Threatening continued assaults on the Kurdish militia in Syrian Kurdistan, the Turkish president has warned he will not request anyone’s permission to do whatever is necessary to prevent the spread of support for Kurdish autonomy, even if it requires bombing US-allied rebels.

In a clear message to dissuade Kurds from supporting the self-declared autonomous town of Gire Spi (Tel Abyad) near the Turkish border, President Tayyip Erdogan said that he will “do what is necessary,” including using force, to eradicate the potential source of separatism along its borders.

Gire Spi, on the border with Turkey, was liberated in June from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) by Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) fighters with the help of American-led air strikes.

Last week, a local council led by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) declared it part of the system of autonomous self-government established by the Kurds. Since the conflict in Syria broke out in 2011, Syrian Kurds have declared three autonomous zones, called “cantons,” across Syrian Kurdistan (northern Syria), but deny that they are aiming to establish their own state.

Alarmed by Kurdish territorial gains, Turkey fears that the latest creation of autonomous Gire Spi canton could stir separatism among its own Kurdish minority. YPG has been a key ally of the US in the fight against Islamic State in Syria, but Erdogan’s message sends out a clear sign that Turkey’s national interests supersedes those of the United States and NATO.

“We are determined to [combat] anything that threatens us along the Syrian border, inside or out,” Turkish President told Kanal 24 television station on Wednesday.

“If the Kurds withdraw and don’t form a canton, there’s no problem. But if the mindset continues, then what is necessary will be done or we face serious problems,” Erdogan said.

The Turkish President also accused Washington of double standards and claimed that the PYD allegedly carried out ethnic cleansing of Arabs and Turkmen in Northern Syria, equating US support for the Kurdish militias to aiding terrorism.

“They don’t even accept the PYD as a terrorist organization. What kind of nonsense is this?” he said. “The West still has the mentality of ‘my terrorist is good, yours is bad,’” Erdogan said.

Turkey has for the past three decades been trying to end an insurgency by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters. PKK is classified as a terrorist organization by the United States and EU, but its image has improved in the West as its sister party in Syrian Kurdistan has been at the forefront of the fight against the Islamic State.

Erdogan said 1,400 PKK militants were fighting alongside the YPG in Syrian Kurdistan.

Ankara confirmed on Monday that it had already conducted two strikes on Kurdish forces in Syria as a “warning.”

“This was a warning. Pull yourself together,” Erdogan said. “If you try to do this elsewhere – Turkey doesn’t need permission from anyone – we will do what is necessary.”

With Kurds making up around 22.5 million of the Turkey’s 75-million population, its ultimate nightmare would be Turkish Kurds cooperating with their Syrian brethren in search of autonomy on both sides.

Turkey still denies the constitutional existence of its own Kurds.

ekurd.net

The Kurdish Peshmerga delegation has arrived in Europe and plans to ask for more military aid for Kurdish forces against the Islamic State militants.

A delegation from the Kurdish Peshmerga forces has asked the Belgian government for more weapons, reports Dutch newspaper Telegraaf.

A Peshmerga delegation that spoke at a parliament hearing said Islamic State (IS) has tanks, drones and modern weapons, while the Peshmerga forces are continuing to get by with old Soviet weapons.

Former Peshmerga Minister Sheikh Jafar Mustafa Ali therefore called on Belgium for assistance with intelligence, training, ammunition and chemical attack protection.

Belgium has sent ten military advisors to Iraq, who work from Baghdad. The Kurds are keen to receive support from the Belgian militiary.

“Baghdad works against us,” said Jafar Mustafa Ali. “We don’t receive our budget, and Baghdad is hindering arm deliveries to Kurdistan,” he said.

basnews.com

Islamic State militants have killed at least 13 journalists and other media workers in Mosul since seizing the Iraqi city in 2014, a watchdog says, according to BBC News.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said they were among the jihadist group’s “priority targets”.

The fate of least 10 of the 48 media workers who have been abducted there over the past 16 months is unknown.

RSF said IS had also taken control of local TV and radio stations, turning Mosul into an “information black hole”.

Their studios and equipment were also seen as “spoils of war” and had been used to pursue “information offensives”, according to the RSF’s Middle East and Maghreb chief, Alexandra El Khazen.

