Region

BEIRUT — A US drone strike has killed an Daesh group leader in Syria after Russian warplanes harassed MQ-9 drones over the war-torn country, the US Central Command said on Sunday.

The strike on Friday resulted in the death of Osama Al Muhajer, Daesh leader in eastern Syria, Centcom said in a statement.

"We have made it clear that we remain committed to the defeat of ISIS throughout the region," Centcom chief General Michael Kurilla was quoted as saying, using another acronym for the Daesh group.

"ISIS remains a threat, not only to the region but well beyond," he added.

According to Centcom, no civilians were killed in the operation but coalition forces are "assessing reports of a civilian injury".

Friday's strike, Centcom said, "was conducted by the same MQ-9s [drones] that had... been harassed by Russian aircraft in an encounter that had lasted almost two hours".

US drones taking part in operations against Daesh in Syria were harassed on Thursday, for the second time in 24 hours, by Russian military aircraft, a US commander said at the time.

Air Force Lieutenant General Alexus Grynkewich said the planes “dropped flares in front of the drones and flew dangerously close, endangering the safety of all aircraft involved”.

In another incident on Wednesday, three Russian jets dropped parachute flares in front of US drones, forcing them to take evasive action, Grynkewich has said, calling on Moscow to “cease this reckless behaviour”.

Russia is a key ally of the Syrian regime of President Bashar Assad.

With the support of Moscow as well as Iran, Assad has clawed back much of the ground lost in the early stages of the Syrian conflict that erupted in 2011 when the government brutally repressed pro-democracy protests.

The last pockets of armed opposition to the regime include large swathes of the northern rebel-held Idlib province.

The United States has about 1,000 troops deployed in Syria as part of international efforts to combat Daesh militants, who were defeated in Syria in 2019 but still maintain hideouts in remote desert areas and conduct frequent attacks.

JENIN — A European envoy blasted Israel Saturday over the "proportionality" of the force it uses, as international envoys toured Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank following this week's deadly raid.

His remarks echoed UN chief Antonio Guterres who on Thursday told reporters "there was an excessive force used by Israeli forces" in its 48-hour operation, the largest Israel has staged in the Palestinian territory for years.

It included air strikes and armoured bulldozers ripping up streets.

Jenin is a centre for multiple armed Palestinian groups, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the refugee camp a "terrorist nest".

European Union representative to the Palestinian territories Sven Kuehn von Burgsdorff made his comments as he led a delegation of UN officials and diplomats from 25 countries to the camp in the northern West Bank.

"We are concerned about the deployment of weaponry and weapons systems which question the proportionality of the military during the operation," Kuehn von Burgsdorff said of the operation in which 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed.

"This cycle of violence has to end, it cannot continue. If there is no political solution to the conflict, we are going to stand here in a week's time, in a month's time, in a year's time, with nothing changed," he added.

As the delegation toured the camp, residents peered out of holes left in the walls by Israeli rockets, and local authorities tested a new camp-wide alarm system to warn of future raids.

Jenin camp has been the site of several large-scale raids by the Israeli military this year, but this week’s was the biggest such operation in the West Bank since the second Palestinian “Intifada” or uprising of the early 2000s.

The camp’s infrastructure was severely damaged during the raid, which Israel said was targeting militants. 

Eight kilometres of water pipes and three kilometres of sewage pipes were destroyed, the UN said. More than 100 houses were damaged and a number of schools were also lightly damaged.

The refugee camp in one of the poorest and most densely populated in the West Bank, with some 18,000 people living in just 0.43 square kilometers. 

UN officials on Saturday made a plea for funds to help rebuild the camp.

“To restore services and scale up support to the children, we need cash ... our appeal is desperately underfunded,” Leni Stenseth, deputy commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said.

“I would urge you to consider announcing your support for the work we are going to do here in Jenin camp in the coming weeks and months as soon as possible,” she added.

On Thursday Algeria announced $30 million to “help rebuild the Palestinian city of Jenin after the barbaric and criminal attack” by Israel, and the United Arab Emirates, which normalised ties with Israel in 2020, said Wednesday it “will provide $15 million”.

TRIPOLI — Rivals in politically divided Libya have agreed to form a committee on sharing oil revenues, a move welcomed on Saturday by the UN, after military strongman Khalifa Haftar sought a "fair" split.

