Author: Théophile Niyitegeka

{Two border crossings with Afghanistan closed and at least 39 ‘terrorists’ killed after attack at Sehwan shrine kills 88.}

Pakistan has closed two of its border crossings with Afghanistan and demanded that Kabul takes action against 76 “terrorists” it says are hiding in Afghan territory in response to the worst attack on Pakistani soil since 2014.

At least 88 people were killed and hundreds more wounded when a suicide attacker targeted a gathering of worshippers at a shrine in the southern town of Sehwan on Thursday.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group claimed responsibility for the blast.

The shrine, built in 1356, is by the tomb of Syed Muhammad Usman Marwandi, the Sufi philosopher poet better known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, one of Pakistan’s most venerated saints.

On Friday, Pakistan’s military said Afghanistan must take “immediate action” against the 76 people identified to them.

Pakistan-Afghanistan Border closed with immediate effects till further orders due to security reasons.

Afg Embassy officials called in GHQ. Given list of 76 Ts hiding in Afg. Asked to take immediate action / be handed over to Pakistan.

Security officials told Al Jazeera that at least 39 suspected fighters had been killed in security raids carried out overnight in response to the attack.

Thursday’s attack came after one of the bloodiest weeks in recent memory in Pakistan, with at least 99 people killed in a series of attacks since Monday, most claimed by the Pakistani Taliban or one of its factions.

On Monday, 13 people were killed in a suicide bombing at a rally in the eastern city of Lahore.

That attack was followed on Wednesday by a suicide bombing at a government office in the Mohmand tribal area and a suicide attack on government employees in Peshawar, killing six people.

Two police officers were killed on Tuesday while trying to defuse a bomb in the Balochistan provincial capital of Quetta.

{{Border closure
}}

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder said the second major border crossing at Chaman, which leads to Kandahar in Afghanistan from the Pakistani city of Quetta, was closed on Friday after the Torkham border was sealed off late on Thursday.

In Sehwan, meanwhile, police cordoned off the shrine early on Friday as forensic investigators arrived.

The floor of the shrine was still stained with blood on Friday morning as dozens of protesters pushed past police pickets demanding to be allowed to continue to worship there.

At least 20 children are believed to be among the dead, the head of Sehwan’s medical facility, Moeen Uddin Siddiqui, said.

At 3.30am, the shrine’s caretaker stood among the carnage and defiantly rang its bell, a daily ritual that he vowed to continue.

The Sindh provincial government announced three days of mourning as Pakistanis vented their grief and fury on social media, bemoaning the lack of medical facilities to help the wounded, with the nearest hospital around 70km from the shrine.

All shrines in the province have been closed, a decision that prompted furious reaction from protesters in Sehwan.

“Give us the charge of the mazaar [shrine], we will take care of it rather than the police,” a shopkeeper said.

“Keeping it closed is unfair to the people of Sehwan. We can take care of our own place. We can do everything to protect it.”

‘Afghan role’

Pakistan’s military has long blamed the Afghan government for allowing sanctuary on its soil to fighters targeting Pakistan since a 2014 Pakistani military operation to drive out armed groups from the country’s restive tribal areas.

“Recent Ts acts are being exec on directions from hostile powers and from sanctuaries in Afghanistan. We shall defend and respond,” tweeted Pakistan military spokesman Asif Ghafoor.

Afghanistan denies the charge, accusing Pakistan in turn of allowing leaders of the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network armed groups to roam freely on Pakistani soil.

Pakistan denies this, but several high-profile Afghan Taliban leaders have been killed or captured on its soil, including former chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour in a US drone strike last year.

Pakistan Taliban leaders have similarly been captured or killed on Afghan soil.

Following the attack in Lahore, the Pakistani Foreign Office summoned senior Afghan embassy official Syed Abdul Nasir Yousafi.

“Afghanistan was urged to take urgent measures to eliminate the terrorists and their sanctuaries, financiers and handlers operating from its territory,” according to a Foreign Office statement.

Analysts, however, warn that in this “war of sanctuaries”, space is being left open for armed groups to continue to launch attacks.

