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AlMasdarNews reports: The Syrian Arab Army’s Republican Guard, backed by Liwaa Al-Quds (Palestinian paramilitary), launched their second large-scale assault at the Handarat Refugee Camp today, targeting the eastern neighborhoods that are under Fatah Halab’s control.

According to local sources in northern Aleppo, the Syrian Armed Forces and Liwaa Al-Quds entered the Handarat Camp after securing the Shaher District, which is located at the eastern sector of this former refugee camp.

Intense clashes are ongoing inside the camp, as the Syrian Armed Forces and Liwaa Al-Quds attempt to reestablish control over this key district in Aleppo’s northern sector.

Handarat Camp was initially recaptured by Liwaa Al-Quds last week; however; a swift counter-offensive by the jihadist rebels forced the pro-government forces to withdraw east towards the nearby Bureijj District.

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Kiev continues to intensify its artillery groups near the contact line with Donbass and fire territories of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).

Kiev has intensified its artillery group near Mariupol and Yasinovataya with tanks, howitzers and self-propelled guns, Deputy Commander of the Operational Command of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Eduard Basurin, said at a briefing on Tuesday.

“Our intelligence continues to reveal facts of presence of prohibited weapons of the Ukrainian Armed Forces along the contact line,” Basurin said.

According to the Deputy Commander, three self-propelled guns, two tanks and two trucks with ammunition were discovered in the village of Granitnoye near Telmanovo, half a kilometer from the front. Moving of the nine Giatsint-B field guns was spotted near Yasinovataya, on the Yasnobrodovsky landfill.

“In addition, our intelligence spotted supply of ammunition to the settlements of Novognatovka, Nikolaevka, Marinka, Zarya and Rybinskoye,” Basurin added.

According to Basurin, over the past day, the Ukrainian Armed Forces fired frontline territories of the DPR 46 times. The villages of Zaytsevo near Gorlovka, Aleksandrovka and Trudovskiye to the west of the capital, Novolaspa in the area of Telmanovskiy, the territory of Dokuchaevsk, suburbs of Yasinovataya and the Mayorsk checkpoint near Zaytsevo were under the enemy fire.

“Nineteen 82 mm and 120 mm shells were fired from prohibited weapons by the enemy. In addition, fire was opened from grenade launchers and light weapons,” Basurin pointed out.

Later on Tuesday, it was reported that Spartak village on the northern outskirts of Donetsk was fired by Ukrainian military, who used heavy mortars.

According to the DAN news agency, citing a source in power-wielding agencies of the DPR, the Ukrainian side used 82 mm and 120 mm mortars, as well as a heavy machine gun. The source also added that two hours before to start the shelling, surroundings of the industrial zone near Yasinovataya were fired with a tank by units of the Ukrainian Army.

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Defense Ministers of Russia and Armenia have signed an agreement on establishment of a joint regional air defense in the Caucasian region.

Photo: lragir.am

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and his Armenian counterpart Seyran Ohanyan have signed an agreement on establishment of joint regional air defense in the Caucasian region of the Collective Security, dated December 2015.

The document was signed for five years with a possibility of further extension every five years. If one of the sides would want to suspend the agreement, it must give a written notification of its intention to another side, using diplomatic ways. The notification must be sent six months before an expiration of the term of the contract.

“Approve and submit the agreement between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Armenia to establish a joint regional air defense in the Caucasian region of the Collective Security, signed in the city of Moscow on 23 December 2015, to the Russian President for ratification to the State Duma of the Russian Federal Assembly,” the RIA Novosti news agency quoted the statement.

Combining of the regional air defense systems will make it possible to create air defense in the whole space of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

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A Saddam-era army commander, Yaseen al-Muadhidi, also known as Abu Taha, has been appointed as a ‘new war minister’ of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group.

Photo: betanews.com

A Saddam-era army commander has been appointed as a ‘new war minister’ of the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group in order to replace former war minister, Abu Omar al-Shishani, who was killed this summer, a senior commander of the Iraqi Popular Mobilization Forces, Colonel Nazem al-Chuqaifi said on Tuesday.

“ISIL leaders at a meeting, held in the vicinity of Iraq’s Anbar province, chose former senior Iraq Army officer Yaseen al-Muadhidi, alias Abu Taha, as the terrorist group’s new war minister,” al-Chuqaifi said.

Abu Taha is one of the most senior commanders and emirs in the hierarchy of the IS, who has been fighting on the side of the group for about five years. According to intelligence data, Taha was one of the most prominent officers in the now-disbanded Iraqi Army under Saddam Hussein and served as a lieutenant general in 2003.

The new IS war minister held a number of senior positions, including post of the commander of the special forces in Hussein’s Army, as well as other high-ranking security and military positions.

In July, the death of Abu Omar al-Shishani was eventually confirmed by the IS. The statement was published by the IS Amaq news agency four months after several sources publicly reported about the killing.

Abu Omar al-Shishani, a Chechen by nationality, who had a reputation of a top military adviser to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was born in 1986 in Georgia, when it still was a part of the Soviet Union. At birth, he was named Tarkhan Tayumurazovich Batirashvili. Before to join Georgia’s military in 2006, the notorious terrorist fought as a rebel in Chechnya.

