Thu Apr 02 2026, 10:54 AM

Islamic World News ( 11 Sept 2025, NewAgeIslam.Com)

Delhi Police's Special Cell Busted An ‘IS-Inspired' Module, ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind' To Wage War In The Indian Subcontinent To Establish Islamic Rule

New Age Islam News Bureau

11 September 2025

Five operatives got arrested, including mastermind Ashar Danish

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· Delhi Police's Special Cell Busted An ‘IS-Inspired' Module, ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind' To Wage War In The Indian Subcontinent To Establish Islamic Rule

· Islamic State Group Escalates Attacks On Niger Civilians, HRW Report

· Muslims Divorce In Malaysia: Communication Breakdown, Domestic Violence Top Reasons In Telenisa’s 2024 Report

· Qatar Rejects Netanyahu’s ‘Shameful’ Attempt To Justify Israel’s ‘Cowardly Attack’

· Arizona Democrats To File Ethics Complaint Over GOP Lawmaker’s Anti-Muslim Comments

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India

· ‘What Is This? Every Week? Every Single Week?’: Delhi HC Reprimands Serial Litigator Against Islamic Structures

· BJP’s ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’ Distorts 1948. It Wasn’t A Hindu Uprising Against A Muslim

· India, EU discuss countering terror, slam Pahalgam

· Near Kashi Vishwanath Temple, Another Project, And Tax Notices, Kindle Displacement Fears

· What is the urgency? It's a match, let it be: SC refuses urgent listing of plea against India-Pakistan Asia Cup match

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Africa

· Court Rejects Bail Request For Alleged Al-Shabab Terrorists

· FG Announces Line Up Of Activities For Nigeria’s 65th Anniversary

· Frustration as rebels kill scores in two attacks in eastern Congo

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Southeast Asia

· Perak Assembly Passes Islamic Religious Schools Control Bill Unanimously

· Malaysia committed to engage Muslim leaders via OIC to condemn Israel’s aggression, says PM

· Malaysia ready to lead integrated halal-Islamic finance economy

· Anwar calls for Islamic finance to shape ethical leaders and SDGs

· Anwar wins global Islamic finance award, urges industry to be moral compass in turbulent times

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Mideast

· Qatar Says Netanyahu Must Be ‘Brought To Justice’ Over Strikes

· WHO Says To Remain In Gaza City Despite Israel’s Call To Leave

· Russia condemns Israeli strike on Qatar as ‘gross violation’ of UN charter

· Rights groups file case in Germany against German-Israeli soldier over suspected Gaza war crimes

· Airstrike interrupts Palestinian aid worker discussing Israel’s Gaza City offensive

· US biker gang running security at contentious Gaza aid sites

· Israeli airstrikes on Yemen kill at least 35 people, Houthi officials say

· Missing limbs and loved ones, Gazan children begin treatment journey abroad

· Qatar digs through the rubble of Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha

· Islamic Jihad Movement: Deliberate Israeli targeting of Yemeni civilian facilities reflects its weakness on battlefield

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North America

· 'Allah Will Burn Them': What Pro-Palestinian Students And Allies Say When They Think No One Is Watching

· CAIR Calls on French Government to Address Rising Islamophobia After Pig Heads Left at Mosques

· Putin and Netanyahu present twin challenges to Trump's diplomacy

· Trump vows to hunt down those funding ‘radical left’ violence

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Europe

· Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral Threatened By Terrorists? An Old Fake Video Resurfaces

· Foreign Nationals Placed Pig Heads Outside Paris Mosques, Prosecutor Says

· Muslim community leaders alarmed by a rise in Islamophobia amid recent incidents in south-east Queensland

· Protests hit France as new PM takes office

· Half-truths and hypocrisy: GPS-jammed Ursula von der Leyen speaks again

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South Asia

· 'During Hasina’s Time, Corruption Became An Organisational Principle'

· Statement of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Regarding the Zionist Regime’s Attack on Qatar

· Minister Kabir Reaffirms Support for Returnees in Meeting with Shiite Scholars

· Uzbekistan to Hand Over 57 Military Helicopters to Afghanistan, Mujahid Says

· UNICEF Appeals for $22m to Aid Children Affected by Afghanistan Earthquakes

· Imran Khan Directs KP Chief Minister to Visit Kabul for Talks

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Arab World

· Saudi Arabia Receives Hosting Flag For International Prosecutors’ Conference

· Bold vision sees continued revival of Makkah’s history and culture

· Saudi initiative brings patients to Abha for healing and hope

· ‘Saudi Arabia and Estonia enjoy values-based cooperation,’ FM Margus Tsahkna tells Arab News

· Estonian FM condemns Doha strike, reaffirms two-state support

· Saudi defence minister calls Qatari PM after Israeli attack in Doha

· Saudi irrigation delegation joins Malaysia meeting

Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau

URL: https://newageislam.com/islamic-world-news/delhi-police-ghazwa-e-hind-islamic-rule/d/136802

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Delhi Police's Special Cell Busted An ‘IS-Inspired' Module, ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind' To Wage War In The Indian Subcontinent To Establish Islamic Rule

Sep 11, 2025

Five operatives got arrested, including mastermind Ashar Danish

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NEW DELHI: Claiming to foil a major terror plot, Delhi Police's special cell busted an ‘IS-inspired' module and detained about a dozen suspects from Delhi, Ranchi and other places in coordinated raids on Tuesday and Wednesday. At least five of the suspects were placed under arrest by late Wednesday while others were still being interrogated.

Two of the suspects were intercepted in a southeast Delhi locality. They came to Delhi from Mumbai, a source said, identifying them as Abu Bakr alias Sufian and Aftab. The third suspect, Danish, was nabbed from Ranchi.

During the raids, police seized several items, including hydrochloric acid, nitric acid, sodium bicarbonate and sulphur powder, which are used for making improvised explosive devices (IEDs). "Other seized items include a pH value checker, ball bearings, four knives, Rs 10,500 in cash, a weighing machine, a beaker set, safety gloves and a respiratory mask. A box containing electronic components like strip wires, circuit, motherboard, diodes and copper was also recovered," the source added.

Officially, police remained tight-lipped, citing ongoing operations. When contacted, additional commissioner (special cell) Pramod Kushwaha said, "An anti-terror operation is currently underway and details can't be disclosed at this stage."

The cell conducted the operation after receiving an alert from a central intelligence agency about the movement of some terror suspects allegedly in the advanced stage of carrying out terrorist activities and disrupting communal harmony.

Acting swiftly, police laid traps and apprehended two suspects — Abu Bakr alias Sufian and Aftab — near Sarai Kale Khan in southeast Delhi on Tuesday night. Simultaneous raids were conducted in other cities, including Mumbai and Ranchi, resulting in the detention of a dozen suspects.

Danish, the suspect arrested in Ranchi, was staying in a lodge for the past 18 months. He belongs to Bokaro district and claimed to be a graduate in English. Based on his disclosure, the cops, along with sleuths from the Jharkhand anti-terror squad, conducted raids in Palamu as well.

Police said the investigation revealed that the suspects were in touch with each other and their handler through encrypted messaging apps Signal and Telegram. "They had formed a group named ‘Ghazwa-e-Hind', a concept floated by terrorist groups to wage war in the Indian subcontinent to establish Islamic rule," said another source.

The suspects, inspired by IS ideology, were allegedly planning to carry out IED attacks and wanted to establish an Islamic Caliphate. However, the probe suggests that an ISI operative was masquerading as an IS recruiter, a modus operandi often coming to the fore in several terror modules busted by Indian agencies.

The joint interrogation of the suspects detained during the raids is underway by various agencies, which are looking to unravel the extent of the plot and the involvement of other suspects.

Delhi Police filed an FIR under offences of promoting propaganda to create enmity between communities, disturbing religious harmony, and possessing illegal weapons. Police also recovered several digital devices that have been sent for forensic examination. Cops said the suspects revealed that their handler was teaching them to assemble IEDs online and instructed them to buy a range of items, including chemicals, to prepare a bomb.

Source: indiatimes.com

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/delhi-police-busts-is-inspired-terror-module-detains-suspects-in-coordinated-raids/articleshow/123814722.cms

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Islamic State Group Escalates Attacks On Niger Civilians, HRW Report

10 September 2025

Anait Miridzhanian

A convoy of Nigerien soldiers patrol outside the town of Ouallam, Niger. File photo.

Image: REUTERS/Media Coulibaly

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Islamic State-affiliated militants have stepped up attacks in western Niger, killing more than 127 people in five separate strikes since March and highlighting authorities' failure to protect civilians, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday.

A report by the rights group provides the most detailed accounts available of attacks carried out by Islamic State in the Sahel Province (ISSP) in the Tillaberi region, near the border with Burkina Faso and Mali. Niger does not typically comment on such incidents.

The tri-border region is known as a hub of jihadist activity in West Africa linked to Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

Witnesses identified the perpetrators of the attacks as members of ISSP based on their attire and because of threats the group had made beforehand, HRW said.

Witnesses also said Niger's army did not adequately respond to warnings of attacks and ignored villagers' requests for protection, according to the report.

The government and a military spokesperson could not be reached for comment ahead of the report's publication.

Reuters could not independently verify HRW's accounts of the attacks.

Niger's junta, which came to power in a coup in 2023, cited persistent insecurity as justification for overthrowing the government.

But an analysis of data on attacks and casualties in the country had shown an improvement in security ahead of the coup, owing to government tactics and help from French and US forces.

The resurgence in attacks in Tillaberi underscores the threat posed by jihadist groups at a time when West African governments are estranged from former Western military allies

HRW urged Niger's government to investigate and prosecute abuses it described as apparent war crimes. The group said Niger's justice minister did not respond to questions about its findings.

Source: timeslive.co.za

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/africa/2025-09-10-islamic-state-group-escalates-attacks-on-niger-civilians-says-rights-group/#google_vignette

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Muslims Divorce In Malaysia: Communication Breakdown, Domestic Violence Top Reasons In Telenisa’s 2024 Report

By Ida Lim

11 Sep 2025

At SIS Forum (Malaysia)’s Telenisa 2024 report launch, communication problems, domestic violence and failure to provide financially were again the top three reasons why Muslims in Malaysia divorce. —Picture by Yusof Mat Isa

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KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 11 — The top three reasons why Muslims divorce in Malaysia in 2024 are communication breakdown, domestic violence, and the husband’s failure to provide financially, women’s rights advocacy group SIS Forum’s (Malaysia) latest report has said.

In SIS Forum’s report on its free legal clinic Telenisa’s findings about 188 clients last year, communication breakdown remains a leading cause for divorce, just like in previous years.

At the report’s launch last Tuesday, SIS Forum communications manager Ameena Siddiqi said a closer look at Telenisa’s statistics showed that such communication breakdown happened across the board, whether Muslim couples were in urban or rural areas, and regardless of their income and education levels.

“A lot of women reported lack of dialogue about finances, emotional needs not met,” she said, adding that unresolved conflicts between married couples also led to such communication breakdown and eventually divorces.

She suggested that pre-marital courses should include lessons on how to better communicate with each other.

In its report, SIS Forum said there is an urgent need for marital support programmes that teaches communication and financial management skills, as well as equip couples with tools to peacefully resolve conflicts without violence.

Women’s Aid Organisation (WAO) executive director Nazreen Nizam said Telenisa’s findings match her organisation’s statistics, where WAO received 1,326 domestic violence cases in 2024, including 30 cases who needed to be brought into WAO’s shelters.

Nazreen said domestic violence cases is a serious and recurring problem in Malaysia, and it could be in the form of physical, emotional, sexual, social or even financial violence.

She gave examples of financial violence (such as when the husband fails to provide maintenance, when the wife is disallowed to work, when the husband holds on to the working wife’s debit card), and psychological violence such as giving the silent treatment.

“When we talk about the issue of domestic violence, it happens because of power imbalance in the relationship. Because sometimes you can talk about contributing factors, whether the husband is alcoholic, a drug addict, poverty — but the root cause is the power imbalance in that relationship,” she said.

In explaining how some women have to be dependent financially on their husbands, she said some women give up their jobs to care for their children and household, while the husbands can continue their work and career growth.

She said domestic violence is a structural issue caused by gender inequality, noting societal attitude where such cases are seen as a “small matter” or household disputes to be sorted out by couples instead of being made a subject of police reports.

She said women in domestic violence cases face obstacles, such as being gaslighted or being victim blamed by family members or friends who ask them to just “bersabar” or be patient.

“When they say bersabar, indirectly it means they blame the women and they normalise abuse. They don’t see the problem that women are facing is legitimate or valid, or needing someone to step in and help,” she said, adding that this word bersabar could pop up even at police stations or other places where women sought for help in such cases.

Empowering domestic abuse victims, instead of saying ‘bersabar’

Shariah and civil lawyer Nor Liana Ali said many of her clients had been told to be patient, especially by family members who wanted to prevent divorces as it was still considered taboo in society. She said there were wives who had put up with abuse for up to even 10 to 40 years before deciding to divorce.

Nor Liana said domestic violence cases may not necessarily be intentional or due to a spouse being hot-tempered from the start, but could happen unintentionally when there is an opportunity such as a spouse having more financial strength.

For example, she said there was a husband who became the main breadwinner with high pay and started to abuse the wife, after the wife quit her job due to her child.

When the wife came to her for help, Nor Liana encouraged her to start driving again after having been driven around by the husband over the years, and to rebuild her personal confidence and personal strength.

“’Now you start driving again, you go out and buy your own groceries, find your own happiness, jogging,” she said when describing what she told the woman, adding that this woman has now started working again and learnt to stand up for herself by being assertive to stop any further abuse from the husband.

Here are SIS Forum’s proposals in its 2024 Telenisa report on how to address domestic violence issues in marriages:

Comprehensive public education (on marital rights, personal boundaries, impact of all forms of violence);

Expanded, easily accessible support services (e.g. shelters, trauma counselling, legal aid, emergency financial assistance);

Improve law enforcement (safe reporting systems, training so frontline officers will respond with greater sensitivity and empathy);

Empower the community (to detect, prevent domestic violence and give support).

Source: malaymail.com

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://www.malaymail.com/news/malaysia/2025/09/11/why-muslims-divorce-in-malaysia-communication-breakdown-domestic-violence-top-reasons-in-telenisas-2024-report/190609

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Qatar rejects Netanyahu’s ‘shameful’ attempt to justify Israel’s ‘cowardly attack’

September 11, 2025

Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits the scene of a shooting at the Ramot road junction in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem on September 8, 2025. On Tuesday, Israel launched an airstrike targeting Hamas political leaders in Qatar. (POOL / AFP)

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RIYADH: Qatar denounced Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s remarks about Doha’s hosting of a Hamas office as “reckless” and a “shameful attempt” to justify Israel’s “cowardly attack” on Qatari territory.

“Netanyahu is fully aware that the hosting of the Hamas office took place within the framework of Qatar’s mediation efforts requested by the United States and Israel,” Qatar said in a strongly worded statement issued by its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

He made the remark as Israel came under international condemnation after launching an air strike Tuesday on a building in Qatar in a bid to assassinate Hamas political leaders.

The airstrike took place shortly after Hamas claimed responsibility for a shooting on Monday that killed six people at a bus stop on the outskirts of Jerusalem.

On Wednesday, Netanyahu urged Qatar to expel Hamas officials or hold them to account, “because if you don’t, we will”.

His comments came a day after deadly strikes targeted Hamas leaders in Qatar — a US ally — a first in the oil-rich Gulf that rattled a region long shielded from conflict.

Qatar, which said one of its security forces was killed in the attack, said Israel was treacherous and engaged in “state terrorism.”

Also on Wednesday, Qatar’s Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani said the attack killed hope for Gaza hostages, calling for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to be “brought to justice.”

World must act

The Qatari statement called on the international community to “shoulder its responsibility by rejecting Netanyahu’s Islamophobic and inciteful rhetoric” and to put “an end to political distortions that undermine mediation efforts and obstruct the pursuit of peace.”

In rejecting Netanyahu’s rhetoric, Qatar pointed out that the Israeli leader was fully aware of the Gulf nation’s role in facilitating numerous exchanges and ceasefires, which have “brought relief to Palestinian civilians and Israeli hostages in desperate need of basic humanitarian relief from the ruthlessness that has ensued since October 7th.”

It said the negotiations were always held in an official and transparent manner, with international support and in the presence of US and Israeli delegations.

“Netanyahu’s insinuation that Qatar secretly harbored the Hamas delegation is a desperate attempt to justify a crime condemned by the entire world,” the statement said.

“The false comparison to the pursuit of al-Qaeda after the terrorist attacks is a new, miserable justification for its treacherous practices. There was no international mediation involving an al-Qaeda negotiating delegation, with which the United States could engage with international support, to bring peace to the region at the time,” it added.

Source: arabnews.com

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2614865/middle-east

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Arizona Democrats to file ethics complaint over GOP lawmaker’s anti-Muslim comments

Sep 10, 2025

Rep. John Gillette, R-Kingman, in January 2025. Photo by Gage Skidmore | Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0

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PHOENIX — Arizona state Democratic lawmakers announced an ethics complaint will be filed against a Republican legislator due to anti-Muslim comments he has made.

“We strongly condemn the hateful and dangerous anti-Muslim comments by Rep. John Gillette,” Arizona House Democratic leaders said in a media release Wednesday. “Vile and bigoted language like this has no place in public discourse, undermines the safety and dignity of Muslim communities and promotes fear and division.”

Reps. Oscar De Los Santos, Nancy Gutierrez, Quantá Crews and Stacey Travers wrote the complaint.

Arizona GOP lawmaker makes anti-Muslim remarks on social media

The controversy stems from a series of social media posts Gillette wrote last week, in which he called Muslims “savages” and claimed that they are trying to “bring Sharia Law to the U.S.”

The Kingman Republican also called a Muslim man featured in a video posted on the far-right X account Libs of TikTok an “anti-American terrorist” who needs to be sent “back to (the) s— hole he came from.”

