Region

HASAKEH, Syria — Fighting raged in Syria for a fourth day Sunday between US-backed Kurdish forces and the Daesh terror group extremists who have attacked a prison, killing 136 people including civilians, a war monitor said.

More than 100 insurgents late Thursday attacked the Kurdish-run Ghwayran jail in Hasakeh city to free fellow extremists, in the most significant Daesh operation since its self-declared caliphate was defeated in Syria nearly three years ago.

Intense fighting since then has seen the militants free detainees and seize weapons stored at the jail, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in what experts see as a bold Daesh attempt to regroup.

“At least 84 Daesh members and 45 Kurdish fighters, including internal security forces, prison guards and counterterrorism forces, have been killed” inside and outside the prison since the start of the attack, the observatory said.

Seven civilians have also died in the fighting in the northeastern city, it added.

The battles continued on Sunday as the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by coalition strikes, closed in on extremist targets inside and outside the facility.

The SDF said in a statement its forces sealed off the area around the jail and that “Daesh fighters located within the gates of the prison can no longer escape”.

According to the observatory, the SDF have secured most of area and much of the facility itself with the exception of some cell blocks where holdout extremists have yet to surrender.

‘A miracle we 

made it out’ 

An AFP correspondent in the city’s Ghwayran neighbourhood reported the sound of heavy shelling in areas immediately surrounding the jail, which houses at least 3,500 suspected Daesh members.

The SDF deployed heavily in areas around the prison where they carried out combing operations and used loudspeakers to call on holdout extremists to surrender, the correspondent said.

Daesh fighters “are entering homes and killing people”, said a civilian in his thirties who was fleeing on foot.

“It was a miracle that we made it out,” he told AFP, carrying an infant wrapped in a wool blanket.

“The situation is still very bad. After four days, violent clashes are still ongoing.”

Hamsha Sweidan, 80, who had been trapped in her neighbourhood near the jail, said civilians were left without bread or water as the battle raged.

“We have been dying of hunger and of thirst,” she told AFP as she crossed into SDF-held areas in Hasakeh city. “Now, we don’t know where to go.”

Daesh has carried out regular attacks against Kurdish and government targets in Syria since the rump of its once-sprawling proto-state was overrun in March 2019.

Most of their guerrilla attacks have been against military targets and oil installations in remote areas, but the Hasakeh prison break could mark a new phase in the group’s resurgence.

Weapons and captives 

The observatory said that Kurdish forces had managed to recapture more than 100 Daesh detainees who had tried to escape, but that many more were still on the run. Their exact numbers remained unclear.

Daesh, in a statement released on its Amaq propaganda arm overnight, claimed that it took over a weapons storage room in the prison and freed hundreds of fellow extremists since the operation began with a double suicide bombing.

A video it released on Amaq purported to show Daesh fighters carrying the group’s black flag as they launched the attack on the facility and surrounded what appears to be a group of prison guards.

A second video released Saturday showed nearly 25 men whom Daesh said it had abducted as part of the attack, including some dressed in military fatigues.

AFP could not independently verify the authenticity of the footage.

Commenting on the video, the SDF said the captives were “kitchen staff” from the jail.

“Our forces lost contact with them during the first attack,” it said in a statement, without elaborating.

The Kurdish authorities have long warned they do not have the capacity to hold, let alone put on trial, the thousands of Daesh fighters captured in years of operations.

According to Kurdish authorities, more than 50 nationalities are represented in a number of Kurdish-run prisons, where over 12,000 Daesh suspects are now being held.

Many of the Daesh prisoners’ countries of origins have been reluctant to repatriate them, fearing a public backlash at home.

CAIRO — The Arab League on Sunday said Yemen's Iran-backed Houthi rebels should be labelled as a "terrorist" group after they attacked the United Arab Emirates.

On January 17, the Houthis claimed a drone and missile attack that struck an oil facility and the airport in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi, killing three people and wounding six.

It was the first deadly assault acknowledged by the UAE inside its borders and claimed by the Yemeni insurgents during a seven-year Saudi-led coalition campaign against the rebels.

The pan-Arab bloc, based in the Egyptian capital, said the Houthis should be designated "as a terrorist organisation" after the attack.

In a statement following an extraordinary meeting, it called the strikes "a flagrant violation of international law... and a real threat to vital civilian installations, energy supplies, and global economic stability," as well as a threat to regional peace and security.

Former US president Donald Trump designated the Houthis as a terrorist movement but the administration of President Joe Biden removed the group in response to fears from aid groups responding to what the UN calls the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

Biden's administration has, however, sanctioned individual Houthi figures.

On Friday, the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the Houthi strikes on the UAE, whose UN ambassador denounced "these terrorist attacks".

