Turkey bombards Syrian Kurdish militia, thousands flee as death toll mounts - Reuters

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes and artillery hit Kurdish militia targets in northeast Syria on the third day of an offensive that has killed hundreds of people, forced tens of thousands to flee and turned Washington’s establishment against President Donald Trump.

Since Trump pulled U.S. troops out of the way following a phone call with Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, the incursion has opened a major new front in the eight-year-old Syrian civil war and drawn fierce criticism internationally.

“We have one of three choices: Send in thousands of troops and win Militarily, hit Turkey very hard Financially and with Sanctions, or mediate a deal between Turkey and the Kurds!” Trump said in a Twitter post on Thursday.

“I hope we can mediate,” Trump said when asked about the options by reporters at the White House.

Without elaborating, Trump said the United States was “going to possibly do something very, very tough with respect to sanctions and other financial things” against Turkey.

On Friday morning, Turkish jets and artillery struck around Syria’s Ras al Ain, one of two border towns that have been the focus of the offensive. Gunfire could also be heard inside the town, said a Reuters journalist in Ceylanpinar, on the Turkish side of the border.

He said a convoy of 20 armored vehicles carrying Syrian rebels entered Syria from Ceylanpinar on Friday. Some of them made victory signs, shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) and waved Syrian rebel flags as they advanced towards Ras al Ain.

Some 120 km (75 miles) west, Turkish howitzers resumed shelling near the Syrian town of Tel Abyad, a witness said.

Turkey’s Defence Ministry said that in overnight operations the Turkish military and its Syrian rebel allies killed 49 Kurdish militants. It says it has killed 277 militants in total.

The ministry said one Turkish soldier was killed in a clash on Thursday during the offensive, which is targeting the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), led by the Kurdish YPG militia.

Kurds said they were resisting the assault. At least 23 fighters with the SDF and six fighters with a Turkish-backed Syrian rebel group had been killed, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war.

NATO member Turkey says the operation is necessary for border security against the YPG militia, which it designates a terrorist group because of ties to militants who have waged a decades-old insurgency in southeast Turkey in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.

Ankara has also said it intends to create a “safe zone” for the return of millions of refugees to Syria.

ISLAMIC STATE CAPTIVES

The SDF have been the main allies of U.S. forces on the ground in the battle against Islamic State since 2014. They have been holding thousands of captured IS fighters in prisons and tens of thousands of their relatives in detention.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called for an emergency meeting of the coalition of more than 30 countries created to fight Islamic State.

Members of Syrian National Army, known as Free Syrian Army, drive in an armored vehicle in the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar in Sanliurfa province, Turkey, October 11, 2019. REUTERS/Murad Sezer

SDF forces were still in control of all prisons with Islamic State captives, a senior U.S. State Department official said in a briefing with reporters on Thursday.

The United States has received a high-level commitment from Turkey on taking responsibility for Islamic State captives but had not yet had detailed discussions, the official said.

U.S. lawmakers have said Trump gave Erdogan the green light to go into Syria but the official disputed that. “We gave them a very clear red light, I’ve been involved in those red lights and I know the president did that on Sunday,” the official said.

The SDF said Turkish air strikes and shelling had killed nine civilians. In apparent retaliation by Kurdish-led forces, six people including a 9-month-old baby were killed by mortar fire into Turkish towns, Turkish officials said.

The International Rescue Committee aid group said 64,000 people in Syria have fled since the campaign began. The towns of Ras al Ain and Darbasiya, some 60 km (37 miles) to the east, were largely deserted.

The Observatory said Turkish forces seized two villages near Ras al Ain and five near Tel Abyad. A Syrian rebel forces spokesman said the towns were surrounded after fighters seized the villages around them.

Trump has faced rare criticism from senior figures in his Republican Party who accuse him of deserting U.S. allies.

U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican who usually backs Trump, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the U.S. troop withdrawal. He unveiled a framework for sanctions on Turkey with Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey would retaliate against any measure taken against it.

Slideshow (11 Images)

(Graphic: Where Kurds live, here)

Reporting by Daren Butler and Orhan Coskun; Additional reporting by Tom Perry and Ellen Francis in Beirut and Reuters correspondents in the region, Michelle Nichols at the United Nations, Jeff Mason and Humeyra Pamuk in Washington; Writing by William Maclean and Grant McCool; Editing by Mike Collett-White and Daniel Wallis

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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2019-10-11 07:00:00Z
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Turkey’s military assault in Syria leaves more than 100 Kurdish fighters dead, report says - Fox News

Turkey’s ongoing military assault in Syria has left more than 100 Kurdish forces dead, a report said Thursday morning, a day after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's troops launched airstrikes and unleashed artillery shelling on Syrian towns and villages the length of its border.

