
Close
On the Heels of the NCR in Assam, Muslim Family in Bengal Asked Proof of
Citizenship
‘Hanuman
Chalisa’ Recited On Road to Oppose ‘Namaaz’ On Streets
Madrasa
In UP Set on Fire over Beef Rumours
Bail
Rider for Woman Held for Offensive Post: Donate Quran Copies
NRC Deadline Approaching, Families Stranded In Assam Floods
Stay Home, Don’t Want To Be Rescued
Hafiz
Saeed Arrested By Punjab CTD, Sent On Judicial Remand in Terrorism Financing
Case
JUI-F
Leader Sees Conspiracy against Islam, Pakistan
U.S.
Imposes Travel Restrictions on Myanmar Military Leaders over ‘Atrocities’
Trump
Says US Wants to Help and Work with Iran, Not Looking For Regime Change
Italy
Seizes 'Combat-Ready' Missile in Raids on Far Right
French
Gov't Supports Youth Project with Ties to Palestinian Terror Group
Muslim
Nations Are Defending China As It Cracks Down On Muslims, Shattering Any Myths
of Islamic Solidarity
Saudi
King to Host 200 Pilgrims From Families Of Christchurch Massacre
Arab
Paper: Saudi-Led Coalition Losing in New Regional Balance
India
Close
On the Heels of the NCR in Assam, Muslim Family in Bengal Asked Proof of
Citizenship
‘Hanuman
Chalisa’ Recited On Road to Oppose ‘Namaaz’ On Streets
Madrasa
In UP Set on Fire over Beef Rumours
Bail
Rider for Woman Held for Offensive Post: Donate Quran Copies
NRC Deadline Approaching, Families Stranded In Assam Floods
Stay Home, Don’t Want To Be Rescued
Pro-Pak
and Pro-Caliphate Groups Fight For Kashmir's 'Jihadi' Space
14
Tamil Nadu Men Raised Funds to Set Up ISIS Cell in India: Sources
Terror
detentions: A locked office and a neighbourhood left in the dark in Chennai
UAE-deported
men reveal IS plot in Tamil Nadu
India
pitches to grill Dawood aide in London, Pak rushes to his defence
J&K
separatists reject colonies for return of Pandits
Helpline
against Hate to report mob violence launched
--------
Pakistan
Hafiz
Saeed Arrested By Punjab CTD, Sent On Judicial Remand in Terrorism Financing
Case
JUI-F
Leader Sees Conspiracy against Islam, Pakistan
US
welcomes increased 'people-to-people ties' between Pakistan, India through
Kartarpur
Pakistani
journalists hold protests to denounce censorship
Opposition
to hold public meeting in Karachi on 25th
Opposition
stresses parliament’s role in Reko Diq fiasco inquiry
Committee
to Protect Journalists honours Editor Dawn Zaffar Abbas with press freedom
award
Punjab
govt asks SC to cancel Rizvi’s bail
LHC’s
decision to grant bail to Khadim Rizvi challenged
Governor
announces more land for Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur
--------
North America
U.S.
Imposes Travel Restrictions on Myanmar Military Leaders over ‘Atrocities’
Trump
Says US Wants to Help and Work with Iran, Not Looking For Regime Change
Democratic
Congresswomen respond to Trump over tweets
Anti-Defamation
League Head Blasts Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Over Online Extremism
Judge
recommends $14M award to neo-Nazi trolling victim
Terror
leader Hambali finally to face US justice
Rio’s
far-right governor likens drug dealers to Hezbollah
Protests
planned against Iranian American council accused of lobbying for Tehran
US
imposes sanctions on Myanmar army chief over Rohingya crimes
--------
Europe
Italy
Seizes 'Combat-Ready' Missile in Raids on Far Right
French
Gov't Supports Youth Project with Ties to Palestinian Terror Group
Christchurch
Muslim Community To Receive $1m Cheque From Jewish Community
British
Muslims must do more to stop the potential "Jihadi Jacks" of the
future
Driverless
car bomb plot shows the threat from Isis supporters who are unable to fight
abroad
Former
German spy chief causes alarm by sharing far-right tweets
Italy
Police Seize Missile from Neo-Nazi Sympathizers
UAE,
Egypt, US and others call for immediate end to Libya violence
Portugal
suspends visas for Iranians, cites security reasons
Italy
seizes air-to-air missile that belonged to Qatar in raids on neo-Nazis
Russia,
Hamas hold talks in Moscow, stress intra-Palestinian unity
UK
government doubles funding for prosecuting ISIS in Iraq
-------
Southeast Asia
Muslim
Nations Are Defending China As It Cracks Down On Muslims, Shattering Any Myths
of Islamic Solidarity
Philippines,
US to Step up War on Terror amid Suicide Attacks
Islamic
NGOs slam Saudi Arabia over liberalisation, ties with Israel, US
--------
Arab World
Saudi
King to Host 200 Pilgrims From Families Of Christchurch Massacre
Arab
Paper: Saudi-Led Coalition Losing in New Regional Balance
Kuwait
hands Muslim Brotherhood-linked militants to Egypt: KUNA
Twin
suicide blasts kill two people, wound 20 in Baghdad
Workers
recover hundreds of bodies from Syrian mass grave
Iraqi
security forces kill eight terrorists in Salahuddin
Bahrain
Defense Force: Al Jazeera program aims to incite discord, undermine GCC
Bahrain
recruited al-Qaeda operatives to target dissidents, Iran: Documentary
US-led
airstrike kills 15 civilians in Syria’s Dayr al-Zawr: Report
British
football fan says 'tortured' in UAE for supporting Qatar squad
--------
Mideast
Pompeo
Says Sanctions Have Worked and Regional Countries United Against Iran
Yemenis
go hungry as UN-rebel tiff disrupts aid
Senior
Hamas official urges Palestinians worldwide to kill 'every Jew on the globe'
US
fears Iran seized UAE-based tanker in Strait of Hormuz
Iran
says Zarif’s missile remarks meant to challenge US, not negotiate over nukes
Iran’s
Zarif not allowed to move beyond a six-block radius in New York
Arab
Coalition downs three Houthi drones targeting Jazan, Abha
Palestine
demands intl. investigation into detainee’s death in Israeli prison
--------
Africa
Sudan
Military Council, Opposition Sign Political Agreement
Two
leaders of Mali al-Qaeda affiliate put on US terrorism list after attacks
6
nations call for immediate halt to Libya violence
Borno
emir returns home 5 years after displacement by Boko Haram
Somalia:
Somali Army Retakes Fresh Areas from Al-Shabaab After Offensive
Kenyan
police kill 3 al-Shabab suspects in coastal region
UN
envoy meets UAE minister to discuss fighting in Libya
One
killed, several injured as Nigerian army attack Sheikh Zakzaky’s supporters
--------
South Asia
Dadullah
Alias Surkhabi, One of the Most Dangerous Leaders of Taliban Killed In Jawzjan
Special
Forces Seize Up To 100 Weapons of Taliban, 1000 Rounds of Ammunition in Logar
ICC
delegation in Bangladesh to discuss Rohingya crisis
Death
toll in Taliban roadside bombing rises to 13 in Kandahar, over 30 more wounded
Afghan
Special Forces large caches of weapons, IEDs in Ghazni province
Airstrikes
kill 7 Taliban militants; destroy car bomb in Helmand, Zabul, Wardak, Nangarhar
Afghan
Special Forces arrest ISIS Khurasan militant in Kabul
Compiled
by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: http://www.newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/new-age-islam-news-bureau/close-on-the-heels-of-the-ncr-in-assam,-muslim-family-in-bengal-asked-proof-of-citizenship/d/119217
--------
Close
On the Heels of the NCR in Assam, Muslim Family in Bengal Asked Proof of Citizenship
New
Age Islam News Bureau
Jul
17, 2019
Close
on the heels of the NCR in Assam, Muslims in Bengal are feeling the heat of NCR
in Bengal. A retrired head mistress of a school Mustabsera Khatoon and her son
Asad Rauf living in Kolkata have got notice from EC to produce proof of their
citizenship. The family claims that they have been living in Kolkata for the
last forty years. Her husband Abdur Rauf has got a job in Netherlands and is
considered among intellectuals in Bengali circles. They live in Meher Ali Road
in South Kolkata.
Mustabsera
Khatun said that she got a notice from the EC saying that they were not found
to be ordinary residents of the address during verification of voters’ list and
so they should produce the proof of their residence on 14th July before the EC.
Surprisingly, the EC has not issued summons to her husband Abdur Rauf. Her son
Asad Rauf has written to the EC that he was born at the address and compoleted
his education there. He also exercised his voting rights in the recently held
elections. However, he is not in the country at the moment and so he would not
be able to be present before the EC. He also said that his passport too had the
same address. Mustabsera Khatun says that no one came to her house to very
their address and without verifying the address the EC has issued the summon.
She says that even before the implementation of NCR in Bengal, they were being
asked to proof their citizenship. This incident has creaed panic among the
Muslims of the state.
--------
‘Hanuman
Chalisa’ recited on road to oppose ‘namaaz’ on streets
July
17, 2019
Hathras
(Uttar Pradesh): Activists of religious
group Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV) have registered their opposition to offering
‘namaaz’ on the streets by reciting “Hanuman Chalisa” on the road in Uttar
Pradesh’s Hathras.
According
to reports, a group of HYV activists sat outside a Hanuman temple in
Sikandrarau area and recited the “Hanuman Chalisa” repeatedly for over an hour
on Tuesday evening.
The
HYV men said that they would continue to hold recitation of “Hanuman Chalisa”
every Tuesday till the Muslims stopped offering ‘namaaz’ on the roads.
Ravindra
Kumar Singh, a HYV activist, said that by offering ‘namaaz’ on the roads on
Fridays, Muslims were causing inconvenience to the people since roads remained
blocked.
“If
they stop this practice, we will also stop otherwise we will make sure that
‘Hanuman Chalisa’ is recited outside each Hanuman temple on Tuesdays,” he said.
The
police was silent on the issue. A senior police official said, “There is no
complaint and no trouble so our role does not figure in the matter.”
https://www.siasat.com/news/hanuman-chalisa-recited-road-oppose-namaaz-streets-1550544/
-------
Madrasa
in UP set on fire over beef rumours
Jul
17, 2019
A
madrasa was set on fire by a mob in Behta village in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur
district following allegations that beef was found in the area, police said on
Tuesday.
Sub-Inspector
Uma Shankar Yadav of Bindki police station said a mob of around 50 people had
demolished the boundary wall of the madrasa and then set the building on fire
on Monday.
The
police registered a case under the UP Prevention of Cow Slaughter Act after a
team veterinarians confirmed that meat recovered near the seminary was beef.
Yadav and other policemen had been stationed in the village since Monday after
tension prevailed in the area following the recovery of a cow carcass.
The
police said no one was inside the madrasa when the mob attacked it.
District
magistrate Sanjeev Singh and SP Fatehpur Ramesh said the situation was brought
under control.
One
person has been booked for cow slaughter, police said, adding that the suspect
is absconding.
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/madrasa-in-up-set-on-fire-over-beef-rumours/story-YbEJGY8PT3E7FJY3m4staO.html
-------
Bail
rider for woman held for offensive post: Donate Quran copies
July
17, 2019
A
19-year-old B.Com student, recently arrested for sharing an offensive social
media post, has been granted bail by a local court on one condition: that she
donate five copies of the Quran to separate institutions in the city.
Judicial
Magistrate (First Class) Manish Kumar Singh, while granting conditional bail
Monday, asked Richa Bharti to submit one copy of the Quran to the local Anjuman
Committee in the presence of police authorities, and four more copies to
different libraries in the city, said her lawyer, Pravesh Singh.
He
told reporters, “She will then have to submit receipts to the court within 15
days.” Bharti was arrested on July 12 after the Anjuman Committee filed a
complaint against her at the Pithora police station for sharing an
objectionable post on Facebook, which allegedly hurt religious sentiments.
The
judge has also directed the investigating officer in the case to be present
when Bharti donates the Quran to the committee, said sources.
While
the Anjuman Committee welcomed the order, Bharti told PTI: “I respect the
court’s verdict. I have done nothing wrong… will consult my family and lawyer
if I can move the High Court.”
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/jharkhand-court-grants-bail-to-woman-held-for-offensive-post-tells-her-to-donate-quran-5832852/
-------
NRC Deadline
Approaching, Families Stranded In Assam Floods Stay Home, Don’t Want To Be
Rescued
By Tora Agarwala
July 17, 2019
FOR TWO days now, Parvesh Kumar, a rescuer from the
National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), has been trying to persuade Rina
Begum, a resident of Tulsibari village in Assam’s Morigaon district, to leave
her half-submerged house.
Over the last 48 hours, as rescuers shuttle her
neighbours from their marooned homes to dry land, Begum, a 50-year-old
grandmother of four, watched but remained defiant. “How can we leave our home?”
she says, standing in waist-deep water.
Kumar says Begum’s family isn’t the only reluctant one.
“There are many families who are refusing to leave their homes,” he says.
“Yesterday, we went to a very remote area. There were 20 people stuck in one
house, but only seven came back with us.” The team still gave the villagers
their phone number, in case they changed their mind. Later at night, as the
water rose, Kumar got a call. “When it gets worse, they change their mind
usually,” he says.
In minority-dominated areas of Assam, home and land are
tangible markers of identity in a state that is days away from the July 31
deadline for publication of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC).
“This could be one of the reasons that they feel so scared to leave their
homes,” says an official from the local administration.
According to Kumar, the families who agree to be rescued
make sure that their documents are safe too. “So many times, we brought them to
safety only to go back again because they realise they have forgotten their
documents,” says Kumar.
For Begum, her daughter, and four grand-daughters, the
youngest a six-month-old, the only safe space is their bed, supported by two
sticks, and tied up at a higher level. On it, the infant sleeps, as floodwaters
from an overflowing Brahmaputra swivel around. Their clothes have been washed
away, upturned chairs float in the brown water, and at a distance, the tin-roof
of their toilet is bare visible.
When the rains came on July 8, Begum did not pay much
attention. This was regular. When the waters started rising, it still did not
perturb her. This had happened the previous year, too.
But by Sunday afternoon, when two embankments in the
Laharighat and Bhuragaon revenue circles were breached and the water rose above
their waists, Begum and her daughter started stowing away their paddy on the
roof. As did her sister-in-law and niece, in the house next door. Their
husbands, daily wage workers, were in Dibrugarh.
monsoon. At least 30 out of 33 districts in Assam are
reeling, with 1,47,304 people in 695 relief camps. About 95 per cent of the
UNESCO World Heritage Site Kaziranga is under water. Many say it’s the worse
deluge in more than a decade.
In Morigaon, more than 5 lakh people have been affected.
In Laharighat revenue circle, where Begum’s home is, 1 lakh people have been
affected, with the NDRF in action for the past five days.
Sofikul Islam, a 45-year-old farmer, lost not just the
two bikes his family owned, but goats too. “Our house has gone under but that
happened two years ago as well,” he says. “The flimsy embankments don’t help.
All of them are made of sand and are not strong. What we need is better
rehabilitation when the flood strikes.”
While rice, salt and dal have reached the village,
residents claim it’s neither enough nor equally divided. At the revenue circle
office, an official says, “Relief takes time to reach us. And even the villages
which have not been affected come for food. It is hard to ensure that everyone
gets their share.”
On Tuesday, the Centre announced Rs 251 crore in
assistance to the State Disaster Response Fund, but Begum and her family
haven’t eaten all day. Her husband reached earlier in the morning, and has gone
to get Seera (flattened rice) for the family.
“Today is the first day in a week that it hasn’t rained,”
says Begum. “Maybe, it will get better.”
https://indianexpress.com/article/north-east-india/assam/nrc-deadline-approaching-families-stranded-in-assam-floods-stay-home-dont-want-to-be-rescued-5833091/
-----
Hafiz
Saeed Arrested By Punjab CTD, Sent On Judicial Remand in Terrorism Financing
Case
Waseem
Riaz
uly
17, 2019
Jamaatud
Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Muhammad Saeed was on Wednesday arrested in connection
with a terrorism financing case while on his way from Lahore to Gujranwala,
officials of the Punjab Counter-Terrorism Department confirmed.
According
to a spokesperson for CTD Punjab, Saeed was sent to prison on judicial remand
after the counter-terrorism department presented him before a Gujranwala
anti-terrorism court (ATC).
The
CTD has been directed to complete its investigation and submit a charge sheet
to the court in the stipulated time.
Earlier,
according to CTD sources, Saeed was arrested by CTD Punjab in the Gujranwala
jurisdiction while he was on his way to an ATC in Gujranwala to seek bail.
A
JuD spokesperson also confirmed the arrest to Reuters.
On
July 3, the top 13 leaders of the banned JuD, including Saeed and Naib Emir
Abdul Rehman Makki, were booked in nearly two dozen cases for terror financing
and money laundering under the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
The
CTD, which registered the cases in five cities of Punjab, declared that the JuD
was financing terrorism from the massive funds collected through non-profit
organisations and trusts, including Al-Anfaal Trust, Dawatul Irshad Trust, Muaz
Bin Jabal Trust, etc.
These
non-profit organisations were banned in April as the CTD during detailed investigations
found that they had links with the JuD and its top leadership, accused of
financing terrorism by building huge assets/properties from the collected funds
in Pakistan.
On
Monday, a Lahore High Court division bench sought replies from the Ministry of
Interior, Punjab home department and CTD on a petition filed by JuD chief Saeed
and his seven aides challenging an FIR carrying a charge of terror financing.
Advocate
A.K. Dogar represented the petitioners and contended that the facts narrated in
the impugned FIR registered on July 1, 2019 illegally described them as members
of LeT and levelled unlawful allegations of terror financing.
The
counsel referred to a 2009 judgement by an LHC full bench against the then
detention of Hafiz Saeed and stated that the petitioners were not members of
LeT.
He
said the LHC through another judgement issued in 2003 had also held that Hafiz
Saeed left the leadership of LeT on Dec 24, 2001 while the organisation was
banned on Jan 14, 2002.
The
lawyer pleaded that the claim of the government that the petitioners were
members of LeT stood disapproved in light of the two judgements.
Therefore,
he asked the court to quash the impugned FIR lodged by the CTD for being
unlawful and of no legal effect.
A
government law officer opposed the petition and stated that it was not
maintainable at this stage of the case.
However,
the bench comprising Justice Shehram Sarwar Chaudhry and Justice Waheed Khan
directed the law officer to furnish written replies on behalf of the
respondents by July 30.
The
other petitioners are Mohammad Ayub Sheikh, Zafar Iqbal, Syed Luqman Ali Shah,
Hafiz Abdul Rehman Makki, Abdul Salam, Abdul Ghaffar and Abdul Qudoos Shahid.
Also
on Monday, an ATC in Lahore had granted pre-arrest bail to the JuD chief and three
others in a case pertaining to the outfit's alleged illegal use of land for its
seminary, against surety bonds of Rs50,000 each.
In
February, Paris-based Financial Action Task Force (FATF) had warned Pakistan to
deliver on its commitments to curb terror financing and money laundering.
Risks
to the global financial system have virtually put the country’s entire
machinery into an aggressive mode to show tangible progress within two months
of the warning.
While
the meetings were taking place, the government had announced a ban on JuD and
Falah-e-Insanyat Foundation to partially address the concerns raised by India
that Pakistan supported these and six similar organisations, including
Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) or at least considered them low-risk entities.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1494606/hafiz-saeed-arrested-by-punjab-ctd-sent-on-judicial-remand-in-terrorism-financing-case
-----
JUI-F
leader sees conspiracy against Islam, Pakistan
July
17, 2019
CHAKDARA:
Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) leader Maulana Attaur Rehman on Tuesday urged
the opposition parties to forge unity to thwart conspiracies against Islam and
Pakistan.
Speaking
at a meeting of the party’s Executive Council, he said the ‘selected’ prime
minister had been brought to power under a conspiracy. He said the Jewish lobby
had been conspiring to weaken our country and damage its Islamic identity. The
Maulana said the JUI-F would hold a million march in Peshawar on July 25
against price-hike and ‘unfair’ taxes. “Our party has decided to protest against
the imposition of undue taxes. The opposition parties should join hands to foil
the conspiracies being hatched by the anti-Islam and anti-Pakistan forces”,
JUI-F leader said.
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/499694-jui-f-leader-sees-conspiracy-against-islam-pakistan
-------
U.S.
imposes travel restrictions on Myanmar military leaders over ‘atrocities’
By
John Hudson, Shibani Mahtani and Timothy McLaughlin
July
16, 2019
The
Trump administration has banned senior military officials in Myanmar from
traveling to the United States for what it calls “gross violations of human
rights” and “atrocities” against the country’s Rohingya Muslim minority.
A
government crackdown in the country has prompted international condemnation and
driven more than 700,000 Rohingya Muslims into Bangladesh, a number that
continues to rise amid ongoing violence.
The
measures target the Myanmar government’s commander in chief, Min Aung Hlaing;
deputy commander in chief, Soe Win; and two brigadier generals, Than Oo and
Aung Aung. U.S. officials said that no other government in the world has taken
public action against military leaders in Myanmar, which is also known as
Burma.
“We
designated these individuals based on credible information of these commanders’
involvement in gross violations of human rights,” Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said in a statement. “We remain concerned that the Burmese government
has taken no actions to hold accountable those responsible for human rights
violations and abuses, and there are continued reports of the Burmese military
committing human rights violations and abuses throughout the country.”