Haftar, who backs the country's eastern administration, had last Monday called for a committee to address the issue. He threatened military action unless oil proceeds were divided fairly by the end of August.

Libya sits on Africa's biggest oil reserves, but the wedge between the eastern government and the United Nations-backed administration in Tripoli has hampered Libya's efforts to sharply ramp up output in response to a surge in European demand for non-Russian oil and gas.

The "Financial High Committee" has now been formed, Libya's Presidential Council, the North African country's highest executive body, said in a decree published Friday by local media.

UNSMIL, the UN Support Mission in Libya, said in a statement that it "welcomes the decision announced by the Presidential Council to establish a High Financial Oversight Committee to address fundamental issues of transparency in the spending of public funds and fair distribution of resources."

UNSMIL noted “the political consensus” reflected in membership of the Committee, which will include nominees from the eastern-based House of Representatives, its Tripoli-based rival the High Council of State, the UN-backed Tripoli government, and Haftar’s forces.

Libya’s National Oil Corporation and central bank, which manage oil revenues and are both based in Tripoli, will also have representatives on the body to be headed by Mohamed Al Manfi, who leads the Presidential Council.

That body was formed in February 2021 as part of a UN-sponsored political process. It consists of three members, each representing one of Libya’s three regions.

UNSMIL said the financial oversight committee’s “inclusive approach” will also help enable “a level-playing field for all candidates in the elections”.

Ballots in Libya had been due in December 2021 but disputes including who should stand in the polls meant they were never organised.

The UN has been working to ease the sticking points, in the hopes that elections could take place this year.

Crude oil is the main revenue source for Libya, which has been torn by more than a decade of stop-start conflict, involving foreign powers and a myriad of militias, since a NATO-backed revolt toppled Muammar Gadhafi in 2011.

Pro-Haftar forces have in the past blockaded the country’s oilfields, which in May produced around 1.2 million barrels per day, according to the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

TEHRAN — Two policemen were killed on  Saturday in Iran's restive southeast near Pakistan, Iranian media said, in an attack claimed by militants that left four assailants dead.

The grenade attack and ensuing firefight at a police station was the latest violence to hit Sistan-Baluchistan province, where unrest has involved drug smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and Sunni Muslim extremist groups.

Also on Saturday, the Islamic republic's judiciary said two men were hanged in public over a deadly shooting last year at a revered shrine in the southern city of Shiraz.

In Zahedan, the Sistan-Baluchistan provincial capital, "four unidentified armed individuals attacked and entered police station Number 16," state broadcaster IRIB reported, citing the province's deputy head of security Alireza Marhamati.

The attackers used grenades to blast open the gates of the police station, and an exchange of fire occurred, said Marhamati.

The militant Jaish Al Adl group, which was formed in 2012 and is blacklisted by Iran as a "terrorist" group, claimed responsibility, SITE Intelligence Group reported.

Tasnim news agency, quoting Sistan-Baluchistan police chief Doustali Jalilian, said two officers were killed in the clash.

All four “terrorists” involved were killed, according to Iran’s official news agency IRNA, quoting an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps branch that commands southeast Iran.

September unrest 

The targeted police station is located near Zahedan’s Makki Mosque, where last year thousands protested following the alleged rape of a teenage girl in custody in the port city of Chabahar.

In its statement reported by SITE, Jaish Al Adl accused security forces of targeting protesters during the September rallies, during which dozens of people including security forces were killed.

Cleric Molavi Abdol Hamid, the head of Makki Mosque and an influential leader of Sistan-Baluchistan’s Sunni minority, denounced the attack on police.

“We insist on maintaining the ... security of the country,” Abdol Hamid said in a statement.

The September clashes in Zahedan came as Iran was gripped by nationwide protests following the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, arrested for an alleged breach of strict dress rules for women.

Several weeks into the unrest, on October 26, a mass shooting at the Shiite Muslim shrine of Shah Cheragh in Shiraz left 13 people dead and 30 wounded.

The attack was later claimed by the Daesh  group.

Iran on Saturday executed two men over the attack, the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said.

The pair were hanged at dawn on a street near the shrine in Shiraz, the capital of Fars province, IRNA reported.

