Tag: InternationalNews

{Hundreds of civilians, including women and children, killed in government and rebel attacks across Syria, activists say.}

Hundreds of civilians have been killed in both Syrian government and rebel attacks across the war-torn country in recent days, according to local activist groups.

More than 180 civilians have been killed across Syria since Friday, including 22 children and 23 women, the Local Coordination Committees, a grassroots network of activists, said on Sunday.

At least 90 people were killed on Friday, while a further 83 civilian deaths were recorded by Saturday night, with most of them occurring in the Aleppo province.

“Even with the deadly standards of this war, these death tolls are staggering,” Al Jazeera’s Reza Sayah, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said.

Aleppo deaths

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which records daily developments in Syria, also released figures on Sunday detailing the killing of at least 327 civilians, including 76 children and 41 women, in Aleppo over the last 15 days.

More than 100 of the 327 were reportedly killed in bombing by government warplanes, while 126 were killed in attacks by opposition fighters on government-held areas in Aleppo.

In the suburbs of the city, another 94 were killed by Syrian regime bombardments, according to the SOHR.

Zouhir al-Shimale, a local journalist in Aleppo, said the attacks have not stopped since the rebels opened the strategically-important Ramosa route a week ago.

“The shelling on the city has intensified. The regime has been attacking the city’s main roads that people have been using to get around eastern Aleppo,” Shimale told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

“Yesterday, the regime used cluster bombs, which they have been using extensively recently, to attack a bus station in al-Firdous neighbourhood, whereby more than 50 civilians, including women and children, were attempting to leave the city. Most of them were killed.”

Once Syria’s largest city, Aleppo has been divided between regime forces in the western part of the city and rebel groups in the east, for four years.

Forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad imposed a weeks-long siege on the rebel-held eastern half of the city last month, until opposition forces announced they had broken the siege a week ago.

“It was one week ago today, when rebel forces broke through the government siege of Aleppo. These rising death tolls could be an indication of the government fighting back and retaliating,” Al Jazeera’s Sayah said.

Elsewhere, opposition activists in the rebel-held town of Daraya on the suburbs of Damascus accused the Syrian government of dropping barrel bombs containing napalm – an incendiary weapon made up of both fuel and a gel substance.

According to opposition activists, “government forces and helicopters have dropped about 12 [barrel bombs] today and another 24 yesterday”, killing one person and injuring others, Sayah said on Sunday.

The use of napalm against civilian targets, and in areas densely populated with civilians, has been prohibited by the United Nations. The chemical is very flammable and difficult to remove from the skin.

“Both sides have used chemical weapons, according to rights groups,” said Sayah.

“Unfortunately no one has been held accountable – which probably has to do with the difficulty of getting access to these areas.”

Approximately 8,000 Syrian civilians are living in Daraya, which has been under siege by government forces since 2012.

The Syrian conflict, which began with peaceful protests in March 2011 against Assad, has spiralled into a multi-sided civil war.

According to UN estimates, more than 280,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far.

{Fighting remains so intense that no significant amount of aid has been able to reach eastern Aleppo, aid workers say.}

Aleppo, Syria – Last week, rebel groups announced that they had broken the siege of eastern Aleppo imposed by the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

Many residents in this rebel-controlled part of the city rejoiced at the news, as the nearly one-month-long siege created drastic price increases and shortages of food and fuel, while leaving hundreds of wounded people trapped.

But since then, the situation on the ground has not immediately improved, residents say. Fighting in the area remains so intense that no significant amount of aid has been able to reach the area, according to locals and aid workers.

“So far, nothing has really changed,” said Salem Sabbagh, a grocer in eastern Aleppo, noting that the limited amount of food that has since entered the city is not enough to feed its more than 300,000 residents.

“If we had received a lot of food, you’d be able to buy food at not-so-expensive prices, like before the siege, [but prices remain high],” he told Al Jazeera.

