The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Syria

  • Mexican reporter shot dead at Christmas party

    Mexican reporter shot dead at Christmas party

    A Mexican reporter was shot dead Tuesday at his son’s school Christmas party, authorities confirmed, bringing the total number of journalists killed in the country in 2017 to 12.

    Unknown assailants burst into the school in the state of Veracruz and shot Gumaro Aguilando in front of children and parents.

    The state is known as one of the most dangerous for journalists, with several killed.

    Veracruz governor Miguel Yunes said he was saddened by the “devious and cowardly attack” and had ordered extra protection for the journalist’s family.

    The 35-year-old had apparently been threatened before and requested protection from the government’s protection programme, according to Alicia Bremont, the head of the Association of Independent Journalists in Acayucan.

    The killing makes Mexico the most deadly country in the world for journalists, alongside Syria, according to figures published by media organisation Reporters Without Borders on Monday.

    In its annual report on violence against journalists it said 12 had been killed in Mexico  this year.

    Home to several powerful drug cartels, journalists in Mexico who cover topics linked to organised crime or political corruption quickly become targets.

    NAN

    Read Also: Gunmen shoot AIT reporter in Bayelsa

  • Macron warns battle against IS will continue for years

    Macron warns battle against IS will continue for years

    French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday warned that as the fight against Islamic State (IS) nears its end in Iraq and Syria, it will continue for years in other parts of the world.

    “We have won in al-Raqqa against Islamic State, and I firmly believe that in the coming weeks and months we will be completely victorious in military terms in the Iraqi-Syrian theatre.

    “But this fight will not end there, above all in many places, from the Horn of Africa to the Gulf, passing through South-East Asia and the Sahelo-Saharan region.

    “There are many areas where this fight will remain for years to come,’’ Macron said, while addressing French forces at the Mina Zayed naval base in Abu Dhabi.

    In October, Syrian Kurd-led forces, supported by the international U.S.-led alliance, captured Syria’s northern city of al-Raqqa, which was once the capital of Islamic State’s self-proclaimed caliphate in the country.

    Islamic State has lost more than 96 per cent of the territory that it once controlled in Iraq and Syria, according to the U.S-led coalition fighting the group.

    “Our challenge now is to rebuild peace once we have won the war against barbarism,’’ Macron said, who visited the permanent French base Mina Zayed as part of his two-day visit to the United Arab Emirates.

    The base, established in 2009, hosts between 300 and 900 troops, sailors and airmen depending on rotations.

    Macron said it represents a “sign of a France that keeps its commitments to its allies.’’

    Read Also: French Senate to vote on security law as Macron addresses Police

  • UN: Netanyahu bows hot as secretary-general makes first regional trip

    UN: Netanyahu bows hot as secretary-general makes first regional trip

    Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a scathing criticism of the UN on Monday as the Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, began his first visit to the country.

    At the opening remarks of Netanyahu’s meeting with the UN chief, the prime minister accused the UN of failing to prevent arms shipments to the Shiite militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

    He added, that Iran is seeking to open a front against Israel on the Lebanese and Syrian borders.

    “[Iran] is also building sites to produce precision-guided missiles towards that end in both Syria and in Lebanon.

    “This is something Israel cannot accept. This is something the UN should not accept,” Netanyahu said, without offering specifics.

    Iran and Hezbollah are fighting alongside Syrian President ‘s government in the Syrian civil war, which has killed hundreds of thousands.

    The prime minister added that he believes the UN has an “absurd obsession” with his country.

  • Chemical weapons watchdog says Sarin was used in Syria attack

    Chemical weapons watchdog says Sarin was used in Syria attack

    The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) says prohibited nerve agent sarin was used in an attack that killed dozens of people in Syria in April.

    An OPCW fact-finding mission confirmed that people were exposed to sarin on April 4, in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria’s north-western Idlib province.

    The OPCW said in a statement that its fact-finding mission advance team was deployed within 24 hours of being alerted to the incident and was able to “attend autopsies, collect bio-medical samples from casualties and fatalities, interview witnesses as well as to receive environmental samples.”

    The U. S. conducted a cruise missile assault on a Syrian airbase that it claimed was responsible for April’s chemical attack.

