Tag Archives: Middle East

Yemen cholera cases could hit 1 million by year-end: Red Cross

Yemen cholera cases could hit 1 million by year-end: Red Cross

By Stephanie Nebehay

GENEVA (Reuters) – The humanitarian situation in Yemen is a “catastrophe”, and cholera cases could reach a million by the end of the year, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Friday.

Warring parties in Yemen – including the western-backed Saudi-led coalition – are all using disproportionate force, leading to “very excessive” civilian casualties, said Alexandre Faite, the head of the Red Cross delegation in Yemen.

In addition, suspected cases of cholera have reached 750,000, with 2,119 deaths, Faite said, and the Red Cross expects at least 900,000 cases by the end of the year.

“The situation has really evolved in a very dramatic way and I think that it’s nothing short of a catastrophe,” Faite told a news briefing in Geneva.

Civil war in Yemen has killed more than 10,000 people since it began in March 2015. Control of the country is split between the Iran-aligned Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa. Opposed to the Houthis are a Saudi-led coalition.

With the main port of Hodeidah damaged, the Red Cross brings medical aid, including insulin, into Yemen with occasional cargo planes to Sanaa. Other goods come by land convoys from Jordan and Oman and by ship from Jordan, Oman and Dubai.

A ship from Karachi with 500 metric tonnes of rice is now due on Oct 7 in Hodeidah, the first ICRC shipment there since early February.

Faite called on all sides to open Sanaa airport to commercial flights for essential aid supplies and to make progress toward allowing the Red Cross to visit prisoners of war.

“I don’t think political settlement is coming soon and I’m very worried that the extension of the conflict would lead to more problems,” Faite said.

“This is why humanitarian aid, access of essential goods should be there,” he said. “There is a bottleneck”.

Although the death rate for cholera victims has dropped to less than 0.3 percent, Faite said Yemen’s “health sector is really on its knees in Yemen … the health staff is on its knees as well because they are not paid.”

For the first time, the Red Cross is now providing health workers with food parcels, he said.

“In terms of access to even water, electricity, there isn’t a power grid in the main cities in Yemen. Without the ICRC and other organizations fixing (pumping stations) there wouldn’t be any running water in Sanaa,” he said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by John Stonestreet)

Iran will drop nuclear deal if U.S. withdraws, foreign minister tells al Jazeera

A staff member removes the Iranian flag from the stage after a group picture with foreign ministers and representatives of the U.S., Iran, China, Russia, Britain, Germany, France and the European Union during the Iran nuclear talks at the Vienna International Center in Vienna, Austria July 14, 2015. REUTERS/Carlos Barria/File Photo

ANKARA (Reuters) – Iran will abandon the nuclear deal it reached with six major powers if the United States decides to withdraw from it, its foreign minister told Qatar’s al Jazeera TV in New York.

U.S. President Donald Trump has called the 2015 deal an “embarrassment”. The deal is supported by the other major powers that negotiated it with Iran and its collapse could trigger a regional arms race and worsen tensions in the Middle East.

“If Washington decides to pull out of the nuclear deal, Iran will withdraw too,” Al Jazeera TV wrote on its Twitter feed, quoting the minister.

“Washington will be in a better position if it remains committed to the deal,” the network wrote.

Trump is considering whether the accord serves U.S. security interests. He faces a mid-October deadline for certifying that Iran is complying with the pact.

A State Department official said Washington would not comment on every statement by an Iranian official.

“We are fully committed to addressing the totality of Iranian threats and malign activities,” the official said.

Iranian authorities had repeatedly said Tehran would not be the first to violate the agreement, under which Tehran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in return for lifting most international sanctions that had crippled its economy.

The prospect that Washington could renege on the deal has worried some of the U.S. allies that helped negotiate it. French President Emmanuel Macron said last week that there was no alternative to the nuclear accord.

If Trump, who has called the accord “the worst deal ever negotiated”, does not recertify it by Oct. 16, Congress has 60 days to decide whether to reimpose sanctions suspended under the accord.

(Writing by Parisa Hafezim; Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)

Turkey to give harshest response if border threatened after Iraq referendum: PM

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim addresses his supporters in Kirsehir, Turkey, August 23, 2017. Mustafa Aktas/Prime Minister's Press Office/Handout via REUTERS

By Daren Butler

ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey said on Thursday it had stopped training peshmerga forces in northern Iraq in response to a Kurdish independence vote there, whose backers had thrown themselves “into the fire”.