The UAE is a non-permanent member of the Council.

The Emirates have had a major role in the Saudi-led coalition defending the internationally-recognised government of Yemen against the Houthis. Although it announced a troop withdrawal from Yemen in 2019, the UAE has remained involved by supporting and training forces there.

On Saturday the coalition denied carrying out an air strike on a prison in Yemen’s rebel-held north that aid groups said killed at least 70 people, including migrants, women and children.

The UN has estimated Yemen’s conflict would have killed 377,000 people by the end of 2021, both directly and indirectly through hunger and disease.

BEIRUT — Kuwait's foreign minister said on Sunday that he has given Lebanese authorities a list of suggested measures to be taken to ease a diplomatic rift with Gulf Arab countries.

The proposal were delivered to Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati and President Michel Aoun during a visit by Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Ahmed Nasser Al Mohammed Al Sabah, the first to Lebanon by a senior Gulf official since a spat erupted last year.

The visit, coordinated with Gulf Arab states, is part of wider efforts to restore trust between Lebanon and its Gulf Arab neighbours as the country grapples with an unprecedented financial crisis.

A list "of ideas and suggestions was presented yesterday and mentioned again today to the president", Sheikh Ahmed told reporters on Sunday after meeting with Aoun.

"We are now waiting for a response from them on these suggestions," he added, refusing to elaborate on the proposed steps.

Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib will visit Kuwait at the end of the month, Sheikh Ahmed said.

Mikati was also invited to visit the oil-rich emirate, he added, without specifying a date.

In October, Saudi Arabia and its allies suspended diplomatic ties with Lebanon after the airing of comments by then information minister Georges Kordahi criticising a Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen.

Kuwait recalled its ambassador from Beirut and also asked Beirut’s charge d’affaires to leave the emirate.

Last month, Kordahi resigned in a bid to ease the stand-off and French President Emmanuel Macron said Paris and Riyadh had agreed to fully engage to restore diplomatic ties.

But tensions have persisted, mainly over the powerful Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbollah, which is backed by Saudi’s arch-rival Iran.

Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Beirut called on Lebanese political parties to “end Hizbollah’s terrorist hegemony over every aspect of the state”.

TRIPOLI — Libya’s interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah on Sunday called for a constitution to be established before holding delayed presidential and parliamentary elections.

“Now more than ever we need a constitution that protects the country and its citizens, and that governs the elections,” Dbeibah said.

Libya collapsed into years of violence after the 2011 overthrow and killing, during a NATO-backed revolt, of dictator Muammar Qadhafi who scrapped the country’s constitution in 1969.

Rival power bases and administrations arose in the country’s east and west.

After a landmark ceasefire in 2020, a United Nations-led process saw elections scheduled for December 24 last year, but the polls were postponed after months of tensions, including over divisive candidates and a disputed legal framework.

Libyans “want free elections that respect their will, not the extension of the crisis with a new transition”, Dbeibah told a symposium in the capital Tripoli titled: “The constitution first”.

“Our problem today is the absence of a constitutional base or of a constitution,” he said.

The event brought together high-profile figures from Libya’s west including Khaled el-Mechri, who heads the High Council of State — a Tripoli-based body that is equivalent to Libya’s senate and rivals the House of Representatives, based in the eastern city of Tobruk.

“Certain parties have worsened the crisis” with “tailor-made” laws favouring certain candidates over others, Dbeibah charged, referring to House speaker Aguila Saleh’s September decision to ratify a contentious electoral law.

Critics said the move bypassed due process and favoured a bid by Saleh’s ally, eastern-based strongman Khalifa Haftar.

Dbeibah, Saleh and Haftar all put their names forward for the presidential vote.

An official from the elected commission in charge of drafting a new constitution, Daou Al Mansouri, told Sunday’s symposium that the body had in July 2017 submitted a draft constitution to the House.

The draft was supposed to be put to a referendum, which has never been organised.

Saleh on Tuesday proposed establishing a new commission of Libyan and foreign experts to draw up a new draft constitution.

HASAKEH, Syria — Fighting raged for a third day Saturday between the Daesh terror group and Kurdish forces in Syria after Daesh attacked a prison housing extremists, with the violence killing nearly 90, a monitor said.

The assault on the Ghwayran prison in the northern city of Hasakeh is one of Daesh's most significant since its "caliphate" was declared defeated in Syria nearly three years ago.

"At least 28 members of the Kurdish security forces, five civilians and 56 members of Daesh have been killed" in the violence, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Daesh launched the attack on Thursday night against the prison housing at least 3,500 suspected members of the extremist group, including some of its leaders, said the observatory.

