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The comments came as Turkish artillery kept up bombardment of Kurdish bases and other targets near Tal Rifaat and Kobani, two Syrian military sources told Reuters. Turkey said the Syrian Kurdish YPG killed two people in mortar attacks from northern Syria on Monday, following Turkish air operations against the militia at the weekend and a deadly bomb attack in Istanbul a week earlier. The YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said 15 civilians and fighters were killed in Turkish strikes in recent days. Turkey has mounted several major military operations against the YPG and Islamic State militants in northern Syria in recent years. More than 40,000 people have been killed in fighting between the PKK and the Turkish state which began 1984.
ISTANBUL, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Turkey's foreign ministry summoned Sweden's ambassador on Monday to request an investigation into an incident in Stockholm that it regards as insulting to President Tayyip Erdogan, two diplomatic sources said. In the incident, they said, a group sympathetic to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) staged a protest near Turkey's embassy in Stockholm and projected what Ankara said was "terrorism propaganda" and insulting content about Erdogan onto the building. Turkey expects Sweden to track down those responsible for the action, the diplomatic sources said. The incident comes at a sensitive time in bilateral relations when Sweden and Finland are seeking Turkey's approval of their bid to join NATO. Reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever Writing by Ezgi Erkoyun Editing by Gareth JonesOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry said a total of 89 targets in northern Syria and Iraq were hit during the airstrikes. ISTANBUL—Turkey said it carried out a broad series of airstrikes in northern Syria and Iraq early on Sunday, intensifying a military campaign against Kurdish militants, whom the Turkish government blames for a deadly bombing in Istanbul a week ago. The Turkish Defense Ministry said the strikes hit 89 separate targets associated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and its Syrian branch, which Turkey blamed for a bombing in Istanbul last week that killed six people and wounded 81 others. The PKK—as the Kurdish group is known—and its Syrian branch both denied involvement in the attack, and no one has claimed responsibility.
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Turkish air strikes target Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq
  + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com   time to read: +1 min
ISTANBUL, Nov 20 (Reuters) - The Turkish defence ministry said early on Sunday it carried out air strikes on outlawed Kurdish militant bases in northern Syria and northern Iraq, which it said were used to carry out attacks on Turkey. The strikes targeted bases of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which Turkey says is a wing of the PKK, the ministry added in a statement. Turkey said on Tuesday it plans to pursue targets in northern Syria after it completes a cross-border operation against the PKK militants in Iraq, following a deadly bomb last weekend in Istanbul. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said late Saturday that Turkish aircraft shelled two villages populated with internally displaced people in northern Syria. Turkey has conducted three incursions so far into northern Syria against the YPG militia.
Turkish air strikes hit villages in northern Syria, SDF says
  + stars: | 2022-11-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com   time to read: +1 min
Nov 20 (Reuters) - Turkish aircraft shelled two villages populated with internally displaced people in northern Syria, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Twitter late on Saturday. Turkey said on Tuesday it plans to pursue targets in northern Syria after it completes a cross-border operation against outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in Iraq, following a deadly bomb last weekend in Istanbul. "In addition to the Dahir al-Arab village, which is populated with Ras al-Ain IDPs who were also forcibly displaced by the Turkish occupation in 2019," he added. No group has claimed responsibility for the blast on the busy pedestrian avenue, and the PKK and SDF have denied involvement. Turkey has conducted three incursions so far into northern Syria against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which it says is a wing of the PKK.
Reuters verified the location of two video clips using the distinctive arches and buildings that match file images. The semi-official Tasnim news agency, however, denied Khomeini's house was set on fire, saying a small number of people had gathered outside the house. The social media videos show dozens of people cheering as a flash of fire is sparked in a building. Two intelligence agents were killed in clashes with protesters on Thursday night, according to the Revolutionary Guards' news site. Iranian media said two Revolutionary Guards members were killed during unrest in the northwestern city of Bukan and a police colonel died in Sanandaj, capital of Kurdistan province late on Thursday.
The attack that killed six people on a busy Istanbul street on Sunday has brought national security back on the political agenda. With Turkey quick to accuse Syria-based Kurdish militants for the latest attack, analysts say Erdogan may now press for another cross-border campaign into northern Syria after three such incursions since 2016. Were Sunday's attack followed by more, Peker expected outcomes including a rapid escalation of "counter-terrorism operations, particularly against the PKK and the YPG". The YPG, espousing the same ideology as the PKK, has established control over swathes of northern Syria since war began there in 2011. In a November re-run - following that spate of violence and two major Islamic State bomb attacks - AK Party won comfortably.
