Author: Badalian Vardan

GEORGIA: NASA ENLISTED IN EFFORT TO STAKE CLAIM TO “CRADLE OF WINE” TITLE

EurasiaNet.org
June 13 2014

June 12, 2014 – 11:22pm

In its effort to stake claim to the title of being the “birthplace”
of wine, Georgia a few years back petitioned the European Union,
successfully earning the right to sell its wine in Europe using the
tagline “The Cradle of Wine.”

Considering there are others — namely next door Armenia — that
are also claiming to be the place where wine was born, it appears
that Georgian authorities are taking extra steps to solidify their
claim on the title. As the Georgian wine news site Hvino.com reports,
Levan Davitashvili, director of Georgia’s National Wine Agency, has
said his organization has provided numerous labs — including one
run by the American space agency NASA — with archeological material
that will prove “Georgia’s status as the motherland of wine.” From
Hvino’s report:

According to Levan Davitashvili, the research project can’t be
accomplished in a short period of time, but the Georgian side expects
that a lot of material will prove that grape vine domestication and
wine production started in Georgia.

Director of the National Wine Agency notes that in April new
excavations were carried out in the region of Kartli, and the unearthed
artifacts will supposedly prove that Georgia is the homeland of
wine. “We have a fragmentary material. However, it is not recognized
by leading scientists.

We are convinced that we are a wine country, but it must be proved
scientifically,” said Levan Davitashvli.

While NASA’s scientists work their way through Georgia’s artifacts,
they might want to take a look at the research of Swiss botanist Jose
Vouillamoz, who studies the DNA of grape varieties. His findings? That
many of the most famous grape varieties used to make wine in Europe
trace their roots back to not Georgia but to yet another “cradle”
of wine, Turkey.

RECOGNISING GENOCIDE: PART THREE

Neos Kosmos, Hellenic Perspective, Australia
June 13 2014

13 Jun 2014

“It is believed that in Turkey between 1913 and 1922, under the
successive regimes of the Young Turks and of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk),
more than 3.5 million Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Christians were
massacred in a state-organised and state-sponsored campaign of
destruction and genocide, aiming at wiping out from the emerging
Turkish Republic its native Christian populations. This Christian
Holocaust is viewed as the precursor to the Jewish Holocaust in WWII.

To this day, the Turkish government ostensibly denies having committed
this genocide.”

Dr Israel Charney

At the close of the First World War, Greece was a nation being torn
apart at the seams. Sundered politically and socially through the
‘National Schism’ between the Royalists, who wanted to stay out
of the war and were only forced to enter the war after the Allies
blockaded Piraeus, and the Venizelists, who, with a view to territorial
expansion, set up their own rival government in Thessaloniki, from
there to prosecute the war, across the Aegean, terrible stories were
being told of a mass genocide of Greeks in the Ottoman Empire. Unlike
the West, which was largely innocent of the holocaust while it was
being carried out, Greece was well aware of the crime being perpetrated
against her own people. King Constantine himself accused the German
Kaiser, his brother-in-law, of Germany’s complicity in the genocide,
a claim the Kaiser denied, though enough evidence now exists to
suggest that the organised removal of Greeks from coastal regions
such as Gallipoli and the forced death marches of the population were
suggested to the Ottomans by German military advisers. Nonetheless,
as Manus Midlarsky states in his book: The Killing Trap: Genocide in
the Twentieth Century, the Greek genocide was nuanced and calculated
to take place without attracting too much western opprobrium: “Given
these political and cultural ties, wholesale attacks on the Ottoman
Greeks would have profoundly angered not only the Entente Powers, but
Germany and Austria-Hungary as well, the allies upon whom the Ottomans
were deeply dependent. Under these conditions, genocide of the Ottoman
Greeks simply was not a viable option. (…) Massacres most likely did
take place at Amisos and other villages in the Pontus. Yet given the
large numbers of surviving Greeks, especially relative to the small
number of Armenian survivors, the massacres were apparently restricted
to the Pontus, Smyrna, and selected other ‘sensitive’ regions.”

