Region

BEIRUT — The Lebanese judge investigating the deadly 2020 Beirut port blast has resumed his work, a judicial official said Monday, after a 13-month suspension due to political pressure.

“Judge Tarek Bitar has decided to resume his investigation,” the official told AFP.

The probe into the cause of the blast, one of history’s largest non-nuclear explosions, had been stalled since December 2021 as a series of complaints against Bitar obstructed his work.

The official said Monday Bitar has ordered the release of five detained suspects and pressed charges against eight others, setting dates for their questioning.

Among those charged were Abbas Ibrahim, General Security director general, State Security agency chief Tony Saliba, and other security officials, politicians and judges.

Embattled judge Bitar had previously sought permission to question both Ibrahim and Saliba.

Lebanon’s former head of customs, Shafiq Merhi, was one of those released.

Despite the surprise decision, Bitar continues to face immense pressure, which lawyer and activist Nizar Saghieh said there was “no doubt” would persist “to halt his work”.

“Bitar is waging a battle against the policy of impunity” in Lebanon, Saghieh told AFP.

Bitar was forced to suspend his probe after a barrage of complaints, mainly from politicians he had summoned on charges of negligence.

They include several ex-ministers, two of whom were hit with arrest warrants after they failed to show up for questioning.

“Bitar conducted a legal study that led him to decide to resume his investigations despite the complaints filed against him,” the official said.

Lebanon’s powerful Shiite group Hizbollah had repeatedly demanded he step down on grounds of political bias.

No state official has yet been held accountable over the blast, while foreign countries and international bodies had called for the probe to resume.

‘Ruled by a mafia’ 

Bitar met last week with two French judges to discuss the investigation, a judicial source told AFP at the time, adding he did not share any information with them.

France had launched its own probe into the blast, which killed two of its citizens and wounded 93.

In Lebanon, state institutions have been reluctant to cooperate with the domestic probe, which began the same month as the explosion.

In February 2021, Bitar’s predecessor as lead judge was removed from the case after he had charged high-level politicians.

Parliament has refused to lift immunity granted to lawmakers, and Bitar’s requests to interrogate top security officials have been turned down.

The interior ministry has also failed to execute arrest warrants issued by Bitar, further undermining his quest for accountability.

The August 4, 2020 explosion at the Beirut port killed more than 215 people and destroyed swathes of the capital.

Authorities said hundreds of tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser haphazardly stocked in a port warehouse since 2014 had caught fire, causing the explosion.

The victims’ families have been holding monthly vigils for more than two years, seeking justice and accountability.

“It was time for judge Bitar to resume his work,” said Tatiana Hasrouty, whose father died in the blast.

“We are ruled by a mafia, and all those charged by Bitar are part of that mafia,” she told AFP, saying she expects more hurdles in questioning officials.

Some in Lebanon have also voiced support for an international probe into the tragedy.

In a joint letter sent to the United Nations Human Rights Council in 2021, rights groups and relatives of blast victims had said “flagrant political interference, immunity for high-level political officials, and lack of respect for fair trial” have rendered the probe incapable of delivering

ALEPPO, Syria — A building collapsed on Sunday in Syria’s war-damaged second city of Aleppo, killing 16 people including children, with the search for survivors extending into the night.

Much of Aleppo was destroyed during Syria’s conflict that began nearly 12 years ago and left many of the remaining structures in a decrepit state.

“The number of victims of the residential building collapse... has risen to 16 dead,” said state news agency SANA. A war monitor said they were Syrians who had been displaced during the war.

Four people were rescued alive from the rubble, SANA reported, saying they were injured.

It gave earlier on Sunday an initial death toll of 10 people that increased throughout the day.

Dozens of rescue workers toiled at the site as darkness fell, an AFP correspondent said, and some used their bare hands to dig into the grey rubble.

Earth movers scooped up the pieces of building material, sending dust into the air, the correspondent added.

A Kurdish news agency reported five children were among the dead. One of them was an infant, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

According to the interior ministry, the five-storey building was home to seven families. Locals told AFP about 35 people lived there.

Buildings in Aleppo, Syria’s pre-war commercial hub, often collapse due to the dilapidated infrastructure as well as little oversight to ensure safety of new construction projects, some built illegally.

SANA quoted a police source as saying that the building, in the city’s Sheikh Maksoud neighbourhood, had collapsed “due to a water leak” in the foundations.

The neighbourhood is predominantly inhabited by Syrian Kurds who are under the authority of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia, part of the Kurdish authorities’ de facto army.

Aleppo itself is, however, under control of the government which took it back from rebels during devastating urban combat.