Mustapha al-Hussein – a grocer in the Maadi district, which was hit by several air strikes this year – agreed that little has improved since rebels broke the government siege.

“Some eggs, tomatoes and [cooking] materials like flour and sugar came in, but prices are high, unlike before the siege,” Hussein told Al Jazeera, noting he is not optimistic that things will immediately get better. “It will take time for food to reach the markets and return to their natural prices.”

On August 7, the Syrian Revolution Network tweeted pictures of food deliveries to Aleppo after the siege was broken, saying the goods came from Syrians in Idlib, another rebel-controlled area. But as Sabbagh and Hussein attested, such deliveries have been small in quantity.

Moreover, aid organisations say they have not been able to deliver supplies due to heavy fighting in and around Aleppo.

“The fighting is still very intense. It’s really impossible to secure safe passage for a convoy,” said Evita Mouawad, a humanitarian adviser for the Middle East region with Doctors Without Borders (MSF).

This has MSF concerned, as eastern Aleppo is overdue for a shipment of medical supplies.

“We’re very worried at the moment. Supplies were supposed to reach them a couple of weeks ago,” Mouawad told Al Jazeera.

The international development organisation Mercy Corps has cited similar problems.

“It continues to be impossible to bring aid into east Aleppo. The volume of assistance that’s needed is growing [now that both sides of the city are de facto besieged],” Mercy Corps spokesperson Christy Delafield told Al Jazeera. “We urgently need a sustained ceasefire and guarantees of unfettered access by all parties to the conflict.”

Although it is not facing as dire conditions as the east, western Aleppo is also under siege, after rebel groups cut the government supply line in Ramosa earlier this month.

The United Nations has called for a 48-hour ceasefire to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Aleppo. Although Russia announced a daily three-hour halt to air strikes on August 11, the UN said it was not long enough.

If a 48-hour ceasefire could be achieved, Mouawad believes that supplies could finally be delivered.

“Our supplies are ready,” she said. “We need to make sure both parties to the conflict respect the passage of the convoy.”

{Father and ex-husband of British woman Samia Shahid detained on suspicion of murdering her in Pandori village in Punjab.}

Pakistani police say they have arrested the former husband and the father of a British woman on suspicion of murder after her second husband alleged she was the victim of an “honour killing” for remarrying.

Samia Shahid, 28, a beautician from Bradford who was visiting her family in Pakistan, died last month in the village of Pandori in northern Punjab province.

The case attracted attention because it came days after the “honour killing” of outspoken social media star Qandeel Baloch, whose brother has been arrested in the case.

Deputy Inspector General Police Abubakar Khuda Bakhsh, the investigating officer in the case, said police on Saturday arrested Shahid’s ex-husband – her cousin Shakeel – and her father, Chaudhry Shahid.

“The court has sent them to police custody for physical remand of four days,” Bakhsh said. “Once, facts are established, we would be in a better position to say if it is an honor killing or a murder as revenge.”

Shahid’s relatives have said she died of a heart attack, but her husband, Kazim Mukhtar, said last month that he believed she had been poisoned and then strangled.

He said they had both received death threats from her family in the past.

Less than two weeks before Shahid died, Baloch, 26, who had divided opinion in the deeply conservative Muslim society by regularly posting revealing photos on social media, was found strangled and her brother was arrested.

About 500 women are killed every year in Pakistan by relatives who feel their family has been shamed by a daughter or sister hanging out with men, eloping or otherwise infringing conservative demands on women’s modesty.

Baloch’s death led Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s ruling party to announce that it would pass long-delayed legislation outlawing “honor killing” within weeks.

The new law is still pending.

{Medical aid group backs reports of deaths of at least 10 children in attack in Haydan, in northwestern Saada province.}

At least 10 children have been killed and about 30 injured in an air strike on a school in the stronghold of Yemen’s Houthi rebels, according to a medical aid group.

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Saturday that the victims were aged between eight and 15 and attended a school in Haydan, a region in Yemen’s northwestern Saada province.

