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Battle for Fallujah: Iraq retakes government HQ

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Commanders say forces met limited resistance from ISIL during push into centre of city which government lost in 2014.

It is believed that up to 90,000 civilians are still inside Fallujah [Nawras Aamer/EPA]

It is believed that up to 90,000 civilians are still inside Fallujah [Nawras Aamer/EPA]

by Al Jazeera

Iraqi forces have retaken the main government compound in the centre of Fallujah from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, top commanders say.

The government lost control of Fallujah in 2014, months before ISIL took Iraq’s second largest city, Mosul, and swept across large parts of the country.

“The counterterrorism service and the rapid response forces have retaken the government compound in the centre of Fallujah,” the operation’s overall commander, Lieutenant-General Abdulwahab al-Saadi, told AFP on Friday.

The Iraqi flag is now raised on top of the building, symbolising government control.

Raed Shaker Jawdat, Iraq’s federal police chief, confirmed the advance, which marks a significant step in the nearly four-week-old offensive to retake the city in Anbar province.

“The liberation of the government compound, which is the main landmark in the city, symbolises the restoration of the state’s authority” in Fallujah, he said.

Both commanders said their forces had met limited resistance from ISIL fighters during the push into the city centre.

“This is a very significant development,” said Al Jazeera’s Omar Al Saleh, who has reported extensively on the conflict in Iraq.

“It is a big moral boost for Iraqi soldiers.”

Government troops and Shia units known as the Popular Mobilisation Forces are leading the campaign to retake the city from ISIL.

They are supported by US-led coalition air strikes.

“In different parts of Fallujah ISIL still remains,” said Saleh, “Iraqi forces still have a tough few days ahead.”

It is believed that up to 90,000 civilians are still inside Fallujah. And the clashes between the government forces and ISIL are causing casualties.

Al Jazeera’s Saleh said the death toll so far is based on estimates by medical sources from the city of Fallujah.

“They say it is in the hundreds,” he said.

Although the Iraqi government previously said it had a particular strategy to establish safe corridors for civilians in the city centre to leave,  many have been reluctant to go from fear of how they may be treated by the Shia units.

The humanitarian crisis in Iraq has been dubbed one of the world’s worst by the UN.

Since the beginning of the present conflict in 2014, more than 3.4 million people have been internally displaced and 2.6 million have fled Iraq.

Defiant Assad vows to liberate every inch of Syria

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In a speech to parliament, the Syrian president says his forces will recapture territory lost to rebels.

bashar-al-assad

by Al Jazeera

Syrian President Bashar Assad has vowed to “liberate” every inch of the country lost to rebel groups the same way his forces recaptured the historic town of Palmyra from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL), also known as ISIS.

In a televised speech on Tuesday before the country’s new parliament, Assad told politicians that the situation on the ground was much better than it was months ago and was improving by the day.

“As we liberated [Palmyra] and before it many areas, we will liberate every inch of Syria from their hands. Our only option is victory, otherwise Syria will not continue.”

In the speech, Assad also hardened his position on UN-sponsored peace talks, stressing that Syria would be ruled by a “unity government” not a “transitional governing body” as called for by the opposition.

“We will not agree to any topic outside the statement of principles we presented to the UN. We just won’t accept it,” Assad defiantly told parliament.

Assad’s comments were a far cry from remarks he made last July when he conceded that his army was facing a series of setbacks on the battfield and was being forced to relinquish certain areas.

However, the scales of war have tipped in Assad’s favour since Russia began an aerial campaign last September helping the government troops capture wide areas from rebel groups.

The Syrian army is currently advancing on Raqqa, ISIL’s de-facto capital, and in March, Syrian forces evicted ISIL from Palmyra.

ISIL, which controls large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, is fighting Syrian troops, US-backed fighters and other rebel groups in northern Syria and is facing an offensive by Iraqi government forces and Shia militias on its stronghold of Fallujah.

Syria’s war has proved the longest and bloodiest of the conflicts that arose out of popular uprisings in Arab countries over the past two years and led to the downfall of autocratic regimes in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

The conflict started in March 2011 as a largely unarmed uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, but it quickly evolved into a full-on civil war between government forces and rebel groups.

United Nations Special Envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura recently estimated that 400,000 people had been killed throughout the five years of violence.

Iraqi army launches assault against ISIL in Fallujah

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Special forces enter “third phase” in fight to recapture the central city from ISIL, as 50,000 people remain trapped.

iraq

by Al Jazeera

Iraqi special forces launched an assault on one of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group’s most emblematic bastions, Fallujah, as the group counter-attacked in both Iraq and neighbouring Syria.