The British-based Syrian Observatory reported the victims were displaced people from Afrin, further north, where neighbouring Turkey carried out an offensive in 2018.

Nearly half a million people have been killed in Syria’s conflict which began in 2011 and displaced about half of the country’s pre-war population.

Many of those forced from their homes had to move into buildings that are structurally unsound, resulting in relatively frequent collapses.

Last September, a building collapse in the Ferdaws neighbourhood of Aleppo killed 10 people, including three children.

A war-damaged block of flats also crumbled in the city in February 2019, leaving 11 people dead with four children among them.

MOGADISHU — At least six people were killed on Sunday in an attack by Al Shabaab militants at the mayor’s office in central Mogadishu, police said.

A suicide bomber set off a huge blast that tore through building near the office complex with gunfire erupting afterwards, Somali police spokesman Sadik Dudishe said at the end of the four-hour siege.

“All the six attackers died. Five of them during the fire exchange with the security forces and one of them detonated himself,” Dudishe told reporters.

“Six civilians also died during the attack and the situation is back to normal.”

All the staffers at the mayor’s office were rescued, the police added.

Al Shabaab, a militant group allied with Al Qaeda claimed, responsibility for the attack via its communication channels, saying its fighters “made their way inside the targeted building after killing the security guards”.

Witnesses said the initial explosion damaged nearby buildings and gunfire could be heard in the vicinity of the mayor’s office.

The area was quickly cordoned off by security officers, a witness who runs a business near the offices said.

Another witness, Omar Nur, said he was inside a nearby mall when the explosion went off and “was lucky to have escaped safely”.

The Al Shabaab militants have been waging a bloody insurgency against the frail internationally backed central government for 15 years, carrying out attacks both in Somalia and neighbouring countries.

Major offensive 

The latest attack comes days after seven soldiers were killed on Friday at a military camp in Galcad, a town in central Somalia about 375 kilometres north of the capital Mogadishu.

The US military said on Saturday the attack — in the Somali town retaken by the army this week — involved more than 100 Al Shabaab terrorists.

“The combined actions by partner forces on the ground and the collective self-defence strike is estimated to have resulted in three destroyed vehicles and approximately thirty Al Shabaab militants killed” the US military command for Africa (AFRICOM) said in a statement.

In recent months, the Somali army and local clan militias have mounted a major offensive against the terrorist group, retaking swathes of territory in the centre of the country in an operation backed by US air strikes and an African Union force.

But despite the gains by the pro-government forces, the offensive has drawn retribution and the militants have continued to demonstrate the ability to strike back with lethal force against civilian and military targets.

On Tuesday, Al Shabaab launched a deadly attack on a military base in another part of central Somalia, just a day after the government claimed a “historic victory” over the militants.

Last week, eight people were killed in a roadside bombing claimed by Al Shabaab in central Somalia, police said. Earlier this month, 19 people were killed in twin car bombings in Mahas, a town in Hiran district in Hirshabelle.

Although forced out of Mogadishu and other main urban centres more than a decade ago, Al Shabaab remains entrenched in parts of rural central and southern Somalia.

In the deadliest Al Shabaab attack since the offensive was launched last year, 121 people were killed in two car bomb explosions at the education ministry in Mogadishu in October.

The group has also been active recently across the border in eastern Kenya, which is a contributor to the African Union force in Somalia, carrying out several deadly small-scale attacks.

TRIPOLI — Major Arab states boycotted a ministerial meeting hosted by Libya's interim government on Sunday, with just five of the Arab League's 22 members sending their top diplomats and even the bloc's secretary general staying away.

The snub underlines Arab divisions over the Tripoli-based government, whose legitimacy is contested by a rival administration in the war-scarred country's east.

Regional heavyweights Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were not represented at all at the gathering — a preparatory session ahead of a foreign ministers' meeting in Cairo.

Four members sent lower-ranking ministers or ambassadors while Arab League chief Ahmed Aboul Gheit was also absent.

Najla Al Mangoush, foreign minister in the Tripoli-based administration, condemned what she called "attempts by certain sides to crush Libyans' desire to transform Arab solidarity into a reality".

Libya, which holds the rotating presidency of the organisation, is "determined to play its role in the Arab League [and] rejects any attempt to politicise the League's founding documents", she said.

Libya fell into a decade of violence following the 2011 overthrow of dictator Muammar Qadhafi in a NATO-backed rebellion.

The resulting power grab gave rise to myriad home-grown militias and prompted interventions by Arab powers as well as Turkey, Russia and Western states.

