Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov has died, Turkey says – despite no official confirmation from the Uzbek government.

Mr Karimov, 78, was taken to hospital last week after a brain haemorrhage. However, the Uzbek government has only said Mr Karimov is critically ill.

On Friday, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a televised meeting Mr Karimov had died.

Mr Karimov had governed Uzbekistan in an authoritarian manner since 1989.

He has no clear successor. There is no legal political opposition and the media is tightly controlled by the state.

A UN report has described the use of torture as “systematic”. Mr Karimov has often justified his strong-arm tactics by highlighting the danger from Islamist militancy.

“Uzbek President Islam Karimov has passed away. May God’s mercy be upon him, as the Turkish Republic we are sharing the pain and sorrow of Uzbek people,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said in a cabinet meeting broadcast live.

Long before Mr Yildirim’s statement, rumours were circulating that Mr Karimov had already died. He had not appeared in public since 17 August.

Earlier on Friday, Reuters news agency said three unnamed diplomatic sources had confirmed Mr Karimov’s death.

An opposition website, Fergana, reported that preparations were under way for his funeral in his home town, Samarkand.

Samarkand’s airport has been closed to scheduled flights on Saturday.

ISIL-linked website says Adnani was killed while monitoring military operations in Aleppo province.

by Al Jazeera

The main spokesman for the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) armed group, Abu Mohamed al-Adnani, has been killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo, according to an ISIL-linked website.

Amaq, the ISIL-affiliated media, said on Tuesday Adnani was killed while monitoring military operations in Aleppo.

A US defence official said the US-led coalition forces battling ISIL had conducted an air strike Tuesday targeting a “senior leader” of the group, without specifying who the leader was.

“Coalition forces conducted an air strike in al-Bab, Syria, targeting an [ISIL] senior leader,” the official said, according to the Paris-based AFP news agency.

“We are still assessing the results of the operation at this time.”

Adnani, described as ISIL’s second most senior leader, was one of the group’s longest-serving figures.

The details of Adnani’s death remain unclear.

Al Jazeera’s Patty Culhane, reporting from Washington DC, said there was no immediate comment or confirmation from US officials of his death.

Believed to had been born in Syria, Adnani “was often seen on video urging followers to carry out attacks abroad”, our correspondent said.

Adnani has been the voice of ISIL, also known as ISIS, over the past few years, and has released numerous, lengthy audio files online in which he urged followers to carry out attacks.

“Adnani commanded widespread respect within the movement [ISIL],” Shiraz Maher, Deputy Director of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College London, said.

“What made him particularly dangerous was that he personally oversaw and directed ISIL’s external operations. His prominence meant that he even eclipsed the leader of ISIL, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, in terms of public pronouncements, so the group will feel his absence quite pointedly.”

Earlier this year, Adnani called for massive attacks during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. He has also called for attacks in Western countries.

ISIL controls large swaths of territory in Syria and Iraq, and is fighting Syrian troops, US-backed fighters and other rebel groups in northern Syria, as well as in Iraq.

Offensive said to be campaign by Turkey and US-led coalition to clear ISIL from Syrian border town of Jarablus.

by Al Jazeera

Turkish tank units have entered Syria as part of a military operation backed by Turkish and US-led coalition warplanes to clear the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group from the Syrian border town of Jarablus, according to Turkish state media.

Turkish special forces had crossed the border and entered Jarablus early on Wednesday, officials said.

“The operation, which began at around 4am local time (01:00 GMT), is aimed at clearing the Turkish borders of terrorist groups, helping to enhance border security and supporting the territorial integrity of Syria,” Anadolu Agency quoted Turkish officials as saying.

Turkish media said the operation involved artillery and rocket shelling as well as warplanes, before the ground forces, including heavy armoured vehicles, entered Syria towards noon.

So far, Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighters backed by Turkey have captured four villages and total of 46 ISIL fighters have been killed in the operation, Dogan news agency said on Wednesday.

Turkish daily Hurriyet reported that Turkish tanks in Syrian territories blocked ISIL’s support routes and Turkish fighter jets along with coalition jets pounded ISIL vehicles headed from the al-Bab region to support ISIL fighters in the Jarablus area.

Meanwhile some 5,000 FSA fighters, including groups from the Sultan Murat Brigade, Sukur al-Jeber, Sham Front and Feylek al-Sham, were reportedly advancing toward central Jarablus.

PYD and ISIL targeted

The operation is targeting ISIL and Syrian Kurdish fighters in northern Syria to end attacks on Turkey’s border, President Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech in the capital Ankara on Wednesday.

