Ankara claims PKK’s Syrian offshoot is behind bloody Istanbul attack

People mourn the victims of November 13 explosion at the busy shopping street of Istiklal in Istanbul on November 14, 2022. (AFP)
People mourn the victims of November 13 explosion at the busy shopping street of Istiklal in Istanbul on November 14, 2022. (AFP)
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Updated 15 November 2022

Ankara claims PKK’s Syrian offshoot is behind bloody Istanbul attack

People mourn the victims of November 13 explosion at the busy shopping street of Istiklal in Istanbul on November 14, 2022. (AFP
  • Turkiye needs to tighten its border security, take additional precautions against potential cells within country, analyst tells Arab News

ANKARA: In an overnight raid, Istanbul police detained a 23-year-old Syrian woman, Ahlam Al-Bashir, as the prime suspect for having planted the bomb that killed six people and wounded 81 people in the city on Sunday.

Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu announced that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and its Syrian offshoot the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, were behind Sunday’s blast in Istiklal Avenue, targeting civilians.

In a statement published by the Fırat news agency, the PKK denied any involvement in the attack, but Turkish intelligence sources insist on the high probability of the group’s role in it.




An undated photo released by Turkish police shows an unidentified blast suspect arrested in Istanbul, Turkey. (REUTERS)

Al-Bashir confessed she was trained by Kurdish militants in Syria and entered Turkiye illegally through Syria’s northwestern Afrin region, currently controlled by Turkish troops.

She was caught in the CCTV footage, wearing a hijab and camouflage, when leaving the area with a remotely controlled bomb-loaded bag.

Among the victims of the attack were a 3-year-old girl and her father, an employee at the Ministry of Family and Social Services’ branch in the southern province of Adana. They were vacationing in Istanbul.

The White House released a press statement, in which it said that the US “strongly condemns the act of violence” and reiterated that it “(stands) shoulder-to-shoulder with its NATO ally Turkiye in countering terrorism.”

Soylu, however, openly criticized the US for giving support to Kurdish militants in Syria, saying “the insincerity of our allies who officially send money is obvious” and comparing the condolences to the arrival of the murderer at the crime scene.

Security analysts insist that there was a PKK connection to the attack, based on patterns observed in previous attacks.

“This time, the PKK appears to be targeting civilians in a crowded spot in a metropolis in order to generate a wider impact on public opinion and attract more attention ahead of the elections set for next year,” Erol Bural, a retired colonel and head of the Ankara-based Research Center for Combating Terrorism and Radicalization, told Arab News.

“The ongoing anti-terror operations of Turkiye seriously weakened the PKK’s military clout within the country and in its region, which also undermined the organizational capabilities of the group as well as its popular support. The only way to regain it was through terrorism, a bomb attack, to punish Turkiye,” he said.

According to Bural, the PKK uses this pattern against civilians to instill fear and as a reminder that it still poses a threat and can repeat such acts.

Turkiye considers the People’s Protection Units, or YPG, and PYD as linked to the PKK, an armed group listed as a terror organization by the US, EU and Turkey.

Turkiye carried out three operations in northern Syria against the YPG, while another operation was expected this year but never realized.

The PKK has fought an almost four-decades-long armed insurgency against the Turkish state, claiming the lives of over 40,000 people. The group has several members exiled in Sweden.

As part of the newly established consensus between Turkiye and Sweden to give the Scandinavian country’s NATO accession bid a green light, Sweden’s foreign minister in the new government recently said Stockholm needed to “distance” itself from the YPG and PYD, who control much of northern Syria.

“There is too close a link between these organizations and the PKK,” Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom recently told broadcaster Sveriges Radio.

Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson recently visited Ankara to discuss the details of its entry into NATO.

Bural believes that the latest Istanbul attack may also carry a threatening message toward European countries, implying that similar acts may happen in their countries as well if they ever restrict the PKK’s presence and its propaganda activities.

“From now on, the PKK may conduct its terror acts in big cities using its networks and proxies inside Turkiye or by deploying foreign fighters from abroad.

“In both cases, Turkiye needs to tighten its border security and take additional precautions against potential cells within the country.

“Each year, about 200 terror acts of various groups are prevented in Turkiye, but one of them escapes from the security radar and claims so many innocent lives,” Bural said.

