Region

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi court on Thursday sentenced a Daesh group member to death after convicting him of involvement in a 2014 suicide bombing that killed 17 pilgrims, the judiciary said.

The attack in Taji district north of Baghdad targeted a "mawkeb", one of the many stalls providing free food and drinks to pilgrims during Shiite Muslim festivals.

The pilgrims had been heading on foot to Samarra, about 100 kilometres north of Baghdad, to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Hassan Al Askari, one of 12 imams revered by Iraq's Shiite majority.

A criminal court in Baghdad on Thursday sentenced "a terrorist to death for the explosion of a mawkeb in 2014" during the pilgrimage in Samarra, the judiciary said on its website.

The statement did not name the convict but said he had "filmed the tragedy because he was a member of the terrorist groups of Daesh", using the Arabic acronym for Daesh.

The convict has the right to appeal the verdict.

After rapidly taking over large swathes of territory in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, Daesh saw its self-proclaimed "caliphate" collapse under successive offensives in both countries.

Iraqi authorities declared “victory” over the Sunni Muslim extremist group at the end of 2017, but terrorists cells continue to sporadically launch attacks, particularly on military and police personnel in remote areas of central and northern Iraq.

In late August, three people were hanged in Iraq after being convicted over an Daesh attack that killed 323 people in Baghdad in July 2016.

Amnesty International said Iraq was the world’s sixth biggest executioner last year, with at least 11 carried out.

More than 41 death sentences were issued in 2022, and more than 45 people were executed in 2020, according to the London-based human rights group.

BEIRUT — Israeli strikes Wednesday on Syria's west killed two soldiers, state media said, with a war monitor reporting a militant was also killed when the air raid hit a Hizbollah weapons depot.

"At exactly 17:22 (1422 GMT) this afternoon, the Israeli enemy carried out strikes... from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea targeting some of our air defence sites in Tartus," official news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military source as saying.

"The aggression led to the death of two soldiers, and wounded six others," the report said.

During more than a decade of war in Syria, neighbouring Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its territory, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and fighters of allied Lebanese group Hizbollah as well as Syrian army positions.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said the latest strikes hit in addition to army positions a weapons depot belonging to Iran-backed Hizbollah near Al-Jammasah in Tartus province.

Al Jammasah is located south of Tartus city, a bastion of the Syrian government and home to a naval port used by Russia.

The Britain-based monitor with a network of sources inside Syria confirmed the deaths of two soldiers, adding that a fighter whose nationality was unknown had also been killed.

The observatory said the strikes targeted a Syrian air defence base in the village of Karto, about 10 kilometres away.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes it carries out on targets in Syria, but it has repeatedly said it would not allow its arch foe Iran, which supports Damascus, to expand its footprint there.

On August 28, Israeli air strikes on Aleppo airport in northern Syria caused the grounding of flights, SANA said at the time.

A week earlier two fighters backing the Syrian government were killed in Israeli airstrikes on sites near Damascus, the observatory had said.

DERNA, Libya — Libya was reeling Wednesday from a massive flood that killed more than 2,000 people, wreaking havoc in the eastern city of Derna where bodies wrapped in blankets were lining the ravaged streets.

Relief missions gathered pace with Turkey, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates among the first nations to rush aid to the war-scarred country after the disaster that has left about 10,000 missing according to international humanitarian 

workers.

The Mediterranean coastal city of Derna was hit by a huge flash flood late Sunday that witnesses likened to a tsunami after two upstream dams burst when torrential rains brought by Storm Daniel battered the region.

Footage broadcast on Al Masar network and shared on social media showed parts of the city in ruins, with damaged roads and collapsed buildings.

Satellite images of the city after the surge of water showed entire neighbourhoods near the coast almost entirely submerged.

The United Nations has pledged $10 million in support for survivors, including more than 30,000 people left homeless.

The wall of water ripped away entire buildings, vehicles and the people inside them. Many were swept out into the sea, with bodies later washing up on beaches littered with debris and car wrecks.

Traumatised survivors have dug through the mud-caked ruins of shattered buildings to recover victims' bodies, scores of which were lying wrapped in blankets out in the open before being buried in mass graves.

The confirmed death toll in the politically fractured North African country reached 2,300 by Tuesday afternoon, but some regional officials were quoted as giving figures more than twice as high.

“The death toll is huge and might reach thousands,” Tamer Ramadan of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said on Tuesday.

He added the organisation had independent sources saying that “the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 persons so far”.

