Tag Archives: Middle East

Rights groups target police, spy chiefs globally under new U.S. law

FILE PHOTO: Ukrainian oligarch Dmytro (Dmitry) Firtash arrives at court in Vienna, Austria on February 21, 2017. REUTERS/Heinz-Peter Bader/File Photo

By Michael Kahn and Warren Strobel

PRAGUE/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Police and spy chiefs from China to the Middle East, a Ukrainian oligarch and a former president of Panama are among the people a coalition of human rights groups wants targeted for sanctions under an expanded U.S. law aimed at curbing rights abuses and corruption worldwide.

The coalition, in documents to be made public on Wednesday, submitted 15 cases to the U.S. State Department and U.S. Treasury, urging them to investigate using the law, called the Global Magnitsky Act.

The law, which then-President Barack Obama signed in December 2016, expands the scope of 2012 legislation that froze the assets of Russian officials and banned them from traveling to the United States because of their links to the 2009 death in prison of a whistleblower, Sergey Magnitsky.

“The cases we have elected to highlight come from every region of the world, and involve horrific stories of torture, enforced disappearance, murder, sexual assault, extortion and bribery,” the coalition of 23 groups said in a letter to U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin.

The groups said their information came from first-hand accounts of victims and their attorneys, investigative journalism and reports by non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

(http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/sites/default/files/Global-Magnitsky-2017.pdf)

Police chiefs, public prosecutors and heads of security services in Bahrain, China, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Mexico and Central Asian countries where prisoners were tortured, executed or died in custody are on the list compiled by the groups, which are coordinated by Washington-based Human Rights First.

Among them are Chinese Deputy Minister of Public Security Fu Zhenghua and Beijing’s Municipal Public Security Bureau deputy head Tao Jing. The groups accuse the two officials of bearing “command responsibility” for actions of forces under their control in the torture and 2014 death of human rights activist Cao Shunli.

Cao’s lawyer has said she was denied medical treatment until she was seriously ill, which the Chinese government denies.

Dmitry Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch indicted by a U.S. court in 2013 on bribery and other charges, is on the list. He denies wrongdoing and is fighting extradition from Austria.

Lanny Davis, an attorney for Firtash, in a statement said the allegations were false and that any sanctions “cannot be justified,” adding: “The constant repetition of false accusations on the Internet doesn’t make them true.”

Another target is former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli, who is jailed in Florida facing extradition to Panama on charges he conducted illegal surveillance and stole state funds while in office. Martinelli has repeatedly denied the charges.

ROBUST IMPLEMENTATION?

President Donald Trump, a Republican who did not stress global human rights as a foreign policy priority during his presidential campaign or early months in office, told Congress in April that he was committed to “robust and thorough implementation” of the Magnitsky law.

His administration has yet to impose sanctions or travel bans under it, but an official said the process of identifying potential targets “is both internal and external. We have received nominations from multiple sources including the United States Congress and NGOs.”

“Evidence permitting, our objective is to leverage the global reach of this authority and pursue geographically diverse ‘tranches’ of targets on an ongoing basis,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Acting on the recommendations could pose risks for Trump if targeted governments retaliated. Washington needs Beijing’s help in pressuring North Korea to halt its missile and nuclear tests, for example.

The original Magnitsky legislation strained relations between Moscow and Washington. Magnitsky, a tax accountant and lawyer, was arrested in 2008 shortly after accusing Russian officials of involvement in fraud, and died in prison nearly a year later while awaiting trial.

William Browder, whose Russian hedge fund employed Magnitsky as a lawyer, spearheaded an international campaign to push through the original Magnitsky Act, which now covers 44 Russians. He said travel bans and asset freezes are effective.

“It creates a very devastating consequence because people who thought they could act with absolute impunity no longer have that comfort,” Browder said.

The human rights coalition also hopes that pressure from politicians such as Republican Senator John McCain and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, the authors of the original legislation and the update, will spur the Trump administration into action.