While the PKK is seen as a top suspect in the blast, experts also draw attention to the Iranian factor in such acts of terrorism in Turkey, considering the recent disagreements between the two countries.

On July 22, Kataib Seyid el-Suheda, an Iranian-backed militia group in Iraq, shared a photo from Taksim square in Istanbul, with the slogan “Wherever we need to be, we will be there.”

The same account posted another video on July 24.

“Our eyes are on Istanbul. People loyal to Abu Alaa El-Vali,” the message in it said, referring to the leader of the Iranian-backed militia group, “are at the heart of Turkiye, just (as) they were yesterday.”

Just hours before the Istanbul attack, a controversial Iranian article also blamed Turkish intelligence chief Hakan Fidan for playing a role in the terror attack on a Shiite religious shrine in the Iranian city of Shiraz on Oct. 22, which killed 15 people, and for promoting Azerbaijani separatism.

Daesh claimed responsibility for that attack.

Pro-Iran Shiite militia groups have been previously accused of being behind rocket attacks against a Turkish base north of Iraq’s Mosul following Turkish airstrikes that targeted the PKK there.

Turkiye launched several cross-border military operations into Syria and northern Iraq against the PKK’s hideouts following the increase in bloody terror attacks between 2015 and 2017, which killed hundreds of civilians and security personnel.

 


Israel: 2 soldiers wounded in West Bank drive-by shooting

Israel: 2 soldiers wounded in West Bank drive-by shooting
Updated 13 sec ago

Israel: 2 soldiers wounded in West Bank drive-by shooting

Israel: 2 soldiers wounded in West Bank drive-by shooting
JERUSALEM: The Israeli military said two soldiers were wounded, one severely, Saturday evening in a drive-by shooting in the occupied West Bank, the latest in months-long violence between Israel and the Palestinians.
The attack was the third to take place in the Palestinian town of Hawara in less than a month. One soldier was seriously wounded and the second was in moderate condition, the military said. A manhunt was launched as forces sealed roads leading to Hawara.
No Palestinian group claimed responsibility for the shooting attack, but Hamas, the militant group ruling the Gaza Strip, praised it.
“The resistance in the West Bank can surprise the occupation every time and the occupation cannot enjoy safety,” Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said.
Violence has surged in recent months in the West Bank and east Jerusalem amid near-daily Israeli arrest raids in Palestinian-controlled areas and a string of Palestinian attacks.
US-backed regional efforts to defuse tensions have led to the meeting of Israeli and Palestinian officials in Jordan and Egypt respectively, where parties hoped to prevent a further escalation during the holy fasting month of Ramadan.
On Feb. 27, when Israeli and Palestinian officials met in Jordan’s Aqaba, a Palestinian gunman shot and killed two Israelis in Hawara. Another shooting attack in Hawara took place as the parties met again in Egypt’s Sharm el-Sheikh, wounding two Israelis.
Eighty-six Palestinians have been killed by Israeli or settler fire this year, according to an Associated Press tally. Palestinian attacks have killed 15 Israelis in the same period.
Israel says most of those killed have been militants. But stone-throwing youths protesting the incursions and people not involved in the confrontations have also been killed.
Israel captured the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Mideast war. The Palestinians seek those territories for their future independent state.

Houthi drone attacks Yemen defense minister’s convoy in Taiz

File photo of Yemeni Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Mohsen Al-Daeri. (Screenshot)
File photo of Yemeni Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Mohsen Al-Daeri. (Screenshot)
Updated 35 min 6 sec ago

Houthi drone attacks Yemen defense minister’s convoy in Taiz

File photo of Yemeni Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Mohsen Al-Daeri. (Screenshot)
  • Muammar Al-Eryani, Yemen’s information minister, accused the Houthis of attempting to derail peace attempts

AL-MUKALLA: A Yemeni government soldier was killed and two others wounded on Saturday when an explosives-laden drone fired by Iran-backed Houthis attacked a convoy conveying senior military leaders, including Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Mohsen Al-Daeri, in the besieged city of Taiz, Yemeni officials and local media said.

A Yemeni government official told Arab News that the Houthis launched a drone at a convoy carrying the defense minister, the army’s chief of staff, and the governor of Taiz as they traveled from the Red Sea town of Mocha to Taiz. Al-Daeri and all other government officials were unhurt.

Muammar Al-Eryani, Yemen’s information minister, accused the Houthis of attempting to derail peace attempts.  

