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Despite fierce opposition from NATO ally Turkey, U.S. President Donald Trump has approved supplying arms to Kurdish YPG fighters to support an operation to retake the Syrian city of Raqqa from Islamic State, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.Ankara views the Kurdish YPG militia fighting within a larger U.S.-backed coalition as the Syrian extension of the Kurdish PKK militant group, which has fought an insurgency in Turkey’s southeast since 1984.There was no immediate reaction from Turkey, whose president, Tayyip Erdogan, is expected to meet Trump later this month.The Pentagon immediately sought to stress that it saw arming the Kurdish forces “as...

The US President Donald Trump has approved a plan to arm the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces as the only force on the ground that can successfully seize Raqqa in the near future. The US President Donald Trump has approved a plan to arm the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The Pentagon said the move is significant because it supports the notion that the Syrian Democratic Force is the fighting force that will eventually go in to Raqqa under ISIS occupation since 2014. "The Syrian Democratic Forces, partnered with enabling support from U.S. and coalition forces, are the only force on the...

FULL TITLE......................In blow to U.S.-Turkey ties, Trump administration approves plan to directly arm Syrian Kurds against Islamic State..............President Trump has approved a plan to directly arm Kurdish forces fighting in Syria as part of a U.S. military plan to capture Raqqa, the Syrian city that is the Islamic State’s defacto capital, U.S. officials said on Tuesday. The decision, which was first reported by NBC, is sure to anger Turkey, the NATO ally that views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, as a threat and has rebuked the United States for partnering with them in its fight against extremists in...

MUNZIR HUSSEINGIRKÊ LEGÊ- A notable from al-Rashed clan Hawas al-Muflih assured that Syrian Democratic Forces would not permit the Ottoman occupation’s repetition which lasted for 400 years to be repeated.Hawas al-Muflif, the notable of al-Rashed clan in Tel Koçer town explained that the Turkish ambitions in repeating the Ottoman age by its aggression would not be fulfilled, this came in an interview with Hawar news agency about the Turkish aggression on Rojava and the Syrian North.Muflih said” we as the Arabic component condemn the Turkish state’s attacks, these acts would not undermine our will and morale from liberating al-Tabqa and...

Petrenko Afghene, the alleged Russian intelligence captain infiltrated IS ranks, gathering information on the group and reporting it to Russia. (Screenshot) Islamic State has issued a video showing the beheading of what it described as a Russian intelligence officer captured in Syria, the US-based SITE monitoring website reported on Tuesday.The Russian Defence Ministry and the FSB security service were not immediately available for comment.The 12-minute Russian-language video, released on the day Russia celebrates the anniversary of the 1945 victory over Nazi Germany with military parades, showed the man dressed in a black jump suit kneeling in a desert scene and...

Up to 5,000 ethnic Uighurs from China's violence-prone far western region of Xinjiang are fighting in various militant groups in Syria, the Syrian ambassador to China said on Monday, adding that Beijing should be extremely concerned about it. China is worried that Uighurs, a mostly Muslim people who speak a Turkic language, have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight for militants there, having traveled illegally via Southeast Asia and Turkey. Islamic State claimed responsibility for the killing of a Chinese hostage in 2015, highlighting China's concern about Uighurs it says are fighting in the Middle East. Hundreds of people...

Gangs affiliated with the Turkish army have attacked the village of Nemanê in Shehba region and killed a Kurdish civilian after torturing him in front of his family and villagers. Gangs affiliated with the invading Turkish army have attacked the Kurdish village of Nemanê 14 km north of al-Bab this morning. Gangs also confiscated the properties of locals during their aggression. A Kurdish civilian by the name of Mahmûd Ehmed Îsmaîl was murdered by the gangs when he refused to give his house to them. According to local sources, the gangs tortured Îsmaîl in front of his family and the...

Syria’s Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem on Monday said there had been an apparent change of attitude towards Syria by the US administration following the Russian plan for “de-escalation” zones. “It seems the United States, where (President Donald) Trump has said the Syrian crisis has dragged on too long, might have come to the conclusion that there must be an understanding with Russia on a solution.” Asked about US backing for Kurdish groups fighting Islamic State in northeast Syria, Moualem said that what Syrian Kurds were doing against the jihadist group was “legitimate” at this stage and fell within the framework...

ISIS Leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Spotted in Iraq’s Mosul So-called Islamic State (IS) leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has called on his followers to “head towards” the group’s stronghold in Syria, Raqqa, as the city comes under continued pressure from US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a war monitor has said.The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Monday that jihadists have confiscated boats used by civilians between the north and south banks of the Euphrates River and prevented tens of families from crossing into areas controlled by the SDF.According to SOHR, militants have also fortified positions in the north...