The extremists "seized weapons they found" in the detention centre and freed several fellow Daesh fighters, said the Britain-based monitor, which relies on sources inside war-torn Syria for its information.

Hundreds of extremist inmates had since been recaptured but dozens were still believed to be on the loose, the observatory said.

With the backing of US-led coalition aircraft, Kurdish security forces have encircled the prison and are battling to retake full control of surrounding neighbourhoods, which extremists have used as a launching pad for their attacks.

The Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Saturday said “fierce clashes” broke out in neighbourhoods north of Ghwayran, where it carried out raids and killed more than 20 Daesh fighters.

It said it seized explosive belts, weapons and artillery held by extremists.

 ‘Fat target’ 

The battles have triggered a civilian exodus from neighbourhoods around Ghwayran, with families fleeing for a third consecutive day in the harsh winter cold as Kurdish forces closed in on Daesh targets.

“Thousands have left their homes near the prison, fleeing to nearby areas where their relatives live,” Sheikhmous Ahmed, an official in the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration, told AFP.

Daesh has carried out regular attacks against Kurdish and government targets in Syria since the rump of its once-sprawling proto-state was overrun in March 2019.

Most of their guerrilla attacks have been against military targets and oil installations in remote areas, but the Hasakeh Prison break could mark a new phase in the group’s resurgence.

Daesh said in a statement released on Friday by its Amaq news agency that its attack on the jail aimed to “free the prisoners”.

It was not immediately clear whether the prison break was part of a centrally coordinated operation, timed to coincide with an attack on a military base in neighbouring Iraq, or the action of a local Daesh cell.

Analyst Nicholas Heras of the Newlines Institute in Washington said the extremist group targeted the prison to bolster its numbers.

Daesh “wants to move beyond being the terrorist and criminal network that it has devolved into, and to do that it needs more fighters”, he told AFP.

‘Comprehensive strategy’ 

The prospect of a repeat of the attack remains very real, said Colin Clarke, research director at the New York-based Soufan Centre think tank.

“The SDF needs a comprehensive strategy to deal with this threat,” he said.

The Kurdish authorities have long warned they do not have the capacity to hold, let alone put on trial, the thousands of Daesh fighters captured in years of operations.

According to Kurdish authorities, more than 50 nationalities are represented in a number of Kurdish-run prisons, where more than 12,000 Daesh suspects are now held.

Many of the Daesh prisoners’ countries of origins have been reluctant to repatriate them, fearing a public backlash at home.

Abdulkarim Omar, the semi-autonomous administration’s top foreign policy official, blamed the prison attack on the “international community’s failure to shoulder its responsibilities”.

The war in Syria broke out in 2011 and has since killed close to half a million people and spurred the largest conflict-induced displacement since World War II.

SAADA, Yemen — The Saudi-led coalition on Saturday denied carrying out an air strike on a prison in Yemen's rebel-held north that aid groups said killed at least 70 people, including migrants, women and children.

Claims the coalition ordered the raid, which reduced buildings to rubble and left rescuers scrabbling for survivors with their bare hands, were "groundless", the alliance said.

The attack, which coincided with a coalition strike on the Yemeni port of Hodeida that knocked out the impoverished country's internet, was condemned by UN chief Antonio Guterres.

But “these claims adopted by the militia are baseless and unfounded,” said coalition spokesperson Turki Al Malki, referring to the Iran-backed rebels.

This week has witnessed a dramatic upswing in the conflict that has already killed tens of thousands of people and displaced millions, creating what the UN calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

The rebels took the capital Sanaa in 2014, prompting the Saudi-led intervention, supported by the US, France and Britain, in March 2015. It was intended to last just a few weeks.

The latest violence came after the Houthi rebels on Monday claimed their first deadly attack on Abu Dhabi, capital of coalition partner the United Arab Emirates, taking the conflict into a new phase.

The drone and missile attack, which killed three people, was the first deadly assault the UAE has acknowledged inside its borders, and prompted threats of reprisals.

‘Horrific act of violence’ 

The internet blackout, which went into its second day on Saturday according to web monitor NetBlocks, complicated rescue work and media reporting as information slowed to a trickle.

“The nation-scale Internet disruption in Yemen is ongoing with no indication of recovery,” NetBlocks said.

Unverified footage released by the Houthis revealled gruesome scenes at the bombed-out prison facility, as rescue workers scrambled to dig out bodies and mangled corpses were placed in piles.

Eight aid agencies operating in Yemen said in a joint statement that the prison in Saada, the rebels’ home base, was used as a holding centre for migrants, who made up many of the casualties.

They said they were “horrified by the news that more than 70 people, including migrants, women and children, have been killed... in a blatant disregard for civilian lives”.

