Region

BEIRUT — Kurdish forces made dozens of arrests in a security operation launched Sunday in a camp for suspected family members of the Daesh terrror group militants in northeast Syria, a war monitor and Kurdish officials said.

Al Hol is the largest such settlement controlled by Kurdish authorities, who warn it is emerging as an extremist powder keg following dozens of murders in the camp since the start of the year.

It holds almost 62,000 people, mostly women and children, including Syrians, Iraqis and thousands from Europe and Asia suspected of family ties with Daesh fighters.

"More than thirty women and men have been arrested" in a sweeping anti-Daesh operation in and around Al Hol camp, said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"The arrests are ongoing" as part of a days-long operation by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is the Kurdish regional administration's main fighting force, the Kurdish YPG militia and a local police force, Abdul Rahman said.

Syrians and foreigners "suspected of supporting Daesh" have been arrested, he said.

SDF officials confirmed the operation, with one of them saying it would run at least 10 days.

The US-led coalition battling IS said it was providing its SDF partners with “intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance” support.

“The purpose of this SDF operation is to degrade and disrupt Daesh activities within the camp to ensure the safety and security of camp residents,” coalition spokesperson Wayne Marotto told AFP.

In a separate statement, the coalition said the Kurdish operation also aimed to “increase the ability for NGOs to safely provide the much needed assistance inside the camp”.

Danger ‘lives on’ 

The SDF and its coalition allies declared the defeat of a self-proclaimed Daesh “caliphate” in March 2019 after ousting extremists from their last Syria stronghold in the eastern village of Baghouz.

Many Daesh  fighters have since relocated to the vast Syrian desert near the border with Iraq, from where they continue to plan and execute attacks.

“The fall of the last patch of IS [Daesh] territory in northeast Syria does not mean complete defeat,” the SDF said this week in a ceremony marking two years since their victory against extremists in Baghouz.

“The danger of the Daesh group lives on in the thousands of prisoners held in jails as well as... their relatives detained in camps,” it added.

Many Al Hol residents see the camp as the last vestige of the Daesh proto-state that extremists declared in 2014 across large swathes of both Syria and Iraq.

The observatory has recorded around 40 murders in the camp since January.

Kurdish authorities say Daesh sympathisers are behind most of the murders, while humanitarian sources have said tribal disputes could be behind some of the killings.

Despite repeated calls by the UN and Kurdish authorities for countries to repatriate their nationals, only a small number of people, mostly children, have been allowed to return.

Get ‘children home’ 

A Belgian expert warned this week that Kurdish forces were losing control of Al Hol and called on Western nations to repatriate their nationals.

Daesh is once again in charge, particularly among the estimated 10,000 “foreigners” in Al Hol, Heidi De Pauw, director of the association Child Focus who has visited the camp, told AFP.

“We need to get the children home as quick as possible for both humanitarian and security reasons,” De Pauw said.

In a report published last month, the UN said it had documented cases of “radicalisation, fundraising, training and incitement of external operations” at Al Hol.

It also warned over the fate of the around 7,000 children living in a special annex designated for foreign Daesh relatives.

SOUSSE, Tunisia — Dozens of Tunisian activists protested in the port city of Sousse on Sunday to demand the return of nearly 300 containers of household waste illegally imported from Italy.

Tunisian customs officials last summer seized 282 containers that had been shipped from Italy in the guise of plastic scrap for industrial recycling.

But the containers were found to contain household waste, which is barred from import under Tunisian law.

Rome had given the Italian firm that sold the refuse up until last week to retrieve the cargo, but the deadline passed without it doing so, court official Jabbeur Ghnimi said on Thursday.

On Sunday, campaigners gathered at the eastern city’s port to demand the trash be repatriated.

“There’s no social justice without environmental justice,” some chanted.

The affair “is a crime against the Tunisian people,” said Majdi Ben Ghazala, a member of Sousse city council.

“We demand that the [Tunisian] authorities show more determination” to have the waste removed.

An activist at the protest, Hamdi Bin Saleh, said a further demonstration was planned for Thursday in front of the Italian embassy in Tunis to demand the rubbish be returned.

The scandal prompted the sacking and arrest of Tunisian environment minister Mustapha Aroui, who along with 25 other people, several of them also in detention, are facing prosecution.

They also include the manager of the Tunisian import firm, who is at large, court official Ghnimi said.

Tunisia has accused the Italian company, Sviluppo Risorse Ambientali Srl, of failing to meet the deadline to remove the containers.