Information about the rising death toll came as Turkey's state-run news agency said Turkey-allied Syrian opposition fighters have "cleared of terror" two villages across the border in Syria -- meaning there are no more Syrian Kurdish fighters in those villages.

The Middle East Eye, quoting Erdoğan, reported that 109 Kurdish fighters have been killed so far in Operation Peace Spring.

Meanwhile, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Turkish commandos entered the village of Beir Asheq, near the town of Tal Abyad on Thursday morning.

Turkish forces began a ground offensive against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria on Wednesday under the cover of airstrikes and artillery shelling.

Turkey's invasion of northeastern Syria started after U.S. troops pulled back from the area, paving the way for the assault on Syrian Kurdish forces, who have long been allied with the U.S.

The Turkish Defense Ministry said Turkish jets and artillery struck 181 targets east of the Euphrates River since the incursion started.

Turkey says it intends to create a "safe zone" that would push Kurdish militia away from its border and eventually allow the repatriation of up to 2 million Syrian refugees.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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2019-10-10 11:15:44Z
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In Hate-Filled Manifesto, German Synagogue Attacker Sought a Wide Audience - The New York Times

HALLE, Germany — In a hate-filled screed written in English and published online before he tried to breach a synagogue in eastern Germany, the gunman who killed two people made clear not only that he had chosen his target hoping to kill as many Jews as possible but also that he hoped to impress a wider audience.

The police made an arrest soon after the shooting. The man detained was identified on Thursday only as Stephan B., a German citizen. He is suspected of having written the manifesto and of having carried out the attack, which took place on Yom Kippur, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. Further information was expected in the course of the day on Thursday.

Those who were worshiping inside the Humboldt Street synagogue said on Thursday that the congregation had remained calm throughout the attack. But some questioned why no police guard had been assigned, as requested by their cantor, and why it had taken officers what they estimated to be 10 minutes to respond.

The attack was thwarted by a locked, heavy wooden door — the two victims were killed on the street outside and in a nearby kebab shop. On the security camera screen, Max Privorozki, the head of the congregation, said he could see the fuzzy images of the heavily armed attacker on the other side.

“It was a miracle that the door held,” Mr. Privorozki said in an interview on Thursday. “I cannot imagine what would have happened if it had not.’’

Vigils of solidarity with the Jewish community and mourning for the victims took place in Berlin, in Halle and in the nearby city of Leipzig, where people had gathered to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the street protests in the former East Germany that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe.

In the upheaval of the 1990s, Germany saw a rise in far-right extremism and the targeting of minorities and refugees from countries in the Middle East. But experts said that the manifesto and the live-stream of the attack on Wednesday indicated that the gunman had been influenced by other recent assaults by far-right extremists abroad, such as those on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.

“If I fail and die but kill a single Jew, it was worth it,” the attacker wrote in the manifesto that was found by researchers at the International Center for the Study of Radicalization and Political Violence, a research organization at King’s College London. “After all, if every White Man kills just one, we win.”

The gunman’s manifesto, which included detailed descriptions of the self-made weapons that he used, also included thoughts about the merits of targeting Jews over Muslims, whom he appeared also to despise.

That it was written in English also indicated that the attacker was seeking to draw the attention of an audience wider than just other extremists in Germany, said Peter R. Neumann, a professor of security studies at King’s College London and director of the center for the study of radicalization.

“It clearly shows that he wasn’t trying to impress local neo-Nazis, but that his ‘audience’ was on message forums like 8chan and his heroes were people like Anders Breivik and the attackers in New Zealand and El Paso,” Mr. Neumann said.

The gunman did not appear to have been on the radar of the German security services. Mr. Neumann added that a shift to a more globalized, digitized version of right-wing extremism could prove challenging in Germany, where officials were familiar with local neo-Nazis networks but have been slower to respond to developments online.

“I think they are less good when it comes to message forums like 4chan and 8chan and this new, more diffuse and ideologically more promiscuous far-right extremism,” Mr. Neumann said.

Jewish leaders were demanding to know why their appeals for increased police presence around the synagogue were ignored. While Jewish institutions in most large cities in Germany have a round-the-clock police detail, that was absent in Halle.