Hospitals were overwhelmed as hundreds of casualties flooded in, aid workers said.

“It is impossible to know how many people have been killed. It seems to have been a horrific act of violence,” said Ahmed Mahat, Doctors Without Borders’ head of mission in Yemen.

Meeting on Friday, the UN Security Council unanimously condemned the “heinous terrorist attacks” on Abu Dhabi, but the council’s Norwegian presidency also denounced the strikes on Yemen.

In a later statement, the UN chief reminded “all parties that attacks directed against civilians and civilian infrastructure are prohibited by international humanitarian law”.

‘Destruction 

of the country’ 

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken called for “all parties to the conflict to de-escalate” and “abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law”.

Iran on Saturday also condemned recent air strikes on Houthi-held areas, warning they have “made the path to achieve a just peace in the country even more difficult”, foreign ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said.

Saudi Arabia accuses regional rival Iran of providing military support to the Houthis, especially missiles and rockets, claims that Tehran denies.

Khatibzadeh said there was a lack of “serious determination to advance the political settlement of the Yemeni crisis”, warning it would lead to the “destruction of the country and instability in the region”.

The Houthis have warned foreign companies to leave the “unsafe” UAE, a veiled threat of revenge attacks after Friday’s strikes.

“We advise the foreign companies in Emirates to leave because they invest in an unsafe country and the rulers of this country continue in their aggression against Yemen,” warned Houthi military spokesperson Yahya Saree.

CAIRO — The Arab League has announced it is delaying its annual summit scheduled for March 22 in Algiers because of COVID-19 after two years of cancellations due to the pandemic.

"Every year, the summit is held in March, but this year, there has been a delay," the pan-Arab organisation's assistant secretary general, Hossam Zaki, said in televised remarks on Friday, a week after returning to Cairo from a visit to Algiers.

The last Arab League summit was held in Tunis in March 2019. The past two years' gatherings have been cancelled due to the pandemic.

Zaki added that Algeria "preferred the option" of delaying the summit, noting that the critical mass of Arab leaders and high-ranking officials needed for the summit could not be guaranteed due to the public health situation.

Arab foreign ministers are expected to announce a new date for the summit during their scheduled meeting on March 9, Zaki said.

Zaki said that there were “no political reasons” behind the delay, but the time could be used to “improve political climates” in the region.

The summit is important for Algeria, which has been seeking to expand its political sphere of influence, against the backdrop of heightened tensions with Morocco.

No agenda has been announced for this year’s summit, but the Arab world remains plagued with multiple conflicts and crises.

These extend from the war in Yemen, which has killed nearly 400,000 people since 2015, to the 2021 coup in Sudan that resulted in its suspension from the African Union, as well as protracted crises in Libya, Lebanon and beyond.


PARIS — A Frenchman held in Iran for over a year and a half on spying charges, which his family has rejected, went on trial on Thursday severely weakened by a hunger strike, his family and lawyer said.

Benjamin Briere, 36, was arrested in May 2020 while travelling in Iran. He began the hunger strike in December to protest, among other issues, the lack of any serious advance in the proceedings.

His family says he is an innocent tourist unknowingly caught up as global powers including France and the US seek to negotiate with Tehran a revival of a 2015 deal over its nuclear programme.

"We have very little information, all we know is that the hearing took place and that a verdict will be issued on Saturday," his sister Blandine Briere told AFP.

She added that an Iranian lawyer representing her brother and an interpreter were present for the hearing.

According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the hearing took place in branch four of the Revolutionary Court in the eastern city of Mashhad, where Briere is being held.

His Paris-based lawyer, Philippe Valent, said in a statement Wednesday that Briere was "very weakened" by his hunger strike, and had not been allowed to learn what specific charges had been brought against him.

Valent confirmed that the hearing had taken place and said a verdict was expected from Saturday, the first day of the week in Iran.

The HRANA said Briere was still on a hunger strike.

French-Iranian academic held 

He is one of over a dozen Western citizens held in Iran, described as hostages by activists who say they are innocent of any crime and detained at the behest of the powerful Revolutionary Guards to extract concessions from the West.

Nationals of all three European powers involved in the talks on the Iranian nuclear programme -- Britain, France and Germany -- are among the foreigners being held.

But Briere is the only Western detainee known to be currently held in Iran who does not also hold an Iranian passport.

Iran is also holding the French-Iranian academic Fariba Adelkhah, who was detained in June 2019 and sentenced to five years in prison in May 2020 on national security charges.

In October 2020, she was moved to house arrest but in a surprise development last week, Iran jailed her again, saying she had violated house arrest rules.

"She is in good physical condition but is not hiding her anger over her re-incarceration, which she considers unfounded," her support group said in statement late Wednesday.