‘Epic calamity’ 

Oil-rich Libya is still recovering from the war and chaos that followed the NATO-backed uprising which toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi in 2011.

The country has been left divided between two rival governments,  the UN-brokered, internationally recognised administration based in Tripoli, and a separate administration in the disaster-hit east.

Media reports quoted an interior ministry spokesman of the eastern-based government as saying “more than 5,200” people had died in Derna.

The city, a 300-kilometre drive east of Benghazi, is ringed by hills and bisected by a riverbed that is usually dry in summer, but which became a raging torrent that also destroyed several bridges.

Mudslides and flooding also hit nearby areas of eastern Libya where, aid group the Norwegian Refugee Council said, “entire villages have been overwhelmed by the floods and the death toll continues to rise”.

“Communities across Libya have endured years of conflict, poverty and displacement. The latest disaster will exacerbate the situation for these people. Hospitals and shelters will be overstretched.”

With global concern spreading, several nations offered urgent aid and rescue teams to help address what one UN official called “a calamity of epic proportions”.

At the Vatican, Pope Francis invited prayers “for those who lost their lives, their families and the displaced”.

The United Nations allocated $10 million for disaster relief, said Martin Griffiths, under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and emergency relief coordinator.

“Storm Daniel has claimed thousands of lives, causing widespread damage and wiping out livelihoods in eastern Libya,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter, adding: “We stand with the people of Libya at this difficult time.”

Rescue effort 

Rescue teams from Turkey have arrived in eastern Libya, authorities said, and Algeria, France, Italy, Qatar and Tunisia also pledged to help.

The United Arab Emirates sent two aid planes carrying 150 tonnes of food, relief and medical supplies.

The European Union said assistance from Germany, Romania and Finland had been dispatched to Libya, including food, water tanks, tents and blankets as well as hospital tents and power generators.

A Kuwaiti flight took off Wednesday with 40 tonnes of supplies, and Jordan sent a military plane loaded with food parcels, tents, blankets and mattresses.

Climate experts have linked Libya’s deadly disaster to a combination of the impacts of a heating planet and of the country’s years of political chaos and underinvestment in infrastructure.

Hurricane-strength Mediterranean storms such as Daniel, which earlier hit Turkey, Bulgaria and Greece, are known as “medicanes” which can gain strength as warmer air absorbs more moisture.

Climate-linked extreme weather events tend to be the deadliest in strife-torn and poor countries that lack good infrastructure, early warning systems and strong emergency response services.

As the world heats up, Libya’s disaster “is illustrative of the type of devastating flooding event we may expect increasingly in the future,” said Bristol University climate science professor Lizzie Kendon.

BENGHAZI, Libya - At least 2,300 people were killed in Libya and thousands more were reported missing after catastrophic flash floods broke river dams and tore through an eastern coastal city, devastating entire neighbourhoods.

As global concern spread, multiple nations offered to urgently send aid and rescue teams to help the war-scarred country that has been overwhelmed by what one UN official labelled "a calamity of epic proportions".

Massive destruction shattered the Mediterranean coastal city of Derna, home to about 100,000 people, where multi-storey buildings on the river banks collapsed and houses and cars vanished in the raging waters.

Libyan emergency services reported an initial death toll of more than 2,300 in Derna alone and said over 5,000 people remained missing while about 7,000 were injured.

“The situation in Derna is shocking and very dramatic,” said Osama Ali of the Tripoli-based Rescue and Emergency Service. “We need more support to save lives because there are people still under the rubble and every minute counts.”

The floods were caused by torrential rains from Storm Daniel, which made landfall in Libya on Sunday after earlier lashing Greece, Bulgaria and Turkey.

Derna, 250 kilometres east of Benghazi, is ringed by hills and bisected by what is normally a dry riverbed in summer, but which has turned into a raging torrent of mud-brown water that also swept away several major bridges.

The number of dead given by the Libyan emergency service roughly matched the grim estimates provided by the Red Cross and by authorities in the eastern region, who have warned the death toll may yet rise further.

“The death toll is huge and might reach thousands,” said Tamer Ramadan of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, three of whose volunteers were also reported dead.

“We confirm from our independent sources of information that the number of missing people is hitting 10,000 persons so far,” Ramadan told reporters via video link from neighbouring Tunisia.

Elsewhere in Libya’s east, aid group the Norwegian Refugee Council said “entire villages have been overwhelmed by the floods and the death toll continues to rise”.