Since March last year, an administration in Libya's east backed by military leader Khalifa Haftar — who has been close to Russia and Egypt — has challenged the government of Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah, arguing it has outlived its mandate.

The head of the rival government thanked Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE for "declining to take part in the theatrics through which the expired government tried to portray itself as being internationally recognised."

In a tweet, Fathi Bashagha also urged Libya's western neighbours Algeria and Tunisia, who did send foreign ministers to the meeting, to "review their policies towards Libya and not to be fooled by a government whose mandate has ended".

The Tripoli-based unity government was the product of a United Nations-mediated peace process following the country's last major battle in 2020.

MOGADISHU — An Al Shabaab attack killed seven soldiers on Friday at a military camp in a Somali town retaken by the army this week in a major offensive against the extremist group, the government said.

The information ministry said a senior special forces commander was among those killed after the Islamist militants stormed the base in Galcad, a town in central Somalia about 375 kilometres north of the capital Mogadishu.

More than 100 fighters from the Al Qaeda affiliated group were killed, it added.

The information could not be independently verified.

“There was heavy fighting there in which the [extremists] were defeated,” the ministry said.

“Seven soldiers among them a military commander from the Danab brigade [an elite commando unit] were martyred in the fighting and the site is now under the full control of the Somali forces.”

Al Shabaab said it was behind the attack and claimed a large number of casualties.

“The Shabaab gunmen blasted two trucks loaded with explosives before face-to-face fighting started,” Abdilahi Rage, a resident of Galcad, told AFP by telephone.

“They briefly managed to push back the troops out of the camp, but reinforcements came and they have retreated.”

On Tuesday, Al Shabaab launched a deadly attack on a military base in another part of central Somalia, just a day after the government claimed a “historic victory” over the militants.

In a significant blow to Al Shabaab, the Somali National Army and local clan militias on Monday captured the strategic Indian Ocean town of Haradhere as well as Galcad, both without a fight.

Haradhere had been a key supply route for Al Shabaab for both people and goods after it seized the port in 2010, dislodging local militias and pirates.

In recent months, the army and the militias known as “Macawisley” have retaken chunks of territory in the central Galmudug and Hirshabelle states in an operation backed by US air strikes and an African Union force.

Al Shabaab has been waging a bloody insurgency against the central government in the fragile Horn of Africa nation for about 15 years.

And despite the gains by the pro-government forces, the militants have continued to demonstrate the ability to strike back with lethal force against civilian and military targets.

“Galcad is a significant attack given the scale of violence and overall casualties, but also as it occurred in an area government forces had recently seized,” International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for eastern Africa, Omar Mahmood, told AFP.

“Notably, the militants also targeted an area where Somali special forces where located.”

New phase of offensive 

On Tuesday, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, who declared “all-out war” on the extremists after taking office in May last year, said the offensive would expand to South West State.

“Somalis have just one enemy and that enemy is Al Shabaab. They are killing us and we are killing them,” he said, calling on young men fighting with the group to surrender.

“The government has plans to liberate the whole country from Al Shabaab,” he added. “The first phase is nearing completion, and the second phase will begin in the South West State of Somalia.”

Last week, he had called on ordinary Somalis to rise up against the militants, describing them as “bedbugs”.

Although forced out of Mogadishu and other main urban centres more than a decade ago, Al Shabaab remains entrenched in parts of rural central and southern Somalia.

In the deadliest Al Shabaab attack since the offensive was launched last year, 121 people were killed in two car bomb explosions at the education ministry in Mogadishu in October.

The group has also been active recently across the border in eastern Kenya, which is a contributor to the African Union force in Somalia, carrying out several deadly small-scale attacks.

ADEN — “To be, or not to be”: On a stage in Yemen, William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” rings out in Arabic, a tragedy that resonates with an audience suffering from years of civil war.

In the government-controlled city of Aden, battered by the conflict, the first performance of a Shakespeare play in many years has resurrected hopes of a cultural revival.

“We are hungry for these kinds of events,” said Heba Al Bakri, watching one of a sold-out run of 10 shows. “Our people are always distressed and exhausted, so we need this kind of entertainment.”

As the actors took their bows, applause roared out and the audience rose for a standing ovation.

The savage bloodshed, murder, revenge, power struggles and moral dilemmas told in the famous tragedy by the English playwright were written over 400 years ago -- but on stage in Yemen today, the play holds power.

Yemen, the poorest country on the Arabian peninsula, has been at war since 2014 when Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized the capital Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led coalition to intervene the following year.

The country has been left in ruins, hundreds of thousands of people have died, and many more have been pushed to the brink of famine.