“At 4:00 this morning, operations started in the north of Syria against terror groups which constantly threaten our country, like Daesh [the Arabic acronym for ISIL] and the PYD [the Syrian Kurdish group],” he said in a speech in Ankara.

Turkey had pledged on Monday to “completely cleanse” ISIL fighters from its border region after a suicide bomber suspected of links to the group killed 54 people at a Kurdish wedding in the southeastern city of Gaziantep.

Turkey is also concerned about the growing influence of Syrian Kurdish groups along its border, where they have captured large expanses of territory since the start of the Syrian war in 2011.

Turkey sees them as tied to the PKK, which has been waging an armed campaign mainly in the country’s southeast.

“It is hard to conduct this operation without the green light from Moscow, Tehran, Damascus and Washington,” Metin Gurcan, security analyst, told Al Jazeera from Istanbul.

“The open objective in this operation is that Turkey is trying to create an ISIL-free humanitarian zone by clearing Jarablus for possible flow of refugees,” he said.

“The covert objective is another one. The PYD’s recent advances alarmed Ankara. Turkey aims to deny the PYD’s objective of connecting cantons it controls and creating monolithic Kurdish entity.”

The military operation against ISIL comes as Syrian rebels, backed by Turkey, also say they are in the final stages of preparing an assault from Turkish territory on Jarablus, aiming to pre-empt a potential attempt by Syrian Kurdish forces of PYD to take it.

The PYD, a critical part of the US-backed campaign against ISIL, took near-complete control of Hasaka city on Tuesday.

The group already controls chunks of northern Syria where Kurdish groups have established de facto autonomy since the start of the Syria war – a development that has alarmed Turkey.

Only remaining civilian hospital in besieged Damascus suburb hit with incendiary weapons, activists say.

by Al Jazeera

Syrian government forces have bombed the last remaining civilian hospital in the besieged Damascus suburb of Daraya, according to activists, who say an incendiary weapon similar to napalm was used.

Government forces dropped the bombs on the hospital shortly after midnight on Friday morning, according to activists and the Britain-based Syrian Network for Human Rights.

“The hospital … which was providing a humanitarian service to the civilians in the city is being targeted by internationally banned weapons. Everyone is standing by silently and watching,” said one doctor from Daraya in a video purported to have been shot outside the hospital shortly after it was hit.

This video, published on the local Daraya council’s YouTube page, is said to show the immediate aftermath of the attack on the hospital. Al Jazeera could not independently verify the footage.

The hospital was the only medical facility available to 8,000 civilians in the besieged suburb, which was hit with incendiary bombs for three straight days earlier this week, according to the local council.

Incendiary weapons start fires and cause horrific burns much like those inflicted by the napalm dropped from US planes during the Vietnam War.

Incendiary weapons are not entirely banned. While there is an international agreement forbidding their use in areas with a heavy civilian presence, it has only been signed by 113 countries. Russia has signed up to the agreement, known as Protocol III of the Convention of Conventional Weapons, but Syria has not.

Daraya, a rebel-held suburb of the capital, has witnessed some of the heaviest bombings of the war, and has been under siege since 2012.

Incendiary uptick

Earlier this week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Syrian government forces and their Russian allies of repeatedly using incendiary weapons against civilians in rebel-held parts of northern Syria.

“Incendiary weapons have been used at least 18 times over the past six weeks, including attacks on the opposition-held areas in the cities of Aleppo and Idlib on August 7, 2016,” the rights group said in a report published on Tuesday.

Photographs and videos recorded by the group at the time of the attacks indicated that there were incendiary weapon attacks on opposition-held areas in the Aleppo and Idlib provinces between June 5 and August 10.

“Countries meeting at the Convention on Conventional Weapons in Geneva on August 29 should condemn the use of air-dropped incendiary weapons … and press Syria and Russia to immediately stop using incendiary weapons in civilian areas,” HRW said.

Shortly after Russian militarily intervened in Syria’s civil war on behalf of embattled President Bashar al-Assad last autumn, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov wrote a letter to HRW, saying that incendiary weapons were being used in Syria and that their “improper use” had caused “significant humanitarian damage”.

The letter did not specify which side had used them.

Images of five-year-old boy, confused after an air strike in Aleppo, spark revulsion across social media.

by Al Jazeera

Images of a five year old Syrian boy – covered in dust and blood after being plucked from a bombed out building – have gone viral after they were posted to social media, provoking widespread outrage and upset.

The footage, released by opposition activists on Wednesday, showed the aftermath of an air strike in the city of Aleppo and encapsulated the human toll of Syria’s five-year war.