In
the months before the State Department decision, the U.S. ambassador to
Myanmar, Scot Marciel, consulted with senior members of Aung San Suu Kyi’s
National League for Democracy, ethnic leaders and prominent activists on the
efficacy of sanctions, according to a person familiar with the meetings. The
person, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a
sensitive issue, said Marciel and other U.S. officials sought to gather
feedback on the practical effect the sanctions would have on the military
leader.
A
U.N. report called for Myanmar generals to be investigated and prosecuted for
war crimes.
Human
rights groups have been pushing for a strong response against Myanmar military
leaders, including financial sanctions, for the past few years. Some believed
an opportunity for a strong U.S. response was missed last year when the State
Department considered denouncing Myanmar for crimes against humanity but
ultimately did not.
A
piece of legislation known as the JADE Act, passed more than a decade ago, also
gives the United States the authority to block Myanmar generals from visiting,
but that act does not name specific individuals.
Francisco
Bencosme, the Asia Pacific advocacy manager at Amnesty International USA, said
the move was largely a symbolic one, as it publicly names and shames the
generals but stops short of full accountability. Groups like his have pushed
for coordinated financial sanctions against the Myanmar military.
“Two
years after some of the most heinous crimes that have ever been committed, if
all the U.S. can do is a symbolic gesture, then it is pretty disappointing and
still falls short,” he said.
The
U.S. Treasury Department in August imposed sanctions on three Myanmar military
commanders, a border guard police commander and military units who directly led
the crackdown against the Rohingya. But it has so far declined to take action
against Min Aung Hlaing, who holds significant political sway in the country.
He leads the military, which controls a quarter of Myanmar's parliament, and
three key ministries in the country.
A
senior U.S. official said that while the Treasury Department was weighing its
options against the generals, the State Department went ahead with the travel
ban because it could act through its own authorizations provided by Congress.
Pompeo,
in his statement, said there has been a “severe lack of accountability for the
military and its senior leadership,” particularly regarding the commander in
chief's decision to release soldiers convicted of extrajudicial killings at Inn
Din.
“The
Commander-in-Chief released these criminals after only months in prison, while
the journalists who told the world about the killings in Inn Din were jailed
for more than 500 days,” Pompeo said.
Reuters
journalists Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo exposed the mass execution of 10 Rohingya
men in the Rakhine state town of Inn Din during the August 2017 crackdown. They
were arrested, charged and found guilty of violating a colonial-era secrets
act, before being freed in a May prisoner amnesty.
Facebook
kicked Min Aung Hlaing and other generals off its platform in August to
“prevent them from using our service to further inflame ethnic and religious
tensions,” it said. The social media giant was under significant pressure at
the time to act on charges that it had helped fan the flames of hate in Myanmar
and created fertile ground for the military’s operation.
After
initially studying law at university in Yangon, Min Aung Hlaing entered the
Defense Services Academy and graduated in 1977. Over the next three decades he
advanced through the military ranks and was named senior general in 2013. He
fills the roles of military commander and statesman, meeting with diplomats and
world leaders.
In
explaining why the decision was being taken now, a U.S. official said the move
was “complicated” and required “evidence.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-imposes-travel-restrictions-on-myanmar-military-leaders-over-atrocities/2019/07/16/290b1457-600b-4463-9c2e-f29cfb65bf28_story.html
-------
Trump
says US wants to help and work with Iran, not looking for regime change
16
July 2019
President
Donald Trump said Tuesday the United States is not pushing to topple Iran’s
leadership but is determined to stop it acquiring nuclear weapons.
“We
are not looking for regime change. We are not looking for that at all,” Trump
said during a cabinet meeting. “They can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
The
United States quit an international deal aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear
program last year, hitting Tehran with crippling sanctions.
Iran
said last week that it had enriched uranium past the 3.67 percent limit set by
the 2015 nuclear deal, and has also surpassed the 300-kilogram cap on enriched
uranium reserves.
Tensions
have soared since Trump pulled out of the deal, with the US calling off air
strikes against Iran at the last minute after Tehran downed an American drone,
and Washington blaming the Islamic republic for a series of attacks on tanker
ships.
Iranian
Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif warned on Monday that the United States
is “playing with fire.”
According
to leaked diplomatic cables published at the weekend, Britain’s ambassador to
Washington believed Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal because it was
associated with his predecessor Barack Obama.
“The
administration is set upon an act of diplomatic vandalism, seemingly for
ideological and personality reasons -- it was Obama’s deal,” wrote the envoy,
Kim Darroch, who resigned amid a storm triggered by the release of the
sensitive documents.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2019/07/16/Trump-says-US-wants-to-help-and-work-with-Iran-not-looking-for-regime-change.html
-------
Italy
seizes 'combat-ready' missile in raids on far right
15
July 2019
Anti-terrorism
police in northern Italy have seized an air-to-air missile and other
sophisticated weapons during raids on far-right extremist groups.
Three
people were arrested, two of them near Forli airport. Neo-Nazi propaganda was
also seized.
The
raids were part of an investigation into Italian far-right involvement in the
conflict in eastern Ukraine, the Turin police said.
The
missile originated from the Qatari armed forces, the police said.
The
Turin special police force, called Digos, led the operations, assisted by
police in Milan, Varese, Forli and Novara.
Italian
media named those arrested as Fabio Del Bergiolo, 50, an Italian ex-customs
officer and far-right Forza Nuova party activist; Alessandro Monti, 42, a Swiss
national; and Fabio Bernardi, 51, also Italian.
Initially,
on 15 July, the police said the arrests were part of an investigation, started
about a year ago, into far-right groups "who have fought in Ukraine's
Donbass region against the separatists".
But
the latest police statement did not mention groups fighting the pro-Russian
separatists, referring only to an investigation into Italian extremists who had
"taken part in the armed conflict in Ukraine's Donbass region". The
police did not make it clear which side the Italians were on in this case.
The
missile appears to be a French-made Matra Super 530 F.
"During
the operation, an air-to-air missile in perfect working order and used by the
Qatari army was seized," police said in a statement.
Separately,
a court in Genoa jailed three men on 3 July who were found guilty of fighting
alongside the Russian-backed separatists, who control a large swathe of
Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions.
In
the Genoa case, two men - Italian Antonio Cataldo and Albanian-born Olsi
Krutani - got terms of two years and eight months. The third, Moldovan citizen
Vladimir Vrbitchii, got one year and four months.
More
than 10,000 people have died in fighting since the heavily-armed separatists
launched an insurgency in eastern Ukraine in April 2014. Skirmishes with
Ukrainian government troops continue, but the frontline has remained generally
static for more than a year.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48987723
-------
French
Gov't Supports Youth Project With Ties To Palestinian Terror Group
JULY
16, 2019
The
French government, along with local municipalities in France, has donated
almost €400,000 to a new youth program in east Jerusalem in coordination with a
a socio-cultural center run by a convicted member of the terror organization
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), NGO Monitor reported.
On
July 10, 2019, at the Jerusalem French Institute a new youth program for east
Jerusalem was launched in the presence of UN employees in coordination with the
Al Bustan center.
The
project, “Towards the Youth of East Jerusalem” was initiated by the RCDP, a
French association that supports ties between local French and Palestinian
authorities.
The
project is funded by various local French government bodies, including the
French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, who donated €204,000, the
municipality of Rennes, €34,286, the municipality of Ivry-Sur-Seine (€21,429),
and other French municipalities.
The
Al Bustan center is described as a socio-cultural center, and listed as one of
their founders, treasurer and contact point for the new project is Daoud Ghoul.
In
2015, Ghoul was convicted in Israel for his membership in the Popular Front for
the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), for which Ghoul served an 18 month
sentence.
The
PFLP is a secular Marxist-Leninist revolutionary organization affiliated with
the Palestinian Liberation Organization. It has been classified as a terrorist
organization by the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, the EU and Israel.
A
verdict from a Jerusalem District Court obtained by NGO Monitor stated that
Ghoul "has two criminal convictions in his past for membership in a
terrorist organization in 2005 and 2006, and for ideologically motivated
violent crimes, for which he was sentenced to significant jail sentences of 12
and 18 months. Nevertheless, this was
not sufficient to deter him and he returned to commit offenses in the years
following his release.”
The
Al Bustan center, based in Silwan, has a history of promoting violent and
anti-Israel ideas among their young members. One post published on Facebook in
July 2018 showed pictures of a youth camp, in which young Palestinians wore
different flags representing countries on their shirts. The children
representing Israel and the United States brandished guns and proceeded to
conduct a mock execution of “Palestine.”
It
has also shared praise of terrorist attacks in Israel and propaganda of various
terrorist groups through Facebook posts.
The
involvement of an international government has led the Israeli Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and a number of Jerusalem City Council members sent an official
protest to the French government, raising their concerns about the issue.
https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/French-govt-supports-youth-project-with-ties-to-Palestinian-terror-group-595788
-------
Muslim
nations are defending China as it cracks down on Muslims, shattering any myths
of Islamic solidarity
by
Tamara Qiblawi
July
17, 2019
Beirut,
Lebanon (CNN)Last week, 22 mostly Western countries launched the world's first
major collective challenge to China's crackdown on Uyghur Muslims and other
minorities.
In
a joint statement to the High Commissioner of the United Nations' Human Rights
Council, the nations criticized Beijing for what they described as
"disturbing reports of large-scale arbitrary detentions" and
"widespread surveillance and restrictions."
A
day later, 37 other countries jumped to Beijing's defense, with their own
letter praising China's human rights record, and dismissing the reported
detention of up to two million Muslims in western China's Xinjiang region.
Nearly half of the signatories were Muslim-majority nations, including
Pakistan, Qatar, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia, according
to the Chinese government.
"Faced
with the grave challenge of terrorism and extremism, China has undertaken a
series of counter-terrorism and deradicalization measures in Xinjiang,
including setting up vocational education and training centers," the
letter said, according to Reuters, which saw a copy of the letter. The letter
went on to say that there had been no terrorist attacks in the past three years
in the region, and that the people there were happy, fulfilled and secure.
The
language in the letter echoed previous claims made by China, which has denied
allegations of torture or forced political indoctrination in Xinjiang and said
that the camps were "vocational training centers" designed to fight
terrorism and combat Islamic extremism.
But
reports of China's abuse of Muslims in the Xinjiang region are rampant. Many
Uyghurs and other Muslim ethnic minorities are believed to have been hauled
into conditions that activists call re-education camps. Accounts given to CNN
by former detainees describe being forced into the camps under the threat of
violence. Detainees who have since fled China say they were forced to renounce
Islam while pledging loyalty to China's ruling Communist party, according to a
report by the Council of Foreign Relations.
So
why are some Muslim-majority countries coming to Beijing's defense?
"I
was surprised that (Muslim countries) would put it in writing and put their
names on it and sign a document to actually praise China," Azeem Ibrahim,
a director at the DC-based Center for Global Policy, told CNN. "It's one
thing to keep quiet and abstain. It's another thing to overtly support (the
policies) when there was no need for them to do so."
"I
think that's indicative of the influence and power that China has," he
said.
https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/17/asia/uyghurs-muslim-countries-china-intl/index.html
-------
Saudi
king to host 200 pilgrims from families of Christchurch massacre
July
17, 2019
RIYADH:
King Salman Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia will host 200 pilgrims from the families
of the Christchurch mosque shooting victims in New Zealand, Xinhua News Agency
reported.
The
hosting is part of the Saudi King Guests Programme for Hajj and Umrah
implemented and supervised by the Islamic Affairs ministry.
Minister
of Islamic Affairs and general supervisor of the programme, Sheikh Abdullatif
Al-Sheikh, said in a statement to the Saudi Press Agency that the initiative
was part of the kingdom’s counterterrorism efforts.
He
said that the ministry would follow up on the required procedures through the
Saudi embassy in New Zealand to finalise the pilgrims’ departure to the
Kingdom, and provide them with all facilities to perform the pilgrimage.
The
Saudi king also said he would host 1,000 Palestinian pilgrims this year.
The
Christchurch mosque shootings were two consecutive terrorist shooting attacks
at mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, during Friday prayers on March 15,
which left 51 Muslim worshippers killed.
https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/world/2019/07/17/saudi-king-to-host-200-pilgrims-from-families-of-christchurch-massacre/
-------
Arab
Paper: Saudi-Led Coalition Losing in New Regional Balance
Jul
16, 2019
"After
the gap created in the Saudi-UAE coalition, imminent changes are waiting for
the region and considerable changes will be made in the regional power balance
to the detriment of the Saudi-led coalition," the Arabic-language al-Quds
al-Arabi paper wrote on Tuesday.
It
added that after the Saudi-led coalition persuaded the US to launch a war
against Iran, its difficulties and destructive impacts were revealed and
therefore the Americans avoided such a war which would annihilate all sides,
noting that the Yemeni forces' advances and reinvigorating their side of the
military balance also made it difficult for Riyadh to end the war militarily
and therefore, Riyadh is after a political solution with unclear results.
"The
UAE may retrieve a part of its balance after withdrawing forces from Yemen and
decreasing tensions with Iran but Saudi Arabia will lead the region and itself
to a catastrophe by continuing its current policies," the paper
underlined.
The
New York Times reported on Saturday that the UAE had pulled most of its forces
from the Yemen “quagmire” in a “face-saving” decision that has deeply upset its
Saudi allies.
UAE
officials have been saying for several weeks that they have begun a phased and
partial withdrawal of forces, estimated at 5,000 troops a few years ago.
However,
significant reduction has already occurred, The NY Times quoted Western and
Arab diplomats briefed on the drawdown as saying.
Over
the past month, the UAE has cut its deployment around the strategic Red Sea
port of Hudaydah by 80 percent to fewer than 150 men, according to people
briefed on the drawdown. They have pulled out their attack helicopters and
heavy guns, effectively precluding a military advance on the city.
The
UAE, according to a senior Emirati official, announced the drawdown is intended
to support a shaky United Nations-brokered ceasefire in Hudaydah that came into
effect in December.
The
drawdown, the daily said, is “a belated recognition that a grinding war that
has killed thousands of civilians and turned Yemen into a humanitarian disaster
is no longer winnable”.
The
Associated Press also quoted experts as saying that the troop drawdown aims to
restore the Persian Gulf country's reputation, even though it may strain ties with
Saudi Arabia at a time of heightened tensions with Iran.
“The
Emiratis are driven mostly by their desire to exit a war whose cost has become
too high, even if it means angering their Saudi allies,” the newspaper added.
The
paper quoted Mike Hindmarsh, a retired Australian major general who commands
the Emirati presidential guard, recently telling Western visitors that Yemen
had become a quagmire where the Houthis were the “Yemeni Viet Cong”.
The
drawdown “is going to expose the Saudis to the reality that this war is a
failure”, stated Michael Stephens of the Royal United Services Institute, a
research group in London.
“It
tells us the two main protagonists on the coalition side, Saudi Arabia and the
United Arab Emirates, don’t have the same idea of what success looks like,” he
told The Times.
According
to diplomats, the Saudis were “deeply disappointed” by the Emirati decision.
“Top
officials with the royal court personally intervened with the Emirati leaders
to try to dissuade them from the drawdown,” a Western diplomat familiar with
the matter was quoted as saying.
The
Emiratis have avoided publicly announcing their decision in part to minimize
the unhappiness of the Saudis, noted several people briefed by the Emiratis.
Western
diplomatic sources announced in late June that the UAE was scaling back its
military presence in Yemen as worsening US-Iran tensions “threatened security
closer to home”, according to Reuters.
Saudi
Arabia and a number of its regional allies launched a devastating campaign
against Yemen in March 2015, with the aim of bringing the government of former
Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi back to power and crushing the
Ansarullah movement.
The
war has been unsuccessful to this day, and reports have revealed cracks in the
coalition in the form of differences between Hadi and the UAE, which has
reportedly gained oversized influence in southern Yemen.
Tensions
between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi — yet to play out in full display — could have
major consequences for the Saudi-led coalition, which has for more than four
years been fighting a war it hoped to finish in a matter of weeks.
In
May, the UAE reportedly deployed dozens of Southern separatists on the Yemeni
island of Socotra in the Arabian Sea as divisions grew in the Saudi-led
coalition over Abu Dhabi’s military build-up on the strategic island.
Citing
sources close to Hadi, the Middle East Eye news website earlier reported that
Hadi was angry at Emirati forces for acting “like an occupation power” in
Yemen.
Despite
Riyadh's claims that it is bombing the positions of the Ansarullah fighters,
Saudi bombers are flattening residential areas and civilian infrastructures.
Weddings, funerals, schools and hospitals, as well as water and electricity
plants, have been targeted, killing and wounding hundreds of thousands.
According
to a December 2018 report by the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project
(ACLED), a nonprofit conflict-research organization, the Saudi-led war has
claimed the lives of over 60,000 Yemenis since January 2016.
Save
the Children, a charity, has reported that more than 84,700 children under the
age of five may have starved to death in Yemen since the Saudi regime and a
coalition of its allies launched the brutal war on the already-impoverished
nation.
France,
the United States, the United Kingdom and some other Western countries have
faced criticisms over arms sales to the Saudi Arabia and the UAE, whose
aggression against Yemen has affected 28 million people and caused what the
United Nations calls “one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world".
According to the world body, Yemen is suffering from the most severe famine in
more than 100 years.
A
UN panel has compiled a detailed report of civilian casualties caused by the
Saudi military and its allies during their war against Yemen, saying the
Riyadh-led coalition has used precision-guided munitions in its raids on
civilian targets.
https://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13980425000488
-------
India
Pro-Pak
and pro-Caliphate groups fight for Kashmir's 'jihadi' space
Jul
17, 2019
NEW
DELHI/SRINAGAR: In a ‘martyrs’ graveyard in Eidgah area of Downtown, two
tombstones—one that of Srinagar’s chief cleric Mirwaiz Mohammad Farooq and the
other of his assassin, Mohammad Abdullah Bangroo, stand out. The Mirwaiz was a
separatist seeking Kashmir’s ‘independence’ from India and Bangroo, a Hizbul
Mujahideen terrorist, fighting for Kashmir’s accession with Pakistan.
That
Bangroo was buried next to the Mirwaiz, almost a month after his assassination
in May 1990 and both designated as ‘martyrs’, not only captured the struggle
between pro-independence and pro-Pakistan forces at the very outset of the
violent conflict in Kashmir, but underlined the fact that the latter had won.
29
years later, a new strife to occupy the militant space in Kashmir is going on
now between the pro-Pakistan and the pro-Caliphate terror outfits. Last month,
an Islamic State of Jammu and Kashmir (ISJK) terrorist was killed by Hizbul
Mujahideen following which ISJK declared that Pakistan-backed terror groups in
Kashmir were “traitors” to the cause of Islamic jihad. Just two days ago,
al-Qaida’s global chief Ayman al-Zawahiri announced that ‘jihad’ in Kashmir was
for Caliphate and needed to be freed from the clutches of Pakistan’s ISI and
Army.
“In
the 90s, hundreds of Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (pro-azadi) militants
got killed by tip-off provided by Hizbul Mujahideen. Today, the affiliates of
ISIS and al-Qaida in Kashmir, ISJK or Wilayah-al-Hind and Ansar Ghazwat ul-Hind
(AGuH) are now vying for the same space which once was a turf war between
pro-azadi and pro-Pakistan groups,” a senior police officer who did not want to
be quoted told TOI.
This
new war began in 2014 when masked youth in Downtown first began waving
pro-Caliphate Islamic State flags. The trend had started soon after the ISIS
assumed prominence with its use of social media technology to run their
propaganda videos of seizing key cities in Iraq and Syria and executing people
gruesomely in public.
“That
the idea of Islamic State had captured the imagination of the militant youth in
Kashmir became evident when the commander of pro-Pakistan terror outfit Hizbul
Mujahideen, Burhan Wani, began using social media on the lines of the ISIS and
also declared that he was fighting for the establishment of Caliphate,” a
counter-insurgency official said.
Why
Wani chose to shift his goal from Pakistan to Caliphate wasn’t clear at the
time but when the floodgates of violence opened after his killing by the Indian
security forces in 2016, “it indicated that he represented popular sentiment
among the militant youth in Kashmir,” a political activist in Bijbehera told
TOI.
The
ideological shift, according to many police officers in Kashmir, had happened
way before Wani was killed. “That is why Wani’s successor Zakir Musa parted
ways with Hizbul Mujahideen and affiliated with al-Qaida and set up its
provincial branch, Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind in 2017,” a counter-insurgency expert
said.
This
coincided with black ISIS shrouds replacing Pakistani green flags which had
been used as cerements to wrap slain terrorists in their funerals. “At one
point, the tussle became so intense that the green shroud of a slain terrorist
was removed and replaced by the black, right at the funeral procession,”
another official said.
While
mainstream politicians in Kashmir at the time rubbished ISIS flag waving and
draping as “juvenile rage attempted at teasing India,” pro-independence
separatists and pro-Pakistan terror groups alleged that it was “all
stage-managed by Indian intelligence agencies to malign their movement.” The
entire separatist bandwagon even called Zakir Musa an Indian agent, an Army
officer said.
