UN official pleads with Assad government to allow life-saving aid deliveries to 60,000 civilians trapped in four towns.

According to monitoring group Siege Watch, more than a million people live under siege across Syria [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

A senior UN official in Syria has warned of a “looming humanitarian catastrophe” in four besieged towns and called on President Bashar al-Assad to allow safe passage for life-saving aid to some 60,000 trapped civilians.

Ali al-Zaatari, the UN humanitarian coordinator for Syria, warned of dire conditions in Zabadani, Madaya, Fua and Kefraya; towns besieged by government troops and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah.

“Sixty-thousand innocent people are trapped there in a cycle of daily violence and deprivation, where malnutrition and lack of proper medical care prevail,” he said in a statement released late on Monday.

“The situation is a looming humanitarian catastrophe. The principle of free access to people in need must be implemented now and without repeated requests.”

Zaatari added that the situation was complicated by the “tit-for-tat arrangement” between the towns, whereby no aid can be provided to Madaya and Zabadani without similar access to Fua and Kefraya, and vice versa.

The linkage “makes humanitarian access prone to painstaking negotiations that are not based on humanitarian principles,” he said.

“This has prevented medical cases from receiving proper treatment and evacuation. People are in need, and they cannot wait any longer. We need to act now.”

Fua and Kefraya, the last two government-held villages in Idlib province, are surrounded by a rebel alliance including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch).

The UN’s last humanitarian access to the four towns was in November, the statement said, without directing blame for the lack of access on one side or the other.

‘One million under siege’

Earlier this month, the UN said it had been able to deliver aid to just 40,000 people in besieged and hard-to-reach areas in January, despite requesting access to more than 900,000 people.

That made January the worst month for humanitarian deliveries in nearly a year, with approval received for just one of 21 humanitarian convoys proposed by the UN, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.

According to Siege Watch, a monitoring group that tracks besieged communities, more than one million Syrians live under siege in Damascus governorate, Idlib governorate, Homs and Deir Az Zor.

State media says Assad government ‘continuously ready’ for prisoner exchange with rebels before upcoming peace talks.

A report released last week indicated that up to 13,000 prisoners were hanged in one government prison [Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

The Syrian government signalled on Monday that it was ready to agree to prisoner swaps with rebel groups, a confidence-building measure that might help both sides prepare to attend peace talks.

The government is “continuously ready” for such an exchange with rebel groups, “particularly in the framework of efforts being made for the coming meeting in Astana”, a news flash on the state-run Al Ikhbariya TV station said, citing an official source.

Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmons, reporting from the Turkish city of Gaziantep along the Syrian border, said it was “difficult to know how significant this is because there have been prisoner swaps in the past”.

Russia, Turkey and Iran – who created a trilateral mechanism to enforce the fragile ceasefire in Syria last month in Astana – are set to meet again in the Kazakh capital later this week.

The Kazakh foreign ministry said over the weekend that the Syrian government and rebel delegations had been invited to attend the meetings, set for February 15-16.

The meetings in Astana were originally aimed at consolidating the truce in Syria, a nationwide halt in the fighting established late in December that has steadily fallen apart over the past month.

The Astana talks were also meant to pave the way towards peace negotiations Geneva, tentatively set to begin on February 20.

“Originally, the thought was this was going to be a final attempt to get the ceasefire really tightened up in advance of the Geneva talks, but now there are suggestions that it could be more than that … that there is some sort of peace deal on the table that might have legs for Geneva … [it’s] not clear yet,” said Simmons.

The Syrian government has conducted prisoner exchanges in the past with a wide range of rebel groups under the auspices of the Syrian Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

This month, in a rare move, the Syrian government and rebel groups swapped dozens of female prisoners and hostages, some of them with their children, in Hama province in northwestern Syria.

Syria’s main opposition body approved, on Sunday, a new delegation to take part in Geneva talks later this month, which includes Russian-backed blocs that have been critical of the armed insurrection against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The High Negotiation Committee (HNC), the main umbrella group, said in a statement after two days of meetings in the Saudi capital, Riyadh, that the new 21-member negotiating team included members of two dissident alliances with which it has previously been at odds.

Those two alliances – the so-called Moscow and Cairo groups – have long disavowed the armed rebellion and insisted that political change can only come through peaceful activism. Their members include a former Syrian government minister with close ties to Moscow.

Mohammad Sabra, who was appointed as chief negotiator, told Saudi-owned Al Hadath news channel that the delegation brought together various groups. He also accused unidentified foreign powers of trying to impose their views on the composition of the delegation, an apparent reference to Russia.

