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US says airstrike killed Daesh official in Syria

US says airstrike killed Daesh official in Syria
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Updated 13 June 2025
AFP
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US says airstrike killed Daesh official in Syria

US says airstrike killed Daesh official in Syria
Updated 13 June 2025
AFP
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WASHINGTON: The US military announced Thursday that a recent airstrike had killed an Daesh group official in northwest Syria.

In a post to social media, US Central Command  said its forces “conducted a precision airstrike in northwest Syria killing Rakhim Boev, a Syria-based Daesh official,” using another name for Daesh.

The post on X said Boev was “involved in planning external operations threatening US citizens, our partners, and civilians.”

The accompanying image depicts an SUV vehicle with a bashed-in windshield and roof.

AFP previously reported that two people were killed in separate drone strikes Tuesday, on a car and a motorcycle, in the northwestern bastion of the Islamist former rebels who now head the Syrian government.

A call to CENTCOM seeking confirmation that the incidents are related was not immediately returned.

The twin drone strikes in the Idlib region mirror the US-led coalition’s past strikes on jihadists in the area.

During a meeting in Riyadh last month, US President Donald Trump called on his Syrian counterpart Ahmed Al-Sharaa to help Washington prevent a resurgence by Daesh.

Topics: Daesh

Iraq starts work on Daesh mass grave thought to contain thousands

Iraq starts work on Daesh mass grave thought to contain thousands
Updated 6 sec ago
AFP
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Iraq starts work on Daesh mass grave thought to contain thousands

Iraq starts work on Daesh mass grave thought to contain thousands
  • Exhuming the bodies from Khasfa is particularly difficult as underground sulfur water makes the earth very porous
Updated 6 sec ago
AFP

BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities have begun excavating the site of a mass grave believed to contain thousands of victims of the Daesh group near Mosul city, the project’s director said on Sunday.

The first phase, which was launched on August 10, includes surface-level excavation at the Khasfa site, director Ahmed Assadi said.

An AFP correspondent visiting the site in northern Iraq on Sunday said the team unearthed human skulls buried in the sand.

Khasfa is located near Mosul, where Daesh had established the capital of their self-declared “caliphate” before being defeated in Iraq in late 2017.

Assadi said that there were no precise figures for the numbers of victims buried there – one of dozens of mass graves Daesh left behind in Iraq – but a UN report from 2018 said Khasfa was likely the country’s largest.

Official estimates put the number of bodies buried at the site at least 4,000, with the possibility of thousands more.

The project director said the victims buried there include “soldiers executed by Daesh,” members of the Yazidi minority and residents of Mosul.

Exhuming the bodies from Khasfa is particularly difficult, Assadi said, as underground sulfur water makes the earth very porous.

The water may have also eroded the human remains, complicating DNA identification of victims, he added.

Assadi said further studies will be required before his team can dig deeper and exhume bodies at the site – a sinkhole about 150-meter (nearly 500-foot) deep and 110-meter wide.

Iraqi authorities said it was the site of “one of the worst massacres” committed by Daesh militants, executing 280 in a single day in 2016, many of them interior ministry employees.

In a lightning advance that began in 2014, Daesh had seized large swathes Iraq and neighboring Syria, enforcing a strict interpretation of Islamic law and committing widespread abuses.

The United Nations estimates the militants left behind more than 200 mass graves which might contain as many as 12,000 bodies.

In addition to Daesh-era mass graves, Iraqi authorities continue to unearth such sites dating to the rule of Saddam Hussein, who was toppled in a US-led invasion in 2003.

Topics: Iraq Daesh

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250 flee as Turkish rescuers battle wildfire in Gallipoli

250 flee as Turkish rescuers battle wildfire in Gallipoli
Updated 17 August 2025
AFP
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250 flee as Turkish rescuers battle wildfire in Gallipoli

250 flee as Turkish rescuers battle wildfire in Gallipoli
  • The fire began on Saturday in the northwestern province of Canakkale, and spread quickly due to high winds in the hills near the town of Gelibolu
Updated 17 August 2025
AFP

ISTANBUL: More than 250 people were evacuated overnight as a wildfire raged on the Gallipoli peninsula flanking the Dardanelles Strait, where Turkish firefighters were battling Sunday to quench the blaze, officials said.

