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Jordan shuts down Muslim Brotherhood headquarters

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The movement has had strained relations with the authorities in recent years. AP

The movement has had strained relations with the authorities in recent years. AP

by BBC

Police in Jordan have shut the headquarters of the main opposition movement, the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood (MB), group officials say.

The building in the capital, Amman, was sealed on the city governor’s orders, an MB leader told Reuters news agency.

No reason was given for the closure, the official added.

The MB has a strong support base in urban areas and its political wing, the Islamic Action Front (IAF), is Jordan’s largest opposition party.

The group split in 2014 into the old movement and a new, more moderate, officially licensed branch. The headquarters of the original movement were targeted in Wednesday’s raid.

“We were surprised by this move from the Public Security Department,” spokesman Badi al Rafaiah told Reuters.

“Many policemen and gendarmes came… broke the door down and threw out all the staff with an order to close down the main centre, which they sealed off without giving any explanation.”

The rise in militant Islam in the region has increasingly strained relations between the Brotherhood and the authorities.

The IAF has boycotted parliamentary elections, alleging the system marginalises the party, while authorities have sporadically cracked down on the group.

Last year, a Muslim Brotherhood leader was jailed for criticising Jordan’s ally the UAE, in the first such case involving a top opposition figure in Jordan for years.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt agree to build bridge over Red Sea

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King Salman unveils “historic step to connect Africa and Asia” during Cairo visit as allies seal multiple trade deals.

abdel-fattah-al-sisi-and-king-salman

by Al Jazeera

King Salman of Saudi Arabia has said that an agreement has been reached with Egypt to build a bridge over the Red Sea connecting the two countries.

The monarch made the announcement in televised comments on Friday – the second day of his visit to Cairo – after meeting Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, and before representatives of the two countries began signing investment deals.

“I agreed with my brother, his Excellency President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, to build a bridge connecting the two countries,” Salman said.

“This historic step to connect the two continents, Africa and Asia, is a qualitative transformation that will increase trade between the two continents to unprecedented levels.”

It was not mentioned where the bridge would be built, but at the closest point – Nabq, just north of Sharm el-Sheikh, in Egypt, and Ras Alsheikh Hamid, in Saudi Arabia – the two countries are 16km apart.

The plan to build a joint bridge over the Red Sea at the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba has been in the pipeline for several years.

Earlier proposals suggested the causeway would feature a railway line in parallel with the road lanes, integrating both country’s proposed high-speed railway systems. In that plan, the causeway would pass through Saudi’s Tiran Island, which would serve as a connection between the two countries.

Sisi, who minutes before the announcement had presented the king with the ceremonial Nile Collar, suggested the name “King Salman bin Abdel Aziz Bridge”.

“The unique quality of the relations between Egypt and Saudi Arabia, the extent to which they are strong and deep-rooted, will allow us to face mutual challenges,” Sisi said.

“Our cooperation will certainly allow us to resolve all of our regional crises, such as in Palestine, Yemen, Libya and Syria.”

Besides the announcement, Saudi and Egyptian representatives signed 17 investment deals and memorandums of understanding.

A government official said that the deals with Saudi Arabia during Salman’s visit would amount to about $1.7bn.

Saudi Arabia is one of the top foreign investors in Egypt, with more than $8bn pledged late last year in sectors such as tourism, agriculture and information technology.

It has also promised to help the country meet its energy needs.

Riyadh has helped to finance Sisi’s government since the Egyptian leader – then army chief – overthrew President Mohamed Morsi in 2013, giving billions of dollars in aid, grants and cash deposits to help buoy the country’s economy.

Egypt has faced years of political upheaval since the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime leader Hosni Mubarak, prompted a foreign-reserves crisis and slowed economic growth.

The country has since grown dependent on aid from abroad, although it says it seeks to wean itself off as soon as possible.

Syria civil war: ISIL kidnaps ‘300 factory workers’

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Staff at cement plant near town of Dumayr abducted by ISIL fighters and moved to unknown location, reports say.

ISIL fighters reportedly moved the abducted workers to an unknown location [File pic: The Associated Press]

ISIL fighters reportedly moved the abducted workers to an unknown location [File pic: The Associated Press]

by Al Jazeera

More than 300 staff at a cement factory east of Damascus have been kidnapped after an attack earlier this week by Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), Syrian state TV said on Thursday.