The Kurdish peshmerga have been at the forefront of the campaign against Islamic State and been trained by NATO-member Turkey’s military since late 2014.

Northern Iraq’s main link to the outside world, Turkey views Monday’s vote – which final results on Wednesday showed overwhelming in favour of independence from Baghdad – as a clear security threat.

Fearing it will inflame separatism among its own Kurds, Ankara had already threatened military and economic measures in retaliation. Government spokesman Bekir Bozdag reiterated on Thursday any such actions would be coordinated with the Iraqi central government.

Bozdag, also a deputy prime minister, told broadcaster TGRT in an interview that more steps would follow the peshmerga decision and that the prime ministers of Turkey and Iraq would meet soon.

Turkey, which is home to the region’s largest Kurdish population, is battling a three-decade Kurdish insurgency in its southeast, which borders northern Iraq.

MINIMUM DAMAGE?

President Tayyip Erdogan said it was inevitable that the referendum “adventure” in northern Iraq, carried out despite Turkey’s warnings, would end in disappointment.

“With its independence initiative, the northern Iraq regional government has thrown itself into the fire,” he said in a speech to police officers at his palace in Ankara.

Earlier this week, Erdogan said Iraqi Kurds would go hungry if his country halted the flow of trucks and oil across the border, near where Turkish and Iraqi soldiers have been carrying out military exercises this week.

Hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil a day flow through a pipeline in Turkey from northern Iraq, connecting the region to global oil markets.

Erdogan has repeatedly threatened economic sanctions, but has given few details.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Turkey would not shy away from giving the harshest response to a national security threat on its border, but that this was not its first choice.

Speaking in the central Turkish province of Corum, Yildirim said Turkey, Iran and Iraq were doing their best to overcome the crisis caused by the referendum with the minimum damage.

Iraq, including the Kurdish region, was Turkey’s third-largest export market in 2016, according to IMF data. Turkish exports to the country totalled $8.6 billion, behind Germany and Britain.

(Additional reporting by Ece Toksabay, Ercan Gurses and Ezgi Erkoyun; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by David Dolan and John Stonestreet)

Iranians pour onto the streets to mourn soldier beheaded in Syria

By Babak Dehghanpisheh

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Thousands of people took to the streets of Tehran on Wednesday to bury a soldier whose beheading by Islamic State has come to symbolize the righteousness of Iran’s military involvement in Syria.

In what has become an iconic image on Iranian media, 25-year-old Revolutionary Guard Mohsen Hojaji is shown looking calmly into camera after his capture as he is led away by an insurgent with blood on his face, holding a knife. The photograph was posted by Islamic State.

Even Iranians critical of their government’s military intervention in Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad have taken to social media to express their admiration for Hojaji, who was killed last month.

The Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s most powerful military force who also oversee an economic empire worth billions of dollars, were initially quiet about their role in Syria.

But in recent years, as casualties have mounted, they have been more outspoken about their engagement, framing it as an existential struggle against the Sunni Muslim extremists of Islamic State who see Shi’ites, the majority of Iran’s population, as apostates.

Guards killed in Syria and Iraq are touted as protectors of Shi’ite holy sites and labeled “defenders of the shrine” on websites linked to the Guards.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei prayed over Hojaji’s coffin and met with his family on Wednesday, state media reported.

Large crowds carrying red flags, symbolizing martyrdom, and pictures of Hojaji processed to the funeral in Tehran, pictures on state TV showed. Parliament speaker Ali Larijani and former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad were among the dignitaries who attended, state media said.

“Look at what a stir the martyrdom of this youth has created in the country,” Khamenei said, according to his website.

Hojaji’s funeral comes only three days before Ashura, one of the most important religious events for Shi’ites and a traditional period of mourning which commemorates the death of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed.

The Guards recovered Hojaji’s body through a deal between Islamic State, the Syrian army and Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah. More than 300 IS fighters and about 300 family members were allowed to evacuate Syria’s western border with Lebanon under the ceasefire agreement.

On June 7, Islamic State claimed an attack on Tehran’s parliament and the mausoleum of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, killing 18 people. The Revolutionary Guards fired missiles at Islamic State bases in Syria on June 18 in response.

(Reporting by Babak Dehghanpisheh; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Mattis arrives in Afghanistan as rockets hit Kabul airport

Mattis arrives in Afghanistan as rockets hit Kabul airport

By James Mackenzie and Hamid Shalizi

KABUL (Reuters) – U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis visited Kabul on Wednesday to pledge support for the government of President Ashraf Ghani, with the precarious security in the Afghan capital underlined by a rocket attack on the airport hours after he touched down.

