AJA_Factiva-20180306-2258.txt

 


Turkey rejects US 'double standard' in Syria ceasefire

474 words
6 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Erdogan: "God curse your [UN] resolution!"

The Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called the UN ceasefire resolution for Syria effectively meaningless given the Syrian government’ continued bombing of Eastern Ghouta. "God curse your resolution!" Erdogan said of the UN ceasefire, "t he resolution that never went into effect has no meaning for humanity , " he said addressing legislators in the Turkish parliament on Tuesday. US remarks made last week implied that Turkey's operations in Afrin are in violation of the UN's Syria ceasefire resolution. Turkey accused the US of a double standard by specifying which "terrorist" groups can be fought in Syria and which cannot be. Speaking to reporters in Ankara, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said: "Afrin is not mentioned there [in the UN resolution] ... Terrorists are all the same, you cannot divide them into bad and good ones. The United States behaves illogically guided by double standards, this cannot be accepted." The UN Security Council on Saturday, February 24, passed a resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria.

Exceptions

When asked by reporters if Turkey is "violating the UN ceasefire" in Syria, US Department of State spokesperson Heather Nauert said on February 27 that she would "encourage Turkey to go back and read the UN resolution". Quoting the UN resolution, Heather Nauert said: "[The UN] demands that all parties cease hostilities without delay and engage immediately to ensure full and comprehensive implementation of this demand by all parties for a durable humanitarian pause for at least 30 consecutive days throughout Syria." But Nauert added "It [the resolution] affirms that the cessation of hostilities shall not apply to military operations against the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), also known as Daesh, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusrah Front, and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with al-Qaeda and ISIL and other terror groups as designated by the Security Council." "So I think the resolution was clear here in naming exactly which groups are considered to be exempt from the ceasefire."

Turkey's operation

Turkey has stressed that the ceasefire is meant to give relief to civilian areas hit hard by Syrian government air raids, and has nothing to do with Turkey's "counterterrorism" operation in Afrin, northwestern Syria. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said that Nauert "couldn't understand the focal point of the resolution or wants to distort it". "In Operation Olive Branch in Afrin, Turkey is exercising its right to self-defence based on Article 51 of the UN Charter," said Aksoy. According to Turkey, the UN ceasefire resolution is meant to provide humanitarian and medical relief to the battered Syrian enclave of Eastern Ghouta, the target of a five-year siege by the Syrian government. Anadolu news agency

Document AJAZEN0020180306ee36001jt



Turkey to set up refugee camps near Syria's Idlib

388 words
6 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Establishment of camps is in case of civilian exodus from Afrin where Turkey is fighting Kurdish fighters, official says

Turkey will set up refugee camps with a total capacity of 170,000 at various locations under the control of Turkish army and Turkish-backed rebels, Hami Aksoy, the Turkish foreign ministry spokesman, said.

Aksoy told reporters in the capital Ankara on Tuesday that the camps are in the process of being built by the Turkish Red Crescent and Disaster and Emergency Management Agency (AFAD), according to state-run Anadolu Agency.

The spokesman said that the camps would be located in Idlib, as well as the areas of Azaz, Albil, Tugli, Tal Afar, Naddah, Bardakli and Mashad Rufi.

"We are regularly dispatching humanitarian aid, including shelter, food, and sanitary and medical supplies to the region," Aksoy said, adding that the establishment of new camps is in case of a large civilian exodus from Afrin.

Turkey launched an operation on January 20 against the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) in its border stronghold of Afrin in northwestern Syria. Turkey sees the YPG as a "terrorist" group.

Aksoy also condemned Pentagon spokesman Colonel Rob Manning, who said the operation in Afrin harmed the efforts against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in northeastern Syria after Kurdish fighters there moved to Afrin to fight against the Turkish forces.

Aksoy criticised Manning for calling a senior member of the YPG a "general", according to the state media.

