You are here

Region

Region section

Six dead as ship sinks off Kuwait — Iranian media

By - Sep 03,2024 - Last updated at Sep 03,2024

TEHRAN — Six crew members have died after an Iranian merchant ship capsized in Kuwaiti waters, Iran's official news agency IRNA reported on Tuesday.

"The Arabakhtar I ship, whose six crew members were of Indian and Iranian nationality, sank on Sunday," Nasser Passandeh, head of Iran's port and maritime navigation authority, was quoted by IRNA as saying.

The report did not say what caused the Sunday incident, and an Iranian official said search operations were still ongoing to locate three of the victims' bodies.

Three bodies had been retrieved in a joint effort between Iran and Kuwait, Passandeh said.

 

Libya people-trafficking kingpin assassinated: media

By - Sep 02,2024 - Last updated at Sep 02,2024

Libya’s Maj Abd al-Rahman Milad (AFP photo)

TRIPOLI — A former head of Libya's coastguard, who was known as a key trafficker of people and fuel, was killed by unknown assailants, local media has reported.
 
Major Abd al-Rahman Milad, also known as Al-Bidja, was killed Sunday in the town of Sayyad, 25 kilometres (15 miles) west of the capital Tripoli, near the Janzour Naval Academy that he commanded, officials told local media.
 
Images circulated on news websites and social media showing a bullet-riddled white four-wheel drive on the side of a road, with the body of a man inside it.
 
Media outlets did not offer any details on the assailants' identities, political affiliations or motivations.
 
Milad, 34, had gained notoriety as a local kingpin in smuggling operations, trafficking everything from migrants to petrol.
 
Libyan authorities arrested him in October 2020, before he was released the following April and later named as the head of a unit of the coastguard tasked with combatting illegal migration.
 
An Interpol red notice was issued against him in June 2018 following a UN Security Council decision sanctioning six heads of migrant trafficking networks in Libya.
 
Abdallah Allafi, of Libya's Presidential Council, vowed in a Facebook post that the perpetrators would "not escape divine punishment".
 
Allafi hails from Zawiya to the west of Tripoli, and serves as the deputy head of the Presidential Council, a body that brings together the three main regions of the war-torn North African country.
 
Libya has been wracked by divisions and conflict since the 2011 NATO-backed overthrow of former president Moamer Kadhafi, with two rival administrations vying for power in the country's east and west.
 
Khalid al-Mishri, who is also from Zawiya and heads the High Council of State, called for an investigation into the death of a "man who has always played a mediating role between rival factions" in Zawiya.
 
Mishri's election as the head of the High Council of State , a Senate-like body based in Tripoli , was contested by outgoing chief Mohamad Takala.
 
Amid the chaos that has gripped Libya over the past decade, the country has become a key launching pad for migrants mostly travelling from sub-Saharan African countries to seek better lives in Europe.
 
Zawiya, 45 kilometres west of Tripoli, has been both a departure point for migrants, as well as lying close to a major oil refinery, placing it at the heart of trafficking operations.
 
The refinery is controlled by armed groups who often clash, resulting in civilian deaths.
 

Three candidates to stand in Tunisia polls: authority

By - Sep 02,2024 - Last updated at Sep 02,2024

Farouk Bouasker, president of the High Independent Authority for Elections (ISIE), gives a press conference in Tunis on Aug. 10, 2024, ahead of the upcoming presidential elections (AFP photo)

TUNIS — Tunisia's electoral authority on Monday announced it had approved three presidential candidates for the October 6 election, including incumbemt President Kais Saied, dismissing three other would-be candidates despite court rulings allowing them to run.

The three dismissed candidates had last week won appeals at the Administrative Court against a decision from the High Independent Authority for Elections (ISIE) disqualifying them from running.

The authority had said they had not obtained enough of the endorsements required to run for the top post. They were among 14 hopefuls whose bids for the race were rejected.

On Monday, the ISIE said its initial list was "definitive and not subject to appeal".

It said it was maintaining the same list announced on August 10 because "the administrative court did not officially communicate its decisions within the 48-hour deadline according to the law".

As it stands, former parliamentarian Zouhair Maghzaoui and businessman Ayachi Zammel are set to challenge Saied, the election's frontrunner.

