Tag: InternationalNews

{Dozens of people, mostly civilians, killed in ISIL-held Al Qurayyah town in Deir Ezzor province, monitor says.}

Syrian and Russian air strikes have killed at least 47 people, including 31 civilians, in an ISIL-held town in eastern Syria, a monitor has said.

Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said that Saturday’s raids hit the town of Al Qurayyah in Deir Az Zor province.

At least 31 civilians were identified among those killed, but it was not immediately clear whether the 16 others were civilians or the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), Abdel Rahman said.

“IS fighters have now set up a security perimeter around the residential area, where the town’s mosque is located,” said Abdel Rahman, using a different acronym for ISIL.

Russian warplanes have been carrying out an air raids in support of President Bashar al-Assad since September 2015.

Meanwhile, Kurdish and Arab fighters of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) overrun a key road junction in the south of Manjib city, an ISIL stronghold, on Saturday after capturing nearby grain silos overnight, the Observatory said.

“The grain silos overlook more than half of Manbij. SDF fighters can climb to the top and monitor the city,” said Abdel Rahman.

The Raqqa Revolutionaries Brigades – one of the Arab components of the Kurdish-dominated alliance – confirmed that SDF forces had seized the silos and pushed into the city.

The Mills Roundabout lies less than two kilometres from the city centre.

The Observatory said ISIL and the SDF were locked in intense street fighting as ISIL tried to defend their positions.

Hundreds of Kurds fleeing villages near Manbij controlled by the ISIL group came under fire, amid mass abductions by the group, opposition activists and a Kurdish official said.

One family who fled was struck by a mine that killed two family members and wounded the other three, Sherfan Darwish, an SDF spokesman, told the Associated Press news agency. He said a 10-year-old girl was killed by ISIL sniper fire.

“Civilians are defying death in order to leave areas controlled by Daesh,” Darwish said, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.

The Local Coordination Committees, another activist-run monitoring group, said ISIL also opened fire at people trying to flee from Manbij, killing 10 of them, including children.

The Syria Democratic Council, the political wing of SDF, called on the international community and aid groups to supply those fleeing with whatever they need, saying many of them are in open areas.

The SDC called on the world to help the SDF “prevent the occurrence of a catastrophe or a massacre,” saying there were “indications” one might happen.

{{Strategic battle}}

Captured by ISIL in 2014, Manbij was a key transit point for foreign fighters and funds, as well as a trafficking hub for oil, antiquities and other plundered goods.

The SDF launched its offensive to take Manbij on May 31, driving across the Euphrates River from the east with military advice from about 200 US special forces troops.

ISIL has thrown large numbers of fighters into the battle, losing 463, according to the Observatory. The SDF has lost at least 89.

Manbij lies in the eastern plains of Aleppo province, which has become a battleground between an array of competing armed groups, including al-Qaeda, moderate rebels and government forces, as well as the SDF and ISIL.

{German chancellor says she is not in favour of an urgent exit of Britain from the bloc.}

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has called for clear-headed negotiations with “close partner” Britain over its departure from the European Union, urging caution in the process.

Merkel issued the statement on Saturday, just hours after foreign ministers from the six founding members of the EU called for a quick exit from the 28-member bloc.

“The negotiations must take place in a businesslike, good climate,” Merkel said after a meeting of her conservative party in Hermannswerder, outside Potsdam, to the west of the German capital Berlin.

“Britain will remain a close partner, with which we are linked economically,” she said, adding that there was no hurry for the UK to invoke Article 50 of the Lisbon treaty – the first step it must take to set in motion the exit process.

“It should not take ages, that is true, but I would not fight now for a short time frame,” Merkel said, in contrast with the more urgent call by the foreign ministers of Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg, who were meeting to the north of the German capital.

In an interview with Al Jazeera, George Vella, foreign minister of Malta, agreed with Merkel’s assessment, saying the exit should be done in a “reasonable way”, adding that negotiations should be studied carefully, “to achieve the maximum cooperation of the United Kingdom”.

