Rights group calls for investigation into whether war crimes were committed in the battle to retake the city from ISIL.

More than 890,000 people were displaced due to fighting in Mosul [Felipe Dana/AP]

Amnesty International has said it had identified a pattern of attacks by Iraqi forces and the US-led military coalition backing them that violated international humanitarian law and may amount to war crimes.

It also said that ISIL fighters flagrantly violated that same law by deliberately putting civilians in harm’s way to shield its fighters and impede the advance of Iraqi and coalition forces.

In a report published a day after the Iraqi forces declared victory in city, the human rights watchdog called for a thorough investigation into whether war crimes were committed in the battle for the city.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi formally declared victory in Mosul on Monday, three years after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group seized the city.

With air support from the US-led coalition, Iraqi forces launched the battle for Mosul in October, retaking the eastern part of the city in January and starting the operation for its western part the next month.

‘Disproportionate attacks’

Amnesty said Iraqi forces and the coalition carried out a series of unlawful attacks in west Mosul, relying heavily on Improvised Rocket Assisted Munitions (IRAMs), explosive weapons with crude targeting capabilities that wreaked havoc in densely populated areas.

“Even in attacks that seem to have struck their intended military target, the use of unsuitable weapons or failure to take other necessary precautions resulted in needless loss of civilian lives and in some cases appears to have constituted disproportionate attacks,” the report said.

Amnesty also slammed ISIL for a host of crimes that have been documented previously.

According to the report, ISIL fighters rounded up residents in contested villages and neighbourhoods and forced them to move into conflict zones in west Mosul for use as human shields. As clashes neared, they trapped the civilians inside houses without access to food or medical care, it said.

Amnesty acknowledged the challenges of protecting civilians given ISIL tactics, but blamed Iraqi authorities and the US-led coalition for failing to take feasible precautions to protect civilians from air strikes. It said leaflet drops warning of attacks had been virtually useless because ISIL heavily restricted civilian movement.

Neither the Iraqi defence ministry nor coalition officials were immediately available to comment on the Amnesty report.

Chatham House fellow Renad Mansou told Al Jazeera that while “war crimes have certainly” been committed by all sides in Mosul, the extent remains to be unknown.

“The question is whether the Iraqi goverment will be able to address the human right violations,” he said from London.

‘Hell on earth’

Also on Tuesday, UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein called for accountability and dialogue to heal the trauma of Mosul in the aftermath of the nearly nine-month long battle.

“The women, children and men of Mosul have lived through hell on earth, enduring a level of depravity and cruelty that is almost beyond words,” Zeid said.

The UN high commissioner demanded that the offenders be brought to justice and all violations thoroughly probed. He also urged Iraq to join the International Criminal Court (ICC).

“The root causes of violence and conflict in Iraq need to be addressed in terms of human rights violations suffered by all communities in the country over several decades. Only then can secure foundations be laid for the lasting peace that the Iraqi people deserve,” Zeid said.

He added that “ISIL forced tens of thousands of people from their homes in and around the city and used them as human shields, a war crime under international humanitarian law and a violation of the most basic standards of human dignity and morality”.

The UN said on Monday there was no end in sight to Iraq’s humanitarian crisis.

Of the more than 897,000 people displaced from Mosul, the UN said thousands of residents will probably not be able to return to the city because of “extensive damage caused during the conflict”.

US secretary of state, while visiting Doha, says Qatar’s views in Gulf crisis have been clear and ‘very reasonable’.

Tillerson met with Qatar’s Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani in Doha [Tom Finn/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told reporters in Doha that the Qatari government had “reasonable” views in the month-old diplomatic crisis with Arab neighbours.

“I think Qatar has been quite clear in its positions, and I think those have been very reasonable,” Tillerson said after his arrival in Doha on Tuesday.

The quartet accuse Qatar of funding “terrorism”, an accusation Qatar rejects as “baseless”.

Tillerson is holding talks with Qatar’s emir and foreign minister on the second leg of his four-day trip to the Gulf to help seek a resolution to the crisis.

The US State Department said Tillerson would first meet with Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, before holding talks with Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.

The visit to Doha follows a meeting with the Emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah and other senior Kuwaiti officials on Monday.