Gillette stood by his social media posts in an interview with The Arizona Mirror, telling the online news outlet that he does not believe all Muslims should be considered extremists. However, he did link the religion with a terrorist attack on the American embassy in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012.

“I had friends killed in Benghazi by these savages,” Gillette said. “Now, I’m getting pissed off. They’re f—— savages.”

Why Arizona Democrats denounced Gillette’s comments

Arizona House Democrats are concerned with these comments as Islamophobia has been linked to acts of violence in Arizona, including the 2001 murder of a Sikh man at a Mesa gas station, which happened in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

“When used and sanctioned by public officials, it contradicts and weakens the core American values of equality, justice and religious freedom,” the Democratic lawmakers said. “To target them with hostility or suspicion is both un-American and unacceptable.”

They added that they intend to file an ethics complaint against Gillette for his comments.

Gillette denounced the four Democratic lawmakers for promising to file an ethics complaint over his comments.

“Same Dems that removed and hid Bibles from members in the House chambers. The same Dems that chant free Palestine and support Hamas. The same Dems that defend Islamic advisory boards to our law enforcement,” Gillette wrote on X.

“On the anniversary of 9/11. They tell us who they are, and people need to listen,” he added.

What happens after an ethics complaint is filed?

Under state law, after the complaint is filed, an ethics committee will launch an investigation.

If Gillette is found to have violated the state House of Representatives’ code of ethics, he could face punishment, which could include expulsion.

Source: ktar.com

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://ktar.com/arizona-politics-news/john-gillette-ethics/5748496/

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India

‘What Is This? Every Week? Every Single Week?’: Delhi HC Reprimands Serial Litigator Against Islamic Structures

by Sohini Ghosh

September 11, 2025

A week after the Delhi High Court castigated a litigator for specifically targeting Islamic structures and seeking their removal on grounds of being unauthorised encroachments, the court once again rapped the petitioner Wednesday.

In a fresh Public Interest Litigation (PIL), Save India Foundation, a registered trust, through its founder Preet Singh, sought the removal of eight Islamic structures — masjids and dargahs — on the grounds that they are unauthorised constructions within schools and hospitals. The non-government organisation claims to be working on “raising issues for the enforcement of rights” of citizens.

Last week, in a similar petition by the NGO seeking the removal of four Islamic structures, Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya orally remarked, “How do you selectively bring forth these petitions of dargahs allegedly encroaching? Do you not see other encroachments? Why are you identifying only mazars?”

On Wednesday, Chief Justice Upadhyaya again reiterated to the petitioner’s counsel that “selective petitions create a cloud on bona fide (of the petitioner).”

“What is this? Every week? Every single week? You chose one structure, make a representation (before the authorities and then), come to the court… Don’t you see structures elsewhere?… One thing more…you’re an activist or what we do not know, but as an officer of the court, you owe some duty to the court system as well,” CJ Upadhyaya orally remarked.

The division bench of Chief Justice Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela closed the matter, refusing to entertain on merits, and issued a direction to consider their representation and take action in accordance with the law.

The PIL sought the court’s directions to the authorities to protect the “life and liberty of the children studying in various schools of Delhi and various government hospitals, wherein the encroachers have trespassed and have created pseudo religious structures to cover up their commercial activities.”

It also sought the removal of eight Islamic structures, six allegedly inside school premises and two inside government hospital premises.

In 2022, the NGO and Singh were booked by the Delhi Police for an alleged hate speech at a Hindu Mahapanchayat organised at Burari ground. Dasna Devi temple head priest Yati Narsinghanand is also a key accused in the First Information Report.

In 2021, Singh was also the organiser of an event held at Jantar Mantar, where anti-Muslim slogans were shouted.

Source: indianexpress.com

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/delhi/delhi-hc-reprimands-serial-litigator-against-islamic-structures-again-10243194/

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BJP’s ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’ distorts 1948. It wasn’t a Hindu uprising against a Muslim

YUNUS LASANIA

10 September, 2025

Up until a decade ago, I was pretty much oblivious to Hyderabad and Telangana’s history in relation to Indian independence. I had no idea that my city and state had one of the most controversial histories from the years just after India’s independence.

Operation Polo, known as ‘Police Action’ in local parlance, was the military action through which the Indian government annexed the erstwhile Hyderabad state, ruled by the Asaf Jahi Nizams on 17 September 1948.

When I began acquainting myself with Hyderabad’s history, reading about this was like entering an entirely new dimension. We were never taught about it in school. In fact, it felt like it was buried even by those who had experienced it, because of the scars it had left on the collective psyche.

The annexation of Hyderabad was no simple matter. Operation Polo was not just about making the Nizam accede, but also about an ongoing Communist Party of India (CPI)-led peasant rebellion in the region. Called the Telangana Armed Struggle, it had begun in 1946 and continued for the next several years—which is why the Indian Army stayed on here for three years to crush the movement. The CPI finally called it off in 1951.

The reason why this entire chapter of our history was essentially buried had more to do with the fact that Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were one state until 2014. A lot of our history was brushed over due to dominance from Andhra.

Anyway, the bifurcation of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh in 2014 led to a lot of us rediscovering our state’s culture and history, and Operation Polo was one of those things. Until 2019, the subject was beginning to enter public discussion — as it should — but it was nowhere close to being politically manipulated. Now, though, it’s being twisted in a new way.

Because of the BJP, which observes 17 September as ‘Hyderabad Liberation Day’, the entire discussion on Operation Polo has narrowed into either defending the last Nizam of Hyderabad, Osman Ali Khan, or spreading anti-Muslim propaganda.

In the last five years, the BJP has not only politicised the day as marking a people’s uprising against the Nizam but also managed to force others to acknowledge it publicly. The previous BRS government, in power between 2014 and 2023, had chosen to stay mum on the issue during its first term. However, in its second term it began to observe ‘National Integration Day’ in response to the BJP’s demand.

The current Congress government calls it ‘People’s Governance Day’ but it’s honestly too late. The state government should have countered Right-wing narratives before they seeped into public discourse via social media. That delay is also what allowed a movie like Razakar: Silent Genocide of Hyderabad to be made and released with such hype during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

The muddied waters of 1948

As the British prepared to partition India and Pakistan in 1947, there was also the bigger question of which side the princely states would choose. While most of the 560-odd states chose India or Pakistan, based on geography, a handful like Kashmir and Hyderabad were mulling independence.

While the tribal invasion from Pakistan forced Kashmir’s hand in October 1947, the Nizam of Hyderabad held out. His decision to stay independent did not go down well in New Delhi. Hyderabad was one of the largest princely states, about 82,598 square miles, and comprising 16 districts of today’s Telangana, five from Maharashtra, and three from north Karnataka.

On paper, the state looked progressive, and the last Nizam was one of the richest men in the world in the 1930s. But its underbelly was fuelled by oppressive feudalism. In the villages, state-appointed jagirdars (revenue collectors) unleashed terror on tenant farmers and imposed slave labour, known as vetti chakiri in Telugu.

Hyderabad city under the last Nizam was glamorous, with railway stations, an airport, modern markets, a university. But rural life was anything but equitable.

There were also, of course, restrictions on politics. The Hyderabad State Congress was banned in 1938, and the CPI a couple of years later. However, due to the oppression in the rural areas, the CPI, under the radar, managed to garner support and in 1946-47 began the Telangana Armed Struggle — a mass movement against the jagirdars.

This was something the Nizam was unable to contain, and even the last commander of the Hyderabad State Army, Syed Ahmed el-Edroos, admitted as much in his memoir Hyderabad of the Seven Loaves.

By the time of independence, the Nizam was already grappling with an internal rebellion, and his refusal to join India eventually led to the state being forcefully annexed. The real issue, though, is not even the annexation (which some call a merger) but what happened before and after it.

In the days leading up to it, the paramilitary Razakars, formed by then Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (MIM) president Qasim Razvi, had unleashed terror on anyone who spoke about joining the Indian Union.

The Razakars did target Hindus, and many families to this day bear the trauma of losing members to violence. However, the Razakars also went after Muslims who did not agree with them politically or supported merging with India. The murder of journalist Shoaibullah Khan on August 22, 1948, is a wrenching example.

But even post the annexation, once the Indian Army came in, the Maharashtra and Karnataka areas also witnessed violence against Muslims.

The report of the Sunderlal Committee, formed to look into the massacre of Muslims during the 1948 ‘Police Action’, pegs the numbers between 26,000 and 40,000. To this day, many contest it, saying that it was much higher.

However, after close to a decade of researching and reading about Operation Polo, what surprises me is that few here really criticise the last Nizam for his decisions — which were clearly not the best. In spite of advisors warning him of the consequences, he allowed the Razakars to function, and chose to combat India even though it was obvious Hyderabad could not realistically stay away from India.

I mean, just imagine if the Nizam had quietly accepted joining the Indian Union. I am saying this because every single elderly person I have spoken to has recounted only good memories of the erstwhile Hyderabad state up until 1947 — when they saw the violence.

BJP’s distortion of history

Operation Polo will remain a blemish on Osman Ali Khan’s name forever. It was something he could have avoided. The fact that there is no interview of his, no memoir, only other people’s memories, means we will never really know what he was thinking.

Today, his legacy is also being torn apart by the BJP, which has turned him into a devil because of the Razakar violence. All that could have been avoided. It’s a selective Right-wing reading of history. Up until the issue began to be politicised, the narratives were more formal or quiet, and seen via the broader lens of how princely states joined India or Pakistan.

Nobody took the trouble of putting information in the public domain for a more nuanced discussion — especially about the fact that in Telangana, the larger issue was caste-fuelled feudalism. Now, the BJP talks of a popular uprising against the Nizam, which is used as a stick to fuel hate against Muslims.

It is time for the Telangana government to wake up to this reality and start talking more openly about the issue. Course correction requires us to be more honest about facts. We must make reading about this a part of our school syllabus so that our future generations do not become victims of misinformation.

Source: theprint.in

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://theprint.in/opinion/bjps-hyderabad-liberation-day-distorts-1948-it-wasnt-a-hindu-uprising-against-a-muslim/2740136/

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India, EU discuss countering terror, slam Pahalgam

Sep 11, 2025

NEW DELHI: Amid the focus on trade ties, India and the EU also held the 15th round of their counterterrorism dialogue, with both sides condemning the heinous Pahalgam terrorist attack and the EU reiterating its condolences to India for the murder of innocent civilians.

The two sides reiterated their strong condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including cross border terrorism. The Indian side is learnt to have briefed EU officials on Pakistan's links with the attack, including the involvement of The Resistance Front (TRF), an offshoot of UN-proscribed terror group LeT.

The EU and India also shared updates on key developments pertaining to their respective counter-terrorism policies and discussed important issues in the fight against terrorism. These include measures to counter financing of terrorism, prevent online radicalisation and further exchange on designation of terrorists and terrorist entities.

"They agreed that terrorism is a global phenomenon and needs concerted action in a sustained and comprehensive manner. Against this backdrop, the EU and India stressed the importance of cooperation in multilateral fora, such as the United Nations, the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF) and the FATF," said the Indian govt.

ATS iterates Pahalgam attack condemnation

The 44th meeting of Council of Regional Anti Terrorist Structure (RATS) of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation in Kyrgyz Republic reiterated the condemnation by SCO at the Tianjin Summit of the Pahalgam attack.

PM Modi had urged all members to ensure no country backed cross-border terrorism. Thanking them for their solidarity in the wake of the attack, he stressed there should be no double standards in dealing with terrorism.

Source: indiatimes.com

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Near Kashi Vishwanath Temple, another project, and tax notices, kindle displacement fears

MANISH SAHU

September 11, 2025

BATTLING uncertainty since the government announced plans to widen a road through an ancient market near the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi, owners of premises in the area are protesting against “a double blow”, following a move to collect pending property tax dues.

The widening of the Dalmandi road is the second-largest development project in Varanasi after the revamp of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, since the BJP came to power in Uttar Pradesh. The 650-metre stretch of Dalmandi, housing about 500 shops, is one of Varanasi’s busiest commercial hubs. The plan is to expand it more than four times, from 3-4 metres now to 17.4 metres, at a cost of Rs 215.88 crore – ending about 300 metres from the Kashi Vishwanath Temple.

Five months after the project was announced, the Varanasi Municipal Corporation recently directed the executing authority, the Public Works Department (PWD), to deduct pending property tax dues from the compensation to be paid to owners of buildings marked for partial or complete demolition.

There are 187 such buildings along the Dalmandi road, populated mostly by Muslims. As per the municipal corporation, dues amounting to nearly Rs 2.28 crore, including house, water and sewer taxes, are pending against 170 of the 187 structures.

Officials said that despite several reminders over the years, the owners have failed to clear the outstanding amounts. “We have submitted a detailed report to the District Magistrate,” Varanasi Municipal Commissioner Akshat Verma says, adding that the civic body has recommended that the dues be adjusted against the compensation to be awarded for the demolitions.

Since this became known, sources said, several building owners are having second thoughts about accepting the compensation. The owner of a Dalmandi shop says the move to charge tax dues amounts to “double harassment”.

But more than the owners, it is tenants who are apprehensive as they are not entitled to any compensation. Most shops in the area are rented properties, with leases passed down generations.

Shahabuddin Ahmed, 55, points to news about the property tax deductions reaching them only through the media, adding that they are in the dark on their fate.

The PWD has marked buildings along the stretch with identification numbers, but served no official notices yet regarding the demolitions. There is no clarity on the compensation to be distributed either, with officials saying it would be based on factors such as the portion of land acquired, the age of the building, and the type of material used for construction.

“This shop is my only source of livelihood,” says 55-year-old Syed Shansha Abidi, a father of three who sells toys from rented premises. “If this shop is taken away, I don’t know how I will survive.”

Rajesh Gandhi, 62, worries about home loans and household expenses. “We never imagined this day.”

Government officials say the project, cleared in July, is essential due to the steep rise in tourists and pilgrims visiting the Kashi Vishwanath Temple and nearby ghats, since the development of the corridor. From 7,000 to 12,000 a day earlier, the footfall is 1 lakh-1.15 lakh now, going up to 2.5 lakh on weekends, and more than 7 lakh on festival days.

In its current state, the Dalmandi road gets easily overrun by traffic. Once widened, it is expected to offer a shorter and more direct route to the temple.

While they acknowledge that the congestion in the area needs a solution, Dalmandi shopkeepers say the government should instead look for an alternative route to the temple.

The fact that the Dalmandi stretch houses six mosques and a temple has complicated matters. The Mufti-e-Shahr, Maulana Abdul Batin Nomani, has written open letters to President Droupadi Murmu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and senior Opposition leaders, urging them to explore an alternative route and put the project on hold.

Earlier, the Allahabad High Court did not intervene in the matter, on petitions by a local and the caretaker of a mosque, after the government assured that no possession or demolition would be done without voluntary transfer.

PWD Executive Engineer K K Singh says land would be purchased and buildings demolished only through mutual agreement, with compensation to be provided in accordance with the Right to Fair Compensation & Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation & Resettlement Act.

Officials also point to a preliminary inquiry that many buildings along the Dalmandi stretch – including the religious structures – are located at some distance from the road and, hence, may not be affected by the widening.

However, the memory of the displacements during the Kashi Vishwanath Temple Corridor Project are too fresh for many. Around 450 buildings were acquired for that project, again occupied largely by tenants. A senior official says that while owners then were paid based on the value of their land and buildings, the tenants also got some compensation.

Dalmandi, located in the heart of Varanasi’s Old City, adjacent to the temple, is considered at least 200 years old, and now has shops selling everything from home decor, bridal accessories and clothes to cosmetics, artificial jewellery and everyday goods. Serving both wholesale and retail customers, it is considered a hub for wedding shopping in Eastern UP.

Uttar Pradesh Congress president Ajay Rai, who belongs to the Varanasi area, says that Dalmandi’s importance lay both in offering the less affluent affordable products, as well as its mixed population of Hindus and Muslims. When Kashi Vishwanath could be reached via several routes and other roads could be widened, what was the need to disturb Dalmandi, Rai says.

Alleging that the BJP government’s move was targeted at some people, he adds that it will affect the livelihood of lakhs.

The Samajwadi Party has been running a ‘Save Dalmandi Campaign’. As part of it, a meeting was held in Varanasi on Monday, attended by shopkeepers, political leaders and social activists. The speakers said that apart from the lives affected, the move would deal another blow to Varanasi’s “Ganga-Jamuni culture”, and its heritage.

Says Varanasi SP district president Sujeet Yadav: “We are not against the widening of the road, but the government must make proper arrangements for shopkeepers before demolishing their establishments.”

Source: indianexpress.com

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What is the urgency? It's a match, let it be: SC refuses urgent listing of plea against India-Pakistan Asia Cup match

11.09.25

The Supreme Court on Thursday refused urgent listing of a plea seeking cancellation of the cricket match between India and Pakistan in the upcoming Asia Cup.

The matter was mentioned before a bench of Justices J K Maheshwari and Vijay Bishnoi by a lawyer for urgent listing.

"What is the urgency? It's a match, let it be. Match is this Sunday, what can be done? the bench observed.

When the lawyer submitted that the cricket match is scheduled on Sunday and the petition would become infructuous if the matter is not listed on Friday, the bench said, "Match is this Sunday? What can we do about that? Let it be. Match should go on."

The petition filed by four law students led by Urvashi Jain said organising a cricket match with Pakistan in the aftermath of the Pahalgam terror attack and Operation Sindoor sends a message inconsistent with national dignity and public sentiment.

India and Pakistan meet on September 14 at the Dubai International Cricket Stadium for the 2025 Asia Cup.

"Cricket between nations is meant to show harmony and friendship. But after the Phalagam terror attack and Operation Sindoor, when our people died and our soldiers risked everything, playing with Pakistan sent the opposite message that while our soldiers sacrificing their lives, we are celebrating sports with the same country sheltering terrorists (sic)," the plea submitted.

