Iraq forces retake government HQ in Tikrit from IS

By Marwan Ibrahim
March 31, 2015

Kirkuk (Iraq) (AFP) - Iraqi forces have retaken the Salaheddin provincial government headquarters in Tikrit from the Islamic State jihadist group, a significant advance in the battle to recapture the city, officials said Tuesday.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said security forces and Popular Mobilization units -- pro-government paramilitary forces dominated by Iran-backed Shiite militias -- took part in the fighting, after some of those groups said they froze offensive operations in response to US-led air strikes.

"Iraqi forces cleared the government complex in Tikrit," an army major general said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"The government buildings have been under our control since last night (Monday)."

It is the most significant advance in Tikrit since pro-government forces launched an operation to retake the city on March 2, their largest since IS led an offensive that overran much of the country's Sunni Arab heartland last June.

Salaheddin Governor Raad al-Juburi confirmed that the government headquarters had been retaken, saying that Iraqi flags now flew over various recaptured buildings in the city.

Badr spokesman Karim al-Nuri also said that the government headquarters was recaptured.

"Our security forces arrived at the center of the city of Tikrit and freed the southern and western sides, and are moving to take control of the entire city," Abadi said in a statement.

Soldiers, policemen, Popular Mobilization fighters, tribesmen and Tikrit residents were taking part in the fighting, while the US-led coalition and Iraqi forces provided air support.

Key Shiite militia forces in the Popular Mobilization said they were halting Tikrit operations when the coalition began air strikes in the area after weeks during which Iran was the main foreign partner in the operation.

- Suicide bombing -

The US-led strikes started last Wednesday, angering Shiite militiamen who accused Washington of attempting to hijack their victory.

The Pentagon conditioned its intervention on an enhanced role for regular government forces.

Last Friday, it hailed the withdrawal from the fight of "those Shiite militias who are linked to, infiltrated by, (or) otherwise under the influence of Iran".

But after giving themselves political cover by declaring that they do not want to work with each other, both sides are still taking part in the Tikrit operation.

The main militias in the Popular Mobilization forces have played a key role in successful operations against IS in multiple areas north of Baghdad.

They have also been accused of abuses including summary executions and destruction of property.

During a visit to Baghdad on Monday, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said that Iraq must "bring volunteer armed groups fighting in support of the government under government control".

"Civilians freed from the brutality of Daesh should not have to then fear their liberators," Ban said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Security in and around Baghdad has improved markedly during the battle against IS, in large part because the jihadists have been occupied with fighting elsewhere.

But attacks still occur, such as a suicide bombing on Tuesday in the Taji area, north of the capital, that killed at least eight people and wounded at least 14, security and medical officials said.

Egypt to sack workers who strike

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

Public sector workers who go on strike will be dismissed for "disrupting public facilities" following a court ruling in Egypt yesterday.

Two days ahead of Workers' Day, the High Administrative Court said: "Workers' protests are not dealt with the same way as demonstrations and public gatherings because they stop work and disrupt the flow of work."

Quds Press reported the court saying that this ruling is final and is not open for appeal.

The same court has previously turned three officials in the local unit of Al-Manofiyeh Governorate to retirement and decided to delay the promotion for 14 others because they disrupted the workflow in their workplace.

In a statement, the Administrative Prosecution claimed that the court's ruling was based on Islamic teachings. It also said that the Egyptian government has pledged to guarantee the right of work strikes on condition that they comply with Islamic teachings.

The statement claimed the workers' strikes contradict Islamic teachings and Sharia, considering workers' strikes as a "crime".

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/africa/18336-egypt-to-sack-workers-who-strike.

Kobani still a ghost town, months after liberation from IS

May 01, 2015

SURUC, Turkey (AP) — The battle for the Syrian border town of Kobani was a watershed in the war against the Islamic State group — Syrian Kurdish forces fought the militants in rubble-strewn streets for months as U.S. aircraft pounded the extremists from the skies until ultimately expelling them from the town earlier this year.

