Monitoring group says air strikes hit several places across Syrian province, killing at least 73 people.

Eighteen people were killed in Maarat al-Numan, the Syrian Observatory said [AFP]

At least 73 people have been killed in suspected Russian air strikes on several areas of Idlib province in northwest Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as government forces advanced in fierce clashes with rebels in east Aleppo.

The Britain-based monitor said on Sunday at least three locations were bombed in the northwestern province and most of the casualties were civilians.

At least 26 people, including three children, were killed in the town of Kafr Nabl, and another 38 people were killed in the town of Maarat al-Numan.

A witness told AFP news agency “six strikes hit houses and a crowded local market” in the village of Kafr Nabl.

In Maarat al-Numan, an AFP photographer saw local residents and White Helmets rescue workers trying to reach survivors in the rubble at a vegetable market hit in the strike.

The monitor also reported two additional deaths, one in an earlier strike on Maarat al-Numan and another in al-Naqir, also in Idlib.

And it said six civilians, five of them children, had been killed in a government barrel bomb attack on the town of al-Tamanah in the south of Idlib.

Russia began a military intervention in support of President Bashar al-Assad in September last year, saying it was carrying out strikes against “terrorists”.

In November, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russian forces had begun a “major operation” targeting Idlib and Homs provinces.

The northern Idlib province is mostly controlled by a powerful rebel alliance known as the Army of Conquest.

Most of Homs province is controlled by the Syrian government, but small parts of the countryside are controlled by a range of rebel groups.

More than 300,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests before spiralling into a bloody civil war.

Meanwhile, government forces advanced against rebels in east Aleppo, taking two small neighbourhoods and pushing into a third, state media said.

The army and allied forces are nearly three weeks into an operation to recapture all of Syria’s second city, divided between regime and rebel forces since 2012.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the offensive, which has made steady gains and threatens to deal Syria’s opposition its worst defeat of the country’s five-year civil war.

State television said on Sunday evening that the army had captured the districts of Karm al-Tahan and Myessar and advanced into the Qadi Askar neighbourhood.

State news agency SANA said the air force was dropping leaflets over rebel-held areas urging “militants to abandon their weapons and… allow civilians and the sick and wounded to leave”.

At least 311 civilians, including 42 children, have been killed in east Aleppo since the government began its assault, according to the Observatory.

Syrian army spokesman Brigadier General Samir Suleiman said the military had regained control of 45 to 50 percent of east Aleppo, and he accused rebels of hiding among civilians.

Qamar Javed Bajwa takes control of army as tensions escalate with arch-rival India and Afghanistan.

Pakistan’s army is the world’s sixth largest in terms of active military personnel [EPA]

The new head of Pakistan’s military took command of the country’s armed forces on Tuesday amid rising tensions with India over disputed Kashmir and as ties with Afghanistan remain rocky.

General Qamar Javed Bajwa was installed at a ceremony in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, replacing General Raheel Sharif, who stepped down after completing his three-year term.

In his first comments after assuming charge of the country’s army, Bajwa called for a resolution of the Kashmir dispute for the sake of regional stability.

But he also warned that any miscalculation on the part of India could be dangerous.

“I want to make it clear to India that taking our policy of constraint and patience as any sign of weakness will prove dangerous for itself,” he said.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said General Bajwa has inherited a complex set of problems with intensified ceasefire violations along the LoC, the de facto border dividing Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir, and tensions with Kabul.

“He is going to be very focused on what is happening on the LoC, and that he also has to deal with what is happening on the country’s western frontier with Afghanistan,” our correspondent said.

Bajwa was fourth in seniority on a list of five army generals sent to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, and had been little discussed before he was selected.

According to the constitution, the prime minister can pick any officer from the list forwarded to him by the Defense Ministry.

Observers believe Bajwa will offer further support to Sharif’s efforts to improve ties with Pakistan’s neighbours, including Afghanistan and India.

Pakistan’s relations with Kabul have soured amid allegations from Afghan officials that Islamabad is sheltering the Taliban, who have intensified attacks against the government of President Ashraf Ghani.

Bajwa, who was commissioned in the 16 Baloch Regiment in October 1980, is a graduate of the Canadian Forces Command and Staff College in Canada, and the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.

Eight boats carrying Rohingya refugees have been turned away by Bangladesh as thousands amass on the border.

Mass protests by opposition groups and religious movements have called on Bangladesh to accept Rohingya [Abir Abdullah/EPA]

Multiple boats packed with Rohingya refugees fleeing violence in Myanmar have been turned back by Bangladesh border guards despite appeals by the country’s opposition to provide shelter to the persecuted Muslim minority.

