Region

KIRKUK — A curfew was lifted in the multi-ethnic Iraqi city of Kirkuk on Sunday after protests turned violent and led to the deaths of four people.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani imposed the curfew on Saturday evening after rival protests — between Kurdish residents on one side and Turkmen and Arabs on the other — descended into deadly unrest despite a security presence.

Tensions had been brewing for nearly a week in Kirkuk, a northern city which has historically been disputed between the federal government in Baghdad and authorities in the autonomous Kurdistan region of the north.

The curfew "has been lifted", General Kawa Gharib, the police chief in Kirkuk, told AFP. "The situation is now stable throughout the city."

Sudani called for a commission of inquiry into the incident.

Four Kurds were killed and 15 people wounded during Saturday's violence, according to the latest toll issued Sunday by Amer Shuani, the local police spokesman.

At least three of the four victims were shot dead, health officials said, but it was unclear who was responsible.

Security forces had been deployed as a buffer to keep the rival groups apart, and an AFP correspondent said they had to fire warning shots to disperse the Kurds.

Arab and Turkmen demonstrators had staged a sit-in near the headquarters of the Iraqi security forces in Kirkuk province on August 28, after media reports that Sudani had ordered the site to be handed over to the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), which used to occupy it.

In response, Kurdish protesters tried to reach the headquarters on Saturday, and the situation degenerated.

On Sunday morning General Jabbar Naeema Al Taee, Kirkuk's top security official, told AFP that the building at the centre of the tensions was "under the control of the army" of Iraq and the sit-in was over.

In 2014, the KDP and the peshmerga, the security forces of the Kurdistan region, took control of Kirkuk, an oil-producing region of northern Iraq.

However, federal troops expelled them in autumn 2017 after tensions over a referendum on Kurdish independence.

WAD MADANI, Sudan — Five civilians were killed by bombs that "fell on their homes" in Khartoum, a Sudanese medical source told AFP, a day after an air strike in the city's south killed at least 20 civilians.

Residents of the war-torn capital reported the city was again pummelled by artillery and rocket fire Sunday, in the fifth month of war between the army and paramilitary fighters.

"The death toll from the aerial bombardment" in southern Khartoum late Saturday "has risen to 20 civilian fatalities", according to a statement from the neighbourhood's resistance committee. They are among many volunteer groups that used to organise pro-democracy demonstrations and now provide assistance to families caught in the line of fire.

In an earlier statement, they said the victims included two children, and warned that more fatalities went unrecorded, as "their bodies could not be moved to the hospital because they were severely burned or torn to pieces in the bombing".

Since war began between the regular army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces( RSF) on April 15, around 5,000 people have been killed, according to conservative estimates from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project.

The Sudanese Armed Forces control the skies and have carried out regular air strikes while RSF fighters dominate the streets of the capital.

Western countries have accused the paramilitaries and allied militias of killings based on ethnicity in the western Darfur region, and the International Criminal Court has opened a new probe into alleged war crimes.

The army has also been accused of abuses, including a July 8 air strike that killed around two dozen civilians.

More than half of Sudan’s 48 million people now require humanitarian aid and protection, and six million are “one step away from famine”, according to the United Nations.

Despite insecurity, looting and bureaucratic obstacles, the world body says it has been able to get aid to millions of those in need.

The war has internally displaced around 3.8 million people, the UN says, while another million have crossed borders into neighbouring countries.

Among the displaced are nearly 2.8 million from Khartoum, according to the International Organisation for Migration. That is more than half the capital’s pre-war population of around five million.

Those who remain shelter from the crossfire, rationing water and electricity.

In Khartoum, resistance committees have been some of the only sources of relief, helping dig survivors out of the rubble of bombed buildings, braving gunfire on the streets to deliver medicine and documenting atrocities committed by both sides.

Nearly five months in, the violence shows no signs of abating.

Witnesses on Sunday again reported the army targeting RSF positions in northern Khartoum with “artillery and rocket fire”.

MODIIN — A Palestinian rammed a truck into a group of Israeli soldiers near a checkpoint between Israel and the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing one before being shot dead, Israeli officials said.

Violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has surged since early this year, and Thursday’s attack comes a day after a 14-year-old Palestinian stabbed a civilian at a tram station in Jerusalem.

The truck driver was a 41-year-old Palestinian from the West Bank with a work permit for Israel, Avi Biton, head of central command, told reporters at the scene of the attack.

“The people he hit with his truck were soldiers,” he said.

One soldier, Maksym Molchanov, 20, was killed and three others were wounded, one of them severely, the army said in a statement.

Forces earlier said officers had “received a report about a hit-and-run incident near the Maccabim checkpoint” near the Israeli town of Modiin.

The driver sped off in the truck before being shot dead at another checkpoint a few kilometres away at Hashmonaim in the West Bank.

Israel’s defence ministry said its security personnel at the Hashmonaim checkpoint were informed by the army that the truck was coming their way.

The driver, Dawood Abed Razeq Fayez, was a resident of Deir Ammar refugee camp near Ramallah, a Palestinian security source told AFP. He declined to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

The Palestinian health ministry confirmed the killing of Fayez.

In an online briefing to reporters, an Israeli defence official who did not want to be identified said the attack occurred on the Israeli side of the checkpoint.

The attacker “was on his way to the checkpoint when he saw a group of soldiers. He made a U-turn to hit them”, the official said, adding that the soldiers were off-duty and heading home when they were struck.

Rising violence 

The Magen David Adom emergency service said seven people were injured in the attack including a 15-year-old Palestinian.

Thursday’s ramming came after an improvised explosive device wounded four Israeli soldiers during the night as they were securing a road for the passage of Jewish pilgrims to a holy site in West Bank city of Nablus.

