News archive of September 2015

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Kurdish forces attacked the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in northern Iraq on Sept.30 in the latest of several offensives aimed at driving the militants away from the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. 

The assault began in the early morning to capture the al-Gurra heights to the west of Kirkuk in the direction of the ISIL bastion of Hawijah, Kurdish military sources said. 

An increased number of migrants are crossing into Serbia's Dimitrovgrad over the past three months, a Serbian media outlet says.

Its data suggests every day this border region is reached by 200 to 300 people crossing from Serbia's eastern neighbor.

U.S. aircraft and about 300 Air Force troops have begun arriving at a military base in Turkey to provide search and rescue capabilities for the fighting in Iraq and Syria.
     
Pentagon officials said there will be a number of Pave Hawk helicopters and search-and-rescue versions of the C-130 transport plane stationed at Diyarbak?r Air Base in southeast Turkey.
     

Serbia's mission to UN has protested over the presence of a Kosovo delegation at a counter-terrorism meeting at UN headquarters in New York on Tuesday.

UN representatives called it "a private meeting organized by the US, which is why Kosovo was treated as an independent state," Serbia's public broadcaster, RTS, reported on Wednesday.

Saudi Arabia said Sept.29 the nearly 1,100 photos distributed to foreign diplomats to help identify nationals who have died in the hajj are from the entire pilgrimage and not just a disaster near Mecca.

Bulgarian football player Ivelin Popov, who plays for Spartak Moscow, was voted both best player for the tenth round of the Russian Premier League and for the month of September.

Popov made an excellent performance in the derby against the reigning champion Zenit, scoring a beautiful goal for his team to come in the lead with 2:1.

A U.S. judge on Sept.29 dismissed claims against Saudi Arabia by families of victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, who accused the country of providing material support to al Qaeda. 

The Russian parliament on Sept.30 unanimously granted President Vladimir Putin the right to deploy the country's military in Syria, a move a top Kremlin aide said related only to the air force. 

The Russian Federation Council has voted to approve the use of the country's army in military operations abroad, RIA Novosti agency has said.

No region had been initially specified, but officials later explained the move referred to Syria.