Arriving from India, where he sought support for the U.S. administration’s new South Asia security plan, Mattis said the United States was determined not to allow “a merciless enemy to kill its way to power”.

Promising a more “holistic” approach without fixed timetables and involving other countries in the region, including Pakistan, he said the Taliban would have to learn they could not defeat the government.

“I want to reinforce to the Taliban that the only path to peace and political legitimacy for them is through a negotiated settlement,” Mattis told a joint news conference with Ghani and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

The visit comes after U.S. President Donald Trump announced a new strategy for Afghanistan, promising a stepped-up military campaign against Taliban insurgents who have gained ground as they seek to reestablish Islamic law after their 2001 ouster.

But a rocket attack on Kabul airport that injured five civilians and was claimed by both Islamic State and Taliban insurgents highlighted the rebels’ ability to strike the Western-backed government.

Fighters holed up in a nearby building continued to resist security forces for hours, a spokesman for the interior minister said.

Mattis condemned the attack as a “criminal act by terrorists”, adding that it was a “classic definition of what the Taliban are up to here now”.

There are now about 8,400 U.S. troops in Afghanistan as part of the 13,500-strong NATO-led Resolute Support mission advising and training Afghan forces as well as a separate counterterrorism mission, targeting Islamic State and Al Qaeda.

As part of the new strategy, which will give U.S. commanders greater freedom to use American firepower against the Taliban, Mattis has said the United States will send an additional 3,000 troops to help train Afghan security forces.

It will also make greater use of its air power to support Afghan forces and strike the Taliban, a strategy that carries the risk of an increase in civilian casualties.

“I don’t want to tell the enemy exactly what we are doing but the whole point is to make certain we have a compelling battlefield advantage over anything the Taliban tries to mass against your forces,” he said.

Mattis said U.S. forces would do “everything humanly possible” to limit civilian casualties, which fueled bitter disputes between Washington and the government of former President Hamid Karzai.

Trump has said he expects NATO allies to step up contributions of both troops and funding to the Afghanistan mission, and Stoltenberg said the credibility of the international alliance depended on maintaining its support.

“We know the cost of staying in Afghanistan,” he said. “But the cost of leaving would be higher. If NATO forces leave too soon, there is a risk Afghanistan may return to a state of chaos and once again become a safe haven for international terrorism.”

(Additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Mostafa Hashem in Cairo; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Russian submarine fires cruise missiles at jihadi targets in Syria

A still image taken from a video footage and released by Russia's Defence Ministry on September 22, 2017, shows a missile hitting a building which Defence Ministry said was an Islamic State target in Syria. Russian Defence Ministry/Handout via REUTERS TV

MOSCOW (Reuters) – A Russian submarine fired cruise missiles at jihadi targets in Syria’s Idlib province on Friday, the Russian Defence Ministry said, saying it had targeted Islamist militants who had tried to trap a group of Russian military policemen earlier in the week.

The strike, launched from the Mediterranean by Russia’s ‘Veliky Novgorod’ submarine, was part of a counter-offensive against a jihadi attack on government-held parts of northwest Syria near Hama on Tuesday.

The Russian Defence Ministry on Wednesday said 29 Russian military policemen had been surrounded by jihadis as a result of that attack and that Russia had been forced to break them out in a special operation backed by air power.

On Friday, it said in a statement it had fired Kalibr cruise missiles at the same jihadis from a distance of 300 kilometers (186.41 miles) striking command centers, armored vehicles and the bases of jihadis who had taken part in the original attack.

(Reporting by Polina Devitt; Editing by Andrew Osborn)

Defying Trump, Iran says will boost missile capabilities

Defying Trump, Iran says will boost missile capabilities

By Bozorgmehr Sharafedin

LONDON (Reuters) – Iran will strengthen its missile capabilities and will not seek any country’s permission, President Hassan Rouhani said on Friday in a snub to demands from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Rouhani was speaking at a military parade where an Iranian news agency said one of the weapons on display was a new ballistic missile with range of 2,000 km (1,200 miles), capable of carrying several warheads.

The Tasnim news agency, which quoted the head of the Revolutionary Guards’ aerospace division, Amirali Hajizadeh, gave few other details of the missile.

At the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump said Iran was building its missile capability and accused it exporting violence to Yemen, Syria and other parts of the Middle East.

He also criticized the 2015 pact that the United States and six other powers struck with Iran under which Tehran agreed to restrict its nuclear program in return for relief from economic sanctions.

