Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq
Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq/node/2578809/middle-east
Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq
A group of armed Kurdish fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) enter northern Iraq in the Heror area, northeast of Dahuk, 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, Iraq. (AP file photo)
Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq
Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory
Updated 21 sec ago
Reuters
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.
Egypt hosts 1.2 million Sudanese, with ‘hundreds’ arriving daily: UN
Updated 40 sec ago
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.”
Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province
Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers
Updated 34 min 59 sec ago
AFP
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.
Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-Sept.
They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon
Updated 10 November 2024
AFP
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he okayed a deadly September attack on Hezbollah communications devices which exploded in Lebanon, the first time Israel has admitted involvement.
Hezbollah had previously blamed its arch-foe for the blasts that dealt a major blow to the Iran-backed militant group, and vowed revenge.
“Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon,” his spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP of the attacks.
Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated two days in a row in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-September.
They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.
Strikes have intensified since war broke out in Lebanon in late September, when Israel escalated its air campaign against Hezbollah and later sent ground troops into south Lebanon.
Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated two days in a row in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-September
They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000
Updated 10 November 2024
AFP
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he okayed a deadly September attack on Hezbollah communications devices which exploded in Lebanon, the first time Israel has admitted involvement.
Hezbollah had previously blamed its arch-foe for the blasts that dealt a major blow to the Iran-backed militant group, and vowed revenge.
“Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon,” his spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP of the attacks.
Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated two days in a row in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-September.
They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.
Strikes have intensified since war broke out in Lebanon in late September, when Israel escalated its air campaign against Hezbollah and later sent ground troops into south Lebanon.
Netanyahu says spoke again with Trump about Iran ‘threat’
“We see eye to eye on the Iranian threat in every aspect,” Netanyahu said
Analysts believe Netanyahu had hoped for a Trump return to the White House
Updated 10 November 2024
AFP
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Sunday he had spoken three times with US president-elect Donald Trump over the past few days about the “Iranian threat” to Israeli security.
“In the last few days, I have spoken three times with President-elect Donald Trump... Talks designed to further tighten the strong alliance between Israel and the US,” Netanyahu said, quoted in a statement issued by his office.
“We see eye to eye on the Iranian threat in every aspect,” he added during a weekly cabinet meeting, according to the statement.
Netanyahu also said he had talked to Trump about “great opportunities before Israel in the field of peace and its expansion.”
The United States is Israel’s top ally and military backer, and the election came at a critical time for the Middle East amid wars in Gaza and Lebanon.
Analysts believe Netanyahu had hoped for a Trump return to the White House, given the longstanding personal friendship between the two as well as the former president’s hawkishness on Israel’s arch-foe Iran.
During his first term, Trump moved the US embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights and helped normalize ties between Israel and several Arab states under the so-called Abraham Accords.