“We are trying to resolve an issue that concerns not just us but the whole world,” Sheikh Sabah told Tillerson.

US officials said Tillerson does not expect an immediate breakthrough, which they warned could be months away.

Rather, they said, he wants to explore possibilities for sparking negotiations.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut ties with Qatar on June 5 and imposed a land, air and sea blockade on the country.

On June 22, they issued a 13-point list of demands, including the shutdown of Al Jazeera, limiting ties with Iran and expelling Turkish troops stationed in the country, as a prerequisite to lift the sanctions.

Doha rejected the demands and the countries now consider the list “null and void”.

Kuwait is still trying to mediate the dispute.

The US has been supporting Kuwait’s mediation efforts, but Tillerson’s trip marks a new level of US involvement.

Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Kuwait City, said Tillerson was basically visiting each side to “take the temperature in this dispute”.

“After some initial missteps from the White House, in which the president seemed to take sides with the Saudis and their allegations, the US’ position now is to try to shore up the Kuwait efforts to mediate the crisis and to try to bring some presure from Washington, if it’s appropiate,” she said.

Senior Tillerson adviser R.C. Hammond said the package of demands, as issued by Qatar’s neighbours, was not viable, but said there were individual items on the list “that could work”.

Hammond would not elaborate on which demands Qatar could meet, but said concessions from the others would be required.

“This is a two-way street,” he said of a dispute among parties who each have been accused of funding “extremists” in some way. “There are no clean hands.”

First meeting between Trump and Putin wrapped up with the announcement of a truce deal covering southwestern Syria.

The deal was reached during Trump and Putin’s meeting in Hamburg [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Russian President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart Donald Trump have agreed on a ceasefire deal covering southwestern Syria, during talks at the G20 summit, officials from both countries said.

The deal was reached during the two leaders’ meeting in Hamburg on Friday on the sidelines of the G20 summit of industrialised and developing nations.

“Russian, American and Jordanian experts … agreed on a memorandum of understanding to create a de-escalation zone” in the regions of Daraa, Quneitra and Suweida, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Friday.

“There will be a ceasefire in this zone from midday Damascus time [9:00 GMT] on July 9,” he added.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson confirmed the agreement, saying that it showed that the US and Russia were able to work together in Syria and that they would continue to do so.

“We had a very lengthy discussion regarding other areas in Syria that we can continue to work together on to de-escalate the areas and the violence, once we defeat ISIS,” he said, using an acronym for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

‘Resident feel unsafe’

Previous ceasefires in Syria have collapsed or failed to reduce violence for long, and it was unclear whether this deal would fare any better.

Al Jazeera’s Natasha Ghoneim, reporting from Gaziantep, Turkey, said that despite such announcements of ceasefires, fighting continues and residents feel unsafe.

“This week there were peace talks in Astana and ahead of those talks, a ceasefire was announced, but in the west of the country, rebels are in a fierce battle with the Syrian forces who are trying to regain control and along the southern border there is sporadic fighting going on, the Syrian opposition is in control for the most part along the border with Jordan, but clearly fighting continues despite these ceasefires,” she said.

“We have spoken to residents in the southwest portion of Syria and they say that despite a ceasefire, they don’t feel safe and humanitarian aid doesn’t reach them.”

The Syrian conflict has killed nearly half a million people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, and forced millions of others to flee the country.

Russia is one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s most important backers and the survival of his regime is critical to maintaining Russian interests there. The US has argued that Assad’s regime must be toppled and backs “moderate” rebels fighting Syria government forces.

Scores of Uighurs forced to flee in Cairo and Alexandria after police sweep on Beijing’s request, rights groups say.

Some 20 Uighur students from Cairo’s Al-Azhar University were arrested in Alexandria [File: AP]

by Al Jazeera

Egyptian police have detained scores of Chinese students from the Uighur ethnic minority on Beijing’s request, forcing dozens into hiding or to flee to Turkey, activists have said.

The sweep began on Tuesday when police raided two restaurants frequented by Uighur students in Cairo and detained at least 37 people, Abduweli Ayup, a Uighur activist in Turkey, told Al Jazeera on Friday.