Thus, in 1919, a politically fragmented Greece that was fraught with
domestic strife, exhausted by continuous war since 1912 and almost
bankrupt, had lost an extremely large portion of its eastern population
to genocide, was granted occupation of most of Eastern Thrace, to a
point forty kilometres from Constantinople. Prime Minister Venizelos,
in the face of serious Allied (and Greek military) misgivings,
asserted Greece’s capacity to occupy and police a zone around the
city of Smyrna. Owing to the support of British Prime Minister David
Lloyd George, Greek troops finally landed in Smyrna in 1919, to the
consternation of the Turks.

The occupation and administration of Smyrna, which was supposed to be
of five years’ duration, after which time, its inhabitants would hold
a plebiscite to determine which country they would like to belong to,
marks the departure point between the constituents of the Christian
genocides. Unlike the Armenians and the Assyrians, who did not have
a state at the time the Christian genocide was committed, the Greeks
not only had such a state but also found themselves embroiled in a
war against forces the like of which they had never before encountered.

While the vanquished Sultan in Entente-occupied Constantinople was
cajoled into accepting the Greek occupation and the cession of Eastern
Thrace, culminating in the Treaty of Sevres that formalised Greece’s
gains at the expense of the Ottoman Empire, the occupation of parts
of Turkey by erstwhile Ottoman subjects was something that could
not be countenanced by nationalist Turkish forces. Coalescing around
Kemal Ataturk, the hero of the defence of Gallipoli, they landed in
Samsounta on 19 May 1919 and commenced a campaign to remove the last
vestiges of the Greek presence in Anatolia.

According to Igor Diakonov in The Paths of History, in the context
of the nationalist campaign, which was considered a battle for the
survival of Turkey, “Kemal attempted to continue the genocide of
Armenians in Transcaucasia, and of Greeks on the coast of the Aegean.

Especially heartrending and horribly bloody was the genocide of the
Greeks in Smyrna (Turkish Izmir) where they had lived since the tenth
century BC”.

As a result of the Kemalist campaign, the Treaty of Sevres was never
ratified. As Kay Holloway wrote, the failure of the signatories to
bring the treaty into force “resulted in the abandonment of thousands
of defenceless peoples – Armenians and Greeks – to the fury of their
persecutors by engendering subsequent holocausts in which the few
survivors of the 1915 Armenian massacres perished”.

Given the refusal of Turkish Nationalists to abide by the Treaty,
and the constant harassing of the Greek forces by Turkish guerrillas,
irregulars and nationalist forces, the already beleaguered Greek
army had no choice but to cross over from the Smyrna zone into Turkey
proper, in order to neutralise the aggression. While this is widely
considered, especially by Turkish forces, to have been tantamount
to an invasion, the strategic objective of these operations was to
defeat the Turkish Nationalists and force Kemal Ataturk into peace
negotiations. The advancing Greeks, still holding superiority in
numbers and modern equipment at this point, had hoped for an early
battle in which they were confident of breaking up ill-equipped Turkish
forces. Yet they met with little resistance, as the Turks managed to
retreat in an orderly fashion and avoid encirclement.

Winston Churchill, who was sympathetic to Greek aspirations but
was sceptical about their ability to fulfil these, said: “The Greek
columns trailed along the country roads passing safely through many
ugly defiles, and at their approach the Turks, under strong and
sagacious leadership, vanished into the recesses of Anatolia”.

