IS group tightens its grip on Mosul residents

By Sinan Salaheddin
March 13, 2015

BAGHDAD (AP) — Freedom from the Islamic State group comes at a steep price, as one newly wedded couple recently discovered. Eager to live a normal life, away from the harsh dominion of the militants' self-styled caliphate, the young pair is searching for ways to bypass the extremists' newly-implemented departure taxes and escape the IS-held city of Mosul.

"Do they really want me to give up the house my father spent years building to an Afghani or Chechen or to an Iraqi villager so that I can leave for good? They are dreaming," the 29-year old groom said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. Most of his family had already fled last June when a shocking Islamic State blitz overran Mosul, but he stayed behind to protect his family home.

Fearing the city might simply empty of civilians, or that fleeing residents may join the fight against them, the Islamic State extremists are imposing tough measures to prevent people from leaving their territory.

Several residents, who spoke to The Associated Press by telephone on condition of anonymity to ensure their safety, said anyone seeking to leave must submit the title for their family home or car — if the vehicle is worth more than $20,000 — to be granted permission to leave for two weeks. If they fail to return within that period, their property will be confiscated.

Married earlier this year, they are finally ready to leave Mosul but trapped by the tough new restrictions, which were imposed in stages starting last October. The couple, who were engaged before Mosul fell, had dreamed of a lavish wedding with the traditional honking motorcade taking the bride from her father's home to the social hall for a celebration packed with friends and relatives.

"Instead we had a tiny wedding party with only three cars with modest decoration and almost no songs or music and only few relatives attended," said the 22-year old wife. "What bitterness."

The Islamic State group, which now controls about a third of Syria and Iraq, first banned all former police and army officers from leaving, for fear they would join the fight against IS-rule. Then the restrictions were tightened to allow only patients with urgent medical requirements or retirees who need to collect their pensions outside the city. In late February, the requirement for travelers to turn over their home or car title was imposed.

Mosul residents are watching with keen interest the ongoing offensive by the Iraqi army and allied Shiite militiamen to dislodge the Islamic State group from Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, about 200 kilometers (124 miles) southeast of Mosul. The retaking of Tikrit is seen as a crucial test for the Iraqi troops and a key step toward the ultimate recapture of Mosul.

The Iraqi forces entered Tikrit for the first time on Wednesday, from the north and south, and by Thursday, they were fighting their way through the city, along two fronts, hoping to reach the center within three to four days, according to commanders on the front-lines.

Meanwhile, in Mosul — Iraq's second largest city — many residents feel they have no choice but to endure under Islamic State rule.

"I can't leave here with my family because I have no other source for living," said a Mosul resident and father of four who sells wholesale cosmetics. "Every day when I come back home, I lock the house door on my family."

The restrictions apply only for those wishing to head south into government-held Iraq; residents can still travel to and from Turkey. Those leaving for urgent medical reasons now also have to provide collateral, and can only leave if their claim is approved by a special medical committee made up of IS-loyalist doctors.

One resident told the AP that when doctors in Baghdad changed the date of his surgery, one of his companions had to travel back to Mosul to obtain an extension to his two-week leave or else he would have lost his home.

Unwilling to surrender the deed to the groom's family home, the young Mosul couple found a taxi driver who moonlights as a smuggler sneaking residents out of the city. But the pair, both civil servants, could not meet his $20,000 price tag.

Trapped in their hometown, they are chafing under the Islamic State group's harsh interpretation of Islamic law. The wife has to cover herself from head to toe with an enveloping niqab garment. When out in public together, they constantly have to show proof of their marriage at militant checkpoints.

"I'm fed up, I want to live a normal life with my husband where I can go out with him at any time without worrying about our safety, the marriage documents and even without being annoyed by the niqab when eating at a restaurant," she said.

Both are now looking for a more affordable smuggler, saying the most they can afford is $5,000.

Iraqi forces push into Tikrit from north and south

11 March 2015 Wednesday

Iraqi security forces and militias fought their way into Saddam Hussein's home city of Tikrit on Wednesday, advancing from the north and south in their biggest counter-offensive so far against ISIL.