According
to Musa fans in Kashmir on social media, it was only after Indian security
forces killed Musa and al-Qaida released audio recordings of Musa’s phone
conversations with a Pakistani terrorist Abu Dujana, conspiracy theories about
his ideological commitment subsided. In his long discussion with Dujana, Musa
settled the ideological battle for all his supporters. “The fight in Kashmir is
for Islamic Caliphate and not Kashmiri nationalism or Pakistani nation. I will
prove it with my ‘shahadat’ (martyrdom),” Musa told Dujana.
A
section of Kashmir’s intellectual class believes that this shift from “freedom
for Kashmir to the movement for Pakistan and now to jihad for Caliphate had
been inevitable” for a very long time. “Militancy in Kashmir began with the
slogan of ‘Islam khatarey mein’ (Islam in danger) and the rhetoric about
separate Muslim identity, the genesis of which is the creation of Pakistan. The
pro-Pakistan terror groups and even Jamaat believes in Sharia and jihad for
Caliphate. They are just strategic about it,” a scholar of Islamic University
said.
However,
the security establishment in Kashmir believes the transformation is an outcome
of the tremendous challenge Pakistan is facing due to its own economic crisis
and the pressure from the global terror-funding watchdog, Financial Action Task
Force (FATF). “They have a resource crunch and they are being forced to shut down
some of their cross-border terror infrastructure. ISIS and al-Qaida, many
believe are defeated but they are not. They are alive and thriving by entering
newer domains and can activate themselves through their global network as and
when they need to,” a counter-terrorism analyst said.
A
section of counter-terror grid suspects that Pakistan has been strategically
holding back pro-Pakistan groups and making way for pan-Islamist terror groups
in Kashmir so as to project that it has taken effective steps to end
cross-border terror and has nothing to do with Kashmir’s home-grown jihadi
movement.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/pro-pak-and-pro-caliphate-groups-fight-for-kashmirs-jihadi-space/articleshow/70253176.cms
-------
14
Tamil Nadu Men Raised Funds To Set Up ISIS Cell In India: Sources
July
17, 2019
Fourteen
men from Tamil Nadu who were arrested by the National Investigation Agency
raised funds in Dubai to set up a cell of the terror group in ISIS in India,
sources in the probe agency said.
The
men allegedly support another terror group, Al-Qaeda, and have links with
Ansarullah, a terrorist group in Yemen, NIA sources said. They operate in
different names including Wahadat-e-Islam, Jamaath Wahadat-e-Islam Al Jihadiye
and Jihadist Islamic Unit.
The
UAE had kept them in jail for six months before deporting them to India last
week.
On
Monday, the probe agency flew the men to Chennai, where a court sent them to
custody till July 25.
Investigators
say the group, many of them management professionals, had made the UAE their
home. One of them had been staying in Dubai for 32 years.
"They
have knowingly raised funds to use for terror attacks. The ideology is to
establish ISIS in India by waging a war against the government of India,"
said NIA public prosecutor CS Pillai.
Following
their interrogation, the NIA arrested two men in Nagapattinam - Harish Muhammad
and Hassan Ali. Sources alleged Hassan Ali is an ISIS operative who has been
recruiting people to strike India.
He
also posted videos asking his supporters to launch strikes using vehicles as
weapons, or with explosives, poison and knives, sources said.
The
NIA has been cracking down on alleged ISIS groups for the last few months.
Full
report at:
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/14-isis-supporters-from-tamil-nadu-raised-funds-in-uae-says-national-investigation-agency-2070768
-------
Terror
detentions: A locked office and a neighbourhood left in the dark in Chennai
by
Arun Janardhanan
July
17, 2019
Last
Saturday, when they saw their apartment block on TV and a man being led away,
residents of Krishna Apartments on Poonamallee high road in Chennai were
bewildered. They had no clue to what was happening in their complex. Much
later, they found out that the man taken away, Syed Mohammed Bukhari, was being
questioned in an alleged terror case.
“On
Saturday, a few men in plainclothes, escorted by a police team, came at 5 am.
There was a search operation and it went on for several hours. Later, we learnt
that one of the men living in the house was being questioned as a terror
suspect. Who knows what the truth is,” a resident said.
Bukhari,
an office-bearer of the religious organisation Wahdat-e-Islami Hind, was
detained for questioning by the National Investigation Agency. The agency
arrested two others — Hassan Ali Yunusmaricar and Harish Mohammed, both from
Nagapattinam — “based on incriminating facts revealed during searches and
subsequent investigations”. They are already accused in a NIA case registered
on July 9 against Ansarulla, an alleged terror outfit.
On
Monday, two days after the search at Bukhari’s residence, 14 persons, deported
from the UAE and apprehended by the NIA for suspected association with the
arrested men, were flown from New Delhi to Chennai on a special flight.
The
men were produced before an NIA court which granted their custody to the
agency. Sources claimed that the men — they were said to be from Chennai,
Tirunelveli, Theni, Nagapattinam and Ramanathapuram — were members of
Wahdat-e-Islami Hind.
The
Wahdat-e-Islami Hind, on its part, has maintained it is a religious
organisation with no connection to radical thought. Established in 2009 in
Chennai as a religious organisation, it had denied links to the banned SIMI.
While
booking Bukhari’s associates, the NIA, in a statement, said they had been
charged under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act “based on credible
information received that the accused persons, while being within and beyond
India, had conspired and conducted consequent preparations to wage war against
the Government of India…”.
The
NIA claimed that it had “learnt that the accused persons and their associates
had collected funds and made preparations to carry out terrorist attacks in
India, with the intention of establishing Islamic rule in India”.
During
the searches Saturday, the NIA claimed to have seized nine mobile phones,15 SIM
cards, seven memory cards, three laptops, five hard disks, six pen drives, two
tablets and three CDs/DVDs besides documents, including magazines, banners,
notices, posters and books.
On
Tuesday, when The Indian Express visited the office of the Wahdat-e-Islami Hind
in George Town in Chennai, it was locked. On its door, on the second floor of
the building, was a poster of an event organised by Wahdat-e-Islami Hind
between November 22 and December 6 last year. The poster, with slogans in
Tamil, referred to the Babri Masjid.
“People
used to come to this office late in the evening and leave early morning. We
never had any conversation with them,” said a group of workers at a nearby
tailoring shop.
Officers
of the Tamil Nadu police declined to comment on the case, saying they have not
been kept in the loop.
The
NIA claimed that it had “learnt that the accused persons and their associates
had collected funds and made preparations to carry out terrorist attacks in
India, with the intention of establishing Islamic rule in India”.
During
the searches Saturday, the NIA claimed to have seized nine mobile phones,15 SIM
cards, seven memory cards, three laptops, five hard disks, six pen drives, two
tablets and three CDs/DVDs besides documents, including magazines, banners,
notices, posters and books.
On
Tuesday, when The Indian Express visited the office of the Wahdat-e-Islami Hind
in George Town in Chennai, it was locked. On its door, on the second floor of
the building, was a poster of an event organised by Wahdat-e-Islami Hind
between November 22 and December 6 last year. The poster, with slogans in
Tamil, referred to the Babri Masjid.
“People
used to come to this office late in the evening and leave early morning. We
never had any conversation with them,” said a group of workers at a nearby
tailoring shop.
Full
report at:
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/terror-detentions-a-locked-office-and-a-neighbourhood-left-in-the-dark-in-chennai-5833043/
-------
UAE-deported
men reveal IS plot in Tamil Nadu
Jul
17, 2019
CHENNAI:
A day after 14 Islamic radicals were deported from the United Arab Emirates,
their statements recorded by National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Tamil Nadu
police revealed a “meticulous plan to foment unrest” in Tamil Nadu using terror
modules/activities.
NIA
officials said one of the suspects, Hasan Ali, is an Islamic State (IS)
operative assigned to collect explosives, poison, vehicles and knives and also
get recruits. Ali and his associate Harish Mohammed were picked up from
Nagapattinam district. All 16 were produced before a special court at
Poonamalee on Tuesday and were remanded in judicial custody till July 25. An
official of the NIA said the suspects had formed several fronts, such as
Wahadat-e-Islami, Jamaat Wahadat-ui-Islam-al-Jihadiya, Jihadist Islamic Unit
and Ansarallah, to “spread terror” and “establish an Islamic State” in Tamil
Nadu.
The
officials, however, could not confirm whether they had any hand in the Easter
bombings in Sri Lanka, and if the arrested Nagapattinam duo received funds from
the 14 to fuel terror activities in Tamil Nadu. On Saturday, NIA officials
raided the house and office of Wahadat-e-Islami leader Syed Mohammed Bukhari in
Chennai, besides the houses of Hassan Ali and Harish Mohammed. They seized nine
mobiles, 15 SIM cards, seven memory cards, three laptops, five hard disks, six
pen drives, two tablets and three CDs/DVDs besides documents.
Full
report at:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/uae-deported-men-reveal-is-plot-in-tamil-nadu/articleshow/70253107.cms
-------
India
pitches to grill Dawood aide in London, Pak rushes to his defence
Jul
17, 2019
India
is hoping the UK will approve its request to interview Jabir Siddiq, aka
Motiwala, considered one of Dawood Ibrahim’s closest aides, because it believes
this will help get some insights into the drugs and extortion operations the
main accused in the 1993 Mumbai terror attacks still runs in the country, and
perhaps even provide some proof of the fugitive’s presence in Pakistan.
According
to Jabir’s dossier with Indian security agencies, which has been reviewed by
Hindustan Times, he is the only one of Dawood’s associates who is a trustee in
the Karachi-based Islam Baba Trust, where Ibrahim, his wife, his son and two
sons-in-law are trustees. This trust is described by the Indian national
security establishment as a religious front to manage properties of the
D-company.
India
is also working with US enforcement agencies to get access to Siddiq – he is currently
in Wandsworth jail in south-west London, awaiting extradition to the US on
charges of drug smuggling, extortion, blackmail and money laundering dating
back to a 2011-12 Federal Bureau of Investigation operation. His case comes up
for hearing on July 22. It is believed that Siddiq may be able to provide the
first real evidence of Ibrahim’s involvement in the trade of drugs originating
from Afghanistan. Siddiq, 53, a Pakistani national, is believed to be one of
Ibrahim’s most trusted men, and someone who has full knowledge of the latter’s
finances, investments, and the shell companies through which the so-called
D-company (as Ibrahim’s operation is called) operates around the world.
Siddiq
was arrested by Scotland Yard on August 17, 2018 at the behest of US
enforcement agencies. According to counterterror operatives based in New Delhi
and Washington, he has been entrusted with the financial affairs and
investments of the D-company in Pakistan, West Asia and countries across Asia,
Africa and Europe. His proximity to Ibrahim is evident from the fact that he
owns properties adjacent to his palatial bungalow in D-block of Defence Housing
Authority in Clifton, Karachi. According to the Indian security dossier, he is
very close to Ibrahim’s family, including the latter’s wife, son and two
sons-in-law. Islamabad has repeatedly denied that it has knowledge of Ibrahim’s
location.
The
real worries for Islamabad are the likely disclosure of Ibrahim’s presence in
Karachi, details of his activities and, most importantly, his strong links with
the Pakistani spy agency ISI. These prompted the Pakistan High Commision in
London’s direct intervention in the case at the first day of hearing. Although
the counsel representing the US prosecution team (through UK’s Crown Prosecution
Service) told the UK court that Siddiq was a top henchman of Ibrahim, the
defence produced a letter from the Pakistan High Commission stating that the
drug smuggler is, in fact, a well-known and respectable businessman (a stock
broker) with a Pakistani passport, and only that. Siddiq’s lawyers have now
opposed his extradition to US citing that he is not mentally stable and has
been suffering from depression since 2008.
The
real reason of the High Commission’s intervention may have been to hide Siddiq’s
links with Ibrahim, people familiar with the matter said. That may be
difficult, they added, because the Ibrahim link is in-built in the FBI
undercover operation, and even the drug deal for which he was arrested involves
discussions about the deal being on behalf of Ibrahim, who is on top of India’s
list of most wanted. They add that there is also strong evidence of at least
$1.2 million being laundered too.
Ironically,
Jabir Siddiq holds various important positions at companies such as M/s MAC
Securities (Pvt) Ltd, Karachi and M/s Zaffar Moti Capital Securities (Pvt) Ltd,
Karachi as director, and M/s Siddiqui Moti Capital Securities and SM Securities
(Pvt) Ltd as chief executive officer. He became CEO of SM Securities in 2013.
It
is understood that the US authorities sent a new note to the UK court last
year, alleging that Siddiq was involved in setting up a sale of 4kg of Class A
drugs in the US. The D-company has been involved in large-scale shipments of
narcotics in the past – prompting the US to include the syndicate and Dawood
Ibrahim individually in the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act in
January 2006. The other two top D-company operatives under this Act are Chhota
Shakeel and Ibrahim Abdul Razaaq Memon aka Tiger Memon, the principal instigator
of the 1993 Mumbai blasts in which 257 people died.
Siddiq,
whose is married for the third time to a Pakistan International Airlines cabin
crew member, has two sons and two daughters. Before he was arrested, Siddiq was
trying to acquire the citizenship of known tax havens of Antigua, Dominican
Republic, St Kitts , Nevis, and even permanent residency in Hungary for his
family, according to Indian security agencies.
During
the court proceedings, the prosecution argued that Siddiq was a senior member
of the D-company, terming this an organised crime syndicate with links to
terrorism, and engaged in arms and narcotics trafficking and money laundering.
Siddiq’s
lawyer Edward Fitzgerald was not immediately available for comment, but he used
the CPS-US claim of Siddiq’s link to Ibrahim to build his case that, if
extradited, his client would be subjected to “special administrative measures”
(SAMs) in a correctional centre in New York, which means a risk to his human
rights under Article 3 of the Human Rights Act of the UK. (Courts in the UK are
bound to refuse extradition if there is a risk of human rights being violated).
He has also claimed that Motiwala suffers from depression and has suicidal
tendencies, while arguing against his extradition.
Full
report at:
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/india-makes-pitch-to-grill-dawood-ibrahim-aide/story-LSqmRiXV2jINUmDAuri2EP.html
-------
J&K
separatists reject colonies for return of Pandits
Jul
17, 2019
Mir
Ehsan
Kashmiri
separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani on Tuesday rejected the idea of creating
separate colonies for the return of displaced Kashmiri Pandits.
In
an interview to HT on Sunday, Jammu and Kashmir governor Satya Pal Malik justified
the concept of building separate townships for the Pandits saying locations for
such boroughs had been identified and work was underway to develop them.
In
a statement, Geelani said they wholeheartedly and sincerely want the Pandits to
return. “But will oppose any move to settle them in separate colonies as it
negates the very fabric of our social, cultural and mutual bonds.” The
statement said they welcome with open arms anybody displaced from the state
since 1947.
Full
report at:
https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/j-k-separatists-reject-colonies-for-return-of-pandits/story-J7vICgi1eaQSqkWwBhWLyL.html
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Helpline
Against Hate to report mob violence launched
July
16, 2019
New
Delhi: A toll-free number
1800-3133-600-00, named Helpline Against Hate, was launched by United Against
Hate, a collective of eminent citizens campaigning for social justice and
peace, here on Monday.
The
number will be available to help victims of hate crime in as many as 100
cities. The helpline was launched in the backdrop of rising instances of hate
crime and mob lynching, being reported from various parts of the country.
The
launch event was attended by eminent lawyer Sanjay Hegde, senior journalist
Urmilesh, Kafeel Khan of BRD Medical College in Gorakhpur, who was suspended
after the encephalitis deaths, and Professor Apoorvanand of Delhi University,
among others.
“It’s
time to identify, define and deliberate on hate crime as is being done in many
European countries. It was necessary to launch the helpline because minorities
are being attacked just because of their identities. Cops refuse to take
cognizance of hate crimes,” said Apoorvanand.
Full
report at:
https://www.siasat.com/news/helpline-against-hate-report-mob-violence-launched-1549950/
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Pakistan
US
welcomes increased 'people-to-people ties' between Pakistan, India through
Kartarpur
July
17, 2019
The
US State Department on Tuesday said that it was "incredibly
supportive" of anything that increases "people-to-people ties between
India and Pakistan".
During
a press briefing, State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus was asked to
comment on the Kartarpur Corridor: "Yeah, that was certainly a good news
report, wasn’t it? We encourage it," she said.
"Anything
that increases people-to-people ties between India and Pakistan is something
that we’re incredibly supportive of," she added.
Ortagus'
comments follow the latest talks between the two sides — which took place on
July 14 — on the opening of the Kartarpur corridor for Sikh pilgrims. Pakistan
claimed to have made headway on "80 per cent and beyond" issues in
the much-delayed second round of talks.
The
talks were held at the Wagah border where a 13-member Pakistan team was led by
Saarc and South Asia desk Director General and Foreign Office (FO) spokesperson
Dr Mohammad Faisal, while an eight-member Indian team was headed by interior
joint secretary S.C.L. Das.
The
corridor, a peace initiative of the Pakistani government, is being constructed
to commemorate the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak. The corridor will
provide Indian Sikhs visa-free access to Gurdwara Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur in
Pakistan.
To
work out modalities for the opening of Kartarpur opening, a Pakistani
delegation on March 14 visited Attari where a meeting was held with Indian
officials. While the next round of talks was scheduled for April 2 at Wagah,
India pulled out of it over reservations that pro-Khalistan activists such as
Gopal Chawla and Bisan Singh had been included in Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara
Prabandhak Committee — a body that works for facilitating Sikh pilgrims.
The
Indian Ministry for External Affairs on that occasion had stated: "The
next meeting on the modalities can be scheduled at an appropriate time after
receiving Pakistan’s response." Pakistan’s FO had then regretted the
Indian decision to cancel the meeting.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1494601/us-welcomes-increased-people-to-people-ties-between-pakistan-india-through-kartarpur
-------
Pakistani
journalists hold protests to denounce censorship
Jul
16, 2019
KARACHI:
Pakistani journalists held nationwide protests Tuesday to denounce rampant
censorship by the country's powerful security services, massive layoffs due to
budget cuts and months-long delays in payments of their wages.
The
rallies, dubbed Day of Protests, were spearheaded by the Pakistan Federal Union
of Journalists, which said that journalists, who face the roughest phase in the
country's history, have decided to "fight the unprecedented
censorship."
Tuesday
was only the "beginning of a protest movement," said Afzal Butt,
union president.
Journalists
and press freedom advocates say that the Pakistani military is pressuring media
outlets to quash critical coverage while the newly elected government is slashing
its advertising budget, squeezing a key source of revenue for private
newspapers and TV stations.
In
the last few months, hundreds of journalists have been laid off as media houses
came under financial constraints after government advertising was drastically
reduced.
At
the rallies Tuesday, journalist wore black bands and held banners demanding an
end to censorship, economic woes for those working in the media and abuse of
media laws to curb free expression.
Authorities
control "even minute details of the media content these days, and dictate
who will be the face of print and electronic media," Butt said.
There
was no immediate comment from the government.
Zafar
Abbas, editor of the leading Dawn daily which has faced increasing pressures,
said Pakistani journalists have seen severe restrictions in the past, including
shutting down of newspapers, imprisonment of journalists and direct censorship.
"But
what we are witnessing today in the form of pressures from the state
institutions ... news blackouts and self-censorship, is far worse," Abbas
said.
Cyril
Almeida, a prominent journalist associated with Dawn, was charged with treason
after he published an interview with Nawaz Sharif in which the former prime
minister accused the Pakistani military of aiding the militants who carried out
the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Full
report at:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/pakistani-journalists-hold-protests-to-denounce-censorship/articleshow/70246128.cms
-------
Opposition
to hold public meeting in Karachi on 25th
July
17, 2019
KARACHI:
The opposition political parties have jointly decided to hold a public meeting
in Karachi near the mausoleum of Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah on 25th July,
2019 to observe a black day on the first anniversary of the 2018 general
elections, which according to them, was heavily rigged.
The
decision to this effect was announced by General Secretary of Pakistan Peoples
Party Sindh chapter Waqar Mehdi while addressing a press conference here at the
media cell of PPP on Tuesday. It was held after the local leaders of the
opposition parties held a meeting at Bilawal House. The meeting was attended by
the local and provincial leaders of PPP, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), Jamiat
Ulema-e-Islam (F), Awami National Party, National Party, Jamiat
Ulema-e-Pakistan, Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party. It decided to constitute an
organizing committee for the 25th July public meeting comprising
representatives of all the opposition parties. The meeting would be addressed
by the central leaders of the opposition parties.
Full
report at:
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/499451-opposition-to-hold-public-meeting-in-karachi-on-25th
-------
Opposition
stresses parliament’s role in Reko Diq fiasco inquiry
Amir
Wasim
July
17, 2019
ISLAMABAD:
The two main opposition parties — Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Pakistan
Peoples Party — have sought parliament’s role in investigations to be carried
out by a government-proposed commission on the Reko Diq issue, saying a similar
probe be conducted in other such projects affected by court decisions causing
huge losses to the country.
The
demand made by opposition members during the one-day requisitioned session of
the National Assembly here on Tuesday, however, did not receive any attention
of Speaker Asad Qaiser or members of the government, who as usual in their
speeches consumed most of the time in criticising the leadership of the two
opposition parties for their alleged involvement in corruption and money
laundering.
The
session was requisitioned by the PML-N members on July 2 “to discuss the
post-budget situation” in the country and the arrest of party’s Punjab
president and MNA Rana Sanaullah, but most of the senior party members,
including Opposition Leader Shahbaz Sharif, did not attend the sitting.
