The Islamic State claims to have orchestrated 25 terror attacks in Yemen in less than a year, releasing a data visualization detailing the killings as way to demonstrate its influence in the war-torn country.

The group's semi-official news agency Amaq released the numbers on Telegram; they were discovered by Vocativ's deep web analysts, who have previously found similar dispatches listing ISIS activities in Syria and Iraq.

The infographic purports to show that ISIS carried out at least 25 separate attacks in Yemen since the group established its affiliate there last Spring, after war broke out between Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government forces. The majority of ISIS attacks have targeted the rebels, who are believed to be aligned with Iran, although the rebels and Tehran deny this.

If they carry through on their threats, Saudi Arabia and Turkey will not do so in the manner that many expect, nor for the reasons that are commonly discussed.

Saudi Arabia sent tongues wagging with its latest threat to dispatch ground troops to fight against Daesh alongside the US. This comes on the heels of the Russian military declaring that Turkey appears ready to invade Syria.

The reaction that some commentators have had to both of these news developments has been to either totally ridicule them as impossible or to conjure up fearful images of a large World War II-style invasion force just waiting to stream into the country.

Both extremes inaccurately portray the reality of the situation and demonstrate an unawareness of the post-conflict strategic vision that Saudi Arabia and Turkey want to advance.

There's a strong degree of psychological warfare at play here, both in convincing these states' allies and attempting to deter their adversaries, but it mustn't be forgotten that there are practical ways in which they may try to reach their objectives short of the full-scale invasion that some are fretting about.

The end game for both actors is to shape the battlespace to the point where they can later pressure Damascus in acceding to an autonomous or federalist "solution", which would thereby allow them to herald in the strategic establishment of a transnational sub-state "Sunnistan" with Iraq and revive their grand plans for a Qatari-Turkish gas pipeline to Europe.

Turkey has shelled Syrian Kurdish forces in northern Syria for the fourth day in a row as Ankara tries to stop the YPG from claiming the town of Azaz, which is just 8km from the Turkish border.

Turkish artillery units in the southeastern province of Kilis fired shells at Kurdish targets on Tuesday morning, in areas that were under the control of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), Today's Zaman daily reports, citing the Dogan news agency. The sound of shelling could be heard from Kilis city center, just kilometers from the Syrian border.

A Turkish official said on Tuesday that Ankara will ask its coalition partners, including the US, to take part in a joint ground operation in Syria. "Turkey is not going to have a unilateral ground operation. We are asking coalition partners that there should be a ground operation. We are discussing this with allies," the official told reporters at a briefing in Istanbul, as cited by Reuters.

Former Head of Russia's Federal Security Service Nikolai Kovalyov warned Turkey and Saudi Arabia against sending ground troops to Syria, saying that Russian warplanes are likely to launch airstrikes on their positions if they deploy in the war-torn country.

"The Turkish and Saudi officials are well aware that in case of deployment of their forces in the Syrian territories, the Russian air force will likely bomb them," Kovalyov, also a member of the State Duma's security and resistance to corruption committee, was quoted as saying by al-Mayadeen news channel on Tuesday.

"If the Saudi and Turkish ground forces enter Syria, they cannot be distinguished from the terrorists and Russia will act upon the demand of the legal Syrian government," he added.

His remarks came after Saudi Arabia and Turkey said they plan to send ground forces to Syria.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has investigated the use of cluster munitions in five attacks by the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, a representative told RT. The munitions, made by a US company and banned in populated areas, injured at least five civilians.

Just two days after the organization released a report on the topic, Mary Wareham, advocacy director of the Arms Division of HRW, spoke to RT about the findings.

"At Humans Right Watch, we have been documenting the use of cluster munitions in the conflict in Yemen since March of last year. Yesterday we issued our fifth, I think, report on the use of cluster bombs there. It was looking at a particular type of high-tech version of cluster munition manufactured in the United States and transferred to Saudi Arabia, and to the United Arab Emirates in recent years.

So we wanted to see how this particular cluster munition is being used in Yemen by the Saudi-led coalition, because it is really the only type that the US is allowed to export or use anymore. What we found was at least five separate attacks in four different governorates of this particular type of air delivered cluster munition, and at least five civilian victims from the time of attack, including a woman and three-year-old child, who were hurt in their home, and the mother was hurt so badly that her leg was amputated after the attack."

