WWW.TEHRANTIMES.COM I N T E R N A T I O N A L D A I L Y 16 Pages Price 40,000 Rials 1.00 EURO 4.00 AED 39th year No.13567 Monday DECEMBER 30, 2019 Dey 9, 1398 Jumada Al Awwal 3, 1441 Syrians themselves U.S. dominance Mehdi Taj resigns as Iranian art curator must write their own in region is over head of Iran football Qabaian to receive French constitution 3 3 federation 15 Légion d’Honneur 16 Railway fleet receives 243 new domestically-made wagons, locomotives Festivities on eve of new TEHRAN — In a ceremony on Sunday (about $80.9 million), the mentioned wag- some 243 new domestically-made loco- ons and locomotives have been made by motives and wagons were added to the three different companies namely, Wagon railway fleet of Iran, IRNA reported. Pars, Iranian Rail Industries Development The ceremony was attended by Iranian Company and Foolad Derakhshan Arak Christian year Transport and Urban Development Min- Company. ister Mohammad Eslami and the Head of Back in September, RAI celebrated Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (known the addition of 213 domestically-made See page 3 as RAI) Saied Rasouli in Tehran. wagons and locomotives to the country’s As reported, valued at 3.4 trillion rials fleet. 4 Iranian researchers design nanofilters for diesel cars TEHRAN — As part of a national plan, while are being imported at a price three Iranian researchers have managed to times above the Iranian product. develop a new generation of nanofilters According to Rasoul Norouzian, the capable of absorbing diesel soot, IRNA product designer, the filter is capable of news agency reported on Saturday. absorbing particulate matter (PM 2.5), which The process of obtaining international can be efficient in curbing air pollution. standards for manufacturing the product According to a study conducted by is currently underway. JICA (Japan International Cooperation Currently, car manufacturers are us- Agency), about 75-85 percent of Teh- ing ceramic filters that do not meet the ran’s air pollution is related to cars and requirements of Euro 2 diesel engines, motorcycles. 12 Iraqi President Salih returns to Baghdad By Staff & agencies political party leaders. Salih’s departure The Iraqi president Barham Salih returned would be a blow to the US, whose influence to Baghdad after spending two days in in Iraq is already diminishing, as he has Sulaymaniyah. strong ties to Washington. Salih sent a letter to parliament’s speak- Oil-rich Iraq is facing its most serious er on Thursday outlining his “willingness unrest since the ISIL terrorist group was to resign” rather than nominate Mr. Edani. militarily defeated in 2017, as official security Erfan Khoshkhoo While Salih has not formally quit, a person forces and pro-government militias have close to the president said it was likely killed up to 500 people during violence in ISNA/ that his resignation would be accepted by the capital and cities across the south. 13 ARTICLE Syria repels militant drone attack on army air base in Hama ARTICLE Maryam Khormaei Syrian air defense forces have reportedly managed launched by foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants On October 9, Turkish military forces and Quayyum Raja Mehr News Agency to foil an attack by foreign-sponsored Takfiri operating in the area, and was armed with six missiles. Ankara-backed militants launched a long-threat- East Asian analyst journalist militants against an air base in the country’s The projectiles were recovered by Syrian ened cross-border invasion of northeastern Syria west-central province of Hama. government forces and later defused. in a declared attempt to push militants from the Sham FM radio station reported that the coun- Unknown aircraft bombs Turk- Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) away The secret of try’s anti-aircraft defense systems intercepted ish-backed militants’ prison in Aleppo from border areas. A noble idea by unmanned aerial vehicles attacking Hama Military Meanwhile, an unidentified unmanned aerial Ankara views the U.S.-backed YPG as a terrorist tripartite drills: U.S. Airport, located more than 210 km (130 miles) aircraft on Saturday bombarded a prison run by organization tied to the homegrown Kurdistan Malaysia Islamic north of the capital Damascus, late on Friday. Turkish-backed Takfiri militants in northwestern Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been seeking an loses its influence The development took place less than a week Syria. Local sources said the unknown aircraft autonomous Kurdish region in Turkey since 1984. Summit after Syrian government forces captured and conducted an airstrike against the jail in the village On October 22, Russian President Vladimir am a very happy man today. Four in the region dismantled an unmanned aerial vehicle rigged of Sajou, which