ANKARA, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Turkey plans to pursue targets in northern Syria after it completes a cross-border operation against outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in Iraq, a senior official said on Tuesday, after a deadly weekend bomb in Istanbul. The government has blamed Kurdish militants for the blast on Istanbul's Istiklal Avenue on Sunday that killed six people and injured more than 80. Threats posed by Kurdish militants or Islamic State on Turkey are unacceptable, the official told Reuters, adding that Ankara will clear threats along its southern border "one way or another." "Syria is a national security problem for Turkey. Turkey has conducted three incursions so far into northern Syria against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which it says is a wing of the PKK.
Iranian missiles and drones struck the headquarters of Kurdish groups near the cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah in Iraq on Monday. Iran attacked Kurdish groups in northern Iraq with drones and missiles on Monday after weeks of warnings from Tehran that it would target foreign actors it accuses of orchestrating a two-month-long antigovernment protest movement at home. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC, targeted bases of Kurdish groups near the cities of Erbil and Sulaimaniyah, leaving at least two people dead and nine injured, according to Iraqi Kurdistan’s regional government. It was the second major attack in the region since the protests began, though the IRGC has fired artillery at less populated areas on multiple occasions.
People mourn the victims of an explosion on a busy shopping street in Istanbul. ISTANBUL—Turkey blamed Kurdish militants from neighboring Syria for a bombing over the weekend in the heart of Istanbul that killed six people and wounded 81 others, as authorities arrested a woman they accused of carrying out the attack. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the attack was perpetrated by members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a militant group, who crossed into Turkey from Syria.
Turkey blamed Kurdish militants on Monday for an explosion that killed six people on a busy Istanbul shopping street, and police detained a Syrian woman suspected of having planted the bomb among a sweep of 47 arrests. Istanbul police named the suspected bomber as Ahlam Albashir, a Syrian national, who was detained in an overnight raid in the city’s Kucukcekmece district. Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia were responsible for the blast on Istiklal Avenue on Sunday, an incident that recalled similar attacks in years past. According to Istanbul police, Albashir said during questioning that she was trained by Kurdish militants and entered Turkey through Afrin, another northern Syrian town. Istanbul has been attacked in the past by Kurdish, Islamist and leftist militants.
Factbox: Deadly Istanbul blast echoes past attacks in Turkey
  + stars: | 2022-11-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com   time to read: +4 min
Dec 31, 2016 - Islamic State claimed responsibility for a New Year's Day mass shooting in which 39 people were killed after a lone gunman opened fire in a packed Istanbul nightclub. View of ambulances and police at the scene after an explosion on busy pedestrian Istiklal street in Istanbul, Turkey, November 13, 2022. March 19, 2016 - A suicide bomber killed four people in a busy shopping district of Istiklal Street in the heart of Istanbul. Jan 12, 2016 - A suicide bomber killed at least 10 people, most of them German tourists, in Istanbul's historic heart in an attack then authorities blamed on Islamic State. Sept 8, 2015 - Kurdish militants killed 15 police officers in two bombings in eastern Turkish provinces of Mardin and Igdir.
Nov 14 (Reuters) - The Kurdish militant group PKK denied involvement in Sunday's bomb attack in Istanbul, saying it did not target civilians, in a statement on its website on Monday. "It is out of question for us to target civilians in any way," the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said, refuting Turkey's claims that it and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia were responsible for the blast that killed six people. Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Editing by Toby ChopraOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
ANKARA, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Turkish authorities believe the person who carried out a bomb attack in Istanbul on Sunday is linked to Kurdish militants but they are not ruling out Islamic State ties, a senior Turkish official said. The official told Reuters that initial findings pointed to the person having connections to the Kurdish militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is deemed a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. Reporting by Orhan Coskun; Writing by Ece Toksabay; Editing by Jonathan Spicer and Mark HeinrichOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Local officials and security sources said the attacks had struck targets near Erbil and Sulaimaniya. The Revolutionary Guards have attacked Iranian Kurdish militant opposition bases in Iraq's Kurdish region since the death of Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16 triggered nationwide unrest. Iran has accused Iraq-based Kurdish militants of fomenting the unrest and threatened strikes against armed Iranian Kurdish dissidents. In an attack by the Guards in September, 13 people were killed and 58 were wounded near Erbil and Sulaimaniya. A media and public relation official with the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), an exiled Iranian Kurdish opposition party, told Reuters two of its fighters were killed in attacks on four of its offices.
[1/5] Police members transport the body of an unidentified person after an explosion on busy pedestrian Istiklal street in Istanbul, Turkey, November 13, 2022. "We have evaluated that the instruction for the attack came from Kobani," Soylu said, adding that bomber had passed through Afrin, another region in northern Syria. Hundreds of people fled the historic Istiklal Avenue after the blast on Sunday, as ambulances and police raced in. Turkey has carried out three incursions in northern Syria against the YPG, with the latest in 2019, seizing hundreds of kilometres of land. Condemnations of the attack and condolences for the victims poured in from several countries including Azerbaijan, Britain, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Pakistan and Ukraine.