McCain, in a statement to Reuters, said the role of NGOs is crucial, and envisioned under the new law. “I will continue working to ensure the administration enforces the law and utilizes this powerful tool to advance freedom and justice around the world,” he said.

Rob Berschinski, a former Obama administration official who led the efforts at Human Rights First, said, “Our process is designed to assist the government, but also to remove any excuse around whether it has the ability to levy sanctions. Now the question is simply one of political will.”

The Global Magnitsky Act requires the Trump administration to report to Congress by Dec. 10 on sanctions it has imposed under the law.

(Reporting by Michael Kahn in Prague and Warren Strobel in Washington; Editing by John Walcott, Grant McCool and Andrea Ricci)

Hezbollah declares Syria victory: report

Hezbollah declares Syria victory: report

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian government’s powerful Lebanese ally Hezbollah has declared victory in the Syrian war, dismissing remaining fighting as “scattered battles”, a pro-Hezbollah newspaper reported on Tuesday.

The comments by Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah mark one of the most confident assessments yet by the government side as it regains swathes of territory in eastern Syria in a rapid advance against Islamic State.

Referring to President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents, Nasrallah said “the path of the other project has failed and wants to negotiate for some gains”, the al-Akhbar newspaper cited him saying at a religious gathering.

“We have won in the war (in Syria)…and what remains are scattered battles,” said Nasrallah, whose Iran-backed group has sent thousands of fighters to Syria to support Assad.

A source familiar with the contents of Nasrallah’s speech confirmed al-Akhbar’s report.

Backed by Russia and Iran, Assad has crushed numerous pockets of rebel-held territory in the western Syrian cities of Aleppo, Homs and Damascus over the last year, and he appears militarily unassailable in the six-year-long conflict.

Ceasefires brokered by Russia, Turkey, Iran and the United States in remaining rebel-held areas of western Syria have freed up manpower on the government side, helping its advance east into the oil-rich province of Deir al-Zor.

The eastward march to Deir al-Zor, unthinkable two years ago when Assad seemed in danger, has underlined his ever more confident position and the dilemma facing Western governments that still want him to leave power in a negotiated transition.

Government forces last week reached Deir al-Zor city, the provincial capital on the Euphrates River, breaking an Islamic State siege of a government-held enclave and a nearby air base.

In a televised speech last month, Assad said there were signs of victory in the war, but that the battle continued.

U.S.-backed militia fighting under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have in recent days launched a separate offensive against Islamic State in Deir al-Zor province.

The SDF, which is dominated by the Kurdish YPG militia, is also waging a campaign to capture Raqqa city from Islamic State. It has avoided conflict with the Syrian government.

(Writing by Tom Perry; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

U.S.-backed forces, Syrian army advance separately on Islamic State in Deir al-Zor

U.S.-backed forces, Syrian army advance separately on Islamic State in Deir al-Zor

By John Davison

BEIRUT (Reuters) – U.S.-backed militias and the Syrian army advanced in separate offensives against Islamic State in eastern Syria on Saturday, piling pressure on shrinking territory the group still holds in oil-rich areas near the Iraqi border.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed alliance of mostly Arab and Kurdish fighters, launched a new operation against the jihadists in the north of Deir al-Zor province that aims to capture areas north and east of the Euphrates river.

Syrian government forces and their allies, backed by Russia and Iran, meanwhile seized an oilfield from militants on the other side of the Euphrates and recaptured part of a road linking Deir al-Zor to areas held by IS further downstream.

The advances against Islamic State in territory it has held for years as part of its self-declared caliphate will likely bring U.S.-backed forces and the Syrian government side into closer proximity.

A U.S. warplane shot down a Syrian army jet near Raqqa in June and the SDF accused the Syrian government of bombing its positions, showing the risk of escalation between warring sides in a crowded battlefield.

The Syrian conflict, which started as a popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011, has drawn the military involvement of most world powers. Peace talks have repeatedly failed to bring an end to the war.

