Kurds-Arab Islamists clash in Syria, tension mounts between Turkey and Russia

The Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports:

Syria's Arab-led rebels seized new territory in the eastern Euphrates valley from government forces on Thursday but ran into resistance from Kurdish militia on the Turkish border in a potential new security concern for the key NATO member.

Rebel fighters captured the Euphrates town of Mayadeen in a drive up the strategic valley from the Iraqi border, bringing the largest single swathe of territory in the country under their control, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

But farther north, in the battlefield town of Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border, mainly jihadist rebel forces were in a standoff with Kurdish militia with links to Ankara's longtime foe, Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the largest such confrontation so far in the 20-month uprising.

The dispute is bring Russia and NATO into conflict  because Turkey, a NAATO member, is asking for Patriot missels to protect its borders, and Russia objects.  Tension mounts.

article AFP article is republished after the jump.

Here are three photographs and a map that accompanied the article:

Damage at a house in the Damascus district of Mazzeh 

is pictured after it was target by mortar fire 

(SANA/AFP)

Syrian women bake bread in a clay oven

 in the town of Maraat al-Numan 

in the southern Idlib province on November 21

 (AFP/File, John Cantlie)

A Syrian rebel mourns the death of a comrade in the town of

 Maraat al-Numan in Idlib province on

 November 20 (AFP/File, John Cantlie)

Defiant Iran, Iraq, Kurdistan Economic Cooperation

To be taken with a grin of salt, since the newspaper is the official publication of the Islamic Republic of iran and isn't picked up by any other that I can see.  Still, it appears to be The Bushco Gift that Keeps on Giving:

FARS News Agency

Iran, Iraqi Kurdistan to Further Expand Economic Cooperation

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iran and Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) on Friday agreed on a protocol for the expansion of mutual cooperation in economic fields.

The binding document was prepared and agreed upon at the 1st Iran-KRG Economic Cooperation Expansion Session and will be signed by Secretary of Iran-KRG Joint Economic Commission Kamran Ahmad and Secretary of Iran-Iraq Joint Economic Commission, Hassan Kazzemi Qomi. 

Iran's Vice-President for International Affaires Ali Saeedlu and the KRG Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani voiced their agreement to provisions of the document at the 1st Iran-KRG Economic Cooperation Expansion Session. 

Secretary General of Iran-Iraq Joint Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines, Jahanbakhsh Sanjabi Shirazi told the Islamic republic news agency that the agreement envisions mobilization of common borders, officially recognition of Siranband-Baneh border, straight carriage of Iranian goods to Iraq, expansion of cooperation between Iran's Standard Organization and the KRG, setting up joint insurance, forming an arbitration body to settle possible legal and judicial cases, expansion of banking cooperation and legalization of companies' registration. 

He said that the Islamic Republic of Iran earned $6.8 billion out of commercial transactions with Iraq in the first half of the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 21). 

Iran and the Iraqi Kurdistan region have enjoyed growing ties ever since the overthrow of the former Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, during the 2003 US invasion. 

Barzani paid a visit to Tehran at the head of a high-ranking trade delegation last Saturday. 

There is little information on the Web about the Siranband-Baneh border  As near as I can figur out, Baneh lies on the border of the Kurdish province of Iraq and North Azerbaijan province of Iran.  The Web describes it as an Iranian and as a Kurdish city.  It  is widely used as a smuggling haven for goods that pass illegally between Kurdistan and Iran, and the new accord normalize the situation  which has been the location of fighting between Kurds and Iranians in the past.

Here is a Wikipedia narrative and a Corbis image and narrative of a young shop keeper in Baneh:

An Iranian Kurdish owner of a shop talks on his mobile phone on 29 June 2011 in the city of Baneh, western Iran. Illegal border trade between Kurds in Iran and northern Iraq have drastically improved the economic situation in Baneh and other Kurdish cities. Baneh, which is very close to the Iraqi border, had for many years been considered by the Iranian government as one of the most deprived areas in the country. The Kurdish populated city in the Kurdistan province had almost been devastated by the regime of the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war and nearby cities were even attacked by Iraqi chemical bombs. Baneh has become a shopping paradise for Iranians nationwide.