Author: Steven Sahiounie

The Anatolia News agency announced on Friday that a Greek group wearing military fatigues opened fire on a Turkish police boat while the latter was patrolling the Mrayij River near the Turkish-Greek border. The news agency said that the Special Operations Police found near the Bashiurt border police station, the body of one of the asylum seekers beside a tree, while they were patrolling the Mrayij River. They explained that “a military camouflaged group opened fire from the Greek side towards the Special Operations Police boat while photographing the body.” The state noted that “the police immediately took their positions…

Libya’s government forces have regained control of the strategic town of Tarhuna in the southeast of the capital Tripoli, the last major stronghold of Libyan rebels under the command of renegade general Khalifa Haftar. “Our heroic forces have extended their control over the whole of Tarhuna,” Mohamad Gnounou, the military spokesman for Libya’s Government of National Accord (GNA), said on Friday. The GNA’s operations room also announced in a statement that its forces had reached the center of Tarhouna after entering from four sides. Tarhuna was the main launchpad for the 14-month offensive against the capital that Haftar’s militias finally…

The Syrian Arab Army received its second batch of MiG-29 fighter jets from Russia. When exactly the first batch was delivered and what it consisted of remains entirely unclear. “In the framework of military and technical cooperation between Russia and Syria, the Russian side handed over the second batch of advanced and modernized MiG-29 fighter jets to Syria, during a ceremony at Hmeimim base,” a military source said, cited by Syrian state outlet SANA, said. “As of June 1, 2020, Syrian pilots will begin to carry out missions on those planes in Syrian airspace,” the source concluded. Footage of Su-24 bombers…

A special forces unit of the Egyptian Navy was reportedly ambushed by ISIS terrorists while on a mission in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula. The UK-based New Arab said the unit was carrying out a mission near the coastal town of al-Dhibah on June 3 when it fell into an ambush set by ISIS cells. Several boats of the Egyptian Navy intervened to evacuate the unit. However, they were targeted by the terrorists who managed to damage one of them. “Medical sources at the al-Arish Military Hospital confirmed to the New Arab that it recorded a number of…

For the second day in a row, hundreds of civilians took to the streets in the town of al-Shaddadi in southern al-Hasakah to protests against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The protesters condemned the killing of a local man, Mohamad Saleh al-Ali, by the SDF security forces, Asayish, a day earlier. Al-Ali was protesting along with hundreds other people against poor living conditions in al-Shaddadi and nearby areas when he was shot and killed by Asyaish personnel. The June 5 protests were not limited to al-Shaddadi. The protests expanded to the villages of al-Said Hamoud, al-Ottomaniyah and al-Awad. Security forces were again…

On June 5, unidentified gunmen attacked two soldiers of the Turkish Armed Forces in the northwestern Syrian region of Greater Idlib. According to the Step News Agency, the attack took place on a road between the town of Sarmin and Idlib city, less than 2 km away from a checkpoint manned by militants of al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). “Turkish forces found two soldiers who were shot, one of whom was dead and the other in critical condition,” Step’s reporter in Idlib, Omar al-Omar, said. The dead service member was reportedly shot in the head, while the other received a…

Late on June 5, a large explosion rocked the Turkish-occupied town of Ras al-Ain in the northern countryside of Syria’s al-Hasakah. According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a booby-trapped vehicle exploded near the al-Hasakah roundabout in the center of Ras al-Ain. “Two civilians, one of them a child, were martyred as an initial toll, and seven others were injured, some of them sustained dangerous wounds,” the monitoring group said in a report. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, yet. Kurdish forces are usually blamed for such bombings. However, ISIS or other terrorist groups may…

Currently, the number of US troops permanently assigned in Germany is 34,500. US President Donald Trump has directed the Department of Defence to remove 9,500 US troops from Germany by September, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing US government officials. Trump also ordered to reduce the total number of US troops that may be stationed in Germany at any one time from 52,000 to 25,000, the paper said. Discussions about the reduction of US troops in Germany started in September and the move is not linked to German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision not to take part in the G7 summit…

Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem opened on Sunday, it was closed for 70 days due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Live feed from outside Al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem as Friday prayers restart following the coronavirus pandemic lockdown. Al-Aqsa Mosque is located in the Old City of Jerusalem, and is considered the third holiest site in Islam. A week ago the country lifted the last serious restrictions associated with the coronavirus. Cafes, restaurants, pubs, bars and swimming pools reopened.

Syrian air defences repelled a reported Israeli missile attack over the city of Masyaf in Syria’s Hama province on Thursday night, with multiple missiles shot down by air defences while others hit the outskirts of the city. Palestinian political force and militant group Hamas has sharply condemned Thursday’s missile attack on Syria, allegedly carried out by Israel, accusing Tel Aviv of targeting Muslims across the region and being egged on by the United States. “The attack on the Syrian territories proves that the Zionist project has set the entire Muslim world as its target, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said, as quoted…