  • Iran fires missiles at militant groups in eastern Syria

    Iran fires missiles at militant groups in eastern Syria

    Iran fired missiles on Sunday into eastern Syria, aiming at the bases of militant groups it holds responsible for attacks in Tehran which left 18 dead last week, Iran’s Tasnim news agency reported.

    Tasmin reported that Iranian Revolutionary Guards launched the mid-range ground-to-ground missiles from western Iran into the Deir al Zour region of eastern Syria, killing a “large number” of terrorists and destroying their equipment and weapons.

    The news agency reported that missiles targeted the “headquarters and gathering centers of Takfiri terrorists supporting and building car bombs”.

    Reuters could not independently verify the report.

    Military leaders and officials in Iran, a predominantly Shi’ite country, often refer to Sunni Muslim radicals as Takfiris.

    The Revolutionary Guards are fighting in Syria against militant groups who oppose President Bashar al-Assad.

    The attack last week, which included shootings and at least one suicide bombing, was on Iran’s parliament and the shrine of Ayatollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic.

    “The spilling of any pure blood will not go unanswered,” the Revolutionary Guards said in the statement quoted by Tasnim.

    Islamic State issued a statement claiming responsibility for the Tehran attack.

    Senior Iranian officials, however, have pointed a finger at Saudi Arabia, Iran’s Sunni regional rival.

  • Former Australian PM calls for special ‘terror courts’ to deal with fighters

    Former Australian PM calls for special ‘terror courts’ to deal with fighters

    Former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott on Thursday called for a “special court” to be created specifically to deal with returning Australian Islamic State (IS) fighters.

    He declared that Australia is “pussyfooting” around the role radical Islamism is playing in causing terrorism.

    The former Prime Minister said that returning foreign fighters were getting away with traveling to and from conflict zones such as in the Middle East due to a loophole in current Australian law.

    Abbott said that just two Islamist extremists have been charged in Australian courts despite dozens returning to Australia from Iraq and Syria over the last few years something that was recently made illegal by the government.

    He argued that a new courts system needed to be created in order to deal specifically with Australian jihadis who had abandoned their country to join the fight with Islamic State.

    Abbot said in a piece he penned in News Corp newspapers on Thursday, that too many extremists were putting Sharia law before Australian law.

    “The only safe jihadi is one who’s been lawfully killed, lawfully imprisoned or thoroughly converted from Islamism.

    “We need to ensure that every returning jihadi can readily be charged and convicted, possibly through the creation of special courts that can hear evidence that may not normally be admissible.”

  • Air strike in Syria causes death

    A military source on the Syrian government side said on Friday that a U.S. air strike against a Damascus-backed militia hit “one of our military points”, killing several people.

    The source said the air strike late on Thursday also caused material damage.

    The source added that this hampered efforts by the Syrian army and its allies to fight Islamic State.

    The U.S. military carried out the strike on the militia as they headed towards the al-Tanf military base in southern Syria, near the Syria-Iraq-Jordan border, used by U.S. and U.S.-backed rebel forces.

    U.S. officials said the strike was purely a defensive measure.

    A member of the U.S.-backed Syrian rebel forces told Reuters the convoy comprised Syrian and Iranian-backed militias and was headed toward the Tanf base when they clashed with some rebel forces.

    Syria’s ally Russia said on Friday that the strike had hit civilians and was unacceptable, Russian news agencies reported.

    Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gennady Gatilov, who the agencies said was speaking in Geneva, said the U.S. strike had violated Syria’s sovereignty and would not help efforts to find a political solution to the conflict.

    The U.S.-backed forces in that area are fighting against Islamic State militants.

    Separately, Syria’s military supported by Russia and Iranian-backed militias are fighting against the jihadist group, and against more moderate rebel factions in the south.

     

  • Syria will abide by de-escalation plan, says foreign minister

    Syria Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem on Monday said his government would abide by the terms of a Russian plan for de-escalation zones so long as rebels also observed it.

    Al-Moualem told newsmen that rebels involved in the process must help clear areas they control of jihadist factions, including the former Nusra Front, and that the deal’s guarantors must help them do this.

    The deal for de-escalation zones was brokered by Russia, with backing from Turkey and Iran, during ceasefire talks in Astana recently and came into effect at midnight on Friday.