The petitioners added, "It can also hurt the sentiments of the families of the victims who lost their lives in the hand of the Pakistani terrorist. The dignity of nation and security of citizens come before entertainment." The plea said a cricket match between the two countries was "detrimental to the national interests" and morale of the armed forces and the nation as a whole.

Source: telegraphindia.com

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Africa

Court Rejects Bail Request For Alleged Al-Shabab Terrorists

September 10, 2025

By George Oshogwe Ogbolu

A Federal High Court in Abuja has rejected a bail request made by five alleged Al-Shabab terrorists who allegedly attacked a Catholic Church in Owo town, Ondo State.

Naija News reports that the terrorists attacked reportedly lead to the death of over 40 church worshippers.

Justice Emeka Nwite, who dismissed their bail application, held that the terrorism charges against them were capital in nature.

The judge also held that they were accused of being members of a terrorist organization who may intimidate witnesses, influence and jeopardize the trial of the defendants before the court.

Delivering a ruling on the bail application, the judge upheld the arguments of the Department of the State Service (DSS), that the evidence against the alleged terrorists was weighty and cannot be glossed over.

The trial judge also upheld the submission of the security agency that the five accused persons did not establish having credible sureties that can stand for them pending their trial.

He maintained that the arguments of the DSS that admitting them to bail would amount to judicial risk was also not challenged by their lawyers.

Justice Nwite held that the defendants failed to give cogent reasons on why they should be granted bail pending their trial and subsequently dismissed the bail request.

Before going into the merit of the bail application, the judge had earlier declared the motion on notice incompetent on the ground that names of the five defendants were not listed on the motion paper as required by law.

Similarly, the judge faulted the motion paper on another ground that a joint affidavit of two paragraphs was in support of the request for bail of the five defendants as against the position of the law that each of the accused persons must have separate affidavits to back up such request.

While granting accelerated trial, Justice Nwite fixed October 19 for commencement of trial.

Recall that their bail application dated August 11, 2025, was argued by their counsel Abdullahi Awwal Ibrahim on August 19, 2025.

The five accused persons are Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, Abdulhaleem Idris and Momoh Otuho Abubakar.

According to Zagazola Makama, while arguing the application, the lawyer submitted that the accused persons assembled reliable and responsible sureties.

The request was, however, opposed by the DSS lawyer, Dr Callistus Eze, on the ground that the accused persons may escape because of the gravity of the charges against them.

He had urged the court to refuse the bail application and allow the defendants remain in the DSS custody.

Some counts in the charge read: “That you, Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, Abdulhaleem Idris and Momoh Otuho Abubakar adults, males, with others still at large, sometime in 2021, did join and became members of AL Shabab Terrorist Group, with cell in Kogi State and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 25(1) of Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.

“That you, Idris Abdulmalik Omeiza, Al Qasim Idris, Jamiu Abdulmalik, Abdulhaleem Idris and Momoh Otuho Abubakar, adults, males, with others still at large, on 30th May, 2022; 37 June, 2022 and 4 June, 2022, at Government Secondary School, Ogamirana, Adavi LGA, Kogi State and behind Omialafa Central Mosque, Ose LGA, Ondo State, respectively, attended and held meetings, where you agreed to and planned for the terrorist attack, which you carried out on 5™? June, 2022, at St. Francs Catholic Church, Owo, Ondo State and thereby committed an offence contrary to and punishable under Section 12(a) of Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.”

Source: naijanews.com

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FG Announces Line Up Of Activities For Nigeria’s 65th Anniversary

September 10, 2025

By Doris Ijeoma Israel

The Federal Government has unveiled an inter-ministerial committee to organize and oversee the events for Nigeria’s 65th Independence Day, which will take place on October 1, 2025.

Naija News reports that the inauguration of the committee was carried out in Abuja by the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume.

He explained that the anniversary offers a moment for Nigerians to look back on the nation’s history, recognize the struggles it has faced, and think about the collective goals that lie ahead.

He said that Nigeria has been through political, social, and economic difficulties but has always managed to overcome them, stressing that the anniversary is not only about celebrating the past but also about building the future.

Akume also called on citizens to strengthen their commitment to unity, patriotism, and national growth.

The line-up of activities will start with a World Press Conference on September 25, followed by a Juma’at service and women’s events on September 26.

On September 27, youth programmes and a historical arts exhibition will take place, while a church service is planned for September 28.

A public lecture will hold on September 29, leading up to October 1, when the celebrations will peak with a presidential broadcast and the Independence Day parade.

In addition, the government introduced the Nigeria @65 Compendium Project Workstation, a project of CherryAfrica Magazine in partnership with the SGF’s office.

The facility is fitted with a modern studio where television interview sessions will be held with senior government officials. These discussions will focus on milestones achieved under the Renewed Hope Agenda.

Source: naijanews.com

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Frustration as rebels kill scores in two attacks in eastern Congo

September 11, 2025

The death toll from two attacks on civilians in eastern Congo by an Islamic State-affiliated rebel group has risen to 89, Congolese authorities said.

Officials said late Tuesday that 71 people were killed at a funeral in Nyoto on Monday, and 18 others were killed in Beni in a separate attack on Tuesday. Both attacks took place in the North Kivu region of the country.

The attacks, carried out by the Allied Democratic Force, or ADF, were the latest in a series of mass attacks on civilians in the troubled region.

The region is beset by a set of complex conflicts, including an increase in attacks by the ADF, which operates in the border region between Congo and Uganda.

The ADF pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group in 2019 and has carried out large-scale attacks on civilians in recent weeks. The Congolese and Ugandan militaries have been conducting a joint operation against the group.

The government said in a statement that it has provided support to “the North Kivu Provincial Government in managing the humanitarian consequences of these terrorist acts."

“It remains resolutely committed to continuing military operations and the hunt for terrorists, which have already resulted in the neutralization of several of them, the destruction of several of their bases, and the release of civilian hostages," the statement said.

Onesphore Sematumba, a Congo analyst at Crisis Group International, said the military operation against the ADF has only scattered the group and attacks by smaller units have continued inside communities and forests.

“It has caused what I can call the phenomenon of kicking the anthill. This group has scattered in the area with all the anger possible, and they act in murderous groups,” Sematumba said.

Source: africanews.com

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Southeast Asia

Perak assembly passes Islamic religious schools control bill unanimously

theSun Local

2025-09-10

IPOH: The Perak State Assembly has unanimously passed the Control of Islamic Religious School Enactment (Perak) Bill 2025.

This legislation aims to strengthen, coordinate and streamline the administration of Islamic education institutions throughout the state.

Fifteen assemblymen participated in the debate after Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Saarani Mohamad tabled the bill yesterday.

Saarani clarified during his winding-up speech that the new law would not nullify existing memoranda of understanding between the Education Ministry and the Schools Management Board.

He emphasised that the state government would never sideline religious schools registered as Government-Aided Religious Schools, as the management board would still be subject to this legislation.

The state government will continue supporting schools and students through co-curricular activities organised by both the Perak Islamic Religious Department and the Department of Islamic Development Malaysia.

Saarani addressed concerns about integrated Al-Quran and Fardu Ain class closures, explaining that these programmes in people’s religious schools follow regulations set by the federal Islamic development department.

Classes face closure when student enrolment drops below thirty students according to the department’s 2022 implementation regulations.

The state government’s role remains limited to registration matters, with schools receiving temporary closure status rather than cancellation when enrolment issues arise.

Teachers appointed by the federal department and existing students get transferred to nearby schools during such temporary closures.

Schools can resume operations if student numbers increase to thirty, with the management board permitted to apply for reopening.

Saarani highlighted governance inconsistencies where operational authority rests with the federal department while registration falls under the state religious department.

The new enactment becomes necessary to clearly define premises and ensure proper regulation of religious schools throughout Perak.

Saarani clarified that an allocation of RM10 million previously approved by the state assembly has been allocated under his portfolio for Islamic education purposes.

He acknowledged distributing RM1.8 million to Chinese independent schools and RM1 million to Tamil schools alongside the RM10 million for Islamic education.

This clarification came in response to questions raised during yesterday’s debate about aid distribution to various educational institutions.

The assembly sitting continues tomorrow with further deliberations on state matters. – Bernama

Source: thesun.my

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Malaysia committed to engage Muslim leaders via OIC to condemn Israel’s aggression, says PM

10 Sep 2025

PUTRAJAYA, Sept 10 — Malaysia stands ready to engage Islamic world leaders through the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to strongly condemn Israel’s escalating violence and human rights violations, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim said today.

He said that he would personally take the initiative to contact several key Muslim leaders, including the Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, regarding the matter.

“If necessary, I will reach out to the Emir of Qatar, President Erdogan, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, and other Muslim leaders, because Israel’s conduct has gone far beyond the limits of decency,” Anwar told reporters after officiating the 9th International Conference on Social Sciences and Humanities (ICOSH 2025) here today.

His remarks come in the wake of Israel’s latest airstrike in Doha, Qatar, which reportedly targeted a meeting of Hamas political leaders discussing a United States-backed ceasefire proposal for Gaza.

The strike, which took place in the Leqtaifiya district and reportedly involved around 15 Israeli fighter jets, killed six individuals, including the son of senior Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya, his office director, and a Qatari security officer. Top Hamas leaders reportedly survived the attack.

The ICOSH 2025 carries the theme ‘Human Relationship in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Technology’ and focuses on various disciplines, including social work, psychology, linguistics, literature, communication, security, culture, politics, religion, digital studies and economics.

Through its organiser, the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities (FSSK), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) aims to strengthen collective efforts to deepen understanding, expand collaboration, and reinforce responses to increasingly complex global social issues.

Present today were the Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir, UKM Board of Directors chairman Prof Emeritus Datuk Dr Mohamad Abd Razak, Director General of Higher Education Datuk Prof Dr Azlinda Azman and FSSK Dean Prof Dr Kadaruddin Aiyub. — Bernama

Source: malaymail.com

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Malaysia ready to lead integrated halal-Islamic finance economy

theSun Local

2025-09-11

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia is prepared to lead the development of an integrated halal-Islamic finance economy that promises inclusive growth and prosperity for Muslims and the global community.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi stated the country’s robust governance framework, supported by the Islamic Financial Services Act 2013, continues to foster confidence and stability in the sector.

“Leadership is built on trust, and at the heart of Malaysia’s Islamic finance is a governance framework that inspires confidence and stability,” he said during his keynote address at the Global Islamic Finance Summit 2025.

He emphasised that Malaysia’s credibility in Islamic finance is strengthened by strict enforcement measures, including penalties up to 25 million ringgit and eight-year prison sentences for violations.

Ahmad Zahid outlined three priorities to enhance Malaysia’s role in the global halal-Islamic finance ecosystem moving forward.

The first priority involves mainstreaming halal financing as a growth driver across strategic sectors like food, healthcare, tourism, and technology.

The second priority focuses on accelerating human capital development by producing halal auditors, executives, and professionals who maintain global integrity standards.

“The third is to reaffirm Malaysia’s role as a global standard-setter through renewed platforms such as the World Islamic Economic Forum and the Global Islamic Finance Forum, shaping the international agenda,” he said.

He explained that the broader vision is to expand halal certification beyond food safety and religious compliance to include the legitimacy of the wealth behind it, free from prohibited elements like usury.

“Halal must embody not only what enters our mouths but also the integrity of how it is produced, financed and delivered to our tables.”

“This is the true vision of a holistic halal economy, pure in both substance and spirit,” he added.

The Global Islamic Finance Summit is an annual event celebrating achievements in promoting Islamic banking and finance while ensuring social responsibility. – Bernama

Source: thesun.my

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Anwar calls for Islamic finance to shape ethical leaders and SDGs

theSun Local

2025-09-11

KUALA LUMPUR: Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim has emphasised the central role of Islamic finance in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals while nurturing the next generation of ethical leaders.

He stated that success should be measured not only by asset size but also by the ability to transform lives and secure the future.

“In shaa Allah, we will continue to strengthen the role of Islamic finance in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals, and we will nurture the next generation of ethical leaders,” he said during his Global Islamic Finance Laureate speech.

Anwar received the Global Islamic Finance Leadership Award 2025 for his pivotal role in advancing the sector.

The prestigious GIFA Award recognises governments, institutions and individuals for outstanding achievements in Islamic banking and finance.

Founded in 2011 by Edbiz Corporation, the award celebrates contributions to Islamic finance and its commitment to social responsibility.

Anwar stressed that Maqasid Shariah principles focusing on fairness and risk-sharing must remain the foundation of Islamic finance.

He noted encouraging progress with more bankers and policymakers now assertively advancing Islamic finance within the broader economic framework.

Sustained momentum would enable Islamic finance to tackle inequality, poverty and marginalisation, which remain acute in the Muslim world.

He highlighted the need to expand through sustainable infrastructure, digital platforms and social finance instruments like zakat and waqf.

Innovative products such as green sukuk could support global inclusion and sustainable growth, he added. – Bernama

Source: thesun.my

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Anwar wins global Islamic finance award, urges industry to be moral compass in turbulent times

By R. Loheswar

11 Sep 2025

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 11 — Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim was today conferred the Global Islamic Finance Leadership Award 2025, where he urged the industry to go beyond profit metrics and serve as a moral compass in turbulent times.

The award, regarded as one of the most prestigious honours in the field, recognised Anwar’s decades-long contribution to Islamic finance – from his role in launching Malaysia’s pioneering Islamic banking initiatives in the 1980s to his current push for innovation, inclusivity and sustainability.

Receiving the accolade, Anwar struck a reflective tone, crediting the “activists, thinkers, regulators and institutions” who laid the foundations of Islamic finance in Malaysia.

He said his recognition was a collective one, honouring those who fought scepticism years ago to build an industry now worth trillions globally.

“Islamic finance must never be seen merely as Shariah-compliant paperwork,” Anwar said.

“Its true ethos is fairness, risk-sharing, compassion and social justice. If it fails to transform lives and address inequality, poverty and marginalisation, then it is nothing more than a fringe effort.”

Anwar called on the sector to embrace green sukuk for sustainable infrastructure, digital platforms to widen financial inclusion, and social finance tools such as waqf and zakat to uplift communities.

“Our success will not be measured by the size of assets alone, but by the lives transformed and the futures secured,” he said.

He also linked ethical finance to principled foreign policy, voicing strong opposition to “Israeli aggression and violations of international law.”

“We must keep our house in order, rid our societies of corruption and gross injustice, and prepare our economies to be resilient and just,” he added.

Anwar’s recognition places him among 14 heads of state and government honoured by the Global Islamic Finance Awards in its 15-year history, alongside Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

The award committee praised Anwar’s leadership as a beacon of principled governance and transparency, crediting his role in positioning Malaysia as a global hub for Islamic finance and championing the industry as a tool for sustainable development.

Closing his speech, Anwar recalled Malaysia’s early struggles to establish Islamic banking in 1983, when critics mocked it as a “return to the age of the camels.”

Today, he said, the sector has gained acceptance and participation from Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

“It shows that we can offer a more just, inclusive, sustainable alternative through vibrant, ethical Islamic instruments,” Anwar said.

“Let us ensure it remains a beacon of justice, dignity and hope for all humanity,” he added.

Source: malaymail.com

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Mideast

Qatar says Netanyahu must be ‘brought to justice’ over strikes

September 10, 2025

DOHA: Qatar’s prime minister warned Wednesday that an unprecedented Israeli strike in Doha targeting Hamas killed hope for Gaza hostages, calling for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu to be “brought to justice.”

His comments came a day after deadly strikes targeted Hamas leaders in Qatar — a US ally — a first in the oil-rich Gulf that rattled a region long shielded from conflict.

“I think that what Netanyahu has done yesterday, he just killed any hope for those hostages,” Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani told CNN.

Doha is “reassessing everything” around their involvement in future ceasefire talks and discussing next steps with Washington, he added in comments cited in CNN’s live blog after an interview with the broadcaster.

The attack, just three months after Iran launched a retaliatory strike on a US air base in Qatar, also cast serious doubt on Qatar-mediated Gaza ceasefire talks and undermined security reassurances to the Gulf from key ally Washington.

Earlier Wednesday, Defense Minister Israel Katz vowed that Israel would “act against its enemies anywhere” while Netanyahu urged Qatar to expel Hamas officials or hold them to account, “because if you don’t, we will.”

Qatar has hosted Hamas’s political bureau since 2012 with Washington’s blessing, and has been a key mediator in Gaza talks alongside Egypt and the United States.

Israel’s military said it struck Houthi targets in Yemen on Wednesday, including in the capital Sanaa, killing 35 people according to the militants.

Palestinian militant group Hamas said six people were killed in Tuesday’s strikes in Qatar, but its senior leaders had survived, affirming “the enemy’s failure to assassinate our brothers in the negotiating delegation.”

The White House said Trump did not agree with Israel’s decision to take military action.

Trump said he was not notified in advance and when he heard, asked his envoy Steve Witkoff to warn Qatar immediately — but the attack had already started.

Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, sought to justify the decision, telling an Israeli radio station: “It was not an attack on Qatar; it was an attack on Hamas.”

‘Shaken conscience of world’

Hamas political bureau member Hossam Badran said Israel “represents a real danger to the security and stability of the region.”

“It is in an open war with everyone, not just with the Palestinian people,” he said.

In Gaza City on Wednesday, the Israeli military destroyed another high-rise building as it intensified its assault on the territory’s largest urban center, despite mounting calls to end its campaign.

The military issued an evacuation warning to those living in and around the Tiba 2 tower, before later saying it had “struck a high-rise building that was used by the Hamas terrorist organization.”

AFP images showed huge plumes of smoke billowing into the sky as the residential tower in western Gaza City crashed to the ground.

In the aftermath, young girls rushed to pick dust-covered dough out of the rubble.

Siham Abu Al-Foul told AFP she couldn’t take anything with her when the army issued the evacuation orders.

“They brought down the tower and we came running and there was nothing left... Everything we fixed in two years was gone in a minute.”

The Israeli military said it had struck 360 targets since Friday and vowed that it would “increase the pace of targeted strikes” in the Gaza City area in the coming days.