It was the Islamic State's bloodiest defeat to date in Syria. But now, three months since Kobani was liberated, tens of thousands of its residents are still stranded in Turkey, reluctant to return to a wasteland of collapsed buildings and at a loss as to how and where to rebuild their lives.

The Kurdish town on the Turkish-Syrian border is still a haunting, apocalyptic vista of hollowed out facades and streets littered with unexploded ordnance — a testimony to the massive price that came with the victory over IS.

There is no electricity or clean water, nor any immediate plans to restore basic services and start rebuilding. While grateful for the U.S. airstrikes that helped turn the tide in favor of the Kobani fighters and drive out IS militants, residents say their wretched situation underscores the lack of any serious follow-up by the international community in its war against IS.

"First, Islamic State fighters were holed up in our home and then the American planes bombed it," said Sabah Khalil, pointing from across the border in Suruc, Turkey, to where her family house in Kobani is now a pile of crumpled cement.

"Who is going to help us rebuild? That's what everyone is asking," she added, sitting on a stone outside her tent, soaking in the spring sun as children in tattered shoes played nearby. For four ferocious months, Kobani was the focus of the international media after IS militants barreled into the town and surrounding villages, triggering an exodus of some 300,000 residents who poured across the border into Turkey.

The battle for Kobani became the centerpiece of the campaign against IS. Dozens of TV crews flocked to the Turkish side of the border and from a hill, trained their cameras on the besieged town, recording plumes of smoke rising from explosions as the U.S.-led coalition pounded IS hideouts inside the town.

In late January, the Kurdish fighters finally ousted the Islamic State from the town — a significant victory for both the Kurds and the U.S.-led coalition. For IS, which by some estimates lost around 2,000 fighters in Kobani, it was a defeat that punctured the group's image and sapped morale.

But the price was daunting. Today more than 70 percent of Kobani lies in ruins. More than 560 Kurdish fighters died in the battles. About 70,000 of the refugees have returned to the town and surrounding areas, some only to pitch tents outside their destroyed homes, according to Aisha Afandi, co-chair of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party, or PYD.

With no outside help, the Kurdish fighters use primitive tools to dismantle mines and booby traps left behind by IS militants. The rotting bodies of dead fighters are still trapped under the rubble, and as the weather gets warmer, there are concerns of spreading disease.

Afandi said an appeal for international donors and Kurdish communities everywhere will be launched at a Kurdish conference on Kobani, due May 2 in the mainly Kurdish-populated city of Diyarbakir in Turkey. There are also plans to transform parts of the town center into a museum, she added.

"It is important for future generations to remember the history th at was made here," she said over the telephone from Kobani. Three times a week, when Turkish officials open the gate at the Mursitpinar border crossing for a few hours, refugees trickle back into Kobani.

On a recent day, a few dozen people carrying suitcases and bags were at the gate, waiting to cross. Vans loaded with mattresses and other belongings were lined up on a dirt road. At the nearby Arin Mirxan camp in Suruc, named after a female Kurdish fighter in Kobani who is said to have carried out a suicide bombing against IS militants in October, the hopelessness is on full display.

Ali Hussein and his mother Zalikha Qader sit next to each other in the camp, eating roasted pumpkin seeds and wiling the time away. In nearby "Tent Number 3," Shahin Tamo, 21, takes care of his 7-year-old brother Sarwan, a skeletal child with large eyes who suffers from a serious neurological condition. They are here with their parents, two brothers and two sisters. Their Kobani home was looted and burnt.

"Everything is gone. Our house, my education, my future," Tamo said. "Who will compensate that?" At least once a day, camp residents go out to the main street to greet a procession bringing in fallen Kurdish fighters from inside Syria.

The bodies, in simple wooden coffins draped in the Kurdish red, white and green-color flag, are the tragic toll of still ongoing fighting back home between the main Kurdish militia known as the People's Protection Units, or YPG, and IS militants in areas around Kobani.

"Your blood will not go in vain!" the refugees shouted in Kurdish.

Al-Qaeda linked groups clash with ISIS in Golan Heights

Wednesday, 29 April 2015

A number of Syrian rebel groups, including the Al-Qaeda affiliated Al-Nusra Front, yesterday clashed with jihadists linked to the Islamic State (ISIS) in the Golan Heights, AFP reported a monitor and an opposition spokesman saying.