Before
the start of the session, both the treasury and the opposition members had
reached an understanding that the sitting would only continue for two hours and
then the regular session of the house will begin from July 29
The
demand for the parliament’s role in the probe into the Reko Diq case was made
by former prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, who also recalled as to how during
the hearing of the case in the Supreme Court he had pleaded before the then
chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry for more than an hour, telling him that it was
an international issue and any decision could have adverse effects on the
country.
Expressing
concern over the decision of the International Centre for Settlement of
Investment Disputes tribunal to slap $5.97 billion award against Pakistan in
the Reko Diq case, Mr Ashraf held the then chief justice entirely responsible
for this loss, alleging that Mr Chaudhry had issued the verdict only due to his
“personal ego”.
Mr
Ashraf said the terms of reference (ToR) of the proposed commission announced
by Prime Minister Imran Khan on the Reko Diq case issue should be finalised and
approved by the parliament after a thorough discussion.
He
said that even a joint sitting of the parliament could also be convened to
discuss this important matter. He said no politician was responsible for this
fiasco and the people should also know that only politicians should not be
blamed for every bad thing happening in the country.
When
Mr Ashraf called for only the parliament’s oversight, parliamentary leader of
the PML-N Khawaja Asif asked Speaker Asad Qaiser to form a special committee of
the house to discuss and investigate not only the Reko Diq case, but other
cases such as Karaoke, Broadsheet and Pakistan Steel Mills’ privatisation which
caused huge losses to the country.
Mr
Asif said Pakistan had to suffer $850m to $900m loss due to the Karaoke ship
dispute. Similarly, he said, the country had recently been imposed fines of
trillions of rupees in the Broadsheet and Reko Diq cases. He warned that
decisions on more such cases could be announced against Pakistan in near
future.
The
PML-N MNA from Sialkot said the parliamentary committee should investigate all
those people who were in governments at the time of these decisions, saying
that the PML-N leaders were ready to appear before it.
He
accused the government of pursuing a “vendetta” against opposition leaders and
called for even-handed accountability. Referring to the removal of
accountability court judge Arshad Malik over a video scandal, the PML-N member
regretted that “while the judge has been sent back, Nawaz Sharif is still in
jail”.
The
PML-N’s parliamentary leader also lashed out at the government for implicating
the party MNA from Faisalabad Rana Sanaullah in what he called a false
narcotics case. He regretted that when the opposition talked about cooperation,
the government members said the opposition wanted a deal. He said the
opposition did not want any deal and would “fight this battle till the end”. He
said the opposition members had faced jails in the past and they were still
ready to face it.
Taking
the floor, Minister of State for Anti-Narcotics Shehryar Afridi claimed that
the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) had “complete evidence” to prove charges
against Rana Sanaullah, who was caught “red handed” while carrying narcotics
in his car after three weeks of surveillance. He said the evidence, including
video footage, would be produced in the court.
Full
report at:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1494535/opposition-stresses-parliaments-role-in-reko-diq-fiasco-inquiry
-------
Committee
to Protect Journalists honours Editor Dawn Zaffar Abbas with press freedom
award
July
16, 2019
Editor
Dawn Zaffar Abbas has been awarded the 2019 Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award by
the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) for "extraordinary and
sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom", the body announced
on Tuesday.
CPJ's
Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award, previously known as the Burton Benjami Memorial
Award, was renamed in 2017 to honour a veteran journalist and former board
member who died in 2016.
"The
award is presented annually to an individual who has shown extraordinary and
sustained achievement in the cause of press freedom," notes the CPJ
website.
Notable
past recipients of the award include Alan Rusbridger, former editor-in-chief of
The Guardian who was awarded in 2012, The Associated Press's Kathy Gannon who
was the recipient in 2015, and CNN's Christiane Amanpour who received it in
2016.
In
a statement released by the CPJ to announce the award, it observed that at a
time when journalists and media in Pakistan were facing extraordinary pressure,
Abbas continued to be a vocal supporter of steps taken to keep journalists
safe. He was elected as the chairman of Editors for Safety in 2015, a body of
editors who work to provide protection to journalists who faced threats.
"Zaffar
Abbas is the embodiment of journalistic courage, which is why the board is so
pleased to honour him with the Gwen Ifill Press Freedom Award," said
Kathleen Carroll, chair of the CPJ board.
"Every
day he fights to deliver facts to Dawn's readers in the face of pressure,
obstacles, and blockades from the institutions in Pakistan that would much
prefer to go about their business without scrutiny from the press or the
public."
Abbas,
who was named Dawn's editor in 2010, started his journalism career in 1981 as a
junior reporter for The Star, a Karachi-based newspaper.
He
started working with the Herald magazine in 1988 as an investigative journalist
and later joined the BBC as the network's Pakistan correspondent in 1992. He
joined Dawn in 2006 and covered the insurgency and civil war in Afghanistan
during the Soviet occupation, post-9/11 events and their impact on the region
which included the rise of religious extremism.
Abbas
has been subjected to intimidation and physical torture more than once in his
journalism career. He and his brother were attacked at their house by armed men
in 1991 when he reported on the activities of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement. A
few years later, when he was working at the BBC, the network's office in
Islamabad was set on fire by militants and Abbas and his colleague were
physically assaulted. The violence was said to be a reaction to two videos
broadcast on the BBC regarding sectarian killings in the country.
In
recent years, Dawn has come under increasing pressure and its circulation has
been disrupted in several cities on multiple occasions after the paper
published an exclusive report in 2016 pertaining to relations between the civil
and military leadership. The CPJ statement, quoting Abbas, said that he and the
reporter of the news story were subjected to hours of interrogation by members
of intelligence agencies but refused to reveal their sources.
"Even
discussing politics or serious conflicts can be a red line," the CPJ
quoted Abbas as saying.
International
Press Freedom Awards
The
committee will also honour journalists from Brazil, India, Nicaragua, and
Tanzania with the 2019 International Press Freedom Awards "amid the
erosion of press freedom in democracies around the globe", the body's
press release stated. A brief background on the journalists is given below:
Patrícia
Campos Mello, a reporter and columnist at Brazil's daily Folha de S. Paulo.
During the Brazilian presidential election campaign in 2018, Campos Mello was
attacked online and doxxed in response to her coverage of supporters of then
presidential-candidate Jair Bolsonaro allegedly sponsoring bulk messaging in
WhatsApp.
Neha
Dixit, a freelance investigative journalist in India who covers human rights.
She has faced legal and physical threats, as well as online harassment, after
reporting on alleged wrongdoing by right-wing nationalist groups and police.
Lucía
Pineda Ubau, news director, and Miguel Mora, founder and editor, of Nicaraguan
broadcaster 100% Noticias. The pair was imprisoned in December 2018 in relation
to their coverage of political unrest. They were freed on June 11 after six
months behind bars, under surveillance and in isolation most of the time.
Maxence
Melo Mubyazi, champion of online freedom of expression in Tanzania, who
co-founded and is the managing director of Jamii Forums, an online discussion
site and source of breaking news. Melo has been charged under the country's
restrictive CyberCrimes Act and, in 2017, appeared in court 81 times.
Editor’s
note:
Full
report at:
https://www.dawn.com/news/1494429/committee-to-protect-journalists-honours-editor-dawn-zaffar-abbas-with-press-freedom-award
-------
Punjab
govt asks SC to cancel Rizvi’s bail
Jul
17, 2019
The
Punjab government has moved the Supreme Court against a Lahore High Court (LHC)
that allowed Tehreek-e-Labbaik chief Khadim Rizvi to be released on bail,
saying the high court “did not fulfill legal requirements” in its decision to
grant bail to the fiery cleric.
Rizvi
was booked in the aftermath of violent protests against the acquittal of Aasia
Bibi last year. The petition said that there was enough evidence against the
TLP chief and urged the top court to nullify the high court’s verdict.
In
November 2018, Rizvi was taken into “protective custody” by police in Lahore
after the law enforcement agencies launched a crackdown on TLP workers amid
their call to observe martyrs day on November 25.
Rizvi
had reportedly asked workers and supporters to gather at Islamabad’s Faizabad —
the same venue where the party had staged a weeks-long sit-in in November 2017
that had virtually paralysed the federal capital and led to several people
losing their lives.
Rizvi’s
arrest also came weeks after the TLP led three-day protests across the country
against the acquittal of Aasia Bibi — a Christian woman whose blasphemy
conviction was overturned by the apex court.
In
November 2017, TLP workers demanding the resignation of then law minister Zahid
Hamid had staged a weeks-long sit-in at the Faizabad interchange that had
disrupted daily life in the federal capital and led to several deaths. The apex
court had taken notice of the sit-in and directed the defence and interior
secretaries to submit a detailed report on the matter.
Days
later, the then PML-N government had launched against the protesters an
operation which, when failed, had forced the authorities to cave and Hamid to
resign.
Full
report at:
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2019/07/16/punjab-govt-asks-sc-to-cancel-rizvis-bail/
-------
LHC’s
decision to grant bail to Khadim Rizvi challenged
JULY
17, 2019
The
Punjab government on Tuesday challenged in the Supreme Court a Lahore High
Court (LHC) decision to grant bail to Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) chief
Khadim Hussain Rizvi, who was booked for launching violent protests against the
acquittal of Aasia Bibi last year.
The
provincial government, in its appeal, had argued that the high court “did not
fulfil legal requirements” in its decision to grant bail, which was made in May
this year.
The
petition said that there was enough evidence against the TLP chief and urged
the top court to nullify the high court’s verdict.
The
appeal was submitted in the Supreme Court Registrar’s Office and will be heard
in the Lahore Registry by a two-member bench headed by Justice Manzoor Ahmed
Malik on July 18.
Full
report at:
https://dailytimes.com.pk/431604/lhcs-decision-to-grant-bail-to-khadim-rizvi-challenged/
-------
Governor
announces more land for Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur
Hassaan
Ahmed
JULY
17, 2019
Punjab
Governor Chaudhry Muhammad Sarwar on Tuesday announced to increase the land for
Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur from three acres to 42 acres, while further
announcing not to do any kind of commercial construction on the land which
remained under cultivation of Baba Guru Nanak during his last days spent in
Kartarpur.
He
made these announcements while briefing the media during his visit to the
Kartarpur Corridor on Tuesday. He was of the view that total land for Kartarpur
Corridor would be 408 acres after its completion. Sarwar inspected the pace of
development work on Gurdwara Darbar Sahib and Kartarpur Corridor for more than
an hour and lauded the performance of FWO and other departments working on the
site. “We also want Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to participate in the
inaugural ceremony of the Kartarpur Corridor,” he said. “The FWO and other
departments have completed the work on the corridor in months which otherwise
would have taken years to complete,” he maintained. He said that Pakistan would
complete work on the corridor in its territory during the month of October this
year before the 550th birthday celebrations of Baba Guru Nanak.
He
was of the view that 5,000 Sikh pilgrims having valid visas would also be able
to stay in Kartarpur. He made it clear that the Sikh pilgrims coming from India
would have to return from Kartarpur in the given time. The governor said that
80 percent work on the Kartarpur Corridor had been completed as per vision of
Prime Minister Imran Khan. He said that it was a good omen that the second
round of talks between Pakistan and India on the Kartarpur Corridor remained
successful. He hoped that India would also complete development work on
Kartarpur Corridor on its side within the given timeframe. He said three acres
of land was allocated under the Kartarpur Corridor project for Gurdwara Darbar
Sahib Kartarpur but “we have decided to increase it”. “We want to give a
message to the Sikhs residing all over the world that no cut will be made in
land for Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur and Baba Guru Nanak,” he said, adding
that 42 acres of land had also been allocated for Gurdwara Darbar Sahib and 62
acres for cultivation. In this way, the total land for Gurdwara Darbar Sahib
would be 104 acres, he added.
Sarwar
further said that special transport would be provided from the checkpoint to
Darbar Sahib to those Sikh pilgrims coming from India. “Work is underway at
three lungar khanas at Darbar Sahib where the Sikh pilgrims will be provided
quality meal and other facilities,” he said. The governor further said that the
Sikh pilgrims coming from the UK, USA and other countries on valid visas would
be granted permission to stay here and residences were being built for them. He
said 5,000 Sikh pilgrims would be able to stay in at the residences at a time.
To
a question, he said that the Religious Tourism and Heritage Committee headed by
him was making efforts for promotion of tourism in country as per the vision of
Imran Khan. Four federal ministers, including federal minister for religious
affairs, three provincial ministers and officers of relevant departments were
also part of the committee, he added. “God willing, we will generate $4 billion
to $5 billion through religious tourism as Pakistan has huge potential for the religious
tourism,” the governor said.
The
initiative on Kartarpur Corridor was taken last year by Pakistan in November at
the 549th birthday of Baba Guru Nanak and both the countries have held two
rounds of talks on the corridor since then. The governor was informed that 72
booths of immigration would be established in Pakistan for the facilitation of
Sikh pilgrims at Kartarpur.
Full
report at:
https://dailytimes.com.pk/431489/governor-announces-more-land-for-gurdwara-darbar-sahib-kartarpur/
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North America
Democratic
Congresswomen respond to Trump over tweets
Servet
Gunerigok
16.07.2019
WASHINGTON
Democratic
Reps. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, Rashida Tlaib
of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York lashed out at President
Donald Trump on Monday over his remarks targeting them.
The
freshmen lawmakers held a news conference at the Capitol hours after Trump
defended his tweets singling out the congresswomen of color, falsely claiming
"these are people who hate our country".
Trump
issued the controversial tweets Sunday against "'Progressive' Democrat
Congresswomen" whom he did not name, saying they should go back to
"the totally broken and crime infested" countries they came from.
"I
encourage the American people and all of us in this room and beyond to not take
the bait," Pressley said. "This is a disruptive distraction from the
issues of care, concern and consequence to the American people."
Trump's
remarks have been condemned as racist and xenophobic.
"This
is the agenda of white nationalists," said Omar, and the remarks were
Trump’s "blatantly racist attack".
"And
so for him to condemn us and to say we are un-American for wanting to work hard
to make this country be the country we all deserve to live in, it’s complete
hypocrisy," she said.
The
group of progressive lawmakers is collectively known as "the squad,"
and all of them were born in the U.S. except Omar, who is a naturalized
citizen.
"We
all know the tweets and words from the president are simply a continuation of
his racist and xenophobic playbook," Tlaib, for her part, said. "We
cannot allow these hateful actions to distract us from the critical work to
hold this administration accountable."
Omar
stirred controversy with a series of comments critical of Israel's lobbying
efforts in Congress, and Tlaib used an expletive to describe the president when
addressing supporters.
Trump
posted messages on Twitter while the conference was underway.
"We
will never be a Socialist or Communist Country. IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY HERE, YOU
CAN LEAVE! It is your choice, and your choice alone. This is about love for
America. Certain people HATE our Country," he tweeted.
House
Democrats could vote Tuesday on a resolution to condemn Trump's tweets
sponsored by Rep. Tom Malinowski of New Jersey.
In
a letter, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi accused Trump of "going beyond his
own low standards using disgraceful language about Members of Congress".
"The
House cannot allow the president’s characterization of immigrants to our
country to stand," Pelosi wrote.
"We'll
stay focused on our agenda and we won't get caught slipping,"
Ocasio-Cortez said. "Because all of this is a distraction. It is a
distraction from what is most important and from our core values as American
citizens."
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/americas/democratic-congresswomen-respond-to-trump-over-tweets/1532683
--------
Anti-Defamation
League Head Blasts Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Over Online Extremism
By
Jeff John Roberts
17
July 2019
July
15, 2019The head of a leading anti-hate group says Facebook's CEO failed a
critical test in removing toxic speech from its service.
Mark
Zuckerberg's recent justification for not removing a doctored video depicting
the House Speaker Nancy Pelosi amounted to an ethical failure, said Jonathan
Greenblat, who leads the Anti-Defamation League.
"He
refused to offer the kind of answer responsible people would expect ... It's
ugly and it's got to change," Greenblatt said at Fortune's Brainstorm Tech
conference in Aspen, Colo. on Monday.
Zuckerberg
defended the decision against removing the video, which falsely depicted Pelosi
slurring her speech, by saying Facebook shouldn't censor everything that is
false. However, he added that the company should have done more to stop the
video going viral.
Joining
a growing list of critics, Greenblatt also blasted Facebook, along with Google
and Twitter, for failing to confront a rising tide of white supremacy, which he
described as a "scourge" sustained by social media.
While
extremism and hate are age-old problems, Greenblatt says social media has given
rise to new and dangerous strains by allowing disturbed individuals to find
each other in online communities like 4Chan. He added that people engage in
behavior on these platforms that would never be tolerated in most other places
online.
"If
you go to Shake Shack and yell "Die dirty Jew," they will throw you
out," Greenblatt said, asking why tech platforms like Facebook don't
operate their businesses in the same fashion. "It shelters the sociopaths
and encourages the kind of intolerance we'd never tolerate in the real
world."
Greenblatt
also offered a series of practical suggestions for tech companies to combat the
spread of toxic behavior. Notably, he suggested that the firms reset their
algorithms to screen for hate, and "slow it down" so that what people
upload doesn't always appear instantly. Greenblatt also called for eliminating
or at least labeling social media bots, and also demanded that companies stop
making a profit from hate speech through their advertising.
Full
report at:
https://fortune.com/2019/07/15/anti-defamation-league-facebook-ceo-mark-zuckerberg/
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Judge
recommends $14M award to neo-Nazi trolling victim
By
MATT VOLZ
17
July 2019
HELENA,
Mont. (AP) — The publisher of a neo-Nazi website should have to pay the victim
of an internet trolling campaign over $14 million and remove all posts that
encouraged his readers to contact the Montana real estate agent, a magistrate
judge recommended on Monday.
U.S.
Magistrate Judge Jeremiah Lynch called The Daily Stormer publisher Andrew
Anglin’s behavior reprehensible and atrocious in telling his internet followers
to unleash a “troll storm” on Tanya Gersh, her husband and her 12-year-old son
in 2016.
The
magistrate judge doesn’t have the final word in the case. His findings and
recommendations must be approved by U.S. District Judge Dana Christensen to
take effect.
Gersh,
whom Anglin accused of trying to run white nationalist Richard Spencer’s mother
out of the mountain resort community of Whitefish, said her family received
hundreds of threatening, harassing and anti-Semitic messages. She sued Anglin,
who argued unsuccessfully through his attorneys that his writings were
protected by the First Amendment.
Anglin,
who lives outside the U.S., was found in default when he didn’t show up for a
deposition scheduled in April. His attorneys withdrew from the case when he
failed to appear.
Lynch
said that Gersh deserves $10 million in punitive damages, the maximum amount in
punitive damages allowed under Montana law, because of the “particularly
egregious and reprehensible nature of Anglin’s conduct.” He also said she
should be awarded $4 million more for lost earnings and pain and suffering.
Plus,
the court should issue a permanent injunction ordering Anglin to remove the
posts and photos because “the atrocious conduct directed at Gersh and her
family has not entirely abated,” Lynch wrote.
Even
if Christensen approves Lynch’s recommendations, it’s questionable whether
Gersh will see a dime if Anglin remains outside the reach of U.S. authorities.
But
that’s not the point, said her attorney, David Dinielli of the Southern Poverty
Law Center.
“The
significance is not in whether we will collect the money,” Dinielli said in an
emailed statement to The Associated Press. “The significance is that Tanya
Gersh, a real estate agent from a small town in Montana, stood up to fight the
most notorious neo-Nazi on the web, and she won.”
Gersh
said in a statement that Lynch’s recommendation is a clear message to
extremists that nobody should be terrorized for simply being who they are.
“This
lawsuit has always been about stopping others from enduring the terror I
continue to live through at the hands of a neo-Nazi and his followers, and I
wanted to make sure that this never happens to anyone else,” she said.
Anglin
did not immediately return an email seeking comment.
He
faces default judgments in at least three other federal cases, including
lawsuits filed by two other alleged targets of his online trolling campaigns.
Full
report at:
https://apnews.com/79f34a1339ab44ed98b0a7a800a2b4d9?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=APWestRegion&utm_campaign=SocialFlow
-------
Terror
leader Hambali finally to face US justice
ByJOHN
MCBETH
17
July 2019
Legal
teams are interviewing witnesses across the region in preparation for the
long-awaited trial of Indonesian terrorist leader Riduan Isanuddin, who has
been incarcerated at the United States-run Guantanamo Bay detention facility
for 13 years.
Isanuddin,
55, better known as Hambali, was captured by American and Thai intelligence
agents in Thailand’s ancient riverside capital of Ayutthaya in August 2003, 10
months after the devastating Bali bombing which he stands accused of funding.
Ironically,
the alleged mastermind of the attack will apparently finally go on trial more
than a decade after Indonesia and its often criticized judicial system
prosecuted the last of the Bali bomb perpetrators, along with 250 other
militants linked with the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah regional terror
network.
Two
US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and two military prosecutors
were in Jakarta late last year to gather evidence, and a defense team visited
Kuala Lumpur in late June for the same purpose. It is understood some witnesses
will be flown to Guantanamo Bay to give testimony in the trial.
But
that’s still some months away as US military and civilian judicial authorities
continue to wrangle over the nature of the charges to be brought against
Isanuddin and his Malaysian associates, Bashir Lap, 43, and Mohammad Farik bin
Amin, 44.