The SDF operation in Deir al-Zor province aims to capture areas in its northern and eastern countryside and advance toward the Euphrates, the Deir al-Zor Military Council, which is fighting as part of the SDF, said in a statement.

“The first step is to free the eastern bank of the Euphrates and the areas Islamic State still holds,” Ahmed Abu Kholeh, head of the military council, told Reuters after the announcement.

“We’re not specifying a timeframe but we hope it will be a quick operation,” he said.

Abu Kholeh would not say whether there were plans to advance on Deir al-Zor city itself. “We don’t know how the battles will go after this,” he said.

He said SDF fighters did not expect clashes with Syrian government forces as they advance, but if fired upon “we will respond”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported SDF forces had advanced against IS in Deir al-Zor’s northwestern countryside, seizing several hilltops and a village.

SYRIAN ARMY TAKES OILFIELD

Syrian government forces and their allies meanwhile recaptured from militants the Teym oilfield southwest of Deir al-Zor city, on the other side of the Euphrates, state TV reported.

They also seized part of a main highway running from Deir al-Zor downstream to the city of al-Mayadeen, to which many Islamic State militants have retreated, the British-based Observatory said.

That advance would help block potential IS reinforcements from al-Mayadeen, it said.

The Syrian army this week advanced quickly, backed by Russian air strikes, to reach a government-held enclave of Deir al-Zor that was besieged for years by Islamic State. Government forces are still fighting to reach a nearby air base, which the militants still surround.

Islamic State in Syria still holds much of Deir al-Zor province and half the city, as well as a pocket of territory further west near Homs and Hama.

But the group has lost most of its self-declared caliphate which from 2014 stretched across swathes of Syria and Iraq, including oil-rich Deir al-Zor.

The SDF is still battling to eject the jihadists from the remaining areas they hold in Raqqa, once their Syria stronghold.

Talks between Russia, Iran and opposition backer Turkey in Astana are to take place next week, possibly followed by a separate track at the United Nations in Geneva in October or November.

Assad’s government has participated in previous rounds from a position of power as Damascus has clawed back much territory, including the main urban centers in the west of the country and increasingly eastern desert held by IS.

(Reporting by John Davison in Beirut and Rodi Said in Syria; Editing by Dale Hudson)

EU must be part of U.S. Middle East peace push, Ireland says

FILE PHOTO: Ireland's Minister of Foreign Affairs Simon Carbery Coveney attends informal meeting of European Union Ministers of Foreign Affairs in Tallinn, Estonia September 7, 2017. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins/File Photo

By Robin Emmott

TALLINN (Reuters) – Israelis and Palestinians will face more unrest over the next year without a revival of a long-fractured Middle East peace process that the European Union must be part of, Ireland’s foreign minister said on Friday.

Simon Coveney, who met Israeli and Palestinian leaders less than a month after taking up his post in June, is leading the charge to involve the EU in a fresh attempt at peace talks and overcome divisions that have weakened the bloc’s influence.

Speaking to EU foreign ministers at a meeting on Middle East policy in Tallinn on Thursday, Coveney said the bloc had a duty to make its voice heard in any new U.S. initiative as the Palestinians’ biggest aid donor and Israel’s top trade partner.

“My concern is that it will be a much more difficult political challenge in a year’s time or in two years’ time,” Coveney told Reuters.

“If you look at cycles of violence in Gaza, for example, without intervention and new initiatives in my view, we are heading there again,” he said, describing the Israel-Palestinian situation as an “open sore” that could erupt at any time.

Coveney said EU governments had to pull together and keep the focus on a two-state solution.

“Now is the time for the European Union … to become more vocal,” said Coveney, who met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in July.

Coveney has also met Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Middle East envoy, and said it was crucial that the EU sought to influence U.S. plans that are being drawn up by Greenblatt and Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner.

Coveney said the European Union had a right to be heard because EU governments and the European Commission spend 600 million euros ($724 million) a year on aid to the Palestinians and on projects with Israel.