Mr. Privorozki said that the heavy wooden door of the synagogue and the community center’s electronic security system had recently been upgraded with the help of the nonprofit Jewish Agency for Israel.

He said that the police had taken some time to respond to the call. “I did not look at my watch, but I guess it took at least 10 minutes,” Mr. Privorozki said, adding that the police had promised to always be close to the synagogue and to come quickly in an emergency.

Congregants described the atmosphere inside the synagogue as calm, even during the attack.

“We felt relatively safe because our security man and the cantor had taken all the precautionary measures,” said Shimon Meyer, who attended with his wife, Luba. “We stayed quiet and collected — there was no trace of panic.”

The congregation was moved to a safer part of the synagogue once the police arrived, but continued the service.

Ms. Meyer said, “It took a while before the police came, but when we could hear the sirens and a helicopter, we continued a prayer and sang.”

When worshipers were finally escorted out of the synagogue and onto a bus, they continued their songs, surprising the bus driver, Ms. Meyer said. At the hospital, they finished the service, even blowing the shofar, or ram’s horn, to mark the end of Yom Kippur at sundown, she added.

“We wanted to show that we weren’t defeated,” she said, “But that we defeated the situation.”

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2019-10-10 11:00:00Z
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Turkey says 180 targets hit as troops continue advance into Syria - NBC News

LONDON — Turkish forces continued their advance into northeastern Syria Thursday after launching an air and ground offensive against Kurdish fighters, the Turkish defense ministry said in a tweet.

The Turkish defense ministry offered no further information but posted a video of Turkish troops stalking their way through the long grass west of the Euphrates river and said the operation, codenamed Peace Spring, had gone successfully.

Turkey claimed overnight it had struck 181 of what it called terrorist targets with the support of air forces and artillery units. Meanwhile, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces claimed to have repelled a Turkish ground attack in the border area of Tal Abyad. NBC News could not independently verify these claims.

Oct. 9, 201902:06

Turkey's invasion of northeastern Syria began on Wednesday after U.S. troops pulled back from the area to clear the way for Turkish forces.

The invasion sparked a wave of criticism from the international community, as well as from Republicans and Democrats, with many criticizing the Trump administration for abandoning its Kurdish allies.

The Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, are led by the Kurdish People's Protection Unity (YPG) and have been a crucial ally in the U.S.'s fight against ISIS in the region. But Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which is considered a terrorist group by the United States.

The SDF claimed overnight that a prison used to hold ISIS detainees was struck during the Turkish airstrikes. NBC News could not verify the claim. The militia has repeatedly warned that Turkey’s invasion would undermine its U.S.-backed fight against ISIS.

"As a result of our work, we were able to save the international community from the threat of the ISIS. We fought together on the front lines and spend many sleepless nights," the SDF said in a tweet. "Unfortunately our foes in the region are conspiring to destroy our people."

The Turkish Defense Ministry said in a tweet that it was only targeting PKK, YPG and ISIS terrorists as well as their shelters, weapons and equipment.

Meanwhile, video and stills of civilians queuing up in dusty vehicles to flee the conflict zone and bombed out properties continued to circulate on social media.

Baderkhan Ahmad, a Syrian Kurdish journalist reporting from Al Qamishli, on the Syria-Turkey border, told NBC News that his hometown had been targeted overnight by Turkish mortar fire. There were clashes close to the border between Kurdish and Turkish troops, he said.

Smoke rises over the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain, as seen from the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar, Sanliurfa province, Turkey, on Thursday.Murad Sezer / Reuters

“This morning I haven’t heard the sound of bombardments but in the afternoon at something like 4 p.m. when it’s going to get dark I think then they’ll start again to shell the city,” he said by phone.

In the streets of Ras al-Ayn, one of the Syrian towns close to the Turkey border, cars raced to safety and people could be seen leaving on trucks and bringing essential belongings and blankets, the Associated Press reported.

Ahmad, who also witnessed people fleeing Ras al-Ayn, told NBC news many families were fleeing further south deeper into Syrian territory.

"We're under attack by a country who is a member of NATO," he said. "They've just left us when we're done with furthering their interests."

Saphora Smith reported from London; Aziz Akyavas reported from Akçakale, Turkey

Saphora Smith

Saphora Smith is a London-based reporter for NBC News Digital. 

Aziz Akyavas contributed.

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2019-10-10 10:01:00Z
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Germany shooting: 2,200 people watched on Twitch - BBC News

About 2,200 people watched a gunman's video of his attack outside a synagogue in Germany before it was removed from video-streaming site Twitch.