lies near the city of A’zaz and 43 Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip years ago, I had published a book with explosives in the same Syrian province. kilometers (26 miles) north of Aleppo. Erdogan signed a memorandum of understanding ith launching unprecedented titled: “An Islamic Approach to Syria’s official news agency SANA reported that The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human that asserted YPG militants had to withdraw from I drills alongside two world pow- Diplomacy & Human Rights.” In it, air defense units managed to intercept and shoot Rights later reported that the prison was run by the Turkish-controlled “safe zone” in northeastern ers, Tehran has shown that it can I described how the Prophet (PBUH) W down the drone as it was flying in the skies over the militants from the Levant Front terror group, and Syria within 150 hours, after which Ankara and overcome the efforts that aim to isolate conducted diplomacy and defined Hu- city of al-Suqaylabiyah on Tuesday morning. contained remnants of Daesh Takfiri terrorist Moscow would run joint patrols around the area. Iran and push regional calculations into man Rights. I had concluded that the The report added that the aircraft had been group and affiliated extremists. (Source: agencies) a new phase by resorting to the option Islamic world was in crisis because it of coalition. deviated from the basic idea of Islamic Since Friday, tripartite naval drills Justice and compromised its noble are going on in the Indian Ocean and U.S. mass killings hit new high in 2019 principles. the Gulf of Oman by naval vessels from The first one occurred 19 days into the new year tional news, failing to resonate among the gen- when responding police fatally shot the killer. I recommended far-reaching steps China, Russia and Iran. when a man used an ax to kill four family mem- eral public because they didn’t spill into public The perpetrator had had occasional run-ins for the Muslim states in general and The Gulf of Oman is a particularly bers, including his infant daughter. Five months places like massacres in El Paso and Odessa, with police over the years, but what drove him the people in particular to get closer sensitive waterway as it connects to the later, 12 people were killed in a workplace shooting Texas; Dayton, Ohio; Virginia Beach, Virginia; to attack his family remains unknown. He had to each other. One such recommen- Strait of Hormuz - through which about in Virginia. Twenty-two more died at a Walmart and Jersey City, New Jersey. just gotten a job training mechanics at an auto dation was the “Public Diplomacy” a fifth of the world’s oil passes - which in in El Paso in August. Most of the killings involved people who knew dealership, and despite occasional arguments successfully practiced by the Islamic turn connects to the Persian Gulf. A database compiled by The Associated each other — family disputes, drug or gang vi- with his relatives, most said there was nothing out Republic of Iran. It meant people to The three countries are holding the Press, USA Today and Northeastern Universi- olence, or people with beefs who directed their of the ordinary that raised significant red flags. people contact, which required re- four-day joint naval exercise, dubbed ty shows that there were more mass killings in anger at co-workers or relatives. In the months since, the self-described so- laxed visa rules to allow Muslims to Marine Security Belt, under the slogan 2019 than in any other year dating to at least In many cases, what set off the perpetrator cial butterfly steers clear of crowds and can only visit each other and learn each other’s of boosting international security and the 1970s, punctuated by a chilling succession remains a mystery. tolerate so much socializing. He still drives the languages, while adopting a common trade, especially in the Persian Gulf and of deadly rampages during the summer. That’s the case with the very first mass killing same car, still riddled with bullet holes on the educational syllabus and their own the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s main In all, there were 41 mass killings, defined as of 2019, when a 42-year-old man took an ax and side panels, a bullet hole in the headrest of the language of instruction to promote energy transit routes through which 18 when four or more people are killed, excluding the stabbed to death his mother, stepfather, girl- passenger seat and the words “evidence” scrawled Islamic culture and heritage. million barrels of oil pass per day. perpetrator. Of those, 33 were mass shootings. friend and 9-month-old daughter in Clackamas on the doors. His shoulder remains pocked with I also pointed out that the Muslims What is going on in the region›s waters More than 210 people were killed.