The Gaza war has created catastrophic humanitarian conditions for the population of more than two million, with the United Nations last month declaring a famine in Gaza City and its surroundings.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen said she would push to sanction “extremist” Israeli ministers and curb trade ties over the dire situation.

“What is happening in Gaza has shaken the conscience of the world,” she said.

‘Not thrilled’

Israel’s targeting of Hamas leaders in Qatar sparked international condemnation.

Trump said he was not notified in advance of the Israeli strikes and was “not thrilled about the whole situation.”

“I view Qatar as a strong Ally and friend of the US, and feel very badly about the location of the attack,” he said in a social media post, adding Hamas’s elimination was still a “worthy goal.”

Canada said it was reassessing its relationship with Israel following the Doha strikes.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Of the 251 hostages seized during the assault, 47 remain in Gaza, including 25 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 64,656 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the UN considers reliable.

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WHO says to remain in Gaza City despite Israel’s call to leave

September 11, 2025

GENEVA: The UN’s health agency said Wednesday its workers will remain in Gaza City despite calls from Israel’s military for people to flee an assault it is mounting there.

“To civilians in Gaza: WHO and partners remain in Gaza City,” the World Health Organization said on its X account.

Israel’s army is intensifying its attacks on Gaza City — the main urban center in the besieged Gaza Strip — with the goal of seizing the city. This week, it warned civilians there to leave.

The UN estimates that around one million Palestinians live in and around Gaza City.

“WHO is appalled by the latest evacuation order,” the head of the UN agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said on X.

He said the Israeli demand that the city’s one million people go to what Israel was calling a “humanitarian zone” in the south of the Gaza Strip was unfeasible.

“The zone has neither the size nor scale of services to support those already there, let alone new arrivals,” he said.

Tedros pointed out that half of the functioning hospitals left in the Gaza Strip were in Gaza City, and the territory’s “crippled health system cannot afford to lose any of these remaining facilities.”

He urged the international community to “act,” saying that, in Gaza, “this catastrophe is human-made, and the responsibility rests with us all.”

Israel has been waging offensive operations in Gaza since October 2023, following a deadly attack launched from there by Hamas that resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed more than 64,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza that the United Nations considers reliable.

The UN has declared famine in parts of Gaza, which Israel contests.

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Russia condemns Israeli strike on Qatar as ‘gross violation’ of UN charter

September 10, 2025

MOSCOW: Russia on Wednesday condemned an Israeli attack against Hamas members in Qatar’s capital Doha and urged all parties to refrain from actions that would further escalate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“Russia considers this incident a gross violation of international law and the UN Charter, an encroachment on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of an independent state, and a step leading to further escalation and destabilization of the situation in the Middle East,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

“Such methods of fighting those whom Israel considers its enemies and opponents deserve the strongest condemnation.”

US President Donald Trump said he was “very unhappy about every aspect” of the Israeli strike and would be giving a full statement on the issue on Wednesday.

“The rocket attack on Qatar ... cannot be perceived as anything other than an action aimed at undermining international efforts to find peaceful solutions,” Russia said.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, in a later telephone call with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, described the attack as “a violation of international law and an unacceptable encroachment on the sovereignty and territorial integrity of friendly Qatar.”

A Russian Foreign Ministry statement quoted Lavrov as saying there was a danger the Israeli action could “lead to further destabilization in the Middle East.”

The statement said the Qatari prime minister noted Russia’s “clear and principled position” in support of Qatar’s sovereignty and independence.

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Rights groups file case in Germany against German-Israeli soldier over suspected Gaza war crimes

September 10, 2025

BERLIN: Human rights lawyers filed a lawsuit against an Israeli soldier of German origin over suspected involvement in the targeted killing of unarmed Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights and three Palestinian human rights organizations said they filed a criminal complaint with Germany’s federal prosecutor against a sniper in the Israeli Defense Forces.

ECCHR said the 25-year-old soldier was born and raised in Munich and had a registered residence in Germany until recently, but could not confirm that the man had dual citizenship.

In a 130-page complaint, ECCHR said the groups submitted evidence, including investigative research and audiovisual recordings, alleging that the soldier belonged to the so-called “Ghost Unit” of the 202nd Paratroopers Battalion.

The ECCHR statement said its evidence indicated that members of the unit deliberately killed civilians in Gaza.

The Israeli military and foreign ministry and Germany’s federal prosecutor’s office did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.

The human rights groups said targeted sniper shootings were documented near Gaza’s Al Quds and Nasser hospitals between November 2023 and March 2024, adding that legal proceedings against members of the same unit were also underway in France, Italy, South Africa and Belgium.

The case was filed under German laws that allow prosecutors to pursue international crimes if the accused persons were born in Germany or German nationals, ECCHR said.

“There must be no double standards – even if the suspects are members of the Israeli armed forces,” ECCHR’s lawyer Alexander Schwarz said in a statement.

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Airstrike interrupts Palestinian aid worker discussing Israel’s Gaza City offensive

JONATHAN LESSWARE

September 10, 2025

LONDON: Palestinian aid worker Salma Altaweel was midway through answering a question about how the war in Gaza has affected her four children when she was interrupted by two deafening explosions.

Barely flinching, she paused briefly before uttering, matter of factly: “That’s a bomb very close to me,” and continuing where she left off. She later apologized for the interruption.

Altaweel, the northern Gaza office manager for the Norwegian Refugee Council, was speaking during an online press briefing by humanitarians working in the territory.

The blasts outside her window in Gaza City provided a clear illustration of the warnings delivered by the aid workers of the devastation expected from the latest phase of Israel’s military campaign on the territory.

On Tuesday, Israel ordered the 1 million people living in Gaza City — the territory’s largest urban center — to leave for the south ahead of an anticipated vast ground offensive.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned that the airstrikes destroying highrise buildings throughout the city in recent days were “only the beginning of the main intensive operation.”

The campaign, which Israel claims is to remove Hamas from its last urban stronghold, has sparked an angry international response.

For Gaza’s beleaguered population, which has already been displaced multiple times, the military assault will lead to a further deterioration of the already desperate humanitarian situation.

“Since the military operation was announced in Gaza City, people have been living in fear and confusion, including us as aid workers,” Altaweel told the briefing.

“The displacement order made this even worse as so many families do not want to leave because there is no safe place all over the Gaza Strip.”

She said that the Israeli bombing of buildings in the city had “intensified significantly” in recent days, forcing people from their homes and on to the streets, often leaving them with no shelter at all.

“Conditions are extremely overcrowded and unsafe,” she said.

Mahmoud Alsaqqa, who works for Oxfam in Gaza City, said that he believes that less than 10 percent of the city’s population had fled to what Israel claims is a “safe zone” in the south of the territory.

People were unwilling to leave as they are already exhausted from 23 months of war and many are too weak to make the journey, he said.

He added that the cost of relocating could reach thousands of dollars and that some who had tried to relocate had returned to Gaza City because they could not find space.

“What we are witnessing here is not just an inhuman act from the Israelis in committing this genocide, but also … it’s unfeasible and illogical,” Alsaqqa said.

Israel’s orders for Gaza City’s residents to leave come amid what aid workers describe as one of the world’s most catastrophic humanitarian crises.

A UN-backed panel declared last month that famine was underway in Gaza City and is expect to spread to the entire Gaza Strip.

Dozens of Palestinians are killed each day from air strikes or being shot as they attempt to reach aid supplies, with nearly 65,000 people killed in the territory since the conflict began in October 2023.

Gaza’s health system has also collapsed with many hospitals forced to shut down and facilities and health workers targeted by Israel’s military.

Dr. Rami Al-Shaya, said that Al-Awda Hospital in Gaza City, where he works as head of the emergency department, had been threatened with evacuation.

“This is madness,” he said. “Hospitals that have been fully equipped for decades are being asked to completely empty and be evacuated.”

He added: “Those people who will remain in the north, will be left without any type of health services.”

Save the Children’s Gaza humanitarian director, Rachael Cummings, said that the scale of Israel’s attempted forced displacement from Gaza City was on a scale not seen before.

“There is nowhere safe for people to go across the whole of Gaza,” she said. “What we are seeing is people being forcibly displaced from Gaza City, who are on the brink of famine, or in famine.”

She said there may be up to 500,000, to 600,000 children forced to leave the city who are already exhausted from living in extreme fear for the past 23 months.

Cummings said that she had driven on Wednesday from where she is based in Deir Al-Balal to Khan Younis, near to where Israel’s “so-called” humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi is located. She said the area was already “extremely overcrowded.”

All of those speaking during the briefing organized by the Crisis Action group pleaded with the international community to pressure Israel to halt its campaign and implement a ceasefire.

For Altaweel, displacement from Gaza City is the latest fear that she has to help her children through.

“They feel very afraid and they are scared to sleep at night,” she said. “They lie next to me just to feel a little safer.

“Even though I know I can not protect them from these heavy weapons and airstrikes, I try to emotionally support them all the time.”

Altaweel said that they ask her why children are being targeted in Gaza.

“I’m sure that no one can also this question,” she said.

Seconds later, the explosions hit outside.

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US biker gang running security at contentious Gaza aid sites

September 10, 2025

LONDON: Members of an anti-Islamic US biker gang are running security at contentious Gaza Humanitarian Foundation aid sites in the besieged enclave.

Infidels Motorcycle Club members are working for UG Solutions, a private contractor that provides security for GHF in Gaza, a BBC report has revealed.

GHF has come under international scrutiny because of the hundreds of Palestinians that have been killed while seeking assistance at its distribution sites

The biker gang Infidels MC was set up by US military veterans of the Iraq war in 2006 and members comport themselves as latter-day crusaders.

“Putting the Infidels biker club in charge of delivering humanitarian aid in Gaza is like putting the Ku Klux Klan in charge of delivering humanitarian aid in Sudan. It makes no sense whatsoever,” said Edward Ahmed Mitchell, deputy director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a leading Muslim civil rights organization in the US.

“It’s bound to lead to violence, and that’s exactly what we’ve seen happen in Gaza.”

The motorbike gang’s leader, Johnny “Taz” Mulford, is a former sergeant in the US Army and is now the “country team leader” running UG Solutions’ contract in Gaza.

Social media posts show that in May, just two weeks before traveling to Gaza, Mulford sought to recruit US military veterans who follow him on Facebook, inviting anyone who “can still shoot, move and communicate” to apply.

At least 40 of about 320 people hired to work for UG Solutions in Gaza were recruited from Infidels MC, according to an estimate by a former contractor.

UG Solutions is paying each contractor $980 per day, including expenses, rising to $1,580 per day for team leaders at GHF’s “safe distribution sites.”

One leader of a team in Gaza overseeing site security, Josh Miller, posted a photo of a group of contractors in Gaza with a banner reading “Make Gaza Great Again.”

Motorbike gang leader Mulford has the date 1095 tattooed across his chest. He has a crusader cross tattooed on his right forearm and another on his left upper arm along with the word “Infidels.”

“When you see anti-Muslim bigots today celebrating 1095, celebrating the crusades, they are celebrating the wholesale massacre of Muslims — the erasure of Muslims and Jews from the holy city of Jerusalem,” said Ahmed Mitchell from the US Muslim civil rights organization CAIR.

He said the gang bore all the hallmarks of anti-Muslim hate groups which for decades have used the name “Infidels.”

Scenes of chaos and pandemonium are commonplace at GHF distribution sites in Gaza. Up to the start of this month, 1,135 children, women and men have been killed near the sites while seeking food, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The UN has said most of the killings appear to have been carried out by Israeli security forces. Incidents where civilians were harmed while seeking aid are “under review by the competent authorities in the IDF,” the Israeli military said.

UGS has denied allegations that its security contractors also fired on civilians and that it put people seeking food in danger due to incompetent leadership. However, the company has also tellingly admitted that warning shots have been used to disperse crowds.

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Israeli airstrikes on Yemen kill at least 35 people, Houthi officials say

September 10, 2025

SANAA: Israel carried out another round of heavy airstrikes in Yemen on Wednesday, days after Houthi militants launched a drone attack that struck an Israeli airport.

At least 35 were killed people and more than 130 were wounded, the Houthi-run health ministry said.

Most of those killed were in Sanaa, the capital, where a military headquarters and a fuel station were among the sites hit, the health ministry said. Search crews were continuing to dig through the rubble.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, meanwhile, said she would seek sanctions and a partial trade suspension against Israel over the war in the Gaza Strip. The move adds to Israel’s already unprecedented global isolation as it grapples with the fallout from its strike targeting Hamas leaders in US-allied Qatar on Tuesday.

Al-Masirah, a Houthi-controlled satellite news channel, said one of the strikes on Yemen hit a military headquarters building in central Sanaa. Neighboring houses were also damaged, it reported.

Israel has previously launched waves of airstrikes in response to the Houthis’ firing missiles and drones at Israel. The Iran-backed Houthis say they are supporting Hamas and the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, and on Sunday, sent a drone that breached Israel’s multilayered air defenses and slammed into the country’s southern airport.

Israel’s strikes in Yemen followed earlier attacks that killed the Houthi prime minister and other top officials in a major escalation of the nearly 2-year-old conflict between Israel and the Iran-backed militant group.

The strikes on Wednesday hit a station that provides fuel to hospitals in the capital, Essam Al-Mutawakel, spokesman for militant-run Yemen Petroleum Company, told the Al-Masirah news channel. Residents said they heard violent explosions in multiple areas of the city, with fire and smoke in the skies.

The Houthi media office said Israel also hit a government facility in the strategic city of Hazm, the capital of northern Jawf province. Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree said militants fired surface-to-air missiles at the Israeli fighter jets.

Houthi-backed President Mahdi Al-Mashat vowed on Wednesday to continue the attacks, warning Israelis to “stay alarmed since the response is coming without fail.”

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Missing limbs and loved ones, Gazan children begin treatment journey abroad

September 10, 2025

BEIRUT: Six-year-old Omar Abu Kuwaik still believes that by his next birthday, his missing hand will have grown back.

He is one of thousands of Palestinian children who have lost limbs and loved ones in Israel’s bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip.

“It’ll be big again when I turn seven,” he tells his aunt, softly rubbing his left arm, which ends just below his elbow.

Omar was the lone survivor of an Israeli airstrike that flattened his grandparents’ home in Gaza in December 2023, killing his parents, sister and extended family.

He is among a small group of Gazan families who arrived in the Lebanese capital Beirut earlier this month for medical treatment.

His aunt Maha Abu Kuwaik says he now calls her “mama.”

“He’s scared of everything now — sleep, doctors, any loud sound. He asks me not to be sad. ‘Smile, Mama,’ he says. ‘I don’t like it when people cry’,” she told Reuters, her voice cracking.

Omar was pulled from the rubble with severe burns, a shattered leg, and his left hand already severed by the blast.

With Gaza’s hospitals in ruins, Maha sought help from the World Health Organization, which helped evacuate Omar to Egypt for basic treatment before his transfer to Lebanon.

Maha had to leave her own children in Gaza to accompany Omar.

“It was the hardest decision of my life — to leave my sons in a war zone,” she said. “But Omar had no one else. I couldn’t leave him.”

Doctors in Beirut are now considering a prosthetic hand and reconstructive surgery for Omar.

’YOU’RE A HERO’

Fourteen-year-old Amir Hajjaj only remembers snapshots of the night his world changed: a red flash, an explosion, then silence.

“I was just sitting on a chair,” he said softly, “then everything turned red, and I was on the ground. I didn’t even know what happened.”

An Israeli strike hit his family’s home in northern Gaza in late 2023. Shrapnel pierced both his shoulders, his leg, and his hand. He bled for hours as Israeli tanks shelled their street during their escape, Amir’s older sister Alaa said.

“He kept saying, ‘Leave me, save yourselves’,” Alaa recalled. “But how could I leave him behind?“

Amir bled for four days in an overcrowded hospital. By the time doctors got to him, it was too late to save the fingers of his right hand.

He was evacuated to Cairo, where the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund later arranged for his transfer to Beirut. He is now awaiting nerve treatment and physiotherapy.

“He tries to hide his hand in photos. I tell him, ‘You’re a hero,’” Alaa told Reuters.

At least 45,000 children have been wounded in Gaza, many of them suffering life-changing injuries, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Over 18,000 children have been killed in the war, among a total death toll of 64,000, it said.

Israel began its offensive in Gaza after Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a cross-border attack into Israel that killed 1,200 people, according to Israel. It controls all entry and exit from the enclave and is pursuing an offensive in Gaza City despite mounting international pressure.

More recent efforts to evacuate civilians have repeatedly stalled due to relentless airstrikes, decimated infrastructure and shifting Israeli evacuation routes.

Olfat Abdulkarim Abdallah, a mother of three, arrived in Lebanon with her two wounded daughters: Mays, 5, who has three fractures and a torn nerve in her leg, and Aya, 7, who lost her right leg.

An Israeli strike tore through their home in Gaza on November 8, 2023. “I didn’t even hear the explosion,” Olfat said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“I only heard Aya scream. Mays didn’t make a sound. She just looked down at the blood pouring out of her.”

Olfat clings to the hope that her daughters’ pain might finally give way to healing. Doctors at the American University of Beirut Medical Center and the Ghassan Abu Sittah Children’s Fund said Aya will need a new limb, while Mays might walk again with physiotherapy alone.

“I’m holding onto the possibility that this treatment will give them a better life than the horrors they’ve lived,” their mother said.

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Qatar digs through the rubble of Israel’s attack on Hamas leaders in Doha

September 10, 2025

DOHA: Qatari security forces and emergency fire personnel deployed Wednesday around the site of an Israeli attack the previous day on Hamas’ political leaders who had gathered in Doha to consider a US proposal for a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip.

Tuesday’s strike on a building in the Qatari capital killed at least six people in a neighborhood that is home to foreign embassies and schools.

The strike on the territory of a US ally drew widespread condemnation from countries in the Mideast and beyond. It also marked a dramatic escalation in the region and risked upending talks aimed at ending the war and freeing hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza.