Zammel was however arrested earlier Monday on charges of lying about details of his campaign, according to his team.

Zammel is the only approved candidate to be arrested, but he joins a list of presidential hopefuls who have been imprisoned or are facing prosecution.

Saied was democratically elected in 2019 but orchestrated a sweeping power grab in 2021.

On Saturday, a petition signed by prominent Tunisians and civil society groups urged that rejected candidates be allowed to stand in the October election.

Among the rejected candidates are Imed Daimi, an adviser to former president Moncef Marzouki, former minister Mondher Zenaidi and opposition party leader Abdellatif Mekki.

The petition said the administrative court's rulings on appeals "are enforceable and cannot be contested by any means whatsoever".

It called on the ISIE to "respect the law and avoid any practice that could undermine the transparency and integrity of the electoral process".

Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll at 40,786

Partial strike in Israel over Gaza hostages

By - Sep 02,2024 - Last updated at Sep 02,2024

Palestinians cross a street torn up by bulldozers during an Israeli raid in the centre of Jenin in the occupied West Bank on September 2, 2024 (AFP Photo)

GAZA STRIP, OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The health ministry in Gaza said Monday that at least 40,786 people have been killed in the war between Israel and Palestinian militants, now in its 11th month.
 
The toll includes 48 deaths in the previous 24 hours, according to ministry figures, which also list 94,224 people as wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
 
A strike on Monday called by Israel's largest labour union shuttered parts of the country to pressure the government into reaching a Gaza deal to free hostages, though several sectors were unaffected.
 
The Histadrut trade union called a nationwide strike beginning at 6:00 am (0300 GMT), a day after mass demonstrations following the army's announcement that troops had recovered the bodies of six hostages "murdered" in a Gaza tunnel.
 
The commercial hub of Tel Aviv and the northern coastal city of Haifa heeded the strike calls and announced municipal services would be closed Monday.
 
The Haifa port also slowed down or ceased some of its activities, Histadrut spokesman Peter Lerner said on social media platform X.
 
The Ben Gurion international airport near Tel Aviv saw some flights delayed, and none at all for two hours leading up to 10:00 am.
 
Private-run public transportation services were at least partly functional at midday.
 
Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden on Monday said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not doing enough to secure a deal for the release of hostages taken by Palestinian armed group Hamas.
 
Asked by reporters at the White House -- where Biden was arriving for a meeting with US negotiators -- if he thought the Israeli leader was doing enough on the issue, the president responded: "No."
 
Biden's meeting with the negotiators on the hostage-release deal comes after the deaths on Saturday of six captives in Gaza, including an American citizen. 
 
The president said negotiators were "very close" to a final proposal to be presented to Israel and Hamas.
 
Biden's schedule was revised to make time for the White House meeting, which was also to be attended by Vice President Kamala Harris, who is running to succeed him in November's presidential election.
 
A White House statement said he and Harris would meet "with the U.S. hostage deal negotiating team following the murder of American citizen Hersh Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages by Hamas on Saturday, and discuss efforts to drive towards a deal that secures the release of the remaining hostages."
 
The United States, along with fellow mediators Egypt and Qatar, has spent months pushing for a hostage-prisoner exchange and ceasefire in the war in Gaza.

Iran probe finds Raisi helicopter crash caused by weather

By - Sep 01,2024 - Last updated at Sep 01,2024

TEHRAN — Iran's final investigation into the May helicopter crash that killed president Ebrahim Raisi has found it was caused by bad weather, the body investigating the case said Sunday.

The helicopter carrying 63-year-old Raisi and his entourage came down on a fog-shrouded mountainside in northern Iran, killing the president and seven others, and triggering snap elections.

The main cause of the helicopter crash was the "complex climatic and atmospheric conditions of the region in the spring", the special board investigating the dimensions and causes of the helicopter accident said, according to state broadcaster IRIB.

The report added that "the sudden emergence of a thick mass of dense and rising fog" caused the helicopter's collision into the mountain.

Iran's army in May similarly said it had found no evidence of criminal activity in the crash that also killed Raisi's foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian.