View of ambulances at the scene after an explosion on busy pedestrian Istiklal street in Istanbul, Turkey, November 13, 2022. Six people were killed and 81 others wounded on Sunday when an explosion rocked a busy pedestrian street in central Istanbul in what Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan called a bomb attack that "smells like terrorism." Some four hours after the blast, Vice President Fuat Oktay and Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu visited the site of the explosion. "We will resolve this matter very soon," Oktay told reporters. Vice President Oktay said, "We are evaluating it as an act of terror".
REUTERS/Umit BektasGENEVA, Nov 8 (Reuters) - United Nations experts called on Ankara to release the head of Turkey's medical association, who was arrested after she called for an investigation into allegations of chemical weapons used by the Turkish army. Five special rapporteurs from the U.N. Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council said on Tuesday that Turkey should stop using counter-terrorism legislation to intimidate human rights defenders and release Fincanci. "Human rights defenders and medical practitioners' ability to speak truth to power must be protected. Their role in exposing human rights violations is one of the cornerstones of democratic societies," they added. Turkey's defence ministry and top officials also said the armed forces had never used chemical weapons in their operations against Kurdish militants.
Lehtikuva/Vesa Moilanen/via REUTERSANKARA, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Sweden's new prime minister vowed on Tuesday a firmer stance on fighting crime and terrorism during a visit to Turkey where he will seek the approval of President Tayyip Erdogan for his country's bid to join NATO. "I think the new government will have an even firmer approach in (relation to) the NATO application from Sweden," Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson told reporters in Ankara during a visit to the Turkish parliament. "One of this government's main priorities is fighting crime, fighting organized crime, fighting the connection between organized crime and terrorism," he said. Sweden, along with the United States and several other NATO countries, has supported the YPG in its fight against Islamic State. "Sweden wants to join NATO to enhance our own security, but Sweden also wants to be a security provider for others," Kristersson said.
STOCKHOLM, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Sweden's new government will distance itself from the Kurdish YPG militia as it tries to win Turkey's approval to join NATO, Sweden's foreign minister told Swedish Radio on Saturday. Sweden, along with the United States and several other NATO countries, has supported the YPG in the fight against Islamic State. However, Turkey has vowed to block Sweden's application to join NATO if it doesn't stop supporting the militia group. "There is too close a connection between these organizations and the PKK ... for it to be good for the relationship between us and Turkey," Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom told public service broadcaster Swedish Radio. Sweden and Finland applied to join NATO earlier this year as a direct consequence of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Iran's Revolutionary Guards top commander warned protesters that Saturday would be their last day of taking to the streets, the harshest warning yet by Iranian authorities. Nevertheless, videos on social media, unverifiable by Reuters, showed confrontations between students and riot police and Basij forces in universities all over Iran. HISTORY OF CRACKDOWNSThe Guards and its affiliated Basij force have crushed dissent in the past. "So far, Basijis have shown restraint and they have been patient," the head of the Revolutionary Guards in the Khorasan Junubi province, Brigadier General Mohammadreza Mahdavi, was quoted as saying by the state news agency IRNA. A joint statement released by Iran’s intelligence ministry and the intelligence organisation of the Revolutionary Guards on Friday had accused Hamedi and Mohammadi of being CIA foreign agents.
Almost six weeks after the death of Mahsa Amini, the unrest in Iran shows little sign of abating. Defying security forces, thousands marched to her grave in the northwestern city of Saqqez on Wednesday, as crowds clashed with security forces on the streets of the capital, Tehran, and several other major metropolitan areas. Wednesday was 40 days since Amini's death after she was detained by morality police last month. “Freedom, freedom! A crowd chants "Freedom, freedom!
Security forces clashed with crowds who had gathered at 22-year-old Amini's grave in her hometown of Saqqez, according to a semi-official Iranian news agency, which also said that the internet in the region was subsequently cut-off. Anti-government protests since Amini’s death last month have persisted across Iran despite an intense crackdown. Cemetery clashes“A limited number of those present at Mahsa Amini’s memorial clashed with police forces on the outskirts of Saqqez and were dispersed," according to the semi-official news agency ISNA. Internet in Saqqez was then "cut off due to security considerations,” the agency reported, adding about 10,000 people had gathered. The governor also said that Amini's family decided against holding a memorial service for her and described as "false" any reports of roads to Saqqez being closed.
Thousands of protesters gathered at a cemetery in Iran’s restive Kurdistan province to mourn Mahsa Amini, the young woman whose death in police custody last month sparked demonstrations throughout the Islamic Republic. The gatherings took place on the 40th day since Ms. Amini’s death, a date of remembrance in Islamic tradition, despite warnings from authorities saying they wouldn’t permit processions marking her death.
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