The case shines a spotlight on the global trade in waste as richer countries dump their garbage on poorer ones which, like Tunisia, are often ill-equipped to deal with it.

Interpol warned in August last year that criminal organisations have profited from an “overwhelming” surge in illegal waste shipments, particularly to Asia but also other parts of the world.

TAHTA, EGYPT — Egypt buried the dead Saturday from a train collision that killed at least 19 people and injured 185, according to a revised toll, as investigators probed the country's latest deadly rail crash.

His Majesty King Abdullah, in a phone call on Saturday, extended condolences to Egypt President Abdel Fattah El Sisi, over the victims of the train collision in Sohag governorate, wishing the injured a speedy recovery.

Egypt's Health Minister Hala Zayed told reporters that an initial toll of 32 killed in Friday's crash was revised down, while the number of injured rose from 165.

"After we honed in on the details of those killed and injured... at this moment there are 185 injured and 19 corpses and three bags of body parts," Zayed said, without giving further details.

Surveillance camera footage of the accident seen by AFP showed a speeding train barrelling into another as it rolled slowly down the tracks, sending a carriage hurtling into the air in a cloud of dust.

Most of those injured in Friday's crash that occurred in the Tahta district of southern Sohag province suffered fractures.

The first victims were laid to rest early on Saturday with small groups of family and friends in attendance as residents, who appeared mistrustful of outsiders, kept the media at bay.

Other burials were expected to take place following mid-day Muslim prayers, an AFP reporter said.

President Sisi pledged tough punishment for those responsible for the crash, the latest in a series of rail accidents to plague Egypt. Such incidents are generally attributed to poor infrastructure and maintenance.

‘Carnage’ 

It came as the most populous Arab nation struggles with another major transport challenge — a giant container ship blocking the Suez Canal, a vital shipping lane for international trade.

Early on Saturday Egypt was again struck by tragedy when a building collapsed in the capital Cairo, killing at least five people and injuring 24 others, according to officials.

At the scene of the rail disaster, technicians worked through Friday evening to remove five dislocated and damaged carriages. By morning the crash area was cleared of twisted metal and debris.

Rail traffic also resumed ahead of the burials.

Witnesses and survivors recounted horrifying scenes.

“We were at the mosque then a child came and told us [about the incident]. We heard the collision, so we rushed and found the carnage,” said a 59-year-old man speaking on condition of anonymity.

The first ambulances to reach the scene arrived “around half an hour” after the crash, he said.

“There were children who removed [debris] using wooden ladders,” added the witness, who spent the day helping rescue workers.

One train was travelling between the southern city of Luxor and Alexandria on the Mediterranean coast, and the other between the southern city of Aswan and Cairo.

Kamel Nagi, a 20-year-old conscript, was on the Cairo-bound train after enjoying a few days of leave.

“Our train suddenly stopped and a quarter of an hour later, the second arrived and struck us,” said Nagi, who suffered multiple broken bones.

“I saw it coming, screamed, then found myself on the ground in great pain,” he said from his hospital bed as a nurse gave him an injection to alleviate his pain.

‘Accidents can happen’

Authorities opened an investigation to determine the circumstances of the accident, while the rail authority blamed the crash on unidentified passengers who “activated emergency brakes” in one train.

The prosecution said it would interrogate several rail employees, including the two train drivers, their assistants and the signalman.

They will also have to undergo drug testing and their mobile phones have been seized by the authorities to examine their call logs, it added.

But media reports on Saturday claimed both train drivers had died of injuries sustained in the crash.

The rail authority said one train hit the last carriage of the other, causing at least two carriages to overturn between the stations of Maragha and Tahta.

Prime Minister Mostafa Madbouli said the government will disburse 100,000 Egyptian pounds (around $6,400) to each family who lost a loved one and between 20,000-40,000 to those injured.

The government has spent “hundreds of billions of pounds” to upgrade the railway system over the past four years, he said, acknowledging that the network “has suffered from decades of negligence”.

Egypt’s railway network is one of the oldest in Africa and the Middle East and improving it “will take time”, Madbouli told reporters on Friday after visiting the crash site.

“Until then accidents like this can happen,” he said, adding that efforts to upgrade the system have been hampered by the coronavirus pandemic which has delayed deals with foreign firms.

One of the deadliest Egyptian train crashes came in 2002, when 373 people died as a fire ripped through a crowded train south of Cairo.

DHAKA — At least five people were shot dead as police clashed with Islamist demonstrators in Bangladesh on Saturday, a day after clashes between police and hardline Islamist protesters against a visit by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi left another five dead.