The Houthi-run Al Masirah TV broadcast what it said was the aftermath of the attack.

A video it released showed children with head, arm and leg wounds with blood-covered faces.

Mohammed Abdel-Salam, a Houthi spokesman, blamed the Arab coalition of bombarding the school.

There was no official comment from the coalition, which has been carrying out an air campaign against rebels in Yemen in support of exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi for nearly 15 months.

The reported attack comes a day after the UN human rights office said 272 civilians have been killed in Yemen’s conflict in four months alone this year.

Yemen has been torn apart by conflict since 2014, when Houthi rebels, allied with troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, captured large expanses of the country, including the capital Sanaa.

On Saturday, the Yemeni parliament convened for its first session in nearly two years in response to a call from the Houthis.

The meeting was held in the capital Sanaa despite a warning from Hadi, who is staying in Saudi Arabia.

Some 144 politicians of the 301-strong assembly attended the session in a move seen as backing the Houthis and their allies loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Dozens of rebel loyalists, meanwhile, gathered outside the parliament building in a show of support.

The meeting came a week after UN-sponsored peace talks between representatives of the government and rebels ended in Kuwait without a breakthrough.

Yemen has been torn apart by conflict since 2014, when Houthi rebels, allied with Saleh loyalists, captured large swaths of the country, including Sanaa.

A coalition assembled by Saudi Arabia launched an air campaign against the rebels in March 2015. Since then, more than 9,000 people have been killed and 2.8 million driven from their homes.

Across the country, at least 14 million people, more than half the population, are in need of emergency food and life-saving assistance.

The 15-month conflict has also taken a horrifying toll on the country’s youth, with UNICEF warning that an estimated 320,000 children face life-threatening malnutrition.

{Bangladeshi community wants incident treated as a hate crime as police look for man who fled scene with gun in his hand.}

A Muslim imam of a mosque in New York City and his associate have been shot dead while walking along together following afternoon prayers, authorities say.

The men were approached by a man from behind and shot both in the head on Saturday in the Ozone Park neighbourhood of Queens, a police spokesperson said.

Police said no arrests had been made.

The victims, identified as Imam Maulana Akonjee, 55, and Thara Uddin, 64, were both wearing religious garb at the time of shooting, police said.

Police had initially identified Uddin as Tharam.
The men were transported to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center where they died, the hospital said.

The suspect was seen by witnesses fleeing the scene with a gun in his hand, police said.

“We are currently conducting an extensive canvass of the area for video and additional witnesses,” said Deputy Inspector Henry Sautner of the New York Police Department (NYPD).

He said video surveillance showed the victims were approached from behind by a man in a dark polo shirt and shorts who shot them and then fled with the gun still in his hand.

Naima Akonjee, 28, one of the imam’s seven children, said she rushed to her parents’ home after the shooting.

She said her father did not “have any problems with anyone”.

The New York Times reported that Akonjee was carrying more than $1,000 but the money was not taken.

Members of the Bangladeshi Muslim community served by the mosque said they want the shootings to be treated as a hate crime.

More than 100 people attended a rally on Saturday night and chanted “We want justice!”
Sarah Sayeed, a member of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s staff who serves as a liaison to Muslim communities, attended the rally.

“I understand the fear because I feel it myself,” she said.

“I understand the anger. But it’s very important to mount a thorough investigation.”

The motive for the shooting was not immediately known and no evidence has been uncovered that the two men were targeted because of their faith, said Tiffany Phillips, a spokeswoman for the New York City Police Department.

‘This is a hate crime’

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), a Muslim civil rights and advocacy group, held a news conference on Saturday near the Al-Furqan Jame Masjid, where the two men had prayed.

Kobir Chowdhury, a leader at another local mosque, said: “Read my lips: This is a hate crime” directed at Islam.

“We are peace-loving.”

CAIR said Uddin was an associate of Akonjee.