The fire began on Saturday in the northwestern province of Canakkale, and spread quickly due to high winds in the hills near the town of Gelibolu, on the shores of the busy shipping strait.

“As a precaution, 251 residents from five villages were relocated to safe areas,” Canakkale governor Omer Toraman wrote on X.

Footage showed the hillsides illuminated by bright flames while huge clouds of smoke poured into the night air.

Toraman said the province, a popular destination for tourists visiting the ancient ruins of Troy, as well as the Gallipoli battleground where thousands of soldiers died in World War I, had suffered “extremely severe drought” over the past year.

While the weather has been fairly normal for the time of year, much of northwestern Turkiye has suffered strong winds in recent days, although they eased off on Sunday.

Firefighters worked through the night, with 12 planes and 18 helicopters rejoining the efforts at first light in an operation involving 900 people, the forestry directorate said on X.

The authority in charge of the war memorials said on X that access to historical sites near the town of Eceabat had been closed “due to the ongoing forest fire.”

On Monday, another fire on the other side of the strait forced 2,000 people to flee, with around 80 treated for smoke inhalation.

Several days earlier, another fire forced the evacuation of 120 people and the suspension of shipping through the Dardanelles Strait, which links the Mediterranean with the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea.

According to the European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS) website, there have been 192 wildfires in Turkiye this year, which have ravaged more than 110,373 hectares (273,000 acres) of land.

Experts say human-driven climate change is causing more frequent and more intense wildfires and other natural disasters, and have warned Turkiye to take measures to tackle the problem.

Topics: wildfire Turkiye

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Syrian president says unifying country ‘should not be with blood’

Syrian president says unifying country ‘should not be with blood’
Updated 17 August 2025
AFP
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Syrian president says unifying country ‘should not be with blood’

Syrian president says unifying country ‘should not be with blood’
  • Syrian President Ahmad Al-Sharaa’s remarks came as hundreds demonstrated in Sweida province, denouncing sectarian violence last month and calling for the right to self-determination for the Druze majority province
Updated 17 August 2025
AFP

DAMASCUS: Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa has said the battle to unify his country after years of civil war “should not be with blood,” rejecting any partition and accusing Israel of meddling in the south.

His remarks, released by state TV on Sunday, came as hundreds demonstrated in south Syria’s Sweida province, denouncing sectarian violence last month and calling for the right to self-determination for the Druze-majority province.

“We still have another battle ahead of us to unify Syria, and it should not be with blood and military force... it should be through some kind of understanding because Syria is tired of war,” Sharaa said during a dialogue session involving notables from the northwest province of Idlib and other senior officials.

“I do not see Syria as at risk of division. Some people desire a process of dividing Syria and trying to establish cantons... this matter is impossible,” he said according to a recording of the meeting, distributed overnight by state media.

“Some parties seek to gain power through regional power, Israel or others. This is also extremely difficult and cannot be implemented,” he said.

At the protest in Sweida, some demonstrators waved the Israeli flag and called for self-determination for the region.

A week of bloodshed in Sweida began on July 13 with clashes between Druze fighters and Sunni Bedouin, but rapidly escalated, drawing in government forces, with Israel also carrying out strikes.

Syrian authorities have said their forces intervened to stop the clashes, but witnesses, Druze factions and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights have accused them of siding with the Bedouin and committing abuses against the Druze, including summary executions.

Sharaa said that Sweida “witnessed many violations from all sides... some members of the security forces and army in Syria also carried out some violations.”

The state is required “to hold all perpetrators of violations to account,” whatever their affiliation, he added.

“Israel is intervening directly in Sweida, seeking to implement policies aimed at weakening the state in general or finding excuses to interfere in ongoing policies in the southern region,” Sharaa said.

Israel, which has its own Druze community, has said it has acted to defend the minority group as well as enforce its demands for the demilitarization of southern Syria.

Syria’s new authorities are also in talks with a semi-autonomous Kurdish administration that runs swathes of the country’s north and northeast and has called for decentralization, which Damascus has rejected.

Implementation of a March 10 deal on integrating the Kurds’ semi-autonomous civil and military institutions into the state has been held up by differences between the parties.

“We are now discussing the mechanisms for implementation” of the deal, Sharaa said.