Merkel and French President Francois Hollande will meet Matteo Renzi, Italy’s prime minister, in Berlin on Monday to discuss future steps.

‘Painful process’

Following the foreign ministers’ meeting earlier on Saturday, the officials issued a joint statement saying, “We now expect the UK government to provide clarity and give effect to this decision as soon as possible”.

Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s foreign minister, said the pressure would be “very strong” on British Prime Minister David Cameron at an EU summit on Tuesday to speed up the process.

The outcome of Thursday’s EU referendum – a 52-to-48 split in favour of Britain’s exit – caused financial markets to fall sharply and brought the British pound down to a 31-year low, its biggest drop in history.

There are now fears the vote could set off a chain reaction of further breakaway bids by other EU members battling hostility to Brussels.

There are also worries the outcome could lead to the break-up of the UK itself after Scotland raised the prospect of another independence vote..

European leaders weigh Brexit aftermath
Donald Tusk, EU president, has warned of a “painful” process, saying “any delay would unnecessarily prolong uncertainty”.

US President Barack Obama, who publicly threw his weight behind British EU membership during a visit to London in April, insisted the “special relationship” between the two countries was “enduring”.

Following the UK’s vote in favour of exiting the bloc, Dutch far-right MP Geert Wilders and French National Front leader Marine Le Pen called for referendums on EU membership in their own countries immediately.

The British vote will lead to at least two years of divorce proceedings with the EU, the first exit by any member state.

Cameron, who led the campaign to remain in Europe to defeat, after promising the referendum in 2013, said he would resign by October and it would be up to his successor to formally start the exit process.

Cameron’s Conservative Party rival Boris Johnson, the former London mayor who became the most recognisable face of the Leave camp, is now widely tipped to seek his job.

{Death in Antakya hospital from wounds sustained in Aleppo highlights once again dangers of reporting from Syria.}

Khaled al-Essa, a Syrian journalist, has died of wounds sustained in an attack inside his home in the northern city of Aleppo.

Essa and his colleague Hadi Abdullah were taken to Turkey for treatment after being injured by an explosive device hidden behind a door in their home on June 16.

At the hospital in Antakya, Essa succumbed to his injuries early on Saturday.

Essa, who served as Abdullah’s cameraman, was due to arrive in Germany for surgery to remove shrapnel from his head but died before it could take place.

The attack came just days after the pair survived a bombing raid in Aleppo while covering clashes between the Syrian army and rebel groups who have been battling for the city since 2012.

The 24-year-old, originally from Kafr Nabl in Idlib province, covered Syria’s civil war in Idlib and Aleppo, bringing images of the aftermath of air strikes on civilian areas to the outside world.

His death prompted an outpouring of condolences on social media, with many users thanking him for shedding light on the war.

In a widely shared Facebook post, Essa’s mother Ghaliya spoke of her final moments with her son.

“I told him how much people love him and are praying for him. I told him about his friends and how much they miss his laughter.

“I am not used to speaking to him and having him not answer me…and I am not used to not hearing his croaky voice.”

The war in Syria has killed 95 foreign and local journalists since it started in 2011, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The dangers involved in reporting from the country has led to most international outlets suspending operations in the country, leaving it to local journalists and freelancers to supply video footage and reports.

Journalists reporting in the country face threats from the Syrian government and various factions, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and al-Nusra Front.

Many local and foreign journalists face the threat of kidnapping and killing by armed groups.

Journalists have also been targeted by ISIL in neighbouring Turkey.

Zouhir al-Shimale contributed to this report from Aleppo

{Lebanese ally of Syrian government acknowledges heavy losses but vows to fight on as “retreat is not permissible”.}

The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement has said he will send more fighters to Syria’s Aleppo area, a battleground where it has suffered heavy losses fighting alongside Syrian government forces against rebel groups.

Hassan Nasrallah said on Friday that thousands of Hezbollah’s Sunni foes had recently entered Syria via the Turkish border with the aim of taking over Aleppo and its surrounding countryside.

