https://arab.news/p7e33
NEW YORK: Lebanon’s foreign minister on Friday called the detonation of hand-held communication devices this week a “terror” attack which he blamed on Israel.
The blasts that killed dozens across Lebanon over two days is “an unprecedented method of warfare in its brutality and terror,” Lebanese Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib told the United Nations Security Council, calling the attack “nothing but terrorism.”
ISTANBUL: More than 30 people have been charged in Turkiye after protests against the removal of three mayors in the Kurdish-majority southeast, who were then replaced by government-appointed trustees, the interior ministry said Sunday.
Those detained, after the authorities sacked the mayors on “terrorism” charges, include a journalist from news website 10Haber.
His lawyer said the reporter was arrested late Saturday following a series of articles on the removal of a mayor in a district of Istanbul.
Authorities have alleged the mayor is linked to the banned Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK).
More than 250 people have also been detained for participating in protest rallies in mainly-Kurdish southeastern Turkiye against the mayors’ removal.
The ministry said 33 of those detained had been charged, while 37 have been placed under judicial surveillance, while three others face house arrest.
Monday’s replacement of the mayors sparked widespread anger and brought a rebuke from Europe’s top rights body, the Council of Europe, which said the move undermined local democracy.”
The trio all are from the main pro-Kurdish party DEM. They were elected in March when opposition candidates won in many areas, including Istanbul.
Authorities banned rallies in several Kurdish majority provinces after the move.
Images filmed mid-week in Batman showed police officers targeted by firecrackers and dispersing demonstrators with armored vehicles equipped with water cannons.
Ankara and its Western allies have branded the PKK a “terrorist” organization. The group has waged a bloody guerrilla war since 1984 that has left more than 40,000 dead.
TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign ministry called Sunday for an arms embargo on Israel and the expulsion of its arch-foe from the United Nations, following a deadly strike in Syria.
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran “strongly condemned the aggressive attack carried out today by the Zionist regime against a residential building” in the Damascus area.
The strike on an apartment belonging to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, killed nine people including a Hezbollah commander, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Baghaei called for measures against Israel, including “an arms embargo” and its “expulsion from the United Nations.”
Regional tensions have soared since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the Palestinian Hamas militant group’s unprecedented attack on Israel.
The conflict has drawn in Tehran-aligned militants in the region, and included rare direct attacks between Iran and Israel.
Since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting army positions and fighters including from Hezbollah.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.
BAGHDAD: Turkish drone strikes killed five members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service and security sources said on Sunday.
The first Turkish strike targeted a vehicle in a mountain area near Iraq’s northern province Dohuk late on Saturday, killing three, including one person identified by the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service statement as a “senior PKK official,” the statement added.
Another drone strike on Sunday targeted a vehicle, killing two fighters from the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a militia affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), two security sources and a local official in the district of Sinjar told Reuters.
Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory.
The PKK launched an insurgency against Ankara in 1984 with the initial aim of creating an independent Kurdish state. It subsequently moderated its goals to seeking greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeast Turkiye.
CAIRO: Hundreds of people fleeing war-torn Sudan arrive in neighboring Egypt every day, a UN official said Sunday, adding to more than 1.2 million who have found refuge there, according to official figures.
The war between rival Sudanese generals since April 2023 has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, with 3.1 million of them seeking shelter beyond the country’s borders, according to the UN.
Egypt currently hosts 546,746 Sudanese refugees who are officially registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR, as well as others who are awaiting registration, said Christine Bishay, associate external relations officer at UNHCR Egypt.
A UNHCR report issued on Friday said that “recent data from the government of Egypt indicates that more than 1.2 million Sudanese have sought international protection in Egypt.”
This has made the North African country the largest host of Sudanese refugees despite imposing stricter entry requirements during the war in Sudan, which shares a long border with Egypt.
Sudanese nationals “now make up two-thirds of the country’s total registered refugee population” of 827,644 people representing 95 nationalities, including Syria, South Sudan and Eritrea, she said.
“Initially, at the very beginning of the conflict, thousands of Sudanese arrived in Egypt on a daily basis, before stabilising to a few hundreds per day,” Bishay added.
Cairo had initially waived visa requirements for Sudanese women, children and men over 50 at the start of the war.
But a month after the conflict erupted, the Egyptian government introduced visa entry requirements for all Sudanese, leaving many to resort to irregular crossings.
In September this year, Egypt further tightened entry requirements, obliging people entering from Sudan to obtain “prior security clearance” alongside a consular visa, according to Egypt’s interior ministry.
Raga Ahmed Abdel Rahman, a 27-year-old Sudanese woman who crossed into Egypt illegally in August, told AFP she had paid about 500,000 Sudanese pounds ($830) to travel in a pick-up truck with 16 others.
The desert journey, which took a gruelling day and a half, was “exhausting and terrifying,” Abdel Rahman said.
“We were constantly afraid of being stopped by RSF forces,” she added, referring to the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces who have been battling the regular army.
Hundreds of thousands of others who fled Sudan have sought refuge primarily in neighboring countries, including Chad, South Sudan and Libya.
In the report published on Friday, UNHCR Egypt warned that the humanitarian crisis caused by Sudan’s war has placed “immense pressure on Egypt’s resources and infrastructure.”
Hanan Hamdan, UNHCR representative to Egypt’s government and the Arab League, said that “the burden on Egypt is unsustainable and requires immediate and substantial international assistance to ensure the protection and well-being of those affected by the conflict.”
UNHCR also noted that so far, just over half of the funding needed for an aid scheme for Sudanese refugees has been secured.
The Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan 2024 “has received $1.52 billion in funding, which is 56.3 percent of the required $2.7 billion,” the UN agency said.
“Despite this significant contribution, the funding gap remains substantial.”
TEHRAN: At least five members of Iran’s security forces were killed Sunday in a “terror attack” in the restive southeast, where authorities have been conducting operations against rebels, local media reported.
The Fars news agency reported that in a “terror attack in Saravan county, in the south of the Sistan-Baluchistan province, five members of the security forces were killed.”
Sistan-Baluchistan borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces. It is one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim provinces in Shiite-dominated Iran.
For years it has faced unrest involving drug-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and extremists.
Fars said that after the attack in Saravan, “units stationed in the region were quickly deployed to pursue the criminals.”
Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers.
That attack was later claimed by the Pakistan-based Sunni jihadist group Jaish Al-Adl (Arabic for Army of Justice).
Local media reported that those behind the October attack have been killed in the current security operation.
Some 15 militants have been reported killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province since the October attack, including three on Sunday, state television said.
It also said more than 30 suspects have been arrested.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, Jaish Al-Adl is designated a terrorist organization by both Iran and the United States.