In
June 2017, a US military court charged Isanuddin alone with the murder of 202
people, 159 of them foreign tourists, who died in the twin nightclub blasts in
Bali in 2002. He was also accused of playing a role in the killing of 11 in the
2003 suicide bombing of Jakarta’s JW Marriott Hotel.
Seven
Americans were among those killed in Bali, along with 88 Australians, 38
Indonesians, 23 Britons and nationals from 19 other countries in the worst
terrorist outrage since the September 11, 2001 attacks rocked the US.
Over
the subsequent two years, the military court’s civilian oversight authority has
twice returned the case because of procedural issues, which have never been
made clear.
Last
April, Pentagon prosecutors refiled the charges, this time including the crime
of conspiracy, in addition to the previous counts of murder, terrorism,
attempted murder, intentionally causing serious bodily harm and destruction of
property as a war crime.
The
Pentagon’s Court of Military Commission Review recently declined to rule on
whether conspiracy is a lawful war crime, but it still left intact the 2008
conspiracy conviction of Al Hamza a-Bahlul, the sole Guantanamo inmate to be
tried so far.
The
49-year-old Yemeni is serving a life sentence for making a recruiting video for
al Qaeda and other activities as Osama bin Laden’s media adviser, including
setting up a satellite receiver so bin Laden could listen to live radio
coverage of the 9/11 attacks.
When
a trial for Isanuddin is finally approved, it will be followed by an
arraignment before a military commission and then pretrial legal motions. But
following proceedings from Indonesia is difficult because the commission’s
website is blocked to selected overseas locations for unknown reasons.
New
York-based Human Rights Watch contends that the military commissions do not
meet international fair-trial standards and should be disbanded, leaving the
cases to be adjudicated in US federal courts.
“They
(the commissions) are, among other things, mired in excessive secrecy, fail to
adequately protect attorney-client privileged communications, and permit the
introduction of coerced information,” the organization said in a 2018 update.
Isanuddin’s
lawyer, Major James Valentine, told the New York Times recently it would be “a
really big stretch” to implicate his client in the Bali plot, noting that a
star witness at the trial of the three men later executed for their role in the
crime had never mentioned him.
The
Pentagon has said it will not seek the death penalty as prosecutors deal with
claims that Isanuddin was tortured during the 1,280 days he spent in US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) custody, mostly at the al-Jafr prison in the desert
of southeast Jordan.
Details
of his mistreatment there were described in the US Senate Select Committee’s
2014 report into the agency’s worldwide rendition program, whose first victim,
Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, was secretly whisked out of Jakarta in early 2002.
Madni,
41, was rendered to a similar black site in Egypt and then to Afghanistan’s
Bagram airbase before being flown to Guantanamo, where he was held without
charge until his repatriation to Pakistan in 2008. His only crime: boasting
about his unverified links to al Qaeda.
Like
other prisoners subjected to so-called enhanced interrogation techniques,
Isanuddin was allegedly waterboarded on numerous occasions at a time when it
was deemed as justified by officials in an effort to extract actionable
intelligence.
To
date, all but 40 of the 775 alleged militants detained at Guantanamo since it
opened in 2002 have been either transferred to their home countries or released
without charge. Many of those remaining are referred to as “forever prisoners.”
Only
eight are currently charged with crimes, among them Pakistani Majid Khan, 39, who
pleaded guilty in 2012 to delivering US$50,000 from al Qaeda to the Jemaah
Islamiyah terror network to fund the 2003 JW Marriott suicide bombing.
The
sole legal US resident confined at the Cuba-based facility, Majid has yet to be
sentenced and there is speculation a plea deal may see him acting as a key
witness in Isanuddin’s trial.
Isanuddin
is one of 14 “high-value” detainees confined to a top-secret section known as
Camp 7, which also houses al Qaeda mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, 55, and
four others accused of staging the 9/11 attacks.
A
federal task force recommended Isanuddin for trial as early as 2010, but
nothing more was heard of his case until mid-2016 when the Periodic Review
Board said he remained “a significant threat to the security of the United
States” in rejecting his request to be released.
Created
by the Barack Obama administration to whittle down Guantanamo’s population, the
board cited the Indonesian’s role in major attacks and as the key link between
al Qaeda and Jemaah Islamiyah as reasons for his eventual prosecution.
It
was only in 2008 that Detachment 88 counterterrorism unit officer Tito
Karnavian, now Indonesia’s national police chief, and two National Intelligence
Agency (BIN) operatives were permitted to interrogate Isanuddin at Guantanamo.
During
that questioning, he is said to have made several admissions about his role in
the al Qaeda-funded 2000 Christmas bombings across Indonesia, the 2002 Bali
bloodshed and the first of the two attacks on the JW Marriott the following year.
But
despite pubic statements by some senior officials, Indonesia never pressed the
US government to return him to Jakarta for trial, due to worries about the
publicity surrounding such a high-profile event and whether his conviction
could be guaranteed.
Senior
prosecutors said that Indonesia’s 2003 Terrorism Law could only be applied to
him in facilitating the transfer of the $50,000 from Khalid Sheikh Mohammad’s
nephew, Ammar al-Baluchi, 41, to finance the Marriott bombing of that year.
Full
report at:
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/07/article/terror-leader-hambali-finally-to-face-us-justice/
-------
Rio’s
far-right governor likens drug dealers to Hezbollah
17
July 2019
Rio
de Janeiro’s far-right governor Wilson Witzel on Tuesday compared drug dealers
to the Shiite movement Hezbollah and warned police would respond like Israel by
showing no leniency to “terrorists.”
Defending
his hardline security strategy that has fueled a surge in police killings this
year, Witzel said criminals in Rio’s poorer neighborhoods known as favelas
“raped children, killed innocent people and used the areas to sell drugs.”
“What
do they do differently to Hezbollah? Nothing,” the tough-talking Witzel told
foreign journalists at a rare briefing.
“Are
we going to be tolerant with Hezbollah when they use missiles and bombs against
the population of Israel? No.
“What
is done in Israel will be done in Rio de Janeiro. We are not going to be
lenient with anyone who has a gun.”
“You
don’t want to die? Don’t go on the street with a gun.
“Police
are facing (criminals) without fear of killing.”
Witzel,
a former federal judge, was elected in large part due to his support for the
tough anti-crime policy of far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, who also came to
power in January.
He
has presided over a sharp increase in the number of police killings, with 731
people dying during “police interventions” in the first five months of this
year -- a 19.1 percent increase from the same period in 2018, the most recent
official figures show.
Witzel
has previously sparked outcry among activists for advocating the use of a
“missile” to blow up criminals in favelas, and applauding the deployment of
police snipers to take out suspects from long distances.
He
created further controversy in May after posting a video on Twitter of himself
in a police helicopter as officers fired toward a favela below.
But
Witzel accused the media on Tuesday of biased reporting of the incident in
particular, and police operations against gangs more generally.
“If
we were looking at the Second World War it would be like ignoring the Nazis and
only looking at Britain bombing Dresden and Berlin,” Witzel said.
“The
media is showing the police side, but not the side of terrorism.”
Reducing
crime would help boost the number of visitors to the tourist hot-spot and
revitalize the state’s economy, he added.
“We
want tourists to feel good in Rio de Janeiro.”
Full
report at:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2019/07/17/Rio-s-far-right-governor-likens-drug-dealers-to-Hezbollah.html
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Protests
planned against Iranian American council accused of lobbying for Tehran
16
July 2019
Members
of the Iranian diaspora are planning to protest against the National Iranian
American Council (NIAC) in Washington DC on Friday, with the hashtag #ProtestAgainstNIAC
gaining traction as protesters accuse the council of lobbying on behalf of the
Iranian regime.
Despite
NIAC's claim to be a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, it has been
repeatedly accused of lobbying on behalf of the Iranian regime and against the
interests of the Iranian disapora in the US, whom it claims to represent.
“For
too long we have stood by as NIAC has promoted to the US government harmful
appeasement policies toward the Islamic Republic. NIAC protects the interests
of the ruthless, corrupt regime suffocating our beloved homeland. It neither
represents Iranian-Americans who aspire for an end to the repression of the
Iranian people nor the hope for true peace between Iran and the US,” a
statement from a press release by the protest organizers read.
“As
inside Iran our courageous countrymen and women wage their struggle against
tyranny, we here will broaden awareness of the true motives behind what is
essentially the regime’s lobby in America,” the statement added.
The
hashtag #ProtestAgainstNIAC first started around three days ago, gaining
considerable traction since. Protesters have been tweeting using the hashtag in
both Persian and English, many of whom said they plan on attending the protest
themselves.
Navid
Mohebbi
@navidmohebbi
In
six days, Iranians will gather outside @NIACouncil office to voice their
disgust and frustration with NIAC's pro-Iran regime advocacy and lobby work. We
invite journalists and media outlets to come and report the
#ProtestAgainstNIAC.https://www.facebook.com/events/359874824686460/ …
352
11:11
PM - Jul 13, 2019
Twitter
Ads info and privacy
Amir
Fassihi
@AmirFassihi
It
is imperative for the #Iranian_Americans to express themselves and let American
politicians know that NIAC represents the voice of FM of Islamic Republic of
murder, torture, rape, looting and terrorism of #Iran. #ProtestAgainstNIAC
397
11:30
PM - Jul 13, 2019
218
people are talking about this
Twitter
Ads info and privacy
The
protests are set to be held on Friday between 1-3 p.m. EST outside of the NIAC
offices in Washington. NIAC is yet to respond to the scheduled protests.
In
late May, 2019, the hashtag #NIACLobbies4Mullah went viral on Twitter, just a
week after the #NoWarWithIran hashtag was launched by the NIAC.
NIAC
has a history of attempting to raise unsuccessful lawsuits against its critics.
The council and its founder, Trita Parsi, have previously sued Iranian-American
bloggers and intellectuals who published pieces which challenged its status as
an independent nonprofit organization.
In
2015, two circuit judges and a senior circuit judge from the US Federal Court
of Appeals for the District of Columbia forced NIAC to pay $183,480.09 in
monetary sanctions to a blogger named Hassan Daioleslam. The court decided NIAC
had to reimburse the blogger for the money he had spent fighting a defamation
lawsuit NIAC brought against him in 2008, which was decided in his favor and
dismissed in 2012.
Full
report at:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2019/07/16/Protests-planned-against-Iranian-American-council-accused-of-lobbying-for-Tehran.html
-------
US
imposes sanctions on Myanmar army chief over Rohingya crimes
Jul
17, 2019
The
United States has imposed sanctions on Myanmar's military chief and three other
top officers over their role in the atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim
minority group in the Buddhist-majority country.
The
US State Department announced on Tuesday that army chief Min Aung Hlaing and
two other senior commanders, Brigadier Generals Than Oo and Aung Aung, were
responsible for the massacres of Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, also known as
Burma.
The
Department, barring the military officials and their families from entering the
US, said it had found credible evidence that they had been involved in the
violence that took place two years ago and forced about 740,000 Rohingya to
flee across the border to Bangladesh.
"We
remain concerned that the Burmese government has taken no actions to hold
accountable those responsible for human rights violations and abuses, and there
are continued reports of the Burmese military committing human rights
violations and abuses throughout the country," US Secretary of State Mike
Pompeo said in a statement.
Pompeo
said a recent disclosure that Min Aung Hlaing had ordered the release of
Myanmarese soldiers convicted of "ethnic cleansing" of Rohingya in
2017 was "one egregious example of the continued and severe lack of
accountability for the military and its senior leadership."
The
US State Department has so far stopped short of calling the abuses against
Rohingya Muslims genocide, preferring instead to ethnic cleansing and a
"well-planned and coordinated" campaign of mass killings, gang rapes
and other atrocities.
Myanmar’s
western Rakhine state came to global attention in 2017, when the army drove
thousands of ethnic Rohingya across the border into Bangladesh. Myanmar is
facing growing international calls for accountability over the Rakhine
massacre.
Last
year, a UN fact-finding mission, said the campaign against the Rohingya was
orchestrated with "genocidal intent." It urged charging the army
chief and five other generals with the "gravest crimes under international
law." The International Criminal Court (ICC) has already opened a
preliminary examination into the violence.
About
800,000 Rohingya Muslims are living in camps in Bangladesh after they were
driven out of Rakhine during the deadly campaign in 2017, which the United
Nations has described as ethnic cleansing.
Rakhine
has been the scene of communal violence since 2012. Many Muslims have been
killed while tens of thousands have been forced to flee as a result of attacks
by Buddhists. The refugees largely live in camps in dire conditions.
Full
report at:
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/17/601124/US-sanction-Myanmar-military-chief-Rohingya-Muslim-
-------
Europe
Christchurch
Muslim community to receive $1m cheque from Jewish community
17
July 2019
The
Christchurch Muslim community will be presented with a cheque from some Jewish
communities from around the world today.
The
US, Sydney and New Zealand Jewish communities will hand over more than $1
million at a ceremony at Christchurch City Council this afternoon.
Before
the ceremony, a delegation of Jewish and Muslim leaders visited the
Christchurch synagogue and the two mosques which were attacked on March 15.
The
cheque will be formally handed over to Christchurch mayor Lianne Dalziel this
afternoon.
The
money is set to go towards ongoing education, counselling and health care for
those affected.
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/christchurch-muslim-community-receive-1m-cheque-jewish
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British
Muslims must do more to stop the potential "Jihadi Jacks" of the
future
By
Adeem Younis
16/07/2019
The
number of people converting to Islam in the UK is growing rapidly, but they
often make headlines for all the wrong reasons. Whether it’s Oxford-born Jack
Letts’ alleged Islamic State (IS) links or a contentious tweet by the
newly-converted singer-songwriter, Sinead O’Connor, Muslim converts are
generally met with an air of suspicion or, in many cases, open hostility.
This
cynicism towards Muslim converts is nothing new. In the 1800s, Britain was home
to a generation of Victorian Muslim converts with the founder of England’s
first Mosque, William Abdullah Quilliam, being branded an anti-British traitor
for his connections with the global Muslim community.
While
some politicians, media outlets and elements of our security services have
presented Muslim converts as a potential threat, as research by the Henry
Jackson Society shows, the reality is that many of the most inspiring,
inclusive and transformative Muslim leaders around the world - past and present
- have been converts. And in the UK, converts represent a unique bridge between
the diverse communities they hail from and the ‘Muslim-born’ communities who
are settled here.
Whilst
complex, the story of Jack Letts represents what can happen when this journey
goes frightfully wrong. But the journey of a convert - from a seeker to one
integrated into a community and grounded in the balanced practice of their new
faith - illustrates the role Islam can play as a crucible for the best of what
both heritage Muslim cultures and Western civilisation has to offer.
Today,
recent estimates suggest 80,000 have converted to Islam in Britain, with their
number growing by 5,000 every year. Two thirds of them are women. Every convert
brings their unique experiences, talents and gifts to the Muslim community, but
they also bring their own challenges. Muslim communities have generally struggled
to sufficiently provide the necessary welfare, support, training and mentorship
to those who have newly embraced Islam.
Converts
represent the changing face of the religion in Britain, and their fusion of
identities can often challenge the status quo of established Muslim communities
who may be resistant to change.
Equally,
their conversion can bewilder their own family and friends, who may go as far
as disavowing them, leaving them potentially vulnerable and without support.
Their
journey to Islam - and through it - is often difficult. This is where strong
Muslim civic society is needed to provide a guiding hand and safety net for
those in particular need. That’s why the charity I founded ten years ago has
made care for Muslim converts a priority.
We
need to see beyond the famous converts like Muhammad Ali and Yusuf Islam (Cat
Stevens), as well as the infamous ones like Jack Letts and Westminster attacker
Khalid Masood.
Many
converts are caught between the ambivalence of their new Muslim brethren and
the hostility of their old non-Muslim ones. Extremism happens when community
fails, when people fall between the cracks, and are left to discover themselves
in the perilous, unfettered space of the internet.
As
post-colonial, pre-Brexit Britain wrestles with existential questions of what
it means to be British today, we should look to learn from Muslim converts who
have been able to straddle multiple identities; identities that are often
presented as conflicting.
It
is by no means a stretch to now call Islam a British religion and with
thousands embracing Islam every year, this is becoming more and more
self-evident. Just like people of all faiths and none, converts to Islam
deserve to be respected, valued and have access to appropriate pastoral care
and support.
As
someone embedded in grassroots Muslim communities, I’m acutely aware that
converts represent the future of Islam in Britain. That’s why I am less
concerned with the quantity of people embracing my religion than I am with the
quality of both their faith and their journey to and through Muslim
communities.
Full
report at:
https://www.euronews.com/2019/07/16/british-muslims-must-do-more-to-stop-the-potential-jihadi-jacks-of-the-future-view
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Driverless
car bomb plot shows the threat from Isis supporters who are unable to fight
abroad
17
July 2019
An
Isis supporter who attempted to create a driverless car bomb is the latest
terrorist to plot an attack on the UK after failing to join Isis abroad.
British
security services have been heavily criticised for allowing at least 900 men,
women and children to leave for Syria and Iraq since 2014.
The
flow of jihadis has dried up since the UK and international partners increased
efforts to intercept anyone attempting the journey and prosecute them for
terror offences.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/isis-attacks-uk-plot-farhad-salah-syria-prevent-threat-a9005886.html
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Former
German spy chief causes alarm by sharing far-right tweets
15
Jul 2019
When
he was in charge of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, Hans-Georg Maaßen
warned of how easy it was for people to be led astray by “disinformation” and
“clumsy fake reports” on the internet.
But
since his dismissal from office last September, the former spy chief’s
behaviour on social media has raised questions over his own ability to
distinguish conspiracy theories from truthful reporting, and sparked a debate
about the neutrality of the powerful intelligence agency during a period in
which a resurgent far right marched over several days in the city of Chemnitz.
On
Sunday Maaßen shared on Twitter an article from a rightwing extremist blog
claiming that the rescue of a group of people adrift off the Libyan coast by
the rescue boat Sea-Watch 3, and the subsequent arrest of its German captain, Carola
Rackete, was in fact a “piece of propaganda” orchestrated by the German public
broadcaster ARD.
The
article likens a documentary about Sea-Watch 3 by ARD’s programme Panorama to
the Nazi propaganda ministry embedding film crews on “Strength Through Joy”
cruise ships, and suggests the film crew could have dragged the rescued
refugees out to sea in the first place.
Maaßen,
who started tweeting in April, commented on the shared article with the words:
“Should this report be true, then Panorama is not western television” – a
reference to an earlier tweet in which he implied that modern German media was
as censorious as that of socialist East Germany.
The
tweet has since been deleted, but questions over his judgment remain.
The
blog, Journalistenwatch, is run by one of the co-founders of the now-dissolved
Die Freiheit, a small rightwing party that was under observation by the Federal
Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), the intelligence agency
that Maaßen used to lead. It currently advertises a demonstration in Halle
organised by the Identitarian Movement, a group the BfV recently classified as
a far-right threat.
“When
you have a former head of the domestic intelligence agency referring to media
whose business model consists of spreading obvious lies and rightwing extremist
agitation, then that’s more than alarming,” said Claudia Roth, a Green party
politician and Bundestag vice-president.
“It
is terrifying to realise that, despite warnings, someone who finds meaning in a
conspiracy theory outlet for the radical right was for years in charge of
protecting the German constitution. The Green party has long been calling for a
clear break and structural reorganisation of the domestic intelligence agency.
Every day Hans-Georg Maaßen proves how urgent this is.”
In
the wake of the murder of the Christian Democratic Union politician Walter
Lübcke, allegedly at the hands of a neo-Nazi, politicians have questioned
whether the domestic intelligence agency has neglected surveillance of
rightwing extremist networks.
Maaßen
was forced to step down last year after he provoked controversy by questioning
the authenticity of video footage showing far-right protesters in Chemnitz
chasing down migrants, and also appeared to downplay the violence. In 2016, he
made headlines after insinuating that the US whistleblower Edward Snowden was a
Russian spy – a claim not made by heads of other western intelligence agencies
at the time.
While
Maaßen no longer holds public office, he remains a member of Angela Merkel’s
CDU, where he is a vocal supporter of the Werteunion, an inner-party group
formed in protest against the chancellor’s asylum policy in 2017.
A
spokesperson for the Werteunion confirmed the authenticity of Maaßen’s Twitter
account, but denied the ex-spy chief had endorsed the content of the article.
Full
report at:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jul/15/former-german-spy-chief-georg-maassen-alarm-sharing-far-right-tweets
-------
Italy
Police Seize Missile From Neo-Nazi Sympathizers
July
15, 2019
The
police in Italy seized a large arsenal of weapons, including an air-to-air
missile, in raids on Monday on neo-Nazi sympathizers.
Elite
police forces searched properties across northern Italy following an
investigation into Italians who had fought alongside Russian-backed separatist
forces in eastern Ukraine, a police statement said.
Three
men were arrested, including a customs officer who had previously stood for
Parliament for an extreme right party, the neo-fascist Forza Nuova.
During
their raids, police discovered a French-made Matra air-to-air missile that
appeared to have once belonged to the Qatar armed forces. Subsequent checks
showed the weapon was in working condition but lacked an explosive charge.
Police
said the suspects had tried to sell the missile in conversations with contacts
on the WhatsApp messaging network.
