Turkey&nbsp;has suspended more than 11,000&nbsp;teachers&nbsp;over suspected links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers&#39; Party (PKK), a Turkish official said on Thursday, following a purge of education staff in the wake of a failed coup bid.

&quot;The individuals in question are temporarily suspended -- placed on paid leave -- pending formal investigation,&quot; the official said on condition of anonymity.

A total of 11,500&nbsp;teachers&nbsp;suspected by the education ministry of having engaged in activities &quot;in support of the separatist terrorist organisation and its affiliates&quot; have been suspended, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

The PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, is listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies.

The number is expected to go up to 14,000 based on the results of an investigation carried out in coordination with local governors&#39; offices, Anadolu said, without elaborating further.

The suspension comes just over a week before the new academic session gets under way in&nbsp;Turkey.

In a key visit to the Kurdish-majority city Diyarbakir in the southeast of Turkey&nbsp;on Sunday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said up to 14,000&nbsp;teachers&nbsp;would be suspended over links to the PKK.

There are 850,000&nbsp;teachers&nbsp;in&nbsp;Turkey.&nbsp;

The insurgency in the southeast region has resumed after last year&#39;s collapse of a fragile ceasefire declared by the PKK.

The latest move comes following the Turkish&nbsp;government&#39;s decision to purge tens of thousands of education personnel, including&nbsp;teachers&nbsp;and university academics, after the July 15 coup attempt. 
 
The coup sought to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from power.&nbsp;

Turkish authorities have blamed the coup on Erdogan&#39;s arch-foe, US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen.&nbsp;

The government has vowed to press on with its campaign to eradicate the PKK from southeasternTurkey.&nbsp;

Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the PKK first took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out an independent state for&nbsp;Turkey&#39;s Kurdish minority. 
 
(AFP)

The educators were suspended for suspected links with Kurdistan Workers' Party, a group viewed by Turkey as a terrorist organisation

Turkey has suspended more than 11,000 teachers over suspected links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a Turkish official said on Thursday, following a purge of education staff in the wake of a failed coup bid. "The individuals in question are temporarily suspended -- placed on paid leave -- pending formal investigation," the official said on condition of anonymity. A total of 11,500 teachers suspected by the education ministry of having engaged in activities "in support of the separatist terrorist organisation and its affiliates" have been suspended, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported. The PKK, which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state, is listed as a terror group by Ankara and its Western allies. The number is expected to go up to 14,000 based on the results of an investigation carried out in coordination with local governors' offices, Anadolu said, without elaborating further. The suspension comes just over a week before the new academic session gets under way in Turkey. In a key visit to the Kurdish-majority city Diyarbakir in the southeast of Turkey on Sunday, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said up to 14,000 teachers would be suspended over links to the PKK. There are 850,000 teachers in Turkey. The insurgency in the southeast region has resumed after last year's collapse of a fragile ceasefire declared by the PKK. The latest move comes following the Turkish government's decision to purge tens of thousands of education personnel, including teachers and university academics, after the July 15 coup attempt. The coup sought to oust President Recep Tayyip Erdogan from power. Turkish authorities have blamed the coup on Erdogan's arch-foe, US-based Muslim preacher Fethullah Gulen. The government has vowed to press on with its campaign to eradicate the PKK from southeasternTurkey. Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the PKK first took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out an independent state for Turkey's Kurdish minority. (AFP)

Turkey suspends more than 11,000 teachers over 'links with Kurdish party'

Syrian rebels are preparing to launch an attack to seize a town from Islamic State on the border with Turkey, a senior rebel said on Sunday, in a move that would frustrate Kurdish hopes to expand in the area.&nbsp; 
 
The rebels, Turkish-backed groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), are expected to assault Jarablus from inside Turkey in the next few days, said the rebel official, who is familiar with the plans but declined to be identified.&nbsp; 
 
&quot;The factions are gathering in an area near the border (inside Turkey),&quot; the rebel said. 
 
Another rebel source said they were gathering at a Turkish military camp near the town of Qarqamish just opposite Jarablus. 
 
&quot;Every day there are groups of fighters entering from inside Syria across a secret crossing to a Turkish base where they are gathering in preparation of the assault on Jarablus,&quot; the source said. 
 