Topics: Syria

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Protests held across Israel calling for end to Gaza war, hostage deal

Protests held across Israel calling for end to Gaza war, hostage deal
Updated 17 August 2025
AFP
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Protests held across Israel calling for end to Gaza war, hostage deal

Protests held across Israel calling for end to Gaza war, hostage deal
  • The protests come more than a week after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to capture Gaza City, following 22 months of war that have created dire humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian territory
  • Forty nine captives remain in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead
Updated 17 August 2025
AFP

TEL AVIV: Demonstrators took to the streets across Israel Sunday calling for an end to the war in Gaza and a deal to release hostages still held by militants, as the military prepares a new offensive.

The protests come more than a week after Israel’s security cabinet approved plans to capture Gaza City, following 22 months of war that have created dire humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian territory.

The war was triggered by Palestinian militant group Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel, during which 251 were taken hostage.

Forty-nine captives remain in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

A huge Israeli flag covered with portraits of the remaining captives was unfurled in Tel Aviv’s so-called Hostage Square — which has long been a focal point for protests throughout the war.

Demonstrators also blocked several roads in the city, including the highway connecting Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, where demonstrators set tires on fire and caused traffic jams, according to local media footage.

Protest organizers and the main campaign group representing the families of hostages also called for a general strike on Sunday.

“I think it’s time to end the war. It’s time to release all of the hostages. And it’s time to help Israel recover and move toward a more stable Middle East,” said Doron Wilfand, a 54-year-old tour guide, at a rally in Jerusalem.

However, some government members who oppose any deal with Hamas slammed the demonstrations.

Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich decried “a perverse and harmful campaign that plays into the hands of Hamas.”

He argued that public pressure to secure a deal effectively “buries the hostages in tunnels and seeks to push the State of Israel to surrender to its enemies and jeopardize its security and future.”

APTFV footage showed protesters at a rally in Beeri, a kibbutz near the Gaza border that was one of the hardest-hit communities in the Hamas attack, and Israeli media reported protests in numerous locations across the country.

Israeli plans to expand the war into Gaza City and nearby refugee camps have sparked an international outcry as well as domestic opposition.

UN-backed experts have warned of widespread famine unfolding in the territory, where Israel has drastically curtailed the amount of humanitarian aid it allows in.

According to Gaza’s civil defense agency, Israeli troops shot dead at least 13 Palestinians on Saturday as they were waiting to collect food aid near distribution sites.

Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Israel’s offensive has killed more than 61,897 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza which the United Nations considers reliable.

Topics: War on Gaza Gaza Israel

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Israel targets energy infrastructure site used by Houthis near Yemeni capital

Israel targets energy infrastructure site used by Houthis near Yemeni capital
Updated 17 August 2025
Reuters
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Israel targets energy infrastructure site used by Houthis near Yemeni capital

Israel targets energy infrastructure site used by Houthis near Yemeni capital
  • Attack on the Haziz power station near Sanaa carried out by the Israeli navy
  • Israel has been bombing Yemen in response to Houthi attacks on Israel
Updated 17 August 2025
Reuters

The Israeli military said it had targeted an energy infrastructure site that was used by the Iran-aligned Houthis south of the Yemeni capital Sanaa early on Sunday, with Israeli media saying the Haziz power station had been hit.

The military said in a statement that the strikes were in response to repeated attacks by the Houthis against Israel, including launching missiles and drones toward its territory.

Israeli media reported earlier that the attack on the Haziz power station near the capital was carried out by the Israeli navy.

Houthi-run Al Masirah TV said that the power station was hit by an “aggression,” knocking some of its generators out of service. It did not indicate the source of the attack.

Teams were able to contain a resulting fire, Al Masirah reported, citing the deputy prime minister.

At least two explosions were heard earlier in Sanaa, residents said.

Israel has been bombing Yemen in response to Houthi attacks on Israel. The Yemeni group has been firing missiles toward Israel, most of which have been intercepted, in what they describe as support for Palestinians during the war in Gaza.

The United States and the UK have also previously launched attacks against the Houthis in Yemen.

In May, the US announced a surprise deal with the Houthis where it agreed to stop a bombing campaign against them in return for an end to the group’s attacks on shipping in the Red Sea, though the Houthis said the deal did not include sparing Israel.

Topics: Houthi Israel Yemen

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