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ISIS destroys Turkish tank with ATGM
Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin said ISIS used the AT-13 "Kornet" ATGM, one of Russia's best. The tank was an M-60. Really proud of that, they are.[ARA News] ERBIL – Militant fighters of the Islamic State (ISIS) on Tuesday targeted an alleged Turkish tank in Iraq’s northwestern city of Mosul with an anti-tank guided missile, pro-ISIS media sources reported. The group’s news agency Amaq published a videotape showing an ISIS jihadi adjusting an advanced missile to target a Turkish tank near Mount Bashiqa in the vicinity of Mosul city in Iraq’s Nineveh province. The group showed the date of April 19, 2016, at the beginning of the footage. The footage shows the missile ejects from the launcher and hitting the alleged Turkish tank stationed on the top of a hill, destroying it at once. “Allah is the Greatest… Allah is the Greatest,” ISIS jihadis shouted after destroying the tank. ARA News could not verify the death toll in the ranks of the tank’s crew as the clip ends suddenly. Speaking to ARA News in Mosul, journalist J.L. stressed that there are Turkish tanks at Mount Bashiqa north-east of Mosul, but there are doubts about the authenticity of the clip. “Also, the ISIS-led attack, if it was true, is likely in favor of the Turkish government at least in the current conditions.” Turkey has been accused of backing Islamists against army forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, facilitating the influx of foreign militants into Syria to join ISIS in a bid to create strategic balance in the war in Syria, according to the source. “There are serious doubts about the group’s attacks against Turkish targets in northern Iraq,” he argued, pointing out “Erdogan wants to convince the public opinion that his country and army forces are under ISIS’s threats due to his steadfastness against the terror group side by side with the US-coalition forces.” On the other hand, the Turkish army released a statement saying that ISIS has bombed one of its tanks in northern Iraq on Tuesday, adding that nobody was inside the tank when it exploded. It also pointed out that its forces responded to the attack by bombing ISIS positions in Mosul, killing 32 militants. In March 2015, Turkey deployed hundreds of soldiers reaching to 25 tanks at Beshiqa military camp in the vicinity of Iraq’s ISIS-held Mosul city in order to train local Iraqi forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga to fight the hardline group, according media sources.
Turkish armed forces on Tuesday killed 32 suspected Islamic State militants in the Bashiqa area of northern Iraq in response to an attack on a Turkish tank at a military camp there, broadcaster CNN Turk reported. CNN Turk said Turkish soldiers had killed 10 Islamic State militants during an operation that destroyed a building, and had killed another 22 militants as they fled. The report could not immediately be verified. NATO member Turkey has soldiers stationed at the Bashiqa camp near the city of Mosul, which it says are training local forces to fight Islamic State. Posted by: badanov 2016-04-20 |
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