'Use in populated areas'

"So these cluster munitions were provided to those countries on the understanding or the requirement that they would not be used in civilian areas. And we saw use at least in a couple of populated areas: the fishing village next to a port that was attacked in December is the most recent attack, but we also saw them used just outside a village in April and our researchers were at the scene collecting munitions that they found on the ground at that time.

So it's very clear to us that these cluster munitions are being used right now. They are causing civilian casualties, and we question whether or not this high-tech version that's supposed to not fail - at least 99 percent of the time - if it's failing, because we've also seen numerous instances of these remnants of the cluster munitions lying on the ground with their sub-munitions still attached."

Turkey should not be treated as a nation capable of carrying out independent policies, Syrian defense expert Hassan al-Hassan told RIA Novosti.

Instead, "Ankara should be seen as America's Turkish project, which is aimed at creating controlled chaos in the region," the retired general noted, adding that Washington, for instance, gave the nod to Turkey to shell Syria.

The US, according to al-Hassan, is upholding instability in the Middle East by simultaneously helping the Kurds, the Turks and the Saudis. Washington first launched this campaign in Tunisia and is now focused on Syria, he added, apparently referring to the so-called Arab Spring uprisings.

"I am convinced that the United States is deliberately dragging Turkey into the war... the same way that Washington convinced other countries to take part in conducting airstrikes in Syria," the expert observed.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has backed the controversial idea of imposing a no-fly zone over northern Syria to alleviate the refugee crisis as the country plays along with Ankara's demands for the creation of a "buffer area" along its border.

"In the current situation it would be helpful, if there could be such an area, where none of the parties are allowed to launch aerial attacks, that is to say, a kind of no-fly zone," Merkel told the daily Stuttgarter Zeitung, when asked by the publication about opening up areas to host refugees.

Echoing a long-standing call from Turkey to establish a no-fly zone over parts of Syria, Merkel stressed that while it is impossible to negotiate with terrorists from Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL), she said it would be helpful if the "anti-Assad coalition and the Assad-supporters ... come to an agreement."


Berlin's rhetoric, which has been aimed at appeasing Turkey for months, goes against NATO policy. The body turned down the no-fly zone proposal as late as last week.

The agreements reached by the International Syria Support Group in Munich, in spite of "unacceptable" provocations by Ankara and "ambiguous" US policies, have become an "important step" to peace in Syria, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson told RT.

Maria Zakharova called the agreement on the nationwide cessation of hostilities one of the most significant results of the ISSG meeting in Munich. In an exclusive interview with RT she also welcomed the creation of "two special groups for resolving two problems" - delivering humanitarian aid and negotiating a ceasefire in Syria.

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson stressed that Russia was ready to cease fire even before the Munich meeting but other countries from the ISSG "were not so enthusiastic about cessation of hostilities or ceasefire."

Establishing a direct dialogue between the militaries of all countries belonging to the ISSG was also crucially important for the peace process in Syria, she emphasized. It was Russia's goal to make the militaries "talk directly, share real information about terrorists about everything that is going on the ground," Zakharova told RT.

"So this time, fortunately, everybody agreed [on that] and put it on the paper, so this is ... a huge step forward, this brings us real understanding," she added.

Moscow has developed a plan that will bring an end to the brutal struggle which has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and displaced millions more in Syria; however, the West should ensure that Turkey won't undermine all efforts to resolve the crisis, former chairman of the NATO Military Committee Harald Kujat said.

Western countries should have a more objective attitude towards Russia's role in Syria and abandon their prejudices, German General Kujat argued.

Like all other parties involved, Russia has its own strategic interests in the region, but it does not mean that the government's northern ally should only be viewed only in a negative light. According to a former NATO representative, Western countries should give up their traditional thinking, according to which every Kremlin decision poses a "terrible threat" to the world.

The European Union should remove sanctions from Russia not in distant future but as soon as possible, Czech President Milos Zeman said.

Zeman has repeatedly called for the sanctions removal and reiterated that the restrictions would be short-term.

"I have always been against [sanctions]. [The European Union] not only should not prolong [the sanctions], but it should not have introduced [them]. [The sanctions] have to be canceled now, not in the future," Zeman told the Russian Izvestia newspaper in an interview.

The president added that Russia and its partners should persuade the bloc of the necessity to remove the restrictions.

Relations between Russia and European Union deteriorated amid a 2014 crisis in Ukraine. The bloc and its allies have introduced several rounds of anti-Russia sanctions, accusing Moscow of meddling in the Ukrainian conflict.