ANKARA: Turkiye has escalated its use of airstrikes in its fight against the PKK and allies in Iraq and Syria in recent years.
Many of the strikes are carried out by armed drones, including the Bayraktar TB2, according to local officials in Iraq and weapons experts.
The drone’s maker, Istanbul-based company Baykar, is run by brothers Haluk and Selcuk Bayraktar. The latter is married to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s daughter. The company was founded in the 1980s by their father Özdemir and began to focus on drones in 2005. The company did not respond to a request for comment.
At least two Western companies have supplied critical components for the drones. Among them are optical sensors. Weapons experts say these sensors enable unmanned aerial vehicles to surveil and identify targets on the ground and execute airstrikes. There is no indication that Western companies have violated sanctions.
German defense electronics manufacturer Hensoldt told Reuters it has been equipping the Bayraktar TB2 with its ARGOS II optical sensor since 2020. It said it had also supplied the sensor to Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) and Lentatek, two other Turkish manufacturers of drones. Hensoldt said the quantities and exact delivery dates of the sensors were confidential and could not be shared.
“Without these types of sensors drones as we know them wouldn’t work,” said Kelsey Gallagher, a researcher with Project Ploughshares, a Canadian peace research institute.
Hensoldt added that the ARGOS II is developed and manufactured by its subsidiary in South Africa and is free of any components governed by German export law or the US International Traffic in Arms Regulations, which control the export of a wide range of military equipment and technologies that can be used in weapons.
L3Harris Wescam, a Canadian subsidiary of US defense contractor L3 Harris Technologies, has also supplied drone technology to Turkiye in the past. In October 2020, the Canadian government suspended export permits for military goods and technology to Turkiye while it reviewed allegations that Azeri forces were deploying drones equipped with Wescam’s imaging and targeting systems against Armenia in the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Canada canceled the permits in April 2021 after finding credible evidence that Bayraktar TB2 drones, equipped with Wescam sensors, had been used in the conflict.
“This use was not consistent with Canadian foreign policy, nor end-use assurances given by Turkiye,” Marc Garneau, who was Canadian foreign minister at the time, said in a statement.
The Canadian government said at the time Wescam had reviewed images shared by Armenia and confirmed delivering a system with the same serial number to Turkiye in 2020. Canadian officials and L3Harris did not respond to requests for comment for this article. Turkiye did not answer a question about its drone exports.
Sales of the TB2 drone have grown rapidly in the past few years. Baykar has said it has signed export agreements with 30 countries for the drone. Since 2018, customers have included Ukraine, Ethiopia, Libya and Azerbaijan, according to arms trade data through 2022 collected by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a think tank.
In Ukraine, the TB2 drone has helped destroy Russian armored vehicles and artillery systems.
Elsewhere, Western officials have expressed concerns about the use of Turkish drones.
In December 2021, a senior Western official told Reuters Washington had “profound humanitarian concerns” over the sales of the drones to Ethiopia, which could contravene US restrictions on exports to the country. In May 2021, the US Department of State said it had imposed wide-ranging restrictions on economic and security assistance to Ethiopia. Ethiopia accused the US of meddling in its affairs. A conflict between Ethiopia’s government and the leadership of the northern Tigray region killed thousands of civilians and displaced millions.
Western firms have supplied critical components for Turkish drones
https://arab.news/mythr
Western firms have supplied critical components for Turkish drones
- At least two Western companies have supplied critical components for the drones
- Weapons experts say these sensors enable unmanned aerial vehicles to surveil and identify targets on the ground and execute airstrikes
Syrian first lady Asma Assad has leukemia, presidency says
- Statement stated that Asma would undergo a special treatment protocol that would require her to isolate
DUBAI: Syria’s first lady, Asma Assad, has been diagnosed with leukemia, the Syrian presidency said on Tuesday, almost five years after she announced she had fully recovered from breast cancer.
The statement said Asma, 48, would undergo a special treatment protocol that would require her to isolate, and that she would step away from public engagements as a result.
In August 2019, Asma said she had fully recovered from breast cancer that she said had been discovered early.
Since Syria plunged into war in 2011, the British-born former investment banker has taken on the public role of leading charity efforts and meeting families of killed soldiers, but has also become hated by the opposition.
She runs the Syria Trust for Development, a large NGO that acts as an umbrella organization for many of the aid and development operations in Syria.
Last year, she accompanied her husband, President Bashar Assad ,on a visit to the United Arab Emirates, her first known official trip abroad with him since 2011. She met Sheikha Fatima bint Mubarak, the Emirati president’s mother, during a trip seen as a public signal of her growing role in public affairs.
Yemen’s Houthis say they downed US drone over Al-Bayda province
- The Houthis said last Friday they downed another US MQ9 drone over the southeastern province of Maareb
DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthis downed a US MQ9 drone over Al-Bayda province in southern Yemen, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson said in a televised statement on Tuesday.
Yahya Saree said the drone was targeted with a locally made surface-to-air missile and that videos to support the claim would be released.
The Houthis said last Friday they downed another US MQ9 drone over the southeastern province of Maareb.
The group, which controls Yemen’s capital and most populous areas of the Arabian Peninsula state, has attacked international shipping in the Red Sea since November in solidarity with the Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas militants, drawing US and British retaliatory strikes since February.
