Tag Archives: War

More aid reaches trapped Syrians, doubts cast on peace talks

NEAR MADAYA, Syria/BEIRUT/GENEVA (Reuters) – A second batch of aid reached a besieged Syrian town and two trapped villages on Thursday and the United Nations accused rival factions of committing war crimes by causing civilians to starve to death.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said aid trucks had entered the town of Madaya near the border with Lebanon, and the villages of Kefraya and al-Foua in Idlib province in the northwest. Syrian state media said six trucks had gone into Madaya.

For months, tens of thousands have been blockaded by government troops in Madaya and surrounded by rebel forces in the two villages.

“According to the ICRC team that entered Madaya, the people were very happy, even crying when they realized that wheat flour is on the way,” Dominik Stillhart, International Committee of the Red Cross director of operations, said in New York.

Aid officials hoped to bring in more supplies, with fuel deliveries set for Sunday, according to Stillhart.

“We hope … this effort will continue,” said Yacoub El Hillo, the U.N. resident and humanitarian coordinator in Syria, who accompanied the convoy.

A senior U.N. human rights official said the use of starvation as a weapon was a war crime.

“Starving civilians is a war crime under international humanitarian law and of course any such act deserves to be condemned, whether it’s in Madaya or Idlib,” said U.N. Human Rights High Commissioner Zeid bin Ra’ad.

“Should there be prosecutions? Of course. At the very least there should be accountability for these crimes.”

“ATROCIOUS ACTS”

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Syria’s warring parties, particularly the government, were committing “atrocious acts” and “unconscionable abuses” against civilians.

“Let me be clear: the use of starvation as a weapon of war is a war crime,” Ban told reporters.

The siege of Madaya, where people have reportedly died of starvation, has become a focal issue for Syrian opposition groups who want all such blockades lifted before they enter negotiations with the government planned for Jan. 25.

A prominent member of the political opposition to President Bashar al-Assad told Reuters that date was unrealistic, reiterating opposition demands for the lifting of sieges, a ceasefire and the release of detainees before negotiations.

“I personally do not think Jan. 25 is a realistic date for when it will be possible to remove all obstacles facing the negotiations,” George Sabra told Reuters.

A total of 45 trucks carrying food and medical supplies were due to be delivered to Madaya, and 18 to al-Foua and Kefraya on Thursday, aid officials said.

The Syrian Observatory said it had recorded 27 deaths in Madaya from malnutrition and lack of medical supplies, and at least 13 deaths in al-Foua and Kefraya due to lack of medical supplies.

The population of Madaya is estimated at 40,000, while about 20,000 live in al-Foua and Kefraya.

“The scenes we witnessed in Madaya were truly heartbreaking,” said Marianne Gasser, the most senior official with the International Committee of the Red Cross in Syria.

“The conditions are some of the worst that I have witnessed in my five years in the country. This cannot go on,” she said.

PEACE TALKS

The talks planned for Jan. 25 in Geneva are part of a peace process endorsed by the U.N. Security Council last month in a rare display of international agreement on Syria, where the war has killed 250,000 people.

U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura said after meeting representatives of the United States, Russia and other powers on Wednesday that Jan. 25 was still the intended date.

Russia said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry would meet in Zurich on Wednesday, five days before the talks date.

But even with the backing of the United States and Russia, which support opposite sides in the conflict, the peace process faces formidable obstacles.

“The meeting is due in a bit more than 10 days, but before then de Mistura will present in New York what he has achieved,” said a senior Western diplomat.

“But he still has to define how to press ahead with this mechanism which to me is not looking good because all sides are not agreed on the parameters.”

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Jan. 25 remained the plan “but it is human beings who are negotiating on both sides” and changes regarding the date could still arise.

Fighting is raging between government forces backed by the Russian air force and Iranian forces on one hand, and rebels including groups that have received military support from states including Saudi Arabia and the United States.

Rebel groups that back the idea of a political settlement have rejected any negotiations before goodwill measures from Damascus including a ceasefire.

Sabra, the opposition politician, said: “There are still towns under siege. There are still Russian attacks on villages, schools and hospitals. There is no sign of goodwill.”

There are about 15 siege locations in Syria, where 450,000 people are trapped, the United Nations says.

