Tag: InternationalNews

{ISIL claims responsibility for blast targeting Shia Muslims returning from Arbaeen pilgrimage in holy city of Karbala.}

At least 100 people have been killed and dozens wounded in a massive suicide truck bomb blast at a petrol station south of Iraq’s capital Baghdad, according to medical sources.

The target of Thursday’s attack near the town of Hilla appeared to be Shia Muslim pilgrims returning from the annual Arbaeen pilgrimage in the holy city of Karbala.

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

Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Erbil, said an oil tanker rigged with explosives tore through the petrol station, which has a restaurant on its premises that is popular with travellers.

“The whole place was completely wrecked. It was a massive blast,” Abdel-Hamid said.

“When the gas tanker blew up, it also torched several buses and minivans that were carrying the pilgrims.”

Our correspondent said that as of 03:00 GMT on Friday the number of those killed in the attack was at least 100, rising from a previous death toll of 80. Earlier, security sources had said they expected casualty figures to increase in the coming hours.

“It is believed that among them are not only Iraqis, but some Iranians too, while some unconfirmed reports also say that there could be some Bahrainis among the victims.”

“With today’s attack, ISIL is sending the message that it can still cause and inflict a lot of pain,” Abdel-Hamid said.

Videos circulating on social media showed debris scattered over a large area along the main highway linking Baghdad to the main southern port city of Basra.

“There are completely charred corpses at the scene,” said Falah al-Radhi, head of the provincial security committee, adding that at least 20 wounded were transferred to nearby hospitals.

The Joint Operations Command in Baghdad issued a statement saying the lorry was packed with 500 litres of ammonium nitrate, a chemical compound used in many explosive devices.

ISIL has intensified attacks over the past month in areas out of its control in efforts to weaken a large-scale military offensive launched last month to retake Mosul, the last major city under its control in Iraq.

The latest attack “highlights just how difficult it is to guarantee any kind of security in certain areas of Iraq”, Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Dohuk in northern Iraq, said.

“Despite of evidence of ISIL getting hit very hard, they still seem to be able to attack when and where they want in certain parts of the country.”

The International Organization for Migration said on Thursday that around 76,000 people had been displaced since the start of the Mosul offensive on October 17.

The group said that about 7,000 people had already returned to their homes, leaving roughly 69,000 still displaced, most of them in camps.

{Green party candidate says unexpected Trump wins in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania need to be investigated.}

US presidential candidate Jill Stein has launched an attempt to force recounts in three decisive states that won President-elect Donald Trump the November 8 election.

In a statement on her Twitter account on Wednesday evening, the Green Party leader said allegations of hacking by foreign states and voting anomalies made the results in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania unreliable.

“After a decisive and painful presidential race, in which foreign agents hacked in to party databases, private email servers, and voter databases in certain states, many Americans are wondering if our election results are reliable,” Stein said.

“That’s why the unexpected results of the election and reported anomalies need to be investigated before the 2016 presidential election is certified,” she added.

The three states at the centre of the recount bid are traditional Democrat strongholds – yet, this time voters backed the Republican candidate.

Trump won by around 12,000 votes in Michigan, about 27,000 votes in Wisconsin, and roughly 68,000 votes in Pennsylvania.

Democrat challenger Hillary Clinton leads the popular vote by around 2.1 million ballots, but her defeat in the three states meant she lost out on their combined 46 electoral votes that would have secured her victory overall.

Stein has already raised $3m of the $7m needed to successfully file recount applications in the three states, at the time of publication.

Ballot box hacking

The possibility of electronic manipulation of ballots in some states was raised by the University of Michigan’s J Alex Halderman.

In a blog post late on Wednesday , the professor of computer science described previous alleged attempts by hackers linked to the Russian intelligence services to change ballots in Ukraine.

Halderman said the results of the election were “probably not” caused by a cyber attack, but added ballots should be scrutinised regardless.

“The only way to know whether a cyberattack changed the result is to closely examine the available physical evidence?- paper ballots and voting equipment in critical states like Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania,” Halderman wrote.

“Unfortunately, nobody is ever going to examine that evidence unless candidates in those states act now, in the next several days, to petition for recounts.”

Stein has until Friday to file a recount petition in Wisconsin and until next week for the other two states.

Trump is due to take up office on January 20.