    However, a number of fighting has continued in those areas.

    “It is the duty of the groups which signed the ceasefire agreement to expel Nusra from these zones until the areas really become de-escalated.

    “It is for the guarantors to help these factions,” he said, referring specifically to rebel-held Idlib province as a place where jihadist groups were present.

    Moualem said a separate peace talks process under UN auspices in Geneva was not progressing.

    “Local reconciliation deals that the government is pursuing with rebels were an alternative to that,’’ he said.

    Such deals have been criticised by the opposition as being imposed on civilians using siege tactics.

    The UN has said the evacuation of some people as part of those agreements is a form of forced displacement.

    Moualem said there would be no role for either the UN or other “international forces” in the de-escalation zones, but said, without giving further details, that Russia had said military police would play an observer role.

    The memorandum signed by Russia, Iran and Turkey recently setting up the de-escalation areas said that the forces of those countries would ensure the administration of security zones by consensus, but did not specifically mention military police.

    However, a spokesman for the UN secretary general’s special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, declined to comment on those remarks.

  • Syria says UN peacekeepers won’t be deployed in ‘safe zones’

    Syria on Monday said that a deal brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran does not include deploying UN peacekeeping forces in the so-called “safe zones”.

    “The Russian side stressed that military police will be deployed and not peacekeepers under the supervision of the UN,” to oversee the implementation of the deal, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem told a news conference in Damascus.

    The deal signed in the Kazakh capital Astana on Thursday indicate that the de-escalation zones shall include checkpoints to ensure easy movement of unarmed civilians and the safe delivery of humanitarian assistance.

    Al-Moallem reiterated his country’s backing of the deal, but vowed to retaliate “harshly’’ any violation by the rebels.

    The Syrian official said it was too early to tell if this deal will succeed but hoped that the brokers will ensure that militant groups such as the al-Qaeda linked Fatah al-Sham Front will not enter the safe zones.

    The agreement envisions safe areas in northwestern, northern, central and southern Syria.

    The Astana agreement says that creating “de-escalation and security” areas is a temporary measure that could be in place for six months.

    Russia and Turkey have supported opposing sides in the Syrian civil war, which began with peaceful demonstrations in March 2011 against the rule of President Bashar al-Assad.

    Moscow and Istanbul have nevertheless stepped up efforts to seek a resolution to the conflict amid a rapprochement in their bilateral ties.

  • Syria: Child killed after surgery by airstrikes

    Syria: Child killed after surgery by airstrikes

    The last remaining hospital in the northern region of Hama and southern suburbs of Idlib was attacked twice and put out of service on April 22.The cave hospital was hit at 2:30 p.m. and again at 5:15 p.m Damascus time by a bunker buster missile. Five people were killed, including a girl who had just had surgery in the morning, her parents and two other patients. Two nurses were wounded, one with a severe spinal injury.

    The cave hospital was hit at 2:30 p.m. and again at 5:15 p.m Damascus time by a bunker buster missile.

    Five people were killed, including a girl who had just had surgery in the morning, her parents and two other patients. Two nurses were wounded, one with a severe spinal injury.

    The hospital, which was built in a cave 22 feet underground in response to previous targeting by military aircrafts, was catastrophically damaged. The airstrike destroyed two operating theatres, a laboratory, two inpatient rooms, emergency room, x-ray machines and C-arm.

    These attacks have left the people in the southern Idlib/northern Hama suburbs without any access to healthcare as all six area hospitals have been attacked and put out of service. These area hospitals combined, provided services to over 20,000 people, over 1000 major surgeries, and over 120 caesarian section surgeries per month.

    The Hama Health Directorate said in a statement, “We fear area doctors and medical staff will flee the area due to the constant attack of hospitals and medical facilities which could ultimately lead to the complete collapse of the healthcare system in the area.”

    “That a child can be murdered right after having surgery is beyond sickening. Children and the most vulnerable populations are bearing the brunt of this horrific war. We must do more to protect them.

    “Attacking hospitals is a war crime and we call on the United Nations to take immediate action to protect medical facilities and hold perpetrators accountable for these deliberate attacks.” Said Dr. Anas Al Kassem, Chairman of UOSSM Canada