Fighters mostly drawn from Failaq al Sham, Sultan Murad, Ahrar al-Sham and Jabha al Shamiya groups were coming from Syria`s northwestern rebel-held Idlib province and also from the town of Azaz. 
 
Another source, in Ahrar al-Sham, expected the assault on Jarablus to begin in the next few days. 
 
Jarablus, on the western bank of the Euphrates river, is the last significant town held by the militant Islamist group on Syria`s border with Turkey.&nbsp; 
 
It is 34 miles (54 km) east of al-Rai, a border town FSA rebel groups recently took from Islamic State.&nbsp; 
 
Rivalry with Kurds 
 
By taking Jarablus themselves, the rebel groups would preclude an assault on the town by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish-dominated militias who on August 6 took the city of Manbij, 20 miles (30 km) to the south, from IS.&nbsp; 
 
A group allied to the SDF and calling itself the Jarablus military council issued a statement on Sunday accusing Turkey of supporting radical jihadist groups and calling on the US-led coalition to back the council. 
 
The US-led coalition has helped the SDF to make significant gains against Islamic State militants in northern Syria since it was established last year. 
 
Turkey, an important supporter of the FSA groups, is worried that Kurds are using the SDF&#39;s westwards expansion against IS to extend their influence across northern Syria. The SDF already holds the eastern bank of the Euphrates opposite Jarablus. 
 
On Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that Ankara would play a more active role in addressing the conflict in Syria in the coming six months to stop it being torn along ethnic lines. 
 
The rebel source from Ahrar al Sham said Turkish artillery had since Friday been pounding several Islamic State positions in villages on the outskirts of Jarablus near the border strip. 
 
The mainly Sunni Arab rebel groups are now aiming to regain control of the strategic towns of Tal Rifaat and Marea in the northern Aleppo countryside, currently in the hands of the YPG, the powerful Kurdish militia. 
 
Islamic State has pulled personnel out of Jarablus in recent days, the rebel leader said.&nbsp;On Friday, families of IS fighters were evacuated from Jarablus and another city nearby, al-Bab, to the group`s stronghold of Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. 
 
The rebel operation aimed to effectively end Islamic State`s presence on the Turkish border, the official said.&nbsp; 
 
&quot;There will certainly be resistance. They will have mined it heavily,&quot; he said. &quot;The operation of entering Jarablus will not be easy.&quot; 
 
(Reuters)

The onslaught will also dent Kurdish hopes of expansion along the Syria-Turkey border area

Syrian rebels are preparing to launch an attack to seize a town from Islamic State on the border with Turkey, a senior rebel said on Sunday, in a move that would frustrate Kurdish hopes to expand in the area. The rebels, Turkish-backed groups fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), are expected to assault Jarablus from inside Turkey in the next few days, said the rebel official, who is familiar with the plans but declined to be identified. "The factions are gathering in an area near the border (inside Turkey)," the rebel said. Another rebel source said they were gathering at a Turkish military camp near the town of Qarqamish just opposite Jarablus. "Every day there are groups of fighters entering from inside Syria across a secret crossing to a Turkish base where they are gathering in preparation of the assault on Jarablus," the source said. Fighters mostly drawn from Failaq al Sham, Sultan Murad, Ahrar al-Sham and Jabha al Shamiya groups were coming from Syria`s northwestern rebel-held Idlib province and also from the town of Azaz. Another source, in Ahrar al-Sham, expected the assault on Jarablus to begin in the next few days. Jarablus, on the western bank of the Euphrates river, is the last significant town held by the militant Islamist group on Syria`s border with Turkey. It is 34 miles (54 km) east of al-Rai, a border town FSA rebel groups recently took from Islamic State. Rivalry with Kurds By taking Jarablus themselves, the rebel groups would preclude an assault on the town by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a group of Kurdish-dominated militias who on August 6 took the city of Manbij, 20 miles (30 km) to the south, from IS. A group allied to the SDF and calling itself the Jarablus military council issued a statement on Sunday accusing Turkey of supporting radical jihadist groups and calling on the US-led coalition to back the council. The US-led coalition has helped the SDF to make significant gains against Islamic State militants in northern Syria since it was established last year. Turkey, an important supporter of the FSA groups, is worried that Kurds are using the SDF's westwards expansion against IS to extend their influence across northern Syria. The SDF already holds the eastern bank of the Euphrates opposite Jarablus. On Saturday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that Ankara would play a more active role in addressing the conflict in Syria in the coming six months to stop it being torn along ethnic lines. The rebel source from Ahrar al Sham said Turkish artillery had since Friday been pounding several Islamic State positions in villages on the outskirts of Jarablus near the border strip. The mainly Sunni Arab rebel groups are now aiming to regain control of the strategic towns of Tal Rifaat and Marea in the northern Aleppo countryside, currently in the hands of the YPG, the powerful Kurdish militia. Islamic State has pulled personnel out of Jarablus in recent days, the rebel leader said. On Friday, families of IS fighters were evacuated from Jarablus and another city nearby, al-Bab, to the group`s stronghold of Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The rebel operation aimed to effectively end Islamic State`s presence on the Turkish border, the official said. "There will certainly be resistance. They will have mined it heavily," he said. "The operation of entering Jarablus will not be easy." (Reuters)