Equipment seized from Sama Mosul TV is believed to have been used to record the sermon delivered by the group’s leader and self-proclaimed “caliph”, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, at the city’s Great Mosque in July 2014 – his first public appearance.

panarmenian.net

Russia has reportedly been delivering Iranian weapons to Syria’s embattled regime on a daily basis. Over the past 10 days, shipments in Russian cargo planes have taken place twice daily, the Fox News network reported Thursday, citing Western intelligence sources.

The shipments are part of a broad Russian-Iranian-Syrian alliance forged in recent months by a senior Iranian general, Al-Quds Force commander Maj. Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Soleimani is said to be coordinating the Russian-Iranian supply effort.

The planes are operating out of Russia’s newly expanded operating base in the Syrian coastal city of Latakia, and were spotted by intelligence agencies on the tarmac at the base.

According to the report, “the flights are not registered, and are in breach of two United Nations Security Council resolutions which impose an arms embargo on Iran.”

Along with the weapons, Iran is shipping troops into Syria to aid embattled Syrian strongman Bashar Assad — these too are arriving via the Russian base in Latakia.

While Iran insists it is only helping Assad’s forces in the country’s four-year-old civil war in an “advisory capacity,” several Iranian generals and a significant number of Shiite Lebanese Hezbollah fighters loyal to Iran have been killed in battles against Islamic State, the al-Qaeda-linked Nusra Front and other rebel groups.

ap.com

Continuing its military support to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting Islamic State (IS) in northern Iraq, the US government has decided to send extra military shipments to Erbil.

Kurdish Member of the Iraqi Parliamentary Committee for Security and Defence Affairs Shakhawan Abdullah told BasNews that in a meeting with Stuart Jones US Ambassador to Iraq, the US official confirmed the news.

BasNews understands that the shipment will include weapons, ammunition and military equipment.

The MP claimed that operations to liberate Mosul and Hawija are approaching, and the Peshmerga forces are fully prepared for any eventuality.

Since the start of IS crisis in northern Iraq last year, the US and its international coalition members have enhanced Peshmerga capabilities with military equipment and training programs.

basnews.com

US moved carriers into the region to prevent Israeli craft from attacking suspected Iranian nuclear plant.

United States has been spying on Israel in order to prevent the Jewish State from attacking suspected Iranian nuclear sites, according to Wall Street Journal.

The White House had sent an additional aircraft carrier to the region after learning that Israeli aircraft had flown into Iranian airspace in what U.S. officials feared was a test run for an attack on Iran’s Fordow plant.

The carriers had attack aircraft on board prepared to respond to any Israeli attack on Iran.

If that wasn’t enough to strain the conceit that the U.S. is Israel’s strongest supporter, U.S. officials also revealed to the Journal that Israel was responsible for the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists.

Several U.S. officials also claimed that Israel wanted to strike Iran in 2012, and that the United States pressured Israeli officials into retreating.

The U.S. attempted to keep its nuclear power negotiations with Iran concealed from Israel because of disagreements over the extent to which Iran should be permitted to pursue a nuclear program.

Israel took the position that because Iran has an abundance of energy resources, it had no peaceful purposes for its nuclear program.

Washington believes there are fewer than 2,000 Iranian troops in Syria helping the forces of President Bashar Assad and more than 1,000 in Iraq supporting the Baghdad government, the top US military officer said on Tuesday.

Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the number of Iranian forces in Iraq had fluctuated over time.

“I think there’s more than 1,000 that are on the ground in Iraq,” Dunford said. “In Syria, we think the numbers are probably something less than 2,000.”

jpost.com

The Iraqi airstrikes killed terrorist’s minister and six of his bodyguards near the Badush in Nineveh, sources said.

On Monday, Iraq’s army and al-Hashid al-Shaabi popular forces regained full control over several strategic bases of ISIL terrorists in Anbar province.

The Iraqi forces retook the ISIL bases in the areas of East Haseebah, al-Sajariyyah, Theela and Al Sufiyyah, East of the city of Ramadi, and killed dozens of the militants and destroyed scores of their armed vehicles, informed sources said.

Earlier reports said Iraqi volunteer forces, al-Hashid al-Shaabi, discovered and seized US-made military hardware and ammunition in captured terrorists’ positions.

The Iraqi forces discovered US-made military hardware and ammunition, including missiles, in terrorists’ command center in Salahuddin province, informed sources said Monday.