Hundreds of employees at the Al Badia Cement company were taken by ISIL fighters from a factory in the town of Dumayr, 50km east of the Syrian capital, the report quoted the industry ministry as saying.

It added the workers’ employer had lost all contact with them.

However, there were conflicting reports on Thursday about the number of people missing, with local sources telling Al Jazeera that the number was far less than 300.

Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal, reporting from Beirut in neighbouring Lebanon, said rebels belonging to a rival group managed to secure the release of most of those kidnapped.

“Sources said ISIL initially killed or beheaded 10 of those who were taken, accusing them of espionage, and that less than 100 of them remained in captivity. The conflicting reports show the lack of clarity on the ground,” Elshayyal said.

Residents in the nearby area of Giraud, however, said they saw ISIL vehicles carrying nearly 125 workers and heading to the town of Tel Dkoh that is controlled by the group, local official Nadeem Krizan told Syria’s official news agency SANA. He did not account for the other workers reportedly seized.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said “dozens” of staff had disappeared, while a plant administrator put the figure at 250.

The Britain-based monitor, which relies on a network of activists inside Syria for information, added the ISIL attack on Dumayr killed at least 20 Syrian soldiers and allied paramilitary fighters.

A resident of Dumeir, 50km east of the Syrian capital, told the AFP news agency that contact with family members had been lost “since noon on Monday”.

“There is information that the workers might have been kidnapped by Islamic State (ISIL) and taken to an unknown destination,” Rami Abdel Rahman, the Observatory’s head, told the DPA news agency.

The cement factory lies outside Dumayr, which has seen fierce battles between government forces and ISIL fighters inside the town.

A Syrian security source told AFP that ISIL also tried to seize a nearby airbase and power plant from the government, without succeeding.

ISIL’s latest attacks near Damascus are seen as retaliation for military setbacks suffered by the group elsewhere in Syria.

Last month, Syrian regime forces – backed by Russian warplanes – drove ISIL from the strategic and ancient city of Palmyra, which the fighters had controlled for 10 months.

 

Iraq halts ISIS offensive as more ground troops needed

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Build-up operation to retake Mosul paused until police and tribal reinforcements arrive to hold captured ground.

Iraqi soldiers with new US-made weapons take positions at the front line against ISIL in August 2015 [AP]

Iraqi soldiers with new US-made weapons take positions at the front line against ISIL in August 2015 [AP]

by Al Jazeera

An Iraqi army offensive touted as the first phase of a campaign to recapture the northern city of Mosul from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant has been paused until more forces arrive to hold ground, the commander in charge said on Wednesday.

Almost three weeks into the operation, Iraqi forces have retaken just three villages from ISIL, also known as ISIS, in the Makhmour area, which is set to be a key staging ground for a future assault on Mosul, about 60km further north.

The faltering start has cast renewed doubt on the capabilities of the Iraqi army, which partially collapsed when ISIL took about one-third of the country in 2014.

The news came as eight Iraqi forces were killed in an attack launched by ISIL on a military barracks in al-Ma’amel village, east of Fallujah, sources told Al Jazeera.

Major General Najm Abdullah al-Jubbouri, who is in charge of the Makhmour offensive, said Iraqi forces were now waiting for the arrival of federal police units and additional local tribal fighters to hold territory after it is retaken.

That would free up his forces to go on the offensive against the rebels, Jubbouri said in a statement, dismissing what he described as efforts to disparage the army.

“We do not want to use all our units to hold territory,” he said.

The initial target of the latest offensive was Qayara – an ISIL hub on the western bank of the Tigris river – but Iraqi forces have so far failed to recapture the hilltop village of Nasr on the eastern side.

In the statement, Jubbouri said fighters had dug a network of tunnels beneath Nasr and prepared suicide bombers and a fleet of vehicles rigged with explosives, some of which contain weaponised chlorine, a chemical weapon ISIL has used before in northern Iraq.

US Army Major Jon-Paul Depreo, operations officer for the international coalition fighting ISIL in Iraq and neighbouring Syria, said at the weekend the insurgents were determined not to lose Nasr because of its strategic position on high ground.

Depreo also said difficult terrain meant it was not possible to deploy a large number of forces there against fighters, who are more familiar with the area.

“These [Iraqi army] forces aren’t from that area necessarily, so they’re learning the area,” Depreo told reporters in Baghdad.