"The Pentagon spokesman once again continued to speak nonsense," Aksoy said.

Stained relations

Relations between NATO allies, Washington and Ankara, have been strained over a number of issues, notably the US arming of the YPG.

{articleGUID} Turkey considers the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and its armed wing, the YPG, to be "terrorist" groups with ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), active in Turkey.

The PKK has waged a decades-long armed fight against the Turkish state that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Turkey has repeatedly called on Washington to stop working with the YPG.

The US, in return, has expressed concern about the current Turkish operation, dubbed "Olive Branch", and urged restraint from Turkey.

Al Jazeera and news agencies

Document AJAZEN0020180306ee36001be



Qatar-Gulf crisis: All the latest updates

1,228 words
6 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Nine months ago, an air, sea and land blockade was imposed on Qatar by four Arab countries. Here are the latest developments as of Tuesday, March 6:

UAE lobby

* On Monday, March 5, l eaked emails obtained by the BBC suggested Elliot Broidy, a major Trump fundraiser, with links to the United Arab Emirates tried to convince Donald Trump to sack Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson for not supporting the blockade against Qatar.

Kuwait's emir letters

* On Monday, March 5, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met with Timothy Lenderking, US deputy assistant secretary of state for Gulf affairs, and retired US Marine Corps General Anthony Zinni.

* Monday's meeting comes after the Qatari emir received a letter from his Kuwaiti counterpart, Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad al-Jaber al-Sabah.

* Al-Sabah also reportedly sent letters to two other Gulf leaders: Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa.

Coup documentary

* On Sunday, March 4, Al Jazeera released a documentary that uncovered evidence of the involvement of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain in supporting a foiled coup attempt to overthrow the Qatari government in 1996.

* In the blockading countries 13 demands from Qatar, is the demand to " end interference in sovereign countries' internal affairs."

Jared Kushner

* On Saturday, March 3, Qatar's Ambassador Meshal Hamad Al Thani said on Twitter that Qatar had not been in touch with anyone from the US special counsel's office, adding that any reporting claiming the contrary was false.

* The response came after US media reported that the US special counsel was looking into possible ties between the international business of Jared Kushner, US President's Donald Trump son-in-law, and Trump's foreign policy.

* It is alleged that Kushner failed to receive Qatari funding for a real estate project and that because of this the US retaliated against Qatar by supporting its blockade.

Trump's mediation

* On Thursday, March 1, blockading countries issued a joint statement claiming that the Gulf crisis is a "small" problem that needs to be resolved locally by the mediation of Kuwait.

* Earlier on Wednesday, the Qatari government announced that Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will attend a meeting with US President Donald Trump in Washington, DC, in April.

* On February 24, a US official quoted by Reuters news agency said that senior Saudi, Emirati and Qatari leaders will meet the US president in the next couple of months.

* Talks will revolve around the possibility of establishing a GCC summit under Washington's auspices later this year, as well as around the role of Iran in the region.

UNHCR session

* On Monday, February 26, at the 37th session of the Human Rights Council (UNHCR) in Geneva, Qatar's foreign minister urged the council to take action and stop the blockade imposed on Qatar by its neighbours.

* Earlier on February 20, the United Nations High Commissioner Prince Zeid bin Raad al-Hussein met the Chairman of Qatar National Human Rights Committee (NHRC) Ali bin Samikh al-Marri in Geneva.

* Al-Marri explained the latest humanitarian situation resulting from the blockade on Qatar and the actions taken by the National Human Rights Committee.

Credit rating

* On February 21, Fitch ratings agency said that Qatar's fiscal deficit is narrowing, despite the blockade. Fitch also noted that there are "signs of broader economic resilience".

* In August 2017, Fitch had downgraded Qatar's credit rating to AA-.

Restored relations

* On Tuesday, Qatar and Chad signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) resuming diplomatic relations between the two countries, Qatar's foreign minister has said.