The video, posted online by the Aleppo Media Center, shows a stunned and weary looking boy, sitting alone and bewildered on an orange chair inside an ambulance shortly after he was rescued.

Khaled Khaled, an Aleppo-based member of the Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer rescue group that operates in rebel-held territory, identified the boy as five-year-old Omran Daqneesh.

The boy was later rushed by members of the group, also known as the White Helmets, to a nearby hospital, Khaled told Al Jazeera.

He suffered from light headwounds and was released later that night.

Three other people were killed and at least eight others, mostly women and children, were injured in the same air strike, according to Khaled.

It was the images of Omran, though, that made the headlines and drew shock and revulsion from both Syrians and foreigners on social media.

In a video of a chaotic nighttime scene, a man is seen carrying the boy from the rubble of an unidentified building and carrying him to the ambulance, the five year old’s expression dazed and flat-eyed.

The boy then runs a hand over his blood-covered face, looks at the blood and wipes his hands on the ambulance chair. He does not cry or make a sound.

The image has been shared thousands of times on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

Look carefully into his eyes. he is silent, but he tells you a lot.
From under rubble .. #Aleppo today pic.twitter.com/xtjN0dqm3k

— Luna Watfa (@luna_alabdalla) August 17, 2016

The pictures of Omran – referred to by many as “the boy in the ambulance” – were reminiscent of the image of Aylan Kurdi , another Syrian boy whose body was found on a beach in Turkey last year after he drowned as he and his family attempted to cross the Mediterranean in the hopes of finding refuge in Europe.

The image of Kurdi’s body brought world attention to the growing refugee crisis, as tens of thousands of Syrians attempted to make the same dangerous journey, fleeing war-torn homes for the stability of Europe.

UN special envoy Staffan de Mistura estimated in April. that at least 400,000 people had been killed in Syria in a five-year-long war that has uprooted nearly half of the country’s population.

The ability for Iranian women to be at stadiums is symbolic of their right to occupy public spaces, and to celebrate key moments in the life of the country

by Solmaz Sharif, NYT

The Rio Olympics are underway and sports fans around the world are waking up early, staying up late, gathering around TV sets or furtively streaming the competitions online from work computers. Others are fortunate to witness records broken and precedents set live from the stands and bleachers — perhaps none so noticeably as Darya Safai, an Iranian woman protesting Iran’s ban on women watching volleyball matches. In my home country of Iran, women have bravely paved their paths in politics, science and the arts — yet they are still striving for the right to be part of key public spaces: stadiums (volleyball and soccer, among others.)

In May, a 15-year-old Iranian girl defied the rules and dressed up as a boy to gain entrance into Azadi (“Freedom”) Stadium in Tehran for the Finale of Iran’s Premier League soccer season — she was later threatened with arrest and even death. In July, women in Iran were promised they could buy tickets and attend the International Volleyball Federation’s World League Matches, but as soon as the online sale commenced, a “sold out” alert appeared.

The International Olympic Committee under President Thomas Bach has made “gender equality” one of its central pillars mandating access to sport for all as both players and spectators. At the Rio Olympics, Iranian women were able to watch their national men’s team — which for many only put a spotlight on the ban at home in Iran.

A campaign by Iranian women challenges the International Volleyball Federation, also known as the FIVB, which has so far tolerated stadiums where the crowded rows of spectators exclude half the population. It is crucial that the Federation ensures Iranian women do not have to go to great lengths and risk their safety to simply watch.

The struggle by women against discrimination in Iran takes place on many key fronts, including divorce, custody rights and freedom of speech. However, the ability for women to be at stadiums is symbolic of their right to occupy public spaces, and to take part in and celebrate key moments in the life of the country.

Sports inspired me to confront society and in many cases, the authorities. To deny women the right to such a socially influential part of society is an offense that the FIVB can help resolve.

In February of this year, the FIVB awarded Iran the right to host the first-ever International Beach Volleyball Tournament on Kish Island. Before the games, the FIVB reassured critics that Iran would allow “anyone, regardless of gender” to attend the games — a requirement in the FIVB’s own constitution, which guarantees gender equality. Iranian women traveled across the country to finally participate in the national love of volleyball.

For Iranian women this was not simply a sports event; it was the first opportunity for them to sit in the stadiums they have been banned from for the past four years. This could have been a historic moment for women to regain their rights, and a possibility to open the door to other public spaces.

Instead, Iranian women’s hopes were dashed. When female fans attempted to enter the stadium, they were brusquely turned away from the FIVB’s tournament, and told that entry for them was “forbidden.”