“We cannot simply wait for the U.S. to take an initiative on their own, we should be supportive of them and helping them to shape it and design it in a way that is likely to have international community support,” he said, although he added he still did not know what the U.S. proposals would look like.

“In the absence of the U.S. being able to bring forward a new initiative, I think the EU will have to do that itself.”

Hurdles for the European Union include its range of positions, ranging from Germany’s strong support for Israel to Sweden’s 2014 decision to officially recognize the state of Palestine, something Ireland considered three years ago.

Coveney said the European Union is also perceived by some in Israel as being too pro-Palestinian, partly because of the EU’s long-held opposition to Israeli settlements.

But Coveney said the European Union could build trust with Israel by deepening ties in trade, science, scholarships for students and to pursue what he called “a positive agenda”.

The EU aims to hold a high-level meeting with Israel to broaden trade and other economic links later this year, although a date is still pending. It would be the first such meeting since 2012.

(Reporting by Robin Emmott; Editing by Alison Williams)

Israel hits Syrian site said to be linked to chemical weapons

By Sarah Dadouch and Jeffrey Heller

BEIRUT/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel attacked a military site in Syria’s Hama province early on Thursday, the Syrian army said, and a war monitoring group said the target could be linked to chemical weapons production.

The air strike killed two soldiers and caused damage near the town of Masyaf, an army statement said. It warned of the “dangerous repercussions of this aggressive action to the security and stability of the region”.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said the attack was on a facility of the Scientific Studies and Research Centre, an agency which the United States describes as Syria’s chemical weapons manufacturer.

It came the morning after U.N. investigators said the Syrian government was responsible for a sarin poison gas attack in April.

Syria’s government denies using chemical arms. In 2013 it promised to surrender its chemical weapons, which it says it has done.

The Observatory said strikes also hit a military camp next to the center that was used to store ground-to-ground rockets and where personnel of Iran and its ally, the Lebanese Hezbollah group, had been seen more than once.

An Israeli army spokeswoman declined to discuss reports of a strike in Syria.

Syria’s foreign ministry has sent letters to the U.N. Security Council protesting at Israel’s “aggression” and saying anyone who attacked Syrian military sites was supporting terrorism, Syrian state TV reported.

In an interview in Israel’s Haaretz daily last month on his retirement, former Israeli air force chief Amir Eshel said Israel had hit arms convoys of the Syrian military and its Hezbollah allies nearly 100 times in the past five years.

Israel sees red lines in the shipment to Hezbollah of anti-aircraft missiles, precision ground-to-ground missiles and chemical weapons.

ISRAELI SIGNAL?

The reported attack took place on the 10th anniversary of Israel’s destruction of a nuclear reactor in Syria.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to address the U.N. General Assembly on Sept. 19, and is widely expected to voice Israel’s concern over what it sees as attempts by Iran to broaden its military foothold in Syria and threats posed by Hezbollah

Israeli officials have said that Russia, another Assad ally, and Israel maintain regular contacts to coordinate military action in Syria.

Some Israeli commentators saw the latest strike – a departure from the previous pattern of attacks on weapons convoys – as a show of Israeli dissatisfaction with the United States and Russia.

Last month, Netanyahu met Russian President Vladimir Putin, but came away without any public statement from Moscow that it would curb Iranian influence.

Hezbollah and Israel fought a brief war in 2006 in which more than 1,300 people died. Both have suggested that any new conflict between them could be on a larger scale than that one.

Hezbollah has been one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s most important allies in the war and last month its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah said he had recently traveled to Damascus to meet the Syrian president.

Israel is conducting military exercises in the north of the country near the border with Lebanon.

Yaakov Amidror, a retired Israeli general and former national security adviser, told reporters he assumed Thursday’s strike was linked to Nasrallah’s visit to Damascus.

“Weapons systems have been transferred from this organization (the Scientific Studies and Research Centre) into the hands of Hezbollah during the years,” he said.

HEZBOLLAH

In May, an official in the military alliance backing Assad said that Hezbollah drew a distinction between Israel striking its positions in Syria and at home in Lebanon. “If Israel strikes Hezbollah in Lebanon, definitely it will respond,” the official said.