Qatar Airways

* On Tuesday, Qatar Airways CEO Akbar al-Baker sent a message to the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) saying that the body needs to do more to resolve restrictions on air routes stemming from the Gulf crisis.

* He also said his airline could nevertheless sustain itself even if the crisis dragged on.

* On Monday, Italian airline carrier Meridiana changed its name to Air Italy with the backing of its new shareholder, Qatar Airways. The airline aims to become Italy's flagship carrier, as UAE-backed Alitalia filed for bankruptcy.

* Together with Qatar Airways, Meridiana said it will expand its fleet with 50 new planes to carry 10 million passengers.

* Qatar's blockading countries have targeted Qatar Airways by forbidding it from using their airspace, but Qatar Airways has, nonetheless, found alternative routes and expanded its travel network with new international partnerships.

Arab summit

* On Monday, Qatar's foreign minister confirmed that Qatar would attend the upcoming Arab summit regardless of where it is held: "The state that will host this summit, if it was a [blockade participant] and did not provide the necessary action, it will be the one in violation and not Qatar."

* In March, Saudi Arabia announced that it would host the next Arab summit, following the UAE's request to do so. The summit is usually held in March each year, but the date of the next summit has yet to be formally announced.

Munich Security Conference

* On Friday, in an address to the Munich Security Conference in Germany, Qatar's emir warned that the Qatar-Gulf crisis is undermining the region's security and economic outlook.

* "It has been a futile crisis, manufactured by our neighbours," Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani said.

* "Those aggressive actors wish to use smaller states as pawns within their power games and sectarian conflicts. It is vital to the interests of the people of the Middle East to guarantee the sovereignty of states like Qatar," he added.

Anti-Qatar campaign

* Also on Friday, Qatar's blockading countries invited journalists to a meeting calling for sanctions against Qatar.

* "When no one showed up, organisers reportedly hired a PR company ... and the room was filled with young women who told us they were mostly from Eastern Europe," Al Jazeera's Hashem Ahelbarra reported from Munich.

* Earlier in February, a report on Buzzfeed revealed that a British parliamentarian was paid 15,000 British pounds ($20,700) to help organise an anti-Qatar conference in London.

Tillerson in Kuwait

* On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the restoration of Arab Gulf unity was in the best interest of all parties in the region.

* Tillerson made the assertion at a press conference held in Kuwait, where he is attending a high-level meeting between members of a US-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Asian Championships League

* On Monday, Al Gharafa of Qatar opened its Asian Championships League campaign in Abu Dhabi against Al Jazira of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

* UAE requested to play those games in a third country, but the idea was rejected by the Asian Football Confederation which organises the tournament, featuring 32 teams split into eight groups of four.

* "Clubs from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should be played on a home and away basis in 2018 as per the AFC regulations," the AFC said in a recent statement.

* The football federations of the UAE and Saudi Arabia accepted the decision, though they expressed reservations about how it had been made.

Previous updates

* Click here for all previous updates since the blockade started.

Al Jazeera and news agencies

Document AJAZEN0020180306ee36000p4



From Florida to Syria, children are vilified mercilessly

1,044 words
5 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Why some people are attacking outspoken Florida school shooting survivors and war-traumatised Syrian children.