Mizan identified them as Mohammad Ramez Rashidi and Naeem Hashem Qatali, but did not reveal their nationalities.

Iran had previously said the attack involved people from other countries including neighbouring Afghanistan.

According to Mizan, Rashidi had confessed to having collaborated with IS to carry out the shooting.

The two were sentenced to death in March after convictions of “corruption on earth, armed rebellion and acting against national security”, as well as “conspiracy against the security of the country”.

Rare public hangings 

Fars chief justice Kazem Moussavi said at the time Rashidi and Qatali had been directly involved in the “arming, procurement, logistics and guidance” of the main perpetrator.

Three other defendants in the case were sentenced to prison for five, 15 and 25 years for being members of Daesh, Moussavi said.

The main assailant — who Iranian media later identified as Hamed Badakhshan, a man in his 30s — died of injuries suffered during his arrest, the authorities said.

In November, the Islamic republic said 26 “takfiri terrorists” from Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Tajikistan had been arrested in connection with the attack.

In Shiite-dominated Iran, the term takfiri generally refers to jihadists or proponents of radical Sunni Islam.

Public executions are relatively rare in Iran with almost all hangings carried out inside prisons.

Iran executes more people annually than any nation other than China, according to rights groups including the London-based Amnesty International.

The pace of the executions has been relatively rapid in 2023, with the Norway-based group Iran Human Rights reporting nearly 370 executions since the start of the year.

A United Nations fact-finding mission said this week Iran had executed seven men in connection with the Amini protests, calling on Tehran to stop the “chilling” practice.

TAMASSIT, Algeria — Sporting a white cap and apron, Rachid Ibersiene bustles around vats at his dairy in Algeria’s Atlas Mountains where he has brought the tradition of artisanal cheesemaking back from Switzerland.

“We started with a butane gas bottle and stove,” the cheesemonger said, alluding to the growth of his factory since it opened.

In a matter of 15 years, Ibersiene’s “Tamgout” cheese — a blend of the Swiss Gruyere and Dutch Gouda styles — has become a source of honour for the north African country.

Both Algerians and foreigners have taken a keen interest in the product, which has a unique taste as it draws on age-old European traditions but is made from Algerian milk.

“We were inspired by Vacherin Fribourgeois, adapting the entire tradition to Algerian milk, which is different from Swiss milk,” Ibersiene said, referring to a semi-hard Swiss cheese.

“Algerian milk is less uniform and somewhat more organic because the farms are smaller and more diversified. In Switzerland, you don’t find farmers with only two or three dairy cows.

“Our cheese has a more nuanced taste,” the 57-year-old added, describing it as “typically Algerian”.

Born to a working-class family in Algiers, Ibersiene studied petroleum engineering but struggled to find a job.

After moving to Italy, he tried his luck at filmmaking before relocating again to Switzerland, where he spent 16 years working as a computer consultant.

“That’s where the idea of the cheese factory came from,” he recalled.

“To relax on weekends, I would go up to the mountain chalets in Gruyere where many cheesemakers are located.”

‘Source of pride’ 

In 2003, he moved to the area to learn the basics of Swiss cheese production.

Three years later, he returned home to set up his own dairy factory in Tamassit at the foot of Mount Tamgout — from which his cheese takes its name.

Unable to secure financial backing, Ibersiene used his life savings to fund the project, which required 10 million dinars (over $73,000) in equipment.

Aided by five employees, Ibersiene spends his days inspecting the cellars where the wheels of cheese, which need to be regularly rubbed and turned, are stored.

“The maturation period of Tamgout varies from one month to two years, depending on the taste of the customers,” he said.

“Our cheese is made from raw cow’s milk, without any food additives. It is untreated. We use natural lactic ferments.”

He receives deliveries of up to 1,000 litres of cow’s milk that produce nearly 50 kilogrammes of cheese daily.

The factory began turning a profit in 2018.

Initially, Tamgout cheese — featuring the slogan “a Swiss idea, an Algerian cheese” — was sold nationally in supermarkets, but payment issues halted deliveries.

Now, it is available at speciality and gourmet shops, and even draws Western expatriates as clients and visitors to his factory.

Ibersiene said although he made a better living in Switzerland, his delight from the success of his cheese is priceless.

