TEHRAN (FNA)- The Syrian army and popular forces purged the terrorists and advanced to areas near the Turkish borders.

The Syrian sources in the battlefield said that the Syrian army took control of Zahia heights in the Northern countryside of Lattakia, 2km from the joint borders with Turkey.

The Syrian army, supported by Russia, has launched massive airstrikes against the terrorists' hideouts in the countryside of Lattakia.

The Syrian troops made major advances in different parts of Lattakia in the past few days after pushing back terrorists from their positions across the coastal province and killed several groups of militants, including their senior commanders.

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13940901000371

BEIRUT — Syria’s president says his forces are advancing on “almost” all fronts thanks to Russian airstrikes that began nearly two months ago.

Bashar Assad told China’s Phoenix Television that the Russians depend on Syrian ground forces and “cooperate with us.”

Russia, which has conducted an air campaign in Syria since Sept. 30, sharply raised its intensity in recent days on President Vladimir Putin’s orders after Moscow said it had confirmed that a bomb brought down a Russian plane over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/assad-syrian-troops-advancing-thanks-to-russian-airstrikes/2015/11/22/263baca0-9124-11e5-befa-99ceebcbb272_story.html

Istanbul: Around 1,500 members of Syria's Turkmen minority have fled to the Turkish border to escape renewed fighting in the northwest of the country, a Turkish official said Sunday.

Turkey has expressed concern in recent days over Russian air raids in the area, fearing they are aimed at hitting Syrian opposition fighters and bolstering the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Meanwhile, Turkmen fighters backed by Turkey have launched their own ground operation in northern Syria to retake territory controlled by Islamic State (IS).

"As of today, around 1,500 of our Turkmen brothers and sisters have come to our border region," the governor of Turkey's Hatay region on the Syrian border Ercan Topaca was quoted as saying by Turkish news agencies.

http://thepeninsulaqatar.com/news/middle-east/359672/some-1-500-turkmen-flee-syrian-war-for-turkey-governor

ISTANBUL (Turkey) - Syrian rebels backed by Turkey and the United States have seized two villages from Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists close to the Turkish border after fierce fighting, Turkish official media said on Sunday.

The state-run Anatolia news agency said that ethnic Turkmen fighters had captured the villages of Harjaleh and Dalha in northern Aleppo province from ISIS forces.

The ground offensive by the Turkmen fighters, strong allies of Turkey in its push to oust President Bashar al-Assad, was backed from the air by US and Turkish fighter jets, it added.

Six Turkish F-16s, four US F-15s, an American AC-130 and three drones were involved, the report said, without specifying if any targets were hit.

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=74106

On Friday, rebels backed by Turkish and American airpower captured the Syrian border towns of Dalha and Harjala from the Islamic State (IS) according to Turkish state-run Anadolu Agency.

FSA-affiliated Sultan Murad Brigades and al-Jabha a-Shamiya led the operation to take the two villages, which lie along the border with Turkey in northern Aleppo province and represented the northwestern apex of Islamic State territory.

The involvement of Turkish airpower sparked speculation that Ankara is initiating the establishment of a “safe zone” south of its border with Syria.

In an interview with Syria Direct’s Yaman Yosif, Sultan Murad Brigade’s spokesman Mohamed Nour says that “due to a number of recent security breaches” Turkey is now “targeting more IS targets.”

http://syriadirect.org/news/turkish-warplanes-help-rebels-take-is-border-towns/

Turkey condemns Russian attacks targeting Turkish people in Syria and threatens Kremlin with ‘serious consequences’ amid fears the two powers may clash and spark World War 3.

The Turkish foreign ministry is warning that the Russian attacks targeting civilian Turkmen villages “could lead to serious consequences”.

Turkey, a NATO member and the Western alliance’s second largest army, has already warned the Kremlin that it will shoot down its warplanes following repeated incursions into its airspace.