{Tremor hits off the coast of El Salvador, and was also felt in Nicaragua, which is being lashed by a hurricane.}

A 7.0 magnitude earthquake off the Pacific Coast of Central America has shaken the region, just as a hurricane barreled into the Caribbean coasts of Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

There were no immediate reports of any damage from Thursday’s quake, which occurred around 120km off the coast of El Salvador at a depth of 33km, according to the US Geological Survey.

Earlier reports had put the quake’s magnitute at 7.2.

A tsunami alert issued by El Salvador was later lifted.

In El Salvador, the eartquake could be felt in the regions of Chalatenango, San Salvador, Cabanas and San Miguel.

El Salvador sits along the major seismic zone known as the Pacific Ring of Fire, a series of faults marked by 450 active volcanoes over 40,000km.

Over the last two weeks, earthquakes with magnitudes over 7.0 have hit Japan and New Zealand, both of which are also near the Ring of Fire.

Shaking was also felt in the Nicaraguan capital of Managua, and as far as the Costa Rican capital San Jose.

The earthquake struck one hour after a powerful hurricane packing winds of 175 kilometres per hour made landfall on Nicaragua’s other coast.

The heavy rains hurricane Otto was offloading were likely to cause dangerous flooding and mud slides, according to the US National Hurricane Center.

Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega declared a state of emergency due to the quake and the storm.

“It is certainly a difficult day today for countries in Central America,” Al Jazeera David Mercer, reporting from the neighbouring Guatemala, said, adding that the quake was also felt there.

But Mercer said that countries on the path of the hurricane has been preparing for days for landfall, and authorities are hoping that the casualties will be limited.

{Refugees clash with police near the Turkish border after authorities restrict their movement over health fears.}

Police in Bulgaria have fired tear gas and water cannon at refugees protesting restrictions on their movement after authorities barred them from leaving the area where they stay pending medical checks.

Between four and six police officers were injured on Thursday after some 1,500 refugees clashed against their treatment at the Harmanli reception centre near the Turkish border.

The centre, which houses just over 3,000 refugees, imposed a ban on the refugees’ movement earlier this week after local media alleged that the camp, the largest in Bulgaria, was home to communicable skin diseases.

According to the Reuters news agency, the refugees began throwing stones at police, who then deployed water cannon to disperse them.

The protesting refugees were accused of damaging several buildings, including the camp’s cantine, and setting fires to tires, mattresses and broken furniture.

“The riot had started at noon but the situation has been already brought under control,” an interior ministry spokeswoman told Reuters.

Petya Parvanova, the head of the Bulgarian Refugee Agency, which runs the camp, blamed media reports for the clashes.

“An artificially created tension led to this, following misleading reports of infections at the centre,” she said.

Bulgaria has built a fence on its border with Turkey and has bolstered its border controls to prevent inflows of refugees.

Some 17,000 were detained in the first ten months of the year, over a third less than a year ago.

Despite the decreasing numbers, Bulgarian nationalists have staged several protests in recent months calling for the immediate closure of all refugee centres in the country.

At present, some 13,000 refugees, mostly from Afghanistan, are currently trapped in the European Union’s poorest country.

{Shia fighters take main route linking Tal Afar to Sinjar, blocking ISIL’s crucial supply route from Mosul into Raqqa.}

ISIL’s last supply line from Mosul to Syria has been severed by Iraqi-led forces, leaving the armed group’s stronghold completely isolated.

Shia-Muslim paramilitary forces, known as Hashed al-Shaabi, captured the road linking Tal Afar to Sinjar west of Mosul on Wednesday and linked up with Kurdish forces there, security officials say.

“Hashed forces have cut off the Tal Afar-Sinjar road,” Abu Mahdi al-Mohandis, a senior commander, said on social media.

A Kurdish security official told AFP news agency the Shia militia had linked up with other anti-ISIL forces, including Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters, in three villages in the area.

Also on Wednesday, an air strike by the US-led coalition “disabled” the fourth bridge on the Tigris River in Mosul, leaving the city with a single functioning connection and further disrupting ISIL’s supply lines.

Aamaq news agency, ISIL’s media arm, and a top Iraqi commander in Mosul reported the air strike, which took place before dawn.

It was the second to target a Mosul bridge this week and the fourth since shortly before the launch of the offensive to retake the city.

Iraqi forces kicked off the operation – backed by US-led air strikes – on October 17 to retake the country’s second-largest city, where ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed a caliphate in 2014.

