Беит Сахым. 47 боевиков решились сдать оружие

Syria Update: 47 Terrorists Made Up Their Minds and Laid Down Their Weapons
26 October 2013

(Translation)


‘We are in Beit Sahem area [Damascus Governorate]. This is the building that has recently been held by the militants. They used their firing positions here to shoot at the highway traffic over there. That road over there, which leads to the Airport, was very dangerous because of that.


At present, the SAA soldiers have captured this building. The militants have been driven away from the road deep into the adjacent neighborhood area. As you can see, the highway traffic is secure, right now. Beyond that highway, there is Jaramana Governorate area over there. It is largely populated by Christians. It is suffering from mortar attacks, which take place from inside the neighborhood. The SAA’s job now is to move forward deeper into the neighborhood in order to prevent the terrorist acts’.



‘During the past year, the Syrian Army had cleared this area of terrorist fighters three times. However, as soon as the civilians returned here, the militants infiltrated back into the area and began shooting at the passing-by transport, moving to the Airport. That again has forced the SAA to interfere and to bring order to the situation. Now, the National Reconciliation Committee is holding talks to make sure that the shootings are stopped. Because of these negotiations, 47 people have laid down their arms in recent days’.




Marat Musin, Andrey Filatov, Igor Nadyrshin, Victor Kuznetsov.

ANNA-News Agency, Damascus.

Syria Update: Latest Events

Syria Update: Latest Events

24 October 2013

Damascus Governorate. There is no end in sight to the continued mortar attacks by Al-Nusra Front militants, targeting peaceful neighborhoods of the local residential areas. As a result of another such attack, six mortar shells have hit local neighborhoods in Jaramana city, Damascus Governorate. One of the missiles landed inside a school campus, which at the time was filled with children, while another one hit the shed roof above the school’s front door. This barbaric act has led to five people being killed and also twenty-five injured, some of them heavily, including women and children.

This predominantly Christian city has been constantly attacked and bombed by the militants which has led to dozens of victims, all of them completely innocent peaceful citizens, most of whom turned out to be women and children.

In Eastern Gouta, local pharmaceutical factory and nearby area have been sites of recent combat fighting. Al-Nusra Front militants’ latest offensive endeavor to take over the factory has ended in great losses on their side.

Deir ez-Zor Governorate. Counter-terror operation has continued in the province of Deir ez-Zor. Syrian Army has continued with thorough inspection of the previously freed areas. In the process, one of the local mosques was discovered to have been bombed and ruined by the militants. The thugs, who happen to consider themselves true Muslims, had destroyed the mosque building simply because it was frequented by the SAA soldiers. Syrian Army sappers have detected and disarmed a large number of explosive devices in the area.

Homs Governorate. Another car rigged with improvised explosive devices (IED) has been stopped and apprehended by Syrian Army sappers at a checkpoint on one of the roads leading to Homs province. The driver of the secured car is currently under arrest. Investigation is continued.

Town of Sadat, Eastern Homs, which is home to nearly 5000 Christian civilians, has been recently targeted, as well. In the absence of the Syrian Army troops, the town was attacked by Al-Nusra Front militants. While shouting “Allah Akbar”, the terrorists suddenly rushed in and pillaged the city. There were no casualties among the local population, as the residents had escaped the city. Later that day, the city of Sadat was completely freed of terrorists by the Syrian Army. The militants took heavy losses.

Marat Musin, Igor Nadyrshin, Andrey Filatov, Victor Kuznetsov.

ANNA-News Agency, Syria

Most distant galaxy in the universe discovered!

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/most-distant-galaxy-in-the-universe-discovered-20131024-2w2r7.html



Most distant galaxy in the universe discovered!



According to Texas A&M University astronomer Vithal Tilvi, sunlight takes a little over eight minutes to reach Earth. “That means that when we are looking at the Sun, we are actually looking at the Sun as it was eight minutes ago,” he said.

The light detected from the most distant galaxy (z8_GND_5296) left it about 13.1 billion years ago. The universe was only 700 million years old when that galaxy came into being.

In other words, we are looking 95 per cent of the way back to the Big Bang. To put that into human terms, that would be like an 80-year-old watching a video of himself on his fourth birthday.

"From observing these distant galaxies, we can understand how the universe was when it was very young," Tilvi said. "There’s no other way to look into the past."

Further-away galaxies than z8_GND_5296 have been identified, but failed a double-check process along the way. The team first perused a month’s worth of images from the Hubble telescope for possible candidate galaxies.

Hubble avoids the snags that Earth-bound telescopes can run into, such as clouds and bad weather, to more easily spot the red blobs that signal a distant object.

The Doppler Effect makes the most distant galaxies appear red. Because the universe is expanding, the galaxy’s light moves away from us and gets stretched into a redder wavelength. The galaxies from within the first billion years of the universe are so far away that they have shifted into the infrared, or redder than our eyes can see…

How red the light of the object is gives some sense of how far away it is, but a technique called spectroscopy is the true litmus test that accurately confirms the distance.

[Syria] Краткая сводка о ситуации в Сирии за 23 октября 2013 года

Syria Update: Latest Events

23 October 2013

Damascus province. The Syrian government’s latest decrees, as well as its public events and counseling aimed at achieving necessary understanding, along with the active assistance on the part of the National Reconciliation Committee, have led to a group of 25 militants’ willingly laying down their arms and ammunitions and unconditionally surrendering to the authorities.