The Syrian army statement said the Israeli strike came at 2.42 a.m. (2342 GMT) from inside Lebanese airspace. It said it had been launched in support of Islamic State.

Jets flying over Lebanon overnight broke the sound barrier and Lebanese media reported that Israeli warplanes had breached Lebanese airspace.

The Observatory reported that seven people were killed or wounded in the strike.

“The factory that was targeted in Masyaf produces the chemical weapons and barrel bombs that have killed thousands of Syrian civilians,” Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, said in a tweet.

The strike sent a message that Israel would not let Syria produce strategic weapons, would enforce its own red lines, and would not be hampered by Russian air defense systems in Syria, he added.

The U.N. Commission of Inquiry on Syria said on Wednesday a government jet dropped sarin on Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province in April, killing more than 80 civilians, and that government forces were behind at least 27 chemical attacks.

(Reporting by Angus McDowall and Sarah Dadouch in Beirut and Jeffrey Heller, Ori Lewis, Dan Williams and Maayan Lubell in Jerusalem; writing by Angus McDowall; editing by Angus MacSwan and Andrew Roche)

Syrian army fights to secure corridor into Deir al-Zor

FILE PHOTO: A view shows damaged buildings in Deir al-Zor, eastern Syria February 19, 2014. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi/File Photo

By Laila Bassam and Angus McDowall

BEIRUT (Reuters) – The Syrian army and its allies are fighting to secure and expand a precarious corridor to their comrades in Deir al-Zor a day they smashed through Islamic State lines to break the jihadist siege.

The army reached Deir al-Zor on Tuesday in a sudden, days-long thrust that followed months of steady advances east across the desert, breaking a siege that had lasted three years.

However, Islamic State counter-attacks lasted through Tuesday night, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, as the jihadists tried to repel the army.

It points to a tough battle ahead as the army aims to move from breaking the siege to driving Islamic State from its half of the city, the sort of street-by-street warfare in which the jihadists excel.

“The next step is to liberate the city,” a non-Syrian commander in the military alliance backing President Bashar al-Assad said.

Assad and his allies — Russia, Iran and Shi’ite militias including Hezbollah — will follow the relief of Deir al-Zor with an offensive along the Euphrates valley, the commander said.

The Euphrates valley cuts a lush, populous swathe of green about 260 km (160 miles) long and 10 km (6-7 miles) broad through the Syrian desert from Raqqa to the Iraqi border at al-Bukamal.

The area has been Islamic State’s stronghold in Syria but came under attack this year when an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by a U.S.-led coalition besieged and assaulted Raqqa.

Rapidly losing territory in both Syria and Iraq, Islamic State is falling back on the Euphrates towns downstream of Deir al-Zor, including al-Mayadin and al-Bukamal, where many expect it to make a last stand.

However, the jihadist group specializes in urban combat, using car bombs, mines, tunnels and drones, and has held out against full-scale attack for months in some towns and cities.

FIGHTING

Parallel with their thrust toward Deir al-Zor, the Syrian army and its allies have been fighting Islamic State in its last pocket of ground in central Syria, near the town of al-Salamiya on the Homs-Aleppo highway.

On Wednesday, army advances gained control of four villages in that area, further tightening the pocket, a military media unit run by Assad’s ally Hezbollah reported.

In Raqqa, the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance, backed by the U.S.-led coalition, has taken about 65 percent of the jihadists’ former de facto capital in Syria, it has said.

Deir al-Zor lies along the southwest bank of the Euphrates. The government enclave includes the northern half of the city and the Brigade 137 military base to the west.

The government also holds an air base and nearby streets, separated from the rest of the enclave by hundreds of meters of IS-held ground and still cut off from the advancing army.

Instead of breaking the siege along the main road from Palmyra, stretches of which remain in Islamic State hands, the army reached the Brigade 137 along a narrow salient from the northwest.

