Region

ERBIL, Iraq — A Turkish drone strike in northern Iraq on Tuesday killed three Yazidi fighters affiliated with the rebel Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), security officials in the autonomous Kurdish region said.

Three more fighters were wounded, said the counter-terrorism service of the Kurdish region where fighting has often flared between the Turkish army and the PKK.

Around 5:00 am [02:00 GMT] "a Turkish army drone targeted a headquarters of the Sinjar Resistance Units," the service said, referring to an armed group operating in the mainly Yazidi Sinjar district which has ties to the PKK.

"Three fighters were killed," the statement added.

The PKK has been waging a deadly insurgency against the Turkish state for four decades and the conflict has repeatedly spilt across the border into northern Iraq.

A bombing raid in Sinjar district a week ago killed three fighters.

The Turkish army rarely comments on its strikes in Iraq but routinely conducts land and air military operations against PKK rear-bases in autonomous Kurdistan as well as Sinjar district.

Strikes attributed to Turkey in late February and early March also killed fighters from the Sinjar Resistance Units, a movement that took up arms against the Daesh terror group in 2014 following the jihadists' massacre of thousands of Yazidi men and their abduction of thousands of women for use as sex slaves.

The Yazidis follow a pre-Islamic faith, that is anathema to the Sunni Muslim extremists of IS.

Illustrating the complexity of the security situation in northern Iraq, the Sinjar Resistance Units are also affiliated with Iraq's Hashed Al Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) force, a pro-Iranian former paramilitary group now integrated into the regular armed forces.

Ankara has set up dozens of military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan over the past 25 years to fight against the PKK, which it and its Western allies consider a terrorist group.

Both the federal authorities and the Kurdistan regional government have been accused of tolerating Turkey's military activities to preserve their close economic ties.

Tensions erupted on Saturday around northern Iraq's Makhmur camp, which shelters Kurdish refugees from Turkey.

Officials said the Iraqi army planned to build a perimeter fence to control all movements in and out of the camp, which Ankara considers a recruitment ground for PKK militants.

KHARTOUM — Explosions again shook Sudan's capital on Tuesday, dimming hopes that a US and Saudi-brokered humanitarian ceasefire will take hold on the ground after more than five weeks of fighting.

The latest, one-week truce formally entered into force late Monday, but it was quickly violated, like a series of previous such agreements since the war between two rival generals erupted on April 15.

"We can hear the sound of artillery fire," a Khartoum witness told AFP on Tuesday. "Every few minutes, there's a blast."

Residents had also reported combat in northern Khartoum and air strikes in the east of the capital shortly after the deadline at 9:45 pm (1945 GMT) Monday.

In some parts of Khartoum an uneasy silence held Tuesday as residents desperately hoped for a pause in combat to allow in life-saving humanitarian aid, or to enable more people to flee the embattled city of five million.

The fighting has pitted the army, led by Sudan's de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al Burhan, against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

The battles have left about 1,000 people dead, forced more than a million to flee their homes and sparked mass evacuations of foreigners and major refugee flows into neighbouring counties.

People have run low on water, food and basic supplies, and the war has left more than half the population, 25 million people, in need of humanitarian aid, according to the UN.

‘Broken promises’ 

A foreign aid group voiced frustration with the fighting that has piled new misery on the already poverty-stricken northeast African nation.

“Beyond official announcements, Sudan is still pounded and bombarded, with millions of civilian lives at risk,” Karl Schembri of the Norwegian Refugee Council wrote on Twitter.

“We’ve had over a month of broken promises and empty words while humanitarian colleagues were killed, together with children and others and hospitals destroyed.”

Volker Perthes, the United Nations envoy to Sudan, told the UN Security Council on Monday that “fighting and troop movements have continued even today, despite a commitment by both sides not to pursue military advantage before the ceasefire takes effect”.

While no previous truce has held, the United States and Saudi Arabia, which brokered the deal, said this agreement was different because it was “signed by the parties” and would be supported by a “ceasefire monitoring mechanism”.

According to the text released by the United States, warring sides were to use the two days before it took effect to “inform their respective forces” about it and “instruct them to comply”.

Neither side has yet blamed the other for violating the truce, as they did within minutes after the previous ceasefires unravelled.

‘Victory or martyrdom’ 

Hours before the truce was to start, Daglo released a voice message on social media in which he told his fighters: “It is either victory or martyrdom, and victory will be ours.”

Addressing reported violations by his forces, including rampant looting, targeting of civilians and attacks on churches, he blamed “coup plotters” in the army.

Major fighting has rocked the western Darfur region near Chad, where the UN has reported hundreds of civilians killed in the West Darfur capital El Geneina.