‘Dream realised’ 

Director Amr Gamal, founder of the Khaleej Aden Theatre Troupe, feared there might have been only “limited interest”, but is now planning a second round of shows after its success.

The three-hour performance has gripped the audience.

“They do not leave the room before the play ends”, said Gamal, who also directed the feature film “Ten Days Before the Wedding”, a love story which Yemen named as their official submission to the 2018 Oscars.

Yemen, renowned for its rich cultural heritage, has a long history of performing Shakespeare in Arabic dating back over a century.

In this version, “Hamlet” was translated first into classical Arabic and then into Aden’s dialect to provide it with a unique Yemeni twist.

Including characters wearing traditional Yemeni dress, it has turned a centuries-old tale into a platform to reflect on the troubled times in the country today.

“It is an old dream realised after years of work”, said assistant director Marwan Mafraq, noting the “lack of resources” in Yemen had led to a “very tight space” for artistic production.

Backed by the British Council, a cultural and educational organisation, the play is being performed in a former government building dating to when the southern port city was a British colony.

For the past two years, the cast in Aden received support via video-link from Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London and the Volcano Theatre in Wales.

The British Council said the “Hamlet” production showed its commitment to “building the capacity of young Yemenis to creatively express themselves”.

‘Sow love and peace’ 

But putting on the play posed not only logistical challenges.

Nour Zaker, who plays the tragic character of Ophelia, said she had to both learn a challenging role on stage and overcome social taboos against female actors in the conservative country.

“I faced many difficulties as a woman in Aden,” she said.

“My family did not object, but it was difficult because... society does not easily accept these things.”

But her audience -- which included women wearing the face-covering niqab veil, common in Yemen -- were receptive.

For those watching and those on stage, the hope is “Hamlet” may help start a wider revival.

“As artists, we always have the hope that there will be great cultural productions, theatrical or cinematographic, which highlight Yemeni culture,” said actor Omar Majalad, who plays Hamlet’s friend Guildenstern.

“We hope that there will be more attention given to art and music,” said university student Fadi Abdulmalik, after watching a performance.

“This will sow love and peace in Yemen.”

BEIRUT — A drone attack hit a US-led coalition base in southern Syria on Friday, the US military's Central Command said, with a war monitor saying it was launched by Iran-backed groups.

"Three one-way attack drones attacked the Al-Tanf Garrison in Syria," a CENTCOM statement said.

Two of the drones were shot down by the coalition, but the third hit the compound, wounding two allied Syrian fighters, the statement added.

"Attacks of this kind are unacceptable," CENTCOM spokesperson Joe Buccino said, without specifying who carried it out.

"They place our troops and our partners at risk and jeopardise the fight against the Daesh terror group."

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was likely that Iran-backed militants had launched the attack.

Iran-backed forces are deployed in close proximity to Al Tanf, a desert garrison on the strategically important Baghdad-Damascus highway, near the border with Iraq and Jordan.

Iran is a key ally of the Syrian government and the coalition has disrupted similar attacks on Al Tanf in the past.

The coalition set up the base in 2016 to train Syrian fighters for the war against the Islamic State group.

It retained the facility even after the extremists’ last Syrian outpost was overrun by Kurdish-led forces in March 2019.

Hundreds of US troops remain at Al Tanf and other bases in the Kurdish-controlled northeast as part of the coalition’s continuing campaign against Daesh remnants.

ALBU BALI, Iraq — The attack came after sunset in the quiet Iraqi village of Albu Bali when Daesh group gunmen drove into town and unleashed fire with automatic rifles.

"I heard the shots, I went out and I saw my nephew lying on the ground," recalled Ali Menwar about the deadly violence that shattered the local calm on December 19.

The group of Sunni Muslim extremists "arrived at about 8:15pm and started firing randomly", said another local from the mainly Shiite village, Abbas Mazhar Hussein, 34.

As Menwar rushed inside, bullets smashed into the wall around him and two grazed his neck, which now bears angry red scars, before he could slam the gate shut behind him.

Others were less lucky in the village of 5,000 people, about 70 kilometres north of the capital Baghdad.

"My son, my grandson and my cousins fell as martyrs," said Menwar's neighbour Jabbar Alwan, his eyes welling up with tears.

"It's very painful," said the elderly man, who lost four relatives. "We didn't expect this."

When it was all over, eight people lay dead and another six were wounded in Albu Bali.

None of the attackers have been caught.

Fear of reprisals

Iraq has come a long way since major fighting ended over five years ago against Daesh, putting an end to their self-declared "caliphate" which once stretched across swathes of Iraq and Syria.

After a gruelling urban battle in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, forces backed by a US-led coalition declared victory over Daesh in the country in late 2017.

