a referendum on increasing the powers of President Erdoğan. Supporters of the Islamist

The head of Turkey’s leftist, anti-Islamist Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) announced this week that he will begin a hunger strike from prison where he is awaiting trial for allegedly supporting terrorists.

According to U.S. commanders – specifically Army Lt. General Steven Townsend, commander of Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve – American and Russian troops “have converged literally within hand-grenade range of each other.”

The Turkish Security Council and Prime Minister Binali Yildirim announced Thursday that Turkey would officially conclude “Euphrates Shield,” a military operation begun in August to keep the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia from inching too close to the Turkish border.

Russia’s state-run Sputnik News ran a story on Monday that quoted Turkish “observers” warning President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that he will be forced to choose between Assad and the Kurds when the war against the Islamic State in Syria concludes.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu says Turkey has been “very clear” in explaining its presence in Syria: to defeat the Islamic State.

U.S. forces have joined an offensive behind Islamic State lines in Syria, aiming to recapture a strategically vital dam near the ISIS capital of Raqqa.

The Turkish Foreign Ministry announced Wednesday that it had officially summoned the chargé d’affaires at the Russian embassy to protest an attack that left one Turkish soldier dead, killed by fighters allied to the Syrian People’s Democratic Union (PYD), which is allied with Russia.

Six armed Iraqi Kurdish parties have reportedly joined forces in advance of expected protests and clashes on Iranian soil on March 21, the Kurdish New Year known as Newroz.

The Pentagon cast substantial doubt on a possible role for Turkey in the assault on Raqqa, the Islamic State’s capital in Syria, during a press conference in Iraq on Wednesday.

A national security expert and professor at Liberty University tells Breitbart News that, during his recent visit to war-ravaged Iraq, he found many Christians and Muslim Kurds who “openly” expressed their support for U.S. President Donald Trump as a form of protest against radical Islam and the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL).

The State Department is trying to push members of the U.S.-designated terrorist group known as the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) out of northern Iraq’s Sinjar region where the outlawed Kurdish group claims it is protecting the Yazidi minority community. Fighters with the

The United Nations Human Rights Office issued a devastating report on Friday on widespread human rights violations in Turkey as part of a government security crackdown between July 2015 and December 2016.

Contents: ISIS claims responsibility for hospital attack in Kabul, Afghanistan; CENTCOM commander: Afghanistan ‘stalemate’ requires ‘thousands’ more US troops; Report: Trump administration shuts out Russia and Turkey in Syria

The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) group, led by the Kurdish YPG but boasting a variety of Arab and Christian militias, is signaling that it can capture the city of Raqqa from the Islamic State with support from the United States and pointedly without help from Turkey.

In America, some attention-seeking activists purposely got arrested by blocking traffic outside the Trump International Hotel so they could later become the face of so-called gender oppression.

Contents: Hundreds of American troops deployed to Syria in support of local forces; As more US troops enter Syria, the endgame becomes fuzzier

The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed a chemical weapons attack targeting women and children in Mosul, Iraq, this week — likely an Islamic State operation intended to slow the liberation of its regional capital.

Lt. General Stephen Townsend, the top American commander for anti-ISIS operations in Syria and Iraq, said on Wednesday that Russian and Syrian planes bombed villages held by U.S.-backed forces.

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry warned that Ankara would not hesitate to bomb the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ) should it seek to remain in the city of Manbij following the eradication of the Islamic State from that area. The YPG has been a longtime American ally, and the Pentagon is working to assert that it does not pose a threat to Turkey.