Tag: InternationalNews

{The strongest winter storm in six years hits the western US seaboard with more rain expected through the weekend.}

{At least two people were killed after Southern California was hit with heavy rain and gusty winds on Friday in what was the biggest storm the region has experienced in six years.}

A large tree brought down power lines in Sherman Oaks, California, electrocuting a 55-year-old man.

One person drowned in his car due to sudden flash flooding.

Strong winds also caused hundreds of thousands of homes to lose power across Los Angeles, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

As this current storm moves inland, southern California will be seeing a break from the rain and flooding later this weekend.

However, more storms will continue to roll in from the Pacific Ocean and track across northern California later next week.

The downpours in other heavily populated areas of Southern California, including parts of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties also recently hit by wildfires, could create the risk of mud and debris flows there too, the weather service said.

Authorities have warned residents of an area west of Santa Barbara, where another wildfire ravaged vegetation last year, to prepare to leave their homes quickly if ordered to evacuate.

Source:Al Jazeera

{Assad’s future may be off the agenda at meeting of Syrian factions, with elections and governance set to be the focus.}

The office of the UN special envoy to Syria has declined to confirm whether a political transition will be discussed at the forthcoming talks in Geneva.

The development means Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s future will be off the agenda and the main focus of the talks among various Syrian factions will be governance, a new constitution and elections.

Staffan de Mistura, the envoy, is due to convene the new round in the Swiss city on February 23, almost nine months after peace negotiations collapsed.

A spokesman for de Mistura said he was still finalising who would come to the meeting, but there were already positive responses to invitations that had gone out.

Countries opposed to Assad, including the US, back efforts by the UN to broker a political solution to the conflict, Sigmar Gabriel, Germany’s foreign minister, said on Friday.

“It is clear that all who met want a political solution … and that this political solution must be achieved in Geneva under the auspices of the United Nations and that there cannot be any parallel negotiations,” Gabriel said after a meeting in Bonn that included the US, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, France and the UK.

The countries were meeting for the first time since Donald Trump took office as US president in a bid to find common ground in advance of the Geneva meeting.

Gabriel said Rex Tillerson, the new US secretary of state, played an active role in the discussions about how to end the war in Syria, which took place on the sidelines of a meeting in Bonn, Germany, of G20 foreign ministers.

Tillerson, trying to reassure allies that the US was not tilting towards Russia over the Syrian conflict, told them that the US-backed UN efforts to broker a political solution to the war, officials and diplomats said.

READ MORE: Syria’s civil war explained

He also said military ties with Russia depended on its stance towards rebels fighting the Assad government, whom Russia backs.

All eyes have been on the US and its approach to ending the violence in Syria, given promises by Trump to build closer ties to Russia.

Speaking alongside Gabriel, Jean-Marc Ayrault, France’s foreign minister, said the Geneva talks would ultimately fail if Russia did not use its influence on the Syrian government and Iran to stop labelling all those opposed to Assad as “terrorists”.

{{Parallel peace talks }}

On Thursday, Sergey Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, said the US supported Russian-sponsored parallel peace talks on Syria in the capital of Kazakhstan, Astana.

Those talks ended with no joint communique, usually the minimum outcome of any diplomatic negotiation, and saw opposing Syrian groups trading angry accusations.

Russia proposed a series of parallel intra-Syrian negotiations in coordination with Turkey and Iran last year in Astana to reinforce a shaky ceasefire.

It has tried to expand the scope to cover political aspects, a move that has been criticised by Western and Arab states, who argue that UN efforts are the only credible track for a political solution.

With its show of military force, Russia changed the tide of the Syrian civil war. However, it is finding the next phase – brokering an end to the fighting – a tougher proposition.

Russia’s peace drive started hopefully, with the first Astana meeting in January.

The Syrian rebels and government came together for the first time in nine months, and agreement was reached to consolidate a shaky ceasefire.

But for the second round this week, the Syrian rebels debated until the eleventh hour about whether to attend at all, finally sending a smaller delegation which arrived in Astana a day late.

Bashar Jaafari, the Syrian government negotiator, said on Thursday that peace talks in Astana had not produced a communique because of the “irresponsible” late arrival of rebel participants and their Turkish backers which delayed the joint session by a day.

READ MORE: Will Assad ever be tried for his crimes?

He also criticised the rebels and Turkey for downgrading their delegations from the previous meeting.

“Turkey cannot ignite the fire and at the same time act as a firefighter,” he said after the talks.

The rebels, in turn, accused the Syrian government and Iran of routinely violating the ceasefire and Russia of failing to enforce it.

“We know that the Russians have a problem with those for whom they are guarantors,” Yahya al-Aridi, a rebel negotiator, said, referring to Iran and Assad’s forces.

{{‘No common ground’}}

Haid Haid, an associate fellow with the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the London-based Chatham House, says the prospects of the Astana talks’ success were bleak due to virtually “no common ground between Turkey, Russia and Iran”.

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

“[But] 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 civil war 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

{Day after deadly ISIL attack, more than 100 gather to wash blood-soaked floors of the shrine and continue ritual.}

Islamabad and Karachi – Sufi devotees have returned to their shrine in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province less than a day after it was targeted in a suicide attack, in defiance of ISIL which claimed the bombing.

Thursday’s blast, which killed at least 88 people and wounded hundreds as they performed a ritual, was the worst attack on Pakistani soil since a 2014 school attack in the northwestern city of Peshawar, which killed at least 154, mostly children.