The assault was launched in the early hours of Monday morning. Troops entered the city from three directions.

“Iraqi forces entered Fallujah under air cover from the international coalition, the Iraqi air force and army aviation, and supported by artillery and tanks,” said Lieutenant-General Abdelwahab al-Saadi, the commander of the operation.

“CTS forces, the Anbar police and the Iraqi army, at around 4am (01:00 GMT), started moving into Fallujah from three directions,” he said.

“There is resistance from Daesh,” he added, using an Arabic acronym for ISIL.

Al Jazeera’s Omar Al Saleh, reporting from Erbil, cited military sources saying that at least 10 Iraqi security forces and members of allied Shia militias were killed in the early hours of the offensive, while 25 more were injured.

Also on Monday in Ramadi, which is less than 100km from Fallujah, Iraqi police said that at least 15 special force soldiers were killed in an ISIL attack.

Meanwhile, at least nine people were killed and 26 were wounded in bombings north and northeast of the capital, Baghdad.

Fighting on Monday followed battles a day earlier, adding to the exodus of thousands of desperate civilians from the surrounding areas and deep concern for the many more trapped in the battlegrounds.

The week-old operation to capture Fallujah has so far focused on retaking villages and rural areas close to the central city, which lies just 50km west of Baghdad.

CTS’s involvement will mark the start of a phase of urban combat in a city where US forces in 2004 fought some of their toughest battles since the Vietnam War.

Only a few hundred families managed to slip out of the Fallujah area, with an estimated 50,000 people still trapped inside the city proper.

According to the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), around 3,000 people have managed to escape the Fallujah area since May 21.

The biggest wave so far arrived to camps for displaced people on Saturday night, NRC said, but a larger influx could be triggered when the urban battle between CTS and ISIL begins in earnest.

“Our resources in the camps are now very strained, and with many more expected to flee we might not be able to provide enough drinking water for everyone,” said Nasr Muflahi, NRC’s Iraq director.

“We expect bigger waves of displacement the fiercer the fighting gets.”

$48 for a kilo of rice

The Fallujah operation has come at a human cost, rights groups said, amid battles between ISIL (also known as ISIS) fighters and the advancing Iraqi army and allied Shia militia.

One Fallujah resident told Al Jazeera by phone that there is lack of medicine and fuel in the city.

“There is some food. We have vegetables, enough to survive. But there is no rice and sugar, the price for a kilo of rice here reached $48,” the resident said. “ISIL is on alert on the outskirts of the city. Its fighters have set up checkpoints and prepared ambushes, which prevent people form leaving.”

Indonesia: Death penalty, castration for child rapists

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Tough new punishments aimed at combating alarming rate of child sex abuse, but activists say measures will not work.

Protests against sexual violence increased after the gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl [EPA]

Protests against sexual violence increased after the gang rape and murder of a 14-year-old girl [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

Indonesia’s introduction of tougher punishments for child sex offenders, including the death penalty and chemical castration, has won public applause – but activists are warning that the measures will not serve as a deterrent.

President Joko Widodo signed a decree on Wednesday introducing the harsher penalties, which also include fitting monitoring devices to offenders after their release from jail, in response to public anger at the fatal gang-rape of a schoolgirl.

The 14-year-old was snatched by a group of drunken men and boys on western Sumatra island in April and was found days later in woods, tied up and naked.

The case sparked a national debate about sexual violence and as more reports of sex attacks emerged, pressure mounted on the government to take action.

The new punishments mostly won praise in Indonesia, where there is strong backing for the death penalty, with members of the public and politicians voicing support.

“Castration is intended to have a deterrent effect and prevent repeat sexual offences,” said Abdul Malik Haramain, a politician from the Islamic party the National Awakening Party, which is part of the ruling coalition.

He insisted that castration would not violate human rights, as offenders would go through a legal process before the punishment was handed down.

Activists push back

Nevertheless, activists were unhappy, suggesting the punishments were a knee-jerk reaction.

Hartoyo, a prominent gay rights activist who has campaigned against the new punishments, said the regulation amounted to an “act of vengeance”.

“It only shows that the government is panicking and has no real understanding about sexual violence,” added the campaigner, who like many Indonesians goes by one name.

Nur Kholis, of the National Commission on Human Rights, said his group was generally against the death penalty and did not believe that castration would have a deterrent effect.

The presidential decree brings the new punishments immediately into effect, although parliament could later overturn them.

The death penalty can be handed down to child rapists where the victim has died or suffered serious mental or physical injury, while chemical castration can be used in cases of repeat child sex offenders.