Having been drawn into terrorist fighting by trickery, through drug abuse, or sheer coercion, these people – the citizens of Syria – have recognized their fault. It has been determined that there is no blood on their hands. After going through a series of certain checks, interviews, and official procedures, these people are going to be returned to their peaceful lives, to their family members. However, beforehand, they would need to pledge never to take up arms again and take no part in terrorist activities.



Dara’a. As a result of counter-terror operations, the Syrian law enforcement agents have apprehended a suspicious car. A more careful inspection of the vehicle have revealed a number of concealed units of ammunition. Among the found items stored in the car were handguns, ammunition, cutting-edge communication devices, and various items of military equipment. The driver was taken into custody.



Hama. A long underground tunnel previously used by the Al-Nusra Front militants has been found in a forlorn house during the inspection of one of the freed territories. A large depot of ammunition belonging to that terrorist organization was also found in one of the dwelling houses in the area. A large number of small arms has been dug out including large quantities of various ammunitions, RBR anti-tank missiles and mortar shells of Western origin, improvised explosive devices (IED), modern communications devices, large stockpiles of medical equipment and medicine supplies. Investigation is being carried out.



Homs. Counter-terror operation in Homs province has resulted in fully freeing the city of Homs’ Al-Kusur neighborhood. Final inspection of the freed territory is underway. Syrian Army has been currently assigned with freeing the district of Al-Karabis to destroy a large group of Al-Nusra Front militants there.



Damascus. Special Commission of Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has continued its work in Syrian Arab Republic. Syrian authorities as well as Syrian military leaders provide comprehensive assistance to the OPCW experts. More than 50% of the workload has been accomplished to date. All reported sites of chemical weapons production and stockpiling are being inspected. Particular attention is being paid to issues of personal safety of the members of the working group.


Marat Musin, Igor Nadyrshin, Andrey Filatov, Victor Kuznetsov.

ANNA-News Agency, Syria

Лекция Андрея Кураева в Австралии

Лекция Андрея Кураева в Австралии

Syria Update: Splitting Jobar and Zamalka (Part 5)

Syria Update: Splitting Jobar and Zamalka (Part 5)



It is another day of the operation aimed at separating the enemy defense lines of the al -Nusra Front terrorists in Jobar from their allied group of militants positioned in Zamalka. Today, the main battle area has become the scene of predominantly positional fighting on both sides. The main combat mission of the SAA troops has remained their closing with the enemy positions by advancing through the surrounding residential sector and subsequently pushing the terrorists away from their current defense area strategic positions.



- “We are in Jobar right now – one of the neighborhoods of Eastern Gouta – where groups of militants have captured houses of civilians. They had plundered them and turned them into one fortified defense area to fight against SAA. However, soldiers have managed to free these houses and inflict heavy losses to the militants. A large number of landmines has been deactivated here. We also have managed to take under control the whole area between the highway and the Southern Beltway. We – the soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army – solemnly vow to God and our Motherland to carry on with the destruction of the enemies until our complete victory”.



The militants seem to be fully aware that after losing these strategic high-rise buildings the Jobar group will be cut off from arms supplies and reinforcements. They will also lose their control over the Southern Beltway; and the underground tunnel – connecting Jobar with Zamalka – will be destroyed.

Today, we are visiting the forward positions in the residential sector. From a bird's eye view, the main battle area does not seem to be large. However, you get a different perspective on the ground.

Scurrying across the open spaces controlled by the enemy snipers, we finally step into the labyrinth of the houses of the private residential sector. Here, the battle was going on at an extremely close combat range. Its front line was not measured in hundreds of meters but in mere steps of every single living room, kitchen, and staircase. Every single step you could be hit in a landmine. You could be shot at from any direction even from under your feet through the floor, as not all underground tunnels were known by then.

We have made our first stop of this tour. The militants are less than ten meters away from us, now. We move on. One wrong step and we can get into a no man’s land. There you can only take chances – of either getting a bullet or being captured alive. It is hard to say which is nicer, most probably it is the bullet.



- “The situation is good here. The distance to the militants is seven meters. We do everything possible to win. With God’s help, we will. Movement is very restricted here, because all the wall partitions have been breached and they provide no cover. We brought sandbags in here and secured our positions. There militants are in front of us in three different locations: in the basement, behind the front wall of the building, and a little further to the right. It was hard at first, so we secured our position at this spot so that we would not have to move forward head-to-head. With the help of these guys – the Syrian Army soldiers – we will kill all the enemies of our Motherland. The victory will be Syria’s”.



Behind those sandbags, someone is watching us, too. This time, it is the militants. If we uncover ourselves, the fighting will ensue. We have closed with the right flank high-rise building. Less than ten meters away from us, the militants’ positions are there.



- “We are at a forward counter-sniper position. The militant snipers are literally ten meters away from us. The SAA soldiers keep visual contact with them. Seek them out. And take them out. Very close to us, there is a high-rise building from which a tank was shot at and the tank’s driver was killed”.



Those are the enemy firing points destroyed earlier. They can be clearly seen from this spot from which SAA soldiers had communicated their coordinates to the tanks and one of the tanks subsequently destroyed the terrorists' positions with fire.

That is the spot over there from which the militants used to control with fire the immediate area in front of the high-rise buildings.

Now, we are moving deep into the private residential sector.
This alley is under constant sniper fire and we decided that we could not deny ourselves a pleasure to tease the terrorist snipers with our camera.

The days are numbered before the decisive storming of these high-rise buildings begins.






Contributors: Vasily Pavlov, Andrey Filatov, Igor Nadyrshin, Victor Kuznetsov.


ANNA-News. Damascus.