Since the launch in 2014 of a military operation in the tribal area of North Waziristan – then-headquarters of the Pakistani Taliban and its allies – the Pakistani military says it has killed more than 3,500 fighters and destroyed Taliban infrastructure.

At least 583 soldiers have also been killed.

Since then, violence had decreased markedly, but sporadic high-casualty attacks continued to occur, notably a hospital bombing killing 74 in Quetta and an Easter Day park bombing that killed more than 70 last year.

Thursday’s attack was the deadliest in Pakistan since December 2014, when fighters assaulted a school in Peshawar, killing 154 people, mostly schoolchildren.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Attack in area full of car dealerships and garages is the latest in renewed wave of blasts to strike the Iraqi capital.}

A car packed with explosives has blown up in the south of Baghdad, killing at least 55 people and wounding dozens more.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group claimed responsibility for Thursday’s attack, which came amid a renewed wave of violence in the Iraqi capital.

Baghdad was rocked by a wave of deadly suicide bombings during the first days of 2017, but relatively few explosions had been reported since.

Security sources said the vehicle that blew up was parked in a crowded street full of garages and used car dealers, in Bayaa neighbourhood in the southwest of the city.

Iraqi officials said the bomb targeted car dealerships in the mostly Shia neighbourhood.

The site of the bombing was an open space used as a second-hand car market where hundreds of private sellers park their vehicles and wait all day to discuss prices with prospective buyers.

{{‘Terrorist car bomb’}}

The Amaq propaganda agency linked to ISIL, which has claimed nearly all such attacks recently, reported the blast and described it as targeting “a gathering of Shias”.

“A terrorist car bomb attack struck near car dealerships in Bayaa,” a spokesperson for the Baghdad Operations Command said in a statement.

An interior ministry official gave a death toll of 52 and said that more than 50 other people were also wounded. Hospital officials confirmed the figures.

Security officials could be seen inspecting the site before the sun set, while some distressed civilians searched for relatives and others took pictures with their mobile phones of the large crater caused by the blast.

Another four attacks in and around Baghdad on Thursday killed eight people and wounded about 30, police and medical officials said.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the horrible terrorist attacks carried out by ISIS targeting a car dealership in Baghdad,” the US state separtment said.

Jan Kubis, the UN’s top envoy in Iraq, said: “Yet again, the terrorists are continuing with their carnage against innocent civilians. This is totally unacceptable.”

The latest bombings were also condemned by France, one of the main partners of the US in a coalition assisting Iraq in its battle against ISIL, whose fighters also control parts of neighbouring Syria.

ISIL is currently defending the west bank of the northern city of Mosul, its last major urban stronghold in Iraq, against a huge offensive by the security forces.

Four months into the broad military operation, Iraq’s largest in years, elite forces have retaken the eastern side of the city and are preparing for an assault on the part of Mosul that lies west of the Tigris River.

ISIL fighters have carried out diversionary attacks, such as raids in other towns and cities as well as bombings in Baghdad and elsewhere, in an apparent bid to stretch federal security forces and capture headlines.

On Wednesday, a suicide bomber detonated a pick-up truck in Baghdad’s Sadr City suburb, killing at least 15 and wounding 50 more.

And on Tuesday, a car-bomb explosion in southern Baghdad killed at least four people.

Source:Al Jazeera

{EU defence ministers agree to buy planes and submarines jointly and to open a new command centre for elite troops.}

European members of NATO have agreed to buy planes and submarines jointly and possibly open a new command headquarters for elite troops after the United States threatened to curtail its support unless Europe increased military spending by the end of the year.

At Thursday’s signing ceremonies in Brussels, defence ministers from France and Germany said they would buy Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules transport planes, while Germany, Belgium and Norway will join a Netherlands-led fleet of Airbus A330 tanker planes.

A new command centre is also planned for Dutch, Belgian and Danish special forces that could be used by other NATO nations and which many countries outside the main European military powers of Britain, France and Germany do not have.

The location of the new headquarters has not been decided, a NATO official said.