The violence, which began on Friday at the main mosque in the capital Dhaka, rocked several key districts in the Muslim-majority nation of 168 million.

Following Friday's fatal shootings, five more people were shot dead in new clashes in the eastern border district of Brahmanbaria, two doctors told AFP on Saturday, as police clashed with villagers and supporters of the hardline Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam.

"Three were brought dead. Two died in the hospital. All five have gun-shot wounds," Abdullah al Mamun, a doctor at the emergency ward of Brahmanbaria 25-bed state-run hospital, told AFP.

"Another 12 were brought in the hospital with gun-shot wounds and condition of one is critical. He was shot in the head," he said.

Brahmanbaria police refused to comment on the deaths, though two officers said Islamists had staged protests in several places in the district on Saturday.

A journalist in Brahmanbaria said some 3,000 protesters including Hefazat supporters and Muslim villagers demonstrated in the district, while a doctor said protesters torched several government offices during the clashes.

Bangladesh has deployed Border Guard Bangladesh, which also acts as a reserve paramilitary force for law and order, in many parts in the country since Friday night.

Authorities also appeared to have restricted access to Facebook after images and reports of the violence were posted.

But on Saturday, thousands turned out to protest against police having opened fire and against Modi’s visit for independence day celebrations, following calls for nationwide demonstrations from Hefazat, the country’s largest hardline Islamist outfit.

Several thousand Hefazat supporters staged protests at Hathazari, a rural town outside the country’s second-largest city which witnessed the worst violence on Friday when four protesters were shot dead. A fifth protester had been killed Friday in Brahmanbaria.

Hefazat spokesman Jakaria Noman Foyezi told AFP that around 10,000 students of the Hathazari Madrasa were on the road blocking a key highway linking the port city with the country’s hill districts.

Ruhul Amin, the government administrator of the town, said Hefazat supporters put up makeshift walls and dug up the road to block traffic, but that there was no violence.

Mohammad Jahangir, a senior Chittagong police officer, said border guards, police and the elite Rapid Action Battalion have been deployed to the town.

Tear gas 

In the northern district town of Habiganj, police fired rubber bullets and tear gas at some 200 protesters from the main opposition party, police inspector Syedul Mostafa told AFP.

“They became unruly and pelted rocks at us. We fired rubber bullets and tear gas to disperse them. We have arrested 10 people for violence,” he said.

In the capital itself, hundreds of Islamists gathered at the Baitul Mukarram Masjid, the country’s biggest mosque.

An AFP correspondent at the scene said the protesters, who chanted anti-Modi slogans, were Hefazat supporters.

The disturbances came as Bangladesh marked 50 years of independence, with rights groups calling for an end to growing authoritarianism including forced disappearances and extra-judicial killings.

“The scenes of violence we witnessed... follow a worryingly familiar pattern of behaviour by the Bangladeshi authorities,” Amnesty International said, referring to Friday’s violence.

“The right to peaceful protest has come under concerted attack, particularly during the coronavirus pandemic, culminating in this type of bloody repression,” said Sultan Mohammed Zakaria, a South Asia researcher for Amnesty.

Hefazat, which was behind Friday’s protests in over a dozen places, has also called for a strike on Sunday.

Hefazat is known for its nationwide network and large-scale protests demanding Bangladesh introduce blasphemy laws.

In 2013 police clashed with tens of thousands of Hefazat supporters in Dhaka, leaving nearly 50 people dead.

As well as Hefazat, a diverse range of Bangladeshi groups — including students, leftists and other Islamist outfits — have been staging protests against Modi’s visit.

They accuse Modi and his Hindu-nationalist government of stoking religious tensions and inciting anti-Muslim violence including in the Indian state of Gujarat in 2002, when 1,000 people died.

Modi visited two key Hindu temples in rural districts of southern Bangladesh on Saturday.

BENGHAZI, Libya — Libyan authorities on Saturday announced increased security measures in second city Benghazi and the arrest of two suspects in connection with the killing of a militia leader wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).

Security is precarious in Benghazi with frequent tit-for-tat violence and executions.

Mahmoud Al Werfalli, a member of forces loyal to eastern military strongman Khalifa Haftar, was shot dead on Wednesday along with his cousin in the city, cradle of the country’s 2011 revolution.

Oil-rich Libya descended into chaos after the NATO-backed uprising that ousted and killed veteran dictator Muammar Qadhafi, with rival militias and administrations vying for power.

