Strong voter turnout on 2nd day of Egypt presidential election/node/2424096/middle-east
Strong voter turnout on 2nd day of Egypt presidential election
Special
Supporters of presidential candidate and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi dance next to a polling station on the first day of the presidential election in Cairo, Egypt, Dec. 10, 2023. (Reuters)
Strong voter turnout on 2nd day of Egypt presidential election
Queues started forming on Monday at some polling stations in Cairo and elsewhere in the country long before they opened at 9 a.m.
Polls close at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, with the election results due to be announced on Dec. 18
Updated 11 December 2023
Gobran Mohamed
CAIRO: Egyptian voters turned out in force on the second and penultimate day of a presidential election in which President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi was expected to sweep to a third, six-year term in office.
Queues started forming on Monday at some polling stations in Cairo and elsewhere in the country long before they opened at 9 a.m.
El-Sisi is competing against three other candidates: Abdel-Sanad Yamama, the head of Wafd, Egypt’s oldest party, Hazem Omar, leader of the Republican People’s Party, and Farid Zahran, of the Social Democratic Party.
In the coastal city of Alexandria, El-Sisi’s electoral campaign officials reported a strong turnout at ballot boxes, and voting centers were said to be particularly busy in central Cairo and the southwestern New Valley Governorate.
Moushira Khattab, president of Egypt’s National Council for Human Rights, said: “We are reassured about the conduct of the presidential elections.” She added that the council had so far not received any complaints relating to election conduct.
National Elections Authority officials said that voting operations were proceeding in a disciplined and smooth manner, adding that voter turnout on Sunday had also been brisk.
Polls close at 9 p.m. on Tuesday, with the election results due to be announced on Dec. 18.
Passant Tarek, a 27-year-old dentist who cast her vote in Suez, said: “Voting is our duty, and it is the least we can do for the country, especially during these critical times and with the developments happening around the world.”
Explosions heard over Damascus after Israeli strikes, Syrian state media says
Updated 17 sec ago
Reuters
Explosions were heard over Syria's Damascus early on Thursday after Israel launched strikes on the city, Syrian state media said. No further details were immediately available. Israel has been carrying out strikes against Iranian-linked targets in Syria for years, but has ramped up such raids since last year's Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on Israel.
US expresses concern to Israel about strikes against Lebanese army
The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon also says its troops have come under Israeli attack several times
Updated 57 min 15 sec ago
Reuters
WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told his Israeli counterpart on Wednesday that Washington had concerns about strikes against the Lebanese armed forces while urging Israel to take steps to ensure the safety of the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon, the Pentagon said.
Austin also told Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that Washington welcomed the movement of humanitarian assistance through the Erez crossing into northern Gaza and urged Israel take steps to address the dire situation there, the Pentagon’s summary of the call said.
Three Lebanese soldiers were killed in an Israeli strike on an army vehicle in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese military said on Sunday. Israel, which says it is targeting Lebanese Iran-backed Hezbollah militants, apologized and said its military was not operating against the Lebanese army.
The UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon also says its troops have come under Israeli attack several times. Israel has disputed accounts of those incidents.
Austin “expressed his deep concern about the reports of strikes against the Lebanese Armed Forces,” the Pentagon said, adding he urged Israel “to ensure the safety and security of the Lebanese Armed Forces and UNIFIL forces.”
Washington wrote a letter to Israeli officials last week demanding concrete measures to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, or face potential restrictions on US military aid.
Israel’s war in Gaza has displaced nearly the entire 2.3 million population of Gaza and caused a hunger crisis.
Neighboring conflicts spell humanitarian ‘storm’ in Syria: UN envoy
Updated 24 October 2024
AFP
UNITED NATIONS: Syria is teetering on the brink of a “military, humanitarian and economic storm,” a top UN official said Wednesday, warning of escalating violence within the country and spillover from fighting in neighboring Gaza and Lebanon.
“The fires of conflict are raging in the occupied Palestinian Territory, including Gaza, and in Lebanon,” Geir Pedersen, special envoy for Syria, told the UN Security Council.
“And the heat is being felt in Syria too,” he added, warning “regional spillover into Syria is alarming and could get much worse.”
While Israel has for years struck Hezbollah positions in Syria, it has increased its air raids as its conflict in Lebanon expands, accusing the group of funneling weapons to Lebanon from Syria.
“The past month has seen the fastest-paced and broadest-ranging campaign of Israeli airstrikes in the last thirteen years,” Pedersen told the Security Council, adding residential areas, “even in the heart of Damascus,” have been hit.
And in the country’s northwest, regional escalation appears to be “catalyzing” the country’s internal conflict, he said, noting a recent raid into government-controlled territory by the jihadist rebel group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
Meanwhile, airstrikes by Russia, which supports the Syrian government, have resumed for the first time in months, while pro-government forces have “significantly accelerated” their own drone strikes and shelling, Pedersen added.
