Ballistic missiles fired from Syrian regime-controlled Kuweires airport in Aleppo have targeted civilian settlements and parking lots for fuel tankers in northern Jarablus and al-Bab districts, with civilian casualties reported, Turkey's National Defense Ministry said early Monday.

"After the firing started in the [Operation] Euphrates Shield area and civilians were targeted, a notification was sent to the Russian Federation side to stop the shooting [by the Syrian regime], and the determined targets were put under fire," the ministry said on Twitter.

The ministry also emphasized that the Turkish troops in the region "have been alerted” and the developments are being followed.

Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield in northern Syria on Aug. 24, 2016 to eliminate Daesh/ISIS and other terrorists and help facilitate the safe and voluntary return of Syrians to their homes.

The operation lasted 216 days and ended on March 29, 2017. During the operation, more than 2,600 Daesh/ISIS terrorists were killed and 413 terrorists neutralized. Jarablus, Al-Rai, Dabiq, Qabasin and al-Bab were all liberated from terrorists.

The other two successful anti-terror operations that Turkey has launched since 2016 across its border in northern Syria are Olive Branch (2018) and Peace Spring (2019)./aa

Hailing “valuable and trusted friend” Turkey for its willingness to host peace talks, Afghanistan on Sunday said the meeting could prove to be a vital step forward in the quest for stability in the war-weary country.

In a phone call with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, Foreign Minister Haneef Atmar said Turkey’s readiness to hold Afghan peace talks is expected to be a step forward in securing a cease-fire and reaching a political solution in Afghanistan, the Afghan Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Atmar praised Turkey’s readiness to host the next round of Afghan peace talks as a valuable and trusted friend, and stressed the need to increase contacts and consultations on the goals, agenda, participants and outcomes of the conference,” read the statement, which came a day after the two top officials spoke to discuss a range of bilateral and regional matters.

Turkey announced on Friday that a meeting on the Afghan peace plan will be held in Istanbul in April.

That will follow a multi-nation meeting in Russia at the level of the special envoys on March 18.

Afghanistan’s government confirmed on Saturday that it will take part in both events and send official delegations to both Turkey and Russia.

The events come amid a renewed push by the US to take forward the stalled peace process.

Washington has recently presented a draft peace agreement to the Afghan government and the Taliban, which includes terms for a cease-fire and a plan for an interim government that Kabul has previously opposed./aa

Asma al-Assad, the wife of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, is facing possible prosecution for crimes against humanity by inciting and encouraging acts of terrorism against the people of Syria.

Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers, a human rights law firm, submitted a confidential filing to the War Crimes Unit of the Metropolitan Police Service Counter-Terrorism Command on Saturday to open an investigation against Assad, who is a dual Syrian-British national.

“The legal team at Guernica 37 International Justice Chambers has been investigating this matter for a number of months and has submitted two confidential filings with the War Crimes Unit,” the firm said in a statement.

“It is important to hold not only those who carry out these horrific crimes accountable but also those who promote, incite, encourage and glorify such acts. We are seeking to ensure that the process of truth and justice is meted out equally to all persons irrespective of status and standing.”

The firm said it is imperative that Assad faces prosecution in the UK and is not simply stripped of her citizenship.

“We recognize that it would be politically expedient to merely strip any person accused of their citizenship. That will not serve the interests of the hundreds of thousands of civilian victims to the ten-year conflict,” read the statement.

The law firm called for Assad to face trial before an English court “where the process will be independent and impartial and will look solely at the evidence irrespective of any political considerations.”

“This is an important step in holding senior political officials accountable for their acts and ensuring that a State, through an independent and impartial legal process, takes responsibility for the acts of its own nationals,” the statement added.

- ‘Systematic approach to torture, murder’

Guernica 37 accused the Syrian regime of systematic torture and murder of civilians.

Citing numerous sources and witnesses, the firm said the regime used an array of tactics to repress protests and sanctioned the use of excessive and lethal force against Syrian civilians.

These include firing live ammunition indiscriminately at civilian protesters, the use of chemical weapons, and the mass arbitrary detainment of civilians without access to lawyers or a fair trial, the firm said.

“The Syrian Government is clearly guilty of a systematic approach to the torture and murder of civilians,” read the statement.

“We see this systematic approach being evidenced at all stages in that even before the armed conflict existed within the State, those who sought to protest against the regime were made subject to arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention, torture and other forms of ill treatment during that detention and ultimately extra-judicial execution.”

In March 2011, the people of Syria, inspired by events in Egypt and Tunisia, rose up against Bashar al-Assad’s regime and demanded political reforms and freedoms.

What began as peaceful demonstrations quickly descended into a civil war as the Syrian people were forced to take up arms to defend themselves against a violent regime.

Now in its 10th year, the Syrian conflict rages on with no immediate end in sight.