The body also chose a new head of the negotiating team, Nasr al-Hariri, a veteran opposition figure from southern Syria.

The HNC said in the statement the goal of the negotiations was a political transition under UN auspices in which Assad had no role in the future of the country. But it steered away from its previous insistence the Syrian president should leave at the start of a transitional phase.

The HNC also said foreign powers had no right to present a vision of Syria’s future political system without the consent of Syrians.

Russia last month tabled the draft of a proposed new constitution for Syria, though it insisted the document had been circulated for the purposes of discussion only.

The HNC represented the opposition in Geneva talks last year, but it was not invited to recently convened talks in the Kazakh capital, Astana.

The indirect talks between government and rebel delegates in Astana were held with the aim of shoring up a ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Russia.

UN inquiry concludes air strikes in Helmand’s Sangin district killed at least 18 civilians, mostly women and children.

by Al Jazeera

Civilians, mostly women and children, were killed last week in air raids by coalition forces in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, an initial United Nations inquiry suggested.

On Thursday and Friday, as many as 18 civilians died in air strikes in Helmand’s Sangin district, according to a statement released by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan on Sunday.

The UN said the strikes had been conducted by “international military forces”, but only US aircraft have been involved in recent coalition strikes, according to US military officials.

Afghan officials and local residents told Al Jazeera that the death toll was higher than 18.

“The jets arrived at around 3am (local time) on Friday and started bombing indiscriminately in a heavy residential area. I lost my aunt, two cousins and a nephew in the strikes,” Mullah Fazal Ahmed told Al Jazeera.

“Six others in my family were wounded,” said Ahmed, adding that the bombardment lasted for up to half an hour.

“Most of them who were pulled out of the rubble were bodies of women and children, as young as five-years-old.”

US military officials said their aircraft conducted around 30 air raids in Helmand in the past week. NATO’s Resolute Support mission has initiated an inquiry into the incident.

“We are investigating the allegations, but let me tell you, no one has reached any final conclusion on this incident in Helmand,” Brigadier General Charles Cleveland, a US army spokesman in Afghanistan told Al Jazeera.

“We all know that there is a fight against the Taliban going on in Sangin for the past 10 days, there are mortars being fired by the Taliban and Afghan forces are fighting them, so its not at all clear at the moment how these civilians were killed.”

The NATO-led military mission has deployed hundreds of troops to Helmand in a bid to help Afghan security forces in their war against Taliban fighters.

Civilian casualties from both American and Afghan air strikes increased dramatically last year, according to the UN’s most recent report on threats to civilians.

At least 891 civilians were killed or injured in 2016, a figure highest in areas outside of Kabul.

Two dead and five wounded near Gaza-Egypt border after missile slams into a tunnel defying Israeli blockade.

The father of one of two Palestinians killed in a tunnel bombing mourns at a hospital [Ibraheem Abu Mustafa/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Two Palestinian civilians were killed and five others were wounded in an airstrike that hit a tunnel in Gaza near the Egyptian border.

It was unclear who launched the attack on Thursday. A Palestinian official blamed Israel, however, a military spokeswoman denied any knowledge of the strike.

Ashraf al-Qedra, Gaza’s health ministry spokesperson, said in a statement the two men were “martyred and five other people were wounded as a result of being targeted by an Israeli warplane along the Palestinian-Egyptian borders”.

According to al-Qedra, the two men killed were identified as Hossam al-Sufi, 24, and Mohammed al-Aqra, 38.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said she was unaware of the attack, which happened pre-dawn between the Gaza Strip and Rafah on the Egyptian side of the border.

The incident took place after at least three rockets were fired from the Sinai peninsula into Israel’s southernmost resort city of Eilat late on Wednesday.

The Israeli army said in a statement its missile defence system, known as the “Iron Dome”, intercepted the rockets, preventing any casualties or damage.

Israeli media reported a group affiliated with the Islamic State of the Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack on Eilat.

Gaza has been under a decade-long siege imposed by Israel following Hamas’ election victory and subsequent takeover of the enclave in 2007.

Since 2013, Egypt has largely shut off its border with Gaza, blocking nearly 2,000 tunnels connecting Gaza with Rafah, stemming the flow of much-needed goods and resources.

Egypt recently eased some border restrictions with Gaza.

Syrian government executed thousands of prisoners in mass hangings at Saydnaya prison, says rights watchdog.