But Iranian women are determined and resourceful, so when some were unsuccessful in getting admitted to the games, they went to a neighboring café and cheered from the rooftop, posting images to social media, while complaining about the FIVB’s betrayal of gender equality.

When the FIVB’s failure to guarantee access for women was exposed in the media, the FIVB shamefully called the whole debacle a “misunderstanding.”

This was no misunderstanding. The FIVB knows that Iranian women have been arrested and threatened before for watching volleyball. In the summer of 2014, Ghoncheh Ghavami, a British-Iranian dual citizen was arrested for attempting to enter Azadi Stadium to watch a volleyball game between Iran and Italy. Ghavami was then accused of “propaganda against the state” and sentenced to a year in prison. She was released after six months, but the chilling message went out that women are not welcome at FIVB tournaments.

The FIVB will soon make an announcement about whether Iran wins the right to host another series of international tournaments in 2017, both men’s beach volleyball and volleyball. If the FIVB is to continue to award Iran the opportunity to host international events, it must demand that—as for volleyball matches in Brazil, Germany, Argentina, or Turkey—women be allowed to watch. It is the FIVB’s duty as an international organization not to compromise on the equality of access to the games, not to side with hardliners excluding women, and not to condone an ugly double standard for Iran’s women.

The FIVB can and should press for the reversal of the ban on Iranian women watching volleyball in stadiums—and if the ban is not lifted, the FIVB should take its international tournament to a country that plays by the rules.

Solmaz Sharif founded Shirzanan, the first magazine dedicated to covering women’s athletics in Iran. She is also the co-founder of Shirzanan — meaning “female heroes” in Persian — a Muslim women and sports advocacy group.

In response to failed coup, Turkish president says state of emergency will last for three months.

by Al Jazeera

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has announced that the country will be placed under a “state of emergency” for three months, in response to the failed coup.

In a televised address on Wednesday, Erdogan said the decision was made following a meeting with members of the national security council.

The state of emergency was needed “in order to remove swiftly all the elements of the terrorist organisation involved in the coup attempt,” he said at the presidential palace in Ankara.

“I would like to underline that the declaration of the state of emergency has the sole purpose of taking the necessary measures, in the face of the terrorist threat that our country is facing,” he said, vowing that the “virus in the military will be cleansed”.

In an interview with Al Jazeera earlier on Wednesday, Erdogan has expressed doubts the coup attempt was entirely over.

“I don’t think we have come to the end of it,” he said.

Presidential power

Turkey has accused the group of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen of being behind the coup.

Gulen has strongly denied links to the coup.

According to the Turkish constitution, a state of emergency is allowed up to six months.

Turkey had in 2002 lifted its last state of emergency, which had been imposed in provinces in the southeast for the fight against Kurdish armed groups in 1987.

Under a state of emergency in Turkey, the president can largely rule by decree.

Curfews could be enforced, and gatherings and protests could be banned without official consent, under the declaration.

Media could also be restricted, while security personnel could conduct searches of persons, vehicles or properties and confiscate potential evidence.

But the interior ministry said that the order “will not affect civilians”, according to Al Jazeera’s Stefanie Dekker, who was reporting from Ankara.

In his televised address, Erdogan also tried to reassure the public that military powers will not be expanded, adding that Turkey would emerge as a “stronger nation” following the coup attempt.

Officials downplay sensitivity of leaked emails, say website blocked to protect privacy and personal phone numbers.

by Al Jazeera

Turkish officials have downplayed the release of hundreds of thousands of private emails belonging to members of the ruling party that were published on the WikiLeaks website.

The whistle-blower website was blocked on Wednesday by Turkey’s Internet watchdog, TIB, shortly after the mass release of the emails, which included the current phone numbers of AK Party members of parliament.

The internet authority said an “administrative measure” had been taken against WikiLeaks, a generic term it often uses when blocking websites in Turkey.

Al Jazeera independently confirmed the authenticity of emails and phone numbers of at least 10 members of parliament released by WikiLeaks.

WikiLeaks said more emails and attached files will be published soon.

“Part one of the series covers 762 mail boxes beginning with ‘A’ through to ‘I’ containing 294,548 email bodies together with many thousands of attached files,” the website said.

WikiLeaks ordered to be blocked nationwide in #Turkey after releasing 300 thousand emails from #Erdogan ‘s party AKP pic.twitter.com/Q5vWWimklY

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 20, 2016

“The emails come from ‘akparti.org.tr’, the AKP’s primary domain … It should be noted that emails associated with the domain are mostly used for dealing with the world, as opposed to the most sensitive internal matters.”

The leak of ruling party emails comes at a sensitive time for Turkey.