“This sinful targeting, which comes in the wake of the terrorist Houthi militia’s continuous escalation on multiple fronts, confirms its insistence on sabotaging efforts to restore the ceasefire and calm the situation,” the minister said on Twitter. 

Al-Eryani had earlier warned that large-scale military operations would resume throughout the nation if the Houthis continued their assaults on government soldiers, particularly in the central province of Marib. 

Scores of fighters have been killed or injured since early last week, when the Houthis began a series of intense assaults on government troops in the district of Hareb, south of Marib province, capturing a few villages.

Those attacks, as well as other less intense shelling and ground attacks in Taiz, have dashed hopes of a peaceful solution to the war, which had arisen following the latest successful round of prisoner-swap talks between the Houthis and the Yemeni government, which resulted in an agreement to release more than 800 prisoners during Ramadan.

Al-Eryani said Houthi raids in Hareb had resulted in the displacement of a significant number of people and posed the prospect of all-out conflict, which would put an end to the country’s relative peace since the UN-brokered ceasefire came into force in April last year.

Speaking to a group of military personnel in Taiz’s Al-Bareh on Friday, the minister pledged to defeat the Houthis, retake Sanaa and other areas currently controlled by the Iran-backed militias, and urged soldiers to remain alert.

“To reclaim every square inch of our territory, retake our capital, and restore our legitimate leadership to its proper position, we must all share the same spirit and direct our firearms against these militias,” the minister said. 

Brig. Gen. Mohammed Al-Kumaim, a Yemeni military analyst, said the Houthis have used the UN-brokered truce to regroup, and to target military officials and government-controlled areas. He suggested that the Yemeni government should abandon any agreements with the Houthis and resume military operations.

“Following this attack on the convoy of the highest military authority in the Yemeni army, the government is expected to terminate all accords, including the Stockholm Agreement, and unleash the fronts,” Al-Kumaim said.

Since October, the Yemeni government has labeled the Houthis a terrorist organization. It threatened to withdraw from the Stockholm Agreement and other agreements with the Houthis and resume military offensives when the Houthis shelled oil facilities in Hadramout and Shabwa with drones and missiles, halting Yemen’s oil exports.


Judicial overhaul legislation must be halted, Israel Defense Minister

Judicial overhaul legislation must be halted, Israel Defense Minister
Updated 31 min 42 sec ago

Judicial overhaul legislation must be halted, Israel Defense Minister

Judicial overhaul legislation must be halted, Israel Defense Minister
  • Gallant asked Netanyahu’s coalition to wait until after the Jewish passover holiday that begins on April 5
  • “I will not take part in this,” Gallant said

JERUSALEM: Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called on Saturday for an immediate and temporary halt to the far-right government’s contentious plan to overhaul the judiciary, the first public dissent from within Prime Minister Benjamin’s coalition.

Citing the need for dialogue with the opposition, Gallant asked Netanyahu’s coalition to wait until after the Jewish passover holiday that begins on April 5 before pushing ahead with its divisive plan to overhaul the judiciary.

He said he is worried that the overhaul plans pose a threat to the country’s security. The plan has sparked the largest protest movement in Israel’s history, bringing thousands to face off against police in the streets weekly.

“I will not take part in this,” Gallant said, although did not elaborate on what would happen if the government pressed on. His statement indicated the first crack in Netanyahu’s coalition, the most right-wing government in Israeli history.

In recent weeks, discontent over the overhaul has even surged from within the Israeli army — what Israelis consider to be the country’s most respected and unifying institution. A growing number of Israeli reservists have threatened to withdraw from voluntary duty in the past weeks, posing a broad challenge to Netanyahu as he plows ahead with the reform while on trial for corruption.

“The events taking place in Israeli society do not spare the Israel Defense Forces — from all sides, feelings of anger, pain and disappointment arise, with an intensity I have never encountered before,” Gallant said in a televised address on Saturday after the end of the Jewish Sabbath. “I see how the source of our strength is being eroded.”

Gallant said that the national crisis over the judicial overhaul has created a “clear, immediate and tangible danger to the security of the state.”