At least 86 people have been killed and 30,000 displaced as violence continues unabated in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Men from a Rohingya village outside Maugndaw in Rakhine state, Myanmar October 27, 2016. Picture taken October 27, 2016. REUTERS/Soe Zeya Tun-

by Al Jazeera

Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar poured into neighbouring Bangladesh this week with some feared drowned after a boat sank in a river during a bid to flee escalating violence that has killed at least 86 people and displaced about 30,000.

Some Rohingya refugees have been missing since Tuesday after a group crossed the river Naaf that separates Myanmar and Bangladesh. Those who managed to enter Bangladesh sought shelter in refugee camps or people’s homes.
 
“There was a group of people from our village who crossed the river by boat to come here, but suddenly the boat sank,” said Humayun Kabir, the father of three children untraceable since the mishap.
Although many of those on board could swim, and were able to reach the river bank, seven people are still missing, he added, his children among them.

Mynamar’s violence is the most serious since hundreds were killed in communal clashes in the western state of Rakhine in 2012, and poses the biggest test yet for the eight-month-old administration of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi.

Soldiers have poured into the area along Myanmar’s frontier with Bangladesh in response to coordinated attacks on three border posts on October 9 that killed nine police officers.

Myanmar’s military and the government have rejected allegations by residents and rights groups that soldiers have raped Rohingya women, burned houses and killed civilians during the military operation in Rakhine.

The international community has expressed concern. 

“We continue to urge the government to conduct a credible, independent investigation into the events in Rakhine state, and renew our request for open media access,” US State Department spokeswoman Nicole Thompson said.

Malaysia said on Wednesday that it was considering pulling out of a football tournament co-hosted by Myanmar to protest against the ongoing crackdown on Rohingya Muslims, risking a possible global ban by the sport’s governing body, FIFA.

Sirajul Islam, who arrived on Monday at an unregistered camp in Bangladesh’s southern coastal town of Teknaf, said he did not know what happened to his eight-member family after soldiers set fire to their home in Rakhine.

“I don’t know where my wife and children are,” Islam said. “I somehow was able to cross the border to save my life.”

Up to 30,000 people are now estimated to have been displaced and thousands more have been affected by the recent fighting, the United Nations says.

UN agencies have not given specific numbers of fleeing Rohingyas, but aid workers told Reuters news agency that hundreds crossed the border to Bangladesh over the weekend and on Monday.

Under military lockdown, a humanitarian effort to provide food and medicine to more than 150,000 people has been suspended for more than 40 days in the area, home mostly to Rohingya.

Many people in mainly Buddhist Myanmar see the country’s 1.1 million Rohingya as illegal immigrants from Bangladesh.

Shawkat Ara, a girl in a refugee camp in Teknaf, who had arrived from Myanmar by boat on Tuesday, said that she hoped to return one day and locate missing relatives.

“When there is peace in our country, I will go back and I will try to find out about my father and uncles,” she said.

Russia denies involvement as toll since start of Assad’s offensive on city’s besieged east climbs to 150.

Activists released a video of a rescue operation in east Aleppo [Al Jazeera]

At least 49 people have been killed in heavy government air strikes in the eastern part of Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, witnesses and activists say.

The overnight bombardment, which began late on Thursday, was part of a wider military escalation by the Syrian government and its allies against opposition groups holed up in Aleppo.

With the latest victims, the total number of people killed in the besieged city since Bashar al-Assad’s government launched its military offensive on Tuesday has climbed to 150.

The child survived after his residential neighbourhood was targeted with missiles and unguided explosive devices called barrel bombs.

Al Jazeera’s Osama Bin Javaid, reporting from Gaziantep on the Turkey-Syria border, said the bombardment was the fiercest of the past three days.

“The bombs struck areas on Aleppo’s outskirts as well as in the city itself. The toll keeps mounting by the hour,” he said.

“Rescuers are trying to help as many people as possible but because this is such a widespread area, they cannot get to every location.”

On Sunday, the Syrian army sent a text message to residents of east Aleppo, demanding they leave areas held by opposition armed groups within 24 hours or risk their lives during a major offensive.

“Our dear people living in east Aleppo, the militants kill your children and take your women,” read the text message, which declared the government’s intent to retake opposition-controlled districts of the city.

About 250,000 people are believed to be living in besieged east Aleppo, and Syrian government forces have reversed recent gains made by the fighters last month in their effort to break the siege.

Humam al-Malah, a member of the Syrian Network for Human Rights in the Aleppo governorate, told Al Jazeera that humanitarian conditions are getting worse in east Aleppo.