As the war continued, Turkish forces lured the Greek army further and
further way from its supply lines, the Greek army advanced as far
as the Sangarios River, near Ankara. Along the way, and during its
retreat, the Greek army committed several instances of brutalities
against the civilian Muslim population. These incidents are often
referred to by Turks when the issue of recognising the genocide of
the Assyrians, Greeks and Armenians in Anatolia is broached with
them, and in fact there exist in Turkey various museums dedicated
to exposing Greek army atrocities. As these atrocities are raised
as a counterpoint to the genocide, or by way of excusing Turkey’s
liability for it, they are certainly worth examining, no less because
they feature hardly in the Greek discourse about the period. Not only
do they provide a context for Turkey’s continued genocide denial,
but also suggest that frameworks other than the political and the
historical could be employed, in order to render the process by which
Turkey and Turkish society can accept the historicity of the genocide,
with the minimum of trauma and difficulty. Next week those facts will
be examined in detail.

* Dean Kalimniou is a Melbourne solicitor and freelance journalist.

Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:

SERZH SARGSYAN CONGRATULATES RUSSIAN DIPLOMATS ON DAY OF RUSSIA

Vestnik Kavkaza, Russia
June 13 2014

13 June 2014 – 4:08pm

Serzh Sargsyan congratulates Russian diplomats on Day of Russia
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has paid a visit to the Russian
Embassy in Yerevan on the occasion of the the Day of Russia, the
press service of the president reports.

He congratulated Ambassador Ivan Volynkin and the embassy staff on
this holiday and wished them success in their diplomatic mission
for the benefit of the friendship between the two peoples and the
strengthening of the Armenian-Russian relations, News-Armenia reports.

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has paid a visit to the Russian
Embassy in Yerevan on the occasion of the the Day of Russia, the
press service of the president reports.

He congratulated Ambassador Ivan Volynkin and the embassy staff on
this holiday and wished them success in their diplomatic mission
for the benefit of the friendship between the two peoples and the
strengthening of the Armenian-Russian relations, News-Armenia reports.

AS LIST GROWS, AZERI LEADERS SAY “WHAT POLITICAL PRISONERS?”

Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
IWPR Caucasus Reporting #740
June 13 2014

Government currently presiding over human-right-friendly Council of
Europe’s cabinet.

By Afgan Mukhtarli – Caucasus

As it took over the chair of the Council of Europe’s decision-making
body last month, Azerbaijan committed itself to upholding the core
values of a grouping that calls itself “the continent’s leading human
rights organisation”.

Human rights defenders in the country say the government falls so
far short of meeting these commitments that it should never have been
allowed to take up the six-month rotating chairmanship of the CoE’s
Committee of Ministers on May 14.

Addressing a CoE meeting in Vienna on May 6, Azerbaijan foreign
minister Eldar Mammadyarov pledged that his country would pay
particular attention to the grouping’s “three key pillars – human
rights, rule of law and democracy”.

The day Azerbaijan officially took over the chairmanship, police
arrested rights activist Emil Mammadov. A Baku court ordered him held
for three months while charges of blackmail were investigated.

The same day, May 14, the Supreme Court in Baku rejected an appeal
by Rashad Ramazanov, a blogger critical of the government who was
arrested on drugs charges and given nine years in prison.

A day later, Parviz Hashimli, a journalist with the Bizim Yol
newspaper, was jailed for eight years. He has been held since September
last year and accused of a firearms offence.

Amnesty International has declared both Ramazanov and Hashimli
prisoners of conscience.

On May 26, a court sentenced jailed Anar Mammadli, head of the Election
Monitoring and Democracy Study Centre to five-and-a-half years’
jail. His colleague Bashir Suleymanli got a three-and-a-half-year
term. (This trial was covered in Five Years’ Jail for Finding Fault
With Azerbaijan Election.)

Prosecutors are currently investigating journalist Rauf Mirqadirov,
who was arrested on April 19 on charges of spying for Armenia.

(Azerbaijani Journalist Accused of Spying for Armenia.) In the same
case, they have also questioned leading rights activists like Leyla
Yunus, head of the Institute for Peace and Democracy, and Matanat
Azizova, head of the Women’s Crisis Centre.