The report was based on interviews with 84 witnesses, including former guards, detainees, judges and lawyers [Amnesty International]

by Al Jazeera

As many as 13,000 people were hanged in five years at a notorious Syrian prison near Damascus, Amnesty International has said, accusing the government of a “policy of extermination”.

Titled “Human Slaughterhouse: Mass hanging and extermination at Saydnaya prison,” Amnesty’s damning report, released on Tuesday, is based on interviews with 84 witnesses, including guards, detainees, and judges.

It found that at least once a week between 2011 and 2015, groups of up to 50 people were taken out of their prison cells for arbitrary trials, beaten, then hanged “in the middle of the night and in total secrecy.”

The report said: “Throughout this process, they remain blindfolded. They do not know when or how they will die until the noose was placed around their necks.”

Most of the victims were civilians believed to be opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“They kept them [hanging] there for 10 to 15 minutes,” a former judge who witnessed the executions said.

“For the young ones, their weight wouldn’t kill them. The officers’ assistants would pull them down and break their necks,” he said.

Amnesty said the practice amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity, and were probaby still taking place.

Thousands of prisoners are held in the military-run Saydnaya prison, one of the country’s largest detention centres located 30km north of Damascus.

Amnesty accused the Syrian government of carrying out a “policy of extermination”, repeatedly torturing detainees and withholding food, water, and medical care.

Prisoners were also raped or forced to rape each other, and guards would feed detainees by tossing meals on to the cell floor, which was often covered in dirt and blood, the report said.

‘Hidden, monstrous campaign’

A twisted set of “special rules” governed the facility: detainees were not allowed to speak and must assume certain positions when guards entered their cells.

“Every day there would be two or three dead people in our wing … I remember the guard would ask how many we had. He would say, ‘Room No 1 – how many? Room No 2 – how many?’ and on and on,” said Nader, a former detainee whose name has been changed.

After one fierce day of beating, Nader said, 13 people died in a single wing of the prison.

One former military officer said he could hear “gurgling” as people were hanged in an execution room below.

“If you put your ears on the floor, you could hear the sound of a kind of gurgling,” said Hamid, who was arrested in 2011.

“We were sleeping on top of the sound of people choking to death. This was normal for me then,” he told Amnesty.

According to the report, the bodies were taken away by the truckload to be secretly buried in mass graves. Their families were given no information about their fate.

Amnesty has previously said that more than 17,700 people were estimated to have died in government custody across Syria since the country’s conflict erupted in 2011.

The figure of 13,000 deaths in a single prison, therefore, is a marked increase.

“The horrors depicted in this report reveal a hidden, monstrous campaign, authorised at the highest levels of the Syrian government, aimed at crushing any form of dissent within the Syrian population,” said Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty’s Beirut office.

“The cold-blooded killing of thousands of defenceless prisoners, along with the carefully crafted and systematic programmes of psychological and physical torture that are in place inside Saydnaya prison cannot be allowed to continue,” she said.

An investigation by the United Nations last year accused Assad’s government of a policy of “extermination” in its jails.

The UN estimates that more than 400,000 people have been killed and millions have fled their homes since the conflict began with anti-Assad protests.

A total of 3,498 civilians killed and 7,920 wounded in 2016, in part due to increase in ISIL attacks and air raids.

The UN said Afghan security forces caused about 20 percent of the overall casualties [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

Civilian casualties in Afghanistan in 2016 were the highest recorded by the United Nations, the world body said, with nearly 11,500 non-combatants – one-third of them children – killed or wounded.

Fighting between Afghan security forces and armed groups, especially in populated areas, remained “the leading cause of civilian casualties” more than two years after NATO’s combat mission ended, said the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which began documenting civilian casualties in 2009.

A total of 3,498 civilians were killed and 7,920 were wounded in 2016, a combined increase of three percent over the previous year, according to the annual report for 2016.

“Against a backdrop of protracted ground fighting, the battlefield permeated civilian sanctuaries that should be spared from harm, with suicide attacks in mosques; targeted attacks against district centres, bazaars and residential homes; and the use of schools and hospitals for military purposes,” the UN said.

Danielle Bell, the director of UNAMA’s human rights unit, called on the parties to the conflict to take stronger measures to mitigate harm on the battlefield.

“They should start making promises and ensure the commitments they made are translated into reality on the battlefield. This is the only thing that has to happen to prevent civilian causalities,” she told Al Jazeera.