Other plans include Norway and Germany buying a new class of submarines, known as U212As, that more effectively detect, track and fire at enemy submarines and ships on the water.

Germany also agreed to joint training and deployments of land forces with the Czech Republic and Romania, with both countries set to provide a brigade of several thousand troops for a larger division under German leadership.

“This multinational cooperation through NATO is a clear way for countries to significantly improve their armed forces while ensuring the greatest value for money for their taxpayers,” said Rose Gottemoeller, NATO’s deputy secretary-general.

Jim Mattis, the new US defence secretary, warned NATO allies on Wednesday that they must pay more towards their own defences or potentially see less support from the US.

Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary-general, said allies faced a “more demanding and challenging security environment” that the alliance needed to respond to.

“This is a way to make what we do more efficient, and increase output,” he said of the agreements signed.

The letters of intent, although not legally binding, are the latest sign that European allies are starting to end years of competing national strategies that have left Europe reliant on the US to provide such basics as refuelling combat planes in the air.

Duplication is another problem, with EU militaries owning 19 types of armoured infantry fighting vehicles, compared with one in the US, while wasted funds amount to about $26bn a year, according to European Commission data.

As part of a broader push to revitalise European defence cooperation following Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and the rise of ISIL-linked violence on Europe’s borders, France agreed to allow Belgian and Dutch jets to fly into its airspace in the case of a conflict with a foreign threat.

This means that a Belgian jet pursuing an enemy plane would no longer have to turn back at the French border.

{{The Russian factor}}

Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker, reporting from Brussels, said the gathering was a chance for NATO members to find out how committed the US is to the bloc.

“It was also a chance to find out a little bit more about the new closeness between the Kremlin and Washington,” he said.

For his part, Mattis said on Thursday that Russia would remain at arms length in terms of military cooperation.

“We are not in a position right now to collaborate on a military level, but our political leaders will engage and try to find a common ground,” he said.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Heavy Russian attacks reported after rebels try to obstruct Syrian government bid to retake strategic border crossing.}

Russia’s military has carried out waves of air strikes in recent days on rebel-held areas of the southern Syrian city of Deraa, say anti-government fighters and witnesses.

Russian jets targeted rebel-held areas of Deraa for two days after Syrian opposition groups on Sunday stormed the heavily garrisoned Manshiya district in a campaign that sought to obstruct any army attempts to capture a strategic border crossing with Jordan from the opposition.

A rebel source said that there were at least 30 Russian sorties on Tuesday, thwarting further rebel gains in the heavily defended enclave that had allowed them so far to secure significant parts of the Manshiya.

“When the regime began to lose control of some areas … the Russian jets began their operations,” said Ibrahim Abdullah, a senior rebel commander.

Al Jazeera could not independently confirm the reported Russian assault.

The army’s control of the rebel-held crossing and chunks of territory in the southern strip of Deraa would sever the rebel link between the eastern and west parts of the province.

The Syrian army said the “terrorists” had failed to make gains and its troops had inflicted many casualties.

The opposition fighters are drawn from both moderate Free Syrian Army groups and members of a newly formed alliance – Tahrir al-Sham.

The fighting spread across other parts of Deraa as rebels fired mortars on government-controlled parts of the province.

Ground-to-ground missiles were also deployed from army barracks to hit rebel-held quarters of Deraa, residents said.

The battles inside the city are the most intense since an alliance of mainstream rebels, known as the Southern Front, who are backed by western and Arab foes of President Bashar al-Assad, launched an unsuccessful large-scale military campaign to capture the whole city in 2015.

The Syrian army has so far failed to recapture the border crossing, a once thriving passenger and commercial gateway with Jordan, despite repeated efforts.

At least half of the southern province is in the hands of FSA fighters but groups affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL) have a foothold in an area to the west of Deraa in the Wadi Yarmouk area, near the Golan Heights.

Aid workers said fighter jets hit a western-funded field hospital in Deraa and raids killed at least seven members of one family in the border area, where many residents fled in the early days of the Syrian conflict.