The Syrian government has said it is ready to take part in the talks, but wants to see who is on the opposition negotiating team and a list of armed groups that will be classified as terrorists as part of the peace process.

Underscoring the complications on that issue, Russia condemned as terrorists two rebel groups that are represented in a newly-formed opposition council tasked with overseeing the negotiations.

“We do not see Ahrar al-Sham or Jaysh al-Islam as part of the opposition delegation because they are terrorist organizations,” the RIA news agency quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov as saying.

(Reporting by Kinda Makieh near Madaya, Tom Perry, Mariam Karouny and Lisa Barrington in Beirut, Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva, Jack Stubbs and Vladimir Soldatkin in Moscow, John Irish in Paris, Tom Finn in Doha, Francois Murphy in Vienna and Michelle Nichols in New York; Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Giles Elgood)

Saudi Arabian Mass Execution Spurs International Outrage

A recent mass execution in Saudi Arabia has spurred international backlash, drawing condemnations from human rights advocates and United States officials while reportedly driving a wedge in diplomatic relations between the kingdom and other Islamic nations.

The state-run Saudi Press Agency reported that the country had killed 47 people that had been convicted of “terrorist crimes” on Saturday. Among them, according to the report, was Nimr al-Nimr, who the U.S. State Department characterized as an important leader in the Islamic community. His reported execution drew immediate rebuke from Amnesty International, one of the most vocal critics of the death penalty and Saudi Arabia’s seemingly unrelenting use of it.

“Saudi Arabia’s authorities have indicated that the executions were carried out to fight terror and safeguard security.” Philip Luther, the director of Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program, said in a statement. “However, the killing of Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr in particular suggests they are also using the death penalty in the name of counter-terror to settle scores and crush dissidents.”

Most of Saudi Arabia aligns with Sunni Islam, a branch that has different teachings than Shia Islam, creating some religious tension. Nimr was a leader in the Shiite minority, Amnesty said.

The group indicated Nimr had criticized Saudi Arabia’s government and was originally arrested for political protests in a traditionally Shiite region in 2011. Amnesty called his trial “political and grossly unfair,” and Luther said executing Nimr and 46 others when there were doubts about the fairness of the country’s criminal proceedings “a monstrous and irreversible injustice.”

It’s not the first time Amnesty has criticized Saudi Arabia’s executions. The group has previously said Saudi Arabia killed at least 151 people in the first 11 months of 2015, its highest such total in 20 years, and Amnesty isn’t alone in speaking out against the country’s use of the death penalty.

“We have previously expressed our concerns about the legal process in Saudi Arabia and have frequently raised these concerns at high levels of the Saudi Government,” State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement released Saturday. “We reaffirm our calls on the Government of Saudi Arabia to respect and protect human rights, and to ensure fair and transparent judicial proceedings in all cases.”

Kirby said the United States was “particularly concerned” about the death of Nimr.

In the statement, Kirby said the religious leader’s execution “risks exacerbating sectarian tensions at a time when they urgently need to be reduced. In this context, we reiterate the need for leaders throughout the region to redouble efforts aimed at de-escalating regional tensions.”

But those calls appeared to be falling on deaf ears.

CNN reported a group of protesters in Iran, which predominantly follows Shia Islam, waged an attack against the Saudi Arabian embassy following the execution. That attack led to Saudi Arabia and three other Muslim nations taking diplomatic actions against Iran, CNN reported.

On Monday, Kirby told a news briefing that the State Department condemned the attack on the embassy and encouraged the countries continue to seek diplomatic solutions to the conflicts.

“We continue to believe that diplomatic engagement and direct conversations are essential to work through differences,” Kirby told reporters. “Increased friction runs counter to the interests of all those in the international community who support moderation, peace and stability.”

UNICEF: 1 in 8 Children Born into Conflict Zones

One in every eight global births this year has occurred in a conflict zone, according to UNICEF.

The United Nations Children’s Fund said Thursday that more than 16 million children entered the world in a territory marred by conflict in 2015, which amounted to one every two seconds.

The recently published statistics provided an alarming glimpse into the effects that conflict have on children worldwide, as well as the role that violence has played in the ongoing migrant crisis.

