{"id":21708,"date":"2018-11-09T01:23:22","date_gmt":"2018-11-09T01:23:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21708"},"modified":"2018-11-09T01:23:22","modified_gmt":"2018-11-09T01:23:22","slug":"two-iraq-ministers-risk-sack-over-saddam-era-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=21708","title":{"rendered":"Two Iraq ministers risk sack over Saddam-era posts"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nASHMA: Chimo Osman\u2019s children stopped going to school after Turkish shelling struck his home in northeastern Syria, where Kurdish residents fear another military onslaught is imminent.<\/p>\n

\nIn recent days, cross-border Turkish artillery fire has targeted positions held by the People\u2019s Protection Units (YPG), the main Kurdish militia in Syria.<\/p>\n

\nAnkara sees the de-facto autonomous rule set up by Syrian Kurds as an encouragement to the separatists of the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party (PKK), which has close ties to the YPG.<\/p>\n

\nThe village of Ashma is nestled in olive groves in the region of Kobani and directly looks out onto the Turkish flags and wire fencing that mark the demarcation line.<\/p>\n

\n\"\"The streets of this village and others along the border are empty: \u201cWe can\u2019t even venture on the roof anymore,\u201d said Osman.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cWe don\u2019t leave the house, the kids are scared,\u201d said the 38-year-old, standing on the steps leading to his front door, with his five children huddled around him.<\/p>\n

\nNobody can predict when the Turkish forces stationed on the other side of the border will open fire, he said.<\/p>\n

\nTurkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Oct. 30 that plans for an assault were complete and vowed to \u201cdestroy\u201d the YPG, which he considers a terrorist organization.<\/p>\n

\nOne salvo punched a large hole in the second floor of Osman\u2019s house and several other homes in the village were damaged by Turkish fire.<\/p>\n

\nFive YPG fighters and a child have been killed in Turkish shelling that has in recent days mostly targeted Kurdish positions in the Kobani and Tal Abyad areas, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.<\/p>\n

\nThe YPG is the backbone of an outfit known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is the US-led coalition\u2019s main local ally in its battle against Daesh.<\/p>\n

\nTo protest against the Turkish attacks, SDF forces late last month announced they were suspending their involvement in military operations against one of the very last terrorist pockets in eastern Syria.<\/p>\n

\nThe move was aimed at obtaining guarantees from their US sponsors that Turkey would not seek to move in across the border as they did in the Kurdish-dominated enclave of Afrin earlier this year.<\/p>\n

\nAccording to the Britain-based Observatory, more than 330 Kurdish fighters have already perished in the course of the latest offensive against Daesh.<\/p>\n

\nMany fighters waging this deadly battle on terrorists in their remote desert hideouts feel they would rather die protecting their ancestral land from Turkey.<\/p>\n

\nIn Kobani cemetery, hundreds of people attended the funeral on Tuesday of an SDF fighter who became the latest casualty of the terrorists’ bloody last stand in the Hajjin region.<\/p>\n

\nWomen wept over the coffin as patriotic songs were blared on speakers and local officials gave speeches condemning the Turkish bombardment.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThe Turkish state is hostile to the Kurds and we have the right to respond to any attack,\u201d Esmat Sheikh Hassan, a Kobani military official, said at the funeral.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThey don\u2019t differentiate between soldiers and civilians. They strike inhabited villages,\u201d he said, replying to Ankara\u2019s claims its forces only strike military targets.<\/p>\n

\nHamo Masibkeradi, one of the residents who came to attend the funeral, points to the rows of marble tombstones that mark the graves of fighters who died fighting against Daesh.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cThese martyrs fell for humanity. The international community should help us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\n\u201cErdogan wants to wipe us out. The US cannot allow this injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ASHMA: Chimo Osman\u2019s children stopped going to school after Turkish shelling struck his home in northeastern Syria, where Kurdish residents fear another military onslaught is imminent. In recent days, cross-border Turkish artillery fire has targeted positions held by the People\u2019s Protection Units (YPG), the main Kurdish militia in Syria. Ankara sees the de-facto autonomous rule…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":21709,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21708","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21708","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21708"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21708\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/21709"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21708"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21708"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21708"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}