The ICC issued a first warrant for Werfalli’s arrest in August 2017, accusing him of having ordered or personally carried out seven separate rounds of executions of 33 people in 2016 and 2017.

In July 2018, the ICC issued a second arrest warrant for Werfalli for his “alleged responsibility for murder as a war crime”.

Colonel Ali Madi, the head of Benghazi’s military prosecution linked to Haftar, identified the suspects in Werfalli’s killing as Mohamad Abdeljalil Saad and Hanine Al Abdaly.

The latter is the daughter of lawyer and rights activist Hanan Al Barassi, who was gunned down in November in Benghazi in broad daylight.

Military authorities in Benghazi said Abdaly was arrested while “threatening a fellow citizen with a handgun”, according to a video footage of the alleged incident.

Possession of the handgun in itself is considered a crime, they said.

Meanwhile, the head of security in Benghazi, General Abdelbasit Bougheress, told reporters on Saturday that on “instructions” from Haftar, all shops must install surveillance cameras before Tuesday.

Cars with tinted windows will be banned in the city, as well as vehicles without licence plates, he added, among other measures.

Earlier this month, the bodies of 11 people bearing gunshots wounds were found at the southern entrance of the city, a security source said, suggesting they had been “executed”.

In October 2017, the bodies of 36 suspected militants, including 19 foreigners, were found in a vacant lot in the city bearing signs of torture.

A year earlier, the bodies of 10 young Libyans were found in a garbage dump in Benghazi.

ANKARA — Turkey wants to resolve conflicts and make more friends while turning its region into an “island of peace”, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Wednesday.

Speaking to thousands of supporters at a party congress held during a new surge in coronavirus cases, Erdogan also tried to reassure investors spooked by his dismissal of his market-friendly central bank chief, saying Turkey’s economy will prevail.

Turkey has been at loggerheads with NATO allies as well as Arab rivals in the Middle East, angry at Ankara’s increasingly assertive foreign policy.

But in the past few months, Turkish officials have sought to lower the temperature with frequent references to turning a “new page” in relations.

This month Turkey said it had established diplomatic contact with rival Egypt for the first time since 2013.

“We are determined to increase the number of our friends and resolve hostilities in the region, turning it into an island of peace,” Erdogan told his ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) congress in Ankara.

Reassuring investors 

Despite a big jump in new Covid-19 cases, which reached 26,000 on Tuesday, the congress was packed with thousands of AKP members and delegates who travelled from across the country, drawing criticism online.

But Erdogan has talked up Wednesday’s address as an important moment in Turkish politics in which he intended to lay out the country’s future course.

Erdogan’s message of peace reflects a broader change in tone following years of military campaigns in Syria, Libya and Iraq.

Turkey’s involvements have caused frustration in Arab countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which support the opposing side in Libya.

Turkey’s relations with the West, including France and the United States, were further hampered by Ankara’s search for energy in disputed eastern Mediterranean waters.

Tensions have dissipated somewhat since Turkey withdrew a research vessel from the region, restarting talks with Greece for the first time since 2016, although Athens on Wednesday once again condemned Ankara’s “aggression”.

The conciliatory steps improved Turkey’s investment climate and helped the lira, which rallied after losing nearly 30 per cent of its value last year.

But the Turkish currency plunged by as much as 14 per cent this week after Erdogan sacked the central bank governor, who tried to tame inflation by raising interest rates.

Although Erdogan subscribes to the unconventional theory that high rates cause inflation rather than acting as a brake, he sought to reassure investors in his first comments since the lira’s fall.

“The fluctuations in the markets in the past few days absolutely do not reflect the Turkish economy’s fundamentals, real dynamics and its potential,” he said.

He also urged Turks to invest their gold and foreign currency holdings in “various financial mechanisms so that they can benefit our economy and production”, echoing a call he made during a currency crisis in 2018.

SANAA — Ten trailblazing Yemeni women have overcome scepticism and ridicule to bring electricity to their villages, illuminating lives with a micro-grid solar business that they hope to expand across their war-torn region.

In a conservative country wracked by hunger and poverty amid a devastating war that has destroyed most infrastructure, 36-year-old Iman Hadi and her burqa-clad colleagues are achieving what many would have thought unthinkable.

Hadi has been managing the all-female Friends of the Environment Station in the rebel-held area of Abs, northwest of the capital Sanaa, since 2019.

Equipped with six solar power grids, the station is the only source of electricity for dozens of houses in several villages.

Hadi said the idea started when the women imagined what they could do to help ease the impact of war on the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula.