UNICEF reported that more than 250 million children — about a ninth of the global child population — are currently living in conflict zones. Another 200,000 sought asylum in the European Union between January and September of this year as their families fled violence.

The world hasn’t seen a level of displacement like this since World War II, UNICEF said.

The Heidelberg Institute for International Conflict Research, which analyzes conflict throughout the globe, reported there were 46 highly violent conflicts in 2014, the most recent year for which data is available. That’s up a tick from 45 in 2013, and far ahead of the 24 such conflicts of 2005.

Some of the notable nations currently experiencing conflict are Afghanistan, Iran, South Sudan, Yemen and Syria, where an ongoing civil war has driven millions of people from their homes. But children born into those and other conflict zones face additional challenges beyond violence.

UNICEF reported that more than 500 million children live in extremely flood-prone areas, while another 160 million live in areas known to experience high or severe droughts. Healthwise, children in conflict zones are more likely to die before the age of 5 and they also have a higher risk of experiencing extreme stress, which can stunt their cognitive and emotional development.

Germany set to join fight against ISIS

German leaders have supported a plan that would allow the country to send 1,200 soldiers to the Middle East to join the fight against the Islamic State, multiple media outlets reported Tuesday.

According to the Associated Press, the plan was endorsed by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet.

The BBC reported the German soldiers won’t be used in combat, and that the country will also send a naval frigate and aircraft for refueling and reconnaissance. Reuters reported Germany’s forces would stay in the region for up to a year and the mission is expected to cost $142 million.

French leaders had asked Germany to help fight the Islamic State after gunmen and suicide bombers linked to the group attacked Paris on Nov. 13, according to multiple media reports.

Germany’s parliament still technically needs to OK the plan, but the AP notes Merkel’s group is in the majority and appears to have the necessary votes needed to formally approve the measure.

Still, some Germans are skeptical about the plan.

Reuters reported some leaders from other political parties fear joining the fight against the Islamic State will ultimately increase the odds of terrorists executing an attack in Germany.

Turkey and U.S. Advance Plans to Shut Northern Syrian Border from ISIS

In a statement by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Tuesday, Turkey and the United States are working on an operation to finish securing the northern Syrian border. The area that will be the focus is controlled by radical Islamists that have used it as a smuggling route.

“The entire border of northern Syria – 75 percent of it has now been shut off. And we are entering an operation with the Turks to shut off the other remaining 98 kilometers,” Kerry said in an interview with CNN.

According to Reuters, the area where the operations would take place is now controlled by the radical Islamists. The United States and Turkey hope that by sweeping Islamic State, also frequently called Daesh, from that border zone they can deprive it of route which has seen its ranks swell with foreign fighters and its coffers boosted by illicit trade.

Kerry mentioned the operation with Turkey as he described to CNN the mounting pressure on IS in both Syria and Iraq, but wouldn’t elaborate on what it amounted to and whether the U.S. would send ground troops to take part in the operation. U.S. President Barack Obama authorized the deployment of special forces against IS in an apparent deviation from an initial pledge not to have boots on the ground in the campaign.

Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioglu stated to the state-run Anadolu Agency, “We will not allow Daesh to continue its presence on our border.”

The fight against ISIS has increased in fervor with intense air strikes by both Russian and French warplanes since attacks claimed by the group killed 129 people in Paris last week and a bomb downed a Russian airliner over Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula last month, killing 224.

France police raid homes, vow it’s ‘just the beginning’

By Chine Labbé and Crispian Balmer

PARIS (Reuters) – Police raided homes of suspected Islamist militants across France overnight arresting 23 people, and investigators identified a Belgian national living in Syria as the possible mastermind behind Friday’s attacks in Paris.

Much of France came to a standstill at midday for a minute’s silence to remember the 129 killed in the co-ordinated suicide bombings and shootings. Metro trains stopped, pedestrians paused on pavements and office workers stood at their desks.

Prosecutors have identified five of the seven dead assailants — four Frenchmen and a foreigner fingerprinted in Greece last month. His role in the carnage has fueled speculation that Islamic State took advantage of a recent wave of refugees fleeing Syria to slip militants into Europe.

Police believe one attacker is on the run, and are working on the assumption that at least four people helped organize the mayhem, the worst atrocity in France since World War Two, which appears to have been organized in neighboring Belgium.