On June 10, Azerbaijan’s court of appeal postponed the hearings
of Tofiq Yaqublu, deputy head of the opposition Musavat party,
Ilgar Mammadov, head of the REAL movement, and Yadigar Sadiqov ,
an adviser to the head of Musavat. Sadiqov was convicted of assault,
while Mammadov and Yaqublu were jailed in relation to riots in the
town of Ismayili.

The European Union has deemed all three to be political prisoners
and demanded their release.

Elman Fattah, head of a committee set up to defend Sadiqov, said
the timing of the postponement looked like a matter of political
convenience.

“On June 21, we expect [President] Ilham Aliyev to speak at the
Council of Europe,” Fattah said. “The president is certain to face
tough questioning, and it’s now very likely that he’ll reply to
questions about political prisoners by saying that this case hasn’t
finished yet.”

Aliyev ignored appeals from international organisations to use a May
28 amnesty to free some at least some of these individuals, and Fattah
said the president was hoping to avoid embarrassing questions.

“We are expecting a fresh round of amnesties on June 19,” he
explained. “By postponing the dates for the appeals of Mammadov,
Sadiqov and Yaqublu, the government can now explain why they won’t
feature on the list.”

Meanwhile, members of the youth opposition group NIDA who were given
long sentences last month said they had come under pressure to ask for
pardons. (See Condemnation After Youth Activists Jailed in Azerbaijan
on the case.)

On June 2, the justice ministry published a statement from one of
the eight, Bakhtiyar Guliyev, renouncing NIDA and asking not to be
considered a political prisoner. The next day the ministry published
a letter from Guliyev to the president requesting a pardon.

Defence lawyer Elton Guliyev said other members of the group had also
been asked to write to the president, but had refused.

Omar Mammadov, a blogger on trial for alleged drugs offence, told
RFE/RL radio on June 6 that he too had turned down a suggestion
that he seek a presidential pardon. Mammadov, who was studying at a
university in Northern Cyprus before his arrest in January, was well
known for blog posts harshly critical of the government.

Rasul Jafarov, head of the Human Rights Club, said the government was
showing total disrespect for the CoE by persisting with repressive
policies while taking up a senior position on the council’s governing
body.

“There have been new arrests, courts have jailed journalists and
bloggers for long periods on the basis of false evidence, and the
amnesty list signed on Republic Day [May 28] did not include political
prisoners,” he said.

“You should not believe the government’s promises to defend human
rights and democracy. We must steadily increase our criticism, our
pressure and our demands.”

Leyla Yunus told reporters on June 9 that she was establishing a
Centre for Opposing Repression to find new strategies for pressing
the government to change its ways.

“Our tactics have not worked, and that’s why there are now 130
political prisoners in Azerbaijan,” she said. “We must demand ever
more loudly that Ilham Aliyev free the political prisoners.”

Asked about the interrogation of Yunus at a joint news conference
with French president Francois Hollande on May 12, President Aliyev
told reporters there were no political prisoners in Azerbaijan.

“The human rights situation in Azerbaijan is positive. No one is
investigated for their political views,” he said. He then added,
“No other country can influence the steps we take in our domestic
and foreign policies.”

Arif Hajili, head of the Musavat party’s secretariat, said foreign
states including CoE members must demand that Azerbaijan live up to
its obligations.

“When Azerbaijan entered the Council of Europe, it assumed obligations
not to hold political prisoners and not to restrict people’s rights,”
he said. “The world community and the Council of Europe must demand
that the Azerbaijani government of Azerbaijan release political
prisoners and ensure freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom
of assembly, and all fundamental freedoms.”

Afgan Mukhtarli is a journalist with

TEACHING RELIGION IN SCHOOL IN ARMENIA JUSTIFIED USING ISRAEL’S EXAMPLE

06.13.2014 18:29 epress.am

The school subject “History of the Armenian Church” is secular;
it simply aims to round out the national portrait of Armenian
spirituality, said National Institute of Education representative
Hasmik Margaryan during a discussion titled “Christian intercession
classes in [public] schools” at the Media Center today.