The coalition, led by the United States, has trained thousands of Iraqi police and soldiers in preparation for the operation to retake Mosul – by far the largest city in ISIL’s self-proclaimed caliphate.

Depreo said the fighting was only one part of the challenge. “There’s going to be a lot of fighting but there’s also going to be a lot of logistical infrastructure that needs to follow and be established.”

Shia militias and Kurdish Peshmerga have played a major role in the fight, but with Mosul the plan is for the army to take the lead to avoid inflaming ethnic and sectarian sensitivities in the mainly Sunni Arab city.

The army won its first major victory over the fighters last December in Ramadi and aims to retake Mosul this year, but Iraqi officials privately question whether that is possible.

“It’s a tough fight,” Depreo said of the offensive in Makhmour, describing it as a “shaping operation” for the bigger battle ahead. “We have a lot of work to do before we take control of Mosul again.”

Syria war: UN urges leaders to accept more refugees

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Ban Ki-moon says governments must “act with solidarity” to alleviate Syria refugee crisis and “counter fear-mongering”.

Many refugees have died while fleeing to European countries on rickety boats [AP]

Many refugees have died while fleeing to European countries on rickety boats [AP]

by Al Jazeera

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called on governments around the world to allow in more Syrian refugees and “counter fear-mongering” about them.

At a conference in Geneva on Wednesday, Ban urged countries to “act with solidarity, in the name of our shared humanity, by pledging new and additional pathways for the admission of Syrian refugees”.

He said they can do so through “resettlement or humanitarian admission, family reunions, as well as labour or study opportunities”.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR convened a meeting of more than 90 countries at the Swiss UN seat in Geneva, aiming to win new pledges for resettlement and family reunification programmes, as well as study visas.

“We are here to address the biggest refugee and displacement crisis of our time,” Ban said.

These programmes are separate from usual asylum procedures. They are aimed especially at helping vulnerable groups, including women, children and people with medical needs.

Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq have been hosting most of the five million refugees of Syria’s conflict, which has put serious strains on state budgets and public services.

“Communities hosting refugees in neighbouring countries are exhausted,” Ban said.

Furthermore, tens of thousands of Syrian refugees are stranded in European countries without basic rights or the proper documentation to lead a normal life.

Ban also emphasised that countries should not demonise refugees, but should see the opportunities that the people could bring to their new host countries.

“Today, they are refugees. Tomorrow, they can be students and professors, scientists and researchers, workers and care-givers,” he said.

Earlier this year, an international donor conference in London pledged more than $11bn to assist Syrian refugees and internally displaced people in 2016-2020, the bulk of which came from the US and EU member-states.

And wealthy countries have pledged 178,000 of the 480,000 resettlement spots needed for Syrians, according to UN estimates.

EgyptAir hijack: Cyprus airport hostage drama ends

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Hostage drama ends after EgyptAir jet was diverted to Cyprus, amid reports that incident was not politically motivated.

A man climbs out of the cockpit window of the hijacked EgyptAir plane at Larnaca airport [Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters]

A man climbs out of the cockpit window of the hijacked EgyptAir plane at Larnaca airport [Yiannis Kourtoglou/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Cyprus’ foreign ministry has reported that the hijacker of an EgyptAir passenger jet has been arrested at the island’s Larnaca airport after a five-hour standoff.

The EgyptAir domestic flight from Alexandria to Cairo was hijacked on Tuesday morning and forced to divert to Cyprus, in an incident that was not politically motivated, the president of Cyprus said.

EgyptAir said flight 181 had 81 people on board, including a crew of seven. Most of them were released shortly after landing in Cyprus.

At around 11:30 GMT, the last seven people were seen leaving the aircraft, one whom escaped though the cockpit window.

Earlier on Tuesday, aviation minister Sherif Fathy at a news conference in Cairo said three foreign passengers were still on board, together with the pilot and co-pilot, one flight attendant and an air marshal.

Initial reports said that the pilot of the plane was threatened by a passenger strapped with explosives, but Fathy said this has not been confirmed.

Cyprus President Nicos Anastasiades said the hijacker seemed to have a personal motive and that the incident was “not related to terrorism”.

The plane was an Airbus 320, Egypt’s aviation ministry said. An official with flight-tracking website FlightRadar24 said the plane showed no immediate signs of distress. The flight between Alexandria and Cairo normally takes about 30 minutes.