“These were two very beloved people,” Afaf Nasher, executive director of the New York chapter of CAIR, told Reuters news agency. “These were community leaders.

“There is a deep sense of mourning and an overwhelming cry for justice to be served.

“There is a very loud cry, too, for the NYPD to investigate fully, with the total amount of their resources, the incident that happened today.

“We are calling for all people, of all faiths, to rally with compassion and with a sense of vigilance so that justice can be served.

“You can’t go up to a person and shoot them in the head and not be motivated by hatred.”

Mayor’s statement

Eric Phillips, a press secretary for Blasio, said the mayor was closely monitoring the police investigation into the shootings.

“While it is too early to tell what led to these murders, it is certain that the NYPD will stop at nothing to ensure justice is served,” Phillips said in a statement.

In June, CAIR issued a statement calling for Muslim community leaders to consider increasing security after the Orlando massacre and incidents that it said had targeted Muslims and Islamic houses of worship.

A man who called himself an “Islamic soldier” killed 49 people in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub on June 12.

Last year, three American students were shot to death at a residential complex of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill over what police had said was motivated by a long-running dispute over parking spaces.

However, the victims’ families believe they were targeted because they were Muslims and have pushed for hate-crime charges.

{Coalition claims control of city on supply route between Turkish border and Raqqa after two months of heavy fighting.}

Celebrations have erupted in the Syrian city of Manbij, with civilians pouring onto the streets and rebel fighters claiming they have “liberated” all of the city from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

Scenes of jubilation could be seen in many neighbourhoods of the city over the weekend, with men clipping their beards, women lifting their veils and people smoking in public.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed alliance consisting of Arab and Kurdish fighters, said on Sunday that they were in control of all of Manbij, which had been held by ISIL, also known as ISIS, since 2014.

Nasser Haj Mansour, an adviser to the SDF, said that Manbij was “under full control,” adding that search operations were ongoing to try find any remaining ISIL fighters, the Associated press news agency reported.

“We are all happy. We cleared the city from Daesh and now people are returning to their homes,” Abu Musab, a Manbij resident, told Al Jazeera, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.

“We will show the world that the tide is changing and we will take back all of our country from Daesh.”

Manbij, which lies on a supply route between the Turkish border and the de facto ISIL capital Raqqa, fell on Friday after more than two months of heavy fighting and US-led air strikes.

Al Jazeera’s Reza Sayah, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said the loss of Manbij “was a major setback for ISIL and a major achievement for all the forces battling the group in Syria”.

One of the key reasons for the success of the ground forces fighting ISIL in Manbij was the US-led coalition’s air support.

In confirming the capture of Manbij, US military officials said that during the operation the coalition launched 680 air strikes destroying more than 680 ISIL fighting positions and 150 ISIL vehicles and heavy weapons.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a monitoring group that records daily developments in Syria, said the fighting in Manbij claimed more than 1,700 lives, including more than 400 civilians.

{{Civilians released}}

On Saturday, ISIL released hundreds of the reported 2,000 civilians they took as human shields while retreating from the northern city.

The SOHR said hundreds of civilians, including women and children were released after about 500 cars left Manbij on Friday and headed northeast towards Jarablus, a town under ISIL control on the Turkish border.

“Among the civilians taken by IS [ISIL] there were people used as human shields but also many who chose voluntarily to leave the town due to fear of reprisals” by the SDF, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the SOHR.

Separately, air strikes in opposition areas of Aleppo province on Saturday killed at least 51 people, activists and rescue workers told Al Jazeera.

Air strikes by the Russian and Syrian air force continued despite a pledge by Russia to observe a three-hour daily ceasefire to allow humanitarian aid deliveries.

The battle for Aleppo, Syria’s second biggest city, has raged on since mid-2012 and is among the fiercest in the multi-front war that has killed nearly 400,000 people, according to an estimate by the UN’s chief mediator.

Last week, there were reports of a chlorine attack in the Aleppo neighbourhood of al-Qatarji, although no one was seriously injured.