Troops have already entered the city from the east, Kurdish Peshmerga and other forces are also closing in from the north and south and only the west had remained open.

The latest development will make it long and dangerous for ISIL if it attempts to move fighters and equipment between Mosul and the Syrian city of Raqqa, the last two bastions of their crumbling “caliphate”.

Tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians have fled Tal Afar as the paramilitary force closed in on the town.

The exodus from Tal Afar, 60km west of Mosul, is causing concern among humanitarian organisations as some of the fleeing civilians are heading deeper into ISIL territory, where aid cannot be sent to them, provincial officials said.

About 3,000 families have left the town, with about half heading southwest towards Syria, and half northward into Kurdish-held territory, said Nuraldin Qablan, a Tal Afar representative in the Nineveh provincial council, now based in the Kurdish capital, Erbil.

“We ask Kurdish authorities to open a safe passage for them,” he told Reuters news agency. “People are fleeing due to the Hashid’s advance, there are great fears among the civilians.”

Iraqi military estimates put the number of ISIL fighters in Mosul at 5,000-6,000, facing a 100,000-strong coalition of Iraqi government units, Peshmerga fighters, and Shia militias.

Mosul’s capture is seen as crucial towards dismantling the caliphate. Baghdadi is believed to have withdrawn to a remote area near the Syrian border, and told ISIL fighters there can be no retreat.

A Mosul resident said air strikes have intensified on the western part of the city, which is divided by the Tigris River running through its centre.

The strikes targeted an industrial area where ISIL is believed to be making booby-traps and transforming vehicles into car bombs, he said.

ISIL fighters are dug in among more than a million civilians as a defence tactic to hamper the air strikes. They are moving around the city through tunnels, ploughing suicide vehicle bombs into advancing troops, and hitting them with sniper and mortar fire.

{Foreign minister says meeting to be held in Paris to confront strategy of “total war by Syrian regime and its allies”.}

France has accused Syria and its allies of using political uncertainty in the US to launch “total war” against opposition-held areas in the country and called for new sanctions on Bashar al-Assad’s government for the use of chemical weapons.

Making the accusations after a weekly cabinet session on Wednesday, Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s foreign minister, said that countries opposed to the Syrian president would meet soon.

Donald Trump’s inauguration as the new US president will not happen until January 20 next year and President Barack Obama’s outgoing administration is not expected to take an active role in Syria so close to leaving office.

European diplomats have expressed concern that Assad may feel emboldened by Trump’s pledge to build closer ties with Russia, Syria’s ally.

READ MORE: Battle for Aleppo – All hospitals are destroyed

“Today one million people are besieged. Not just in Aleppo, but in Homs, Ghouta and Idlib, and that’s the reality of the situation in Syria,” Ayrault said in Paris.

He did not say what the planned meeting might achieve but said protecting Syrian civilians was an urgent priority.

“France is taking the initiative to confront this strategy of total war by the regime and its allies, who are taking advantage of the current uncertainty in the United States.”

{{Meeting planned
}}

The proposed meeting of countries opposed to Assad, including the US, Saudi Arabia and Turkey, will take place in the near future in Paris, Ayrault said.

France, a staunch backer of the anti-Assad opposition, is now actively pushing for a UN Security Council resolution to sanction Syria for the use of chemical weapons, he said.

An inquiry by the UN and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) has already found that government forces were responsible for three chlorine-gas attacks and that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group had used mustard gas.

“It’s been proved that the regime and ISIL have used chemical weapons so we now need sanctions and that’s the resolution we want at the UN. The international community must stop turning a blind eye,” Ayrault said.

“We aren’t going to sit and do nothing.”

Russia has said the inquiry’s findings cannot be used to take action at the Security Council and that the Syrian government, which denies using chemical weapons, should investigate the accusations.

Meanwhile, on the ground, doctors and activists in Syria are calling on the international community to air drop supplies in opposition-held eastern Aleppo.

They are also calling for a safe passage for civilians and want the UN to monitor it.

At least 13 people were killed in fighting in Aleppo on Wednesday, according to rescue workers.

They said they have been trying to recover the injured, but there are no hospitals left to take them to following Syrian government’s latest assault on medical facilities in opposition-held areas.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said dozens of civilians tried to flee the besieged parts of Aleppo on Wednesday but were stopped from escaping because of fighting.

On Tuesday, the Syrian army issued a statement accusing opposition fighters of holding civilians as “hostages”.