Rami Abdulrahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP that rebel groups fought ISIS-linked Jaysh Al-Jihad in the border town of Qahtaniya in the southern province of Quneitra.

"These are key battles, because ISIS now has a presence in Syria's south and because they are close to the ceasefire line with the Golan," said Abdulrahman. "This is the first time these groups have clashed with each other," he added.

Abdulrahman said 12 rebels were killed and Jaysh Al-Jihad lost seven fighters. "Fifteen members of Jaysh Al-Jihad were also taken hostage," he said.

The clashes took place as Israel announced that two mortar rounds fired from Syria struck northern parts of the Golan Heights, without causing casualties.

Israeli forces later stated that the mortar fire was the result of errant "spillover" from the conflict, and not a deliberate attack.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/18331-al-qaeda-linked-groups-clash-with-isis-in-golan-heights.

UN: More child abuse cases possible in C. African Republic

May 01, 2015

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The United Nations on Friday said "it is possible, it's horribly possible" that more allegations of sexual abuse of children by French and other soldiers in Central African Republic could come to light as investigations continue.

A U.N. human rights spokesman reminded reporters in Geneva that conditions where the alleged abuse occurred last year were chaotic, with thousands of displaced people taking refuge at the capital's airport and under protection of French and other troops.

Rupert Colville said U.N. officials now have to see what French authorities will come up with as their investigation continues. He called the allegations "abhorrent" and "utterly odious." "Longer term, only the French can do this investigation ... fully," he said.

Residents of the camp for displaced persons have told The Associated Press that French soldiers tasked with protecting civilians during months of vicious sectarian violence in the country had sexually abused boys as young as 9 years old.

France's investigations follow an initial U.N. investigation into the allegations a year ago. All of the probes came to light Wednesday when a report in the Guardian newspaper pushed officials to publicly acknowledge the allegations.

The accusations were made before a U.N. peacekeeping force arrived in the country in September. The U.N. has said one of its human rights workers leaked information about the U.N. investigation to French authorities last year. Swede Anders Kompass has been suspended and is under internal investigation. The U.N. says the leak was a breach of protocol, with the leak including names of victims and witnesses.

Paula Donovan, whose group AIDS-Free World has been looking into abuse by peacekeeping personnel, has said children also accused soldiers from Chad and Equatorial Guinea. The U.N. on Friday said it didn't know whether the accusations against soldiers from Chad and Equatorial Guinea were being pursued but that the French investigation might cover them.

The deputy spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general, Farhan Haq, told reporters in New York that troops from those countries did not join the U.N. peacekeeping mission. Chad withdrew before the U.N. mission came, and the inclusion of Equatorial Guinea troops was not approved by U.N. peacekeeping officials, Haq said.

The U.N. Security Council has called on the African Union and troop-contributing countries to investigate reported human rights abuses by forces present in Central African Republic before the U.N. mission arrived, he said.

U.N. officials in Geneva also said that after hearing of the allegations, the U.N. worked with partners to ensure that the children received medical and "psychosocial" care, and that social workers followed up regularly with the children for weeks.

The children are safe now, Christophe Boulierac of UNICEF told reporters. France's president has promised tough punishment for any soldier found guilty. French military officials have refused to say whether the soldiers have been identified or whether any were still serving in Central African Republic.

"This is incredibly important, not just as a matter of accountability, but also as deterrence," the U.N. human rights office said Friday. "There have been far too many incidents of peacekeeping troops engaged in such acts, whether within U.N. peacekeeping forces, or - as in this case - forces that are operating independently."

Arrests rise in Burundi protests; protesters vow to remain

May 01, 2015

BUJUMBURA, Burundi (AP) — About 500 students spent the night outside the U.S. Embassy in Burundi's capital, asking the U.S. for protection as street protests against President Pierre Nkurunziza's decision to seek a third term went into went into their sixth day.