“Electricity is always cut off; [there’s a] high increase in prices; an acute lack of vegetable availability; fuel is almost non-existent in markets; and the quality and quantity of supply of bread is dwindling,” said Malah.

Against this backdrop, Russia’s foreign minister  has flatly denied that his country’s forces participated in the attacks on Aleppo this week.

Sergey Lavrov issued the denial while discussed the bombing of the city on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific trade summit in Lima, Peru.

Russia is a crucial ally of the Syrian government and its military has been targeting Syrian opposition fighters with air strikes and cruise missiles.

Lavrov portrayed the recent strikes in Syria as “limited”.

“Our air force and the Syrian air force only work in the provinces of Idlib and Homs, to prevent ISIL who might be leaving Mosul from getting to Syria,” he said, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, also known as ISIS.

Artillery shelling

Elsewhere in Syria, in Ghouta in the Damascus countryside, at least 10 people were killed and dozens injured in air strikes and artillery shelling by government forces.

Residents reported substantial damage to residential areas in the town.

Also in the Damascus countryside, the Syrian government targeted an international relief agency and Palestinian refugee camp in Khan Sheha, which has been under siege for two months now.

Syrian forces and opposition fighters fought around the camp on Thursday night.

International Criminal Court prosecutors said the US may have tortured at least 88 people at a number of sites.

A 2014 CIA torture report showed that the programme was not only more brutal, but also ineffective [Getty Images]

An International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation of possible war crimes by US forces in Afghanistan is not “warranted or appropriate”, the US state department said after prosecutors in The Hague found initial grounds for such a probe.

A US Department of State spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said on Tuesday that the US was not a party to the Rome Statute that created the ICC and had not consented to its jurisdiction.

“The United States is deeply committed to complying with the law of war,” Trudeau told reporters at a news briefing.

“We do not believe that an ICC examination or investigation with respect to actions of US personnel in relation to the situation in Afghanistan is warranted or appropriate.”

Her comments come a day after ICC prosecutors said in a report that there was “reasonable basis to believe” US forces had tortured at least 61 prisoners in Afghanistan and another 27 at CIA detention facilities elsewhere in 2003 and 2004.

The prosecutors’ office, headed by Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, said it would decide imminently whether to pursue a full investigation. The results could lead to charges being brought against individuals and the issuing of arrest warrants.

The US occupied Afghanistan in 2001 as it went after al Qaeda leaders behind the September 11 attacks.

Crimes also may have been committed at US Central Intelligence Agency facilities in Poland, Lithuania and Romania, where some people captured in Afghanistan were taken, prosecutors said.

The US Justice Department, between 2009 and 2012, investigated CIA mistreatment of detainees, including a full criminal investigation into two deaths in US custody, but ultimately decided against prosecuting anyone.

ICC report suggests US soldiers and CIA may have used “cruel and violent” techniques on detainees.

ICC believes US soldiers and CIA agents may have committed war crimes in Afghanistan [File: Reuters]

US armed forces and the CIA may have committed war crimes by torturing detainees in Afghanistan, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has said in a report.

“Members of US armed forces appear to have subjected at least 61 detained persons to torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity on the territory of Afghanistan between 1 May 2003 and 31 December 2014,” says the report issued on Monday by Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda.

The report added that CIA operatives may have subjected at least 27 detainees in Afghanistan, Poland, Romania and Lithuania to “torture, cruel treatment, outrages upon personal dignity and/or rape” between December 2002 and March 2008.

Most of the alleged abuse happened in 2003-2004, and was allegedly part of “approved interrogation techniques in an attempt to extract ‘actionable intelligence’ from detainees”.

Prosecutors said they would decide “imminently” whether to seek authorisation to open a full-scale investigation in Afghanistan that could lead to war crimes charges.

State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said the US does not believe an ICC investigation is “warranted or appropriate”.

“The United States is deeply committed to complying with the law of war, and we have a robust national system of investigation and accountability that more than meets international standards,” Trudeau said.

A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Captain Jeff Davis, said officials were awaiting more details about the ICC findings before commenting.

If an investigation into the US army and the CIA goes ahead, it would be a very significant move by the ICC, according to David Bosco, who wrote a book about the ICC’s role and function in global politics.

“This would be the first time that the ICC has set its sights on US personnel and it does look like they are going to be focusing on the activities of the CIA in Afghanistan in 2003, 2004, which makes it a serious investigation of CIA interrogation practices in the wake of 9/11,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The prosecutor in this latest report also signals that she does not have confidence that the national judicial systems are going to do their job and therefore she wants to move forward with the investigation.”