“Work is progressing to secure the route and widen the flanks so as not to be cut or targeted by Daesh,” the commander said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

The route from the west into Brigade 137 is only about 500 meters (yards) wide, the commander said.

Islamic State counter-attacks in that area managed to cut the corridor into the enclave for several hours on Tuesday night using six car bombs, the Observatory reported.

The army will also push toward the still besieged airbase, southwards from the Brigade 137 camp and eastwards along the main highway, the commander said.

(Reporting By Angus McDowall; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Syrian army, allies break Islamic State siege in eastern city

FILE PHOTO: A view shows damaged buildings in Deir al-Zor, eastern Syria February 19, 2014. REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi/File Photo

By Ellen Francis

BEIRUT (Reuters) – Syrian government forces on Tuesday reached troops besieged for years by Islamic State in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, the militants’ last major stronghold in Syria, the army said.

Tanks and troops pressed quickly toward a government-held enclave in the city, where Islamic State has trapped thousands of civilians and Syrian soldiers since 2014. The advance has opened a land route linking that territory to the outside.

The advance into strategic prize Deir al-Zor, a city on the Euphrates river and once the center of Syria’s oil industry, is a significant victory for President Bashar al-Assad against Islamic State and another stinging blow to the group.

The group is being fought in Syria by government forces, backed by allies Iran and Russia, and separately by a U.S.-led alliance of Arab and Kurdish fighters. In Iraq, the jihadists were driven out of their Mosul stronghold earlier this year.

Islamic State still holds half of Deir al-Zor city and much of the province, however, as well as parts of its former stronghold Raqqa to the northwest, where the U.S.-backed offensive is being fought.

“Our armed forces and allies, with support from Syrian and Russian warplanes, achieved the second phase of their operations in the Syrian desert,” Syria’s military said. “They have managed to break the siege.”

State media and a war monitoring group said advancing forces had linked up with the besieged troops at a garrison on the western edge of the city.

Footage on Syrian state TV showed soldiers cheering near the garrison. State media said residents in government-held parts of the city were celebrating the advance.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a nearby military air base and three districts remained under siege by IS. Battles still raged around the city, the British-based war monitor said.

Deir al-Zor governor Mohammed Ibrahim Samra told Reuters that government troops were also pushing toward the air base.

“The forces have begun to lift the siege,” he said. “Our residents have been waiting for this moment … forces are (trying to) break the siege on the military airport as well.”

“The coming days will see the clearing of Deir al-Zor city (of militants)” and advances on nearby countryside under Islamic State control, Samra added.

Assad congratulated the troops in a statement from his office.

The army and its allies made rapid advances in recent days pushing through Islamic State lines with the help of heavy artillery and Russian air strikes.

A Russian warship in the Mediterranean sea fired cruise missiles at Islamic State positions near Deir al-Zor to boost the offensive, Russia’s defense ministry said.

ISLAMIC STATE SQUEEZED

The city has been cut off from government-held Syria since 2013, after rebel groups rose up against Assad during the first flush of Syria’s six-year war. Islamic State then overran rebel positions and encircled the army enclave and nearby air base in 2014.

The United Nations said in August it estimated 93,000 civilians were living there in “extremely difficult” conditions. During the siege, high-altitude air drops have supplied them.

Deir al-Zor lies southeast of Islamic State’s former base in Raqqa.

Hemmed in on all sides, Islamic State fighters have fallen back on footholds downstream of Deir al-Zor in towns near the Iraq border.

The Deir al-Zor gains “form an important launching pad for expanding military operations in the area,” the army said.

For Damascus, the latest advance caps months of steady progress as the army and its allies turned from victories over rebels in western Syria to push east against Islamic State.

The eastwards march has on occasion brought them into conflict with U.S.-backed forces.

Still, the rival campaigns have mostly stayed out of each other’s way, and the U.S.-led coalition has stressed it is not seeking war with Assad.

In a statement on Sunday an alliance of Iran-backed Shi’ite militias allied to Damascus, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, accused Washington of trying to hinder the advance to Deir al-Zor.