At least 10 bombs used

An Israeli official said at least 10 bombs were used in the raid. Speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss details of the attack, the official said about 10 planes participated in the mission and dropped about 10 missiles.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Tuesday he had made the decision on Monday to carry out the strike. The official did not know how long the mission had been planned, but said the timing was connected to “operational opportunity” — with Israel knowing that many Hamas officials would be gathered in an area relatively easy to hit without threatening Qatari civilians.

Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Qatar’s prime minister and foreign minister, called out Netanyahu over the attack.

“Such hostile behavior reflects only the barbarism of Netanyahu,” the minister said while consoling the family of a Qatari security official killed in Israel’s strike, according to the Foreign Ministry. He added that Netanyahu “was pushing the region toward irreparable instability, undermining international laws and frameworks.”

Sheikh Mohammed also “criticized Netanyahu for previously declaring intentions to reshape the Middle East, questioning whether this was also meant as a threat to reshape the Arabian Gulf,” the statement said.

At the scene of the attack

From a distance beyond the security cordon, the buildings that had housed the Hamas leadership in Doha could be seen still standing. But one room in particular appeared to have been the target of the strike — its walls had collapsed, and gray rubble could be seen inside.

Security forces and emergency personnel surrounded the site and blocked traffic.

A gas station to one side did not appear to have suffered any fire damage. The windows of the building next to the one targeted remained intact.

Israel hasn’t specified what it used to carry out the strike, beyond saying it employed precision-guided weapons meant to minimize collateral damage.

Hamas said in a statement Tuesday that its top leaders survived the strike but that five lower-level members were killed, including the son of Khalil Al-Hayya — Hamas’ leader for Gaza and its top negotiator — as well as three bodyguards and the head of Al-Hayya’s office. Hamas, which has sometimes only confirmed the assassination of its leaders months later, offered no immediate proof that Al-Hayya and other senior figures had survived.

Hitting an American ally

Qatar maintains a major arsenal of air defense systems, including both American-made Patriot and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD batteries. However, it didn’t immediately appear that Qatari air defenses engaged during the attack, which occurred just before 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Sheikh Mohammed said Tuesday that “the Israeli enemy used weapons that were not detected by radar.”

He did not elaborate but the statement suggests Israeli fighter jets could have launched so-called “stand-off” missiles at a distance to strike the site without actually entering Qatari airspace.

The United States has said it warned Qatar before the strike. Qatar disputes that, with Sheikh Mohammed saying that “the Americans sent a message 10 minutes after the attacks took place, saying they were informed that there was going to be a missile attack on the state of Qatar.”

Qatar is also home to the US military’s forward headquarters for its Mideast-based Central Command. The headquarters, located at the sprawling Al-Udeid Air Base, also has American-run radars and defense systems and recently hosted US President Donald Trump on his tour of the region in May.

Qatar’s advisory Shoura Council condemned what it described as a “criminal, treacherous and cowardly attack” which it said “represents a flagrant and ongoing breach of all international laws and norms.”

Stalled Gaza talks

The leader of the UAE, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is also the ruler of Abu Dhabi, traveled Wednesday to Qatar.

In recent days, the UAE warned Israel that any effort to annex the West Bank, part of land the Palestinians want for their future state, would be a “red line” that would threaten the Abraham Accords.

Qatar’s ruler, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, welcomed Sheikh Mohammed.

The state-run Qatar News Agency said Sheikh Tamim held a series of calls with world leaders, including Trump.

Sheikh Tamim condemned the attack and according to a readout of the call, said that Qatar holds Israel “responsible for its repercussions, in light of the policy of aggression they adopt that threatens the region’s stability and obstructs efforts to de-escalate and reach sustainable diplomatic solutions.”

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Islamic Jihad Movement: Deliberate Israeli targeting of Yemeni civilian facilities reflects its weakness on battlefield

10 Sep 2025

The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine today, Wednesday, strongly condemned "the aggression carried out by the criminal Zionist entity against government and civilian facilities in several Yemeni governorates, targeting civilian employees, journalists, and citizens."

In a statement reviewed by the Yemen News Agency (SABA), the movement said: "The deliberate targeting of civilian facilities and the shedding of civilian and journalist blood, using the most advanced U.S.-made weapons and cover, indicates the entity's inability to achieve victory on the battlefield and confront the resistance. It reflects the failure of its apparatus and intelligence to manufacture an image of triumph, and its futile attempts to cover up its weakness and failure by committing massacres."

The statement added: "We extend our deepest condolences to the families of the martyrs among our Yemeni brothers, consider them martyrs of Palestine, and pray to God to bestow His vast mercy upon them and grant a swift recovery to the wounded."

It affirmed: "We are confident that the courageous Yemeni people will continue to strike the enemy at the heart of its entity and make it pay for the blood of innocent Yemenis.

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North America

'Allah will burn them': What pro-Palestinian students and allies say when they think no one is watching

Sep 10, 2025

In the wake of the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, a group of Jewish students at Western University infiltrated two private group chats, belonging to Palestinian students and their allies in the London, Ont., community.

The students’ discoveries shine a light on what some opponents of Israel are saying to one another when they think no one’s watching. What they found in the chat histories is unsettling: a stream of Hitler memes, pro-Hamas videos and antisemitic cartoons. More alarming is the advice group chat members give each other on escaping detection. There are even tips on bringing knives to peaceful protests.

National Post has reviewed the chat histories supplied by the Jewish students. The Post has granted their request for anonymity, given the uptick of violence toward Jews on campuses. Even the principal lawyer advising them did not want to be identified for this story, fearful the publication of his name could provoke retribution.

The Post reached out to the Palestinian Cultural Club (PCC), a university-affiliated group that ran one of the group chats. The Post also reached out to the administrators of the second chat, requesting an interview to discuss the antisemitic nature of many posts.

“The allegations put forward are currently before a rigorous independent process where we are fully cooperating with all legal processes,” a spokesperson for the club responded over Instagram. “We will be fully rebutting the fallacious claims made that the PCC in any way facilitated or was involved in the spreading of hate.”

While the spokesperson declined to comment further on the case, he warned that any “spurious allegations made that the PCC supports hate, or supports anti-Semitism, is false, malicious, and defamatory. We will defend ourselves in court against such spurious allegations if they are made.”

The group instructed the Post to communicate with them via their legal counsel moving forward but declined to provide a lawyer’s contact information after multiple requests.

The group chat for Western’s Palestinian Cultural Club wasn’t always intensely political. In its text history there are innocuous links to Zoom events, reminders to apply for leadership positions and good-hearted Eid Mubarak greetings shared during Ramadan.

But the tenor changed on Oct. 7, 2023, the day thousands of Hamas fighters invaded southern Israel, triggering a war still being fought today that has shaken up the Middle East.

“Everyone this is a time where we all stand united!” was one of the first references to the attack in the group chat, posted in all capital letters. A wave of heart emojis and Palestinian flags followed.

In the coming days, as reports emerged of Israelis being burned alive, beheaded and sexually assaulted, group chat members exchanged messages about attending rallies to support Palestine and protest Israel’s unfolding military response in Gaza.

It didn’t take long for group members to see a risk in discussing these subjects on a channel tied to the university. Several expressed concern for their academic careers if the content became public. A few worried about Canary Mission, a website that identifies and tracks anti-Israel activists.

One of the group’s members acted on these concerns six days later, Oct. 13, with a message to gauge support for starting a new chat on WhatsApp, separate from the university-affiliated club, and using better security features to help ferret out any unwelcome eyes.

The member then sent out a link to the new chat, named “Palestinian safe zone NOT Affiliated with Western.” Immediately, members started joining the new group.

But despite the name change, it’s clear the “safe zone” was comprised of many of the same members. Screenshots indicate at least two of the new chat administrators were also members of the Palestinian Cultural Club. (The new chat itself, however, is not affiliated with the club.)

Once the new chat was created, members started joining faster than administrators could approve. Lost in the chaos of digital migration was a WhatsApp account linked to a group of Jewish students on campus. They observed quietly and hung back in the shadows to document what was said. Later, they scraped the entire chat history of the group.

It was on this new platform that, in the weeks and months ahead, some of the members’ feelings became even clearer.

That chat history suggests the Palestinian students and their local supporters were unwavering in backing the Oct. 7 attacks despite the unfolding devastation in Gaza. “Calling us savages for fighting back after 75 years is insanity,” wrote one member, in response to a video of Israel Defence Force soldier Naama Levy being abducted. Her sweatpants in the infamous video are bloodied, suggesting sexual assault.

Members responded to a photo of the kidnapped Bibas family on the side of a milk carton, saying: “This is a lie.” Another wrote: “They’re probably being treated better than how they were treated in their own homes.”

Over time, sympathy for Hamas grew more explicit: “They don’t know that h4mas is literally OUR military. and they just defend but somehow they are the problem??” a student wrote Oct. 17. Two weeks later, in response to an editorial cartoon depicting a Hamas soldier with blood on his hands and a water faucet turned off by Israel, another wrote: “The resistance is making decent progress tbh (to be honest).”

At various times during the conflict, members expressed their admiration for the leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — all designated terror entities by Canadian authorities.

A picture of Hamas founder Ahmed Yassin was posted Oct. 16, subtitled with a quote from an interview in which he proclaimed, “Israel will be no more.” Two weeks later, another member shared a message delivered by Hamas spokesman Abu Obaida, with one boasting “he’s such a G,” meaning gangster. Another said: “I love the way he talks.”

Obaida was killed Aug. 30 in an Israeli air strike.

Members grew frustrated that locals in the London, Ont., community did not see the Hamas invasion as a liberating chapter in the story of the Palestinian people.

The “yahood (Jews) own everything,” a student wrote Oct. 15. “That’s how they control everyone. Money.” Later in the month, members discussed which local restaurants support Gaza, prompting users to suggest mostly Middle Eastern places: “London is filled with these yahoodi’s. We have to make a list of where we can and can’t eat,” one suggested.

Some members of the chat continued to express concern about being detected. “If someone sees this gc (group chat) and reports it, we all getting expelled.”

The words “Jews” and “Zionists” are frequently used interchangeably, which, one student warns, must not be repeated publicly.

“The government are slaves to these jews,” one wrote, prompting a fellow student to encourage others to strategically reframe their language. “Guys this is serious. (If) you wanna refer to them as something, refer to them as Zionists. If you get caught referring to them as Jews they’ll get you for antisemitism and ruin ur life. And this isn’t an exaggeration.”

Students aren’t the only targets of the group chat’s ire. Western University president Alan Shepard fell into their verbal crosshairs in mid-October, when a group member suggested “someone kidnap the dog, maybe then he’ll move.” The following week, another described Shepard as “clearly a zionist pig.” Later, a member said of Shepard: “Just out of curiosity, does anyone know Alan (Shepard’s) house location. I heard it’s public information.”

On Oct. 25, a student shared a TikTok video featuring photos of journalists at CNN, NPR, the New York Times, Fox News, CBS and NBC, emblazoned with Jewish stars. Hava Nagila, a celebratory Jewish song traditionally performed at weddings, is playing in the background.

“I know they (Jews) are no shit, it just sucks eno(ugh) they control our education and jobs and everything that matters,” the poster opined. Another steps in to reassure them: “Let them be dogs, be the smarter person.”

By early November, several members began discussing how to rid Jews from the Middle East. “How do i get them out of palestine,” one asked. Comments flooded in with proposals: “I need an area that isnt habitable and give it to them,” Another wrote: “Bro they used to be a diaspora they can return to being a diaspora.”

“lmaooo telling a high jewish population to go to a planet that is a gas giant wont turn out well,” a member replies to the suggestion Jews be relocated to Jupiter. “Mars is suitable for them let them burn a little.”

“But speaking of burning, the suns a pretty good spot,” another chimed in. “We gotta make them hate their life not let them burn.”

“Allah will burn them but we should send em off alone,” yet another replied. “(W)e need them to hate their life while they are living AND hate their afterlife.” Users then began filling the chat with laughing emojis.

References to the Holocaust and Adolf Hitler abound in the group chat. At the suggestion of a “sticker competition” before a protest in late October 2023, one member shared a cartoon?of Hitler with a banner proclaiming “#1 Victory Royale!” beneath a skull sign and the number 6 million — a reference to the victims killed in the Holocaust. The same student then posted a doctored image of Hitler, making a heart sign with his hands.

Those administering the WhatsApp chat didn’t intervene. For members, it wasn’t the message, but the fear of its publicization that concerned them.

“I feel like sending hitler stickers is going to leave a horrible horrible mark if someone else sees,” one student wrote. “If we can refrain from using anything hitler related, that would be amazing,” another said.

The sharing of antisemitic, pro-Nazi and pro-terrorist memes did not stop. Even after the winter break, when students returned to campus in the new year, a member shared a Nazi-era cartoon of a hunch-backed, bearded Orthodox Jew with a hooked nose.

During a discussion about anti-Israel protests, some warned chat members to stay safe . “The Zionists are now recruiting volunteers to infiltrate our protests disguised in kuffiyehs. We have nothing to hide or fear but still important to be safe. These lunatics are unpredictable and insane.”

One offered a solution to root them out: “Drop a loonie and see who picks it up.” Another’s response to the suggestion of Jews infiltrating protests: “Let them try, they’re going to come and realize we’re actually peaceful people, not animals like them.”

The threat of violence and attacks on Jewish students were a consistent theme in the group chat throughout the 2023-24 academic year. Just days after the Oct. 7 attacks, some began asking how to carry weapons at protests.

“I got a knife but it doesn’t sound like a good idea to carry it around,” one wrote. A couple of chat participants pushed back on the idea. “Definitely doesn’t sound like a good idea,” one responds with a crying laughing emoji. “(I)t can be used against you so I would say don’t wallah.”

The student responds, “I won’t, I won’t. I don’t really do weapons,” with a skull emoji.

The exchange prompts another to jump in and underscore the importance of not bringing any weapons to demonstrations. “Be careful because carrying this/pepper spray/ self defence stuff is illegal here,” they write.

Another responds, “(J)ust be careful if you guys want to carry that stuff. lol have oranges in your bag so your excuse for the knife is to cut oranges.”

Two days later, following discussions about Islamophobic incidents locally and elsewhere, the chat group began posting about a female Jewish business student’s social media account that condemned Hamas terrorist sympathizers. One threatened, “I’m a geology major, I got some pretty rocks that I can use to ‘fix’ her brains. Just gotta work on my aim.” A computer science major liked the idea: “Get me a bow and an arrow shaped rock. I gotchu.”

Some pushed back on talk of violence: “Any physical violence from our side is going to give people a “valid” reason to continue to call arabs violent and terrorists,” one wrote. “I want a jew to approach us tomorrow,” another student said. “Violence was never the answer (but) with them maybe.”

A student wrote he wished he could “pop some Israelis,” adding shortly after:?“I’ll (actually) pop them if I see them in person.” A couple of weeks later, the same student openly asked another chat member “did you get the shipment of rifles and shotguns and rocks.” Members of the group then began discussing how to take over different campus buildings.

“This turned from places to take over to smuggling weapons,” a fellow member responded, prompting a slew of laughing emojis. Talk of weaponization led another member to post a picture of a Nazi officer carrying a machine gun.

“Ya we’re getting flagged 100%,” a poster said.

It was specifically the comments promoting antisemitic violence that led the Jewish students and their lawyer to insist on anonymity for this story. Were it not for this factor, one told the Post, “I would have said to you: ‘Put my name on the front cover of it in the title.’”

An expert on policing and security says the Jewish students’ fears are not misplaced.

“It sounds like there’s enough here certainly to start a security intelligence investigation, possibly to start a criminal intelligence investigation,” Christian Leuprecht, professor at the Royal Military College of Canada, told the Post.

“It’s complex and interesting,” he said after hearing several of the above quotations. “The knife is sort of a whole separate tactical question because it suggests deliberate obfuscation for a tool that’s intended to be used as a weapon.” Leuprecht elaborated that such advice could count as a “counselling offence under the Criminal Code,” but cautioned that a police officer would need to make that determination.

Another aspect that caught Leuprecht’s attention was the question of balancing freedom of expression and Charter rights when weighed against potential support for designated terror entities.

“The key thing about the chat here is we live in a democracy, so the state can’t simply go in and monitor people’s chats even if they wanted to,” he said. Obtaining warrants for such chats requires what he called a high “evidentiary threshold.”

Leuprecht added that WhatsApp’s robust encryption further complicates the matter, explaining that the evidence is “unlikely to be admissible in a court of law” because of how it was obtained.

He sympathized with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who he said have been overwhelmed with similar complaints since the Oct. 7 attacks, describing the organization as having “the largest span of control of any police force in the democratic world.”

Leuprecht said the London Palestinian group chat is a rare window into the minds and methods of anti-Israel activists in Canada. The persistent concern, for him, is whether Hamas is supporting or leveraging such students and activists.

“Is there the long arm of some terrorist organization or someone affiliated with that organization behind this, trying to generate some cohesion around these sorts of issues? At that point, of course, it becomes clearly within the terrorist realm,” he said.

“What you and I don’t know is whether anybody behind this chat, themselves — for instance, someone here on a student visa — who through their family or by other means is linked to one of the organizations. That’s why it’s important to investigate these things,” he continued.

“This is a really important story because I think people completely underestimate what goes on in our university campuses.”

Before bringing their trove of information to the Post, the Jewish students tried to go through university channels to address the concerning rhetoric shared in the group chats.

On Aug. 9, 2024, one of their lawyers, Jonathan Rosenthal, filed on their behalf a 17-page complaint to the university, distilling the nature of the comments on the group chat.

Yet there was never a formal investigation because the Jewish students were unwilling to identify themselves as complainants.

Western’s associate vice president of human resources, Jane O’Brien, confirmed receipt of the complaint. In a response several days days later she requested Rosenthal “identify the students involved” and outline any incident alleged to be “a breach of the Code of Student Conduct,” according to an email thread shared with the Post.

O’Brien also informed Rosenthal that concerns about the Palestinian student club’s campus status should be directed to the student union, the University Students’ Council.