Note, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has advised the
Government of Armenia to review its curriculum and remove the subject
on the history of religion, respecting the religious freedom of all
children. RA Minister of Education and Science Armen Ashotyan said
he intends to make no such change.

“We’ve received no written complaints from any parent. On the contrary,
we’ve received words of praise. After all, we are teaching a system
of values. How is it that [children] in a state like Israel for 50
years have taken the subject ‘Self-Identity,’ which aims to identify
religious and national identity? And we see with what great strides
Israel moves forward,” argued Margaryan.

The other speaker at today’s press conference, Armine Davtyan, who
researched the issue, didn’t agree that the textbooks are secular.

According to her, they impose the teachings of the Armenian Apostolic
Church. It even says in the textbook explanation that its purpose
is to keep children away from sectarian organizations and the threat
they pose.

“None of the religious organizations had a goal to enter general
[public] education. Their activity is open, but they don’t impose
anything,” said Davtyan.

Margaryan, however, objected, saying that religious organizations
operate on account of grants and even encourage evading military
service.

Facilitating the discussion, Artak Hambartsumyan asked whether
Margaryan also considers the UN an organization that lives off
of grants.

“Why doesn’t the UN oblige Spain and France to remove religious history
[from the school curriculum]? We want the Armenian nation to continue
[to exist]. What has our society come to? Today they get married;
tomorrow, they don’t like each other and get divorced,” said Margaryan,
indignant.

SWEDISH COMPANY OFFERS ARMENIA COMPREHENSIVE PROGRAM TO IMPROVE ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

June 13, 2014 | 18:58

YEREVAN. – Armenian Education Minister Armen Ashotyan on Friday
received a delegation of Sweden’s Education First company.

Michael Timone briefed Ashotyan on company’s mission, adding that
Education First offers a range of educational programs, especially
directed on English training.

The Swedish side offers a comprehensive program to improve the
English language proficiency of students and teachers, and is ready
to implement a training program for teachers of English language
in Armenia.

The Minister expressed Armenian side’s interest in the proposal,
adding that project financing and implementation possibilities will
be discussed after the Ministry studies proposals.

Many countries, including former Soviet states, particularly Ukraine,
Russia and Kazakhstan, are involved in similar language training
programs.

News from Armenia – NEWS.am

“SMERCH” MISSILE SYSTEMS IN NAKHCHIVAN CAN DESTROY ANY TARGET IN ARMENIA

Thu 12 June 2014 12:38 GMT | 13:38 Local Time

Armenian defense minister has repeatedly made threatening speeches
on Azerbaijan, but these are all nothing more than rhetoric.

His opinions should be considered a statement addressed to the internal
audience and the Armenian community”.

Spokesman for Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry, Lieutenant-Colonel Vagif
Dargahli told APA while commenting on the speech made by Armenian
Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan at the parliament yesterday.

Dargahli noted that Ohanyan blames Azerbaijan for all existing problems
in Armenia, introduces the Armenian Armed Forces as a structure that
is capable of taking all preventive measures and offers to withdraw
snipers from the contact line, build mutual trust between the parties,
take measures against the Azerbaijani Armed Forces and launch a
counterattack if necessary: “The Armenian side, as always, tries to
shift the blame on Azerbaijan by organizing various provocations and
in order to conceal his actions appeals to international organizations
as a victim. However, Armenia, breaking international laws, is still
keeping our territories under occupation, constantly violating the
ceasefire, trying to make reconnaissance-subversive attacks on the
front line, firing at our soldiers and civilians and harming civilian
objects and agricultural areas. One of the main objectives of the
Armenian provocation is Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, an integral
part of Azerbaijan”.

The official recalled that according to the Decree signed by Supreme
Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, President Ilham Aliyev
on December 18, 2013 on strengthening the defense capability of
Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, increasing the combat capability of
the Armed Forces’ units, creating Nakhchivan Army Special Forces in
order to improve the central management, presenting military flags
to military units, strengthening their material-technical bases and
supplying with arms and ammunition, most modern combat equipment,
aviation and artillery units clearly prove that how much Azerbaijan
attaches importance to this region from the strategic point of view.