An official in the pro-Assad alliance said senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commander Qassem Soleimani was closely monitoring fighting, a sign of Iran’s close military involvement.

(Reporting by Ellen Francis; Additional reporting by Laila Bassam in Beirut and Kinda Makieh in Damascus; Writing by John Davison; Editing by Andrew Roche and Toby Davis)

Australian military probes ‘rumors’ of possible war crimes in Afghanistan

FILE PHOTO: The rear gunner of an Australian Chinook transport chopper mans a heavy machine gun during a low flight over the Arghandab valley in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, May 3, 2010. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis

cThe Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported in July on an alleged cover-up of the killing of an Afghan boy as well as hundreds of pages of leaked defense force documents relating to the secretive operations of the country’s special forces.

On Friday, the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force released a statement saying it was conducting an inquiry “into rumors of possible breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict” by Australian troops in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.

“The inquiry would like anyone who has information regarding possible breaches of the Laws of Armed Conflict by Australian forces in Afghanistan, or rumors of them, to contact the inquiry,” the statement read.

Australia is not a member of NATO but is a staunch U.S. ally and has had troops in Afghanistan since 2002.

As recently as May, Australia recommitted to the 16-year-long, seemingly intractable war against the Taliban and other Islamist militants by sending an additional 30 troops to Afghanistan to join the NATO-led training and assistance mission.

That brought Australia’s total Afghan deployment to 300 troops.

(Reporting by Joseph Hinchliffe; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Heavy civilian casualties in Raqqa from air strikes: U.N.

FILE PHOTO: Smoke rises after an air strike during fighting between members of the Syrian Democratic Forces and Islamic State militants in Raqqa, Syria, August 20, 2017. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra

GENEVA (Reuters) – Civilians caught up in the battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa are paying an “unacceptable price” and attacking forces may be contravening international law with their intense air strikes, the top United Nations human rights official said on Thursday.

A U.S.-led coalition is seeking to oust Islamic State from Raqqa, while Syrian government forces, backed by the Russian air force and Iran-backed militias are also advancing on the city.

Some 20,000 civilians are trapped in Raqqa where the jihadist fighters are holding some of them as human shields, the world body says.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said that his office had documented 151 civilian deaths in six incidents alone in August, due to air strikes and ground-based attacks.

“Given the extremely high number of reports of civilian casualties this month and the intensity of the air strikes on Raqqa, coupled with ISIL’s use of civilians as human shields, I am deeply concerned that civilians – who should be protected at all times – are paying an unacceptable price and that forces involved in battling ISIL are losing sight of the ultimate goal of this battle,” Zeid said in a statement.

“…the attacking forces may be failing to abide by the international humanitarian law principles of precautions, distinction, and proportionality,” he said.

The U.S.-led coalition has said it conducted nearly 1,100 air strikes on and near Raqqa this month, up from 645 in July, the U.N. statement said. Russia’s air force has reported carrying out 2,518 air strikes across Syria in the first three weeks of August, it added.

“Meanwhile ISIL fighters continue to prevent civilians from fleeing the area, although some manage to leave after paying large amounts of money to smugglers,” Zeid said. We have reports of smugglers also being publicly executed by ISIL.”

U.S.-led warplanes on Wednesday blocked a convoy of Islamic State fighters and their families from reaching territory the group holds in eastern Syria and struck some of their comrades traveling to meet them, a coalition spokesman said.

(Reporting by Tom Miles; writing by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Pritha Sarkar)

Palestinians vie with Israel over Muslim pilgrims to Jerusalem

Muslim tourists (front) walk up stairs during their visit to the compound known to Muslims as Noble Sanctuary and to Jews as Temple Mount, in Jerusalem's Old City August 31, 2017. REUTERS/Ammar Awad

By Ali Sawafta and Dan Williams

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – On any given day, Muslim pilgrims arrive at a Middle East airport on a journey to one of Islam’s holiest sites.

At Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, they rub shoulders with larger groups of visitors – diaspora Jews and Christian tourists – many of them headed for the same destination, a 45-minute drive away: the sacred city of Jerusalem.

The Muslims are only a small part of the Holy Land’s religious tourism market. But both Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the occupied West Bank are vying for their business.

They come mainly to pray at Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque, in a compound that is one of the world’s most contested and volatile holy sites. Al-Aqsa is the most important shrine in Islam after Saudi Arabia’s Mecca and Medina, but less of a draw for foreign Muslims, many of whose countries spurn Israel or its claim of sovereignty over the eastern sector of Jerusalem, captured in the 1967 war.

Israel’s Tourism Ministry recorded 115,000 Muslim tourists in 2016 – 3 percent of the 3.8 million foreigners who arrived at its airports or land borders it controls with Jordan and Egypt.

Half of these Muslim tourists identified as pilgrims, the ministry said. Most of them – around 100,000 – came from Turkey, which recognizes Israel. But there were also some from Indonesia and Malaysia, which do not, and whose citizens Israel admits under special provisions for pilgrims.

Each Muslim tourist spends an average of $1,133 on the trip, the Israeli ministry said. Palestinians fret that too much of that goes to Israel and want the tourists to opt for alternative Palestinian venues in Jerusalem or the West Bank.

“We have been conducting a campaign to introduce Turkish tourist companies to Palestinian hotels in Ramallah, Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and we have started to see many of them booking their rooms in these hotels,” said Jereyes Qumseyah, spokesman for the Palestinian Tourism Ministry.

He said the Palestinians have permanent displays at major tourism conferences in Turkey.

The Palestinian ministry offered no statistics on the scope of foreign tourism to the West Bank and East Jerusalem. But Qumseyah said Palestinians are also enjoying “big success” in teaming up their tour companies with counterparts in Malaysia, Indonesia and the Arab world so to draw more pilgrims.

POLITICS AND RELIGION

Beyond the economic benefits, Palestinians see such visits as cementing pan-Islamic sympathy for their goal of establishing a state with East Jerusalem – whose walled Old City is dominated by Al-Aqsa and the gilded Dome of the Rock – as their capital.

To that end, Palestinian religious authorities dispute an edict by Youssef Al-Qaradawi of Egypt, Sunni Islam’s top cleric, that non-Palestinian Muslims should not go to Jerusalem lest they be perceived as validating Israeli rule.

Even for Palestinians, access is not a given: Since their 2000 uprising against Israel, it has routinely restricted their travel to Jerusalem from the West Bank and imposed a tighter clampdown on the Gaza Strip, which is under Islamist Hamas rule.

Still, the senior Palestinian cleric, Grand Mufti Mohammad Hussein, sounded cautiously optimistic about foreign pilgrims.

“An increasing number of Muslims are visiting Al-Aqsa. Maybe the numbers are not as high as we had hoped, but we hope they will increase in days to come,” he told Reuters.

One British pilgrim, Adeel Sadiq, came to Al-Aqsa this week with 15 fellow Britons. “We want to show our support to the people here, that you are not alone and Al Masjed Al Aqsa (Al-Aqsa mosque) is for all Muslims,” he told a Palestinian reporter.

Israel has no counter-campaign aimed at attracting Muslim pilgrims. The Israeli Tourism Ministry said its marketing budget is allocated to countries in North and South America, Europe and the Far East and Russia, and does not include Turkey.

At the height of tensions in Jerusalem last month over Israeli controls on access to Al-Aqsa, Turkey’s Islamist-rooted president, Tayyip Erdogan, urged his compatriots to flock there in solidarity with the Palestinians.

The general manager of Turkish Airlines followed up with an ad offering $159 round-trip flights to “Jerusalem” – though in fact the planes land at Ben Gurion. Israel’s envoy to Ankara, Eitan Na’eh, tweeted in turn: “We will always be glad to warmly welcome Turkish tourists to Israel and our capital Jerusalem.”

(Additional reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza and Ceyda Caglayan in Istanbul; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Giles Elgood)