Both powers back separate sides in the Syrian civil war, with Turkey bidding to topple embattled Bashar Assad and Moscow is trying to keep him in power.

http://en.alalam.ir/news/1762242

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — In a newly released ISIS propaganda video the extremist group threatens Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan and Kurdistan region President Masoud Barzani.

In the 17 minute-long video, several Turkish ISIS members appear and speak. One of the militants is from Turkish Kurdistan and speaks in the Kurmanci Kurdish dialect.

The Turkish ISIS militants asked Turkish people to join the Islamic State. “The border that exists now is placed by the Jews. There is no good left in Turkey because they do not follow the Quran and Islamic principles,” the militants said in the video.

They also talked about Kurds, saying “the Kurds are stuck in their nationalist conflict and have become secularists,” while showing pictures of Barzani and Ocalan.

http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/22112015

A verbal attack on Turkey, Jews and Iran

Snips..........

Al-Raqqah Province:
The sound of a violent explosion was heard in the city of Tal Abyad at the border with Turkey and to the north of Al-Raqqah province, the city is controlled by YPG and supporting factions, reliable sources informed the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights that the explosion was caused by detonating a motorcycle bomb in the eastern part of the city, leaving plumes of black smoke and injuring about 10 people, some of them suffered a serious injury.

http://www.syriahr.com/en/2015/11/about-10-wounded-in-an-explosion-in-the-city-of-tal-abyad-at-the-border-with-turkey/

Latakia Province:
Warplanes believed to be Russian carried out more airstrikes on places in the area of ​​Mount Zahi and elsewhere in Jabal al-Akrad and Jabal al-Turkman in the northern countryside of Latakia, amid continued clashes in several places in the area between Hezbollah and the regime forces backed by gunmen loyal to them from Syrian, Arab and Asian nationalities against the rebel and Islamic Factions and Al-Nusra Front (al-Qaeda in the Levant), which killed a fighter from the Islamic factions and information about casualties in the ranks of the regime forces and militiamen loyal to them, also the regime forces continue the intensified shelling on areas in Jabal al-Turkman, while the Islamic factions managed to capture a member from the regime forces in the area of ​​al-Jeb al-Ahmar in the northern countryside of Latakia.

http://www.syriahr.com/en/2015/11/more-raids-on-the-mountains-of-latakia-and-the-clashes-continue/

With the escalation of airstrikes carried out by the regime and Russian air forces on different areas in Syria without distinguishing between the civilian and military targets, SOHR holds the international community the moral responsibility towards the daily killing committed against the Syrian people, and demands the International Security Council to work seriously to stop the daily killing and displacing the Syrians and to help them to reach to the state of democracy, justice, freedom and equality that ensure all rights for all component of the Syrian people without discrimination. It also re-call the UN Security Council to issue a binding resolution to stop the military operations in Syria and to refer the file of war crimes and crimes against humanity to the International Criminal Court.

http://www.syriahr.com/en/about-us/

The army of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's military operation backed by Russian airstrikes in a rural area of Latakia inhabited by Bayır-Bucak Turkmens since last week has caused a number of Turkmens to flee to the Turkish border as a Turkmen brigade commander has called on Turkey's assistance and expressed his frustration that Turkey's helping hand hasn't been extended so far.

In the meantime, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu held a security meeting in Ankara on Sunday to discuss the situation in Syria and the Bayır-Bucak Turkmens.

The Syrian regime forces started a ground military operation close to villages in the Gimam area where there are about 50 Turkmen villages this past week and Russia has supported the Assad forces by pounding the area. Turkmens are an ethnically Turkic group living mostly in Syria and Iraq, along with Arabs and Kurds.

Sultan Abdülhamit Brigade Commander Ömer Abdullah, who is fighting against the Assad forces in one of the Turkmen brigades, on Sunday called on Turkey to help the Turkmens, as the Syrian regime forces and Russians pounded Turkmens with cluster munitions, according to a report by the private Cihan news agency.

http://www.todayszaman.com/diplomacy_syrian-turkmens-ask-for-turkeys-help-under-heavy-bombardment-by-assad-russia_404962.html