ULUDERE: U.S. military officers at the Fusion Cell in Ankara couldn't tell whether the men, bundled in heavy jackets, were civilians or guerrilla fighters. But their location in an area frequented by guerrilla fighters raised suspicions. The Americans alerted their Turkish counterparts.Turkey—After winding along a narrow mountain ridge, a caravan of 38 men and mules paused on the Turkish-Iraqi border. Then they heard the propellers overhead. Minutes later, Turkish military aircraft dropped bombs that killed all but four of the men.
The strike in late December was meant to knock out Kurdish separatist fighters. Instead it killed civilians smuggling gasoline, a tragic blunder in Turkey's nearly three-decade campaign against the guerrillas. The killings ignited protests across the country and prompted wide-ranging official inquiries.
The civilian toll also set off alarms at the Pentagon: It was a U.S. Predator drone that spotted the men and pack animals, officials said, and American officers alerted Turkey.
The U.S. drone flew away after reporting the caravan's movements, leaving the Turkish military to decide whether to attack, according to an internal assessment by the U.S. Defense Department, described to The Wall Street Journal. "The Turks made the call," a senior U.S. defense official said. "It wasn't an American decision."
The U.S. role, which hasn't previously been reported, revealed the risks in a new strategy for extending American influence around the globe. It raises an outstanding question for the White House and Congress: How far do we entrust allies with our deadly drone technology?
The applicants, C.S. and C.A.S., father and son, are Romanian nationals who were born in 1954 and 1990 respectively and currently live in Iasi (Romania).
Turkey is preparing to host the second Friends of Syria meeting on April 1, following the first one in Tunisia, as the situation in its neighbor -- with which it shares an 877-kilometer-long border -- continues to be in complete “deadlock.” Just like the overwhelming majority of the Syrian people, Turkey has exhibited a strong will that Bashar al-Assad must leave the wheel of the country, but no significant option for how this can be done has emerged so far.
The deaths of 36 people, who may have been locals smuggling in goods from northern Iraq, killed in an overnight airstrike by Turkish warplanes in southeastern Turkey have led to doubts about the intelligence sources on which the military relied before conducting the operation.
Europe Human Right Court President Jean-Paul Costas incumbency ends at this month. He has been chairing for 13 years. He talked about future of court, Europe, European Union, economic crisis damages to human rights.
Born on 3 November 1941 in Tunis
Turkish artillery hit targets near Syria's Tel Abyad border town for a second day on Thursday, killing several Syrian soldiers according to activists and security sources, after a mortar bomb fired from the area killed five Turkish civilians.
I hope that the recently proposed changes to the criminal code in Ukraine will make such trials impossible in the future,” said Thorbjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the 47-member body, after a Ukraine court jailed former Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko for seven years. She was convicted of abusing power.