Iranians pay last respects to President Ebrahim Raisi
- Mourners set off from a central square in the northwestern city of Tabriz
- Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declares five days of national mourning
TEHRAN: Tens of thousands of Iranians gathered Tuesday to mourn president Ebrahim Raisi and seven members of his entourage who were killed in a helicopter crash on a fog-shrouded mountainside in the northwest.
Waving Iranian flags and portraits of the late president, mourners set off from a central square in the northwestern city of Tabriz, where Raisi was headed when his helicopter crashed on Sunday.
They walked behind a lorry carrying the coffins of Raisi and his seven aides.
Their helicopter lost communications while it was on its way back to Tabriz after Raisi attended the inauguration of a joint dam project on the Aras river, which forms part of the border with Azerbaijan, in a ceremony with his counterpart Ilham Aliyev.
A massive search and rescue operation was launched on Sunday when two other helicopters flying alongside Raisi’s lost contact with his aircraft in bad weather.
State television announced his death in a report early on Monday, saying “the servant of the Iranian nation, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raisi, has achieved the highest level of martyrdom,” showing pictures of him as a voice recited the Qur’an.
Killed alongside the Iranian president were Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, provincial officials and members of his security team.
Iran’s armed forces chief of staff Mohammad Bagheri ordered an investigation into the cause of the crash as Iranians in cities nationwide gathered to mourn Raisi and his entourage.
Tens of thousands gathered in the capital’s Valiasr Square on Monday.
Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has ultimate authority in Iran, declared five days of national mourning and assigned vice president Mohammad Mokhber, 68, as caretaker president until a presidential election can be held.
State media later announced that the election would will be held on June 28.
Iran’s top nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri, who served as deputy to Amir-Abdollahian, was named acting foreign minister.
From Tabriz, Raisi’s body will be flown to the Shiite clerical center of Qom on Tuesday before being moved to Tehran that evening.
Processions will be held in in the capital on Wednesday morning before Khamenei leads prayers at a farewell ceremony.
Raisi’s body will then be flown to his home city of Mashhad, in the northeast, where he will be buried on Thursday evening after funeral rites.
Raisi, 63, had been in office since 2021. The ultra-conservative’s time in office saw mass protests, a deepening economic crisis and unprecedented armed exchanges with arch-enemy Israel.
Raisi succeeded the moderate Hassan Rouhani, at a time when the economy was battered by US sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear activities.
Condolence messages flooded in from Iran’s allies around the region, including the Syrian government, Palestinian militant group Hamas and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
It was an unprecedented Hamas attack on Israel that sparked the devastating war in Gaza, now in its eighth month, and soaring tensions between Israel and the “resistance axis” led by Iran.
Israel’s killing of seven Revolutionary Guards in a drone strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1 triggered Iran’s first ever direct attack on Israel, involving hundreds of missiles and drones.
In a speech hours before his death, Raisi underlined Iran’s support for the Palestinians, a centerpiece of its foreign policy since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Palestinian flags were raised alongside Iranian flags at ceremonies held for the late president.
Israeli army raids West Bank’s Jenin, Palestinians say seven killed
- Among the Palestinians killed was a surgical doctor, the head of the Jenin Governmental Hospital said
JENIN: Israeli forces raided Jenin in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday in an operation that the Palestinian health ministry said killed seven Palestinians, including a doctor, and left nine others wounded.
The army said it was an operation against militants and that a number of Palestinian gunmen were shot. There was no immediate word of any Israeli casualties.
The health ministry account of the casualties was quoted by the official Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Among the Palestinians killed was a surgical doctor, the head of the Jenin Governmental Hospital said. He was killed in the vicinity of the hospital, the director said.
The West Bank is among territories Israel seized in a 1967 Middle East war. The Palestinians want it to be the core of an independent Palestinian state. US-sponsored talks on a two-state solution to the decades-old conflict broke down in 2014.
Dubai DXB airport sees record 2024 traffic after 8.4% rise in Q1
- Dubai airport welcomed around 23 million passengers in January-March period, operator says
- India, Saudi Arabia and Britain were top three countries by passenger volumes in first quarter
DUBAI: Dubai’s main airport expects to handle a record passenger traffic this year after an 8.4% rise in the first quarter compared with a year earlier, operator Dubai Airports said on Tuesday.
Dubai International Airport (DXB), a major global travel hub, welcomed around 23 million passengers in the January-March period, the operator said in a statement, noting that the uptick was partly driven by increased destination offers by flagship carrier Emirates and its sister low-cost airline Flydubai.
“With a strong start to Q2 and an optimistic outlook for the rest of the year, we have revised our forecast for the year to 91 million guests, surpassing our previous annual traffic record of 89.1 million in 2018,” CEO Paul Griffiths said in the statement.
Dubai is the biggest tourism and trade hub in the Middle East, attracting a record 17.15 million international overnight visitors last year.
Its ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum last month approved a new passenger terminal in Al Maktoum International airport worth 128 billion dirhams ($34.85 billion).
The Al Maktoum International Airport will be the largest in the world with a capacity of up to 260 million passengers, and five times the size of DXB, he said, adding all operations at Dubai airport would be transferred to Al Maktoum in the coming years.
DXB is connected to 256 destinations across 102 countries. In the first quarter, India, Saudi Arabia and Britain were the top three countries by passenger numbers, Dubai Airports added. ($1 = 3.6729 UAE dirham)