The provincial governor said the army and militia fighters captured part of the northern district of Qadisiya, while in the south of the Tigris river city a security officer said another force made a rapid push towards the center.

"The forces entered Tikrit general hospital," an official at the main military operation command center said. "There is heavy fighting going on near the presidential palaces, next to the hospital complex."

Islamic State fighters who stormed into Tikrit in June during a lightning offensive through north and central Iraq have used the complex of palaces built in Tikrit under Saddam, the executed former president, as their headquarters.

More than 20,000 troops and Iranian-backed Shi'ite Muslim militias known as Hashid Shaabi, supported by local Sunni Muslim tribes, launched the offensive for Tikrit 10 days ago, advancing from the east and along the Tigris river.

On Tuesday they took the town of al-Alam on the northern edge of Tikrit, paving the way for an attack on the city itself.

"The governor of Salahuddin announces the purging of half of Qadisiya district, the largest of Tikrit's neighborhoods," a statement from governor Raed al-Jubouri's office said.

The army and militia fighters raised the national flag above a military hospital in the section of Qadisiya they had retaken from the militants, security officials said.

After pausing while helicopters attacked ISIL snipers and positions, the ground forces were progressing steadily, taking "one street every 30 minutes" the security official said. He said there was fierce fighting around Tikrit police headquarters just south of Qadisiya.

To the northwest, troops and Hashid Shaabi fighters were clashing with ISIL militants in the city's industrial zone, he added.

RAMADI ATTACKS

If Iraq's Shi'ite-led government is able to retake Tikrit it would be the first city clawed back from the Sunni insurgents and would give it momentum in the next, pivotal stage of the campaign - to recapture Mosul, the largest city in the north.

Mosul is the biggest city held by the ultra-radical Islamic State, who now rule a self-declared cross-border caliphate in Sunni regions of Syria and Iraq.

Over the past few months Islamic State has gradually lost ground in Iraq to the army, Shi'ite militias and Kurdish peshmerga forces, backed by air strikes carried out by a U.S.-led coalition of mainly Western and allied Arab states.

The United States says Baghdad did not seek aerial backup from the coalition in the Tikrit campaign. Instead, support on the ground has come from neighboring Iran, Washington's longtime regional rival, which has sent an elite Revolutionary Guard commander to oversee part of the battle.

In the western province of Anbar, suicide car bombers in seven vehicles attacked Iraqi army positions in the provincial capital Ramadi, about 90 km (55 miles) west of Baghdad, police and medical sources say.

A total of five people were killed in the attacks, including two policemen, and 19 were wounded, a medical source said, stressing that the toll was only preliminary.

One of the car bombs exploded near a bridge in the west of the city and damaged part of the bridge, a police source said.

In the north, an Islamic State suicide bomber struck a position of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the town of Sinjar. After the bombing around 70 militants attacked but were driven back by coalition airstrikes, according to a senior Kurdish security official in the area.

Source: World Bulletin.
Link: http://www.worldbulletin.net/todays-news/156445/iraqi-forces-push-into-tikrit-from-north-and-south.

Bangladesh braces for protests after Islamist's execution

April 12, 2015

DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) — Bangladesh braced for protests and fresh violence Sunday after a senior official of the largest Islamist party was executed on charges of crimes against humanity during the country's 1971 independence war, the second man to be hanged since the government revived war crime trials that have sharpened political divisions in the South Asian nation.

Mohammad Qamaruzzaman was put to death Saturday night in the central jail in the capital, Dhaka, a senior prison official, Forman Ali, told reporters outside the premises. Prosecutors said that Qamaruzzaman, an assistant secretary general of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, headed a militia group that collaborated with the Pakistani army in central Bangladesh in 1971 and was behind the killings of at least 120 unarmed farmers.

Bangladesh blames Pakistani soldiers and local collaborators for the deaths of 3 million people during the nine-month war of independence from Pakistan. An estimated 200,000 women were raped and about 10 million people fled to refugee camps in neighboring India.