The Washington-based International Rescue Committee, which supports the hospital that was targeted, said in a statement that four health workers were injured in the attack.

{{Talks in Astana}}

The fighting in Deraa comes against a backdrop of renewed diplomatic activity.

Russia, Turkey and Iran are hosting the second round of talks in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, on extending the Syrian ceasefire.

Syria’s opposition delegation said it received a commitment from the Russians that they would immediately halt their air strikes on areas held by the opposition.

The head of the Syrian government delegation blamed rebel negotiators for a lack of overall progress after they arrived late to the talks.

Haid Haid, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the London-based Chatham House, says the prospects of the talks achieving any real solution to the Syrian conflict are lacking due to virtually “no common ground between Turkey, Russia and Iran”.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, he said: “In order to implement the ceasefire, they have to punish those who violate ceasefires.

“And Russia and Iran do not want to put any pressure on the Syrian regime … There are no enforcement mechanisms that could be a stepping stone to a political solution.”

Five years since the conflict began, more than 450,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, more than a million injured and over 12 million Syrians – half the country’s prewar population – have been displaced from their homes.

Source:Al Jazeera

Joint statement by UN and Arab League heads comes after Trump drops US commitment to two-state solution to conflict.

The United Nations and the Arab League have issued a joint statement in support of the establishment of a Palestinian state, after US President Donald Trump dropped his country’s commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The statement on Thursday came a day after Trump and the visiting Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, refused to endorse the two-state solution as the preferred outcome of peace talks, abandoning what has been the cornerstone of US-led peace efforts for two decades.

After a meeting in Cairo, Antonio Guterres, the UN secretary-general, and Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, the Arab League’s secretary-general, said they agreed that the two-state solution was “the only way to achieve comprehensive and just settlement to the Palestinian cause”.

The statement put them at odds with Trump, who said at a White House meeting with Netanyahu that peace in the Middle East does not necessarily have to include the establishment of a Palestinian state.

Palestinian leaders and the international community have long favoured the establishment of an independent Palestinian state as the preferred way to peace in the region.

Separately, Aboul-Gheit issued a warning on Thursday against the potential moving of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem after Trump said his administration was considering it seriously.

He said that the move would have explosive consequences in the Middle East, Egypt’s state news MENA reported, after Trump said he would “love” to see the US embassy relocated to Jerusalem.

“I’d love to see that happen, we’re looking at that very, very strongly, we’re looking at that with great care, and we’ll see what happens,” Trump said.

Relocating the embassy to Jerusalem, which would violate international law, would be seen as a provocative move by critics as the city is claimed by both the Israelis and Palestinians as their capital.

Hamas, the Palestinian group which governs the Gaza Strip, has reacted to Trump’s latest statements by saying the US has a pro-Israel bias and has never made enough effort to improve Palestinian rights.

Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, said on his Facebook page: “US administrations never worked hard enough and seriously to give the Palestinian people its rights”.

He said that the US administration provided a cover for Israeli aggression carried out against the Palestinian people, including the theft of land.

“Washington’s weak retraction of its original stance is reflective of the US-administration’s bias towards the Israeli occupation, especially with the arrival of new US President Donald Trump,” Qassem said.

He also called on the Palestinian Authority to abandon what he called “the illusion of a solution through negotiations, and the idea that the US should act as a mediator in negotiations”.

Saeb Erekat, the PLO’s secretary-general, said: “Those who believe that they can undermine the two-state solution and replace it with what I call ‘one state, two systems’, maintaining the status quo now, apartheid. I don’t think that in the 21st century they will get away with it.”

Osama Hamdan, Hamas’ foreign policy chief, said the group will not be not be affected by the new US policy and will continue with all forms of resistance to Israeli occupation until statehood is achieved.

Asked if resistance means just engaging military confrontations with Israel, Hamdan said: “That’s only a part of it, if we were attacked first.

“Resistance for us could be peaceful one such as boycotting Israeli consumer products, challenging Israel legally and defending ourselves military should Israel attacks us.”

Source:Al Jazeera