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Israel besieges Hebron village over teen’s killing

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Israeli forces have surrounded the village of Bani Naim in response to a deadly stabbing in a nearby Hebron settlement.

The teenage settler was killed in a house on the edge of the Kiryat Arba settlement [Mussa Qawasma/Reuters]

The teenage settler was killed in a house on the edge of the Kiryat Arba settlement [Mussa Qawasma/Reuters]

by Al Jazeera

Israeli forces have blockaded a Palestinian village in the southern West Bank just hours after a teenage settler was allegedly stabbed to death by a Palestinian in a nearby settlement.

“Israeli forces have begun a full siege on the village of Bani Naim,” Issa Amro, a Hebron-based human rights activist and founder of Youth Against Settlements in Hebron, told Al Jazeera.

The village, just east of Hebron city in the southern West Bank, is home to the alleged assailant, 17-year-old Muhammad Nasser Tarayra.

Tarayra was shot and killed on Thursday after “infiltrating” the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba and stabbing a 13-year-old girl to death, according to an Israeli spokeswoman.

The girl, identified as Hallel Yafa Ariel, later died from her wounds in hospital.

“They [Israeli authorities] are threatening to revoke the family’s permits to work in Israel, and they’ve arrested the boy’s father,” Amro said.

Al Jazeera’s Imtiaz Tyab, reporting from Jerusalem, said Israeli authorities had also “begun discussions as to whether they will demolish the home of the suspected attacker”.

Amro in Hebron said an obligatory curfew had been imposed across the city’s entire H2 area, the portion of the Palestinian city under full Israeli control. Israeli forces had also erected an additional 20 checkpoints.

“It is supposed to end this evening, but who really knows,” said Amro, referring to the curfew which began at 5pm.

The Israeli army has also reportedly closed down the adjacent section of Road 60, a major north-south highway that runs through the southern West Bank and into present-day Israel.

Human rights groups have repeatedly condemned Israel’s punitive measures against Palestinian communities in the wake of attacks, and say they constitute “collective punishment”.

Amro denounced the killing but said the Israeli occupation was to blame.

“We are against this killing as Palestinians, but it must be understood that Netanyahu and the Israeli government are responsible at the end of the day. They’re using their kids as human shields to take Palestinian land,” he said.

“This kid wanted to attack the settlement, but the occupation is responsible for killing him and for the death of this young girl.”

The girl was the cousin of Uri Ariel, an Israeli cabinet minister affiliated with the West Bank settler movement.

The Kiryat Arba, located in Hebron, the West Bank’s most populous city, is home to a few hundred Jewish settlers who live under heavy army guard and among several hundred thousand Palestinians.

Settlements are considered illegal under international law and are a major sticking point in negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.

Turkey: Dozens killed in explosions at Ataturk Airport

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Prime Minister Binali Yildirim says ISIL believed to be behind suicide attacks at Ataturk Airport.

Ambulances rushed to the airport after the attack [Osman Orsal/Reuters]

Ambulances rushed to the airport after the attack [Osman Orsal/Reuters]



by Al Jazeera

At least 36 people have been killed and nearly 150 others wounded following explosions at Istanbul’s main international airport, Turkish officials say.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said three suicide bombers were involved in the attack at Ataturk Airport late on Tuesday evening.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Yildirim said there was indication that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group carried out the bombings.

He said efforts to identify the attackers, who arrived at the airport in taxis, were continuing.

The attackers opened fire at airport guards at the terminal entrance and a shootout erupted before they blew themselves up one by one at around 10pm, authorities said.

Security camera footage circulated on social media appeared to capture two of the blasts. In one clip a huge ball of flame erupts at an entrance to the terminal building, scattering terrified passengers.

Another video shows a black-clad attacker running inside the building before collapsing to the ground – apparently felled by a police bullet – and blowing himself up.

Most of the casualties were Turkish citizens, a senior government official said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called for a “joint fight” against terror after the attack.

“If states, as all humanity, fail to join forces and wage a joint fight against terrorist organisations, all the possibilities that we dread in our minds will come true one by one,” he said in a statement.

“It is clear that this attack is not aimed at achieving any result but only to create propaganda material against our country using simply the blood and pain of innocent people.”

One of the attackers “randomly opened fire” as he walked through the terminal building, shortly before three explosions, a witness told Reuters.

“We came right to international departures and saw the man randomly shooting. He was just firing at anyone coming in front of him. He was wearing all black. His face was not masked. I was 50 metres away from him,” said Paul Roos, 77, a South African tourist on his way back to Cape Town with his wife.

“We ducked behind a counter but I stood up and watched him. Two explosions went off shortly after one another. By that time he had stopped shooting,” Roos said.