In a speech broadcast on state television, Rouhani said: “We will increase our military power as a deterrent. We will strengthen our missile capabilities … We will not seek permission from anyone to defend our country.

“All countries in the world supported the nuclear deal in the United Nations General Assembly this year … except the United States and the Zionist regime (Israel),” Rouhani said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said that the agreement must be changed or the United States could not stick with it. Iran has said its nuclear accord cannot be renegotiated.

The prospect of Washington reneging on the deal has worried some of the U.S. allies that helped negotiate it, especially as the world grapples with North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile development.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said tensions on the Korean peninsula underlined the importance of the Iranian deal, and that China would continue to support it.

Trump put Iran “on notice” in February for test-firing a ballistic missile and imposed new economic sanctions in July over its missile program and “malign activities” in the Middle East.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday that the U.S. imposition of unilateral sanctions on Iran was “illegitimate and undermines the collective nature of international efforts.”

(Reporting by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin; Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

Ex-Nusra vows to fight on in Syria, denounces de-escalation deal

Smoke rises from an emergency service point after an airstrike at the rebel-held village of Maar Zita in Idlib province, Syria April 27, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The former al Qaeda branch in Syria has pledged to keep fighting government forces and their Russian and Iranian allies, and denounced ceasefire talks in Kazakhstan.

Russia, Iran and Turkey agreed on Friday to deploy observers on the edge of a “de-escalation” zone in Syria’s Idlib province, which is largely under the control of Islamist insurgents.

While they hailed the agreement as a breakthrough after months of talks in the Kazakh capital Astana, they gave few details. The move falls under a broader deal in which they would set up four such zones across Syria.

The de-escalation plan has eased fighting in parts of western Syria between rebel factions and government forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.

But the ex-Nusra Front said the Astana process amounted to the surrender of rebel-held pockets, and what had started with a ceasefire would “end with restoring Bashar’s rule to the areas”.

The group cut ties with al-Qaeda last year, rebranded, and now spearheads the Tahrir al-Sham jihadist alliance, controlling parts of the northwestern Idlib province, on the border with Turkey.

At least two million people live in Idlib, the largest populated area held by rebels – including some nationalist Free Syrian Army factions that have taken part in the Astana talks.

Idlib’s has population ballooned as thousands of civilians and fighters have left areas the Syrian army seized, with the help of Russian jets and Iran-backed militias.

UPPER HAND

Tahrir al-Sham criticized FSA rebels who have attended the Astana meetings, which began with Moscow-led diplomatic efforts separate from U.N.-based peace talks in Geneva.

“We fear the day will come when those factions will line up alongside Russian warplanes and fight those who reject Assad and his regime,” it said in its statement.

Bouthaina Shaaban, a senior aide to Assad, said on Friday that attempts to divide Syria had failed, and repeated the government’s vow to take back the entire country, including “Idlib and other areas”.

Assad has gained the military upper hand against an array of rebel groups, including some that have received backing from the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies.

Damascus views any presence of Turkish forces as illegitimate, Syrian state news agency SANA cited a foreign ministry source as saying on Saturday.

“The deal for Idlib is temporary. Its main goal is reviving the old Damascus-Hama-Aleppo road…and for all kinds of traffic to flow to Aleppo,” the source said. The government took full control of Aleppo city, east of Idlib, last year in a major blow to rebels.

Critics have described the de-escalation plan as de facto partitioning of Syria after years of multi-sided conflict. Moscow, Tehran, and Ankara deny this and say the zones will be temporary, although they could extend beyond the initial six-month term.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis; Editing by Andrew Bolton)

Turkey begins trial of hunger striking teachers amid protests

Riot police detain protesters during the trial of two Turkish teachers, who went on a hunger strike over their dismissal under a government decree following last year's failed coup, outside of a courthouse in Ankara, Turkey, September 14, 2017. REUTERS/Umit Bektas

By Ece Toksabay

ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkish police used tear gas to disperse protesters outside a courthouse in Ankara on Thursday at the start of the trial of two teachers who have been on hunger strike since losing their jobs in a crackdown following last year’s failed coup.

Literature professor Nuriye Gulmen and primary school teacher Semih Ozakca have been surviving on liquids and supplements for six months, and doctors have described their condition as dangerously weak.

They were detained in May over alleged links to the militant leftist DHKP-C group, deemed a terrorist organization by Turkey.

Neither they nor their original lawyers were in court at the start of the hearing. The gendarmerie said the defendants might try to escape from the courtroom, despite their weakened state, and arrest warrants were issued this week for 18 of their lawyers.