Jamaat-e-Islami denounced the execution and called for a nationwide general strike Monday. At the same time, hundreds of people who supported the trial and execution rallied in Dhaka. Similar demonstrations were held in other cities and towns.

"We are happy that justice has been delivered finally," said Mohammad Al Masum, a student at Dhaka University, who joined a procession in Shabagh Square. "I did not see the war but I am sure the families that lost their dear ones will be happy today."

The trials have further polarized Bangladesh, already gripped by long-running political divisions that often spill into violence. The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ravina Shamdasani, earlier this week urged Bangladesh not to carry out the execution, saying that Qamaruzzman's trial did not meet international standards.

The United States was more guarded in its assessment of the trial, but still urged the government not to proceed with the execution. "We have seen progress, but still believe that further improvements ... could ensure these proceedings meet domestic and international obligations," State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said in a statement shortly before the execution. "Until these obligations can be consistently met, it is best not to proceed with executions given the irreversibility of a sentence of death."

The Bangladeshi government said the trial met the proper standards with the defendant receiving the opportunity to challenge the prosecution's case in open court and appeal the verdict all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Since Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina set up the tribunals in 2010, more than a dozen people have been convicted, mostly senior leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami. The party, which is allied with Hasina's main opposition rival, says the trials are politically motivated.

The initial trials that followed Bangladesh's independence four decades ago were halted after the assassination of then-president and independence leader Sheikh Mujibur Rahman — Hasina's father — and most of his family members in a 1975 military coup. Hasina revived the process, making good on a pledge she made before 2008 elections.

Bangladesh executed another Jamaat-e-Islami assistant secretary, Abdul Quader Mollah, in December 2013 for similar crimes, triggering violent protests. Qamaruzzaman refused to seek presidential clemency. Somoy TV station reported that he was hanged after performing all legal and religious procedures. His body will be taken for burial to his ancestral home in the Sherpur district in central Bangladesh.

Fighting picks up in war-torn eastern Ukraine

April 13, 2015

DONETSK, Ukraine (AP) — Fighting has picked up in eastern Ukraine after more than a month of relative calm, as diplomats gathered in Berlin on Monday to discuss the country's crisis.

Observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said Sunday that its mission observed an intense clash with the use of tanks and heavy artillery as well as grenade launchers and mortars in the north of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk.

On Sunday alone, the OSCE recorded at least 1,166 explosions, caused mainly by artillery and mortar shell strikes in northern Donetsk as well as on its outskirts including the airport, now obliterated by fighting.

The OSCE also reported intense mortar fire outside the village of Shyrokyne, by the Azov Sea, but said its representatives were repeatedly barred from accessing the village on Sunday. Mortar fire was also heard at night and in the morning on Monday in central Donetsk.

Rebel officials as well as Ukrainian and Russian colonels in charge of monitoring the cease-fire went early Monday afternoon to the northern outskirts of Donetsk, a scene of heavy fighting Sunday night.

The rebels told reporters they took captive a Ukrainian soldier and showed the body of another Ukrainian soldier. Intermittent shelling and exchanges of machine gun fire were heard from what appeared to be half a mile from the scene.

A rebel with the nom de guerre Monakh told The Associated Press that one rebel has been killed and five more injured in fighting in the north of Donetsk. Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, military spokesman for the Ukrainian presidential administration, told reporters at noon on Monday that one Ukrainian soldier was killed and six wounded in the previous 24 hours.

The military conflict between Russian-backed rebels and government forces has killed more than 6,000 but had largely subsided since the cease-fire was announced in February and some heavy weaponry withdrawn.

Both the OSCE and Ukrainian officials said they had witnessed shelling from heavy weaponry that was supposed to have been withdrawn from the front line. Col. Andriy Lishchynskyi, a Ukrainian representative for monitoring the cease-fire in the east, blamed the clashes on "a highly emotional state and personal animosity" between the fighters on both sides, according to the Interfax news agency.

Rebels and government forces are still separated only by hundreds of meters at some sections of the front line. Foreign policy chiefs from Russia, Ukraine, France and Germany are meeting to discuss the crisis later on Monday.

Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign ministry's special envoy, in a Twitter post on Monday described the fighting in the area as "setting the stage for another act of a policy drama that will be playing in Berlin today."

In an indication that hostilities are picking up in the region, the rebel Donetsk News Agency reported on Monday that the number of injured fighters tripled over the weekend compared with previous weeks.

Nataliya Vasilyeva contributed to this report from Moscow.

Far-right party ahead of government in Hungary by-election

April 12, 2015

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — A candidate from Hungary's far-right Jobbik party was narrowly ahead of a rival from Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party in a parliamentary by-election on Sunday.

With 99.1 percent of the votes counted, Jobbik's Lajos Rig had the support of 35.3 percent, Zoltan Fenyvesi of Fidesz had 34.4 percent and Socialist Ferenc Pad had 26.3 percent. Jobbik president Gabor Vona described the victory as "historic."

"The mood in Hungary is for a change of government and with Jobbik Hungary finally has a force to change the government," Vona told supporters celebrating in the western Hungarian city of Tapolca. If the result is confirmed, it would be the second straight defeat this year for Fidesz, which lost its two-thirds parliamentary majority in a February by-election.

With around 500 votes left to count, Rig had 261 more votes than Fenyvesi and analysts said it was highly unlikely Fidesz could reverse the result. "Fidesz is caught in a downward spiral from which it will be very difficult to exit," said Peter Krausz, an analyst at Budapest's Policy Agenda.

Jobbik, some of whose politicians have made numerous anti-Semitic and anti-gypsy statements, has been trying recently to soften its rhetoric, though critics remain unconvinced. "In the eyes of the rest of the world, people see Jobbik as an extremist party that promotes hate," Ronald Lauder, head of the World Jewish Congress, said Sunday at a Budapest Holocaust remembrance.

Despite its likely victory in Veszprem County and Vona's high expectations, Krausz said Jobbik still had a long road ahead before it could win national elections, expected in 2018. "It seems impossible that anyone in the United States or Europe would accept a Jobbik government," Krausz said. "What looks certain for now is that many of the voters disillusioned with Fidesz are supporting Jobbik instead."

Fidesz easily won national, municipal and European elections in 2014 but has lost popularity due to corruption scandals and disputed measures like a ban preventing most stores from opening on Sundays.

South African opposition leader steps down

April 13, 2015

JOHANNESBURG (AP) — The leader of South Africa's largest opposition party announced her decision to step down just four weeks ahead of the party's elective meeting.

Helen Zille, leader of the Democratic Alliance, announced on Sunday that she would not stand for re-election in the party's upcoming meeting in May. The party, which won 22 percent of the national vote in the 2014 election, needs fresh leadership to grow, said Zille, explaining her decision to step down two years earlier than planned.

"The party would benefit from fresh blood to remain exciting and relevant, and grow its support base to build the non-racial center of South African politics," Zille said in a press conference. Under her eight-year leadership, young black leaders have risen to prominence as the liberal party, which has a mainly white following, seeks to attract voters from South Africa's black majority.

The leadership battle to select her successor by next month will be "short and sharp," said Zille. The party's fiery parliamentary leader, Mmusi Maimane, is seen as the leading contender to replace 64-year-old Zille.

Lindiwe Mazibuko, Maimane's predecessor in parliament, quickly quashed speculation that she would try to succeed Zille. The 35-year-old said she would not run for the party's top seat, in a statement on Monday. Mazibuko is currently studying at Harvard University in the United States.

With Zille at the helm, the Democratic Alliance increased its percentage of the national vote by 10 percent, according to a party statement. An avid tweeter, Zille has used social media to air sometimes controversial views. She's also known for regularly dancing on stage during campaign rallies.

Before becoming one of South Africa's most prominent political figures, Zille worked as a journalist and is known for reporting on the police killing of prominent anti-apartheid activist, Steve Biko. Zille was mayor of Cape Town from 2006 to 2009. She will remain premier of South Africa's Western Cape province. Zille, who joined the party in the mid-1990s, said she would continue to work for the Democratic Alliance.