But periodic attacks still claim lives among Iraq's war-weary citizens who have endured decades of conflict which flared especially after a 2003 US-led invasion toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.

An Daesh ambush last December 18 killed nine federal policemen in Kirkuk, 100 kilometres north of Baghdad — but all too often it is civilians who fall victim.

The residents of Albu Bali, like the majority of Iraqis, are predominantly Shiites, a branch of Islam that the Sunni extremists of Daesh consider apostates and label "rawafid" or "rejectors".

Claiming the bloody attack on the Telegram messaging service, Daesh did not refer to civilians but claimed it had targeted "rawafid militiamen", a term used to describe members of the Shiite-led former paramilitary group Hashed Al Shaabi.

Sheikh Khalis Rashid, the local chief, said Iraq's Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani had called him after the attack and "begged me to prevent any" violent reprisal.

Such reprisals would likely have taken the form of attacks on nearby Sunni-majority villages sometimes accused of providing a safe haven to the extremists, the local chief said.

'Gangster operations'

According to a police colonel who asked not to be named, "the terrorists hide in the countryside and continue to attack sporadically".

The municipality of Al Khalis, where Albu Bali is located, is used as a "transit" zone for extremists, explained mayor UdayAl Khadran.

The surrounding Diyala province and neighbouring Salaheddin are crossroads for extremists to the northern autonomous Kurdistan region, which according to Khadran "is not secure".

A United Nations report last July estimated that "between 6,000 and 10,000" Daeshfighters remained across Iraq and Syria, "concentrated mostly in rural areas".

According to Khadran, the group "no longer conducts military operations or seizes territory".

Instead, he labelledDaesh attacks as "gangster operations", noting that while there were security forces in the village at the time of the attack, there were not enough military forces.

Since the bloody attack on Albu Bali, nearly 200 army, police and Hashed forces have been stationed there, and surveillance cameras have been installed, said the police colonel.

But Alwan, the bereaved resident, said the villagers now live in fear of "another incident" and predicted grimly that "this was not the last one".

BASRA, Iraq — One person was killed and dozens injured Thursday when a stampede broke out outside a football stadium in Iraq hours before the Gulf Cup final, officials said.

Long banned from hosting international football matches, war-torn Iraq had been counting on the Gulf Cup to burnish its image but it had already been forced to apologise for organisational lapses.

Thousands of fans, many without tickets, had gathered outside the 65,000-seater stadium in Iraq's main southern city of Basra since dawn in the hope of watching the final between Iraq and Oman.

"There has been one death and dozens of slight injuries," a medic said.

An interior ministry official gave the same toll. "A large number of fans, many of them without tickets, had gathered since first light to try to get in," the official said.

An AFP photographer inside the stadium said the turnstiles were still closed when the crush occurred. Sirens blared as ambulances arrived to ferry the injured to hospital.

Images posted on social media showed a sea of people outside the stadium.

Fans began arriving again in the afternoon as calm was restored to Basra International Stadium, said interior ministry spokesman Saad Maan.

The gates were closed after fans entered the arena, many of them waving Iraqi flags ahead of the match that the football federation confirmed would begin at 7:00 pm (1400 GMT).

'Doing honour to Iraq' 

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani had earlier chaired a meeting with key ministers and the governor of Basra to discuss "special measures for the Gulf Cup final", his office said.

The Iraqi leader headed to Basra to oversee the situation on the ground, it added.

The army called on fans to heed the instructions of security force personnel on access to the stadium to allow the championship to be “wrapped up in a civilised fashion that does honour to Iraq”.

Iraq has been the scene of deadly stampedes in the past, most recently in Karbala during the Ashura commemorations of 2019, when 31 people died.

Football is by far Iraq’s biggest spectator sport and the rare opportunity to see home international games has drawn thousands of fans.

The tournament has also attracted thousands of foreign fans who crossed from neighbouring Kuwait to see the games in Basra, little more than 50 kilometres from the border.

The Gulf Cup is contested by Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen as well as Iraq.

This year makes its 25th edition but it is the first time Iraq has hosted it since 1979, the same year Saddam Hussein took power.

Saddam’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait triggered a ban on Iraq by world football’s governing body FIFA.

Other bans followed sporadically until early last year because of Iraq’s years of war and instability.

But despite Iraq’s determination to prove it can safely host international sports event, the tournament has been plagued by logistical difficulties that have seen fans with tickets as well as accredited journalists turned away.

Iraq was forced to apologise to its neighbour Kuwait after a scuffle in the VIP section prevented its leader’s representative from attending the opening ceremony.