On the day that alleged attack was reported, at least 33 people, including 18 women and 10 children, were taken to hospital after a chlorine attack in Saraqeb, a town in Idlib province.

Government and opposition forces have both denied using chemical weapons during the war.

Western powers say the government has been responsible for chlorine and other chemical attacks, and the government and Russia have accused rebels of using poison gas.

In neighbouring Idlib, air strikes targeted a market killing several people.

Activists say that in the past few weeks, air strikes have increased in the area, targeting supply routes of armed groups.

{Foreign ministers Cavusoglu and Zarif vow “closer contact” on Syria’s territorial integrity despite differences.}

The foreign ministers of Turkey and Iran have pledged greater cooperation on resolving the Syria crisis, vowing to keep the dialogue open despite their differences.

At a joint news conference on Friday in Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said the two neighbouring nations have agreed to “keep closer contact” on the issue of the “territorial integrity of Syria”.

Iran and Turkey have held opposing positions on Syria, with Iran backing the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Turkey advocating his departure.

Despite the differences, Turkey and Iran will “strengthen cooperation for a lasting peace in Syria”, Cavusoglu said.

Zarif also said that Iran was “ready to work and cooperate” with Turkey and Russia on the issue of Syria, adding that it welcomed “the new cooperation that has started” between Moscow and Ankara.

“We believe all sides should work together to return tranquility and calm to the region and fight extremism in Syria,” he said.

Zarif added that their differences “can be resolved through dialogue”.

The Iranian official also expressed support to Turkey over last month’s failed coup attempt, praising the Turkish people for defying the “overthrow and use of force”.

“We believe that the era of bullying and coups is over and [these things] no longer have a place in our region. People’s choice cannot be suppressed by a military group,” he was quoted by PressTV as saying.

Zarif’s visit was the first meeting between top Iranian and Turkish officials since the July 15 failed coup attempt.

Turkey has complained about a lack of support from its Western allies over the attempted coup.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Ankara, said that some were “analysing this meeting and rapprochement … as a message to the West, as some sort of political leverage”, after the coup attempt.

Despite the meeting, however, Khodr said that there was still “no common ground” on Syria, and that there were still “deep disagreements” on how to resolve the civil war.

Zarif is also expected to meet with Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdogan, according to the Turkish foreign ministry.

{Afghan ambassador to Pakistan says Hafiz Saeed and his associates were killed on July 26 in Nangharhar province.}

The leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in Afghanistan and Pakistan was killed in a US drone strike on July 26, US and Afghan officials have confirmed.

Hafiz Saeed Khan, ISIL’s Khorasan Province leader, was killed in Kot district of Afghanistan’s Nangharhar province, according to Hazrat Omar Zakhilwal, the top Afghan diplomat in Pakistan.

He told Reuters news agency on Friday that Saeed’s senior commanders and fighters were also killed in the drone strike.

A US defence official confirmed to Reuters that the July 26 drone strike killed Saeed.

The so-called Khorasan Province was created by ISIL, also known as ISIS, in 2015 encompassing areas in Pakistan, Afghanistan and parts of Central Asia.

Al Jazeera’s Jennifer Glasse, reporting from Kabul on Saturday, said the drone strike was part of a wider operation against ISIL in Nangarhar that has killed nearly 300 fighters, including some of the group’s leadership.

“The commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan General John W Nicholson estimates that about 25 percent of the ISIL fighters in Afghanistan have been killed in the drone strikes.

“He said the killing of Hafiz Saeed Khan will disrupt ISIL recruitment as well as operations.”

The air strike occurred during a month-long joint US-Afghan military operation in July against ISIL in Nangarhar.

The air strike was carried out with Khan as the target, according to the Pentagon.

“Khan was known to directly participate in attacks against US and coalition forces, and the actions of his network terrorised Afghans, especially in Nangarhar,” said Gordon Trowbridge, Pentagon spokesperson.