About 61 percent of all civilian casualties were caused by armed groups like the Taliban and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

The UN attributed at least 4,953 deaths and injuries to the Taliban, but in a shift for 2016, investigators documented a 10-fold increase in casualties caused by ISIL, which often targets members of the Shia Muslim minority.

At least 899 deaths and injuries were attributed to ISIL, which has previously been a relatively minor faction in Afghanistan, but last year launched an increasing number of suicide attacks.

Last year saw the highest number of civilian casualties from suicide attacks since the UN began tracking the numbers.

‘I ndiscriminate use of heavy weapons’

Afghan security forces caused about 20 percent of the overall casualties, while pro-government fighters and international forces caused two percent each.

Among the deadliest tactic used by government forces was the indiscriminate use of heavy weapons, such as mortars in populated areas, the UN said.

As the Afghan air force acquired more attack aircraft and the US ramped up its campaign against both ISIL and the Taliban, casualties in air raids increased 99 percent compared with 2015.

Air raids by international warplanes resulted in at least 127 civilian deaths and 108 injuries in 2016, while the Afghan air force accounted for at least 85 deaths and 167 injuries.

UN investigators were not able to attribute responsibility for 38 deaths and 65 injuries from air strikes.

US officials have only acknowledged possible civilian casualties in one incident in Kunduz province in November, when the UN said as many as 32 non-combatants were killed and 26 wounded in a joint US-Afghan raid.

Casualties among children spiked by 24 percent in 2016, with 923 dead and 2,589 wounded, largely as a result of a major increase in casualties from unexploded ordnance.

Kuwait first placed a blanket ban on new visas for Syrians in 2011, but those already in the country were allowed to remain. (AFP/File)

by Al Bawaba

Citizens from five Muslim-majority countries will no longer be able to obtain Kuwaiti visas, after reports the Gulf state issued tight entry restrictions that mirrored US President Donald Trump’s Muslim ban.

Syrians, Iraqis, Iranians, Pakistanis and Afghans will not be able to obtain visit, tourism or trade Kuwaiti visas with the news coming one day after the US slapped its own restrictions on seven Muslim-majority countries.

Passport holders from the countries will no lot be allowed to enter the Gulf state while the blanket ban is in place and have been told not to apply to visas.

Kuwaiti sources told local media that the restrictions were in place due to the “instability” in the five countries and that the ban would be lifted once the security situation improves.

Pakistan and Afghanistan have all witnessed violence from extremist groups, while Syria and Iraq are embroiled in internal conflicts.

Although mainly peaceful, tensions between Iran and the Gulf have ratched up over the past year with the GCC powers accusing Tehran of attempting to destabalise the region.

Kuwait is concerned about the threat of extremist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group with both militant organisations have a presence in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Gulf state has witnessed a number of militant attacks over the past two years, including the bombing of a Shia mosque in 2015 which left 27 Kuwaits dead.

Kuwait responded by arresting dozens of suspected Daesh sympathizers and rolling out mandatary DNA testing programme and database for the Gulf state’s 4 million population.

Kuwait reportedly issued a ban on all visas for Syrians in 2011, but allowed those inside the country to remain.

It made Kuwait the only country in the world to officially bar entry to Syrians, until the US named Syria in seven countries banned from entering.

Kuwait has issued a number of laws targeting foreigners in recent years, and made it one of the most unfriendly Gulf states towards expatriates.

In 2015, Kuwait was named as the worst place in the world for expatriates in a 64 country InterNations survey.

Meanwhile, Trump’s Muslim ban has been met with widespread outrage since it was signed on Friday, although Gulf states have remained quiet on the issue.

Dubai security chief Dhahi Khalfan outraged Syrians and other nationalities included in the ban when he publically backed Trump’s decision.

US military says civilians likely “caught up” in gunfire in Bayda province, but stays mum on death of American girl.

A think-tank warned strikes like the one in Bayda could increase hostility towards the US [Al Jazeera TV Screen Grab]

by Al Jazeera

Civilians were “likely” killed in a US commando raid in Yemen over the weekend and children may have been among the dead, the US military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) said.

“A team designated by the operational task force commander has concluded regrettably that civilian non-combatants were likely killed in the midst of a firefight during a raid in Yemen January 29. Casualties may include children,” CENTCOM said in a statement late on Wednesday.

Yemeni officials had previously said 16 civilians – eight women and eight children – were killed in the raid in the southern province of al-Bayda, but CENTCOM did not provide any numbers.

The civilian deaths appear to have occurred when US aircraft were called to help the commandos as they conducted the dawn raid that US officials said killed 14 members of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).