“We were able to make many people happy by connecting their houses to electricity,” said Hadi, wearing the all-covering robe and well-worn gloves as she sat behind her desk in a makeshift structure at the station.

The station, one of three in the country but the only run by an all-female crew, started with 20 houses. Today, it powers twice that number.

Easy-to-pay loans 

Tens of thousands have been killed since 2014 in the conflict, which pits the Iran-backed Houthi rebels against an internationally recognised government supported by a Saudi-led military coalition.

Hospitals, businesses and electricity plants have been destroyed or shuttered, amid severe fuel shortages that force many to work by candlelight.

Before the conflict, only around two thirds of Yemenis had access to the public electricity grid.

But amid the despair engulfing the country, one silver lining is emerging: solar power grids that started appearing on the roofs of houses in cities and villages.

“In Yemen, where people cannot afford to purchase food, access healthcare or other fundamental needs, providing the option of solar energy for remote areas empowers communities and builds hope and resilience in an otherwise often hopeless situation”, says Auke Lootsma, the UN Development Programme Resident Representative to Yemen.

Projects like Hadi’s station, which received UN and European Union funding and training, have helped Yemenis regain a semblance of normal life.

“Praise be to God, from morning and until evening, fans and washing machines and refrigerators and sewing machines are working in our house,” Faeiqa Najjar, one of Hadi’s customers, told AFP.

The power grid is helping others to earn money as well.

Hadi gives micro-loans from the monthly net profits of around $2,000, allowing people to open small businesses like grocery stores and bakeries.

From mockery to respect 

However, the Yemeni entrepreneur’s journey was anything but easy.

The small station surrounded by drab concrete walls is in a frontline region that often witnesses fighting between the rebels and government forces.

On top of that, rural society rejects the idea of women working outside the home.

“We have faced many difficulties, including ridicule and rejection from our families and society who believed that this sort of project is only for men,” Hadi said.

“But we have handled these difficulties with persistence. Today, their mockery has changed to appreciation and respect for women.”

In scenes that are novel for Yemen, every day the women mop and clean the navy blue solar grids, tighten the screws that hold them in place, check the battery life, and calculate consumption through metres hung on the walls.

The project has won the Ashden Awards for Humanitarian Energy that celebrates climate champions, and the UNDP is working to scale up the community business from three to 100 sites across the country.

Hadi was chosen as one of the BBC’s 100 most inspiring and influential women from around the world in 2020.

The power grid has turned her into a local business icon, with men asking for her advice as well as small loans.

Her long-term plan is to extend solar services to all 3,060 households in her area.

“My message to all women here is to rise up and to go out to fulfil their ambitions,” she said.

DAMASCUS — The Syrian government on Wednesday offered 75 tonnes of oxygen to neighbouringLebanon during a visit by its health minister in response to a request for COVID-19 assistance.

"We will supply Lebanon with 75 tonnes of oxygen in instalments of 25 tonnes a day for a period of three days," Health Minister Hasan Al Ghabbash told reporters after a meeting with his Lebanese counterpart.

The oxygen shipment, which will be delivered "immediately", will not strain Syria's supplies, Ghabbash said, adding the first instalment was being handed over to Lebanese Health Minister Hamad Hasan on Wednesday.

For his part, Hasan said his ministry requested the aid to save hundreds of Lebanese lives threatened by an oxygen shortage.

"We have around 1,000 patients on breathing aid in Lebanon's emergency rooms" and oxygen supplies "that honestly are only enough to last for today", he said.

Lebanon was expecting to receive new oxygen shipments from abroad but stormy weather conditions has delayed arrivals, Hamad said.

"In spite of high need and rising demand for oxygen in Syria, authorities granted us our request," he added, praising Damascus for its swift assistance.

Official dealings between Damascus and the Lebanese government have been limited since the early days of the Syrian conflict which erupted in 2011.

Lebanon is grappling with a coronavirus outbreak that compounded its worst economic crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war.

The country of more than six million has recorded a total of 444,865 COVID-19 cases, including 5,858 deaths since last year.

The outbreak has overwhelmed a medical sector already grappling with a drastic depreciation of the Lebanese pound against the US dollar.

The currency plunge has made medical imports, including oxygen, more expensive, leading to limited supplies.

War-battered Syria too is grappling with its own virus outbreak on top of an economic crisis aggravated by the financial crunch in Lebanon.

A health ministry official warned last week that hospital beds for COVID-19 patients in intensive care units have run out across Damascus.

Syria has recorded 17,743 cases, among them 1,183 deaths, in government-held areas.