“Communities across Libya have endured years of conflict, poverty and displacement. The latest disaster will exacerbate the situation for these people. Hospitals and shelters will be overstretched.”

‘Catastrophic’ situation 

Footage on Libyan TV showed dozens of bodies, wrapped in blankets or sheets, on Derna’s main square, awaiting identification and burial, and more bodies in Martouba, a village about 30 kilometres to the southeast.

More than 300 victims were buried Monday, many in mass graves, but vastly greater numbers of people were feared lost in the waters of the river that empties into the Mediterranean.

Oil-rich Libya is still recovering from the years of war and chaos that followed the 2011 NATO-backed popular uprising which toppled and killed longtime leader Muamer Qadhafi.

The North African country is divided between two rival governments, the UN-brokered, internationally recognised administration based in Tripoli in the west, and a separate administration in the disaster-hit east.

Access to the eastern region is limited. Phone and online links have been largely severed, but the administration’s prime minister Oussama Hamad has reported “more than 2,000 dead and thousands missing” in Derna alone.

A Derna city council official described the situation as “catastrophic” and asked for a “national and international intervention”, speaking to TV channel Libya Al Ahrar.

Rescue teams from Turkey have arrived in eastern Libya, according to authorities, and the UN and several countries offered to send aid, among them Algeria, Egypt, France, Italy, Qatar, Tunisia and the United States.

 ‘Harrowing images’ 

The storm also hit Benghazi and the hill district of Jabal Al-Akhdar. Flooding, mudslides and other major damage were reported from the wider region, with images showing overturned cars and trucks.

Libya’s National Oil Corporation, which has its main fields and terminals in eastern Libya, declared “a state of maximum alert” and suspended flights between production sites where it said activity was drastically reduced.

Libya’s UN-brokered government under Abdelhamid Dbeibah announced three days of national mourning on Monday and emphasised “the unity of all Libyans”.

Aid convoys from Tripoli were heading east and Dbeibah’s government announced the dispatch of two ambulance planes and a helicopter, as well as rescue teams, canine search squads and 87 doctors, and technicians to restore power.

Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani wrote that Rome was “responding immediately to requests for support” with an assessment team on its way.

The United States embassy said it had “issued an official declaration of humanitarian need in response to the devastating floods in Libya”.

European Council president Charles Michel, writing on X, formerly Twitter, noted the “harrowing images from Libya” and vowed the “EU stands ready to help those affected by this calamity”.

MARRAKESH, Morocco — Hopes dimmed on Tuesday in Morocco's search for survivors, four days after a powerful earthquake killed more than 2,800 people, most of them in remote villages of the High Atlas Mountains.

Search-and-rescue teams from the kingdom and from abroad kept digging through the rubble of broken mud-brick homes, hoping for signs of life in a race against time following the 6.8-magnitude quake late Friday.

The Red Cross appealed for more than $100 million in aid to meet the "most pressing needs", including water, shelter, health and sanitation services.

"We need to make sure we avoid a second wave of disaster," said Caroline Holt, global director of operations at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

In the tourist hub of Marrakesh, whose UNESCO-listed historic centre suffered cracks and other major damage, many families still slept out in the open, huddled in blankets on public squares for fear of aftershocks.

But the need was most desperate in remote and poor mountain villages, many only reachable via winding dirt roads, where traditional adobe homes crumbled to rubble and dust and inhabitants have searched by hand for missing relatives.

Dozens of quake survivors crowded around the open back doors of a truck in Amizmiz waiting for the packages of food aid being handed out by volunteers on Tuesday.

“We have nothing. We lost everything. We’re here just to get some food to eat,” said 39-year-old Fatima Benhamoud, who received a box with beans, canned food and crackers.

Her home in Azmizmiz collapsed in the quake and her children barely managed to escape with their lives.

“But what are we going to do when people stop helping us?” she asked.

Remote villages destroyed 

Rescuers, aid trucks and private volunteers kept travelling to stricken villages in the barren foothills of the High Atlas, many accessible only via dusty dirt roads affected by rockfalls.

In the village of Asni, in the worst-hit province of Al Haouz, the army set up a field hospital with medical tents where more than 300 patients had been treated by Monday, Colonel Youssef Qamouss told AFP.

“The hospital was deployed 48 hours ago,” he said, adding that it has an X-ray unit, pharmacy and other facilities. “It started operating this morning and we’re already at more or less 300 patients.”

Many Moroccan citizens have rushed to help quake victims with food, water, blankets and other aid or by donating blood to help treat the injured, an effort joined by the national football team.