Dozens more have been arrested since, Ayup, said, including 20 from Cairo’s Al-Azhar University who were stopped in the city of Alexandria on their way out of the country late on Wednesday.

They were told they would be deported to China, Ayup said.

“Students, especially those who study religion, are being targeted,” Ayup said. “The police are searching apartment by apartment … In Cairo, people are in hiding. They are terrified. They are afraid to go out.”

The detentions come amid reports that authorities in the Uighur homeland of Xinjiang in western China are seeking the immediate return of Uighurs studying abroad.

China blames unrest in Xinjiang, which has included bombings and vehicle and knife attacks, on exiled Uighur separatist groups.

A traditionally Muslim group, many Uighurs complain of cultural and religious repression and discrimination by China.

Forced return

Lucia Parrucci, a spokeswoman for the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization advocacy group, said rights groups have moved some 60 Uighur students out of Egypt to safety in Turkey on Thursday alone.

Many of those remaining in Cairo “told us that they are afraid to sleep at home out of fear of their own arrest,” she said in an email to Al Jazeera.

Some 80 Uighur students have been arrested since the sweep began, she said.

The Chinese government has forced thousands of Uighur students abroad to return home since January 2017, she said, adding that some 90 percent of the estimated 7,000 – 8,000 Uighurs living in Egypt had returned to China.

“We have learned that many of the students have been arrested directly at the airport upon their return and sent to re-education camps. None of them have been able to see family members and no information was provided to their families about their whereabouts,” she said.

Human Rights Watch urged Egypt on Wednesday not to send Uighur detainees back to China, saying they faced “persecution and torture” there.

Sarah Leah Whitson, HRW’s Middle East director, also urged authorities to disclose the whereabouts of Uighur detainees and grant them access to lawyers.

Unverified videos shared on Twitter showed more than 70 Uighurs sitting on a floor in a government building and others being driven in a truck in handcuffs.

Ayup said rights groups lost touch with the detainees on Friday.

Abdullah, an Asian student of Islam at Al-Azhar university, told the Associated Press news agency that Uighurs were being detained in the Hay el Sabia area of Cairo’s Nasr City district. He gave only his first name for fear of reprisals.

“They’re mostly arresting the young men,” Sumaya, a Uighur woman living in Cairo, told The Middle East Eye on Thursday. “But I know of women who have been taken too, though we hide when we hear the government knocking on our door.”

A Chinese foreign ministry spokesman appeared to acknowledge on Thursday that Chinese citizens had been detained in Egypt, saying at a regular briefing that consular officials would visit them.

Geng Shuang, a foreign ministry spokesman, said that “as far as I know, China’s embassy in Egypt has sent consular officials to conduct consular visits”. He gave no further details.

The Egyptian police denied requests for comment.

About 440,000 people displaced within the country returned to their homes since January, UN refugee agency says.

An estimated 260,000 refugees have returned to Syria from neighbouring countries since 2015, according to the UN [FILE: EPA]

by Al Jazeera

Nearly half a million displaced Syrians have returned to their homes since the beginning of the year, mainly to find family members and check on property, the UN refugee agency said.

The agency said it had seen “a notable trend of spontaneous returns to and within Syria in 2017”.

Since January, about 440,000 people who had been displaced within the war-ravaged country had returned to their homes, mainly in Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus, Andrej Mahecic, a spokesman for the agency, known as the UNHCR, told reporters in Geneva on Friday.

In addition, around 31,000 refugees in neighbouring countries had also returned, he said, bringing to 260,000 the number of refugees who have returned to the country since 2015.

But Mahecic said this is a mere “fraction” of the five million Syrian refugees hosted in the region.

He said the main factors prompting the displaced to return home were “seeking out family members, checking on property, and, in some cases, a real or perceived improvement in security conditions in parts of the country.”

He said it was too early to say if the returns might be directly linked to a palpable drop in violence since Turkey agreed at talks in Astana in May with Russia and Iran, allies of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to establish four safe zones across Syria to ban flights and ensure aid drops.

But this week, the UN’s special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told the Security Council that since the May 4 deal, “violence is clearly down. Hundreds of Syrian lives continue to be spared every week, and many towns have returned to some degree of normalcy”.