Police attempted to break up the protests using tear gas, and riot police were present inside and outside the building. At least 20 protesters were detained, being dragged along the ground in the process.

“The first obstacle before a fair trial was the detention of their lawyers, which also served as a veiled intimidation attempt at the judges trying them. Now they are not brought to court, in an open breach of their right to defend,” said Baris Yarkadas, a lawmaker from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP).

At least a hundred lawyers were present at the courthouse to defend the teachers, along with CHP parliamentarians and the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

The teachers have said their hunger strike aimed to draw attention to the plight of roughly 150,000 people suspended or sacked since last July’s failed putsch, which President Tayyip Erdogan blames on followers of U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen. Gulen denies any involvement.

Last month, the European Court of Human Rights rejected a request by the two teachers to order Ankara to release them on health grounds.

Since the failed coup attempt, some 50,000 people including journalists, opposition figures, civil servants and others have been detained in the crackdown.

Rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies accuse the government of using the coup as a pretext to muzzle dissent.

Ankara says the purges are necessary due to the gravity of the threats it faces.

(Writing by Ece Toksabay and Tuvan Gumrukcu; Editing by Hugh Lawson)

Barzani vows to press on with Kurdish referendum, defying Iraq parliament

Iraqi Kurdish President Masoud Barzani sits with Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim (R) during his visit in Kirkuk, Iraq September 12, 2017. REUTERS/Ako Rasheed

By Ahmed Rasheed and Raya Jalabi

BAGHDAD/ERBIL, Iraq (Reuters) – Iraq’s Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani vowed on Tuesday to press ahead with a referendum on Kurdish independence on Sept. 25 despite a vote by Iraq’s parliament to reject the move.

Earlier the parliament in Baghdad authorized the prime minister to “take all measures” to preserve Iraq’s unity. Kurdish lawmakers walked out of the session before the vote and issued statements rejecting the decision.

Western powers fear a plebiscite in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region – including the oil-rich city of Kirkuk – could ignite conflict with the central government in Baghdad and divert attention from the war against Islamic State militants.

Iraq’s neighbors – Turkey, Iran and Syria – also oppose the referendum, fearing it could fan separatism among their own ethnic Kurdish populations.

“The referendum will be held on time… Dialogue with Baghdad will resume after the referendum,” Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), said in a statement on his ruling party’s official website after the vote.

Barzani told a gathering of Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen in Kirkuk that the referendum was “a natural right”, according to a tweet from his aide Hemin Hawrami. Barzani also said Kirkuk should have a “special status” in a new, independent Kurdistan.

Iraqi lawmakers worry that the referendum will consolidate Kurdish control over several areas claimed by both the central government in Baghdad and the autonomous KRG in northern Iraq.

“UNCONSTITUTIONAL”

“This referendum lacks a constitutional basis and thus it is considered unconstitutional,” the parliamentary resolution said, without specifying what measures the central government should take to stop Kurdistan from breaking away.

Mohammed al-Karbouli, a Sunni Muslim lawmaker, said: “Kurdish lawmakers walked out of (Tuesday’s) session but the decision to reject the referendum was passed by a majority.”

A senior Kurdish official dismissed the vote as non-binding though an Iraqi lawmaker said it would be published in the official gazette after approval from the Iraqi presidency.

The KRG has said it is up to local councils of disputed regions in northern Iraq to decide whether to join the vote.

Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city, voted last month to participate in the referendum, a move that stoked tensions with its Arab and Turkmen residents, as well as with Baghdad.

Kurdish peshmerga forces took control of the Kirkuk area and other areas claimed by both Baghdad and the Kurds after Islamic State militants overran about a third of Iraq in 2014 and Baghdad’s local forces disintegrated.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said the Kurds were continuing to “illegally export” Kirkuk’s oil, and he called for urgent talks.

“I call upon the Kurdish leadership to come to Baghdad and conclude a dialogue,” Abadi said.

A Kurdish delegation met officials in Baghdad for a first round of talks in August concerning the referendum. An Iraqi delegation was expected to visit the Kurdish capital of Erbil in early September for a second round of talks, but the visit has yet to happen with less than two weeks before the vote.

Kurds have sought an independent state since at least the end of World War One, when colonial powers divided up the Middle East after the collapse of the multi-ethnic Ottoman Empire and left Kurdish-populated territory split between Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria.

(Reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Raya Jalabi; Writing by Ulf Laessing and Raya Jalabi; Editing by Gareth Jones)