A State Department spokesman said U.S. officials had met with the students, commended their peaceful behavior and were not asking them to leave. In the Musaga neighborhood, protesters marched past smoldering barricades Friday while brandishing sticks and metal bars. They tried to reach a major road but were stopped by a cordon of riot police. The demonstrators turned in their sticks, sang the national anthem and after a minute of silence marched back into the neighborhood.

Many protesters say they will not leave the streets until Nkurunziza withdraws his candidacy in the June 26 elections. Families gathered outside a jail to bring food to those who have been arrested. Carina Tertsakian, a senior Rwanda researcher with Human Rights Watch, said Friday that more than 400 people are believed to be in detention as Burundi's government tries to stop the protests.

The protests started Sunday, a day after the ruling party nominated Nkurunziza to be its candidate. Some events carried on as normal. At a local sports field, civil servants paraded in front of officials in a May Day celebration.

U.S. Assistant Secretary for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Tom Malinowski, who traveled to Burundi on Wednesday, told reporters that the government has been warned of "real consequences" if the crisis escalates.

Many see Nkurunziza's decision to run again as a violation of the Arusha Agreements that ended the civil war that killed more than 250,000 people. The fighting between Hutu rebels and a Tutsi-dominated army ended in 2003.

Nkurunziza, a Hutu, was selected by Parliament in 2005 to be president. He was re-elected unopposed in 2010. His supporters say he can seek re-election again because he was voted in by lawmakers for his first term, and was not popularly elected.

At least six people have been killed since Sunday, according to the Burundi Red Cross. A U.S. State Department spokesman, Jeff Rathke, told reporters in Washington that the U.S. embassy continues to encourage Burundi's government to reopen universities for the students. Rathke estimated that 600 students were outside the embassy.

"So, we certainly are urging that they have the opportunity to return to their studies, and we are not requesting that those students leave the vicinity of our compound as long as they remain peaceful and calm," the spokesman said.

Russia's ambassador to the U.N. confirmed Friday that his country had blocked a proposed Security Council statement on the crisis. "It's not the business of the Security Council and the U.N. Charter to get involved in constitutional matters of sovereign states," Vitaly Churkin told reporters.

AP journalist Andrew Njuguna in Bujumbura, Cara Anna at the United Nations and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report. Muhumuza reported from Kampala, Uganda.

Thai police find graves of suspected trafficking victims

May 02, 2015

HAT YAI, Thailand (AP) — Police have found dozens of shallow graves, a corpse and an ailing survivor at an abandoned jungle camp in an area of southern Thailand that is regularly used to smuggle Rohingya Muslims, as well as Bangladeshis and other migrants, to third countries.

An Associated Press reporter who visited the scene later Friday counted six bodies, including five that had recently been dug up. He said a rescue team told him 27 graves, each with a simple bamboo marker, had yet to be exhumed.

The grim discovery was a sharp reminder of the brutal human trafficking networks that operate in Thailand, despite repeated assurances by authorities that they are addressing the root causes. Acting on a tip from villagers, teams of police and rescuers were dispatched into the mountains of Padang Besar, a sub-district in Songkhla province. Reaching the camp on foot, they found a shelter with at least one corpse, said police Col. Weerasant Tharnpiem, adding that there appeared to be several other bodies as well.

Last June, the United States put Thailand in its lowest category — "Tier 3" — in its annual assessment of how governments around the world have performed in fighting human trafficking. The ranking took into account the smuggling of Myanmar's long-persecuted Rohingya community, as well as cases of migrants from neighboring countries who are forced or defrauded into working against their will in the sex industry, commercial fishing, garment production, factories and domestic work.

President Barack Obama waived invoking action under the assessment that would have allowed him to impose sanctions on Thailand, including barring imports from its lucrative seafood industry. Thailand has promised action in order to get off the blacklist, but recent revelations by the AP that its fishing vessels were treating men from Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos as virtual slaves have dented the country's reputation more.

The purpose of the camp discovered Friday — comprising small bamboo huts tucked away in the forest — was not immediately clear. But similar ones found in recent years have been used to detain Rohingya. In many cases, they paid agents for passage to what they thought would be a better life and jobs in Malaysia or points beyond. Instead, they were held for weeks, sometimes months, while smugglers extorted more money from families back home.