“We are facing a new wave…of projects of war against Syria which are being waged in northern Syria, particularly in the Aleppo region,” Nasrallah said in a speech broadcast live on the group’s Al Manar TV.

Shia, Iranian-backed Hezbollah has long supported President Bashar al-Assad against mostly Sunni rebels.

“The defence of Aleppo is the defence of the rest of Syria, it is the defence of Damascus, it is also the defence of Lebanon, and of Iraq,” he said.

“We will increase our presence in Aleppo,” he said. “Retreat is not permissible.”

Nasrallah also denied Hezbollah was in imminent fiscal trouble as a result of a US law banning banks worldwide from dealing with the group.

Last month, Lebanon’s central bank instructed the country’s banks and financial institutions to comply with the new measure.

But Nasrallah said on Friday that Hezbollah would not be affected because it receives its money directly from Iran, not via Lebanese banks.

“We do not have any business projects or investments via banks,” Nasrallah said, insisting the group “will not be affected”.

“We are open about the fact that Hezbollah’s budget, its income, its expenses, everything it eats and drinks, its weapons and rockets, are from the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he added.

Iran was instrumental in Hezbollah’s inception three decades ago and has provided financial and military support to the group.

{{The divided city}}

Aleppo has been a focus of intensified fighting in the months since peace talks in Geneva broke down and a ceasefire deal brokered by Washington and Moscow unravelled.

Russia intervened in the five-year-old conflict in September with an air campaign to support Assad.

The city is split between government and rebel control. Russian and Syrian warplanes have pounded a road leading from the rebel-held areas north towards the Turkish border.

That major rebel supply line from Turkey to Aleppo city was effectively cut by government advances earlier this year.

Nasrallah said that 26 Hezbollah fighters had been killed in June alone, a rare acknowledgment of the toll their involvement was taking.

Several of its senior military commanders have died in the Syrian conflict, alongside hundreds of fighters.

{Israeli soldiers shoot dead woman who allegedly rammed vehicle into a parked car, injuring two near a Jewish settlement.}

Israeli soldiers have shot dead a Palestinian woman who had rammed a vehicle into a parked car near an Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, injuring two people sitting inside, the army has said.

The Palestinian health ministry identified the alleged attacker on Friday as Majd al-Khudur, from Bani Naim town, which is close to the scene of the incident, but gave no details surrounding her death.

The military said in a statement that the woman “accelerated and crashed into a stationary vehicle” at the entrance to the settlement of Kiryat Arba.

The statement also said that the wounded Israelis, a couple in their 50s, were taken to a hospital in Jerusalem.

Friday’s incident is the latest in nine months of dozens of Palestinian attacks, including stabbings, shootings and assaults using cars, but in many cases the Israeli soldiers have been accused of using excessive force in dealing with alleged attacks by Palestinians.

No murder charge for Israeli soldier in shooting death

The Kiryat Arba settlement is near the West Bank city of Hebron, which has long been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

A few hundred Jewish settlers live under heavy army guard among several hundred thousand Palestinians in the heart of the West Bank’s most populous city.

Settlements are considered illegal under international law and are a major sticking point for peace efforts between Israel and the Palestinians.

In a wave of violence since October, the Israeli army has killed at least 210 Palestinians, including protesters, bystanders and alleged attackers, while 32 Israelis have been killed in stabbing and shooting incidents.

Palestinians are frustrated by Israel’s 48-year occupation and with peace talks going nowhere.

The latest cycle of violence began with a dispute over access to the site of the al-Aqsa Mosque compound – Islam’s third holiest site.

Palestinians are concerned at the increase in Israeli calls for and attempts to pray at the mosque courtyard – which Jews call the Temple Mount and consider their holiest site, and Muslims refer to it as the Noble Sanctuary or al-Haram al-Sharif.

{“Couple” of air strikes follow US president’s decision to expand Pentagon’s involvement in fight against the Taliban.}

Officials say the US has launched its first air strikes against the Taliban in Afghanistan since President Barack Obama’s decision earlier this month to expand his country’s involvement against the fighters.