More than half a million Syrian civilians have been killed in the conflict, over a million have been severely injured, and over 12 million people have been displaced, either internally, or externally in other countries, read the statement./aa

Turkish security forces destroyed five terrorist shelters in an operation in eastern Turkey, officials said Sunday.

The provincial gendarmerie command launched an operation against terrorists in a rural area of Hozat in the eastern Tunceli province, the governor’s office said in a statement.

In the operation, security forces destroyed five shelters and seized a large cache of survival supplies in shelters.

Operations are ongoing to neutralize remaining terrorist elements in the region.

Although the statement mentioned no specific terror group, Turkish forces have been carrying out operations against the PKK terrorist organization in the region.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and the EU – has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people including women, children and infants.​​​​​​​/aa

 A fire broke out on Sunday at a private school in central Sweden where Muslim children are educated, said media reports.

Hussein Aldaodi, the principal of Alsalamskolan School in the province of Orebro, told Swedish state broadcaster SVT that footage on school security cameras showed two people setting fire to the school.

"In the footage, two masked men break windows on the lower floor of the school and throw flammable materials inside," Aldaodi said.

“Because it was early in the morning, our only consolation was that no one was in the school," he added.

Police have launched an investigation into the incident./aa

At least 34 people were gunned down by security forces during anti-military protests in Myanmar on Sunday.

Most of them – 31 – were killed in Hlaing Thar Yar, the most populated township of the commercial capital Yangon.

“We have received 31 dead bodies so far. All of them died of gunshot wounds,” a surgeon at a public hospital in the township told Anadolu Agency on the phone Sunday night.

There has been a heavy security presence around protest sites in the area since early Sunday morning.

Zay Phyo, a protest leader, said more than 500 security personnel had been deployed to target people gathering in Hlaing Thar Yar.

“There are a few police officers, but most are soldiers. They are using guerrilla tactics against peaceful protesters,” he told Anadolu Agency.

“The soldiers moved around in the area on motorbikes, shooting people at random. That’s why there have been so many casualties.”

Several more people were injured as troops fired tear gas, stun grenades, rubber bullets, and live ammunition at crowds.

“We had anticipated such a violent crackdown and have prepared to defend ourselves as much as we can,” Phyo said./aa

More people in Bangladesh died from suicide in the last year than those who were killed by the coronavirus, according to a new study on Saturday by the Aachol Foundation.

Bangladesh reported 70% more deaths from suicide than COVID-19.

Suicides claimed 14,436 lives between March last year and February 2021, compared to 8,462 COVID-19-related deaths during that time.

It made clear the economic and social repercussions of the pandemic, the study said.

The number of suicides is about 45% higher than the previous 12-month period, according to the youth group.

An estimated 10,000 people commit suicide in Bangladesh on average every year, according to the state Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics.

The coronavirus pandemic has reportedly seen suicidal tendencies rise at an alarming rate among students. Frustration and depression have grown, spurring many to commit suicide, said the study.

The foundation said that care, mental treatment and support are hard to access in Bangladesh, especially for young people.

According to the study, 49% of suicide victims were between the ages of 20 and 35, and 57% were women./aa

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian police detained around 200 people, including several prominent opposition figures, at a meeting of independent and opposition politicians in Moscow on Saturday, the interior ministry said.

The detentions come amid a crackdown on anti-Kremlin sentiment, following the arrest and imprisonment of opposition politician Alexei Navalny who returned to Russia in January after recovering from a nerve agent poisoning in Siberia.

The Moscow forum, scheduled for Saturday and Sunday, was a gathering of municipal deputies from all over the country, Andrei Pivovarov, the event's organiser and executive director of Open Russia, a British-based group founded by exiled former oil tycoon and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky, told radio station Echo Moskvy.

As the forum got underway, police entered the building and began detaining attendees and taking them to police vans waiting outside, video footage from TV Rain and Russian news agencies showed.

The Moscow branch of Russia's interior ministry said around 200 people had been detained and that an investigation was underway.

Police said those detained were not following the appropriate anti-coronavirus health measures even though footage showed most of them wearing masks. They said some of those attending the forum had links to an "undesirable organisation".

"A significant portion of participants lacked personal protective equipment," the police said. "Members of an organisation whose activities are considered undesirable on Russian territory were among the participants."

OVD-Info, which monitors the detention of political protesters and activists, put the number of detainees at more than 170.

"The finale of the short forum was very symbolic: deputies in police vans and masked police twisting people's arms," one detainee, opposition politician Ilya Yashin, wrote on Facebook.

"But no one promised us freedom on a silver platter. Russia will still be free."

Vladimir Kara-Murza, vice-president of the Free Russia Foundation, a Washington-based non-profit organisation, shared a picture from the inside of a police van after he was detained.

TV Rain said Yevgeny Roizman, the former mayor of Yekaterinburg, and Moscow city councillor Yulia Galyamina were also detained.

Open Russia is one of more than 30 groups that Moscow has labelled as undesirable and banned under a law adopted in 2015.