“The Azerbaijani Armed Forces have been supplied with modern weapons
with high accuracy and destroying capacity, combat and transport
helicopters, modern air-defense equipment, armored vehicles, tanks
and artillery units. It is enough only to note that “Smerch” missile
volley-fire systems in Nakhchivan are capable of destroying any target
on the territory of Armenia”, he said.

Dargahli noted that the fighting spirit and will, logistical support
and combat capability of the staff of the units and formations of
the Azerbaijani Armed Forces in Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic allow
preventing enemy’s attempt and taking response measures.

THEY CRITICIZE PREVIOUS GOVERNMENT BUT ACCEPTED ITS EXECUTION OF THE BUDGET: MP

06.13.2014 16:02 epress.am

The government’s 2013 budget performance report and voting on it
are mere formalities because the government, which was supposed to
implement the budget performance, resigned, head of the Heritage Party
parliamentary faction Ruben Hakobyan (pictured) told reporters today.

He remarked that during the 2013 budget performance report,
representatives of the ruling authorities didn’t defend the previous
government, but the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK),
nevertheless, voted in favor of the report.

On the HHK’s response to the four non-ruling parties’ list of
12 demands, Hakobyan said: “The authorities declare what a great
opposition we have, what a constructive opposition we have. It’s
good that they say that, but I don’t believe that the authorities
will exercise political will in implementing the opposition’s demands.

Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) MP Aghvan Vardanyan,
in turn, said the authorities, by saying that there are differences
among the four non-ruling parties, are “reinventing the wheel.”

“If it interests [Deputy Parliamentary Speaker Eduard] Sharmazanov,
I can mention not 12 but 15 issues on which we have differences. Let
them not search for differences in the ‘quartet’. Rather, those issues
on which we agree, we cooperate quite successfully,” he said.

“WHOSE SKIRT WERE YOU BEHIND WHEN WE WERE FIGHTING?” KARABAKH WAR VETERANS ASK JUDGE

06.13.2014 17:11 epress.am

During today’s trial in the case of Karabakh War veteran Volodya
Avetisyan, the prosecutor, reading out loud Avetisyan’s phone bill, had
difficulty reading one of the words: Presiding Judge Levon Avetisyan,
who until then had asked for attendees to be silent in court and not
disrupt the court process, prompted the prosecutor on what word he was
supposed to read, reports the Epress.am correspondent in the courtroom.

After the judge’s prompting, some of the war veterans in the courtroom
chuckled and began to whisper among themselves, leading the judge to
interrupt the trial and ask who was laughing. Not receiving a reply
from the gallery, the judge said: “You cannot hide behind a woman’s
skirt. You are men — tell me, who laughed.”

Again, there was no reply, and the judge continued to make similar
statements addressed to the war veterans.

Finally, one of the war veterans addressing the judge, said: “Whose
skirt were you behind when we were fighting at war?”

After the incident, some of the war veterans left the room. The
Epress.am correspondent reported that the judge first asked those
present to leave the room, then he himself left.

Those present believe the judge should apologize; otherwise, they
will appeal to the Council of Justice, saying that the judge does
not adhere to the position he holds and ask for his recusal.

Currently, those attending today’s trial are waiting for the judge’s
decision.

Military operations against terrorists continue, Army recaptures key
points in Kassab

Jun 14, 2014

Aleppo, (SANA) The Army resumed Saturday its national duty in hunting
armed terrorist groups, having sweeping operations against terrorists
in different areas.

Army units killed terrorists, mostly non-Syrians, from the so-called
“Islam Army” and “Al-Baraa Brigade”, and destroyed their weaponry and
ammos in a string of operations in Damascus countryside.