Twitch, which is owned by retail giant Amazon, said five people had watched the video as it was broadcast live.

The footage remained online for 30 minutes after the live stream, during which time more than 2,200 people watched it.

Twitch said the video was not promoted in its "recommended" feed.

"Our investigation suggests that people were co-ordinating and sharing the video via other online messaging services," the company said in a statement.

The attack happened in the city of Halle in eastern Germany at about 12:00 local time (10:00 GMT) on Wednesday.

The video showed a man making anti-Semitic comments to camera before driving to a synagogue and shooting at its door.

After failing to get in, the gunman shot dead two people nearby.

The suspect is a 27-year-old German who acted alone, according to local media.

In a statement, Twitch said it had a "zero-tolerance policy against hateful conduct".

"Any act of violence is taken extremely seriously. We worked with urgency to remove this content and will permanently suspend any accounts found to be posting or reposting content of this abhorrent act," it said.

The company said the account that live-streamed the attack had been created two months before the incident. It had only attempted to live-stream once before.

Twitch said it had shared a "hash" of the video with a group of tech companies including Microsoft and Facebook.

A video hash is essentially a "fingerprint" of a video that helps platforms detect if the same footage has been uploaded on their service.

Artificial intelligence

In March, an attack on a New Zealand mosque in which 51 people were killed was live-streamed on Facebook.

The social network was criticised for failing to prevent copies of videos of the Christchurch mosque shootings from being shared on its platform.

Facebook has since discussed plans to train algorithms to recognise videos of shootings so they can be detected and removed more quickly.

It plans to use footage from police body cameras, captured during training exercises, to teach its systems to detect videos of real-life shootings.

"We are far from solving this issue," said Christopher Tegho, a machine learning engineer at the video analytics firm Calipsa.

"Understanding a whole scene is a more difficult and complicated task.

"One of the issues is getting enough data to understand shooting scenes. That is why Facebook is asking police to collect this data, it's the first step."

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2019-10-10 09:56:00Z
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Civilians Flee As Turkish Forces Strike Kurds In Northern Syria - NPR

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In this photo taken from the Turkish side of the border between Turkey and Syria, in Akcakale, Sanliurfa province, southeastern Turkey, smoke billows from a fire inside Syria during bombardment by Turkish forces on Wednesday. Lefteris Pitarakis/AP hide caption

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Lefteris Pitarakis/AP

As Turkish soldiers launched an assault on U.S.-backed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria and panicked civilians fled the battle zone, the White House sought to tamp down intense criticism over what many view as Washington's acquiescence in the incursion.

Turkey's forces crossed the border on Wednesday, carrying out airstrikes and artillery barrages against the Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish militia that has fought alongside the U.S. in efforts to dismantle the Islamic State in Syria.

Enlarge this image

A Kurdish security officer takes off face masks from Alexanda Amon Kotey, left, and El Shafee Elsheikh, who were allegedly among four British jihadis who made up a brutal Islamic State cell dubbed "The Beatles," for an interview at a security center in Kobani, Syria, last year. Hussein Malla/AP hide caption

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Hussein Malla/AP

Turkey accuses the SDF of having links with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a Kurdish separatist group based in Turkey and Iraq, which is responsible for years of violent attacks within Turkey.

In case the Kurds or Turkey lose control, the United States has already taken the 2 ISIS militants tied to beheadings in Syria, known as the Beetles, out of that country and into a secure location controlled by the U.S. They are the worst of the worst!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 10, 2019

Also on Wednesday, U.S. officials said two British nationals believed to be part of an ISIS group that released gruesome execution videos of themselves beheading hostages and were known as "The Beatles" because of their British accents, were moved out of a detention center in Syria into U.S. custody at an undisclosed location.

El Shafee Elsheikh and Alexanda Amon Kotey, held by Kurdish fighters, were part of the group believed to have beheaded American journalist James Foley in August 2014.

The news came amid concern that Kurdish fighters who had been carrying out the fight against ISIS would be diverted to defending themselves against Turkish forces, providing an opening for a resurgence of the terrorist group.

Along the Turkey-Syria border, residents reportedly piled their belongings into vehicles or escaped on foot as Turkish forces struck several towns in the region. Plumes of smoke were seen rising near the town of Qamishli, which lies just over the border, late Wednesday, according to The Associated Press.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported fighting farther south between Turkish troops and Kurdish militiamen in the northern countryside of Aleppo.