“Permit those citizens who want to do so to leave, stop using them as hostages and human shields, clear the mines from the crossings identified by the state,” it said.

Anti-government groups deny they are preventing civilians from leaving and accused the government of spreading “rumours”.

{{Renewed assault}}

The Syrian army – backed by allied forces from Iran, Russia and the Lebanese group Hezbollah – launched a renewed assault on east Aleppo on November 15.

The offensive has killed at least 143 civilians in the city’s east, among them 19 children, and more than 375 in all of Aleppo province.

Opposition fire has killed 16 civilians in the government-held west, including 10 children.

The Syrian conflict has killed an estimated 400,000 people since it began in March 2011.

{Pro-government forces accused of operating among civilians in bloody battle for Taiz and harassing medical staff.}

An air strike by an Arab coalition battling Yemeni rebels killed 12 civilians in the northwest of the country on Wednesday, rebel media and witnesses said.

Six others were wounded in the raid that targeted a vehicle in Hiran, in Hajja province, reported the sabanews.net website that is controlled by Shia Houthi rebels.

Witnesses said the victims were on their way to a market.

No immediate response to the reports came from the Saudi-led coalition fighting the Iran-backed rebels.

Violence in Yemen has increased since a 48-hour ceasefire ended on Monday.

The Arab coalition fighting in support of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi’s government has come under repeated criticism over civilian casualties during its operations in Yemen.

It admitted in October to killing 140 people in an air strike on a funeral in the capital Sanaa, blaming the deaths on “incorrect information”.

More than 40 people were killed in clashes on Tuesday between the rebels and government forces across the country.

The Houthis overran the capital and other parts of the impoverished country in September 2014, prompting the Arab coalition to intervene six months later in support of Hadi.

The UN says more than 7,000 people have been killed and nearly 37,000 wounded in Yemen since March 2015.

{{‘Fear and intimidation’ in Taiz}}

Amnesty International on Wednesday accused pro-government Yemeni forces fighting Houthi rebels for control of the southwestern city of Taiz of harassing medical staff and endangering civilians by stationing combatants among them.

Civilians in Taiz, which had a pre-war population of 300,000, have been trapped by intense fighting with bodies lying in the streets and hundreds of people wounded this week, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday.

Amnesty, a London-based human rights watchdog, said so-called Popular Committees – anti-Houthi militias backed by Hadi’s government in exile – had detained and threatened to kill medical staff in Taiz.

Popular Committee fighters hold most of Taiz, Yemen’s third-largest city, but are hemmed in by the rebels on three sides.

“There is compelling evidence to suggest that anti-Houthi forces have waged a campaign of fear and intimidation against medical professionals in Taiz,” said Philip Luther, research and advocacy director at Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa wing.

“By positioning fighters and military positions near medical facilities they have compromised the safety of hospitals and flouted their obligation to protect civilians under international law.”

Officials from Hadi’s government said they were studying the Amnesty report and would respond.

{Bill set to pass in parliament outlawing face coverings in government buildings and health-and-education settings.}

Dutch lawmakers on Wednesday debated a limited ban on face-covering headwear worn by some Muslim women that would outlaw veils in places such as schools, hospitals, and on public transportation.

Only a few hundred Muslim women in the Netherlands wear concealing full-face coverings, but successive governments have still sought to ban the garments, following the example of other European countries such as France and Belgium.

Interior Minister Ronald Plasterk said the Dutch proposal did not go as far as the complete bans in those countries. He called the legislation “religion-neutral”, but conceded the debate about people wearing veils on Dutch streets had played a major role in the proposal.

Plasterk said in a free country such as the Netherlands people should be allowed to appear in public with their faces covered, if they want to, but in government buildings and in health and education settings – such as hospitals and schools – people need to be able to look each other in the face.

It was not immediately clear when lawmakers would vote on the issue. If the legislation passes parliament’s lower house as expected, it must also be approved by the Senate before becoming law.

A small group of people wearing full-face veils watched the debate from the public gallery.

Independent lawmaker Jacques Monasch called the veil “a symbol of oppression of women” and objected to the presence of face-covered spectators in the gallery.

One opponent of the legislation, Fatma Koser Kaya of the centrist D66 party, said the law was unnecessary because many institutions in the Netherlands already have independent authority to stop women from wearing veils and headscarves in certain situations.

“What are we banning today?” she asked. “This is symbolic lawmaking … because in practice it already happens.”