Perthes in his Security Council address warned that “the conflict risks to expand and prolong ... with implications for the region”.

“In parts of the country, fighting between the two armies or the two armed formations has sharpened into communal tensions, or triggered conflict between communities,” he said, after reports of civilians being armed in Darfur.

Sudan has a long history of military coups and the army in 2019 overthrew the veteran Islamist autocrat Omar Al Bashir after mass protests against his rule.

Sudanese were promised a gradual transition toward civilian rule, but Burhan and Daglo staged another coup in October 2021 before simmering tensions between the two men flared into the current round of bloody fighting.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli forces killed three Palestinian fighters on Monday in a raid on a refugee camp in the occupied West Bank.

In a statement, the Palestinian health ministry identified the three men killed in Balata camp in Nablus as Muhammad Abu Zaytoun, 32, Fathi Abu Rizk, 30, and Abdullah Abu Hamdan, 24.

The Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, the armed wing of Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas's Fateh Party, said in a statement that the three were among the group's "fighters".

The group's emblem was wrapped around the foreheads of the men in a morgue, while their bodies were shrouded in the Palestinian flag.

Palestinian presidency spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh described the killings as a "veritable massacre" and charged that repeated Israeli raids and attacks by settlers constituted a "major war crime and a collective punishment".

He said "silence" from the United States had emboldened Israelis to escalate attacks, calling on Washington to "immediately intervene to stop the Israeli madness that will drag the region toward explosion".

Escalating violence 

Witnesses told AFP that Israeli forces raided several houses in the camp overnight in search of people wanted by the army.

Gunfire and loud explosions rocked the camp, the witnesses said, adding that a house was demolished.

Following the raid, Palestinians inspected the rubble of a damaged building and salvaged belongings.

The Hamas resistant group, which rules the blockaded Gaza Strip, described those killed as “freedom fighters”.

“Hamas reiterates that resisting the [Israeli] occupation is a legitimate right for the Palestinian people in their quest for freedom,” the group said in a statement.

Densely-populated Balata is home to some 27,000 people, making it the largest camp in the West Bank, according to the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA).

The latest raids come just over a week into a fragile Gaza ceasefire after a five-day cross-border conflict between Israel and the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Since the start of the year, at least 153 Palestinians have been killed in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources from both sides.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel's national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited the flashpoint Al Aqsa Mosque compound Sunday, a controversial move by the extreme-right politician amid heightened tensions in occupied East Jerusalem.

The move came three days after Ben-Gvir and tens of thousands of Jewish nationalists marched through the Old City and just over a week into a fragile Gaza ceasefire.

Al Aqsa Mosque is the third holiest site in Islam and is administered by Jordan. Non-Muslims are permitted to visit the site, but not pray there.

Hamas denounced Ben-Gvir's last visit to the site in January and again slammed his action on Sunday.

Israel will "bear responsibility for the barbaric incursions of its ministers and herds of settlers", the group wrote on Telegram.

The move “confirms the depths of danger looming over Al Aqsa, under this Zionist fascist government and the arrogance of its ministers from the extreme right”, said Hamas.

Israeli forces confirmed Ben-Gvir’s visit in a statement, adding that it passed without incident.

Old City Cabinet meeting 

Later on Sunday, Israel’s top politicians held a rare Cabinet meeting in the tunnels beneath the Western Wall.

Palestinians fear their use as a vast museum threatens the foundations of Al Aqsa Mosque.

“Time and again, my friends and I have been forced to repel international pressure on the part of those who would divide Jerusalem again,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said at the start of the meeting.

Some Israeli leaders “were prepared to give in to those pressures”, he argued, but “we have acted differently”, according to a transcript from his office, celebrating the expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem which are deemed illegal under international law.

Israel considers all of Jerusalem as its capital, but the Palestinians want the eastern sector, which includes the Old City, as the capital of their future state.

Tours of the site by Jewish nationalists have long been criticised by Palestinians and Arab nations, while Ben-Gvir’s visits have taken on added weight since he took office in December.

The office of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said “harming Al-Aqsa Mosque is playing with fire”.

“[It] will push the region into a religious war with unimaginable consequences that will affect everyone,” said Abbas’ spokesman, Nabil Abu Rudeineh, in a statement published by the Palestinian news agency Wafa.

The timing of Sunday’s visit also holds significance, coming days after extremists marched through the Old City to celebrate East Jerusalem’s capture by Israeli forces in the 1967 June War.

Thursday’s event was marred by incidents of violence against Palestinians and journalists, while the United States condemned “the hateful chants such as ‘Death to Arabs’” during the rally.