Nigerian opposition wins key states, shores up victory

April 13, 2015

LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — Nigeria's opposition is winning key states from the party of defeated President Goodluck Jonathan, with results still coming in Monday from weekend elections marred by killings, low turnouts and the snatching of ballot boxes.

The party of President-elect Muhammadu Buhari won a tight contest for Lagos, Nigeria's financial hub. And it won landslides in northern Kaduna, Sokoto and Katsina states, which Jonathan's party had governed since decades of military rule ended in 1999.

Results were still coming in from weekend voting for governors in 29 of the 36 states. Opposition candidates are contesting the victory announced for Jonathan's party in oil-rich southern Rivers state, where nine people were killed, a polling station and home of a Jonathan party official were set ablaze, and several electoral workers were kidnapped.

Politicking has been violent in Rivers since outgoing Gov. Rotimi Amaechi defected to the opposition last year. There were no immediate reports of violence involving the insurgents, who killed about 40 people including three young electoral workers during the presidential vote.

Turnout at the weekend was low "People are afraid of violence, so they stayed at home," voter Abdullahi Tahiru told The Associated Press. The Independent National Electoral Council canceled the election in southern Imo state, where ballot materials did not reach several polling stations, and in Taraba, where ballot boxes were snatched and thugs attacked the homes of two officials of Jonathan's party.

Nigerians also voted for national legislators in the March 28 presidential elections, with results from individual states showing Buhari's party has won control of both houses.

Jewish leader says worried about Hungary's far-right

April 12, 2015

BUDAPEST, Hungary (AP) — The president of the World Jewish Congress said Sunday he was concerned about the increasing popularity of Hungary's far-right Jobbik party, particularly among young voters.

American businessman Ronald Lauder told The Associated Press that support for Jobbik showed that Prime Minister Viktor Orban's Fidesz party and the opposition Socialists "are not giving them any hope."

Lauder, whose maternal grandparents were born in Hungary, said that many younger voters were turning to the party led by Gabor Vona not because of anti-Semitism but because "they're looking for an alternative. They're looking for something different."

Recent polls suggest Jobbik is the second most popular party behind Fidesz and lately has been steadily closing the gap. While Jobbik is mostly shunned by its critics and opponents in Hungary, Lauder said dialogue was crucial.

"I believe ... that it's important to speak to them," Lauder said. "I believe it's important to speak to anybody who's willing to listen." Lauder said that it was hard for him, as head of the WJC, to meet with a group like Jobbik, because it could be misinterpreted as condoning their politics.

"But the fact is that we, the Jewish people, and also Christians and other faiths, have to meet together with anybody to talk about what can be done in the future," Lauder said. Lauder added that he did not believe that "everyone in Jobbik is anti-Semitic."

Speaking later during the March of the Living Holocaust commemoration, Lauder said Jobbik was harmful to Hungary's international image. "Jobbik hurts Hungary. Do not allow Jobbik to destroy Hungary. The people of Hungary are too good for that," Lauder said.

Despite Jobbik, "the Hungarian Jewish community is alive and well and ... is not going anywhere," Lauder told a crowd of several thousand people. Some 550,000 Hungarian Jews were killed during the Holocaust. Around 100,000 live in Hungary now, making up the largest Jewish community in Eastern Europe.

Siberian field fires sweep through 21 villages, injure 70

April 12, 2015

MOSCOW (AP) — The government of a Siberian region reports that more than 70 people have been injured by agricultural fires that got out of control and swept through more than 20 towns and villages.

The fires were started by farmers burning the grass in their fields and they spread quickly because of strong winds. The government of Khakassia, a region in southeastern Siberia, has called on all residents to help put out the fires, which on Sunday destroyed 118 homes in 21 towns and villages.

The Defense Ministry and Emergencies Ministry said they were sending aircraft to help fight the fires. The state RIA Novosti news agency, quoting an Emergencies Ministry official, reported that firefighters were hampered by a shortage of water since the reservoirs were still covered with ice.