Under previous laws, the maximum sentence for rape – including of a minor – was 14 years in jail.

Indonesia has already faced much criticism for its use of capital punishment, sparking outrage last year when it put seven foreign drug convicts to death by firing squad.

The government did not give any further details on the electronic monitoring devices. Local media previously reported that a microchip could be implanted in child sex offenders’ legs on their release from jail.

Syria civil war: ISIL bombs rock Assad-held cities

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The attacks hit the cities of Tartus and Jableh [EPA/SANA handout]

The attacks hit the cities of Tartus and Jableh [EPA/SANA handout]

by Al Jazeera

More than 120 people have been killed in multiple attacks claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group in areas controlled by the Syrian government, a monitoring group said.

Syrian state TV also reported the attacks, putting the death toll at 78.

Simultaneous car bombs and suicide bombers hit bus stations, hospitals and elsewhere in the coastal cities of Tartus and Jableh in Latakia province on Monday, appearing to severely breach government defences, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Footage broadcast by the state-run Ikhbariya news channel of what it said were scenes of the blasts in Jableh showed several twisted and incinerated cars and minivans.

Pictures circulated om social media showed dead bodies in the back of pick-up vans and charred body parts on the ground.

The Syrian Observatory said that at least 73 people were killed in Jableh, and 48 in Tartus.

It said there were seven explosions that ripped through both locations simultaneously: Four in Jableh, including three suicide bombs and one car bomb, and four in Tartus, two suicide bombers and one car bomb.

Hospital blast

In Jableh, dozens were killed when a car bomb went off near a bus station, followed by a suicide bomber who detonated his explosive belt inside the station. Two men blew themselves up at the electricity company and outside the emergency entrance of a city hospital.

Dozens more were killed in Tartus when a car bomb went off in the bus station, and then two men blew themselves up when people gathered, according to the observatory.

ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack through one of its media arms, Amaq.

“It is the first time in this war that simultaneous attacks of this scale took place in Latakia,” Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from Gaziantep in neighbouring Turkey, said.

A Russian naval base is located in Latakia and Jableh is extremely close to a Russian airbase, Dekker said.

The Kremlin made a brief statement expressing concern about the attacks, adding that rising tension in the country underscored the need to continue with peace talks.

US Secret Service shoots armed man outside White House

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Agent says man approached a White House checkpoint with a firearm and refused to drop it, prompting the shooting.

US President Barack Obama was not home when the incident occurred [EPA]

US President Barack Obama was not home when the incident occurred [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

A US Secret Service agent shot a man carrying a firearm near the White House, after the man refused to drop his weapon, the agency said.

The man was taken into custody and transported to a local hospital, agency spokesman David Iacovetti said on Friday.

“When the subject failed to comply with the verbal commands, he was shot once by a Secret Service agent and taken into custody,” he said.

“The Secret Service recovered a firearm at the scene. Secret Service Uniformed Division Officers and an agent provided medical aid to the subject.”

The man did not enter the White House complex and no law enforcement personnel or innocent bystanders were injured.

The checkpoint is on the outside perimeter of the secure area around the executive mansion in Washington DC, and is accessible on that side to the public.

The White House security alert was lifted soon after everyone inside was accounted for.

Turkey and US bomb ISIL positions inside Syria

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At least 27 killed and ISIL defence posts destroyed in area controlled by armed group, according to Syrian state media.

Air raids destroyed a fifth-century Church in Daret Azza village, said activists [Reuters/FILE]

Air raids destroyed a fifth-century Church in Daret Azza village, said activists [Reuters/FILE]

by Al Jazeera

Turkish and US-led coalition forces have struck Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) targets north of the Syrian city of Aleppo, killing at least 27 fighters, according to state-run Anadolu Agency and other media reports.

Turkish artillery and rocket launchers fired into Syria while warplanes from the US-led coalition carried out three separate air campaigns, Anadolu said on Monday citing military sources.

Five fortified defence posts and two gun posts were also destroyed in the attack less than 10km from Turkey’s Syria border.

Turkish and coalition forces have carried out a series of such strikes recently to prevent further attacks on the Turkish border town of Kilis, which lies just across the frontier from ISIL-controlled territory in Syria, and has been regularly struck by rockets in recent weeks.

The US and Turkey have for months been discussing a military plan to drive ISIL from the border.

Elsewhere in Aleppo, fighting continued as government-backed armed groups said they took back two villages north of the battered Syrian city from ISIL.

Government’s deadly airborne raids also destroyed a fifth-century church, the Church of Saint Simeon Stylites in the village of Daret Azza, according to Syrian activists.