Saeed, a former member of the Pakistani branch of the Taliban [known as Tehreek-e-Taliban] who swore allegiance to ISIL, had been reported killed last year, but his death was never confirmed.

{{Rifts and rivalry }}

The Taliban’s various factions in Afghanistan and Pakistan as well as their al-Qaeda allies are bitter rivals of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the ISIL chief.

The Taliban rejects Baghdadi’s proclamation of himself as the leader of an envisioned worldwide caliphate.

In Afghanistan, Taliban and ISIL fighters have battled over territory in Nangarhar, though both have recently been more busy defending against US and Afghan assaults.

Some Afghan Taliban members have defected to ISIL, with fighters apparently adopting the group’s black flag to rebrand themselves as a more lethal force.

ISIL has been largely confined to a handful of districts in Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan, where ISIL fighters – mostly defectors from the Taliban – are blamed for raids on villages and government outposts.

Nevertheless, fears that ISIL might be expanding its operational reach arose this week when the group took credit for an attack on a Pakistani hospital that killed at least 70 people in the southwestern city of Quetta.

A Pakistani Taliban faction also claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing.

A few weeks earlier, ISIL claimed responsibility for an attack on a rally in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, which killed more than 80 people.

{Syrian Democratic Forces say they control most of Manbij though clashes continue as last ISIL cells flushed from city.}

Syrian rebel fighters have accused the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group of taking more than 2,000 people hostage, and using them as human shields, as they retreated from the northern city of Manbij.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed alliance consisting of Kurdish and Arab fighters, said on Friday they were in control of most of the city, held by ISIL, also known as ISIS, since 2014.

SDF spokesperson Sharfan Darwish said in a statement released on Facebook that rebel fighters had “regained control over most of the city” while “clashes in several areas” continued as clearing operations were under way to flush out the last ISIL remnants.

“While withdrawing from a district of Manbij, Daesh jihadists abducted around 2,000 civilians from Al-Sirb neighbourhood,” Darwish told the AFP news agency, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.

“They used these civilians as human shields as they withdrew to Jarabulus, thus preventing us from targeting them,” he said, adding that women and children were among those taken.

Darwish later told the Reuters news agency that the SDF had freed more than 2,000 civilian hostages held by ISIL.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a monitoring group that records daily developments in Syria, said on Friday that around 500 cars had left Manbij carrying ISIL members and civilians, heading northeast towards Jarablus, a town under the control of the armed group on the Turkish border.

Al Jazeera’s Reza Sayah, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said the loss of Manbij “appears to be a major setback for ISIL and a major achievement for all the forces battling the group in Syria.”

Sayah said there were “conflicting reports” about the recapturing of Manbij from ISIL.

“There are reports that perhaps there was an agreement between the SDF and ISIL, allowing them to leave without any attacks,” he said.

“There are also more troubling reports that as they were leaving, ISIL took with them civilians, using them as human shields” so as not to be attacked.

“That is perhaps an explanation of why there was no fighting as ISIL fighters and their supporters left,” Sayah said.

Manbij has been the main front in a US-led anti-ISIL coalition ground war for months.

The SDF and coalition forces launched an operation on May 31 and slowly advanced into the city.

The group said last week they had taken 90 percent of Manbij from ISIL.

Friday’s advance was the “last operation and the last assault” to retake the city, SDF spokesperson Darwish told the Reuters news agency.

Separately, air strikes in opposition areas of Syria’s northern Aleppo province on Friday killed at least 18 people, including children and hospital workers, activists and rescue workers told the Associated Press news agency.

The air raids hit the only hospital for women and children in the town of Kafr Hamra, killing two staffers, including a nurse, while 10 people were rescued from the rubble, the Syrian Civil Defense said.

Air strikes also hit a market in the nearby town of Urem al-Kubra, killing at least six people, according to the SOHR.

Urem al-Kubra lies on the road linking Aleppo to the northern rebel-controlled province of Idlib, which has also seen intense bombing.