“Customers come from abroad to buy it,” including someone from New York, he said.

“It’s a source of pride because we started from nothing,” he added.

GHAJAR — The Israeli forces said on Thursday they struck southern Lebanon after a mortar launched from its northern neighbour exploded in the border area between the two foes.

The latest military action was launched three months after the two countries saw their worst cross-border fire in years.

It also comes at a time of rising tension between Israel and Arab countries after Israel carried out its biggest military operation in years in the occupied West Bank targeting the Jenin refugee camp, a densely populated urban area and militant stronghold.

"A launch was carried out from Lebanese territory which exploded adjacent to the border in Israeli territory," said a statement from the Israeli army, whose spokesman specified the projectile that hit near the town of Ghajar was a mortar.

"In response, the IDF  is currently striking the area from which the launch was carried out in Lebanese territory," said an army statement shortly before midday (09:00 GMT).

A spokesman for the town of Ghajar, Bilal Al Khatib, said the projectile struck "close to homes and, if it wasn't for God's kindness, it would have hit people".

Lebanon's official National News Agency said Israel had subsequently fired "more than 15 artillery shells", which hit around the communities of Kfar Chouba and Halta.

The two countries are still technically at war, and peacekeepers from the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon patrol the border between them.

UNIFIL commander Major General Aroldo Lazaro was working with the Israeli and Lebanese authorities "to prevent further escalation", the peacekeeping body said in a statement, calling on "everyone to exercise restraint".

Earlier on Thursday, Lebanon's armed Hizbollah movement had denounced Israel for building a concrete wall around Ghajar, a small town that straddles the border.

The Iran-backed Shiite group called on the Lebanese state to take action to "prevent the consolidation of this occupation" by Israel of Ghajar, home to around 3,000 people.

Hizbollah denounced Israel for the erection of "a barbed wire fence and the construction of a concrete wall around the entire locality".

The so-called Blue Line cuts through Ghajar, formally placing its northern part in Lebanon and its southern part in the Israeli-occupied and annexed Golan Heights.

The town’s spokesman said residents had built the barrier themselves, not the Israeli military. “It’s to protect our lands and our children from wild animals,” Khatib told AFP.

The residents of Ghajar have been granted Israeli citizenship rights, and Israel has recently opened the town, long a military zone, to tourism.

Hizbollah charged that Israel had now “completely imposed their force on the Lebanese, occupied parts of the town and submitted it to its administration, in parallel with the opening of the town to tourists”.

Thursday’s cross-border fire follows Israel bombarding Lebanon in April, in response to a barrage of rockets fired from the country.

The April incident was the heaviest rocket fire from Lebanon since Israel fought a war with Hizbollah in 2006.

UNIFIL, which was established in 1978, was beefed up in response to that 34-day conflict.

Last month, Hizbollah said it shot down an Israeli drone that had flown into Lebanon’s southern airspace.

Israeli warplanes and drones regularly violate Lebanon’s airspace, while the powerful Shiite movement for years has been sending drones towards Israel.

Weeks earlier Hizbollah had put on a display of military might, with mock cross-border raids into Israel a few kilometres from the border.

The strikes on Lebanon come a day after Israel hit militant targets in the Gaza Strip, in response to rocket fire from the coastal Palestinian territory.

Twelve Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed in the two-day raid on the northern city of Jenin and its adjacent refugee camp.

Israeli forces launched drone strikes and employed an army bulldozer to rip up streets in Jenin’s refugee camp, prompting at least 3,000 residents to flee.

Israel has occupied the West Bank since the 1967 June War and has imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza since 2007, when the militant group Hamas took power.

DUBAI — Iran's Revolutionary Guards on Thursday seized a commercial ship in the Gulf, the US navy said, a day after it had accused Iranian forces of two similar attempts off Oman.

"The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC] forcibly seized a commercial vessel possibly engaged in smuggling activity," the Bahrain-based US navy's Fifth Fleet said in a statement.

US forces monitored the incident in international waters, it added, but "assessed the circumstances of this event did not warrant further response".

The statement did not identify the commercial ship.

"US forces remain vigilant and ready to protect navigational rights of lawful maritime traffic in the Middle East's critical waters," it said.