“He turned around and started coming towards us. He was holding his gun inside his jacket. He looked around anxiously to see if anyone was going to stop him and then went down the escalator … We heard some more gunfire and then another explosion, and then it was over.”

Ataturk Airport is one of the busiest ports in the world, serving more than 60 million passengers in 2015.

There has been a string of bombings around Turkey over the past year, some of them blamed on ISIL, others claimed by Kurdish groups.

Earlier in June, at least 11 people were killed in central Istanbul following a bombing attack targeting a police vehicle. The armed group Kurdistan Freedom Hawks, also known by its Kurdish-language acronym TAK, claimed responsibility for that attack.

Pakistan mourns assassinated Sufi singer Amjad Sabri

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Security tight at funeral of Qawwali singer Amjad Sabri, who was killed by Taliban gunmen in Karachi on Wednesday.

amjad-sabri

by Al Jazeera

Thousands of people have attended the funeral of slain Pakistani Qawwali singer Amjad Sabri in Karachi, amid a major security operation.

Large crowds gathered for the procession and funeral service on Thursday, which was led by the spiritual heir of Sufi saint Baba Farid, Pakistani media reported.

Al Jazeera’s Alia Chughtai, reporting from Karachi, said the area of Liaquatabad Road where the funeral was held was under lockdown by security forces.

“The police services have cleared out the roads for the funeral procession and everything in the area is under lockdown,” Chughtai reported.

Sabri was killed on Wednesday while driving in his car in the city’s Liaqatabad area. A motorcycle pulled up alongside the vehicle and the attackers opened fire.

The 45-year-old singer is survived by his wife and five children. Sabri’s brother, who was also in the vehicle, was wounded.

“Two riders used 30-bore pistols to shoot Sabri five times. The bullet to the head took the qawwal’s life. The attackers took the Hassan Square route to escape,” Inspector General Mushtaq Mehar told Pakistan’s English language newspaper Dawn.

“It was a targeted killing and an act of terrorism,” Muqaddas Haider, a senior police officer told AFP news agency, without naming possible suspects.
Sabri’s body was laid to rest next to his father Ghulam Farid Sabri in Paposh Nagar graveyard, in the compound of Pir Herat Shah Warsi’s shrine.

The killing of the singer was met with shock and condemnation. Neighbours congregated outside the singer’s home to offer condolences to his relatives, while TV channels broadcast recordings of his music in tribute.

Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan’s prime minister, was among those condemning the killing and ordered an investigation.

A splinter faction of the Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the raid, saying Sabri’s qawwalis were blasphemous.

Fakhre Alam, the Chairman of the Sindh Board of Film Censors, claimed on Twitter that Sabri had earlier submitted an application for security, but the home department refused to follow up on it.

Asghari Begum, Amjad Sabri’s mother told Al Jazeera, that about six months ago three unknown assailants came to their residence and had burst open the front door. Amjad was not present, and they had left.

Sabri and his late father, Ghulam Farid Sabri, were well-known qawwali singers – a style of music rooted in Sufism, or Islamic mysticism – that is popular across South Asia with roots tracing back to the 13th century.

Sufi mosques and shrines have come under attack in recent years, including the 2010 bombing of the Data Darbar shrine in Lahore that killed more than 40 people.

Egypt’s Morsi sentenced to life imprisonment over espionage charges

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morsi

Egypt’s Morsi sentenced to life imprisonment over espionage charges

by Adham Youssef

The Cairo Criminal Court sentenced Saturday former president Mohamed Morsi to life in prison, along with two other defendants, in the “Qatar espionage” case.

Another six defendants received death sentences after the Grand Mufti argued that the “crime of the defendants are similar to that of treason” whose punishment should be death.

The presiding judge, Mohamed Shereen Fahmy, also sentenced Morsi to another 15 years for a different charge in the same case.

Fahmy employed several nationalist connotations while reading the court’s decision.

The session witnessed a heavy presence of security forces in the fortified Police Academy in downtown Cairo

Morsi and the other defendants are accused of leaking national security documents and information related to national security to Qatar during Morsi’s presidency.

Battle for Fallujah: Iraq retakes government HQ

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

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

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

by Al Jazeera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

They are supported by US-led coalition air strikes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Defiant Assad vows to liberate every inch of Syria

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

bashar-al-assad

by Al Jazeera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Iraqi army launches assault against ISIL in Fallujah

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

iraq

by Al Jazeera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

$48 for a kilo of rice

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

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

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

Indonesia: Death penalty, castration for child rapists

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

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

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

by Al Jazeera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Activists push back

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Syria civil war: ISIL bombs rock Assad-held cities

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

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

by Al Jazeera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hospital blast

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

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

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

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

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

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

US Secret Service shoots armed man outside White House

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

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

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

by Al Jazeera

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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