The observatory reported artillery attacks on the key cities of Raqqa and Hasakah.

Meanwhile, in Washington, President Trump condemned the Turkish incursion, calling it a "bad idea" and appeared to downplay the importance of the U.S. alliance with the SDF.

"The Kurds are fighting for their land," the president said, speaking to reporters in the Roosevelt Room.

Trump appears to have gotten his "Kurds didn't help us at Normandy" line from a Kurt Schlichter column. https://t.co/jAbsP9VCQt pic.twitter.com/6HknvoZ0gl

— Will Sommer (@willsommer) October 9, 2019

"And as somebody wrote in a very, very powerful article today, they didn't help us in the Second World War, they didn't help us with Normandy as an example. They mentioned names of different battles. But they're there to help us with their land and that's a different thing," he said.

It wasn't clear what article Trump was referring to, but some suggested it was an opinion piece published Tuesday in the conservative Townhall.

In a major policy shift announced after a Sunday telephone call between Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the White House said U.S. forces in the area of Turkey's planned operation would stand aside.

That decision has drawn concern and criticism at home and abroad, from U.S. allies and from within the ranks of the president's own party.

In a statement, British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab expressed concern about Turkey's invasion "destabilizing the region, exacerbating humanitarian suffering, and undermining the progress made against" the Islamic State.

Speaking Monday on Fox News' Fox and Friends, South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsay Graham called it an "impulsive decision" to remove U.S. troops from the area and allow Turkey a free hand against the Kurds, saying it was "short-sighted and irresponsible." In another appearance on Fox on Wednesday, Graham warned that abandoning the Kurds would be the biggest mistake of the Trump presidency.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has insisted that the U.S. did not give a green light to Turkey to launch its Northern Syria offensive.

Speaking with the PBS NewsHour, Pompeo said he's "confident that President Trump understands the threat" and touted the record of the White House on defeating ISIS in Syria.

"Remember where we were when this administration came into office and just judge us by our results," he said. "We have achieved a good outcome there."

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2019-10-10 08:38:00Z
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Jewish leader says German synagogue attacked by gunman inadequately protected - Reuters

BERLIN (Reuters) - A prominent Jewish community leader accused German authorities on Thursday of providing inadequate security at a synagogue that was attacked by a far-right gunman as dozens prayed inside.

Though the gunman did not get into the building in Wednesday’s attack, he killed two bystanders in a subsequent live-streamed rampage, which appeared to be modeled on last year’s gun attack on a New Zealand mosque.

“If police had been stationed outside the synagogue, then this man could have been disarmed before he could attack the others,” Josef Schuster, president of the council of Germany’s Jewish community, told Deutschlandfunk public radio.

Most Jewish institutions in Germany’s large cities have a near-permanent police guard due to occasional anti-Semitic attacks by both far-right activists and Islamist militants.

In a video of more than 30 minutes that the attacker livestreamed from a helmet camera, the perpetrator was heard cursing his failure to enter the synagogue in the eastern German city of Halle before shooting dead a woman passer-by in the street and a man inside a nearby kebab restaurant.

Two other people were injured but regional broadcaster MDR said their condition was not critical.

Police said they had detained one person, identified by the magazines Spiegel and Focus Online as a 27-year-old German, Stephan B. His full name cannot be published under German privacy laws.

Schuster said that while it was normal practice in his experience for all synagogues to have police guards while services were being conducted inside, this appeared not to be the case in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, where Halle is located.

However, the head of Germany’s police union was skeptical about the feasibility of providing that level of protection.

“We’d have to guard every synagogue, every church, every mosque, every holy place in Germany around the clock, so I don’t know if this was a mistake or if this really couldn’t have been foreseen,” Oliver Malchow told public television.

Slideshow (27 Images)

In the event, the synagogue’s solid locked gates and high walls provided ample protection against the attacker’s seemingly improvised weapons.

Malchow also defended police in Halle who took 15 minutes to reach the synagogue, saying they could only respond after receiving reports about the incident, and that armored units often had to come from greater distances.

“This shows how thin the level of police coverage is,” he said. “Nobody is holding back ... it probably wasn’t possible to be quicker.”

Reporting by Thomas Escritt; Editing by Gareth Jones

Our Standards:The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-shooting/jewish-leader-says-german-synagogue-attacked-by-gunman-inadequately-protected-idUSKBN1WP0Y6

2019-10-10 08:11:00Z
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