One of the soldiers was moderately wounded, the others lightly hurt, the army said in a statement.

In Wednesday’s incident in Jerusalem, an Israeli border police officer who was travelling in a tram saw the attack as it happened and shot dead the teenager who was from east Jerusalem, a predominantly Palestinian area.

In another incident on Wednesday morning, the Israeli forces said it had “neutralised” a Palestinian who injured a soldier in a vehicle attack at a military site near the city of Hebron in the West Bank.

Palestinian group Hamas, which rules the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip, praised the recent attacks and said Thursday’s ramming “affirms the ability of the resistance” to strike at Israeli forces.

Violence from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has surged and has claimed the lives of at least 224 Palestinians so far this year.

AL-BATANA, Sudan — More than four months into Sudan's devastating war, arms dealers are struggling to keep up with demand for a trade that is booming, at a deadly cost.

"A Kalashnikov? A rifle? A pistol?" said a 63-year-old dealer known as Wad Al Daou, offering his wares with a resounding laugh.

"The demand for weapons has soared so high that we can't possibly meet it," he said at a market near Sudan's borders with Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Fighting broke out on April 15 between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo, who commands the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF).

The war has killed thousands, displaced millions and flooded the arsenals of a country already awash with weapons.

Arms dealers say prices have skyrocketed, while authorities loyal to the army have repeatedly reported the seizure of "sophisticated" weapons.

On August 10, state media said a shootout erupted in the eastern city of Kassala between soldiers and traffickers over vans loaded with weapons bound for the RSF.

A security official said it was one of "three major seizures of weapons" in Kassala and near the Red Sea port of Suakin.

"That's in addition to smaller operations," he told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

 The newest models 

But smugglers say authorities have been unable to curb the arms flow.

"We used to receive a shipment every three months, but now we're getting one every two weeks," Daou said.

Even before the war, authorities had sought to curb the massive influx of arms.

At the end of 2022, a government commission charged with rounding up illegal arms estimated there were five million weapons in the hands of Sudan's 48 million citizens.

This excluded “those held by rebel groups” in the western and southern states of Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile that are served by long-established smuggling routes.

But since the war began, there have been many “fresh faces” trying to make a quick buck, said Saleh, another arms dealer who refused to give his real name.

It’s a “thriving market”, the 35-year-old said after hopping down from his new four-wheel drive clutching two smartphones.

Demand is high, since what began as a war between rival generals has spiralled to include tribes, rebels and civilians desperate to protect themselves.

‘Crossroads’ 

In a recent video, one of Sudan’s eastern tribes showed hundreds of its members, weapons in hand, vowing to support the army.

Such shows of force are costly, with the price of a Kalashnikov jumping to “$1,500 per rifle, up from $850 before the war”, Saleh said.

More sophisticated arms are even more expensive.

An American M16 rifle goes for $8,500, and a prized Israeli firearm for up to $10,000.

Asked where his weapons come from, Saleh cut the conversation short, only saying “machine guns and assault rifles... come from the Red Sea”.

He refused to elaborate on the supply route that the security official also blames for the arms influx.

“Smugglers take advantage of the war in Yemen and the situation in Somalia” to carry out their business via the southern Red Sea, the official said.

“These groups are connected to international arms trade networks and have massive capabilities.”

Along the coast south of Tokar, near Eritrea, traffickers take advantage of “a weak security presence”, using “isolated ports and the rugged terrain” that others can’t navigate, said the official.

“The border area has always been a crossroads for arms deals, thanks to Ethiopian and Eritrean armed groups at war with their governments,” he added.

‘We don’t ask’ 

The arms then converge at one spot — the sparsely populated Al-Batana region between the Atbara tributary and Blue Nile state.

In late August, police raided the area, injuring civilians in the process, according to activists.

This is where Daou sells his shipments, to customers he describes as “farmers and herders who want weapons to protect themselves”.

Authorities insist the arms they have found in the country’s east were bound for the RSF, who categorically deny any illicit dealings.

“We are a regular force,” one RSF source said, referring to the paramilitary group’s former status as an auxiliary branch of the army since 2013.

“Our weapons sources are well known and we do not deal with traffickers. We catch them,” he told AFP on condition of anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the media.

For Saleh, it is inconsequential.

“We sell our weapons to people in Al-Batana,” he said. “We don’t ask them what they’re going to do with them afterwards.”

TEHRAN — Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi said on Tuesday that the West had failed to isolate his country, while also holding out the prospect of resuming talks on reviving a nuclear deal.

"The enemy tried to follow two strategies: One was to isolate Iran from the world and the other was to discourage the Iranian nation," Raisi said.

"It failed with both strategies. It didn't succeed in isolating Iran," he told a news conference in Tehran.

Raisi was referring to sanctions imposed on Iran since the United States torpedoed the nuclear deal in 2018, as well as protests that erupted in September 2022 over a young woman's death in custody.

The ultraconservative president said Iran was continuing to seek "the lifting of sanctions" through negotiations to revive the 2015 nuclear accord.

But he added "we are not tying the country's economy to the wishes" of Western countries.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington eased this month with the announcement of an agreement for Iran to release five American prisoners in exchange for the return of $6 billion in Iranian funds frozen in South Korea.

But the delicate agreement does not include the possibility of a return to the nuclear deal in the run-up to the 2024 US presidential election.

Raisi highlighted diplomatic successes, including rapprochement with Arab countries like Saudi Arabia along with its membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and invitation to join the BRICS grouping.

Such alliances with emerging countries "represent a good opportunity to counter American unilateralism", he said, adding his government was working "to reduce the influence of the dollar" on Iran's economy.