In August, Fars news agency cited the main causes of the May 19 crash as bad weather conditions and the helicopter's inability to ascend with two extra passengers against security protocols.

But the Iranian armed forces were quick to reject the finding saying, "what is mentioned on Fars news about the presence of two people in the helicopter against the security protocols... is completely false".

Huthi rebels say they attacked ship off Yemen

By - Sep 01,2024 - Last updated at Sep 01,2024

This picture released on August 29, 2024, by Yemen's Huthi Ansarullah Media Centre, shows fireballs and smoke errupting aboard what they say is the Greek-owned oil tanker Sounion (AFP photo)

DUBAI — Yemen's Iran-backed Huthi rebels said Saturday they had attacked a merchant ship in the Gulf of Aden, as a multinational naval force said two missiles exploded near a Liberia-flagged vessel.
 
"The Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a military operation targeting the ship (GROTON) in the Gulf of Aden," Huthi spokesman Yahya Saree said in a televised statement.
 
He said the ship had been hit and that it was the second time it had been attacked after a similar incident on August 3.
 
The Yemeni rebels have waged a campaign against international shipping passing through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden that they say is in solidarity with Palestinians amid the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
 
Earlier on Saturday, the Joint Maritime Information Centre (JMIC), run by a Western naval coalition, reported that the Groton had been targeted by two ballistic missiles when it was 130 nautical miles east of Aden.
 
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) agency, run by Britain's Royal Navy, said the captain reported that all crew were safe and the Groton was "proceeding to next port of call".
 
The Huthi attacks, targeting ships that they say are linked to Israel, have disrupted traffic in a maritime zone that is vital to global trade.
 
Meanwhile, the US Central Command said Saturday that US forces destroyed a Huthi drone and an uncrewed surface vessel in rebel-controlled areas of Yemen over the past 24 hours.
 
"It was determined these systems presented a clear and imminent threat to US and coalition forces," CENTCOM said in a statement on X.
 

Polio vaccine campaign begins in Gaza as Israeli presses on with attack on West Bank

By - Sep 01,2024 - Last updated at Sep 01,2024

A man takes cover behind a column as an explosion propagates smoke and dust during an Israeli strike which reportedly targeted a school in the Zeitoun district on the outskirts of Gaza City, on September 1, 2024, amid the ongoing Israeli war on the Palestinian territory (AFP photo)

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — A polio vaccination campaign officially began Sunday in the Gaza Strip where the United Nations has announced "humanitarian pauses" to allow for large-scale innoculation, a health official told AFP.
 
The campaign was announced after Gaza recorded its first polio case in a quarter of a century last month.
 
It officially began on Sunday in three health centres in central Gaza, a day after an unspecified number of children were vaccinated in the southern area of the Gaza Strip.
 
Children aged from one-day-old to 10 years arrived at the centres to receive the dose as drones flew overhead, said Yasser Shaabane, medical director of Al-Awda hospital in central Gaza said.
 
"There are a lot of drones flying over central Gaza and we hope this vaccination campaign for children will be calm," said Shaabane.
 
The campaign began at 9:00 am (0600 GMT), he said.
 
The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to a series of three-day "humanitarian pauses" in northern, southern and central areas to facilitate vaccinations.
 
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu however has insisted that these pauses were not amounting to any kind of ceasefire in overall fighting in Gaza.
 
The campaign aims to vaccinate more than 640,000 children in the besieged Palestinian territory, devastated by almost 11 months of war.
 
The campaign also aims to administer the first dose -- two drops -- to at least 90 percent of the territory's children.
 
Polio, which had been eradicated in Gaza for 25 years, reappeared in the midst of the hostilities that began on October 7 after Hamas attack on southern Israel.
 
WHO has dispatched 1.26 million doses of the oral vaccine to Gaza already.
 
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza has identified 67 vaccination centres -- mostly hospitals, smaller health centres and schools -- in central Gaza, 59 in southern Gaza and 33 in northern Gaza to administer the doses. 
 
The second dose of the vaccine must be given four weeks after the first. 
 
West Bank assault 
 
While fierce fighting raged ahead of the hoped-for pauses, Israel pressed on with a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank.
 