On Friday evening, about 150 residents of the southern town of Sehwan returned to the shrine of Syed Muhammad Usman Marwandi, better known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, a revered 13th-century Sufi philosopher and poet who is venerated by millions across South Asia.

Caretakers washed and cleaned the white marble floors, which were streaked with blood and scattered debris, as others prepared for the evening ritual of the dhamaal – a form of devotional percussion and dance.

As the drums began, the faithful raised their arms and began the ritual, moving rhythmically to the quickening beat.

“This is Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, any terrorist, any number of terrorist attacks will not scare us. The dhamaal will continue, and must continue,” said Ali Otho, a worshipper.

Devotees said they would not allow anyone, attackers nor police seeking to secure the location, to stop them from praying at the grave of their patron saint.

“This is no place for the police,” said Haja Shah, one of the shrine’s caretakers, with tears in his eyes. “This is our place.”

Security forces, meanwhile, launched a series of raids following the attack, killing at least 100 people, all identified as “terrorists”.

Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify that figure, which was cited in a military in a statement on Friday.

The raids followed the closure of Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, where the government says Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other armed groups enjoy safe havens.

On Friday, Pakistan handed Afghanistan a list with the names of 76 “terrorists”, demanding immediate action be taken against them.

The “terrorists” in hiding were planning, directing and supporting fighters across the border, the statement explained.

In a call to the commander of the US-led NATO force in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, Pakistani army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa hinted at the possibility of pursuing operations within Afghan territory if action was not taken.

“Such terrorist activities and inaction against them are testing our current policy of cross-border restraint,” Bajwa said, according to a statement.

{{Wave of attacks}}

Armed groups such as the Pakistani Taliban and others have often targeted shrines for not conforming to their strict, literalist interpretation of Islam.

In November, ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group, claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a shrine in a Balochistan town, killing at least 52 people.

Thursday’s attack was the latest in a wave of violence this week that has claimed more than 100 lives.

On Monday, at least 13 people were killed when a suicide attacker targeted police at a protest in Lahore, the country’s second-largest city.

On Tuesday, two police officers were killed while trying to defuse a bomb in the southwestern city of Quetta.

On Wednesday, two suicide attacks in the northwestern city of Peshawar and the Mohmand tribal area claimed at least six lives.

On Thursday, in addition to the 88 killed at the shrine, at least seven security forces personnel were killed in two separate attacks in Dera Ismail Khan and Awaran.

{{Roots of violence}}

Much of that violence, with the exception of Thursday’s attack on the Sufi minority, was claimed by the Pakistan Taliban’s Jamaat-ur-Ahrar faction, which has worked with ISIL, also known as ISIS, in the past but remains separate from it.

“Pakistan has underestimated the potential for ISIL here,” Zahid Hussain, a veteran Pakistan journalist and security analyst, told Al Jazeera.

“Authorities always said that ISIL could not create an organisation here, but there are already organisations operating in Pakistan that agree with their ideology, like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and others.”

Pakistan has repeatedly blamed Afghanistan for giving safe haven to fighters on its side of the border, and vice versa.

However, analysts say that trading blame is proving counterproductive.

“The real issue is that the attacks are happening here. The networks are here, the facilitators are here … it is a flawed view that all of these attackers are coming from Afghanistan,” said Hussain.

{{“The people are here.”}}

Mosharraf Zaidi, former adviser to Pakistan’s foreign ministry, told Al Jazeera: “It doesn’t help anybody to fixate on the problem of Afghanistan as being the only problem that we face.

While there are groups that use safe havens in Afghanistan, the “core of problem Pakistan faces today is inside Pakistan”.

The “network of terrorists exists in this country”, he explained, and the “solution is also inside Pakistan”.

Hussain said while a Pakistani military operation has succeeded in dislodging the Pakistani Taliban from its headquarters, the group’s networks with other armed groups – including those targeting minorities and Indian security forces in Kashmir – remain intact.

“This is not unexpected because half-hearted measures always lead to these situations,” he said.

“The real issue was the network of militants in the heartland, in the main cities. They were intact, and even though we have been hearing reports of thousands arrested … what happens to them?”

Hussain’s views were echoed by Ijaz Khan, a professor at Peshawar University and security analyst.

“What happened when [the military operation] started: terrorists of different organisations felt the pressure and some of their safe havens were destroyed,” he told Al Jazeera.

Sounding a warning of further attacks, he said: “They were dislocated, but not finished. Now, they have regrouped themselves.”

Source:Al Jazeera

{Demonstrators take part in anti-government rally amid growing scandal over bribes paid by Brazilian firm Odebrecht.}

Thousands of people have taken to the streets in Panama in protest over a political scandal involving huge bribes paid by a Brazilian company in exchange for public contracts.

Odebrecht has admitted it paid $788m in bribes to win construction contracts in 12 countries.

It has agreed with the US justice department to pay a world record $3.5bn fine.

“No more governments of thieves and the corrupt,” read some placards as the crowd moved through the centre of the capital Panama City to the Congress building on Friday.

“The goal of the march is to demand that all those corrupt in all the parties and businessmen are investigated, so they return the money and go to jail,” Saul Mendez, a leader of the Suntracs construction union that was among the protest organisers, told AFP news agency.

The scandal surrounding Odebrecht, which US authorities say paid $59m in bribes in Panama between 2010 and 2014, was just “the tip of the iceberg”, he said.

Panama, which is trying to clean up its image after the Panama Papers scandal last year, has asked Interpol to issue wanted alerts for the sons of Ricardo Martinelli, who was president at the time.

Source:Al Jazeera

{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