At least 290 people were killed after rebel soldiers attempted to overthrow the government on Friday, bombing state buildings and killing civilians and security forces. Thousands of civilian State employees and military personnel have been sacked or detained in the aftermath of the failed coup.

Since the attempted coup authorities have purged suspected backers of the plan to topple the government, and as of Monday night more than 8,000 people had been arrested over their alleged involvement.

RELEASE: 294,548 emails from Turkey’s ruling political party, Erdoğan’s AKP#AKPemails https://t.co/1Yof7YZpH7 pic.twitter.com/vFw8KLMIsX

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 20, 2016

‘April Fools’ jokes’

A Turkish official, speaking to Al Jazeera on condition of anonymity, said the content of the leaked emails was not sensitive for the AK Party or Turkey.

“The emails largely consist of spam, updates about various social activities, and April Fools’ Day jokes,” the official said.

The official said that access to the WikiLeaks website was restricted due to the “publication of personal information about MPs including phone numbers,” he said.

There is a “violation of privacy and publication of illegally obtained data,” he added.

Ismail Aydin, an AK Party member of parliament, said it was illegal to publish the private communications of people, though he stressed that nothing would come out of the leaked emails that would harm the party or its officials.

Coalition strikes on northern Manbij kill 56 civilians, bringing death toll to 167 in past two months, monitor says.

by Al Jazeera

Dozens of civilians have been killed in US-led air strikes against areas in Syria held by the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS), a monitoring group said.

At least 56 civilians, including 11 children, were killed in air strikes on the Tokhar area in the northern city of Manbij in the Aleppo governate on Tuesday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Ten others, including four children, were killed in coalition strikes on the village of Hamira, in the southern suburbs of Manbij.

The UK-based Observatory has put the total number of civilians killed by coalition strikes on Manbij since the Democratic Forces of Syria (DFS) launched their campaign there at the end of May, at 167.

Among the dead were about 44 children, 17 women and eight prisoners, the Observatory said.

“The US central command has confirmed to Al Jazeera that it was conducting air strikes in the area and says it needs to investigate allegations of whether civilians were injured or killed in this incident,” Al Jazeera’s Rosiland Jordan, reporting from Washington, said.

Director of the Observatory Rami Abdel-Rahman told German news agency DPA: “We believe that the raids which were carried out Tuesday were by US [or] allied planes, but it was by mistake.”

@TimInHonolulu We’re aware of these reports. Reviewing all information we have to determine credibility & next appropriate steps 1/2

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) July 19, 2016

Residents in the area say the death toll could be upwards of 200.

“It seems that the Syrian Democratic Forces under the leadership of the International coalition which is in charge of planning have decided to adopt a scorched earth policy,” Hasan al-Nifi, a community leader in Manbij, told Al Jazeera.

“Manbij is full of residents, a quarter of a million residents, used by ISIL as human shields. Yesterday the coalition struck al-Zahuna neighbourhood, where more than 23 people were killed. Then it struck the western gate of the city, killing people.

“Today the residents of Tokhar woke to a horrific massacre. The death toll rose to 212 and the numbers are rising.”

The Manbij area has seen intense US-led air strikes in support of Kurdish-led forces who are trying to seize the city from ISIL, so as to block the armed group’s access to the nearby Turkish border.

The SDF, an alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters backed by the US, launched an offensive against ISIL to retake the city of Manbij late last month.

They have besieged the town and are advancing to the city centre under the cover of air strikes by the US-led international coalition.

ISIL has held the city since 2014, the year that the armed group seized control of large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and declared its “caliphate”.

Aleppo besieged

On Monday, Chris Gunness, spokesman for the United Nations agency that supports Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said a driver who works for the agency in Syria was killed after suffering a shrapnel wound in the northern city of Aleppo.

Gunness said Yaser Mahmoud Shuaeeb, a 45-year-old father of six, died on Sunday.

Aleppo has witnessed some of the worst fighting in Syria over the past months. On Sunday, government forces besieged rebel-held neighbourhoods of the contested city.

Gunness said that UNRWA reported two other incidents on Sunday.

In one, a mortar shell landed 600 metres from the UN agency’s office in Damascus. In the other, a missile hit close to the Nairab refugee camp south of Aleppo. The incidents caused no injuries, he said.

The death toll in the Syrian conflict, which began with mostly unarmed demonstrations against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, has risen to more than 280,000 people, while half the country’s population have been forced from their homes, according to UN estimates.

Staffan de Mistura, UN special envoy to Syria, estimated last month that the actual death toll could be as high as 400,000 people.