A local official said Israeli occupation forces had destroyed most of the streets while power and water had been cut off.
 
Clashes and explosions persisted in Jenin, and both the health ministry and the Red Crescent reported two more Palestinians killed there.
 
At least 22 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since Wednesday in simultaneous raids in several cities across the northern West Bank.
 
Hamas and Islamic Jihad have said at least 14 of the dead were members of their armed wings.
 
Since Friday, Israeli troops have concentrated operations on Jenin and its refugee camp, a densely-populated community which has long been a bastion of Palestinian armed groups.
 
Visiting the city Saturday, Israeli military chief of staff Herzi Halevi said his forces "have no intention of letting terrorism (in the West Bank) raise its head" to threaten Israel.
 
Early Saturday, an AFP photographer in Jenin reported ongoing clashes and said the streets were mostly empty.
 
"I think it's the worst day since the start of the raid," said Jenin Government Hospital director Wisam Bakr.
 
Water and electricity were cut off from the hospital during the raid, forcing it to rely on a generator and water tank, he told AFP.
 
Later Saturday, Bashir Matahine from the Jenin municipality told the official Palestinian news agency Wafa that electricity and water "are completely cut off" in Jenin refugee camp and that "80 percent" of the city's neighbourhoods no longer have water.
 
He said Israeli bulldozers had dug up 70 per cent of the streets, "destroying the water and sewage networks, as well as cables for electricity and telecommunications".
 
Violence has surged in the West Bank since Hamas's October 7 attack.
 
The United Nations said Wednesday that at least 637 Palestinians had been killed in the territory by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war began.
 
Twenty Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during army operations over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
 
Britain, France and Spain have all expressed concerns about Israel's West Bank operation.
 

Health official says polio vaccine campaign begins in war-torn Gaza

Campaign aims to cover more than 640,000 children under 10

By - Aug 31,2024 - Last updated at Aug 31,2024

A nurse administers Polio vaccine drops to a young Palestinian patient at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on August 31, 2024, amid the ongoing Israeli war against the Palestinian territory (AFP photo)

Gaza Strip — A health official said a polio vaccination campaign had begun in Gaza on Saturday after the war-torn territory recorded its first case of the disease in a quarter of a century.

Local health officials along with the UN and NGOs "are starting today the polio vaccination campaign in the central region", Moussa Abed, director of primary health care at the Gaza health ministry, told AFP.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to a series of three-day "humanitarian pauses" in Gaza to facilitate vaccinations, though officials had earlier said the campaign was expected to start on Sunday.

After beginning in central Gaza, vaccines are set to be administered in southern Gaza and then in northern Gaza. 

The campaign, which involves two doses, aims to cover more than 640,000 children under 10.

Michael Ryan, WHO deputy director-general, told the UN Security Council this week that 1.26 million doses of the oral vaccine had been delivered in Gaza, with another 400,000 still to arrive

The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said earlier this month that tests in Jordan had confirmed polio in an unvaccinated 10-month-old baby from central Gaza.

Poliovirus is highly infectious, and most often spread through sewage and contaminated water -- an increasingly common problem in Gaza as the Israel-Hamas war drags on.

The disease mainly affects children under the age of five. It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal.

Bakr Deeb told AFP on Saturday that he brought his three children -- all under 10 -- to a vaccination point despite some initial doubts about its safety.

"I was hesitant at first and very afraid of the safety of this vaccination," he said.

"After the assurances of its safety, and with all the families going to the vaccination points, I decided to go with my children as well, to protect them."

Abed, the health official, stressed on Saturday that the vaccine was "100 percent safe". 

The war in Gaza was triggered by Hamas's unprecedented attack on southern Israel on October 7. Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,691 people in Gaza, according to the territory's health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.

Incessant Israeli bombardment has also caused a major humanitarian crisis and devastated the health system.

Israel's deadly West Bank raid enters fourth day

By - Aug 31,2024 - Last updated at Aug 31,2024

A Palestinian man reacts as a fire breaks out in a fruit market in the occupied West Bank city of Jenin during ongoing Israeli raids on August 31, 2024 (AFP photo)

JENIN, Palestinian Territories — Israel pressed on with a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank for a fourth day on Saturday.

