Assassination in Ankara: Cop guns down Russian ambassador

December 20, 2016

Ankara, Dec 20: Russia’s Ambassador to Turkey Andrey Karlov was assassinated Monday night during the opening ceremony of a photo exhibition in Ankara when he took to the podium to make a speech.

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Turkey’s interior minister said the gunman, 22-year-old Mevlut Mert Altintas, who was killed, was part of Ankara’s anti-riot police.

The assailant was on duty as a security officer during rallies by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s mainstream HaberTurk news reported.

After shooting the ambassador, the gunman shouted: “Don’t forget Aleppo. Don’t forget Syria. Until our towns are safe, you won’t be able to enjoy safety. Whoever has a role in this cruelty will pay for it one by one.”

This marks the first assassination of an ambassador in Turkey. It comes a day before the planned visit of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu to Moscow for talks on Syria with his Russian and Iranian counterparts.

Erdogan phoned his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to share information. “We have to know who gave the orders to the assassin,” Putin said. In a public statement, Erdogan condemned the attack and said it aimed to harm improved ties with Moscow.

Experts say the assassination puts Turkey in a difficult diplomatic position.

“It doesn’t look like a Daesh attack because the gunman evacuated the art gallery to shoot the ambassador,” Ahmet Han, an international relations professor from Istanbul Kadir Has University, told Arab News.

“This might be an attack carried out by an individual who is ideologically or emotionally vested in developments in Aleppo,” he said.

“He might be a member or sympathizer of an organization on the ground in Syria, or an isolated individual. Otherwise we have to think of a connection with a national intelligence agency.”

Han added: “Turkey wouldn’t be involved in such a crisis if it hadn’t been so exposed to regional dynamics as a party. It’s inevitable that comments on Turkey’s intelligence deficit will follow from the international community.”

However, he said if Ankara cooperated with Moscow, the assassination would not lead to a crisis similar to which occurred when Turkey shot down a Russian warplane in November 2015. “At this point, common sense and restraint should rule,” Han said.

Aykan Erdemir, a former Turkish MP and now senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a Washington-based think tank, said Moscow gained concessions from Ankara following the downing of the warplane before going forward with normalization.

“Putin could again leverage the attack to gain further concessions from Turkey,” Erdemir told Arab News.

“Turkish government officials argue that the attack targeted Turkish-Russian cooperation, and point the finger at the West. The assassination could bolster conspiracy theories at home and speed Turkey’s pivot toward Russia.”

Selim Sazak, a researcher at the Century Foundation, a New York-based think tank, said: “The assailant could be a Turkish nationalist gone rogue, a Gulenist (supporter of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of masterminding the July 15 coup attempt in Turkey), a Daesh subvert, or even a Eurasianist, for this plays right into the hands of those trying to bring Turkey and Russia closer.”

Mainstream Turkish media are reporting that the attacker being a Gulenist is the most likely option.

Sazak says this will impact US-Turkish relations more than it will Turkish-Russian ties. “Pro-government media are already spinning this as a US conspiracy, and trying to paint the cop as a Gulenist,” he told Arab News.

Sazak says diplomatically the game plan is fairly simple, at least publicly: “You express condolences, high-level authorities attend the funeral in Moscow, and Putin says a few things about how this is regrettable but thanks Turkish police and reiterates the solidarity of the Turkish and Russian peoples.”

However, Sazak says the only exit strategy for Ankara is to try to spin the assassination into anti-Western propaganda.

“As of today, Turkey’s Syria game is over,” Sazak said, adding that this puts Turkey in the worst bargaining position imaginable.

In a similar vein, the Russian Federation Council considers the assassination a grave failure of Turkish law-enforcement, Interfax reported.

However, other messages coming from Moscow suggest that Russia does not intend to turn the assassination into a major diplomatic crisis.

Frants Klintsevic, deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council Defense and Security Committee, said the perpetrator wanted “to turn Turkey and Russia against each other.”

In a statement, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said: “Ambassador Karlov was a unique diplomat who earned the appreciation of all state cadres for his professional and personal competencies, as he carried out successful work at a very difficult time in Turkey.

“His memory will always be with us. We will not allow this attack to overshadow Turkish-Russian friendship.”

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News Network
November 13,2024

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Beirut: The Israeli army on Tuesday continued to launch attacks against civilians in Lebanon, targeting them in several areas without prior evacuation warnings.

However, 13 airstrikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs in the space of only three hours were preceded by evacuation warnings.

The attacks caused no injuries but resulted in widespread destruction of residential buildings and commercial, medical and educational centers.

The airstrikes in southern Lebanon and Bekaa region, reaching Akkar in Lebanon’s far north, erased any hope of a near-term ceasefire settlement.

The strikes were accompanied by an announcement on Israel’s Channel 14 that “the Israeli army has expanded its operations in southern Lebanon to areas it had not reached since the beginning of the ground operation.”

About 50 days have passed since Israel intensified its hostile operations in Lebanon targeting Hezbollah. The death toll from these confrontations and attacks has passed 3,200, with more than 14,000 wounded.

For the first time, an airstrike targeted a mountainous area between Baalchmay and Aabadiyeh on the road leading to Aley, destroying a building housing displaced people.

The mayor of Baalchmay, Adham Al-Danaf, confirmed that “the airstrike targeted a residential building in the Dhour Aabadiyeh area.”

The initial toll from the Ministry of Health showed “five people killed and two injured.”