Established in 2002, the ICC is the world’s first permanent court set up to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

More than 120 countries around the world are members, but superpowers including the US, Russia and China have not signed up.

Former US President Bill Clinton signed the Rome treaty that established the court on December 31, 2000, but President George W Bush renounced the signature, citing fears that Americans would be unfairly prosecuted for political reasons.

Even though the US is not a member of the court, Americans could still face prosecution at the ICC headquarters in The Hague if they commit crimes within its jurisdiction in a country that is a member, such as Afghanistan, and are not prosecuted at home.

So far, all of the ICC’s trials have dealt with crimes committed in Africa.

Before deciding to open a full-scale investigation, ICC prosecutors have to establish whether they have jurisdiction and whether the alleged crimes are being investigated and prosecuted in the countries involved.

The ICC is a court of last resort that takes on cases only when other countries are unable or unwilling to prosecute.

After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration allowed the use of waterboarding, which simulates drowning, and other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” against suspected “terrorists”.

President Barack Obama banned such practices after taking office in 2009.

During the presidential campaign, Republican nominee Donald Trump suggested that as president he would push to change laws that prohibit waterboarding and other harsh interrogation techniques, arguing that banning them puts the US at a strategic disadvantage.

Iraqi Kurdish forces assault town of Bashiqa, just 13km from ISIL-held Mosul, from two fronts as offensive continues.

Kurdish Peshmerga forces had kept Bashiqa surrounded for nearly three weeks before launching its overnight offensive [Reuters]

Iraqi Kurdish fighters are exchanging heavy fire with ISIL fighters as they advance from two directions on a town held by the armed group just 13km east of the city of Mosul.

The town of Bashiqa has been surrounded by Kurdish Peshmerga forces for weeks.

Monday’s push appears to be the most serious yet to drive the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) from the area, which is to the northeast of Mosul, the group’s last major urban bastion in the country.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammad Jamjoom, reporting from the frontline near Bashiqa, said “it was the biggest push yet to try to take control of Bashiqa since the battle for Mosul began”.

“The Peshmerga fighters are optimistic. They say there are only about 100 to 200 ISIL fighters left as well as possibly three very high ranking ISIL commanders,” he said before adding there was black smoke rising from the city and its surrounding areas, signaling ISIL’s tactic of burning tyres and oil to limit aerial vision and create suffocating smells.

There were also white plumes of smoke from US-led coalition air strikes over the city, he said.

“As far as civilians go, the Peshmerga fighters believe that most of the civilians have already fled the town.”

Kurdish forces launched mortar rounds and fired heavy artillery into the town on Sunday in advance of the offensive.

Al Jazeera’s Jamal El Shayyal, reporting from Erbil, said “as far as the Kurdish fighters are concerned, Bashiqa is the last remaining major area ISIL controls in the KRG, which is the semi-autononums Kurdish region of Iraq”.

“[Kurdish forces] are entering [Bashiqa] not only on the ground but from the skies as well. Bashiqa is also important to retake because it has a multicultural, multi-ethnic population, which includes Christians, Yazidis, Sunni Arabs, and many others,” he said.

“This is not only a fight against ISIL to retake these towns for the Iraqi government. There’s a sectarian side to this conflict where maybe getting these towns back will give some benefit to beating ISIL, as it will build a cross-section of society banded together.”

ISIL hits back

The three-week-long Mosul offensive has slowed down in recent days as Iraqi forces have pushed into more densely-populated areas of the city.

The Iraqi army has also been fighting in the district of Gogjali, east of Mosul.

The army is going house-to-house to secure some of the other districts taken in recent days.

However, Iraqi troops have been forced to retreat from the neighbourhood of Al-Karamah after ISlL fighters used a network of tunnels to surround them.

Elsewhere, two ISIL suicide attacks killed at least 22 people in cities 200km south of Mosul.

A fighter blew himself up in an ambulance packed with explosives at a checkpoint in Samarra. Ten Iranian pilgrims were among the dead in that attack.

Earlier, another bomber had blown up his vehicle on the outskirts of the city of Tikrit.

“The trajectory of suicide bombings is in correlation with how much closer the Iraqi army is getting to the centre of Mosul,” Elshayyal said. “The closer they get, the higher number of suicide and car bombings we will see.”

“Over the past few days, ISIL has been focusing all its efforts and fire power on maintaining its stronghold in Mosul. We even saw some videos of international journalists stuck for up to 24 hours as they and the forces they were embedded with were ambushed by ISIL fighters.”