Syrian rebels prepare to seize IS town from inside Turkey

Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi&nbsp;woman from Iraq, endured a three-month nightmare as a sex slave of the Islamic State (IS) group. 
 
After her harrowing escape with the help of a fake religious ID nearly two years ago, Murad has a message for world leaders striving to crush the extremists: IS leaders must stand trial for genocide. 
 
&quot;Genocide must be recognised,&quot; Nadia Murad told AFP through a translator in Geneva, on the side of a human rights event held in the Swiss city. 
 
As Iraq wages an offensive against Islamic State, with government forces retaking full control of the jihadist bastion of Fallujah on Sunday, UN investigators are making a renewed push for justice for the jihadists&#39; victims. 
 
The Yazidis, neither Muslim nor Arab, are an ancient religious minority of more than half a million people concentrated near the Syrian border in northern Iraq. 
 
The Islamic State despises the Kurdish-speaking gropu because Yazidis are not &quot;people of the book&quot;, meaning their faith does not adhere to the theological tradition that begins with Abraham of the Old Testament and extends through the Koran. 
 
In 2014, IS jihadists massacred Yazidis in the Iraqi city of Sinjar, forcing tens of thousands of them to flee, and capturing thousands of girls and women as spoils of war. 
 
The UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) for Syria earlier this month said it had compiled evidence proving that IS was perpetrating a genocide against the Yazidis. 
 
With Iraqi leaders hailing their recent victories over IS in Fallujah and weighing a new operation to flush them out of their northern strongholds like Mosul, Nadia Murad insisted that the need for accountability should not be forgotten. 
 
Forced Islam conversion 
 
She was taken by the Islamic State from her home village in August 2014 and brought to Mosul. 
 
&quot;The first thing they did was they forced us to convert to Islam,&quot; she said. &quot;After conversion, they did whatever they wanted to do.&quot; 
 
During a speech held in December 2015 at the UN Security Council, Murad recounted her so-called &#39;marriage&#39; to one IS captor, who subjected her to horrific abuse. 
 
&quot;I was not able to take any more rape and torture,&quot; she told. She decided to flee. 
 
On the run in Mosul, Murad said she was terrified that no one would help her, but she ultimately found shelter with a Muslim family in the city. 
 
&quot;They made me a fake Islamic ID,&quot; she said, which she used to cross the border into Iraqi Kurdistan. 
 
She lived in a camp for displaced people and, with the support of theYazidi&nbsp;welfare organisation Yazda, relocated to Germany, where she now lives with her sister. 
 
&#39;Roadmap for prosecutions&#39; 
 
The United Nations and several other Western institutions&nbsp;suggested last year that the IS assault on the Yazidis amounted to a premeditated, genocidal effort to exterminate an entire community. 
 
The evidence presented by the UN Commission of Inquiry earlier this month was more conclusive. 
 
COI member and former international prosecutor Carla del Ponte described the commission&#39;s report as &quot;a roadmap for prosecutions&quot;. 
 
Supported by witness testimony, the commission found that IS &quot;sought to erase the Yazidis through killings, sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment&quot;. 
 