The raids that targeted Beirut’s southern suburbs for the first time in the morning, unlike nightly raids before, caused huge destruction. Those who evacuated their homes after Israeli warnings, used their phones to record the collapse of empty buildings in Sfeir, Haret Hreik, Bir Al-Abed, Mrayjeh, Laylaki and Hadath.

Israeli warplanes also targeted Tyre, where a strike on a building killed three people and injured many others, while a raid on Tefahta killed a man identified as Kifah Khalil and his family.

Attacks were widespread, with Yater and Zebqine subject to artillery shelling, a civilian being killed in Hermel, and further attacks on Bouday and an area between the towns of Srifa and Arsoun.

A raid on the town of Siddiqin killed two people and injured several others, while an attack on the Mechref farm led to one fatality and multiple injuries.

The search for those missing after an Israeli raid on the town of Ain Yaacoub in Akkar, in the northernmost part of Lebanon, continued until dawn.

During the operation, 14 bodies were retrieved, identified as those of residents displaced from the town of Arabsalim in the Iqlim Al-Tuffah area of the south, along with members of a Syrian family, a mother and three of her children. Additionally, there were 10 people in critical condition.

The targeted residence belongs to a Lebanese citizen, Hussein Hashim, who is reported to be a member of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party.

An airstrike on the town of Saksakiyeh in the Sidon region on Monday night resulted in yet another tragedy.

It appeared that the intended target was the Shoumer family, who just days before lost Hussein Amin Shoumer and his two sisters in a drone strike near Al-Awali River.

Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee issued additional evacuation warnings for towns in the southern region along the Litani River, which, according to estimates from the mayors, are currently 90 percent uninhabited.

In the meantime, Hezbollah announced its continued efforts to “combat the intrusions of Israeli forces and to strike military installations and towns in the north.”

Hezbollah said in a statement that it confronted “an Israeli Hermes 450 drone in the airspace of Nabatieh and forced it to leave Lebanese airspace.”

The party also announced that it targeted “Kfar Blum settlement with a rocket salvo.”

On the Israeli side, air raid sirens sounded in areas of Upper and Western Galilee and in the town of Kiryat Shmona and its surroundings.

The Israeli army confirmed that “a drone exploded in Nesher, east of Haifa, without activating the air raid sirens,” and that “a drone launched from Lebanon crashed into a school in Gesher HaZiv, north of Nahariya.”

Israel’s Channel 13 reported the Israeli military’s assessment regarding Hezbollah’s military strength, claiming that the group currently possesses approximately 100 precision missiles, thousands of artillery shells, and hundreds of rockets. Additionally, it was highlighted that “there are around 200 Lebanese towns that remain unvisited.”

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News Network
November 4,2024

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Hundreds of Israeli settlers conducted a brutal attack in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

The settlers set fire to numerous homes and vehicles of Palestinians and then moved to the main road connecting Ramallah to other cities, targeting Palestinian cars passing by.

They stormed the city of al-Bireh, near Ramallah, and burned Palestinian property and vehicles.

A woman sustained injuries after the settlers hurled stones at her vehicle, according to Palestinian news outlets.

Tension has been running high across the West Bank because of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, which has killed at least 43,341 people, mostly women and children, since last year’s October.

The Monday settler attack came as the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas warned of Israel’s plans to annex the West Bank and drive Palestinians out.

“We warn of the grave danger posed by the plans led by the extremist occupation regime and illegal settler groups to displace the residents of Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank,” Hamas official Mahmoud Mardawi said.

Israel's far-right minister Bezalel Smotrich called for the full annexation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip last week.

Smotrich asserted that Israel should unequivocally declare there would be no Palestinian state.

He repeated his proposal of expanding Israeli settlements within the West Bank and other occupied territories.

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News Network
November 7,2024

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The Israeli regime has killed at least 40 people during new airstrikes against eastern Lebanese areas, besides targeting the country’s capital Beirut with fresh acts of aggression.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the fatalities on Wednesday, saying 53 other people had also been wounded during the aerial attacks that targeted the country’s Bekaa Valley, including the city of Baalbek.

In early Thursday, the regime was also reported to have attacked Beirut’s southern suburbs, including a site adjacent to Rafiq Hariri International Airport.

The attacks came after the regime issued short-notice evacuation orders apparently directed at the residents of the areas, claiming that the areas contained facilities belonging to Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement.

Tel Aviv has been using similar claims on countless occasions since last October, when it markedly intensified its deadly acts of aggression against Lebanon, in order to try to justify the escalation. Hezbollah has, however, invariably refuted the claims.

Also on Wednesday, the United Nations warned in its most recent flash report on the humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli atrocities targeting Lebanon that the aggression had “reached a critical point.”

The attacks have claimed the lives of more than 3,000 people, which was “58 percent more than the 1,900 fatalities” that were caused by the regime’s 2006 war against Lebanon, the report said.

“Additionally, an estimated 1.3 million people have been displaced, both within Lebanon and into neighboring countries, 33 percent more than the number of people displaced in 2006,” it added.

Women comprised the majority of those who had been rendered homeless within Lebanon as a result of the Israeli attacks, the report noted.

It also regretted that the Israeli attacks had featured 78 assaults on healthcare facilities across the country that had claimed the lives of 130 health workers and injured 111 others.

In response to the aggression, Hezbollah has been staging hundreds of retaliatory strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories and the Israeli forces trying to advance on southern Lebanese areas.

The movement has vowed to sustain its strikes until the regime ends the escalation.

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