In recent years, Washington and Tehran have traded accusations over a series of incidents in the tense Gulf waterways that are vital to the global oil trade.

On Wednesday, the US navy said it had blocked two attempts by the Iranian navy to seize commercial tankers in international waters off Oman, including one case in which the Iranians fired shots.

In both cases, the US Central Command said the Iranians departed after a US destroyer appeared on the scene.

The maritime services in Iran said one of the two tankers, the Bahamian-flagged Richmond Voyager, had collided with an Iranian vessel, seriously injuring five crew members, according to state news agency IRNA.

They said the collision had occurred on Tuesday and that it damaged and caused the flooding of the Iranian vessel.

“The Richmond Voyager continued on its way, regardless of international maritime rules and regulations,” IRNA said, adding a court order had been issued for Iran’s navy to seize the tanker.

The news agency said the tanker changed course before entering Oman’s territorial waters.

Iran said it had referred the matter to the “friendly” Sultanate of Oman, which has mediated talks between the Islamic republic and the United States, and that it was seeking the vessel’s seizure.

In April and early May, Iran seized two tankers within a week in regional waters.

In one case, helicopter-borne Iranian navy commandos abseiled onto the deck of a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker, the Advantage Sweet, in the Gulf of Oman.

Iran was also accused of launching a drone attack against an Israeli-owned tanker in November 2022, stoking tensions with the United States.

There has been a spate of such incidents since 2018, when then US president Donald Trump pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal and reimposed crippling sanctions on the Islamic republic, sending tensions soaring.

Talks aimed at reviving the accord remain stalled, but have recently resumed with Oman as an intermediary.

THE HAGUE — Canada, Britain, Sweden and Ukraine have taken Iran to the UN’s top court to seek damages for families of passengers on a jetliner downed by Tehran in 2020, they said on Wednesday.

The case lodged by the four countries, which had a number of citizens on board, asks the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to order Iran to apologise for shooting down Ukraine International Airlines flight 752 after take-off from Tehran.

All 176 people on the plane were killed. Three days after the January 8, 2020 crash, Iran admitted that its military had targeted the Kyiv-bound Boeing 737-800 plane by mistake.

The Hague-based ICJ said in a statement that the four countries “claim that Iran has violated a series of obligations” under a convention on civil aviation by shooting down the plane.

Their joint filing to the court alleges that Iran breached a 1971 multilateral treaty on threats to civil aviation, and that attempts to seek binding arbitration with Iran had failed.

They asked the court to “order full reparation for all injury caused” and to make Iran pay “full compensation to the applicants for the material and moral damages suffered by the victims and their families”.

Iran should also return the belongings of the victims, “publicly apologise” and acknowledge its “internationally wrongful acts”.

Ottawa, London, Stockholm and Kyiv vowed last month they would take the case to the ICJ, which was set up after World War II to rule on disputes between UN member states.

Ministers from the four countries said in a joint statement on Wednesday that they had “taken an important step in our collective effort to ensure Iran is held accountable” for downing flight PS752.

“Today’s legal action reflects our unwavering commitment to achieving transparency, justice and accountability for the families of the victims,” said the statement on the Canadian foreign ministry website.

In June, Iran took Canada to the ICJ accusing Ottawa of allowing victims of alleged terror attacks to claim damages from Tehran.

Tehran’s case claims that Ottawa, which listed the Islamic Republic as a sponsor of terrorism in 2012, had violated Iran’s state immunity.

Iran’s application cited a 2022 Canadian court judgment that awarded more than $80 million in compensation to the families of six people who died when the Ukrainian airliner was shot down.

Eighty-five Canadian citizens and permanent residents were among the victims. Ukraine lost 11 citizens in the disaster.

Iran jailed 10 members of the armed forces in April after finding them guilty of involvement in the downing of the Boeing, the Iranian judiciary’s Mizan Online website reported on Sunday.

In 2020, Iran offered to pay “$150,000 or the equivalent in euros” to each of the victims’ families.

But Ukrainian and Canadian officials strongly criticised the announcement, saying compensation should not be settled through unilateral declarations.

Tensions between Iran and the United States had been soaring at the time the airliner was shot down.

Iranian air defences were on high alert for a US counterattack after Tehran fired missiles at a military base in Iraq that was used by American forces.