“We are seeing all the ingredients for a military, humanitarian and economic storm breaking on an already devastated Syria,” he said.
Sparked by anti-government protests in 2011, the Syrian civil war left more than 500,000 people dead and millions displaced.
A ceasefire negotiated by Russia and Turkiye was declared in the north of the country in 2020, though it is regularly violated.
But now there is a risk, Pedersen said, that “regional escalation could unravel ceasefire agreements that have, however imperfectly, provided a vital freeze in the front lines” over the past four years.
Turkiye strikes Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria after deadly attack on defense firm
The terror blast targeting the headquarters of state-run Turkish Aerospace Industries near Ankara killed 5 and wounded 22 people
Turkish officials blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a group outlawed by Turkiye and its Western allies
Updated 24 October 2024
AFP
ANKARA: Turkiye said it launched strikes on Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria Wednesday after blaming them for an attack that killed five people at a defense firm near Ankara.
A further 22 people were wounded in the attack, which the government said was “very likely” carried out by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Hours later, “an air operation was carried out against terrorist targets in the north of Iraq and Syria,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
“A total of 32 targets belonging to the terrorists were successfully destroyed,” it said, adding that operations were continuing.
Listed as a terror group by Turkiye and its Western allies, the PKK has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. It has a number of rear bases in Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria.
In the attack that sparked the strikes, a huge explosion rocked the headquarters of state-run Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Ankara shortly after 3:30 pm.
It sent clouds of smoke into the air as the sound of gunfire rang out, Turkish media reported, with the incident quickly denounced by Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya as a “terror attack.”
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was in Russia for talks with Vladimir Putin, called it a “heinous” attack on Turkiye’s defense industry “targeting the survival of our country,” in a message on X.
Yerlikaya said three of the injured were in critical condition and that the two attackers, “a woman and a man,” had been “neutralized.”
There was no immediate claim for the attack but Yerlikaya said: “The way in which this action was carried out is very probably linked to the PKK.”
He said efforts to identify the perpetrators of the attack were ongoing.
Defense Minister Yasar Guler also pointed the finger at “PKK villains.”
“As they always do, they tried to disturb our nation’s peace through a despicable and dishonorable attack... we will make them suffer for what they have done,” he said.
Turkiye’s vice president Cevdet Yilmaz said four of the victims were TAI employees while the fifth was a taxi driver. Media reports earlier said the assailants had killed him and taken his taxi to carry out the attack.
An unconfirmed report by private channel NTV said a “group of terrorists” had burst into the building, one of whom “blew himself up” while other outlets reported exchanges of fire for more than an hour.
Haberturk TV said there was a “hostage situation,” with another media pundit saying “a number of hostages” had been rescued.
Turkish authorities imposed a blackout of live images from the scene.
Sabah newspaper published what it said was a CCTV image from the entrance showing a black-clad young man with a moustache carrying a rucksack and what appeared to be an assault rifle.
As night fell, dozens of ambulances could be seen waiting in convoy near the site, their blue lights flashing.
One of Turkiye’s top defense firms and a major arms producer, TAI employs 15,500 people and has a vast production site covering an area of five million square meters, its website says.
The attack drew condemnation from across Turkiye and beyond, with Putin offering Erdogan his “condolences in connection with the terror attack” at the start of their meeting.
Statements of condemnation and condolences to the families of the victims also poured in from Brussels, Berlin, Paris, Tehran and Washington and NATO leadership.
The attack came as Turkiye’s political establishment appeared to be leaning toward a political, negotiated solution to the decades-long conflict with the Kurdish militants.
The timing was not lost on the main pro-Kurdish party, Dem, the third largest force in parliament, which said it was “noteworthy that the attack took place just as Turkish society was talking about a solution and the possibility of dialogue.”
It took place a day after the head of the far-right MHP, which belongs to Erdogan’s ruling coalition, invited jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan to address parliament to announce his movement’s dissolution.
The PKK has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, claiming tens of thousands of lives, with Ocalan held in solitary confinement on a prison island since 1999.
Lebanon state media says drone strike hits Beirut apartment
An enemy drone strike targeted a residential apartment in Jnah near the former location of the Iranian embassy
Updated 23 October 2024
AFP
BEIRUT: Lebanese state media said an Israeli drone strike hit an apartment in the Jnah neighborhood of south Beirut on Wednesday, as raids targeted the nearby suburbs of Ouzai and Haret Hreik.
“An enemy drone strike targeted a residential apartment in Jnah near the former location of the Iranian embassy,” the official National News Agency said, also reporting other strikes in the suburbs of Ouzai and Haret Hreik which were not preceded by an Israeli evacuation warning.