The ministry said in a statement that pilot Omar al-Gammal had informed authorities that he was threatened by a passenger who possessed a suicide belt and forced him to land in Larnaca.

Cyprus foreign ministry identified the hijacker as Seif Eldin Mustafa and said it could not confirm the man was rigged with explosives.

Cyprus state TV said that the hijacker wanted to contact his ex-wife, who is Greek-Cypriot and lives in Larnaca.

Witnesses told Cyprus Mail newspaper that the he threw a letter on the apron of the airport in Larnaca, written in Arabic, asking that it be delivered to his ex-wife.

Other media outlets in Cyprus reported he first asked to be taken to Istanbul but that the pilot refused this demand.

CYBC said the airplane was parked at an apron at Larnaca airport. The hijacker asked police to back away from the aircraft, it said.

Egypt’s vital tourism industry was already reeling from the crash of a Russian passenger plane in the Sinai in late October.

President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has said it was brought down by an attack. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) has said it planted a bomb, killing all 224 people on board.

Cyprus has seen little militant activity for decades, despite its proximity to the Middle East.

A botched attempt by Egyptian commandos to storm a hijacked airliner at Larnaca airport led to the disruption of diplomatic relations between Cyprus and Egypt in 1978.

Pakistan says it captures Indian spy, summons envoy to protest

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Photo: AFP

Photo: AFP

Islamabad: Pakistan summoned the Indian ambassador on Friday to protest against the illegal entry of an Indian spy who Pakistan said was captured in the violence-plagued province of Baluchistan the previous day.

The accusation could raise tension between the nuclear-armed rivals months after India blamed Pakistan-based militants for an attack on an Indian air base in which seven military personnel were killed.

“(Pakistan) conveyed our protest and deep concern on the illegal entry into Pakistan by a RAW officer and his involvement in subversive activities in Baluchistan and Karachi,” Pakistan’s foreign ministry said in a statement, referring to the message conveyed to India’s ambassador.

RAW is India’s Research and Analysis Wing, its main external intelligence agency.

Pakistan believes India is supporting a separatist insurgency in resource-rich Baluchistan. It also accuses India of fuelling strife in the city of Karachi.

India denies any such meddling.

India has long accused Pakistan of backing militants fighting Indian security forces in its part of the divided Kashmir region, of helping militants launch attacks elsewhere in India and backing the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Pakistan say it only offers diplomatic support to the Muslim people of Kashmir living under what Pakistan says is heavy-handed Indian rule. It denies backing militant attacks in India.

A Pakistani military official in Baluchistan told Reuters the suspected RAW spy was an Indian navy officer. Another Pakistani official gave the same information.

Both declined to be identified as they were not authorised to give details of the incident to the media.

One of the officials said the suspected spy had been moved to Islamabad for interrogation.

The neighbours have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over Kashmir which they both claim in full but rule in part.

Baluchistan’s provincial interior minister, Mir Sarfaraz Bugti, told reporters the arrest “proved Indian involvement” in his province.

Last year, Defence Minister Khawaja Asif said RAW was bent on annihilating Pakistan.

“RAW has been formed to undo Pakistan and to wipe Pakistan off the map of the world,” Asif said in a television interview.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif made improving ties with India a priority when he won a 2013 election. But his push is seen as causing friction with the army which sees relations with India as its domain.

Last December, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi made a surprise stopover in Pakistan to meet Sharif, the first visit by an Indian premier in over a decade.

The visit raised hopes that stop-and-start negotiations might finally make progress after decades of hostility.

(Rueters)

Pilgrims die in bus crash between Mecca and Medina

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At least 19 Egyptians killed when their bus overturned in Saudi Arabia, between two cities considered holy to Muslims.

medina

by Al Jazeera

At least 19 Egyptians were killed when their bus overturned in Saudi Arabia, officials said.

Red Crescent spokesman Khaled al-Sahli said the crash took place early on Saturday on a highway linking the two Saudi holy cities of Medina and Mecca. At least 22 people were injured, he said.

An official with the Egyptian foreign ministry, Hisham al-Naqeeb, told the MENA news agency that the bus was carrying 44 Egyptians.

He said the bodies of the dead were transferred to different hospitals in the city of Medina.