As clashes and explosions persisted in the northern city of Jenin, the Israeli military said two Palestinians were killed while preparing to carry out bombings overnight in the south of the West Bank.

Hamas hailed a "heroic operation" at what it called a "sensitive time" during the Israeli operations in the north.

Islamic Jihad, which has a strong presence in the northern West Bank, similarly said it "congratulates" the perpetrators of what it called a "coordinated attack".

At least 20 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli army since Wednesday, in simultaneous raids in several cities in the northern West Bank.

Since Friday, soldiers have concentrated their operations on the city of Jenin and its refugee camps, long a bastion of Palestinian armed groups fighting against Israel.

On Saturday morning, an AFP photographer in Jenin heard ongoing clashes in the city, where the streets were mostly empty save for armoured vehicles, including one that blocked access to the government hospital.

"I think it's the worst day since the start of the raid... We hear from time to time clashes and sometimes there is big bombing," said the hospital's director, Wisam Bakr.

Water and electricity were cut off from the hospital during the raid, forcing it to rely on a generator and water tank, he told AFP.

 

Bodies pulled from rubble 

 

The United Nations said on Wednesday that at least 637 Palestinians had been killed in the occupied West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers since the Gaza war began.

Nineteen Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during army operations over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.

Of the 20 Palestinians reported dead since Wednesday, Hamas and its ally Islamic Jihad have said at least 13 were members of their armed wings.

The dead included an 82-year-old man, according to the Palestinian news agency Wafa, and two teenagers, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent, which said another 55 had been wounded since the launch of the Israeli operation.

In Gaza, Israel pushed forward with its deadly offensive in response to Hamas's October 7 attack.

Gaza's civil defence agency said its rescuers pulled 29 bodies from the rubble since dawn and transported dozens of wounded to hospitals across the devastated Palestinian territory.

On Friday, a medical source at the southern Nasser Hospital said an Israeli strike killed three people near the southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis.

Israeli shelling in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza killed two people on the same day, the civil defence agency said.

Turkey defends Syria presence: ministry source

By - Aug 29,2024 - Last updated at Aug 29,2024

Syrian journalists lift placards protesting the detention of colleague Bakr Al Kassem a day earlier, and calling for his release along with other detained reporters, during a rally in Syria's rebel-held northern city of Idlib on August 27, 2024 (AFP photo)

ISTANBUL — Turkey's presence in neighbouring Syria is to stop the war-torn country falling under the sway of terror groups, a Turkish defence ministry source said Thursday after Damascus said a withdrawal of its troops was not a prerequisite for better relations with Ankara.
 
Turkish forces and Turkey-backed rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria, and Ankara has launched successive cross-border offensives since 2016, mainly to clear the area of Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are backed by the US but which it mistrusts.
 
Turkey sees the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which dominate the SDF, as an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which it considers a "terrorist" group.
 
"Turkey's presence in Syria prevents the division of Syrian territory and the creation of a terror corridor there," the ministry source told reporters speaking on condition of anonymity. 
 
"We want to see a democratic and prosperous Syria, not a Syria plagued by instability and terrorist organisations," the same source added. 
 
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan  has in recent months sought rapprochement with Damascus, inviting Assad to Turkey.
 
Syrian President Bashar Assad said Sunday the withdrawal of Turkish forces from its territory was not a prerequisite to a rapprochement. 
 
"Our president has personally expressed our readiness for talks and dialogue at all levels," the Turkish defence ministry source said, adding that Ankara's recent remarks on talks appeared to have an impact. 
 
"We have a clear stance on Syria," the source added. 
 
The Kurdish-led SDF spearheaded the battle that dislodged Islamic State group jihadists from their last scraps of Syrian territory in 2019. The Kurds have established a semi-autonomous administration spanning swathes of the north and northeast.
 
Syria's war began after the repression of anti-government protests in 2011 and has killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.
 
Turkey hosts some 3.2 million Syrian refugees out of a population of 85 million, according to United Nations data. 
 
Their fate has been a political hot potato, with some opponents of Erdogan promising to send them back to Syria.

Pages

Pages



Newsletter

Get top stories and blog posts emailed to you each day.

PDF