Author: Steven Sahiounie

More than 615 members of the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group have surrendered to the government forces in Afghanistan in the past two weeks due to a ramp-up in the army’s anti-terror operations in the Asian country, the Afghan military says. According to a statement by Afghanistan’s Defense Ministry on Saturday, carried by the country’s Tolo News television channel, the total number of Daesh members who surrendered to Afghan government forces during the past two weeks had been “over 615.” It also attributed the recent mass surrenders to increased counter-terrorism operations by security forces against “terrorists”, particularly in the eastern Nangarhar…

Steven Sahiounie, political commentator Turkey and Russia began joint patrols in the northeast conflict zone in Syria beginning November 1.  The Russian military police, formed in 2012, is tasked with convoy protection, area security, restoring law and order, and resettlement operations. Russia recently sent about 300 more military police and more than 20 armored vehicles to Syria. Russia landed attack helicopters and troops at a sprawling air base at Qamisli in northeast Syria, recently vacated by US forces. Armed Russian military police flew into the Syrian airbase in northern Aleppo province near the border with Turkey and fanned out to…

A Palestinian journalist lost his eye after being hit by an Israeli rubber-coated bullet. Moath Amarneh was mutilated despite wearing a ‘Press’ vest while covering a protest in the West Bank’s Hebron governorate. The incident happened on Friday near the town of Surif in Hebron, where dozens of Palestinians were protesting against the latest confiscation of land for the construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied territory. Amarneh, who was covering the protest, was rushed to a hospital in Hebron after sustaining the injury. But doctors could not save his left eye. Speculation immediately erupted over whether the working member…

Earlier this month, an explosion in Syria’s Tal Abyad, near the Turkish border, claimed the lives of 14 people, including seven civilians. 18 civilians were killed and 27 people were injured in a car bomb attack on Saturday in the Syrian city of al-Bab, 30 kilometres south of the Turkish border, according to Anadolu agency. The Turkish Defence Ministry earlier wrote on Twitter that 10 people were killed, while 15 people were wounded in the incident. According to the ministry, Kurdish militants are responsible for the attack. ​Earlier, a local source reported that thirteen civilians were killed and more than…

The Russian military police continued on Friday to patrol communities in the northern Syrian provinces, said Major General Yuri Borenkov, head of the Defence Ministry’s Reconciliation Centre in Syria. He cited four routes between towns in the Aleppo province and one route in the northeasternmost Hasakah region. Army aviation patrolled the route between the Kuweires and Metras airfields. The patrols are part of last month’s pact between Russia and Turkey that designated areas for Russian patrol missions outside of the Turkish-held “safe” border zone that Ankara wanted to be cleared of Kurdish fighters to move in refugees. On 9 October, Turkey launched…

Iran’s deputy defense minister says Iran is producing a laser air defense system and plans to increase the range and precision of its cruise missiles. “We have acquired laser air defense technology that can be used against small aircraft and quadcopter drones,” General Qassem Taqizadeh said on Saturday. The system has undergone testing and is now under production, he added. The deputy defense minister also said that new mapping and digital systems were being used to increase the range and precision of cruise missiles as part of a project that would see its testing stages concluded in the near future. Speaking about…

A senior aide to Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says the country is determined to go on with the purchase of Russian S-400 missile defense systems, despite threats of sanctions by the United States. Ibrahim Kalin made the remarks on Friday, two days after Erdogan and US President Donald Trump met in Washington and discussed differences between the two countries, including over Turkey’s purchase of the S-400s. Ankara and Washington have been at loggerheads over Turkey’s purchase of the Russian systems, which the US says are not compatible with the military hardware owned by the other countries of the Western…

By Mark Taliano A Canadian political commentator and author of “Voices from Syria” said if a new constitution is approved by the Syrian Constitutional Committee, the foreign-backed “unelected” opposition cannot guarantee to adhere to it. “Unelected opposing parties cannot guarantee anything,” Mark Taliano said in an interview with Tasnim. “Their (opposing parties’) masters are not Syrian,” he said, adding, “Ultimately they will have no say in substantive matters.” The following is the full text of the interview. *** Tasnim: The United Nation’s envoy for Syria said recently that first talks in the Swiss city of Geneva on the country’s constitution involving Syrian…

Palestinian resistance fighters in the Gaza Strip have likely taken possession of a “highly advanced” Israeli projectile that has fallen into the territory intact and can be reverse-engineered to reveal its industrial technology, a report suggests. The unexploded ordnance, a “Tamir” interceptor used in Israel’s so-called Iron Dome missile system, was recovered after being fired into Gaza during Israel’s recent 48-hour attacks on the enclave, which died down with a ceasefire on Thursday. In a report on the same day, the website The Drive used images from a tweet by Joe Truzman, purportedly a security analyst, for a visual investigation of the…

Turkey has sent more than 6,000 Syrian migrants in Istanbul to temporary housing centers in other provinces since early July, the local governor’s office said on Friday. His statement came two weeks after a deadline for Syrians not registered in the city to leave. Authorities had given undocumented Syrians in Istanbul until October 30 to move to another province or face forced removal from the city. The Istanbul governor’s office said 6,416 unregistered Syrians were removed from Istanbul since July 12. Turkey hosts more than 3.6 million Syrians, the largest population of Syrians displaced by an eight-year civil war. The…