“I will NOT be disclosing the names of the complainants,” Rosenthal replied Sept. 3, citing “safety concerns.” The lawyer said providing their names “is simply irrelevant” and requested the university investigate the matter promptly. Rosenthal emailed O’Brien the following week, but didn’t hear back until Sept. 13, when Western’s legal counsel, David Foster, rehashed much of O’Brien’s initial message.

“As you have previously been advised, the Palestinian Culture Club is established under the policies of the University Students’ Council, and as such, is not within the jurisdiction of the University. While the conduct of any individual students associated with a club may be subject to Western’s Code of Student Conduct, your complaint fails to identify any students who are alleged to have breached the Code,” Foster responded.

“Though your email indicates that the complaint provides student names and phone numbers, no such information appears to be included. Furthermore, the supporting documentation is comprised solely of what appears to be copied text, the origins of which are not demonstrated,” Foster continued.

Foster underscored that the university prioritizes the safety of complainants and “until such time as you provide the requested information, Western will not be able to proceed with your complaint.”

Rosenthal tried to meet Foster in the middle.

He shared a dossier with a trove of time-stamped data — WhatsApp messages, pictures, videos, phone numbers, screenshots and names — from the group chat but reaffirmed his clients would not publicly identify themselves.

“The chats speak for themselves,” Rosenthal answered Foster on Sept. 17.

Despite trading emails with the university for more than a month, Western wouldn’t budge.

The university defended its handling of the situation in a written statement to the Post. Western spokesman Stephen Ledgley said the complaint, “lacked sufficient information to proceed with an ?investigation, such as identifying any student connected to the alleged conduct.”

He added that the “complaint and supporting documentation submitted were reviewed in detail to determine if an investigation could be pursued based on the information provided alone,” however, “there was insufficient information to proceed.”

Rosenthal’s dealings with the University Students’ Council, the student union, followed a similar pattern. His unwillingness to name the complainants remained the key sticking point. In his email exchanges with both groups, each pointed him to the other, rather than deal with the substance of the complaint.

He eventually shared the same dossier of information with Shari Bumpus, the union manager overseeing the student community, outlining several specific alleged violations of union policy dealing with fostering “an inclusive and welcoming environment” and anti-discrimination, but did not hear back.

It’s a response the union defends.

“The USC and Western University are two distinct entities with distinct jurisdictions,” spokeswoman Rebecca Rebeiro wrote the Post in a statement. “The USC was made aware of the anonymous complaint and conducted an investigation to determine if it fell within its jurisdiction. When it was determined this complaint was outside its scope, the USC referred the complaint over to Western University’s Student Code of Conduct Office.”

It’s an approach one Jewish advocacy group says is unconscionable.

“The content of the chats was shown to us. Based on what we’ve seen, we believe that the content is dangerous,” Richard Marceau, general counsel for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Advocacy (CIJA), wrote to the Post.

“The individuals involved shared violent threats, antisemitic slurs, and grotesque conspiracy theories, all while joking about how to evade university accountability using disappearing messages,” he added, imploring Western to investigate the matter.

Source: theprovince.com

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https://theprovince.com/longreads/western-university-pro-palestinian-students

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CAIR Calls on French Government to Address Rising Islamophobia After Pig Heads Left at Mosques

September 10, 2025

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the nation’s largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization, today called on the government of France to address rising Islamophobia after pig heads were left outside at least nine mosques in and around Paris.

[NOTE: Muslims are prohibited from consuming pork products and bigots often use pigs or pork to deliberately offend Muslim sensibilities.]

In a statement, CAIR said:

“The coordinated targeting of mosques in France with such vile, Islamophobic acts is part of a deeply troubling trend of escalating anti-Muslim hatred across Europe. We call on French authorities to fully investigate these hate incidents, hold perpetrators accountable, and take concrete steps to protect Muslim communities and institutions from further harm.

“Freedom of religion and dignity for all citizens must be upheld by any government that claims to support democratic values.”

Earlier this month, CAIR expressed solidarity with a Brussels-based Muslim organization dedicated to opposing anti-Muslim bigotry, the Collectif Contre l’Islamophobie en Europe (Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe, CCIE) as it faces targeting by French authorities.

Earlier this year, CAIRsaid that Islamophobia is “spinning out of control” in Europe after a Muslim woman was murdered in Germany and a mosque was burned during anti-immigrant riots in Spain.

Washington, D.C., based CAIR also repeated its call for European leaders to stop promoting anti-Muslim hate after mosques in the United Kingdom and France were targeted with attacks.

Last month, CAIR condemned the attempted arson of a Muslim prayer room in Châtillon-sur-Seine, France.

CAIR’s mission is to protect civil rights, enhance understanding of Islam, promote justice, and empower American Muslims.

La misión de CAIR es proteger las libertades civiles, mejorar la comprensión del Islam, promover la justicia, y empoderar a los musulmanes en los Estados Unidos.

Do you like reading CAIR press releases and taking part in our action alerts? You can help contribute to CAIR’s work of defending civil rights and empowering American Muslims across the country by making a one-time contribution or becoming a monthly donor. Supporters like you make CAIR’s advocacy work possible and defeating Islamophobia an achievable goal. Click here to donate to CAIR.

You are receiving this email due to your interest selection from commercial media databases. If you would like to join CAIR’s media list, please sign up here:

Source: cair.com

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https://www.cair.com/press_releases/cair-calls-on-french-government-to-address-rising-islamophobia-after-pig-heads-left-at-mosques/

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Putin and Netanyahu present twin challenges to Trump's diplomacy

September 11, 2025

Paul Adams

Into the two big foreign policy arenas sucking up much of the Trump administration's time and effort come two major challenges in less than 24 hours.

Israel's air raid on the offices of Hamas in Doha and a Russian drone incursion deep into Polish airspace represent two massive headaches for the White House.

And, arguably, two major affronts to the president's authority.

After all, these are conflicts – Ukraine and Gaza - US President Donald Trump said he would deal with swiftly and decisively.

In each case, a leader he sees as a natural, if problematic ally – Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – has thrown a massive spanner in the wheels of White House peace-making.

Consider the timing. The Doha raid came just two days after the Trump administration delivered its latest proposals to end the war in Gaza.

On social media, Trump told Hamas that this was a last chance.

"I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting," he wrote on Truth Social on Sunday. "This is my last warning, there will not be another one!"

In Doha, Hamas' senior leadership gathered to consider their response, but Israel didn't wait to hear it. The attack didn't just blow up the latest US proposals, it may have wrecked the entire, delicate architecture of Gaza diplomacy, on which the Trump administration was relying heavily.

Debate swirls over how and when the US found out about the Israeli raid and whether it could have done more to stop it. The presence in Qatar of one of the most important US airbases in the world has led many to conclude that it's inconceivable that Washington didn't see the Israeli jets approaching.

But if there wasn't a green light from Washington – and many assume there was – what does this say about Mr Trump's ability to influence Benjamin Netanyahu's actions?

For the past two years, following the humiliation suffered at the hands of Hamas gunmen on 7 October 2023, Israel has been flexing its military muscles across the Middle East, mostly with the tacit or explicit approval of the United States.

Israel has established itself as the region's undisputed hegemon, able to attack at will countries as far flung as Yemen and Iran.

But in both those cases, the US was also involved and shared the objectives – halting Houthi attacks on Israel and shipping in the Red Sea and thwarting Iran's nuclear ambitions.

An attack on Qatar, a key US regional ally, is a whole other thing.

Donald Trump said he felt "very badly" about it. According to the White House account of events, news of the Israeli raid came too late to offer Qatar any meaningful warning.

"Unilaterally bombing inside Qatar, a sovereign nation and close ally of the United States that is working very hard and bravely taking risks with us to broker peace does not advance Israel or America's goals," the White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.

It won't be enough to quell the suspicions of American complicity, but it sounded like real anger.

For his part, Mr Netanyahu was keen to emphasise that this was a "wholly independent" action.

In The Washington Post, David Ignatius wrote that what the Israelis have dubbed "Operation Summit of Fire" came despite US and Israeli assurances that Hamas leaders would not be targeted in Qatar.

For such assurances, if given, to have been so flagrantly cast aside will inevitably be seen in the Gulf as a sign of American weakness.

Then there's Poland.

Less than a month ago, Trump welcomed Putin to a summit in Alaska, rolling out the red carpet, warmly embracing the architect of the war in Ukraine and, in a hot mic moment days later, telling France's Emmanuel Macron that Putin "wants to make a deal for me….as crazy as it sounds."

But far from progress towards a deal, the weeks since have brought only escalation. More record-breaking Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, and now, for the first time, a flagrant incursion into NATO airspace.

It's not the first time Russian projectiles have landed in Poland, but previous episodes were close to the border and seemingly accidental.

But the incursions early on Wednesday morning were anything but accidental. Polish officials reported 19 Russian drones, some flying deep into Poland.

The Prime Minister Donald Tusk told parliament this was "the closest we have been to open conflict since World War Two."

Despite Russian denials, there's a near universal consensus that this was a deliberate effort by Moscow to test Nato's resolve.

And since the United States remains the alliance's most powerful member, that means testing Donald Trump's resolve too.

The president's apparent reluctance to respond – in contrast to his comments on the Doha attack – did not go unnoticed.

"A stunning silence from the White House greeted news that a Nato ally for the first time engaged and shot down Russian military assets," the Kyiv Post newspaper wrote.

A post on Truth Social did eventually – and inevitably – come.

"What's with Russia violating Poland's airspace with drones?" the president wrote, adding, somewhat ambiguously, "Here we go!"

But his initial silence, coupled with his seeming unwillingness to follow through on his own threats to impose new sanctions on Russia, leave Ukraine's western allies where they have always been: wondering where Donald Trump's heart is.

This could be about to change, with European officials working with their American counterparts on a coordinated package of sanctions, the first since Trump returned to the White House.

But given the president's previous ambivalence about Nato, alliance members want reassurance that when the sovereignty of an ally is threatened, Washington can be relied on to respond.

A recent agreement to allow Nato members to purchase US military equipment for Ukraine, along with the commitment of members to spend more on their own defence, has done much to improve relations within the alliance, and Trump has abandoned the sort of hostile rhetoric towards Nato that characterised his first term in office.

For their part, Nato's European members have generally acknowledged that they must do more to look after their own security. Policing Poland's airspace is a good example.

But American might, military and political, is still the bedrock on which the alliance is built, and questions linger about this president's willingness to wield it.

Two days, two conflicts and two conundrums. For Trump, a leader who does not like, or expect, to be challenged, this has been testing experience. Everyone is waiting to see if he rises to the occasion.

Source: bbc.com

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg9pnpqm2jo

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Trump vows to hunt down those funding ‘radical left’ violence

11 Sep, 2025

President Donald Trump has vowed to pursue not only the assassin of conservative activist Charlie Kirk but also those he accused of funding and fueling “radical left” political violence across the United States.

In a video statement posted Wednesday night on Truth Social, Trump described Kirk, 31, as a “patriot” and a “martyr for truth and freedom,” praising him for inspiring young Americans through debates on college campuses nationwide.

“Charlie was the best of America, and the monster who attacked him was attacking our whole country,” Trump said. “An assassin tried to silence him with a bullet, but he failed, because together we will ensure that his voice, his message, and his legacy will live on for countless generations to come.”

The president linked Kirk’s murder to the rhetoric used by the left, warning that “violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year.”

“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today. And it must stop right now,” Trump declared.

He promised to use the full weight of his administration to investigate not only perpetrators but also “the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.”

Trump cited other incidents he attributed to left-wing extremism, including the 2024 assassination attempt against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise in 2017, attacks on ICE agents, and the recent killing of a healthcare executive in New York.

“This is a dark moment for America,” Trump said, urging unity around “the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died – the values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and patriotic devotion and love of God.”

Source: rt.com

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https://www.rt.com/news/624448-trump-radical-left-violence/

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Europe

Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral threatened by terrorists? An old fake video resurfaces

10/09/2025

Is Notre-Dame being threatened by “Muslims in France”? On September 8, the pro-Trump account, Right Angle News Network, shared with its 260,000 followers on X what it presented as a threatening video of terrorists burning a model of Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral.

The account claimed in a post viewed nearly three million times that “Muslims in France are threatening to burn down the Notre-Dame Cathedral” unless French authorities release Brahim Aouissaoui, the Tunisian national who killed three people in a terrorist attack on Nice's Basilica of Notre-Dame in 2020.

In the video, three hooded men dressed in black say in Arabic that if he “is not set free, God's wrath will be upon your people here in France!”

“Your churches will be burned by God's will,” concludes the person in the centre of the video.

At the end of the clip, the person on the right begins burning a model of Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral with a torch. A blue and white logo, supposedly representing an affiliation with HTS, is visible on the sleeve of each person. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is the Islamist group that was formerly led by Syria's interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

An old video with inconsistent elements

This video is not new: the FRANCE 24 Observers team had already verified this footage in January 2025.

On January 28, ultra-conservative British account "Jim Ferguson", one of the first to share the video, claimed that it was released by “militants” from HTS, which came to power in Syria in December 2024. The video is still available online and has been viewed more than 11 million times.

But many factors cast doubt on the authenticity of these threats. “No, HTS is not calling for the release of people in France and is not threatening to burn down Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral,” Wassim Nasr, a journalist at FRANCE 24 and specialist in jihadist movements, wrote at the time on X.

“Everything about this video circulating on social media is ridiculous, from the message to the Egyptian accent, the outfits, and the model,” he said.

Nasr described it to our team as a “ridiculous and absurd staging”. He pointed out that the video was distributed through an "anonymous channel” and that the video was not shared through the usual channels of the HTS group. He also said the group was “seeking recognition” from countries such as France.

This point was also emphasised by Broderick McDonald, an expert on jihadist groups in Syria at Oxford University, who believes that the video appears to be “100%” fake: “The people in the video seem to have tried to copy certain elements of the HTS logo, but the result is far from identical and does not resemble any of the traditional allied groups that have fought alongside HTS over the past decade,” he told our team.

An Arabic-speaking journalist on our team also noted the “poor language skills” in the video, pointing out that the men did not speak with a Syrian accent.

A clip shared by pro-Russian accounts

Who is behind this operation?

The origin of the account behind the disinformation is difficult to determine with certainty. The Arabic-language account, named Hadi Alaradah, posted the video on January 26 and has since been suspended. This account had not shared any other content before releasing the footage.

However, there are a few elements that suggest a pro-Russian origin.

Among those who shared the video on X is Chay Bowes, a correspondent for the Russian channel RT. This identified conduit of Russian disinformation is part of the Foundation for Battling Injustice, as Darren Linvill, a researcher at Clemson University, pointed out on X when Bowes shared a fake video about the US presidential election.

Several Arabic-language websites also shared this disinformation in very similar articles, such as here and here. Among them is the Egyptian website Elaosboa, which had already shared at least two pieces of Russian disinformation in the summer of 2024.

This site had notably broadcast another fake threatening video, this time attributed to Hamas, a few days before the start of the Paris Olympics. The footage was also shared by identified pro-Kremlin influencers, such as Aussie Cossack.

All of these elements are reminiscent of the modus operandi of pro-Russian interference regularly observed throughout 2024.

Source: france24.com

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https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20250910-paris-notre-dame-threatened-terrorists-old-fake-video

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Foreign nationals placed pig heads outside Paris mosques, prosecutor says

11 September 2025

PARIS (Reuters) -A police investigation showed foreign nationals placed the pig heads that were found outside at least nine mosques in and around Paris on Tuesday, the Paris Prosecutor's office said on Wednesday.

The probe established that the pig heads "had been placed there by foreign nationals who immediately left the country, with the clear intention of causing unrest within the nation," the statement said.

"A farmer from Normandy came forward to tell investigators that two people had come to buy a dozen pig heads from him, and described their vehicle, which had Serbian number plates," it added.

CCTV footage showed these same individuals had arrived in Paris in the same vehicle during the night of Monday, September 8, to Tuesday, September 9.

The images also showed two men leaving the heads in front of a number of mosques. They are likely to have used a Croatian telephone line, which was traced to having crossed the French-Belgian border on Tuesday morning, after the crimes were committed.

French authorities on Tuesday had pledged support for France's Muslim population at a time of rising anti-Islamic sentiment. France has Europe's largest population of Muslims, more than 6 million, for whom eating pork is forbidden.

Paris police chief Laurent Nunez had said he could not rule out foreign interference to unsettle France as it faces a fiscal and political crisis.

France has accused Russia of trying to sow discord in the past. Three Serbians accused of links to a "foreign power" were arrested after synagogues and a Holocaust memorial were defaced with green paint in May.

Source: yahoo.com

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https://uk.news.yahoo.com/foreign-nationals-placed-pig-heads-191946458.html

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Muslim community leaders alarmed by a rise in Islamophobia amid recent incidents in south-east Queensland

By Tobi Loftus

September 11, 2025

Muslim community leaders across southern Queensland say they're alarmed by a rise in Islamophobia in recent weeks, including bomb threats and abuse directed at children.

A mosque on the Gold Coast was allegedly targeted in a bomb hoax at the weekend, while last week a bomb threat forced the evacuation of 1,700 students from the Islamic College of Brisbane.

It's part of a growing national trend.

The Islamophobia Register of Australia — an organisation set up to monitor incidents — recorded 366 cases of online abuse between January 2023 and November 2024, according to its latest report.

From September 2014 to December 2021, there were 415 cases.

There were 309 in-person incidents recorded between January 2023 and November 2024, while 515 in-person incidents were recorded between September 2014 and December 2021.

The register's co-executive director Nora Amath said reports in south-east Queensland had risen in recent weeks.

"Incidents range from verbal abuse in public spaces, harassment, threats, and hate mail, and attacks on Islamic institutions such as mosques and schools," she said.

"Women, particularly those who are visibly Muslim because of wearing hijab, remain disproportionately targeted."

Threats and fake devices

Islamic College of Brisbane CEO Ali Kadri said the school was evacuated on Friday after receiving a threatening email.