The American officials said on Friday that the strikes began last week and were against Taliban targets in the southern part of the country.

Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, declined to provide any details, citing “operational security”.

One senior US official said there have been “a couple” of air strikes, but the US does not want to provide more information because there may be more strikes in that area, including missions with Afghan forces who could be accompanied by US advisers.

The official was not authorised to discuss the operations publicly, so spoke on condition of anonymity.

Brigadier-General Charles Cleveland, US military spokesman in Kabul, said US forces “have conducted a limited number of strikes under these new authorities” but it is “too early to quantify the effects achieved”.

The strikes “are only being used where they may help the Afghans achieve a strategic effect”, Cleveland said.

US officials made it clear when they announced the new authority to hit Taliban targets once again that they would only be used in selective operations that were deemed to have a strategic and important effect on the fight.

Cook said the strikes “hit their intended targets”.

He said the strikes were “part of an ongoing operation that, again, the goal of which would be a strategic effect on behalf of the Afghan forces that we are enabling, and that’s exactly what they were intended to be used for”.

Pressed for more details, Cook refused, saying “these are ongoing operations” and he does not want to be “telegraphing what’s to come to the enemy”.

The war in Afghanistan began in 2001, and the US has been conducting a broad range of operations there ever since.

{{Wider latitude}}

Obama decided in early June to expand US involvement with more air strikes against fighters, giving the Pentagon wider latitude to support Afghan forces, both in the air and on the ground.

Since all foreign combat troops pulled out of Afghanistan at the end of 2014, leaving only an advisory and training contingent of international forces behind, the Afghan military has struggled in leading the fight against the Taliban and other fighters.

The 9,800 remaining US troops in Afghanistan are scheduled to drop to 5,500 by the end of this year, but the pace of that decline has yet to be decided.

One factor in determining future troop levels is the extent to which NATO allies are willing to remain involved in training and advising the Afghans.

{The prospect of a second Scottish independence referendum looms, as Sinn Fein also calls for a vote on a united Ireland.}

Glasgow, United Kingdom – The political ramifications of Britain’s historic decision to leave the European Union began early.

Not long after polls confirmed that the British people had endorsed a Brexit vote by 52 to 48 percent, United Kingdom Conservative Party Prime Minister David Cameron, who led the Remain campaign, announced his resignation outside his official residence at10 Downing Street. He declared his intention to stand down by October.

As the pound plummeted and the governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, sought to calm financial markets in the referendum’s aftermath, many eyes looked towards the two nations of the UK that voted to remain in the EU: Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Scotland, which registered a 62 percent Remain vote, and which saw its capital city, Edinburgh, vote to retain the UK’s EU status by 74 percent, immediately fell under the political spotlight as observers speculated on the prospect of a second Scottish independence referendum almost two years after the first, when the people of Scotland rejected statehood by 55 to 45 percent.

The nation’s first minister, Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the pro-independence Scottish National Party (SNP), said the Brexit vote, which was carried by England and Wales, had now made a second poll “highly likely”.

Indeed, the SNP’s manifesto for last month’s Scottish Parliament election, where the pro-EU party won an unprecedented third successive term in government, declared that there should only be a second independence poll if there was a “significant and material change of circumstances”. On Friday, the first minister confirmed the Brexit vote as that “material change”.

“It puts Scotland in an interesting place – but not in a place where the SNP leadership wanted it to be,” said the prominent UK and Scottish political commentator, Gerry Hassan, speaking to Al Jazeera. “The United Kingdom has moved itself geopolitically to a place which is very uncomfortable for Scotland. The SNP leadership is in a position where they have tried to balance two different constituencies – the enthusiasm of the most passionate independence supporters and the realisation of the need to slowly win over the soft ‘no’ [to independence voters]. That balancing act is now much more difficult.”

Hassan said that any SNP move to hold another independence vote would have to be done with due political consideration – and the party “would have to come up with a new independence package … as Britain negotiated its exit”.

“The SNP will have to develop a more coherent independence offer that answers some of the concerns that were there last time,” he added. “One of them has already been addressed – the European Union membership issue – but there are still issues of currency and the economic issues of the [volatile] oil price and all those things.”