The fighting was focused around a strategic area that leads in and out of the rebel-controlled eastern Aleppo.

Claims and counterclaims

On Saturday, ISIL launched offensive in the east of the country in Deir Az Zor, but Syrian government troops fought back, and claimed to have retaken a hospital and a dormitory from the armed group which has seized territory in Syria and Iraq.

Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, reporting from the Turkish city of Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, said: “It’s been a battle back and forth in a small pocket of Deir Az Zor city under the control of the government.

“However, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitoring group is saying that the 95 percent of the city is under ISIL control which is in an oil-rich area.”

Meanwhile, John Kerry met King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia and its Adel Al-Jubeir, foreign minister, as part of diplomatic push aimed at ending the five-year-old war in Syria.

Kerry will head to Vienna to push for more international cooperation on ending the conflict that has left more than 240,000 people. He will also go to Brussels for meetings with NATO leaders.

A tenuous ceasefire has been in place since February brokered by Russia and the US, but Syria has continued to bomb rebel-controlled areas in Aleppo.

Nearly 300 people have been killed in the recent upsurge of violence.

Once Syria’s commercial heartland, Aleppo is now divided between the government-held west and the rebel-controlled east.

Hezbollah: Mustafa Badreddine killed in rebel shelling

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Lebanese group says top commander Badreddine killed by fire from a Sunni armed group in Syria.

Badreddine, 55, was one of Hezbollah's highest ranking officials. [AP/Hassan Ammar)

Badreddine, 55, was one of Hezbollah’s highest ranking officials. [AP/Hassan Ammar)

by Al Jazeera

Hezbollah has said its top military commander Mustafa Badreddine died as a result of artillery shelling by a Sunni armed group in Damascus.

The Lebanese Shia group announced Badreddine’s death on Friday and a military funeral was held for him on the same day in southern Beirut.

“Investigations have showed that the explosion, which targeted one of our bases near Damascus International Airport, and which led to the martyrdom of commander Mustafa Badreddine, was the result of artillery bombardment carried out by takfiri groups,” Hezbollah said in a statement.

“Takfiri” is a word used by the group to refer to armed Sunni groups.

Hezbollah earlier said it was working to “define the nature of the explosion and its cause, and whether it was the result of an air strike, or missile [attack] or artillery”.

Badreddine, 55, was one of the highest ranking officials in the group, and believed to be responsible for its operations in Syria, where thousands of its members are fighting alongside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Al Jazeera’s Zeina Khodr, reporting from Beirut, said Badreddine was the most senior Hezbollah commander to have been killed in Syria since the conflict began.

“Hezbollah has suffered heavy losses in Syria, with some sources estimating that at least 1,200 fighters have died since the group started its involvement in the war,” she said.

“Hezbollah’s military intervention in Syria caused a divide in Lebanon. Some say it was totally wrong as it exposed Lebanon to threats. However, Hezbollah sees this as an existential decision because the Syrian government provides a lifeline to the group.”

Iraq: At least 50 killed in Sadr City market explosion

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ISIL claims car bombing in predominantly Shia Sadr City that left scores of casualties.

ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on social media shortly after the blast [Khalid Mohammed/AP]

ISIL claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on social media shortly after the blast [Khalid Mohammed/AP]

by Al Jazeera

A car bomb in a predominantly Shia district of the Iraqi capital has killed at least 50 people and wounded at least 100 others, police sources told Al Jazeera.

An SUV packed with explosives blew up near a beauty salon in a bustling market at rush hour in Baghdad’s Sadr City on Wednesday.

Most of the victims were women, Iraqi police and hospital sources told the Reuters news agency.

The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement on social media shortly after the blast.

The group said the assault was carried out by a suicide bomber, a claim Iraqi officials denied.

There are fears that the death toll will rise further.

In the last two weeks, ISIL has claimed responsibility for two attacks targeting the Shia community in Baghdad.

First, a car bomb, targeting an open-air market frequented by Shia in Nahrawan near the Iraqi capital, killed at least 23 people and injured 38 others.

Two days later, a car bombing targeting Shia pilgrims commemorating the death anniversary of a revered 8th-century imam killed at least 18 people.

In February, ISIL also claimed a twin suicide bombing in Sadr City that killed 70 people.

According to the UN, at least 741 Iraqis were killed in April owing to ongoing violence, a sharp decline from the previous month.

In its monthly report issued on May 1, the UN mission to Iraq put the number of civilians killed at 410, while the rest were members of the security forces. A total of 1,374 Iraqis were wounded that month, it added.