Nawaf al-Mohammad, chief of the Medina traffic department, told Saudi online newspaper Sabq that the driver of the vehicle may have fallen asleep.

The pilgrims were on their way to Medina, about 400km from Mecca, according to the official.

The accident came a day after at least 14 Palestinian pilgrims en route to Mecca died in a bus crash in southern Jordannear the Saudi border.

Istanbul bombing: At least five killed in Turkish city

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At least five killed and 20 wounded on popular Istiklal street, a major thoroughfare in the Turkish city’s centre.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing [Reuters]

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombing [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

An explosion believed to have been caused by a suicide bomber has hit the popular Istiklal Street in central Istanbul’s Taksim square area.

Government officials said at least five people were killed and 36 were injured – seven seriously – in Saturday morning’s explosion.

The suspected suicide bomber is believed to be among those killed. Twelve foreign citizens were among the wounded, including an unknown number of Israelis.

Footage from the scene showed police and emergency services cordoning off the street, which has been completely cleared of people.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera that hundreds of people ran in panic away from the site of the explosion, moments after the incident.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Istiklal street is a long pedestrian thoroughfare that winds its way through the Beyoglu neighbourhood from Taksim Square.

It is rimmed by hundreds of shops and would have been filled with pedestrians at the time of the explosion.

Al Jazeera’s Jamal Elshayyal said the location of the explosion was the equivalent of a bomb going off in Oxford St in London or Fifth Avenue in New York.

The explosion comes as Turkey is on edge following two recent suicide bomb attacks in the capital, Ankara, which were claimed by a Kurdish group, that is an off-shoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

Turkey has been fighting on multiple fronts. As part of a US-led coalition, it is battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), which has seized territory in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.

It is also battling the PKK in its southeast, where a two-and-a-half-year ceasefire collapsed last July, prompting the worst violence since the 1990s.

Turkey sees the unrest in its largely Kurdish southeast as deeply linked to events in northern Syria, where the Kurdish YPG militia has seized territory as it fights both ISIL and rebels battling President Bashar al-Assad.

ISIL has carried out at least four bomb attacks on Turkey since June 2015, including a suicide bombing which killed 10 German tourists in central Istanbul in January.

Syria civil war: Kurds declare federal region in north

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Democratic Union Party and allied groups approve document that declares “federal democratic system” in country’s north.

Kurdish fighters have been tightening their grip on several areas in northern Syrian in recent months [Reuters]

Kurdish fighters have been tightening their grip on several areas in northern Syrian in recent months [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and several allied groups have voted to create an autonomous federation in the northern part of Syria.

Officials of the PYD claimed autonomy in the Kurdish-controlled areas on Thursday after two days of meetings with delegates of different communities in the country’s north.

Representatives of the Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian communities and other ethnic groups met in the town of Rmeilan in Hassakeh province to discuss combining three Kurdish-led autonomous areas into a federal system.

Both the Syrian government and one of the main opposition blocs have rejected the move.

The Syrian foreign ministry issued a statement “warning anyone who dares to undermine the unity of the land and the people of Syria under any title,” adding: “Creating a union or a federal system … contradicts the Syrian constitution and all the national concepts and international resolutions.”

Rojava autonomy declared

The opposition Syrian National Coalition also said it rejects such unilateral declarations and warned of any attempt to form autonomous regions that “confiscate the will of the Syrian people”.

The newly declared region, named by Kurds as Rojava, consists of three distinct enclaves, or cantons, under Kurdish control in northern Syria: Jazira, Kobani and Afrin.

The move is sure to anger Turkey, which fears that the growing Kurdish power in Syria is encouraging separatism among its own Kurdish minority.

Idris Nassan, a Syrian Kurdish official and former leader in the Democratic Union Party, said on Wednesday that the announcement would mean “widening the framework of self-administration” across northern Syria.

Speaking to Al Jazeera from Kobane, in Syria, Nassan said preparations for federalism had been ongoing for quite some time.

“Federalism should be the future not only for northern Syria or the Kurdish regions but for Syria in general, because under federalism democracy and equality will be guaranteed,” he said.

Syria’s Kurds effectively control an uninterrupted 400km of territory along the Syrian-Turkish border from the Euphrates River to the frontier with Iraq, where Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed autonomy since the early 1990s. They also hold a separate section of the northwestern border in the Afrin area.

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