Mahecic nonetheless cautioned that “while there is overall increased hope linked to the recent Astana and Geneva peace talks, UNHCR believes conditions for refugees to return in safety and dignity are not yet in place in Syria”.

“The sustainability of security improvements in many return areas is uncertain, and there remain significant risks of protection thresholds for voluntary, safe and dignified returns not being met in parts of the country,” he said.

“Access to displaced population inside Syria remains a key challenge,” he added.

But “given the returns witnessed so far this year and in light of a progressively increased number of returns”, the agency had begun scaling up its operations inside Syria to better be able address the needs of the returnees, he said.

Syria’s war has killed more than 320,000 people and forced millions from their homes since it began in March 2011.

Joint exercises, expected to start after Eid al-Fitr, could eventually draw up to 1,000 Turkish soldiers to Qatar.

The Turkish military base in Qatar is a first for Turkey in the Arab World [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Qatar’s ministry of defence has announced the arrival of a new group of Turkish armed forces to the military base where Turkey began its training mission last week.

The forces are set to take part in joint exercises within the framework of a defence agreement signed between Doha and Ankara aimed at raising Qatar’s defence capabilities, supporting “counter-terror” efforts, and maintaining security and stability in the region.

Khalid bin Mohammed al-Attiyah arrived on Thursday to Ankara where he is scheduled to meet with his Turkish counterpart Fikri Ishik as well as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Turkey’s parliament on June 8 approved 2015 deal with Qatar aimed at strengthening military cooperation between the two states, which gave Turkey the right to establish military bases in Qatar and deploy military forces.

The deal’s approval came three days after Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries severed diplomatic ties with Qatar over allegations that it supports “terrorism” and is too close to Iran – charges Doha has repeatedly denied.

Five armoured vehicles and 23 military Turkish military personnel arrived to Doha on June 18. At the time, Turkey’s Hurriyet newspaper reported there were already at least 88 Turkish soldiers in Qatar.

The number of Turkish soldiers sent to the Gulf state could eventually reach 1,000, Turkish daily Hurriyet reported, adding that an air force contingent was also envisaged.

Joint exercises were expected to start after the Eid al-Fitr holiday.

The Turkish military base in Qatar is a first for Turkey in the Arab World.

Saudi-led bloc could take further action against Qatar by ‘imposing conditions on trade partners’, UAE envoy says.

Saudi Arabia and its allies cut ties with Qatar on June 5 [Tamila Varshalomidze/Al Jazeera]

by Al Jazeera

A Saudi-led bloc is considering fresh sanctions against Qatar that may include asking trading partners to choose between them or Doha, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ambassador to Russia said.

In an interview with The Guardian newspaper, envoy Omar Ghobash said the expulsion of Qatar from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was “not the only sanction available” for the UAE and its allies.

“There are certain economic sanctions that we can take which are being considered right now,” Ghobash said in the interview, which was published on Wednesday.

“One possibility would be to impose conditions on our own trading partners and say: you want to work with us then you have got to make a commercial choice,” he added.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed sanctions on the country on June 5, accusing it of supporting “terrorism”.

The four countries have not provided any evidence for their claim, while Qatar has repeatedly rejected the allegation.

Ghobash said that if Qatar “was not willing to accept the demands, it is a case of ‘Goodbye Qatar’ we do not need you in our tent any more”.

‘We don’t claim to have press freedom’

On Thursday, the Saudi-led bloc issued a 13-point demand list in exchange for the end of the anti-Qatar measures and gave a 10-day deadline.

The demands included, among others, that Qatar shut down the Al Jazeera media network, close a Turkish military base and scale down ties with Iran.

When asked if the closure of Al Jazeera was a valid demand, Ghobash told The Guardian that the UAE does not “claim to have press freedom”.

“We do not promote the idea of press freedom. What we talk about is responsibility in speech,” he said.

He added that speech in the Gulf “has particular context, and that context can go from peaceful to violent in no time simply because of the words that are spoken”.

Ghobash also said that the UAE was willing to hold itself to the same standards it was asking of Qatar.

He echoed previous statements by UAE officials that the Gulf states do not wish to escalate the conflict with military action.

“We can escalate with more information, because we are not going to escalate militarily. That is not the way we are looking at things.”