Houthis restricting humanitarian flights arriving in Yemen’s Sanaa

Workers unload aid shipment from a plane at the Sanaa airport, Yemen in 2017. (Reuters/File Photo)
Workers unload aid shipment from a plane at the Sanaa airport, Yemen in 2017. (Reuters/File Photo)
Updated 25 March 2023

Houthis restricting humanitarian flights arriving in Yemen’s Sanaa

Workers unload aid shipment from a plane at the Sanaa airport, Yemen in 2017. (Reuters/File Photo)
  • Houthis said their decision was in response to an alleged barring of commercial flights to and from the Yemeni capital

SANAA: The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen said they were imposing severe restrictions starting Saturday on UN and other humanitarian flights arriving in the capital, Sanaa.

The Houthi-run Civil Aviation Authority said no humanitarian flights would land in Sanaa between March 25-30. It said in a statement they would allow such flights in Sanaa only on Fridays.

The Houthis said their decision was in response to an alleged barring of commercial flights to and from the Yemeni capital, and a ban of booking flights from Sanaa.

The UN did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Sanaa International Airport was partly reopened for commercial fights last year as part of a UN-brokered cease-fire deal between Yemen’s warring parties. The cease-fire expired in October when the two sides failed to reach a compromise to renew the truce.

The Houthi move comes amid an escalation in fighting in the central province of Marib, where the Houthis in recent days attacked government-held areas.

The Houthi restrictions on humanitarian flights is likely to exaggerate the suffering of Yemenis in Houthi-held areas, including the capital.

Yemen’s conflict has created one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More than 21 million people in Yemen, or two-thirds of the country’s population, need help and protection, according to the UN.


Outrage in Lebanon after PM’s last-minute decision to delay daylight savings

Outrage in Lebanon after PM’s last-minute decision to delay daylight savings
Updated 25 March 2023

Outrage in Lebanon after PM’s last-minute decision to delay daylight savings

Outrage in Lebanon after PM’s last-minute decision to delay daylight savings
  • Move forces country’s Muslims to change fasting hours during Ramadan
  • Lebanese institutions on Saturday took divergent positions on the move

BEIRUT: An abrupt decision by Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati to postpone the start of daylight saving time by one month has turned into a major political dispute, overshadowing the country’s dire economic crisis.
Despite repeat IMF warnings over the state of the Lebanese economy, the latest political controversy surrounding the postponement from March 25 to April 21 is dominating debate in the country.
The dispute over daylight saving time also involves religious and sectarian differences, and comes as Muslims mark the holy month of Ramadan. It means those fasting must break their fasts an hour earlier than planned.
Lebanese institutions on Saturday took divergent positions on the move. One media outlet said that it “will not abide by the decision and will commit to the universal time.”
According to one political observer, the dispute reflects a “political vacuum, given that an absurd decision was explained in a sectarian way.”
This dispute “showed the loss of confidence in the ruling political class and the scale of randomness that political action in Lebanon can slip into.”
The postponement caused confusion among institutions working with other states, notably the international airport, banks and mobile phone networks that automatically adjust to daylight savings each year.
Airlines were forced to reschedule flights, and the two major mobile networks in the country sent a written message to subscribers, asking them to “manually adjust the time on their mobile phones before the midnight of Saturday-Sunday, to avoid the time change on their screens.”
Secretary General of Catholic Schools Father Youssef Nasr said: “Private educational institutions and the Federation of Private Educational Institutions will abide by Mikati’s decision until it is reversed.”
Mikati’s move was met with sarcasm on social media platforms. One political activist said: “We are in the republic of wasting time.”
Another said: “It looks like Lebanon’s connection to the global system is not important.”
Other warned that the decision “was taken by leaders who do not acknowledge the presence of others in the country.”
Free Patriotic Movement MP Saeed Nasr said in a press conference: “Such decision leads to many problems and disruptions in software, applications and electronic devices that rely on daylight saving time in their operations, thus resulting in errors in setting times and dates, delaying production and delivery processes, which could possibly affect banks and SWIFT payments.
Meanwhile, amid political dispute over the postponement — with opposition to the move led by FPM MPs and MP Nadim Gemayel — the Lebanese Cabinet is scheduled to hold a session on Monday to discuss boosting salaries and incentives following a collapse in the wages of public and private sector employees.
Retired army members are likely to protest in Riad Al-Solh Square in central Beirut during the Cabinet meeting, following a similar move earlier this week.
Veteran representatives said that the call to protest came after negotiations with the government failed to meet their basic demands, especially fair and legal wages and an increase in medical and educational benefits.