"The email had profanities directed towards Muslims, Islamophobic language used … and photos of a bomb placed at our school with the date," he said.

"Police established the email that had been used to send the email was known to be hacked."

But Mr Kadri said what happened as students evacuated the school was even more confronting — as several people passing by yelled "Islamophobic abuse and showed fingers" to the students leaving.

"It was quite distressing, and it has a long-time impact on the young people," Mr Kadri said.

"It makes it difficult for them to better integrate into this society because they've been constantly reminded that they don't belong because of who they are."

A Queensland Police Service (QPS) spokesperson told the ABC there was "no information" to suggest the incident at the school was religiously or racially motivated.

But a letter from a local police constable to parents, shared by the school, noted: "In the current cultural and political climate, we are seeing more friction between individuals expressing their poorly informed views publicly."

A man has been charged over the Gold Coast incident but investigations into the school incident in Brisbane are ongoing.

Almost 100 people charged with vilification offences in over a year

Islamophobia is one of several types of vilification that could lead to hate crimes in Queensland. Other types include anti-Semitism, racism, and the targeting of LGBTQI+ individuals.

According to QPS data, 96 people were charged with vilification offences in Queensland between May 2024 to August 2025.

It's unclear from the statistics what ethnicity, religion, sexuality or gender identity the offences targeted.

Of those 96 people, six were charged in Queensland for serious racial, religious, sexuality or gender identity vilification.

Four were charged of threatening violence, 24 with displaying, distributing or publishing a prohibited symbol; 14 with common assault; nine with assault occasioning bodily harm; nine with wilful damage; and 31 with committing a public nuisance, among other charges.

Officials 'horrified' by incidents

Asked about the recent incidents on the Gold Coast and Brisbane, Premier David Crisafulli said the alleged behaviour was "not on" and needed to be "called out".

"We are having things start to creep into Queensland that I'm not comfortable with and that's at the top of my order," he said.

He added people should be able to go to a place of worship "free from bullying, free from harassment" and "shouldn't be looking over their shoulder".

Queensland's Human Rights Commissioner Scott McDougall said he was "horrified" by the recent incidents.

"All Queenslanders have a right to live without vilification due to their religion or race and this is protected … serious vilification is a criminal act under the Criminal Code," he said.

"All Queensland children are entitled to feel safe and secure in their homes and public places such as schools and places of worship.

"Queensland holds strength in its diversity and strength in its inclusivity. These strengths must be upheld through calling out the vile actions of a few."

Islamophobia spikes during global conflict

Dr Ryan Williams — a religious studies expert from the University of Queensland — said Islamophobia often spiked during global conflicts.

"9/11 happened … then we have ISIS and other kind of international moments where tensions between Muslims and the West became highly intensified," he said.

"Right now, we obviously have the Palestine-Israel conflict."

He said Muslims were often "scapegoated" for broader anxieties.

"There's obviously those [recent] anti-immigration marches, those are certainly symptomatic of a dormant sentiment that we get historically across lots of Western countries where Muslims become a channel through which anxieties around the economy, anxieties around culture and identity, play out in ways that focus themselves on Muslims," he said.

But Dr Williams, who has extensively researched the Islamic community in south-east Queensland, said the community had developed resilience.

He said it had led to more community engagement, charitable endeavours, and lobbying of government, adding that communities should not have to face discrimination in order to show their strength and values.

"It really empowered them and energised them and various Imams have done quite a lot … and that's really I think the most recent legacy of Islamophobia, they've become empowered to tell their own story."

Calls for anti-racism education

While the community has become stronger in recent years, Ms Amath from the Islamophobia Register believes there are several initiatives that could be implemented to help reduce abuse rates.

"We need political, media, and community leaders to condemn Islamophobia consistently and unequivocally," she said.

She said anti-racism education in schools, community awareness programs, and interfaith and intercultural dialogue was also important.

"[There needs to be] support for victims … ensuring Muslims who experience Islamophobia know they can safely report incidents and receive support," she said.

"Finally, the broader public can play a role by calling out Islamophobia when they see it and standing in solidarity with Muslim communities."

Source: abc.net.au

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Protests hit France as new PM takes office

11 September 2025

Laura Gozzi

France is seeing a day of protests led by a grassroots movement named Bloquons Tout ("Let's Block Everything") in a show of anger against the political class and proposed budget cuts.

The demonstrations are taking place on the same day new Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu was sworn in following the toppling of his predecessor, François Bayrou, in a no-confidence vote earlier this week.

Demonstrators blocked streets, set bins on fire, and disrupted access to infrastructure and schools across the country.

Around 250 people had been arrested by mid-morning, outgoing Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau said.

A bus was torched in Rennes and electric cables near Toulouse were sabotaged, he added.

Several thousand people gathered in Paris, Marseille, Bordeaux and Montpellier.

However, the disruption has remained fairly small-scale. Most of the arrests were made in or around Paris, where about 1,000 protesters - many masked or wearing balaclavas - clashed with police outside Gare du Nord train station.

Some tried to enter the station but were thwarted by agents who fired tear gas, French media report.

Many protesters chanted political slogans against President Emmanuel Macron and Lecornu. Several carried placards against the war in Gaza.

The nebulous movement Let's Block Everything appears to have been born on social media some months ago and gained momentum over the summer, when it encouraged people to protest against Bayrou's €44bn (£38bn) budget cuts.

The movement has a distinct left-wing character. Its demands include more investment in public services, taxation for high income brackets, rent freezes and Macron's resignation.

In the lead-up to Wednesday's protests, Let's Block Everything urged people to take part in acts of civil disobedience against "austerity, contempt and humiliation".

A group of young protesters outside Gare du Nord told the BBC they were taking to the streets in "solidarity" with people in precarious situations across France.

"We are here because we are very tired of how Macron has been handling the situation" of France's spiralling debt, said Alex, 25, adding he had no faith in the new prime minister not to "repeat the cycle".

Lecornu is a Macron loyalist and the country's fifth prime minister in under two years.

His appointment has already been criticised by both the far right and left-wing parties.

He will first need to come up with a budget palatable to a majority of MPs in France's hung parliament - the same challenging endeavour which brought down his two predecessors.

France's deficit reached 5.8% of GDP in 2024 but the three distinct ideological groups in the deeply divided Assembly disagree on how to tackle the crisis.

The radical-left France Unbowed party has already said it will table a no confidence motion in Lecornu as soon as possible.

However, that motion would need support by other parties to pass. As it stands, the largest parliamentary party - the far-right National Rally - said it would "listen to what Lecornu had to say" albeit "without many illusions".

In a brief speech following the handover of power at the prime minister's residence, Lecornu thanked Bayrou for his work and promised French people: "We'll get there."

"The instability and the political crisis we are going through demand sobriety and humility," Lecornu said.

"We will have to be more creative, more serious, in the way we work with the opposition," he added, before announcing he would start holding talks with political parties and trade unions immediately.

Source: bbc.com

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https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c8643qg252lo

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Half-truths and hypocrisy: GPS-jammed Ursula von der Leyen speaks again

10 Sep, 2025

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered her annual state of the union speech in Brussels on Wednesday. It was a performance full of urgency and sweeping rhetoric – Europe’s “fight,” an “independence moment,” and even plans to turn frozen Russian assets into weapons for Ukraine.

But behind the soundbites, her vision is riddled with contradictions.

A fight without unity

“Europe is in a fight – a fight for our values and our democracies… make no mistake, this is a fight for our future,” von der Leyen declared. She warned that “battle lines for a new world order based on power are being drawn right now… dependencies are ruthlessly weaponized.”

The words were designed to sound Churchillian. The substance is thinner. As of now, only three NATO members – Poland (4.48%), Lithuania (4%), and Latvia (3.73%) – exceed the military bloc's updated defense-spending target of 3.5% of GDP. The rest barely meet the old 2% standard, and several still lag well behind.

Italy, for example, has openly pushed back against increased military spending and deployments, with successive governments dragging their feet on NATO pledges and EU defense initiatives. Similar hesitation has surfaced in countries like Belgium and Spain, where leaders have repeatedly signaled unwillingness to be pulled deeper into military commitments.

Meanwhile, von der Leyen herself admitted that the EU’s foreign policy is being hobbled by its unanimity rule – and that meaningful action means scrapping it.

Independence or illusion?

“This must be Europe’s independence moment,” von der Leyen said, urging Europe to “take care of our own defense and security,” and “decide what kind of society and democracy we want to live in.”

Yet Europe still dances to Washington’s tune. And it will continue to do so – there is little sign this dependency will fade. If anything, the EU’s trajectory suggests deeper entanglement with US policy, not less. The EU quietly accepted a Trump-era trade deal that slapped 15% tariffs on EU goods, drawing accusations of capitulation.

Moreover, voices from within the bloc – like Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Slovakia’s Robert Fico – are rebelling against Brussels’ centralism, pushing for the return of sovereignty from Brussels.

Poland, however, remains one of Washington’s closest allies in Central Europe, hosting US bases and buying billions in American weapons. Warsaw’s stance underscores that even the bloc’s most hawkish members see their security guaranteed by the US, not Brussels.

Diplomacy oversimplified

Von der Leyen claimed that “Putin refuses to meet Zelensky” and that only “more pressure on Russia… more sanctions” would force Moscow to negotiate.

But Russia’s position is more complex. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is open to dialogue once conditions are “realistic” and has questioned Zelensky’s legitimacy. The EU has said it will only negotiate with Putin when Russian forces have been withdrawn, a highly unlikely scenario.

Mediators from Africa, the Gulf, and Asia have confirmed the Kremlin has not ruled out diplomacy – not to mention that Russia and the US have held several rounds of talks, including the summit-level meeting between Putin and Trump in Alaska.

The EU’s black-and-white portrayal of a slammed door reduces diplomacy to caricature.

The children narrative

To stir emotion, von der Leyen told the story of Sasha, a Ukrainian boy reunited with his grandmother after being taken to Russia. “Every abducted child must be returned,” she declared.

But the tale undercuts her point. The Russian authorities facilitated the family’s reunion once safety allowed. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, hundreds of Ukrainian children have been reunited with relatives through organized transfers in Russia and Belarus since 2022. UNICEF itself notes that many transfers were evacuations from active war zones. A story meant to indict Moscow instead highlights that reunions are facilitated – and exaggerations have already been corrected.

Peace talk, drone money

“With the cash balances associated to these Russian assets, we can provide Ukraine with a Reparations Loan,” von der Leyen announced. “We will frontload EUR 6 billion from the ERA loan and enter into a Drone Alliance with Ukraine.” At the same time, she told MEPs, “our Union is fundamentally a peace project… but the truth is that the world of today is unforgiving.”

It is a juxtaposition: Promising peace while building a drone fleet. The “drone alliance” is militarization in all but name, financed by frozen Russian assets. Critics argue such moves escalate the war while eroding Brussels’ credibility as a peace broker. UnHerd bluntly called her framing “Orwellian newspeak.”

The drone plan also means fresh cash flowing into the US defense industry. Analysts note that contracts for drones and components overwhelmingly benefit American arms makers, tying Europe’s security drive back into Washington’s military-industrial complex. In other words, the EU’s “independence” once again bankrolls American power.

The disinformation irony

Von der Leyen warned that “disinformation is an extremely dangerous phenomenon for our democracy.”

But the warning rang hollow. Just a week earlier, her office claimed that her plane had been GPS-jammed while landing in Bulgaria – supposedly by Russia. Within days, Bulgarian officials admitted they had “no evidence of interference,” flight tracker data showed the trip was normal, and the alleged one-hour diversion boiled down to a nine-minute delay. An embarrassed Bulgarian prime minister quietly outsourced the story to an “investigation.”

The commission president’s sermon on truth came hard on the heels of her own unproven narrative – making her crusade against disinformation look more like projection than principle.

The final verdict

Von der Leyen’s speech was cinematic – calls to arms, independence, and peace all rolled into one. But by coupling soaring rhetoric with fractured implementation, the EU risks becoming a union of slogans, not substance. Unity is weak, autonomy is elusive, and humanitarian messaging is tactically overdriven.

If this is supposed to be Europe’s “moment,” it hasn’t yet achieved the power to make it real.

Source: rt.com

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South Asia

'During Hasina’s Time, Corruption Became An Organisational Principle'

Sep 10, 2025

"Sheikh Hasina essentially remained in power from 2009 to 2024 through election control, influence over the administration and police, and by means of repression. At the same time, her entire system of governance was devoted to serving India's interests," recently deceased writer, researcher, and intellectual Badruddin Umar had said in his deposition to an investigating officer in a case filed with the International Crimes Tribunal-1.

The Daily Star got hold of his statement after ICT prosecutors shared it in a WhatsApp group for journalists.

In his deposition to the investigating officer regarding a crimes against humanity case filed against Hasina and her two top aides with the ICT-1, Umar said from the very beginning, the ousted prime minister decided she would control elections. For that reason, after assuming power in 2009, she abolished the caretaker government system, though in 1996 she had led a movement demanding it.

In Umar's words: "She realised, if there is a neutral election, the next time they won't be able to win. Taking control of everything from the Election Commission to the police and the bureaucracy, she held the elections of 2014, 2018, and 2024."

He said, in 2014, people were not even allowed to enter the polling centres. "In 2018, there was 'midnight voting'. Although voting was held during the day, the ballots had already been cast the previous night. The same happened in 2024."

According to Badruddin Umar, Hasina controlled the administration in two ways -- through bribery, perks, and benefits; and by fear, intimidation, and threats.

He said the 2024 mass uprising was an exceptional event not only in Bangladesh but in the entire Indian subcontinent. "Compared to the Language Movement, the movements of 1969 and 1990, the 2024 mass uprising was the most explosive… The most transformative."

He claimed the Awami League was no longer an ordinary political party. "It functions like an Indian strategic agent."

During Sheikh Hasina's time, corruption became an organisational principle, he said. Party leaders, activists, and family members siphoned off huge sums of money abroad -- "a scale not seen even in British or Pakistani times."

Tribunal Prosecutor Md Mizanul Islam told journalists on Monday, "Badruddin Umar was supposed to testify at the tribunal. Yesterday [September 7] he passed away. His deposition is with the prosecution. The tribunal has a provision that if a witness dies, or cannot be produced for other reasons, the prosecution may apply to the tribunal to accept the testimony given to the investigating officer. The prosecution will apply for his statement to be taken as testimony. The decision will be made by the tribunal."

Mizanul Islam told The Daily Star, "Our case has several layers. One of them is the historical context. Badruddin Umar has been made a witness on the historical context."

Source: thedailystar.net

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https://www.thedailystar.net/news/bangladesh/crime-justice/news/during-hasinas-time-corruption-became-organisational-principle-3981211

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Statement of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan Regarding the Zionist Regime’s Attack on Qatar

September 11, 2025

The office of the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in Doha has been attacked by the Zionist regime, resulting in the martyrdom of several Hamas members.

INDEED TO ALLAH WE BELONG AND TO HIM WE SHALL RETURN.

We extend our condolences to the families of the martyrs and to the Palestinian Mujahideen. We pray for Janatul Firdaws for the martyrs, and for patience and steadfastness for their families.

We strongly condemn the violation of Qatar’s sovereignty and the targeting of the political office of the Hamas Islamic Movement, considering it a brutal act contrary to all humanitarian norms.

The Zionist regime repeatedly and with impunity violates humanitarian and political conventions and commits successive crimes, while influential states and international organizations remain silent, something profoundly regrettable.

We call for an immediate end to the Zionist regime’s aggressions and ongoing atrocities, respect for the sovereignty of nations, and the cessation of the catastrophe, oppression, and cruelty inflicted upon the oppressed Muslims in Palestine.

We beseech Allah Almighty to impose severe punishment upon the Zionists for their injustices, to bring them to a crushing defeat, and to make them an instructive lesson for aggressors worldwide. Ameen.

Source: thekabultimes.com

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Minister Kabir Reaffirms Support for Returnees in Meeting with Shiite Scholars

September 11, 2025

KABUL: The Minister of Refugees and Repatriation, Mawlavi Abdul Kabir, reiterated the Emirate’s commitment to addressing the needs of all social groups, particularly returnees.

Mawlavi Kabir made the remarks in a meeting with a number of Shiite scholars and elders, including Shaikh Madar Ali Karimi Bamyani, alongside the Deputy Minister of Urban Development and Housing, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

The religious leaders and community figures expressed appreciation for the Islamic Emirate’s ongoing support to returnees and earthquake-affected families and emphasized the importance of sustained assistance and praised the government’s humanitarian response.

Welcoming the Islamic Emirate’s efforts to foster unity and resolve differences, the scholars proposed the establishment of a dedicated township for returnees to help improve their living conditions and reintegrate them into society.

Minister Kabir thanked the Shiite scholars for their collaboration and reiterated the Emirate’s commitment to addressing the needs of all social groups, particularly returnees, and assured them that coordination with relevant institutions would be made to address their concerns and ensure practical solutions.

Source: thekabultimes.com

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Uzbekistan to Hand Over 57 Military Helicopters to Afghanistan, Mujahid Says

September 11, 2025

KABUL: Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman of the Islamic Emirate, said in a statement on Wednesday that Uzbekistan has reportedly agreed to return 57 military helicopters to Afghanistan, which had been flown out of the country during the collapse of the former Republic in August 2021.

The helicopters, which were taken by fleeing Afghan military personnel at the time of the Republic’s fall, had remained on Uzbek soil over the past few years, Mujahid said, adding that their fate had been a subject of quiet negotiations between Kabul and Tashkent, with the IEA consistently requesting their return as part of broader efforts to reclaim national assets.

“The handover of 57 military helicopters is expected to take place in the near future, marking a significant step in restoring Afghanistan’s air capabilities and boosting ties between the two neighboring countries,” the spokesman hoped.

The return of the helicopters is being seen as a symbolic and strategic gesture, one that underscores mutual respect for sovereignty and constructive engagement, signaling Uzbekistan’s desire to maintain peace and connectivity in Central Asia, particularly through increased cooperation with Afghanistan.