The quake was Morocco’s strongest on record and the deadliest to hit the North African country since a 1960 earthquake destroyed Agadir on the Atlantic coast, killing between 12,000 and 15,000 people.

Overall, at least 2,862 people have died and more than 2,500 been injured in the latest tragedy, according to an official toll issued late Monday.

Morocco has allowed rescue teams to come to its aid from Spain, Britain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates but so far declined offers from several other nations, including the United States and Israel.

100,000 children affected 

Albert Vasquez, the Spanish unit’s communications officer, warned on Monday that “it’s very difficult to find people alive after three days” but stressed that “hope is still there”.

The United Nations estimated that more than 300,000 people have been affected, one third of them children, by the powerful seismic event that hit just after 11:00pm (2200 GMT) when most families were asleep.

“Thousands of homes have been destroyed, displacing families and exposing them to the elements at a time of year when temperatures drop down during the nighttime,” the UN children’s agency said.

“Schools, hospitals and other medical and educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed by the quakes, further impacting children.”

The rebuilding effort is expected to be enormous for the country which is already suffering economic woes and years of drought and now fears a downturn in the crucial tourism sector.

Prime Minister Aziz Akhannouch chaired a Monday meeting on housing and reconstruction and then pledged that “citizens who have lost their homes will receive compensation”, adding that the details would be announced later.

BAGHDAD — Iraq has begun taking Iranian Kurdish opposition groups away from the country's border with Iran, its chief diplomat said on Tuesday, after Iran warned that its neighbour must take action.

"The necessary measures have been taken to remove these groups from the border areas, and they have been settled in distant camps in the centre of Kurdistan," an autonomous northern region of Iraq, Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein told a press conference.

A year ago, Tehran launched several deadly missile and drone strikes on Iraq's Kurdistan region.

The strikes came just after protests began in Iran over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, 22, an Iranian Kurd arrested for allegedly breaching the Islamic republic's strict dress code.

Tehran accused the Kurdish groups in Iraq of fomenting the protests.

Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region hosts camps and rear bases operated by several Iranian Kurdish factions, which Iran has accused of serving Western or Israeli interests in the past.

In March, the two countries signed a "security" agreement covering their common border.

Tehran last month said that, under the deal, Iraq should disarm the groups before September 19, remove them from their bases and transfer them to camps.

"The September 19 deadline will under no circumstances be extended," and Iran will "assume its responsibility" if Iraq does not comply, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanani said at the time.

Without raising the question of disarmament, Hussein said his country had "begun implementing the agreement" and that he would bring this message to Tehran during a visit on Wednesday.

"We expect from the Iranian side that they do not turn to violence against Kurdistan or against the sovereignty of Iraq", he emphasised.

Hussein said negotiations with Iran would focus on how “to stop these opposition groups from crossing the border and using weapons against the Iranian government”.

They would also address the importance of “avoiding threats of violence, and threats of bombing certain areas of Iraqi Kurdistan”.

Until now, the regional government of Iraqi Kurdistan has not spoken publicly about implementation of these measures, even though several meetings between officials of the Kurdistan region and Iran have taken place.

NEW YORK/AMMAN — Initial reports indicate that approximately 100,000 children have been impacted by the powerful earthquake that struck Morocco late on Friday night — the strongest seismic event to hit the Kingdom since 1960.  Like all major earthquakes, aftershocks are likely to continue in the days and weeks ahead, putting children and families at further risk.

The magnitude-6.8 quake struck just after 11pm on 8 September, at a time when most children and families will have been at home asleep. The United Nations estimates that more than 300,000 people have been affected in Marrakesh and in the High Atlas Mountains.

According to authorities, more than 2,2600 people have been killed, including children, with thousands more injured. These numbers are only likely to increase. While UNICEF doesn’t yet know the exact number of children killed and injured, latest estimates from 2022 indicate that children represent almost a third of the population in Morocco.

Thousands of homes have been destroyed, displacing families, and exposing them to the elements at a time of year when temperatures drop down during the nighttime.

Schools, hospitals and other medical and educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed by the quakes, further impacting children.

UNICEF has provided support to the children of Morocco since 1957, opening a country office in 1978 and has already mobilised humanitarian staff to support the immediate response on the ground, which is being led by the Kingdom of Morocco. 

In close coordination with the authorities and UN partners, UNICEF is ready to further support the humanitarian response as necessary to reach children and families affected with critical supplies and services.