<p>US Defence Secretary Jim Mattis said on Monday the United States would closely examine proposed de-escalation zones aimed at easing Syria’s civil war but warned “the devil’s in the details” and that much needed to be worked out.</p> <p>The deal to create “de-escalation” zones in the major areas of conflict in western Syria took effect on Saturday.</p>

A former Obama administration official at the Department of Homeland Security said Sunday that when it comes to the Islamic State slaughtering Egyptian Christians, “what goes around, comes around.” In a tweet posted Sunday, Mohamed Elibiary, who formerly served as senior member of the DHS’ Homeland Security Advisory Council, stated, “Reading ISIS’s latest mag ‘otherizing’ Egypt’s Copts. Subhanallah how what goes around comes around. Coptic ldrs did same to MB Egyptians.” “Subhanallah” is Arabic for “Glory to Allah,” and so in this tweet, Elibiary is expressing praise to Allah for the fact that ISIS is killing Egyptian Christians as apparent...

BEIRUT, Lebanon — United States and allied aircraft will be banned from flying over much of Syria as part of a deal struck by Iran, Russia and Turkey to foster a cease-fire in the Syrian war, a senior Russian diplomat said Friday. But a State Department spokesman later said that the agreement, which the United States did not sign, does not “preclude anyone from going after terrorists wherever they may be in Syria.” The spokesman, Edgar Vasquez, said Russian officials’ interpretation of their own agreement “makes no sense.” A senior State Department official was at the talks in Astana, Kazakhstan,...

Kurdish fighters of the YPG. File photo Ilham Ahmed, Kurdish co-president of the Syrian Democratic Council, said on Friday that she hopes the recent deal by Russia, Iran, and Turkey signed in Kazakstan will not be hurtful for the Syrian Kurds.The co-head of the SDC said that Turkey by this deal is trying to hit the safety and stability of the local self-administration areas in northern Syria–Rojava. She said that Turkey is worried about the presence of U.S. troops on the east of the Euphrates, and Russian soldiers on the west of the Euphrates in Efrin, Til Rifaat, and other...

Full text of the agreement reached between Iran, Russia and Turkey in Astana on May 4 on the creation of de-escalation areas in Syria has been released. The memorandum released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation stated that the aim was “to put a prompt end to violence, improve the humanitarian situation and create favorable conditions to advance political settlement of the conflict in the Syrian Arab Republic”. Full text of the agreement made between Iran, Russia and Turkey in Astane on May 4 is as follows: “The Islamic Republic of Iran, the Russian Federation...

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. “If they [Kurdish forces] go too far, our [forces won’t care] that American armored vehicles are there. … Unexpectedly, a number of rockets may also hit them by accident,” said Ilnur Cevik, in response to a radio interview question on the recent deployment of American soldiers with the Kurdish militias in Northern Syria. Following last week’s surprise Turkish airstrikes on Iraqi and Syrian Kurdish forces in...

An FBI translator with top-secret security clearance traveled to Syria in 2014 and married a key Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist she was assigned to investigate, causing a serious security headache to the agency. CNN reported on Tuesday that the rogue employee, Daniela Greene, lied to the FBI when she told them she was traveling to visit her parents, and instead warned her new husband he was under investigation, according to federal court records. The man Greene married was Denis Cuspert, a German rapper turned ISIS recruiter...

US President Donald Trump (L), Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. File photo US president Donald Trump will host Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on May 16-17 at the White House, in the first meeting between the two leaders. Syrian Kurdish leaders say that Trump should pressure the U.S. to solve the problems between the Kurds and Turkey.Most likely the Turkish president Erdogan will ask the US administration to end its support to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)–that since November 2016 are engaged in a campaign to defeat ISIS in Raqqa.Sihanok Dibo, a Kurdish official of the Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD), told ARA News...

In Tabqa, freedom sprouts from war, strife and blood. One of the most important phases in the Wrath of Euphrates operation launched on the night of March 21 is the Tabqa operation. Tabqa is now on the eve of being completely cleared of ISIS gangs. The Tabqa town consists of two parts. The town center, where the people mostly live, has been completely cleared of ISIS gangs. The gangs are now trapped in the 7-story lodging buildings nearby the dam. SDF fighters have turned their barrels towards this area. While SDF fighters clash with the gangs on one hand, on...

The Czech parliament approved on Tuesday a resolution recognizing the fact of the Armenian Genocide in 1915 in Ottoman Empire, Arka news agency reports. Czech President Milos Zeman called the killing of Armenians genocide as well. On the occasion of the anniversary, on 24th April, the president sent a letter to Barsega Pilavchian, the leader of the Armenian community in the Czech Republic.

SDF commander and spokeswoman for the "Operation Wrath of Euphrates" Cihan Sheikh Amed during a press statement. The spokeswoman of the “Operation Wrath of Euphrates”, launched by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria, said that the US-backed force has set its sights on Raqqa after capturing Tabqah city centre on Tuesday.Cihan Sheikh Ahmed, speaking to Dihaber news agency, said the US-backed fighters had liberated the strategically important Tabqah city centre after heavy clashes in nine neighbourhoods in the past three days.Operation prolonged due to damage controlAhmed, also an SDF commander, added that the operation had...