Belgian police arrested at least one person after a four-hour siege on Monday at a house in the Brussels district of Molenbeek, home to many Muslim immigrants, but failed to find a man believed to have played a key role in the assault.

“We know that more attacks are being prepared, not just against France but also against other European countries,” French Prime Minister Manuel Valls told RTL radio. “We are going to live with this terrorist threat for a long time.”

Islamic State, which claimed responsibility for the attacks in retaliation for French airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, warned in a video on Monday that any country hitting it would suffer the same fate, promising specifically to target Washington.

French warplanes bombed Islamic State training camps and a suspected arms depot in its Syrian stronghold Raqqa late on Sunday — its biggest such strike since it started assaults as part of a U.S.-led mission launched in 2014.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve told reporters police had arrested nearly two dozen people and seized arms, including a rocket launcher and automatic weapons, in 168 raids overnight. Another 104 people were put under house arrest, he said.

“Let this be clear to everyone, this is just the beginning, these actions are going to continue,” Cazeneuve said.

 

NATIONAL MOURNING

A source close to the investigation said Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud, currently in Syria, was suspected of having ordered the Paris operation. “He appears to be the brains behind several planned attacks in Europe,” the source told Reuters.

RTL Radio said Abaaoud was a 27-year-old from Molenbeek. He was also reported by media to have been involved in a series of planned attacks in Belgium which were foiled by the police last January.

Police in Brussels have detained two suspects and are hunting Salah Abdeslam, a 26-year-old Frenchman based in the Belgian capital, who is one of three brothers believed to have been involved in the plot.

Schools and museums in Paris re-opened on Monday after a 48-hour shutdown, but some popular tourist sites, including Disneyland and the Eiffel Tower, remained closed.

French tourism-related stocks fell sharply on fears visitors might shun Paris, one of the most visited cities in the world, but the country’s blue-chip CAC 40 index was steady, with no long-term economic impact seen.

Police have named two French attackers — Ismael Omar Mostefai, 29, from Chartres, southwest of Paris, and Samy Amimour, 28, from the Paris suburb of Drancy. A source close to the investigation named two other French assailants as Bilal Hadfi and Ibrahim Abdeslam.

A Turkish government official said Ankara had notified France twice in December 2014 and June 2015 about Mostefai, who entered Turkey in 2013 with no record of him leaving again. France only called back about him after Friday’s events.

“This is not a time to play the blame game, but we are compelled to share (this) information to shed light on (Mostefai’s) travel history,” the Turkish official said.

France now believes Mostefai was in Syria from 2013-2014 and his radicalization underlined the trouble France faces trying to capture an illusive enemy that grew up in its own cities.

“He was a normal man,” said Christophe, his neighbor in Chartres. “Nothing made you think he would turn violent.”

Latest official figures estimate that 520 French nationals are in the Syrian and Iraqi war zones, including 116 women. Some 137 have died in the fighting, 250 have returned home and around 700 have plans to travel to join the jihadist factions.

The man stopped in Greece in October was carrying a Syrian passport in the name of Ahmad Al Mohammad. Police said they were still checking to see if the document was authentic, but said the dead man’s fingerprints matched those on record in Greece.

Greek officials said the passport holder had crossed from Turkey to the Greek islands last month and then registered for asylum in Serbia before heading north, following a route taken by hundreds of thousands of asylum seekers this year.

The news revived a furious row within the European Union on how to handle the flood of Middle Eastern and African refugees. Senior Polish and Slovak officials dismissed an EU plan to relocate asylum seekers across the bloc, saying the violence underlined their concerns about taking in Muslims.

Britain announced on Monday it would boost its intelligence agency staff by 15 percent and more than double spending on aviation security to defend against Islamist militants plotting attacks from Syria.

A source in Prime Minister David Cameron’s office said police had foiled one attack in Britain last month.

Valls said the French authorities would use every means at their disposal to counter the Islamist threat, adding that mosques harboring extremists would be shuttered and foreigners expelled if they “held unacceptable views against the republic”.

France is home to some five million Muslims, many of them descendants from Algerian and Moroccan immigrants.