Source: thekabultimes.com

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https://thekabultimes.com/uzbekistan-to-hand-over-57-military-helicopters-to-afghanistan-mujahid-says/

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UNICEF Appeals for $22m to Aid Children Affected by Afghanistan Earthquakes

By Fidel Rahmati

September 10, 2025

UNICEF has launched a $22 million appeal to aid over 212,000 children in eastern Afghanistan, providing healthcare, clean water, education, nutrition, and psychosocial support after devastating earthquakes.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has announced a $22 million humanitarian programme to meet the urgent needs of vulnerable children and families.

According to a UNICEF statement released on Wednesday, September 10, the initiative aims to reach 400,000 people over the next six months, including more than 212,000 children.

The aid package will provide emergency health services, safe drinking water, psychosocial support, nutrition programmes, and temporary education for children affected by the crisis.

UNICEF said that geographical challenges, weak infrastructure, and social restrictions continue to complicate the delivery of aid to remote and hard-to-reach areas.

The organisation stressed that ensuring equal access for women and girls remains a priority, with female health and social workers being deployed as part of the response.

In its appeal, UNICEF urged the international community to step up financial and logistical support quickly to ensure that families can access essential services before the onset of winter.

The programme highlights the urgent humanitarian situation facing children and families, while underscoring the importance of coordinated international action to prevent worsening conditions in the months ahead.

Humanitarian observers warn that without swift donor support, the gap in resources could leave thousands of families exposed to malnutrition, poor health, and harsh winter conditions.

Source: khaama.com

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https://www.khaama.com/unicef-appeals-for-22m-to-aid-children-affected-by-afghanistan-earthquakes/

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Imran Khan Directs KP Chief Minister to Visit Kabul for Talks

By Fidel Rahmati

September 10, 2025

Imran Khan, from prison, directed Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s chief minister to visit Kabul for talks, criticising army leadership and signalling continued influence over Pakistan’s security and political strategy.

Former prime minister and PTI chairman Imran Khan, currently imprisoned, has directed the Chief Minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to travel to Kabul for talks with the Afghan Taliban.

Pakistani media reported on Wednesday, September 10, that the message was shared through Khan’s official social media account, underscoring his continued involvement in political and security matters despite incarceration.

In the statement, Khan criticised the army chief, accusing him of “short-sighted policies” that, he argued, had undermined PTI’s earlier peace efforts and destabilised the region.

By delegating such a sensitive task to the provincial government, Khan shifted responsibility usually held by federal authorities onto the KP leadership, a move that surprised political observers.

Commentators suggest the directive could mark the beginning of a new chapter in Pakistan’s counterterrorism and regional policy. However, they warned that if the talks fail, tensions with Kabul may intensify.

The decision also highlights Khan’s determination to influence national security discourse from behind bars, reinforcing his position as a central figure in Pakistan’s political landscape.

The move has triggered debate within Pakistan. Supporters view it as a pragmatic step to address cross-border militancy, while critics question its legality and potential diplomatic consequences.

Source: khaama.com

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Arab World

Saudi Arabia receives hosting flag for international prosecutors’ conference

September 10, 2025

RIYADH: Saudi Arabia’s Attorney General Sheikh Saud bin Abdullah Al-Mujib received the hosting flag for the 31st Annual Conference and General Meeting of the International Association of Prosecutors (IAP) from his Singaporean counterpart Lucien Wong.

In his speech, Al-Mujib noted that the event reflects the Kingdom’s dedication to developing justice institutions, reinforcing the values of the rule of law, protecting rights, and enhancing international cooperation, the Saudi Press Agency reported.

The 31st conference will be held under the theme “The Criminal Justice System in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities, Challenges, and Global Applications” in Riyadh on November 15-18, 2026.

"In addition to the important global dialogue on this timely and relevant topic, the conference offers a unique opportunity to engage with and learn more about the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region, which the IAP has only visited on a limited basis to date," the IAP said on its website.

A non-governmental and non-political organization, the IAP has over 170 members, including associations of prosecutors, prosecution authorities and crime prevention agencies. It represents over 250,000 prosecutors around the world.

Source: arabnews.com

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https://www.arabnews.com/node/2614854/saudi-arabia

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Bold vision sees continued revival of Makkah’s history and culture

September 10, 2025

MAKKAH: The preservation and development of Makkah’s history and culture is undergoing a major transformation under a comprehensive strategy from the Royal Commission for Makkah City and Holy Sites.

The plan will safeguard the city’s rich heritage while presenting it through a modern lens that reflects its deep religious and cultural significance, enriching the experience of visitors and pilgrims.

The initiative has identified 98 important sites, of which 64 are prioritized for development based on criteria such as religious and historical importance, authenticity, uniqueness, and proximity to the Grand Mosque.

Key milestones have included the 2023 inauguration of the Hira Cultural District and the Revelation Exhibition, as well as the rehabilitation of the Jabal Al-Rahmah site with upgraded infrastructure and visitor services.

In early 2024, the Ain Zubaidah site was developed in partnership with Kidana Development Co., with the addition of a 1-km hiking trail, recreational areas and multimedia displays.

In 2025, projects expanded with the rehabilitation of Al-Bay’a Mosque, the launch of a popular food street, and upgrades to the Exhibition of the Two Holy Mosques Architecture.

Other initiatives include the creation of an Islamic manuscript museum at Umm Al-Qura University and the launch of enrichment tours.

A major addition was the opening of the International Museum of the Prophet’s Biography and Islamic Civilization, offering interactive, multilingual exhibits on the Prophet Muhammad’s life and the legacy of Islamic civilization.

Developments also included enhancing the Grand Mosque Library, which holds over 350,000 books and manuscripts, and revitalizing public parks and pedestrian walkways across the city.

Commission CEO Saleh Al-Rasheed said the efforts were part of an integrated vision to sustain and activate Makkah’s historical and cultural sites.

He added presenting this through engaging multilingual content and linking it to broader cultural destinations would enhance Makkah’s religious, historical and cultural identity and enrich visitor experience.

Source: arabnews.com

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Saudi initiative brings patients to Abha for healing and hope

SALEH FAREED

September 10, 2025

JEDDAH: For 17 people with kidney-failure issues, a recent three-day journey to Abha offered a chance to step away from hospital routines and embrace joy, culture and the beauty of nature.

The trip, organized by the Charitable Health Promotion Association with the support of the Ministry of Tourism, combined medical care and psychological support for the participants aged 30 to 66.

They visited landmarks including Al-Soudah, Rijal Almaa, Al-Asal Hut, Al-Muftaha Art Village, as well as museums and traditional homes where they enjoyed the mountain climate and rich heritage of Asir.

Dr. Aisha Natto, chairperson of the board of directors of the Charitable Health Promotion Association, told Arab News that the trip reflected the integration of health and tourism.

“This is not just a journey, but a way to a beautiful life. Those patients leave behind the routine of the hospital to experience moments of joy and hope amidst the mountains and heritage paths of Abha,” she said.

She added that the experience highlights Saudi Tourism’s role in improving quality of life by offering patients peace of mind alongside treatment.

“In the historic palaces, they learn the stories of ancestors, and in authentic hospitality sessions, they savor the meaning of Saudi generosity, which revives the soul before the body,” she added.

The patients expressed their gratitude for the initiative and its positive impact.

Syrian participant Riyadh Sheikh said: “Today, we are in this beautiful part of the Kingdom … my happiness knows no bounds.”

He added: “They really gave us the opportunity to go out and live as others do … We enjoyed every minute of this trip since we arrived in Abha. We visited beautiful historic places, museums and learned so much about the Asir region and culture.”

Another patient, Fateh Mohammed Almeazab from Yemen, said: “Going to a beautiful (place) like Abha is not only very relaxing, but it can also improve your health and overall well-being and this is what we are all feeling after (an) enjoyable and educational three days.”

The trip concluded at Al-Muftaha Village, one of Abha’s most iconic cultural destinations.

Source: arabnews.com

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https://www.arabnews.com/node/2614844/saudi-arabia

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‘Saudi Arabia and Estonia enjoy values-based cooperation,’ FM Margus Tsahkna tells Arab News

NOOR NUGALI

September 10, 2025

RIYADH: Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna has described his visit to Saudi Arabia as “historic,” citing a landmark trade agreement signed with the Kingdom this week and deepening cooperation on digital transformation, green energy, and innovation under Vision 2030.

In an interview with Arab News, Tsahkna outlined how the new General Trade Agreement marks a turning point in bilateral ties. He also addressed the wider crises shaking the Middle East and Europe — from Israel’s unprecedented airstrike in Qatar to Russia’s escalating war on Ukraine.

“My visit to Saudi Arabia is, I can call it historic because we’re having very good relations bilaterally,” Tsahkna said.

“We have had very high level meetings here. And also his highness, the prime minister visited Estonia. We have very good personal relations. But this time I came together with a business delegation, and these companies are mainly already in Saudi Arabia, in the region.”

The two countries signed their first comprehensive trade agreement on Tuesday in Riyadh, witnessed by Tsahkna and Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan.

“Saudi Arabia values Estonia as a trusted partner in building future-ready solutions,” Prince Faisal said in a statement following the signing.

“This agreement lays the foundation for deeper cooperation in digital government, clean energy, and advanced industries — strengthening ties between our nations and creating new opportunities for our people.”

The deal has already yielded results, with Estonian company Stargate Hydrogen inking two memoranda of understanding with Saudi entities including the Research, Development and Innovation Authority and NEOM’s ENOWA to accelerate green hydrogen development.

Tsahkna said there was a natural alignment between Estonia’s e-governance expertise and Saudi Arabia’s rapid transformation.

“Saudi Arabia has passed, already, a long way, fulfilling this Vision 2030,” he said. “What we can offer as well from our side is experience, to change the public sector services.

“The principle, what we in Estonia have is that every person, every citizen, must be part of our services. There is no one we let down somewhere. And the digitalization of the public sector services allows that.”

Estonia is widely recognized as a global leader in digital governance, with 100 percent of public services available online and secure platforms such as its X-Road data exchange and e-ID system adopted in more than 20 countries.

Its expertise in cybersecurity and digital identity has already found applications in Gulf economies, making it a natural partner for Saudi Arabia’s efforts to modernize government and industry.

Estonia is already a member of the Riyadh-based Digital Cooperation Organization, a global multilateral body established in 2020 that aims to enable digital prosperity for all by accelerating the inclusive and sustainable growth of the digital economy.

“Saudi Arabia has a leading role in the region, but we take it, as well, as a gateway globally, out towards Africa and many other countries,” said Tsahkna. “This initiative (DCO) is interesting and very important for us as well.”

Tsahkna stressed that Estonia’s approach relies heavily on private sector innovation. “Why I’m talking about the private sector is that we have a rule that we do our innovation together with the private sector, because innovation is coming from the private sector.

“And this is something, exactly, what we see here as well. We launched the Saudi-Estonian Business Council here as well, so this is something that our businesses can work together on as well — government-to-government agreements.”

Tsahkna also pointed to renewable energy as a key area for mutual learning. “We have set a goal for renewable energy for 2030,” he said. It’s really ambitious. And there are many things we can learn from Saudi Arabia.

“We have some technologies that maybe we can develop together, but also we need this expertise in Estonia, because we have the same goals actually to fulfill, even if we’re geographically a bit far away from each other.”

The Estonian foreign minister used his interview with Arab News to address Israel’s unprecedented airstrike in Qatar on Tuesday, which targeted senior Hamas leaders, including their chief negotiator, during active ceasefire talks with the US and Israel.

The strike took place in the West Bay Lagoon district and killed six people, including a Qatari security officer.

Israel claimed the operation was in response to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks and a recent shooting in Jerusalem, insisting it was a unilateral act meant to target those orchestrating violence against Israelis.

Qatar, a key US ally and longtime mediator in Gaza ceasefire negotiations, denounced the attack as a grave violation of international law and its sovereignty, with reactions of outrage and condemnation from much of the international community.

“We are living in very intense times. And the Israeli attack against Qatar, we have loudly condemned,” Tsahkna said. “We discussed this matter as well, with his highness, the (Saudi) foreign minister. So our position is very clear. This is a question of sovereignty, which is, for Estonia, a question of principle.”

Drawing a parallel with Russian attacks in Europe, he warned of a wider erosion of international rules.

“We saw close to 20 military drones entering NATO territory in Poland and NATO planes were (launched). So what I say, this is like the domino effect about the international rules and international law.

“And this is something we share as well, the same principles, with Saudi Arabia and the other colleagues and partners, because, it’s like the domino effect, if someone is going to break the rules, everybody’s going to try that.”

Tsahkna reiterated Estonia’s consistent position on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Estonia has had a very clear position over the years in supporting the two-state solution, and that is the only way out from this conflict,” he said.

“Unfortunately, we don’t see the progress and goodwill as well. And of course, the attack against Qatar doesn’t support this process at all because Qatar and also Saudi Arabia and many other countries here in the region are playing the key role for bringing these negotiations together.”

He confirmed that Estonia will join the declaration on two states during the upcoming UN General Assembly week. “This humanitarian catastrophe is really, really something we don’t want to see,” he added, referring to the situation in Gaza.

Asked about the forthcoming Saudi-French summit on a two-state solution in New York, Tsahkna said: “I’m a very optimistic person. And Estonia is supporting, clearly, over the years, not only by words but by actions as well, the two-state solution.

“It is a good initiative. Saudi Arabia and France are pushing it heavily. But we can adopt declarations, which is very important, and there will be more governments who are recognizing Palestine as a state as well, but the main importance is: What can we do in real life?”

He cautioned, however, that political will is still lacking. “In real life, unfortunately, we see no willingness for even a ceasefire. Exactly the same thing is happening with (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Russia against Ukraine.”

He added: “Every night we see more than 800 attacks against the civilian people in Ukraine. And unfortunately, Putin has no willingness for any kind of peace, even a ceasefire.”

For Tsahkna, the Riyadh visit is about much more than one-off business deals. “We are here for long term commitments and our businesses are here to stay. And also the other way around.

“Estonia is the best country and we have the best environment for startup, for investments. We have 12 unicorns. It means more than $1 billion companies coming from Estonia. We may not seem to be a very big country, but actually we have 1.3 million people living there.”

Despite geographical distance, he insisted that Estonia and Saudi Arabia share more common challenges than many realize.

“It’s values based cooperation. And we see as well that, on an educational, cultural level, we can have more cooperation,” he said.

“I feel here as well that we need to talk more about what we have done in Estonia, because I think that people don’t know what we really do as a small Nordic country, somewhere in the north.

“But in real life we have more similarities, more challenges actually together than we actually think. So this is our duty.”

Source: arabnews.com

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2614832/saudi-arabia

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Estonian FM condemns Doha strike, reaffirms two-state support

NOOR NUGALI

September 10, 2025

RIYADH: Estonia’s Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna has strongly condemned Israel’s airstrike on the Qatari capital Doha on Tuesday, describing it as a violation of sovereignty and warning of a dangerous erosion of international law.

Speaking to Arab News during a visit to Saudi Arabia this week, Tsahkna said: “We are living in very intense times. And the Israeli attack against Qatar, we have loudly condemned.

“We discussed this matter as well, with his highness, the (Saudi) foreign minister. Our position is very clear. This is a question of sovereignty, which is, for Estonia, a question of principle.”

The strike, which targeted senior Hamas leaders, even while Gaza ceasefire talks were ongoing, killed six people, including a Qatari security officer. Qatar denounced it as a grave violation of international law, with widespread international criticism following.

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Tsahkna reiterated Estonia’s long-standing stance. “Estonia has had a very clear position over the years in supporting the two-state solution, and that is the only way out from this conflict,” he said. “Unfortunately, we don’t see the progress and goodwill as well. And of course, the attack against Qatar doesn’t support this process at all because Qatar and also Saudi Arabia and many other countries here in the region are playing the key role for bringing these negotiations together.”

He confirmed Estonia will join the declaration on two states at the upcoming UN General Assembly and said he was optimistic about the forthcoming Saudi-French summit on the issue in New York.

The foreign minister's statements to Arab News comes at a time when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said she will seek sanctions and a partial trade suspension against Israel over the war in Gaza.

Source: arabnews.com

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2614824/saudi-arabia

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Saudi defense minister calls Qatari PM after Israeli attack in Doha

September 10, 2025

RIYADH: Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman called Qatar’s Prime Minister and Foreign Minister on Wednesday, Saudi Press Agency reported.

During the call, Prince Khalid affirmed the Kingdom’s full support for Qatar, and its condemnation of “the blatant Israeli attack” on the country, which “constitutes a criminal act and a flagrant violation of international laws and norms.”

Israel attempted to kill the political leaders of Hamas with an airstrike on Qatar on Tuesday. The attack drew condemnation from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and the European Union.

Source: arabnews.com

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2614816/saudi-arabia

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Saudi irrigation delegation joins Malaysia meeting

September 10, 2025

RIYADH: The Saudi Irrigation Organization participated in the third meeting of the International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The meeting was held alongside the fourth World Irrigation Forum and was attended by members of the high-level advisory group, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Wednesday.

Mohammed bin Zaid Abu-Haid, the organization’s CEO, said that irrigation is no longer just an agricultural issue but a strategic matter tied to national resilience, food security, and environmental sustainability.

He said water-scarce countries face major challenges, since agriculture consumes the largest share of water, while the Kingdom’s main agricultural water sources are largely non-renewable — making this a strategic priority for Saudi Arabia’s water sector.

Abu-Haid highlighted the Kingdom’s efforts to develop sustainable and reusable water sources, with the organization leading the transition through capacity building, sector excellence, and regulation to ensure sustainability.

He concluded by inviting the commission’s members and international partners to participate in the 11th World Water Forum, scheduled for 2027 in Riyadh.

Meeting participants emphasized that modernizing irrigation and agricultural infrastructure, based on integrated water resources management, is essential for sustainable food security amid climate change, water scarcity, and rising food demand.

Source: arabnews.com

Please click the following URL to read the text of the original Story

https://www.arabnews.com/node/2614803/saudi-arabia

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