Describing the human depravity it takes to insult and throw accusations at children facing deadly violence is quite difficult to do in any language, polite or otherwise. It is absurd and unnecessary to have to say that it is wrong for adults to attack children, who have survived a school shooting or facing facing bombardment on a daily basis. But apparently, we live in a world where children in distress are seen as "fair targets", accused of everything and anything from being actors, to being exploited for regime change, to being al-Qaeda agents. This was recently the case with a Syrian boy, 15, who has been viciously attacked online and in the media for posting videos showing the devastation of Eastern Ghouta. The reaction against him was hardly surprising. Syrian children have been mercilessly killed by the regime and its allies for seven years now and there has been a constant stream of images of their bloodied faces. But the response to them has been scepticism and online attacks instead of sympathy and an imperative for change; news outlets and activists alike, in a bizarre vague manner, mention the "deaths" of these children but somehow fail to say who murdered them. {articleGUID} For children in the Middle East, this is nothing new. For more decades than I have lived, children who are victims of murderous US and Arab foreign policies have been treated with a shocking lack of sympathy by both the mainstream and alternative media. To be perfectly clear, this is not the fault of any of these children: It is the fault of adults who claim to be up in arms about US imperialist ambitions, yet defend Russian imperialist ambitions. Palestinians have fought the battle of "humanising" their victims for over 100 years, documenting their victims, giving media interviews, creating their own media, and generally using any tools at their disposal to show how Israel is an aggressor. Afghans, Iraqis and Yemenis have had to do the same. In some cases, they have succeeded. Yet, some of the very westerners who were thought to have finally admitted the nature of the aggressor that Israel is or that the US is, have now turned around and used Israel as an argument against another oppressed people: the Syrians who rose up against Bashar al-Assad, Russia, Iran, and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). They, this "logic" goes, are pawns of Israel, so vilifying them and their children amid death and destruction is acceptable. Many failed to recognise the danger of these attacks on children, until this type of human depravity came home to roost.

From Florida to Syria to the West Bank, children are victims thrice over

When a young man shot and killed 17 children at a Florida high school, the aide to a local legislator accused the students speaking out against guns and the National Rifle Association (NRA) of being paid actors. Some conspiracy theorists went so far as to claim the whole thing was suspicious because one of the outspoken students' fathers was a retired FBI agent. This wasn't the first time children in the US were accused of being crisis actors, but the difference between them and children from the Middle East who have faced the same accusations is the ferocity with which they have been defended. For example, actor Mark Ruffalo, who has nearly 4 million Twitter followers, is on a crusade to defend Florida students against the NRA's attacks (as we all should), but when it came to Syria, he called media coverage on the Assad regime's crimes "propaganda". {articleGUID} When Bana al-Abed went viral for her daily reporting on her life as a child in besieged Aleppo late 2016, so-called journalists began to question her motives, making fun of her English and calling her a paid propaganda mouthpiece for "jihadists". Sixteen-year-old Ahed Tamimi of Palestine received the same treatment, with commentators obsessing over her looks, accusing her family of being paid actors and claiming she was at fault for slapping the Israeli soldier. Now, as the Assad regime and Russia pound the Ghouta region's people into oblivion, the anti-imperialism crew is reacting with its usual attacks on the children who are trying to use social media to save themselves and their families while at the same time defending children in the US who are speaking out against the NRA. One of the biggest and yet-unaddressed problems with this "political tactic" is that it abuses these young people on three different levels. They are victimised by the oppressors, such as the Assad regime in Syria, or Israel in Palestine, or the shooter in Florida; then by the "alternative" media which accuses them of being paid to publicise their reality; and finally by the political actors, both for and against these children. Children can and have been exploited by actors in conflicts. But those who deny them the freedom to express their reality and discount their very real experiences of fear are the bigger criminals.

This is not about us

There is a reason I limited myself to linking to those who vilify children rather than mentioning them by name. They have been named and shamed by several outlets and countless activists, and there is no need to rehash their crimes against these children. Yes, we must challenge the narratives produced by these child attackers. However, tempting as it may be, we must also avoid falling into the trap of focusing our discourse on responding to their bogus claims. It is time to refocus all efforts on the children who are living in these adult-created hell-holes and trying to survive by telling their stories in the ways they believe will reach the widest audience possible. A suffering child in the US deserves our attention and for us to come to his or her defence, and so do the suffering children in the Middle East. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

Document AJAZEN0020180305ee35000uo



Syrian civil war map: Who controls what?

276 words
5 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

A map of the Syrian civil war that shows who controls what after years of fighting.