Among
other weapons uncovered were 26 guns, 20 bayonets, 306 gun parts, including
silencers and rifle scopes, and more than 800 bullets of various calibers. The
arms were primarily from Austria, Germany and the United States.
Police
also seized Nazi memorabilia from the properties.
The
investigation “came into being because of the activities of some Italian
fighters with extremist backgrounds who had taken part in the armed conflict in
the Ukrainian region of Donbass,” the police statement said.
Full
report at:
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/15/world/europe/italy-neo-nazi-missile.html
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UAE,
Egypt, US and others call for immediate end to Libya violence
17
July 2019
The
United Arab Emirates, Egypt, France, Britain, United States and Italy on
Tuesday called for an immediate end to hostilities around Tripoli, and warned
of attempts by “terrorist groups” to take advantage of the political void in
Libya.
The
six countries reiterated in a rare joint statement their deep concern over the
ongoing hostilities in Tripoli and called for an immediate de-escalation, end
of the current fighting, and urged a rapid return to the political process
under the auspices of the United Nations.
Also
on Tuesday, the UN envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, met UAE Foreign Minister
Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi to discuss ways to end the fighting in
Libya, the UN Support Mission in Libya said in a tweet.
Salame
explained the heavy human cost of the fighting in Libya and “stressed the
importance of adhering to a unified roadmap for reuniting the Libyans and
helping them agree and reconcile.”
Gargash:
UAE supports stability
For
his part, the UAE’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash on
Wednesday said in a tweet: “The statement of the six states on Libya calling
for an immediate end to hostilities around the capital of Tripoli represents
the will of the international community and the importance of returning back on
track, politically.”
Full
report at:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2019/07/17/France-Britain-Egypt-UAE-US-Italy-call-for-immediate-end-of-Libya-violence.html
-------
Portugal
suspends visas for Iranians, cites security reasons
16
July 2019
Portugal
has suspended the issuance of entry visas for Iranian nationals for unspecified
security reasons, Foreign Minister Augusto Santos Silva told a parliamentary
committee on Tuesday.
Answering
a question from a committee member on whether such a move had been taken,
Santos Silva said during the televised meeting: “Yes, we suspended those for
security reasons ... I will provide explanations later, but not publicly”.
“Portugal
does not play around with entry into its territory,” he added, without
disclosing when the decision was taken.
The
chairman declared the meeting closed after about two hours without further
off-camera testimony.
Joao
Goncalves Pereira, the lawmaker from the conservative CDS-PP party who asked
the question, told Reuters: “We received information that visas for Iranians
had been suspended for two or three weeks, and we just wanted to confirm that.”
He
would not say what was the source of that original information or whether any
Iranian nationals had complained about the situation.
Full
report at:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2019/07/16/Portugal-suspends-visas-for-Iranians-cites-security-reasons.html
-------
Italy
seizes air-to-air missile that belonged to Qatar in raids on neo-Nazis
16
July 2019
Italian
police have seized a large arsenal of weapons, including an air-to-air missile
that belonged to Qatar’s armed forces, in raids on neo-Nazi sympathizers, they
said on Monday.
During
their raids, police discovered a French-made Matra air-to-air missile that
appeared to have once belonged to the Qatar armed forces. Subsequent checks
showed the weapon was in working condition but lacked an explosive charge.
Elite
police forces searched properties across northern Italy following an
investigation into Italians who had fought alongside Russian-backed separatist
forces in eastern Ukraine, a police statement said.
Three
men were arrested, including a customs officer who has previously stood for
parliament for an extreme right party.
Police
said the suspects had tried to sell the missile in conservations with contacts
on the WhatsApp messaging network.
Among
other weapons uncovered were 26 guns, 20 bayonets, 306 gun parts, including
silencers and rifle scopes, and more than 800 bullets of various calibers. The
arms were primarily from Austria, Germany and the United States.
Police
also seized Nazi memorabilia from the properties.
“The
police investigation ... came into being because of the activities of some
Italian fighters with extremist backgrounds who had taken part in the armed
conflict in the Ukrainian region of Donbass,” the police statement said.
Full
report at:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2019/07/16/Italy-seizes-air-to-air-missile-that-belonged-to-Qatar-in-raids-on-neo-Nazis.html
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Russia,
Hamas hold talks in Moscow, stress intra-Palestinian unity
Jul
17, 2019
A
delegation from the Hamas resistance movement has met with Russia’s Deputy
Foreign Minister Mikhail Bogdanov in Moscow, with both sides underlining the
need for intra-Palestinian unity as the US is preparing to unveil a contentious
“peace” plan aimed at consolidating Tel Aviv’s occupation of Palestinian
territories.
The
Russian embassy in Tel Aviv said in a statement that Bogdanov and Mousa Abu
Marzook, who headed the Hamas delegation, had “exchanged views on
Israeli-Palestinian settlement” during their meeting on Tuesday.
The
pair “also discussed efforts to restore intra-Palestinian unity,” read the
statement, adding, “There is no alternative to a political solution to the
Palestinian problem on the existing legal basis.”
It
also noted that the Russian side had “reaffirmed its readiness to provide the
Palestinians with the necessary assistance in order to achieve national
consensus.”
Russia🇷🇺 in Israel
✔
@israel_mid_ru
July
16. Deputy FM Bogdanov received member of Hamas Politburo Abu Marzook. They
exchanged views on Israeli-Palestinian settlement. There is no alternative to a
political solution to the Palestinian problem on the existing legal basis, 🇷🇺 side said https://bit.ly/2GfsdyP . -1/2-
16
9:07
PM - Jul 16, 2019
See
Russia🇷🇺 in Israel's other Tweets
Twitter
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The
Hamas delegation travelled to Moscow on Monday at the invitation of Bogdanov.
Hamas
runs the Gaza Strip independently of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority
as the two Palestinian factions are involved in a political row. Gaza has been
under a crippling siege by Israel since 2007 and witnessed three deadly Israeli
wars since 2008.
The
talks in Moscow come as the US has been working to draw up a highly
controversial deal aimed at ending the long-running Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. That plan — which is widely reported to be biased towards the regime
in Israel — has already been unanimously rejected by all Palestinian factions,
including Hamas and the Palestinian Authority.
Washington
says its deal would not adhere to the Arab Peace Initiative, which was adopted
by the Arab League in 2002 and urges Israel’s withdrawal from lands it occupied
in the 1967 war, including the West Bank, East Jerusalem al-Quds and Syria’s
Golan Heights.
Moscow
has warned that Washington’s so-called peace plan would “ruin everything”
gained from previous conflict resolution, and will fail to fully guarantee a
Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders.
Full
report at:
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/17/601132/Russia-Mikhail-Bogdanov-Hamas
-------
UK
government doubles funding for prosecuting ISIS in Iraq
Taylor
Heyman
July
16, 2019
Britain’s
legal adviser at the United Nations has doubled UK funding for bringing violent
ISIS members to justice to £2 million, or Dh9.1m.
The
UN investigative team looking into crimes committed by ISIS was created in 2017
to provide closure and justice for relatives of those killed by the terrorist
group and survivors of its atrocities.
Susan
Dickson, the UK legal adviser at the UN, said the team had made remarkable
progress in establishing the agency, known as Unitad, in Iraq and opening
investigations.
“Since
its inception, survivors and victims have been at the heart of the team’s
efforts,” Ms Dickson said.
“We
commend the team’s approach in emphasising that there is no hierarchy of
victims and the recognition that all Iraqis suffered at the hands of Daesh.
“Their
work will be important in supporting the government of Iraq and its efforts
towards national reconciliation.”
The
agency’s main tasks are to investigate attacks by ISIS against the Yazidi
community in Sinjar in August 2014, in Mosul between 2014 and 2016, and the
mass murders of unarmed Iraqi cadets from Tikrit Air Academy in June 2014.
Britain
has advocated for adding more Iraqis to the team, which employs 79 staff in
Iraq including criminal investigators, analysts, witness protection experts and
forensic scientists. Women make up 55 per cent of the staff.
On
Monday, Karim Ahmad Khan, the head of the agency, told the UN Security Council
that he expected his investigators to provide concrete support for at least one
case before Iraqi courts.
Mr
Khan’s team heard harrowing accounts of “mass killings, of entire families
erased and of women and girls taken as slaves”, he said.
He
said they gained access to more than 600,000 videos related to the ISIS crimes,
and more than 15,000 pages of internal ISIS documents originally obtained from
the conflict zone by journalists.
The
UK has struggled to form a consistent policy on the return of ISIS members to
Britain since the group was driven out of its last territory, in Baghouz, in
March.
Teenage
ISIS recruit Shamima Begum was stripped of her citizenship in February after
she was discovered in Al Hol refugee camp, Syria.
The
decision by UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid gave rise to a national debate on how
to handle returning ISIS members.
Full
report at:
https://www.thenational.ae/world/mena/uk-government-doubles-funding-for-prosecuting-isis-in-iraq-1.887078
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Southeast Asia
Philippines,
US to step up war on terror amid suicide attacks
JUL
16, 2019
Raul
Dancel
MANILA
- The Philippines and the United States have agreed to step up efforts to fight
violent extremism in the South-east Asian nation following the first suicide
attack carried out by a Filipino militant in June.
"We
know danger still exists in parts of the country. This is why counter-terrorism
has been such a key element of our bilateral cooperation," US Ambassador
to the Philippines Sung Kim told reporters shortly after two days of bilateral
talks between Manila and Washington ended on Tuesday (July 16).
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/philippines-us-to-step-up-war-on-terror-amid-suicide-attacks
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Islamic
NGOs slam Saudi Arabia over liberalisation, ties with Israel, US
July
16, 2019
PETALING
JAYA: A coalition of Islamic NGOs has slammed Saudi Arabia for liberalising its
policies, most notably allowing the Jeddah World Fest, which was to feature US
rapper Nicki Minaj, to be organised.
In
a statement, the Malaysia Islamic Organisations Consultative Council (Mapim)
also cited Saudi Arabia’s cooperation with the US and Israel, along with human
rights abuses, in its attack on the kingdom.
Mapim
president Mohd Azmi Abdul Hamid said even though Minaj had announced her
withdrawal from performing at the concert, the “mere fact” that Saudi
authorities allowed her to be invited was “shocking and utterly disgusting”.
“We
are outraged by this immoral policy newly introduced by the Saudi government
which plans to turn the kingdom into an entertainment hub as an attempt to
generate billions of dollars in revenue,” Azmi said.
The
coalition also said it was “perturbed” by the string of Saudi policies which
had affected the region’s stability and misrepresented the teachings of Islam.
Azmi
said these included the attack on Yemen, the “normalisation” of ties with
Israel and the purchase of US arms worth billions, which strengthened its
economy.
“All
these policies and measures are escalating tensions in the region and creating
a situation of pervasive conflict.
“What
the Saudis have created is widening the division among Muslims not only in the
region but also throughout the world,” he said.
Azmi
said Mapim wanted Saudi Arabia to stop denigrating Islam with “liberal
policies”, to cancel its “unIslamic” performances, withdraw its troops from
Yemen, and stop all human rights abuses, among others.
He
said Mapim planned to deliver a memorandum to Prime Minister Dr Mahathir
Mohamad, the Saudi Arabian embassy in Kuala Lumpur and the Organisation of
Islamic Cooperation (OIC) upon obtaining enough signatures.
Full
report at:
https://www.freemalaysiatoday.com/category/nation/2019/07/16/islamic-ngos-slam-saudi-arabia-over-liberalisation-ties-with-israel-us/
-------
Arab World
Kuwait
hands Muslim Brotherhood-linked militants to Egypt: KUNA
JULY
15, 2019
DUBAI
(Reuters) - Kuwait has handed over to Egypt eight Egyptians who it said had
admitted to carrying out terrorist operations in their home country, and had
fled to Kuwait after being convicted in Egypt, the state news agency KUNA
reported.
Kuwait’s
interior ministry had said on Friday that the men had belonged to a militant
cell linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, and had fled to Kuwait after being
sentenced at home to up to 15 years in jail.
Kuwait
has not specified the circumstances of their sentencing, and there has been no
official comment from Egyptian authorities.
“After
conducting preliminary investigations, they admitted to carrying out terrorist
operations ... inside Egyptian territory,” said Kuwaiti Deputy Prime Minister
Anas Khalid al-Saleh, according to KUNA.
The
men were returned under the terms of bilateral agreements, KUNA quoted a senior
foreign ministry official as saying late on Sunday. The interior ministry said
investigations were continuing to find other members of the cell.
Egypt
banned the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 after the late Mohamed Mursi of the
Brotherhood, Egypt’s first democratically elected president, was toppled by the
military following widespread unrest.
Since
then, Egyptian authorities have arrested tens of thousands of political
opponents, many of them Islamists, according to human rights organizations.
The
Brotherhood says it publicly renounced violence decades ago and pursues an
Islamist political vision using exclusively peaceful means.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-kuwait-security-egypt/kuwait-hands-muslim-brotherhood-linked-militants-to-egypt-kuna-idUSKCN1UA1AP
-------
Twin
suicide blasts kill two people, wound 20 in Baghdad
by
Mohammed Ebraheem
Jul
15, 2019
Baghdad
(IraqiNews.com) – At least two Iraqi people were killed and 20 others injured
in a suicide bombing near a Shiite mosque in southwestern Baghdad, a security
source said Monday.
Speaking
to the Arabic-language Baghdad Today news website, the source said that two
suicide bombers blew themselves up near Abul Fadhel al-Abbas mosque in al-Malef
district in southwestern Baghdad, leaving at least two people dead and 20
others injured.
The
death toll is expected to rise, the source added.
No
group has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but the Islamic State
(IS) militant group, in most cases, is responsible for attacks targeting
crowded areas, including markets, cafes and mosques across Iraq.
Violence
in the country has surged further with the emergence of Islamic State extremist
militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Full
report at:
https://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/twin-suicide-blasts-kill-two-people-wound-20-in-baghdad/
-------
Workers
recover hundreds of bodies from Syrian mass grave
Jul
15, 2019
In
an open field on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, workers in black
uniforms, surgical masks and red hardhats toil under a scorching sun to dig up
bodies from a large mass grave discovered last month.
They
have so far unearthed 313 bodies from the grave since it was discovered last
month, the official said. All of the dead are men, women and children believed
to have been killed or died during the Islamic State group's rule over the
northern city, once the de facto capital of the extremist group's so-called
Islamic caliphate and the site of atrocities committed by the group against
residents who opposed its extremist ideology.
The
group at the time commanded large swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq that
it administered based on its own radical version of Islamic rule.
U.S.-backed
Syrian forces retook Raqqa from IS in 2017 after a lengthy campaign that left
the city in ruins. Since then, an organization known as the Civil Council of
Raqqa has been working to uncover mass graves in and around the city, amid
concerns about the preservation of bodies and evidence for possible war crimes
trials. International human rights groups say they are concerned that local
groups are not getting the support they need in terms of forensic expertise and
human resources.
Yasser
al-Khamees, who leads a team of first responders, said workers have unearthed
4,760 bodies from a series of mass graves starting from January 2018.
The
mass grave discovered in mid-June in al-Fukheikha agricultural fields south of
the city is the latest grave located in and around Raqqa to date.
An
Associated Press video showed workers on a recent day wearing surgical masks
using shovels to dig up bodies from the field. Forensic workers then put the
remains in white body bags, marking them with the date and location and other
details.
Asaad
Mohammed, a forensic worker, said workers were exhuming an average of 10 to 12
bodies on daily basis.
"We
inspect the body, identify the sex, age, time of death, cause of death. We take
samples from each body and give it a number, we document it on official papers
and then save the information on a computer database along with samples taken
from this area," he said.
Full
report at:
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/workers-recover-hundreds-bodies-syrian-mass-grave-64338347
-------
Iraqi
security forces kill eight terrorists in Salahuddin
by
Mohammed Ebraheem
Jul
15, 2019
Salahuddin
(IraqiNews.com) – An Iraqi joint force killed on Monday eight terrorists during
a security operation in Salahuddin province, a police chief said.
Speaking
to the privately-owned Alghad Press website, Salahuddin Police Chief Maj. Gen.
Kandil al-Jabouri said that a joint force, backed by the U.S.-led international
coalition warplanes, carried out a security operation in the Siniya island,
west of Salahuddin province.
“The
troops managed to kill eight terrorists and destroyed an armored vehicle during
the operation,” al-Jabouri said.
He
added that the security operation is still going on to pursue other terrorists.
Iraq
declared the collapse of Islamic State’s territorial influence in November 2017
with the recapture of Rawa, a city on Anbar’s western borders with Syria, which
was the group’s last bastion in Iraq.
Full
report at:
https://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/iraqi-security-forces-kill-eight-terrorists-in-salahuddin/
-------
Bahrain
Defense Force: Al Jazeera program aims to incite discord, undermine GCC
16
July 2019
The
spokesman of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF) says the program “Ma Khufiya
Aatham,” which was broadcast on Sunday on Qatari-owned Al Jazeera network,
marks a new series of conspiracies against the Kingdom of Bahrain and is an
attempt by Qatar to undermine the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC).
“This
is a new episode of the conspiracy against the Kingdom of Bahrain and the
desire of Qatar to undermine the Gulf Cooperation Council and incite discord
amongst its countries,” the spokesman said.
“Through
the information provided by the guest Yasser Athbi al-Jalahma, this program
presents false information to distort the facts,” he added.
In
the “Ma Khufiya Aatham” episode, al-Jalahma claims that he was assigned to work
in a unit belonging to Bahrain’s interior ministry which was responsible for
dispersing a protest in Manama’s Pearl Roundabout in 2011.
However,
the spokesman says that al-Jalahma was assigned to work at the Salmaniya
Medical Complex in 2011, and that he was not present at the Pearl Roundabout,
adding that al-Jalahma’s allegations and comments are based on lies.
The
spokesman added that in 2018, the security agencies in the BDF spotted
al-Jalahma recruiting cluster cells in order to spy on behalf of a foreign
country: Qatar.
“He
conspired with other suspects engaged in intelligence activities to disclose
Bahrain’s defense secrets and to hand over classified information to Qatar
intelligence agencies in order to damage Bahrain’s military and defense
status,” the spokesman said.
Al-Jalahma
and the other suspects disclosed “sensitive classified information and military
secrets to unauthorized individuals,” he added.
On
April 30, 2019, Bahrain’s military court issued sentenced the above-mentioned
suspects to temporary and life prison terms. Al-Jalahma was sentenced to death
in absentia and his rank was demoted to soldier. He was also discharged from
the BDF without insignia and his name was written off the BDF reserves list. He
is still a wanted fugitive, according to the spokesman.
Full
report at:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2019/07/16/Bahrain-Defense-Force-Al-Jazeera-program-aims-to-incite-discord-undermine-GCC.html
-------
Bahrain
recruited al-Qaeda operatives to target dissidents, Iran: Documentary
Jul
16, 2019
A
documentary by Qatar’s pan-Arab broadcaster Al Jazeera has revealed that Bahrain
recruited al-Qaeda terrorists to take out dissidents inside the Arab country
and conduct terrorist attacks in Iran.
The
documentary, titled “Playing with fire” and aired by Al Jazeera’s
Arabic-language news channel, said Bahraini intelligence officers were in
direct contact with al-Qaeda terrorists and organized them into a terrorist
cell to take out Shia figures inside Bahrain.
It
exposed what it said were recorded communications between Bahraini intelligence
officials and the al-Qaeda members and said the operations were authorized by
Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa himself.
The
documentary said the king intervened personally to ensure the success of the
operations.
‘Terrorist
contacted Saudi Arabia for weapons’
One
notorious terrorist commander, Mohammed Saleh, is seen in the documentary
revealing that he contacted Saudi Arabian officials to ask for weapons.
The
documentary said Bahraini intelligence officials also met with al-Qaeda-linked
terrorists in southeastern Iran to coordinate attacks within the country.
One
terrorist, Hosham Baluchi, who headed the terror cell Ansar al-Forghan, had
been recruited by the Bahraini intelligence in 2006 for the purpose of
conducting acts of terror in Iran, according to Al Jazeera.
Iranian
security forces hunted down and killed Baluchi in 2015.
Full
report at:
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/16/601091/Bahrain-al-Qaeda-Al-Jazeera-documentary-Iran
-------
US-led
airstrike kills 15 civilians in Syria’s Dayr al-Zawr: Report
Jul
16, 2019
At
least 15 civilians have reportedly been killed in an airstrike by the US-led
coalition purportedly fighting the terrorist Takfiri Daesh group on a
residential area in Syria’s eastern province of Dayr al-Zawr.
The
media outlet al-Araby al-Jadeed, citing a militant source, reported on Tuesday
that the coalition warplanes pounded a house in the village of Takihi near
Basirah Town in the early hours of the day, claiming that the a Daesh
commander, identified as Hassan Ebrahim, was hiding in the house.
The
strike destroyed several nearby houses either fully or partially, leaving 15
civilians dead and an unspecified number of others wounded.
The
report further said that the strike, which purportedly killed Ebrahim, was
conducted after the he allegedly refused to surrender himself to the
US-supported Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and engaged in an exchange of fire
with them.
It
added that at least one SDF member was killed and two others were wounded in
the shooting.
The
US-led coalition has been conducting airstrikes and operations against what are
said to be Daesh targets inside Syria since September 2014 without any
authorization from the Damascus government or a United Nations mandate.