Referring heinous, mass crimes to the International Criminal Court often meets obstacles in the UN Security Council for political reasons. 
 
But COI members expressed hope that the&nbsp;Yazidi&nbsp;case could be investigated by The Hague-based International Criminal Court. 
 
Nadia Murad, one of 376 people and organisations nominated for this year&#39;s Nobel Peace Prize, broke down in tears as she told a UN audience the extent to which her people felt abandoned by the international community. 
 
Speaking at a Human Rights Council event in Geneva last week, she said that anger would intensify if the IS attempt to exterminate the Yazidis did not lead to prosecutions. 
 
&quot;For you to regain the trust of the Yazidis will take a lot of work,&quot; she said. 
 
(AFP) 
&nbsp;

Nadia Murad was held captive as a sex slave. She survived rapes and tortures, and now urges the world to trial IS for genocide

Nadia Murad, a 23-year-old Yazidi woman from Iraq, endured a three-month nightmare as a sex slave of the Islamic State (IS) group. After her harrowing escape with the help of a fake religious ID nearly two years ago, Murad has a message for world leaders striving to crush the extremists: IS leaders must stand trial for genocide. "Genocide must be recognised," Nadia Murad told AFP through a translator in Geneva, on the side of a human rights event held in the Swiss city. As Iraq wages an offensive against Islamic State, with government forces retaking full control of the jihadist bastion of Fallujah on Sunday, UN investigators are making a renewed push for justice for the jihadists' victims. The Yazidis, neither Muslim nor Arab, are an ancient religious minority of more than half a million people concentrated near the Syrian border in northern Iraq. The Islamic State despises the Kurdish-speaking gropu because Yazidis are not "people of the book", meaning their faith does not adhere to the theological tradition that begins with Abraham of the Old Testament and extends through the Koran. In 2014, IS jihadists massacred Yazidis in the Iraqi city of Sinjar, forcing tens of thousands of them to flee, and capturing thousands of girls and women as spoils of war. The UN Commission of Inquiry (COI) for Syria earlier this month said it had compiled evidence proving that IS was perpetrating a genocide against the Yazidis. With Iraqi leaders hailing their recent victories over IS in Fallujah and weighing a new operation to flush them out of their northern strongholds like Mosul, Nadia Murad insisted that the need for accountability should not be forgotten. Forced Islam conversion She was taken by the Islamic State from her home village in August 2014 and brought to Mosul. "The first thing they did was they forced us to convert to Islam," she said. "After conversion, they did whatever they wanted to do." During a speech held in December 2015 at the UN Security Council, Murad recounted her so-called 'marriage' to one IS captor, who subjected her to horrific abuse. "I was not able to take any more rape and torture," she told. She decided to flee. On the run in Mosul, Murad said she was terrified that no one would help her, but she ultimately found shelter with a Muslim family in the city. "They made me a fake Islamic ID," she said, which she used to cross the border into Iraqi Kurdistan. She lived in a camp for displaced people and, with the support of theYazidi welfare organisation Yazda, relocated to Germany, where she now lives with her sister. 'Roadmap for prosecutions' The United Nations and several other Western institutions suggested last year that the IS assault on the Yazidis amounted to a premeditated, genocidal effort to exterminate an entire community. The evidence presented by the UN Commission of Inquiry earlier this month was more conclusive. COI member and former international prosecutor Carla del Ponte described the commission's report as "a roadmap for prosecutions". Supported by witness testimony, the commission found that IS "sought to erase the Yazidis through killings, sexual slavery, enslavement, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment". Referring heinous, mass crimes to the International Criminal Court often meets obstacles in the UN Security Council for political reasons. But COI members expressed hope that the Yazidi case could be investigated by The Hague-based International Criminal Court. Nadia Murad, one of 376 people and organisations nominated for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, broke down in tears as she told a UN audience the extent to which her people felt abandoned by the international community. Speaking at a Human Rights Council event in Geneva last week, she said that anger would intensify if the IS attempt to exterminate the Yazidis did not lead to prosecutions. "For you to regain the trust of the Yazidis will take a lot of work," she said. (AFP)

Islamic State must stand trial for genocide: Yazidi woman survivor

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