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The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) will be supplied with the Zolfaqar missiles that were first presented on Wednesday.

Photo: Tasnim News Agency

Iran plans to supply the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) forces with a large number of various types of the Zolfaqar missiles, the Fars news agency reported on Tuesday, citing commander of the Aerospace Force of the Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution (AFAGIR), Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh.

“The new Zolfaqar missile is being supplied to the IRGC Aerospace Force and a large number of this missile will be supplied to our units by the yearend,” Hajizadeh told Fars.

Answering the question if Iran has any plans to develop missiles, capable to hit targets at a distance more than 2,000 km, the Brigadier General said: “Our target is Israel and we don’t need missiles with a range of more than 2,000 km.”

On Sunday, mass-production of the domestically-designed Zolfaqar missiles, which are capable of hitting targets at a distance up to 700 km with a zero margin of error, was started in Iran. Iranian Defense Minister, Brigadier General Hossein Dehqan, and General Hajizadeh attended an opening ceremony of the production line.

The Zolfaqar mid-range missiles were first presented on Wednesday, during the nationwide parades of the Armed Forces.

In recent years, Teheran has made giant advancements in developing of long-range missiles. In March, two domestically-designed Qadr H ballistic missiles were fired from the Eastern Alborz Mountains at a target on Iran’s Southeastern Makran seashore, located at a distance 1,400 km. One missile had a message, written on it, that said in Hebrew: “Israel should be wiped off the Earth.” The missiles were fired during the main stage of the IRGC drills in Central Iran and various parts of the country.

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Following the inicial success today in Aleppo, the Syrian army and Hezbollah have fully secured the Farafira Neighborhood and the area northwest of the Aleppo Citadel inside the city.

Click to see the full-size map

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The US-led coalition’s air power has bombed areas near the Syrian government-controlled city of Deir Ezzor 2nd time in September, reports said on September 27.

The coalition’s warplanes destroyed the Political Brigade, which crosses the Euphrates river, inside the town of Al-Mayadeen. Al-Mayadeen is located in the southeastern countryside of the Deir Ezzor province.

Earlier this month, the US-led coalition hit the Syrian army’s positions at the Thardeh Mountains outside the city of Deir Ezzor, killing and injuring over 100 Syrian servicemen. The ISIS attack followed the air strike.

The post US-led Coalition Bombs Deir Ezzor 2nd Time in September (Photos) appeared first on .

© REUTERS/ Kevin Lamarque

Moscow released the full text of the Russia-US deal on Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced on September 27. Its full text is now aviable (in Russian) on the site of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

“Only a few days ago – following the information ‘leaks’ in the Western media – the US State Department published on its website parts of the documents, not bothering to agree with us the date of the release,” theministry said in a statement. “On our part, we publish the texts of the relevant agreements in Russian.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry added that it had proposed to make the full package of documents public but Washington refused to do so. The move caused “some questions about whether the US is sincere or not.”

“The unwillingness to publicly confirm their commitment to separate opposition from al-Nusra Front, al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria, and jointly conduct strikes against terrorists and their partners in crime who did not cease hostilities called for special attention.”

Moscow urged Washington to make public the mandate of the joint center on the coordination of airstrikes against terrorists, the agreement on the monitoring of a road to Aleppo and to fulfill its promise and separate “moderate” Syrian rebels and Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra).

On September 9, Russia and the United States announced a new plan on Syria and a ceasefire came into force on September 12. However, the peace attempt was declared ineffective because of numerous violations of the ceasefire. Russia and the US blamed each other for sabotaging the deal.

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Turkish-backed militant groups, supported by the Turkish Armed Forces, have reverced almost all gains of the ISIS terrorist group in the northern part of Aleppo province. Today, Turkish-backed militants have attacked Tilalyan north of Marea and Mregel north of Dudiyan in northern Aleppo.

We recall last week ISIS terrorists seized over 20 villages from the Ankara-led forces in the province.

Click to see the full-size map

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Originally appeared at RG, translated by Mario Kuoljok exclusively for SouthFront; Edited by Desi Tzoneva

In the framework of the state programme of armaments, research and production, corporation Ural Vagon Zavod (UVZ), will supply the Russian army with 2,000 tanks of the T-14 ‘Armata’ type, the head of UVZ, Oleg Sienko, told Interfax.

“There is an agreement, according to which we must supply the army with more than 2,000 units. And now we begin to supply the Defence Ministry with the first batch of 100 tanks,” said Sienko at the opening of the Baku arms exhibition, ADEX-2016.

The head of the UVZ said that now that the tank has passed the state tests, what remains is the completion of deliveries to the armed forces; training programmes and trained crews are also needed.

“It is clear that this is a machine for a professional army. The Ministry of Defence has embarked on a contract basis for the military. Therefore, we hope that more people will be trained and then the supply will be expanded,” said Sienko.

The ‘Armata’ is the first fighting vehicle of the third post-war generation. It is equipped with remote-controlled weapons in an unmanned tower and a four-level security system. Electronic warfare and special coatings reduce the visibility of the tank in the thermal and radar ranges, active protection intercepts all types of anti-tank ammunition, and a 125 millimetre (mm) gun fires guided missiles.

The first T-14s will go to armies at Voronezh and in Moscow.

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