Damascus has repeatedly condemned the airstrikes.
The
military alliance has repeatedly been accused of targeting and killing
civilians.
Full
report at:
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/16/601090/Syria-USled-coalition-airstrike-Dayr-alZawr-civilians
-------
British
football fan says 'tortured' in UAE for supporting Qatar squad
Jul
16, 2019
A
British man says he was detained, verbally abused and tortured in the United
Arab Emirates for wearing a jersey of the Qatar national football team during
the 2019 Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup.
Ali
Issa Ahmad, from Wolverhampton in central England, said he wore the apparel
during a group stage match between Iraq and Qatar on January 22, without
knowing anything about the diplomatic row between Abu Dhabi and Doha, the
Arabic service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported.
The
26-year-old dual Sudanese-British citizen added that a group of men followed
him after the game, claiming they were police officers. They ripped his Qatar's
jersey and followed him to the hotel, where he was staying on holiday.
Ahmad
noted that the purported police officers followed him again when he decided to
leave the hotel. The Briton was then attacked in the car he was renting.
When
he arrived at a gas station to ask for an ambulance, a uniformed Emirati police
officer arrived at the scene, arrested him and then took him for interrogation.
“The
traces of what happened (to me) spread all over my body. I was beaten. I lost
my teeth, and was wounded. I was tortured by electricity, and stabbed when I
was in the cell.
“I
was forced to sign a statement in exchange for some water. I have a lot of
nightmares now. Not only did they torture me physically, but they also called
me terrible names especially because I am black,” Ahmad pointed out.
Ahmed's
lawyers said FIFA was unable to meet its obligations to protect the rights of
fans and to prevent racial discrimination against them.
They
said they had lodged complaints with the British Foreign Office and the UN
Human Rights Council against UAE authorities.
“It
is a shame that Ali has been tortured harshly and without justification while
attending an international football competition in the UAE,” said Rodney
Dickson, head of Ahmed's lawyer team.
“A
football fan should not suffer such inhumane and racist treatment, and FIFA
must take action to hold those responsible accountable,” he added.
Saudi
Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut off diplomatic ties with Qatar on June
5, 2017, after officially accusing it of “sponsoring terrorism.”
Libya,
the Maldives, Djibouti, Senegal and the Comoros later joined the camp in ending
diplomatic ties with Doha. Jordan downgraded its diplomatic relations as well.
Qatar's
Foreign Ministry later announced that the decision to cut diplomatic ties was
unjustified and based on false claims and assumptions.
On
June 9, 2017, Qatar strongly dismissed allegations of supporting terrorism
after the Saudi regime and its allies blacklisted dozens of individuals and
entities purportedly associated with Doha.
Later
that month, Saudi Arabia and its allies released a 13-point list of demands,
including the closure of Al Jazeera television network and downgrade of
relations with Iran, in return for the normalization of diplomatic relations
with Doha.
Full
report at:
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/16/601084/British-football-fan-tortured-in-UAE-for-supporting-Qatar-squad
--------
Mideast
Pompeo
Says Sanctions Have Worked And Regional Countries United Against Iran
July
16, 2019
U.S.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says Washington’s sanctions have had a strong
impact on Iran, and Iran’s behavior has united unlikely allies in the Middle
East against Iranian hegemony.
In
a radio interview with Sean Hannity on June 15, Pompeo agreed with his host
about the impact of U.S. sanctions on the Iranian economy and added that
critics who predicted sanctions would not work without European participation
came out to be wrong.
Pompeo
also commented that he hopes the sanctions will make Iran’s leaders realize
they should change their regional policies.
“And
so we do hope that the Islamic Republic of Iran leadership will come to know
what I think their people know. I think their people think their leadership is
on the wrong end of the stick. I think the Iranian people understand that
underwriting Hezbollah in Lebanon and in Syria and in providing money in Yemen
—“, Pompeo said.
Besides
the impact of sanctions, Pompeo also argued that Iran’s behavior has brought
together former adversaries in the region. To defend themselves against Iranian
influence, many Arab countries and Israel now cooperate.
“The
framework that had set the Middle East for so many years was the conflict
between Israel and the Palestinians, and now the major destabilizing force in
the Middle East is the Islamic Republic of Iran”, the Secretary said, adding
that the U.S. helped foster that trend. “This is truly historic. And they have
come to understand that they have a common threat, and they are increasingly
finding ways to work together to keep each of their nations secure.”
In
response to a comment by Hannity about how the nuclear deal provided Iran with
$150 billion, Pompeo agreed, repeating, “150 billion. Yes, sir.”
But
fact-checking by CNN and others reveal that the large figure is just an
estimate of the maximum amount of benefits Iran could have gotten from the 2015
nuclear agreement known as JCPOA. It is not what Iran actually received.
Frozen
cash assets that were unlocked amounted to a maximum of $50 billion, much in
previous oil sales that were locked-up due to international sanctions. The rest
were in various kinds of economic deals with countries such as China that would
not translate into liquid money available to Iran for its foreign policy
expenditures.
However,
Pompeo also mentioned a delivery of cash to Iran during the last months of the
Obama administration. “They allowed Iran to have enormous wealth, lots of
money, put cash on pallets and sent it to Iran, and then let them continue to
enrich uranium so they had the capacity to build out their nuclear weapon
system and foment terror. Those were the failures of the previous agreement the
President identified, and I think we’ve made real progress”, Pompeo argued.
In
January 2016, the U.S. secretly shipped $400 million dollars to Iran as the
first installment of $1.7 billion, which was a settlement of an old deal going
back to the pre-revolution days between the two countries.
On
the same day Tehran released four Iranian-American prisoners as it formally
implemented the 2015 nuclear agreement. CNN reported that President Barrack
Obama had approved the delivery of cash.
At
this time, Iran was heavily involved in the Syrian civil war, sending thousands
of troops and proxy forces to fight alongside Bashar al-Assad and Russian
forces. The joint effort against Syrian forces began to bear fruit soon, with
Assad taking back a substantial part of the country.
In
the interview Hannity also asked about Russian and Iranian ties. Pompeo
emphasized that the two countries work closely together in Syria and criticized
Russia for siding with Iran on the nuclear issue.
"There
is no doubt that Iran and Russia are working closely together, and Russia, who
was one of the signatories of the JCPOA, has decided to stay in that deal,
which we believe is fundamentally the wrong direction for the world to take in
trying to constrain Iran,”, Pompeo said.
https://en.radiofarda.com/a/pompeo-says-sanctions-have-worked-and-regional-countries-united-against-iran/30057814.html
-------
Yemenis
go hungry as UN-rebel tiff disrupts aid
Naseh
Shaker
July
16, 2019
SANAA,
Yemen — As the United Nations' partial suspension of aid to Yemen’s capital
Sanaa enters its fourth week — with no hope of resumption — Um Ahmed, 60, sees
little hope of feeding her two sons and providing them with the medical
treatment they need. The aid suspension across Sanaa has left parents like Um
Ahmed destitute and perplexed as they watch their children waste away.
“I
have two sons suffering from health problems. One has cancer and the other
suffers from a mental illness,” Um Ahmed told Al-Monitor as she drove on a
minibus June 28 in the Shoob district.
All
passengers on the bus blamed both the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP)
and the Houthi government for doubling their suffering.
Um
Ahmed received a bag and half of flour per month along with peas or lentils
before the WFP aid was suspended. She would sell either the half or the whole
bag to buy cancer medication for her son. Following WFP accusations that
Houthis were selling food aid on the black market right in front of schools
where the organization would distribute the food, people stopped selling them.
The
Houthis denied the WFP accusations but the rebel-run Ministry of Interior
tasked police forces to join WFP staff at schools’ gates to prevent people from
selling the food and organize the distribution process.
Um
Ahmed was undeterred. She said, “I showed the officials at the school’s gate
the hospital documents proving that my son has cancer, and they allowed me to
sell the food so I can buy medication.”
On
June 20, the WFP partially suspended aid to 850,000 people, in a country where
14 million people are “facing pre-famine conditions,” according to the UN.
“WFP
will maintain nutrition programmes for malnourished children, pregnant and
nursing mothers throughout the period of suspension,” the agency said in a
statement.
The
WFP and the Houthi Sanaa-based government continue to trade accusations over
alleged misuse of food aid, which the WFP says is being diverted to fuel the
conflict in Yemen while the Houthis accuse the WFP of sending spoiled supplies.
The WFP has called for independent identification of beneficiaries and a
biometric registration system.
Al-Monitor
reached out to the WFP via email, but it declined to comment on the ongoing
dispute.
Tareq
Qutafi, a flour mill owner in Sanaa, claims very few beneficiaries of the WFP
aid sell him their food for money. Rather, he said, the poor exchange the WFP
flour — which is of low quality — for his own high quality flour mix. Others
sell him their food baskets so they could pay their rent.
“Beneficiaries
ask me to exchange their WFP Australian-produced red flour for white flour,”
Qutafi told Al-Monitor as he sat on a bag of flour marked WFP in Arabic. “Some
give me sugar or oil [also from the WFP food basket] in exchange for my white
flour so they can mix it with the red WFP wheat to make bread.”
Qutafi
said that some people sell him their food so they can buy medication, but he
refused to say whether Houthi loyalists had sold him large amounts of food.
Al-Monitor
visited two schools in the Shoob district, where the WFP distributed the aid.
The school’s guards told Al-Monitor people visit the school in the afternoons
and evenings asking if there is any news of the aid distribution resuming.
When
the WFP did distribute the aid in public schools in the Houthi-run capital,
recipients would receive a text informing them that the aid had arrived at a
specific school. Their names would be included on a list, and with a show of
ID, they would receive the aid.
The
head of the Houthis’ Supreme Revolutionary Committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi,
told Reuters June 4 that the WFP's insistence on controlling the data of the
beneficiaries is a breach of Yemen's sovereignty.
Since
early this year, and most recently on June 25, the Houthis have blocked four
ships carrying food aid at the Red Sea port of Hodeidah after the WFP
threatened to suspend aid, claiming the food was spoiled.
Faisal
Mudhesh, a senior official in the Houthis' National Authority for the
Management and Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and Disaster Response, said
the dispute with the WFP is over the body's insistence on sharing the data with
donors.
“WFP
is asking to take the fingerprints of all beneficiaries, including children and
elders. It also wants to take their photographs and conduct an iris scan,”
Mudhesh told Al-Monitor via phone June 29.
“WFP
wants the database to be at its disposal and to have the right to share it with
the so-called donors including Saudi Arabia, the UAE and the US, i.e. the
aggressor countries,” he noted.
Mudhesh
said his organization has offered the WFP alternatives such as a biometric
registration system that does not violate Yemeni law, or an electronic ID
system with a national number for all beneficiaries.
“We
even told the WFP that the Department of Civil Status and Civil Registration
can cooperate with it to carry out field registration. The DCSCR would save the
data, while the WFP would have full access to check and supervise the data,” he
said, insisting, “No one has the right to share citizens’ personal data with
foreign countries.”
Meanwhile,
the most vulnerable in Yemen will continue to pay the price of this dispute.
Full
report at:
https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/07/yemen-wfp-partial-food-aid-suspension-sanaa-houthis.html
-------
Senior
Hamas official urges Palestinians worldwide to kill 'every Jew on the globe'
by
John Gage
July
15, 2019
Fathi
Hammad, a senior Hamas official, called upon Palestinians worldwide to begin
the "slaughter and killing" of Jews around the world.
“Our
patience has run out. We are on the verge of exploding. If this siege is not
undone, we will explode in the face of our enemies, with God’s permission and
glory. The explosion is not only going to be in Gaza but also in the [West]
Bank and abroad, if God wills,” Hammad said Friday. “But our brothers [in the
diaspora] are still preparing. They are trying to prepare. They are warming up.
A long time has passed with them warming up. All of you 7 million Palestinians
abroad, enough of the warming up. You have Jews everywhere and we must attack
every Jew on the globe by way of slaughter and killing, if God permits. Enough
of the warming up,” he added.
A
spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted a response to
the comments Sunday.
"We
use his statements to rally support for us and to reveal Hamas's true face.
Thank you Fathi!" Ofir Gendelman, Netanyahu's Arabic-language spokesman,
said.
Gendelman
added that Hammad's comments were revealing about Hamas.
"Hamas
senior terrorist Fathi Hammad revealed in a speech some facts so that you will
know what Hamas is about: Hamas is behind the riots on the Gaza border. Hamas
built factories for explosive vests to be used by Gazan boys & girls. Hamas
wants to murder Jews worldwide," Gendelman said.
Another
Hamas official condemned Hammad's comments as not representative of the group
as a whole.
"These
are personal statements that do not represent Hamas. They are no more than
emotional comments that he may have said because of the killing of one of our
members," the official said. "Our problem is not with the Jews, but
rather the occupation and the Zionist movement that is occupying
Palestine."
Full
report at:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/senior-hamas-official-urges-palestinians-worldwide-to-kill-every-jew-on-the-globe
-------
US
fears Iran seized UAE-based tanker in Strait of Hormuz
By
JON GAMBRELL
Jul
17, 2019
DUBAI,
United Arab Emirates (AP) — A small oil tanker from the United Arab Emirates
traveling through the Strait of Hormuz entered Iranian waters and turned off
its tracker three days ago, leading the U.S. to suspect Iran seized the vessel
amid heightened tensions in the region.
Iranian
state media quoted its Foreign Ministry spokesman early Wednesday as saying the
Islamic Republic had aided a foreign oil tanker with a malfunction, but the
report didn’t explain further. Oil tankers previously have been targeted in the
wider region amid tensions between the U.S. and Iran over its unraveling
nuclear deal with world powers.
The
Panamanian-flagged Riah turned off its transponder late Saturday night but an
Emirati official said it sent no distress call. The concern over its status
comes as Iran continues its own high-pressure campaign over its nuclear program
after President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the accord over
a year ago.
Recently,
Iran has inched its uranium production and enrichment over the limits of its
2015 nuclear deal, trying to put more pressure on Europe to offer it better
terms and allow it to sell its crude oil abroad.
However,
those tensions also have seen the U.S. send thousands of additional troops,
nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and advanced fighter jets into the Mideast.
Mysterious attacks on oil tankers and Iran shooting down a U.S. military
surveillance drone has added to the fears of an armed conflict breaking out.
The
58-meter (190-foot) Riah typically made trips from Dubai and Sharjah on the
UAE’s west coast before going through the strait and heading to Fujairah on the
UAE’s east coast. However, something happened to the vessel after 11 p.m. on
Saturday, according to tracking data.
Capt.
Ranjith Raja of the data firm Refinitiv told The Associated Press on Tuesday
that the tanker hadn’t switched off its tracking in three months of trips
around the UAE. “That is a red flag,” Raja said.
A
U.S. defense official later told the AP that the Riah was in Iranian
territorial waters near Qeshm Island, which has a Revolutionary Guard base on
it.
“We
certainly have suspicions that it was taken,” the official said. “Could it have
broken down or been towed for assistance? That’s a possibility. But the longer
there is a period of no contact ... it’s going to be a concern.”
The
official spoke on condition of anonymity as the matter did not directly involve
U.S. interests.
An
Emirati official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing
security matter, said the vessel “did not emit a distress call.”
“We
are monitoring the situation with our international partners,” the official
said.
Iran’s
IRNA news agency quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi as saying Iran
had helped an unnamed tanker by towing it to an Iranian port, without
elaborating. The report did not identify the ship, nor explain the malfunction
and the lack of a distress call or any crew contact with home.
The
ship’s registered owner, Dubai-based Prime Tankers LLC, told the AP it had sold
the ship to another company called Mouj Al-Bahar. A man who answered a
telephone number registered to the firm told the AP it didn’t own any ships.
The Emirati official said the ship was “neither UAE owned nor operated” and
carried no Emirati personnel, without elaborating.
Separately
Tuesday, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said his country will
retaliate over the seizure of an Iranian supertanker carrying 2.1 million
barrels of light crude oil. The vessel was seized with the help of British
Royal Marines earlier this month off Gibraltar over suspicion it was heading to
Syria in violation of European Union sanctions, an operation Khamenei called
“piracy” in a televised speech.
“God
willing, the Islamic Republic and its committed forces will not leave this evil
without a response,” he said. He did not elaborate.
British
Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt said Saturday that Britain will facilitate the
release of the ship if Iran can guarantee the vessel will not breach European
sanctions on oil shipments to Syria.
Iran
previously has threatened to stop oil tankers passing through the strait, the
narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which 20% of all crude oil passes, if
it cannot sell its own oil abroad.
Meanwhile,
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif seemed to suggest in a television
interview that the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile program could be up for
negotiations with the U.S., a possible opening for talks as tensions remain
high between Tehran and Washington. Zarif suggested an initially high price for
such negotiations — the halt of American arms sales to both Saudi Arabia and
the United Arab Emirates, two key U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf.
Iran’s
ballistic missile program remains under the control of the Iranian paramilitary
Revolutionary Guard, which answers only to Khamenei.
Zarif
brought up the ballistic missile suggestion during an interview with NBC News
that aired Monday night while he is in New York for meetings at the United
Nations. He mentioned the UAE spending $22 billion and Saudi Arabia spending
$67 billion on weapons last year, many of them American-made, while Iran spent
only $16 billion in comparison.
“These
are American weaponry that is going into our region, making our region ready to
explode,” Zarif said. “So if they want to talk about our missiles, they need
first to stop selling all these weapons, including missiles, to our region.”
Iran’s
mission to the United Nations later called Zarif’s suggestion “hypothetical.”
“Iran’s
missiles ... are absolutely and under no condition negotiable with anyone or
any country, period,” the mission said.
However,
U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo seized on Zarif’s comments in comments at a
Cabinet meeting Tuesday at the White House as a sign the U.S. maximalist
campaign against Iran was working.
“For
the first time, the Iranians have said that they’re prepared to negotiate about
their missile program,” he said. “So we will have this opportunity, I hope.”
Trump
during his time in the White House has pointed to arms sales to the Mideast as
important to the American economy, so it remains unclear how he’d react to
cutting into those purchases. In pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, Trump in
part blamed the accord not addressing Iran’s ballistic missile program. The
U.S. fears Iran could use its missile technology and space program to build
nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missiles, something Tehran denies it
wants to do.
Ayham
Kamel, an analyst for the Eurasia Group, said Zarif’s comments were aimed at
show flexibility for possible.
Full
report at:
https://apnews.com/14bcf671b33b40baa297676bf436ed23
-------
Iran
says Zarif’s missile remarks meant to challenge US, not negotiate over nukes
17
July 2019
Iran
says remarks by the country’s foreign minister about Iran’s missile program
possibly being up for negotiations with the US meant to challenge Washington's
arms sales policy to the region - and were not meant to indicate a readiness by
Tehran for any such talks.
The
Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, Abbas Mousavi, tweeted late on Tuesday that
Mohammad Javad Zari’s comments “threw the ball into the US court while
challenging America’s arm sales” to its Mideast allies.
Zarif
had said in an NBC News interview that if the US wants to talk about Iran’s
missiles, “they need first to stop selling all these weapons, including
missiles, to our region.”
Iran
has long rejected negotiations over its missile program.
Full
report at:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2019/07/17/Iran-says-Zarif-s-missile-remarks-meant-to-challenge-US-not-negotiate-over-nukes.html
-------
Iran’s
Zarif not allowed to move beyond a six-block radius in New York
16
July 2019
Iran’s
Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif is not allowed beyond a six-block radius
during his visit to New York City, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said on
Sunday, adding that Zarif was only given a US visa as part of the US’s
obligation toward the UN- being that it is the host country of the
organization’s headquarters.
Zarif
and the Iranian delegation arrived in New York on Sunday morning to attend a UN
Economic and Social Council ministerial meeting. The meeting is set to focus on
sustainable development goals, which aim to tackle issues including conflict,
hunger, gender equality and climate change by 2030.
Zarif
is only allowed to travel between the United Nations, the Iranian UN mission,
the Iranian UN ambassador’s residence and New York’s John F. Kennedy airport, a
US State Department official said.
“US
diplomats don’t roam around Tehran, so we don’t see any reason for Iranian
diplomats to roam freely around New York City, either,” Pompeo said in a
statement on Sunday.
“We
have largely working with our diplomatic security, but we put in place the
necessary protocols to ensure that they stay within that six-block radius,”
Brian Hook, the US Special Representative for Iran, said in an interview on Fox
News.
He
added that no US government officials will meet with Zarif.
Since
his arrival, Zarif has done television interviews, but TV crews conducted them
at the Iranian UN ambassador’s residence, which is within the set limitations.
According
to a UN 1947 agreement, the US is required to allow foreign diplomats entry for
access to the UN. However, Washington says it holds the right to deny visas for
“security, terrorism, and foreign policy” reasons.
In
April 2014, the US did not grant a visa to Iran’s chosen UN ambassador, Hamid
Abutalebi, because of his links to the 1979-1981 Tehran hostage crisis when
radical students seized the US Embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for 444
days. Abutalebi said he acted only as a translator.
Full
report at:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2019/07/16/Iran-s-Zarif-not-allowed-to-move-beyond-a-six-block-radius-in-New-York.html
-------
Arab
Coalition downs three Houthi drones targeting Jazan, Abha
16
July 2019
The
Arab Coalition supporting the legitimate government in Yemen has intercepted
and downed three drones launched by the Iran-backed Houthis in the two Saudi
cities of Jazan and Abha, the coalition’s spokesperson said.