“The known possible civilian casualties appear to have been potentially caught up in aerial gunfire that was called in to assist US forces in contact against a determined enemy that included armed women firing from prepared fighting positions, and US special operations members receiving fire from all sides to include houses and other buildings,” the statement added.

Officials were conducting an ongoing “credibility assessment” to see if there may have been additional civilian casualties in the intense firefight, it said.

Since the January 29 raid, Washington has faced questions as to whether an eight-year-old American girl was killed during the firefight.

Local sources have said the girl was the daughter of senior al-Qaeda cleric and US citizen Anwar al-Awlaqi, killed in a 2011 US drone strike.

CENTCOM was mum about the girl’s death.

In a report released shortly after the attack, the International Crisis Group said that al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen could benefit from the deadly raid and is “stronger than it ever has been”.

“The first military actions by the Trump administration in Yemen bode poorly for the prospect of smartly and effectively countering AQAP,” the report said.

The think-tank warned strikes like the January 29 raid on Bayda province could increase fear of or even hostility towards the US among civilians, providing fertile ground for recruitment by AQAP.

“The use of US soldiers, high civilian casualties and disregard for local tribal and political dynamics… plays into AQAP’s narrative of defending Muslims against the West and could increase anti-US sentiment and with it AQAP’s pool of recruits,” said the Brussels-based ICG.

The January 29 raid against AQAP initially garnered attention because a Navy SEAL was also killed and several more wounded in what marked the first operation of its kind authorized by President Donald Trump.

Netanyahu’s government announces fourth batch of construction since Trump’s inauguration.

More than half-a-million Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem [EPA]

by Al Jazeera

Israel has announced the construction of 3,000 settlement homes in the occupied West Bank, the fourth such announcement in the less than two weeks since the inauguration of US President Donald Trump.

“Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have decided to authorise the construction of 3,000 new housing units in Judea-Samaria,” the defence ministry said in a statement on Tuesday, using the term Israel uses for the West Bank, a Palestinian territory it has occupied since 1967.

Since the January 20 inauguration of Trump, Israel has approved the construction of 566 housing units in three settlement areas of occupied East Jerusalem and announced the building of 2,502 more in the West Bank.

On Thursday last week, Israeli officials gave final approval for 153 settler homes in East Jerusalem.

The plans had been frozen under pressure from the previous US administration of President Barack Obama, which had warned that settlements could derail hopes of a negotiated two-state solution.

Trump, however, has pledged strong support for Israel, and Netanyahu’s government has moved quickly to take advantage.

“We are building and we will continue building,” Netanyahu said last week, referring to settlement approvals.

The prime minister has said he sees the Trump presidency as offering “significant opportunities” after facing “huge pressures” from Obama on Iran and settlements.

The announcements have deeply concerned those seeking to salvage a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

All Israeli settlements are illegal under international law. The international community views them as a major obstacle to peace as they are built on land the Palestinians see as part of their future state.

More than a half million Israelis live in Jewish-only settlements across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, according to the Israeli rights group B’Tselem.

In a telling break with the Obama administration, Trump’s White House has not condemned Israel’s settlement expansion.

Earlier on Tuesday, the Israeli army issued an eviction notice to residents of Amona as it prepared to demolish their homes.

The order posted at the site on Tuesday gave the residents – some 40 families, including more than 200 children – 48 hours to leave their homes, according to media reports.

Al Jazeera’s Imran Khan, reporting from the Palestinian village of Taibeh which overlooks the Amona, said the settlement outpost “was built illegally on privately owned Palestinian land”.

“There are only about 40 houses there, so this is very small outpost … but it means a lot to the Jewish community. They say that if that settlement is evacuated and demolished, it sets a precedent for other settlements to also be removed.”

And while the announcement Tuesday that an additional 3,000 settler homes would be built in the occupied West Bank “is likely to alleviate some of the concerns of the settlers”, Khan said, the settlement movement in Israel feels it has been given a “green light” from the incoming Trump administration in the US and that “it shouldn’t be getting rid of any settlements”.

Israel’s top court had ruled in 2014 that Amona, built on land belonging to Palestinians from surrounding West Bank towns, must be vacated by February 8.

Although all settlements are considered illegal under international law, there are more than 100 outposts that were built without authorisation and are considered illegal by even the Israeli government.

In practice, Israel has confiscated Palestinian land since its military occupation of the West Bank – including Jerusalem – and the Gaza Strip started as a result of the 1967 Middle East war.