In March, at least 1,119 people were killed and 1,561 wounded.

Baghdad remains the worst-hit area in terms of documented deaths, with 232 civilians killed and 642 wounded in April.

The fight against ISIL has exacerbated a long-running sectarian conflict in Iraq, mostly between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority.

Sectarian tensions also threaten to undermine efforts to dislodge ISIL from vast areas of the north and west of Iraq that they seized in 2014.

Bangladesh executes Motiur Rahman Nizami for war crimes

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Jamaat-e-Islami calls for general strike after hanging of its leader who was convicted of genocide, rape and massacres.

Motiur Rahman Nizami

by Al Jazeera

Bangladesh has executed head of the banned Jamaat-e-Islami party Motiur Rahman Nizami for war crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence to break away from Pakistan, the country’s law minister said.

Nizami was hanged at Dhaka Central jail at one minute past midnight local time on Wednesday after the Supreme Court rejected his final plea against a death sentence imposed by a special tribunal for genocide, rape and orchestrating the massacre of top intellectuals during the war.

Thousands of extra police and border guards were deployed in the capital Dhaka and other major cities to tighten security as Jamaat-e-Islami called for a nationwide strike on Thursday in protest of the execution.

Previous similar judgments and executions have triggered violence that killed around 200 people, mainly Jamaat activists and police.

Al Jazeera’s Tanvir Chowdhury, reporting from Dhaka, said the situation was still calm in the capital by Wednesday and there were no reports of violence in other cities.

“Unlike the last few years, Jamaat has not been able to materialise any kind of protest on the streets,” he said, adding that this was mainly due to heavy-handed tactics used by the security forces.

“Jamaat supporters are not allowed to gather anywhere. Many of the leaders are behind the bars or on the run,” he said.

“Human rights groups have criticised the government for extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. So, it is hard for them to gather anywhere. We will see what will come out of Jamaat’s call for a 24-hour strike tomorrow from 6am.”

Jamaat-e-Islami denies that its leaders committed any atrocities. Calling Nizami a “martyr”, it said he was deprived of justice and made a victim of a political vendetta. Nizami had been in prison since 2010.

‘False allegations’

A senior Jamaat-e-Islami leader based abroad told Al Jazeera that Nizami was a supporter of Pakistan in 1971 but “all other allegations of killing, murder and rape are not correct. The tribunal has miserably failed to prove any of those allegations.”

He said Jamaat leaders inside Bangladesh were not giving interviews because their phones were tapped and their families were harassed if they spoke to media.

“Not only leaders, thousands of middle-ranking and ordinary Jamaat workers have been forced to flee their homes due to police repression or harassment. They are refugees in their own country due the vindictive nature of this government,” he said.

“Their agenda is to wipe out Islam gradually and whoever they think opposes their policies is being targeted.”

Five opposition politicians, including four Jamaat-e-Islami leaders, have been executed since late 2013 after being convicted by the tribunal.

International human rights groups say the tribunal’s procedures fall short of international standards – an accusation the government denies.

According to Phil Robertson, the deputy director of the Asia division at the Human Rights Watch, the trial was neither free nor fair as the court was cutting corners on fair trial standards.

“For example, Nizami was allowed to have only four defence witnesses as a man fighting for his life. And the court did allow defence to challenge the inconsistencies in the testimonies of prosecution witnesses,” he told Al Jazeera from Bangkok.

“Finally, we have seen a significant problem in all of these war crimes trials, where the presiding judge was having ongoing discussions about judicial strategy with external consultants and prosecutors in a way that raises concerns about the independence of the panel.”

David Bergman, an investigative journalist in Dhaka, told Al Jazeera that there was long-standing allegations against Nizami since the end of the war.

“So the fact that there was a trial in which he was accused of these crimes is not itself political,” he said, while also noting rights groups’ criticism of the trials.

“There are no doubts that many members of Jamaat-e-Islami are concerned about trials and executions targeting its members, and the party itself is subject to significant repression.”

The war crimes tribunal set up by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in 2010 has sparked violence and drawn criticism from opposition politicians, including leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami, that it is victimising Hasina’s political opponents.

According to the Bangladesh government, about three million people were killed and thousands of women were raped during the 1971 war in which some factions, including the Jamaat-e-Islami, opposed the break from what was then called West Pakistan.

The execution comes as the country suffers a surge in violence in which atheist bloggers, academics, religious minorities and foreign aid workers have been killed.

In April alone, five people, including a university teacher, two gay activists and a Hindu, were hacked to death.

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