“While
the UN special envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, is in Sanaa, the Houthi
militias continue targeting civilians and civilian airports in Abha, Jizan and
Najran and continue to threaten regional and international security,” the
coalition spokesman, Colonel Turki al-Malki, said in a statement.
A
Syrian resident of Saudi Arabia died last month from wounds sustained in a
drone attack on Abha Airport that was claimed by the Houthis.
Full
report at:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2019/07/16/Arab-Coalition-intercepts-two-Houthi-drones-targeting-Jazan.html
-------
Palestine
demands intl. investigation into detainee’s death in Israeli prison
Jul
16, 2019
The
Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates has called for an
international investigation into the death of a Palestinian prisoner in
solitary confinement at a detention facility in the Israeli-occupied
territories.
The
ministry, in a statement released on Tuesday, said the Israeli regime and its
security apparatus, including the Israel Prison Service (IPS), are fully
responsible for the death of 31-year-old Nassar Taqataqa of Beit Fajjar town,
located eight kilometers south of Bethlehem, at the Nitzan Prison two days
earlier.
The
statement then urged the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to
form an international investigation committee to look into the reasons for
Taqataqa’s death, and to provide legal and political protection to all
Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
“The
indifference by the international community, its organizations and special
councils toward Israeli violations and crimes encourage the occupying power to
insist on committing such atrocities.
“The
martyrdom of Taqataqa in interrogation cells demands an immediate action by the
International Criminal Court and the opening of an official investigation into
the crimes of the occupying power in order to pursue and prosecute Israeli war
criminals,” the ministry pointed out.
Qadri
Abu Bakr, head of the Commission of Prisoners’ Affairs, told Palestine's
official WAFA news agency that Israeli forces detained Taqataqa about a month
ago after raiding his family home. They initially moved him to the Kishon
prison, also known as the al-Jalame detention center, for interrogation before
he was put in solitary confinement at Nitzan Prison, where he passed away.
Jawad
Thawabteh, a member of the Fatah movement, said Israeli forces brought Taqataqa
handcuffed to his family house about two weeks ago to search it. He was severely
beaten before being taken back to prison.
On
February 8, a Palestinian prisoner died inside the Eshel Prison in Beersheba.
The
Palestinian Prisoner's Society confirmed the death of prisoner Yaser Hamed
Ashtia, 36, from the northern West Bank city of Nablus, pointing out that the
circumstances of his death were not immediately known.
Ashtia
was detained by Israeli forces in 2009. He was sentenced to life imprisonment
over alleged killing of a settler.
The
development came only two days after Palestinian prisoner Fares Baroud died
hours after being suddenly transferred to intensive care from Ramon prison in
the occupied territories.
The
late 51-year-old was suffering from a number of health conditions, including a
hernia and liver disease, and had repeatedly spoken about medical neglect and
denial of necessary health treatment to Palestinian inmates.
Baroud
was arrested in 1991, and was supposed to be released in 2013 as part of
negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and the Tel Aviv regime. Israeli
officials, however, reneged on the agreement, refusing to release the final 30
prisoners, including him.
Full
report at:
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/16/601073/Palestine-demands-intl-investigation-into-detainees-death-in-Israeli-prison
--------
Africa
Sudan
military council, opposition sign political agreement
17
July 2019
The
first phase of a political agreement was signed by Sudan’s Transitional
Military Council and the Forces of Freedom and Change opposition alliance with
the attendance of the African Union and Ethiopian envoys.
At
a press conference on Wednesday, it was announced that the constitution draft
will be discussed this Friday.
The
deputy head of Sudan’s Transitional Military Council, Gen. Mohamed Hamdan
Dagalo, said that the agreement is “a historic moment,” and makes way for “a
new era of cooperation.”
The
African Union envoy said the agreement marks a “new era” and “paves the way for
the next stage.”
For
his part, the Ethiopian envoy said that the “people of Sudan deserve this great
day.”
The
Forces of Freedom and Change opposition alliance said: “We must stay away from
all that divides the Sudanese people.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2019/07/17/Military-council-opposition-sign-political-agreement.html
-------
Two
leaders of Mali al-Qaeda affiliate put on US terrorism list after attacks
16
July 2019
The
United States added two leaders of al-Qaeda's affiliate in Mali to its global
terrorism list on Tuesday, accusing them of engaging in destabilizing attacks across
the West African country, the US Treasury said.
Ali
Maychou and Bah Ag Moussa, both leaders of Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam
wal-Muslimin, were designated by the US Treasury as global terrorists and
placed on a list of people whose assets in the United States can be blocked,
the Treasury's Office of Foreign Asset Control said.
"Treasury
is targeting the leadership of JNIM, al-Qaeda's branch in Mali, for its
destabilizing role conducting terrorist attacks across the country,"
Treasury Undersecretary Sigal Mandelker said in a statement. "As a leader
within JNIM, Bah Ag Moussa directly contributes to the violence and instability
fueled by al-Qaeda's terrorism."
The
Treasury said it added Moussa to its sanctions list because he had acted on
behalf of JNIM and its leader, Iyad Ag Ghali. Both JNIM and Ghali were added to
the sanctions list previously.
Moussa,
a former Malian army colonel, led an operation in March against the Malian
Armed Forces base in Dioura that killed at least 21 Malian soldiers.
The
U.S. State Department said Maychou, a native of Morocco, had claimed
responsibility for a JNIM attack on a military camp that housed Malian troops
in Gao, killing dozens. It said Maychou had an operational role in JNIM's
activities.
Full
report at:
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/world/2019/07/16/Two-leaders-of-Mali-al-Qaeda-affiliate-put-on-US-terrorism-list-after-attacks.html
-------
6
nations call for immediate halt to Libya violence
Beyza
Binnur Dönmez
16.07.2019
Egypt,
France, Italy, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the U.K. and the U.S. reiterated
concern about ongoing hostilities in Tripoli, urging Libya to return to
UN-mediated political process.
In
a joint statement released Tuesday, the six nations called for an
"immediate" de-escalation and halt to the current fighting.
"There
can be no military solution in Libya," the statement said.
Voicing
the concerns about the ongoing attempts by terrorist groups to "exploit
the security vacuum" in the country, the statement called on all parties
of the Tripoli conflict to "dissociate themselves from all such
terrorists".
"We
need to re-energize UN mediation, which aims to promote a transitional
government representing all Libyans, prepare for credible parliamentary and
presidential elections, enable a fair allocation of resources, and advance the
reunification of the Central Bank of Libya and other Libyan sovereign
institutions," it said.
Persistent
violence has claimed nearly 1,100 lives, displaced more than 100,000, and
fueled a growing humanitarian emergency in the country, according to the
statement.
"The
ongoing confrontation has threatened to destabilize Libya’s energy sector, and
exacerbated the tragedy of human migration in the Mediterranean," it
added.
Libya
has remained beset by turmoil since 2011 when a NATO-backed uprising led to the
ouster and death of long-serving President Muammar Gaddafi after more than four
decades in power.
Full
report at:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/6-nations-call-for-immediate-halt-to-libya-violence/1533554
--------
Borno
emir returns home 5 years after displacement by Boko Haram
July
15, 2019
The
Emir of Gwoza in Borno State, Mohammed Shehu-Timta, has returned home following
relative peace and security five years after displacement from the kingdom by
Boko Haram insurgents.
The
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that mammoth crowd gathered at Pulka and
major streets in Gwoza metropolis on Monday to give the first class traditional
ruler a rousing welcome.
Mr
Shehu-Timta who was accompanied by the Deputy Governor of the state, Usman
Kadafur, Ali Ndume, the senator for Borno South, members of the state House of
Assembly and village heads, among others, was received in a colourful
celebration showcased with a martial display of Gwoza culture at the emir’s
palace.
Addressing
the people, Governor Babagana Umara said the return of the monarch signified
the return of civic authority in the local institution.
Represented
by Mr Kadafur, the governor said his administration accord high respect and
commitment to the traditional institution, describing it as a “symbol and pride
of every society’’.
“I
felicitate with the Emir and people of Gwoza over the official relocation and
return of our Emir back to his palace after years in Maiduguri.
“This
administration will not afford to toy with the people of Gwoza and the
traditional institution.
“I
therefore call on you to support the Emir and security agencies to end
insurgency in order to move the emirate forward.
“The
government is not unaware of the numerous challenges related to the relocation
of the Emir. We are going to accelerate the reconstruction and rehabilitation
of Gwoza General Hospital, water sources and other public utility buildings,
among others,” he said.
According
to him, the government will fast track construction of the mega schools to
enable the students resume classes.
Speaking
earlier, Mr Shehu-Timta said he voluntarily returned home to build confidence
and encouraged his subjects to also return home and go back to their normal
livelihood.
He
recalled when the insurgents sacked the town in 2014, killings dozens of
people, declaring the town as their spiritual caliphate.
He
said: “Dozens of my people ran for their lives and became Internally Displaced
Persons in Maiduguri, Adamawa, Abuja and Lagos, while some fled to Cameroon.
“Today’s
is my happiest day in life as I officially returned back to my domain after
been displaced by insurgents.
“I
therefore call all people of Gwoza to come back home, so that we will rebuild
our communities.”
The
monarch also appealed to the Borno Government to construct more tents in the
town for IDPs to return and rebuild their livelihood.
On
Security, the monarch appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari and the security
agencies to restore mobile network in the town, noting that without communication,
life will be difficult for the people.
Also
speaking, Mr Ndume appealed to security agencies to beef up security to protect
farmers from Boko Haram attacks.
He
also urged the military to intensify its operations on the Mandara Mountains to
clear the remnants of the insurgents and to enable residents of the area to
return.
NAN
recalls that in August 2014, Boko Haram captured Gwoza town with a population
of 275,000 people and declared it the headquarters of its caliphate.
It
was later liberated by the Nigerian military.
Full
report at:
https://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/nnorth-east/341032-borno-emir-returns-home-5-years-after-displacement-by-boko-haram.html
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Somalia:
Somali Army Retakes Fresh Areas From Al-Shabaab After Offensive
14
JULY 2019
Somali
National Army has taken new areas from al-Shabaab in Lower Shabelle region on
Sunday. The troops seized Yaaqbari Weyne, MadaxMarodi and Lego villages during
operation.
Colonel,
Mohamed Abdullahi Arale who was leading contingents from the 35th brigade of
the 60th division confirmed the news to state media.
Col.
Arale said his troops killed 15 fighters during the operation while destroying
several vehicles used by the militants.
According
to sources, the operation was backed by US force air support since no
confirmation from AFRICOM.
The
new grounds retaken by Somali troops were held by al-Shabaab fighters since
2015 when AMISOM contingents from Burundi retreated following an attack.
Somali
National Army backed By AU peacekeeping troops in support from US drone strikes
intensified operations against armed group al-Shabaab in recent months.
Full
report at:
https://allafrica.com/stories/201907150387.html
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Kenyan
police kill 3 al-Shabab suspects in coastal region
2019-07-16
LAMU,
Kenya, July 15 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan security forces on Monday killed three
suspected al-Shabab militants shortly after an improvised explosive device
(IED) detonated, injuring two police officers in Kiunga, Lamu town, near
Kenya-Somalia border.
David
Lusava, Lamu East deputy commissioner confirmed the incident in the coastal
town of Lamu, saying the IED believed to have been planted by the militants was
targeting security units on patrol in the area.
"I
have received information of the IED attack somewhere in Kiunga towards the
Somalia border but I don't have the details. So I can't even say how many have
been injured or killed and whether they are terrorists or security
officers," Lusava said.
"The
area is under the multi-agency security operation Linda Boni, they are better placed
with the details," he added.
A
police officer in Kiunga confirmed that three militants were killed during the
incident.
"My
unit was among the first responders to the scene shortly after the RBPU (Rapid
Border Patrol Unit) had been ambushed. We counted three bodies belonging to
al-Shabab militants. They were dressed in jungle green military regalia and had
around their necks, flags similar to those used by the militia group,"
said the officer who declined to be named.
He
said they suspect the militants might have been around 30 owing to the number
of footprints located inside the bushes where they hid.
"We
can't tell the exact number as they were obviously hiding so they can ambush
these officers but we counted tens of different footprint patterns which
suggested they were about 30 in number. Two officers were fatally wounded but
have been flown out of Lamu for treatment," the police officer said.
Full
report at:
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-07/16/c_138229418.htm
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UN
envoy meets UAE minister to discuss fighting in Libya
17
July 2019
The
UN envoy to Libya, Ghassan Salame, has met United Arab Emirates Foreign
Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan in Abu Dhabi to discuss ways to
end the fighting in Libya, the UN Support Mission in Libya said in a tweet on
Tuesday.
Salame
explained the heavy human cost of the fighting in Libya, according to the
tweet, which added that he “stressed the importance of adhering to a unified
roadmap for reuniting the Libyans and helping them to agree & reconcile.”
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/north-africa/2019/07/17/UN-envoy-meets-UAE-minister-to-discuss-fighting-in-Libya-.html
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One
killed, several injured as Nigerian army attack Sheikh Zakzaky’s supporters
Jul
17, 2019
At
least one person has lost his life and several others sustained injuries when
Nigerian army opened fire on protesters demanding the release of top Muslim
cleric Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, who has been held for four years on trumped-up
allegations.
On
Tuesday, dozens of supporters of the leader of Islamic Movement in Nigeria
(IMN), who has been held since December 2015 following a deadly raid by the
Nigerian army troops on his residence in the country’s northern Kaduna State,
took to the streets, calling for his immediate freedom.
Nigerian
troopers fired shots at the demonstrators, killing at least one person. There
are reports that two people had suffered life-threatening injuries after being
shot in the chest.
The
development came nearly a week after Nigerian police used live bullets and tear
gas canisters to disperse Muslim demonstrators calling for the speedy release
of Sheikh Zakzaky.
Sheikh
Zakzaky, who is in his mid-sixties, lost his left eyesight when Nigerian
government forces raided the northern town of Zaria more than three years ago.
His wife also sustained serious wounds while more than 300 of his followers and
three of his sons were killed in the violence.
The
cleric has been kept in custody along his wife and a large number of his
followers ever since.
Back
in 2016, Nigeria’s federal high court ordered his unconditional release from
jail following a trial but the government has so far refused to set him free.
Full
report at:
https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/07/17/601123/One-killed-several-injured-as-Nigerian-army-attack-Sheikh-Zakzakys-supporters
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South Asia
Dadullah
alias Surkhabi, one of the most dangerous leaders of Taliban killed in Jawzjan
17
Jul 2019
The
Afghan security forces killed one of the most dangerous leaders of Taliban
group during an operation in Jawzjan province.
The
209th Shaheen Corps in a statement said the security forces killed Dadullah
alias Surkhabai, one of the most dangerous leaders of Taliban during operation
in Jawzjan.
The
statement further added that the security forces killed Dadullah and his 3
companions i Shorabi Village of Qarqin district.
Teh
209th Shaheen Corps also added that the security forces also destroyed a
Taliban compound and cleared several villages during the same operation.
https://www.khaama.com/dadullah-alias-surkhabi-one-of-the-most-dangerous-leaders-of-taliban-killed-in-jawzjan-03955/
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Special
Forces seize up to 100 weapons of Taliban, 1000 rounds of ammunition in Logar
16
Jul 2019
The
Afghan Special Forces seized up to 100 weapons and 1000 rounds of ammunition
during an operation in central Logar province.
The
Special Operations Corps in a statement said the Special Forces seized the
weapons and ammunition in Kharwar district of Logar.
The
statement further added that the Special Forces confiscated 83 Ak-47s and 7
pistols during the operation.
Full
report at:
https://www.khaama.com/special-forces-seize-up-to-100-weapons-of-taliban-1000-rounds-of-ammunition-in-logar-03954/
--------
ICC
delegation in Bangladesh to discuss Rohingya crisis
Md.
Kamruzzaman
16.07.2019
A
delegation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) arrived in Bangladesh’s
capital Dhaka on Tuesday on a weeklong visit to assess the Rohingya crisis and
judicial process, local media reported.
The
delegation is led by ICC’s Deputy Prosecutor James Kirkpatrick Stewart.
“Apart
from holding meetings with the senior officials of the law and home ministries
and representatives of international organizations, the ICC delegation members
would also visit Rohingya camps to see the situation”, United News of
Bangladesh quoted Bangladeshi officials as saying.
According
to a statement by the office of ICC’s spokesman, the visit is in the context of
office’s “ongoing activities pursuant to its mandate under the Rome Statute,
concerning the situation in Bangladesh/Myanmar.”
The
statement added that the ICC prosecutor has already completed a thorough
preliminary examination process over the allegation of crimes against humanity
perpetrated by Myanmar army in Rakhine State against minority Rohingya Muslims.
“Following
her thorough preliminary examination process, the ICC Prosecutor has recently
requested the Court’s Judges to authorize an investigation into alleged crimes
against humanity committed against the Rohingya people from Myanmar. The
outcome of this request is still pending and is before the Court’s judges,” it
added.
About
the weeklong visit of the delegation, the statement said: “The delegation will
not engage in any evidence collection in relation to any alleged crimes. The
purpose of this visit, in general terms, is to engage with relevant
stakeholders and explain the judicial process and the status of the situation.”
Persecuted
people
The
Rohingya, described by the UN as the world's most persecuted people, have faced
heightened fears of attack since dozens were killed in communal violence in
2012.
According
to Amnesty International, more than 750,000 Rohingya refugees, mostly women and
children, have fled Myanmar and crossed into Bangladesh after Myanmar forces
launched a crackdown on the minority Muslim community in August 2017, extending
the number of persecuted people in Bangladesh above 1.2 million.
Since
Aug. 25, 2017, nearly 24,000 Rohingya Muslims have been killed by Myanmar’s
state forces, according to a report by the Ontario International Development
Agency (OIDA).
More
than 34,000 Rohingya were also thrown into fires, while over 114,000 others
were beaten, said the OIDA report, titled "Forced Migration of Rohingya:
The Untold Experience."
Full
report at:
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/icc-delegation-in-bangladesh-to-discuss-rohingya-crisis/1533060
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Death
toll in Taliban roadside bombing rises to 13 in Kandahar, over 30 more wounded
16
Jul 2019
The
death toll as a result of a roadside bombing in southern Kandahar province has
climbed to 13 people with 30 more wounded.
The
205th Atal Corps in a statement said an improvised explosive device planted by
Taliban went off in Khakrez district.
The
statement further added that the explosion killed 13 civilians including
children and wounded more than 30 others.
Furthermore,
the 205th Atal Corps said the civilians were travelling between Darzab and
Mandigak areas when their vehicle struck the roadside bomb.
Full
report at:
https://www.khaama.com/death-toll-in-taliban-roadside-bombing-rises-to-13-in-kandahar-over-30-more-wounded-03948/
-------
Afghan
Special Forces large caches of weapons, IEDs in Ghazni province
16
Jul 2019
The
Afghan Special Forces destroyed large caches of weapons and Improvised
Explosive Devices during an operation in Ghazni.
The
military sources said Tuesday that the Special Forces conducted the operation
in Deh Yak district.
The
sources further added that the Special destroyed 20 IEDs, 2 Mortars, 1 RPG
Warhead, 10 lbs Homemade Explosives, 4 Grenades, 250 ALP Uniforms, 5 acres of
Marijuana, a large IED cache and a large Weapons cache.
Full
report at:
https://www.khaama.com/afghan-special-forces-large-caches-of-weapons-ieds-in-ghazni-province-03946/
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Airstrikes
kill 7 Taliban militants, destroy car bomb in Helmand, Zabul, Wardak, Nangarhar
17
Jul 2019
The
security forces conducted a series of airstrikes in four provinces in the past
24 killing at least 7 Taliban militants.
The
informed military sources said Wednesday that airstrikes killed 5 Taliban
militants and wounded another militant in Kajaki district of Helmand.
The
sources further added that an airstrike killed another Taliban militant in Shah
Joy district of Zabul.
Furthermore,
the sources said an airstrike killed a Taliban fighter in Chak-e Wardak district
of Wardak province.
Full
report at:
https://www.khaama.com/airstrikes-kill-7-taliban-militants-destroy-car-bomb-in-helmand-zabul-wardak-nangarhar-03958/
-------
Afghan
Special Forces arrest ISIS Khurasan militant in Kabul
17
Jul 2019
The
security arrested a militant affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and
Syria Khurqasan (ISIS-K) in Kabul.
The
informed military officials confirmed that the Special Forces arrested the
ISIS-K militant during a Special Operation in Kabul.
The
officials did not disclose further information regarding the operation.
This
comes as the Afghan Special Forces arrested 5 militants of the terror group
during a similar operation in Kabul last week.
The
security forces also arrested another suspected militant who was facilitating
weapons supply to ISIS terrorists in Kabul.
The
Ministry of Interior (MoI) in a statement said Sunday the Special Operations
Unit of the Afghan National Police arrested the suspect during an operation
earlier today.
The
statement further added that the Special Force detained the suspect from the
16th district of Kabul city.
Furthermore,
the Ministry of Interior said the detained individual has been identified as
Juma Khan.
Full
report at:
https://www.khaama.com/afghan-special-forces-arrest-isis-khurasan-militant-in-kabul-03957/
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