SANA field reporter said an army unit pounded terrorists’ dens to the
east of Maysaloun roundabout, in the northeast of the Teaschers’ Tower
and near the Schools’ Complex in Jobar, with terrorists from Jabhat
al-Nusra and the Islam Army getting killed and their weapons
destroyed.

Moreover, army units carried out operations in al-Shifounieh farms and
Tal Kerdi in Douma, killing several non-Syrian terrorists, among them
Abdul-Kader al-Rifai, a Jordanian, and the terrorists Jihad Mahrat and
Muhannad Barghouth.

In the eastern and northern farms of al-Mliha town, terrorists were
killed and others wounded from the so-called “Al-Baraa Brigade”.
Misbah Darwish, leader of a terrorist group, was among the dead
terrorists. Another group along with its leader, Diaa Ali Taha, from
the so-called “Al-Ghouta Shield Brigade” was eliminated.

Meanwhile, army units pummeled terrorists’ dens in Asal al-Ward farms
and killed 15 terrorists in the process, destroying their weapons and
ammos.

Rankous town, that faced yesterday an attempt to have the situation in
it disturbed after an armed terrorist group tried to sneak into the
town, regained its former stability, with its locals turning out to
welcome the Syrian army.

A military source said that the army units thwarted a terrorist
group’s infiltration attempt into secure areas in Salaheddin and
al-A’zamiyah in Aleppo, leaving a number of terrorists killed and
wounded.

The source told SANA that terrorists tried to infiltrate into safe
neighborhoods of Salaheddin and al-A’zamiyah but the army units have
thwarted the attempt and killed and wounded many terrorists.

The army has also targeted terrorists in the towns and villages of
al-Lairamoun, Anadan, Hreitan, al-Atareb, Handarat, Tal Rifaat and on
Ritan-Maier axis in the suburbs of Aleppo and in the neighborhoods of
Hanano, al-Haidariyah and Bani Zaid.

The army units also destroyed vehicles equipped with heavy machineguns
and mortars.

A military source said that units of the army and armed forces have
tightened control over the area surrounding SyriaTel tower in
al-Nab’ain area in Kassab, Lattakia countryside.

Many terrorists, mostly non-Syrians, got killed in the operation.

In Daraa, the army units thwarted a terrorist group’s infiltration
attempt from al-Bajabjeh towards north technical school in al-Mansheya
district in Daraa al-Balad and eliminated a number of terrorists and
injured others.

Two infiltration attempts into safe areas in Homs countryside were
also thwarted.

The authorities in Palmyra dismantled five explosive devices planted
by terrorists on the Baghdad-Homs road. The devices weighed between 12
and 45 kilograms, and some of them were rigged for remote detonation.

Meanwhile, a number of terrorists were killed of a car bomb they were
preparing at a market in Deir Ezzor.

A source told SANA the explosion of the car led to the killing and
injuring of several terrorists and weapon traders inside a market in
Dir Ezzor.

Army units killed and wounded terrorists and destroyed their weapons
in several areas in Idleb countryside.

A military source told SANA that army units killed large numbers of
terrorists and wounded several others after pounding their handouts in
the villages of al-Hamadaniyeen, Nahleh, al-Rouje Plain, Maarazav,
al-Arbaiyeen Mountain, Maarbleed and south of al-Bouiti in Idleb
countryside.

Vehicles equipped with heavy machineguns were destroyed in the operations.

Army recaptures key points in Kassab

Army units have established full control over al-Nab’ain area and
al-Samra crossroads in Kassab in Lattakia northern countryside, said a
military source.

Large numbers of terrorists were killed in the operation that saw
control re-established in al-Nab’ain area and al-Samra crossroads, one
day after control was tightened on key military points in the area.

Battles have been raging in Kassab area in Lattakia northern
countryside since terrorists, backed by Turkey’s Prime Minster Recep
Tayyip Erdogan, overran the area late last March.

Kassab has a predominately Armenian population which suffered gruesome
crimes in the wake of the terrorists’ attack on the town.