Ben-Gvir’s visit also follows a Cairo-brokered truce reached on May 13 between Israel and Islamic Jihad fighters in Gaza, ending five days of cross-border fighting.

Egypt’s foreign ministry on Sunday pressed Israel to “immediately stop the escalatory practices which inflame the pre-existing state of tension in the occupied (Palestinian) territories”.

The Gaza violence killed 33 people in the coastal territory.

ABU DHABI — Omani poet and novelist Zahran Alqasmi was named on Sunday winner of the prestigious International Prize for Arabic Fiction with his book “The Water Diviner”.

Alqasmi, 49, will receive $50,000, and the prize committee will provide funding to translate the novel into English, organisers of the annual award said on their website.

“The Water Diviner” tells the story of Omani villager Salem bin Abdullah, hired by his community to find groundwater reserves.

It touches on issues of water scarcity and extreme weather events such as floods.

“’The Water Diviner’ by Zahran Alqasmi explores a new subject in modern fiction: Water and its impact on the natural environment and the lives of human beings in hostile regions,” Mohammed Achaari, chairman of the judges’ panel, said in a statement.

Alqasmi, who has published four novels and 10 poetry collections, is the first Omani winner of the prize, now in its 16th year.

He was announced this year’s winner at a ceremony in the United Arab Emirates’ capital of Abu Dhabi.

In an interview for the prize’s website, Alqasmi said the book had an additional focus: “On how women also caused changes in the life of the main protagonist.”

Five other shortlisted authors, from Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya and Egypt, will each receive $10,000, the organisers said.

The award is supported by oil-rich Abu Dhabi, which has taken steps to position itself as a cultural hub.

TEHRAN — Iran said on Sunday it is capable of ensuring the safety of the vital Gulf waters in cooperation with neighbouring countries, following maritime tensions with the United States.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran and the countries south of the Persian Gulf are capable of cooperating to ensure the security of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz and the Sea of Oman," Iran's Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces, Mohammad Bagheri said on Sunday.

He was speaking at a ceremony held near the strategic Strait of Hormuz to celebrate the conclusion of an eight-month long mission by the Iranian navy to circumnavigate the globe.

The Gulf waters, which carry at least a third of the world's seaborne oil, have witnessed a spate of incidents since 2018, when then US president Donald Trump pulled out of a nuclear agreement and reimposed crippling sanctions on Iran.

Bagheri's comments come days after the commander of the US Navy's Fifth Fleet, Vice-Admiral Brad Cooper, transited through the Strait of Hormuz in a guided-missile destroyer along with French and British navy commanders to underline a unified stance on protecting the waterway, following a series of Iranian attacks on shipping in the Gulf.

And earlier this month the United States said it was sending reinforcements to the Gulf after what it called increasing harassment by Iran of ships in the oil-rich waters.

Tensions between Tehran and Washington have risen since Iran at the end of April seized a Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker, the Advantage Sweet, in the Gulf of Oman bound for the United States.

Iran said the tanker had crashed into one of its vessels, leaving two Iranian crew members missing and injuring several others.

Meanwhile, Iran’s official news agency IRNA on Saturday quoted Abbas Gholamshahi, a rear admiral in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard navy, as saying that the force “has full control over all vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf”.

DUBAI — Bahrain said on Saturday it would restore full diplomatic relations with Lebanon after a year and a half, following a row over the Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen.

Bahrain and other Gulf countries followed Saudi Arabia in recalling their diplomats towards the end of 2021 after a Lebanese minister criticised Riyadh's military intervention in the war in Yemen.

Manama also called on its citizens in Lebanon to leave the country.

But the Gulf kingdom said on Saturday that it was bringing an end to the impasse, a move welcomed by Beirut.

"The Kingdom of Bahrain has decided to restore diplomatic representation" at ambassador level in Lebanon, the Bahraini foreign ministry said, adding that this would "strengthen the fraternal relations between the two countries".

Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati said the country "appreciated this decision and welcomes it".

A diplomatic crisis erupted in October 2021 after the then-information minister was quoted criticising the Saudi role in Yemen.

George Kordahi, who has since resigned, said in a television interview that the Huthi rebels fighting Yemen’s internationally recognised government were “defending themselves... against an external aggression”.

In response, Riyadh recalled its ambassador and ordered Lebanon’s envoy to leave the kingdom. Its Gulf allies the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait followed suit, expelling Lebanon’s envoys.

Saudi Arabia returned its envoy to Lebanon in April last year.

The Bahraini decision comes the day after the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia against a backdrop of unexpected rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, brokered by Beijing.

The warming of relations between the region’s two great rivals has paved the way for a major diplomatic reshuffle in the Arab world.