 

(Additional reporting by Emmanuel Jarry, John Irish, Leigh Thomas, Ingrid Melander, Marine Pennetier, Geert De Clercq and Claire Watson in Paris; Yves Herman, Robert-Jan Bartunek, Philip Blenkinsop and Alastair Macdonald in Brussels; writing by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Sonya Hepinstall)

Explosions Rock Yemen, Killing 15

Three explosions hit Yemen’s port city of Aden on Tuesday, killing 15 people. One rocket hit a hotel housing exiled Yemeni officials, and the other two attacks struck locations used by troops from the United Arab Emirates. Authorities state no government officials have been hurt.

At this time it is not clear who the victims were.

Officials originally blamed Yemen’s Shiite rebels for the attack, but a new Islamic State affiliate claimed responsibility for the attacks. The terrorist group used Twitter to claim the attack, posting photos of the suicide bombers and the aftermath of the bombing. More chaos is expected to ensue now that the Islamic State is involved with Yemen’s months-long civil war.

Military official, Major General Ahmed Sayf stated that the attacks were deployed with car bombs.

Yemen is currently in the middle of a civil war where Shiite rebels and forces loyal to the former president are fighting the Saudi-backed, internationally recognized government as well as local militias, Sunni extremists, and southern separatists. The war in Yemen began in March of this year and so far, more than 4,000 people have been killed. The country is also on the brink of famine.

U.S. Military Airstrike Launched in Attempt to Regain City

In an attempt to regain Kunduz from the Taliban in Afghanistan, military officials announced airstrikes that were launched on Tuesday.  

U.S. Army Col. Brian Tribus, spokesman for the U.S. and NATO missions in Afghanistan, said the strike was carried out “in order to eliminate a threat to the force.”  

Afghanistan troops were amassed outside Kunduz in an effort to take back the city that had fallen to the Taliban on Monday.   

President Ashraf Ghani stated in a televised address to the nation, that the military launched a counter-offensive on the city, with security forces “retaking government buildings … and reinforcements, including special forces and commandos are either there or on their way there.”

“The enemy has sustained heavy casualties,” said Ghani, who marked his first anniversary in office on Tuesday. He urged his nation to trust Afghan troops and not give in to “fear and terror.”

Many analysts and officials predict a very difficult time in the fight ahead.  Taliban have control of many of the roads to the city which make supply runs and reinforcing troops quite challenging as well as the fact that the Taliban has infiltrated residential areas which make airstrikes and the use of heavy weapons quite costly.  

First Ever Withdrawal from Svalbard Global Seed Vault Due to War

Scientists have requested the first-ever withdrawal of seeds from  the Svalbard Global Seed Vault , a Doomsday vault built in the Arctic to safeguard the world’s food supplies, officials said Friday. The International Center for Agricultural Research (ICARDA) said it has made a request to take back some of its samples due to Syria’s Civil war.

On September 21, Reuters reported that officials from the ICARDA seed bank in Aleppo — which has moved to Beirut, for now, because of the Syrian civil war — requested 116,000 samples from the Svalbard Vault. The seed samples were needed to restore a collection that had been damaged by the conflict, which has killed approximately 250,000 people and caused more than 11 million to flee their homes.

The Svalbard Global Seed Vault, preserves millions of seeds, representing more than 860,000 important crop varieties from around the world: a final backup to protect against natural disasters, war, and climate change. It is located 500 feet deep inside a mountain on a remote island between Norway and the North Pole.

Jordan: “We Will Completely Wipe Out ISIS”

The King of Jordan made the boldest statement yet from a world leader when he said that his country would “completely wipe out ISIS.”

Jordan’s interior minister Hussein al-Majali said his nation’s forces would go after ISIS “wherever they are” and “eliminate them and wipe them out completely.”

The move comes after ISIS burned alive a Jordanian pilot shot down over Syria.

King Abdullah said that Jordan would fight “to the last bullet, the last plane, the last missile.”

The move by Jordan has spurred the United Arab Emirates to enter back into the airstrike coalition.  The UAE had suspended their attacks after the capture of the pilot in an attempt to get ISIS to release him.

The Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi told the UAE’s official news agency “deep belief in the need for Arab collective cooperation to eliminate terrorism, through actions and words, and bolster the security, stability and moderation of the nation through the collective encountering of these terrorist gangs and their misleading ideology and brutal practices” was the reason for the resumption of air strikes.