A divided nation

Opinion polls in Scotland prior to the EU referendum suggested that Scotland would remain divided on the independence issue even after a Brexit vote. But SNP blogger, James Kelly, told Al Jazeera that such a prospect had now moved from the hypothetical to the very real.

“We know that people are very bad at answering hypothetical questions,” said Kelly. “If you could imagine that opinion formers in Scotland, such as small ‘c’ conservative Scotland – middle-class Scotland – suddenly came out for independence because it was the only way of retaining European citizenship, you might see quite dramatic movements.”

Such dramatic shifts may even come from within those political parties that officially opposed independence in 2014 – and continue to do so. Simon Pia, a former media adviser to two former Scottish Labour leaders, told Al Jazeera that “an awful lot of [party members and supporters] in the Scottish Labour Party will now not look negatively upon a [second independence poll]”. An independence No-voter during the 2014 campaign, Pia even said that he would now be “open” to the prospect of supporting Scottish independence should the opportunity arise.

“The constitutional issue has not gone away – it is the centre of our politics, not just in Scotland, but the UK too, as this [EU] referendum has shown,” he added.

In Northern Ireland, where 56 percent of the population voted to remain, the Brexit vote gave rise to speculation about the prospect of a unity poll to unite it with neighbouring EU member, the Republic of Ireland. Northern Ireland’s deputy first minister, Martin McGuinness of the Sinn Fein nationalist party, called for a vote to unite both parts of Ireland, saying it was “imperative for a ‘border poll’ to be held”. This was rebuffed by Northern Ireland’s pro-British first minister, Arlene Foster, who called her deputy’s demand “opportunistic”.

“I think Sinn Fein are parking their strategic tanks in a sense because there isn’t a majority in Northern Ireland at the moment for reunification,” said Hassan. “So, they’re posing the issue of the nature of the border – they’re strategically saying ‘we’re here and this [EU] process is one we’re not happy with’. It’s more planting a flag basically because they’d have to wait – if the demographics work out – 10 to 15 years or so before there’s any potential for a majority in Northern Ireland.”

As the only land frontier between the UK and the rest of the EU, Northern Ireland’s forthcoming departure via a Brexit is also raising questions about the reintroduction of border controls between north and south – and the potential repercussions of the Brexit vote on the Northern Ireland peace process. Currently free from any hard border, the installation of “physical checkpoints along the border would instantly undermine a hard-won peace, and the psychological impact alone would be catastrophic,” speculated Kathryn Gaw in The Guardian on June 21.

Many observers are also looking at how and why the four UK nations ultimately ended up so divided, with England and Wales leading the way for a UK withdrawal that is expected to take two years to negotiate once Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon is set in motion.

{{Brexit and the future of Britain }}

Concern over the quantity of immigration to Britain was at the heart of the Leave camp’s campaign tactics. With England host to many more migrants than its much smaller northern neighbour, Scotland, the immigration factor was always likely to play better in the UK’s largest constituent nation.

Yet, others have also put the result of the EU vote at the door of UK Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn for failing to convince large swaths of the party’s Labour support across England and Wales to back his push – seen by many of his detractors as no more than lukewarm – for a Remain vote.

“Many factors have led us to having this result,” said Hassan. “One of them is the absence of the Corbyn leadership in this contest, which mattered in England. It didn’t matter in Scotland so much where the Labour vote is now small – but in England and Wales, where it’s relatively sizeable, it has mattered massively.”

As the UK digests the result of the referendum, the full extent of what a Brexit means for the future of Britain is at least apparent to one SNP supporter, who is eyeing a second opportunity for the establishment of a Scottish nation-state.

“I’ve always had mixed feelings about the caution that we have to wait and wait and wait for a second Scottish independence referendum because we can’t go too soon otherwise we might lose,” said SNP blogger Kelly. “The bigger danger is that the momentum is going to drift away … So, it may not feel like the perfect time, but this may be the moment to go forward.”