National police spokesman Lt. Gen. Prawut Thawornsiri said he could only confirm the discovery of one corpse, one sick man and several graves at the site. "We are sending a team of forensic police to investigate," Prawut said in a telephone interview. "The next step is to verify their identities and nationalities. It's not clear yet who they are."

Authorities said traffickers are widely known to use the Songkhla mountains and other nearby areas for temporary camps to house Rohingya and others before smuggling them to third countries. Rohingya Muslims have for decades suffered from state-sanctioned discrimination in Myanmar.

Attacks on the religious minority by Buddhist mobs in the last three years have sparked one of the biggest exoduses of boat people since the Vietnam War, sending 100,000 men, women and children fleeing, said Chris Lewa, director of the Arakan Project, which has monitored the movements of Rohingya for more than a decade.

Their first stop is almost always Thailand. Instead of jungle camps, Rohingya and Bangladeshis have in recent months been taken to large ships while they wait for ransoms to be paid, said Lewa, who estimates that 7,000 to 8,000 migrants are currently parked off the coast or in nearby international waters.

Tightly confined, and with limited access to food and clean water, their health is inevitably deteriorating quickly, and increasingly there are reports of deaths, she said. "A 15-year-old who spent two months on a boat off the coast of Thailand or Malaysia says during that time, 34 people died on three different boats," said Lewa, citing one example. "He said their bodies were thrown overboard."

Lewa believes there are only around 800 people still in jungle camps. Conditions in the open-air pens, where they are vulnerable to rainy weather and get little food, continue to be grim. When authorities raid the camps, the sick and weak are often left behind to die, survivors have told the AP.

Associated Press writers Thanyarat Doksone in Bangkok and Robin McDowell in Yangon, Myanmar, contributed to this report.

Baby born in field hospital after Nepal earthquake

May 02, 2015

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — After almost a week of heartbreaking news from earthquake-hit Nepal, there was a small but beautiful moment of joy.

A baby girl was born Friday to a young Nepalese couple in one of the field hospitals set up by foreign nations to bring emergency aid to the country. Both the mother and the baby, who hasn't been named yet, are doing well.

Lata Chand, 19, was heavily pregnant when the magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck April 25. She and her husband ran out of their house in panic. Their home was undamaged, but the hospital where she was to give birth was forced to close.

On Friday, they went instead to a field hospital set up by the Israeli military, where the baby was born. The beaming midwife, Dganit Gery, said she hoped the birth would show all Nepalese women that there is hope for the future.

Lata's husband, Hariender Chand, said they were terrified the quake would cause her to miscarry. "When the quake struck, I was thinking, 'Will we survive?' because most of the pregnant women miscarried their babies," he said. "I was scared it would happen to us. Now we're safe, it's good."

May Day rallies planned across Europe; Turkey square blocked

May 01, 2015

BERLIN (AP) — Left-wing groups and trade unions are staging rallies across Europe on Friday to mark International Workers Day.

Most events are expected to be peaceful protests for workers' rights and world peace. But May 1 regularly sees clashes between police and militant groups in some cities. Here's a look at May Day events in Europe:

GERMANY

Police in Berlin say the traditional 'Walpurgis Night' protest marking the eve of May 1 was calmer than previous years. Several thousand people took part in anti-capitalist street parties in the north of the city. Fireworks and stones were thrown at police, injuring one officer. Fifteen people were detained. Elsewhere in the German capital revelers partied "extremely peacefully," police noted on Friday morning.

TURKEY

Authorities determined to keep May Day protesters out of Istanbul's Taksim Square have stationed a small army of police with water cannons in and around the iconic spot.

The square is symbolic as the center of protests in which 34 people were killed in 1977. Taksim was also the focus of massive anti-government protests that rocked Turkey in 2013.

Turkish newswires say 10,000 police are ready to enforce the government's ban on protests in the square Friday. Clashes are also expected in other Turkish cities.

The demonstrations are the first large scale protests since the government passed a security bill this year giving police expanded powers to crack down on protesters.