Syrian government

* Main cities under government control are: Aleppo, Latakia, Tartus, Hama, Homs, Damascus, Palmyra, Abu Kamal.

ISIL control

* After the battle for Raqqa, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) remains in control of the area near Abu Kamal, surrounded by government forces westward and Kurdish forces in the east.

Kurdish control

* Other groups fighting in Syria include Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Iran-backed Hezbollah, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

* They control: Afrin, Raqqa, Qamishli, Hasakah

Other groups

* The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a loose conglomeration of armed brigades formed in 2011 by defectors from the Syrian army and civilians aiming to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

* Since the battle of Aleppo, the FSA has remained in control of limited areas in northwestern Syria.

* Main cities: Idlib, and the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus.

Eastern Ghouta

* Eastern Ghouta has been under siege since 2013, as the last rebel stronghold near the capital, it has become the target of relentless bombing by the Syrian government.

* Jaish al-Islam, Faylaq al-Rahman and Ahrar al-Sham are the largest armed grounds in control of the Eastern Ghouta suburb.

* Al-Qaeeda offshoot, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra Front) also has a minor presence, unwelcomed by the other groups.

* As of February 28, the most intense bombing has been in the towns of Douma, Misraba and Harasta near the front lines.

Al Jazeera and agencies

Document AJAZEN0020180305ee35000ul



UN: 'Disturbing reports' of civilian deaths in Syria's Afrin

491 words
4 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Turkey's military operation has displaced tens of thousands from Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin, UN official says.

A UN official expressed concern over "disturbing reports" of civilian deaths and injuries during an ongoing military operation by Turkey against US-backed Kurdish fighters in northwestern Syria.

UN Regional Humanitarian Coordinator Panos Moumtzis also said on Sunday that civilians trying to flee the fighting in the area were being prevented "by local authorities" from escaping the violence.

Tens of thousands of people were now displaced in the Kurdish-controlled enclave of Afrin, while another 5,000 managed to reach surrounding villages and the city of Aleppo, he said in a statement.

"We continue to receive disturbing reports out of Afrin of civilian deaths and injuries, and restrictions on civilian movement as a result of ongoing military operations," said Moumtzis. "Those who risk moving continue to be stopped at exit points by local authorities in Afrin, preventing them from accessing safer areas."

On January 20, Turkey launched its operation to clear Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters from its border in northern Syria. The military said on Sunday more than 2,660 "terrorists" had been "neutralised" since the offensive began.

The Turkish military said "only terror targets are being destroyed" and "utmost care" is being taken to avoid harming civilians.

Turkey, backed by allied Syrian militias, has gained ground in recent days against the Kurdish YPG militia.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which reports on the war using what it describes as a wide range of on-the-ground sources, said the advances threaten to encircle Afrin city, where one million people are estimated to live.

The Syrian Observatory said Turkish forces had advanced to within 12 kilometres of Afrin.

'Legitimate right'

Turkish forces seized the town of Rajo on Saturday, and Turkey's Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said they were advancing towards Afrin city "step by step".

He said on Sunday that fighting "terrorism" was the country's "most legitimate right.

{articleGUID} "Wherever the threat directed to our country comes from, that place is a target for us," Yildirim said in a speech in western Mugla province.

"We want peace in the region. We want brotherhood. We want tranquillity. We want the establishment of an environment of trust. That is what we are struggling for," he added.

Turkey has rejected international calls for it to suspend the Afrin assault in line with a UN ceasefire, which does not apply to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), al-Qaeda and groups associated with it, or others deemed "terrorists" by the UN Security Council.

Turkey views YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which launched a decades-old fight against Ankara's rule.

The YPG has been an important ally for the US in the fight against ISIL.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180305ee340005q



Syria's civil war explained from the beginning

1,346 words
4 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

On March 15, the Syrian civil war will enter its eighth year. Meanwhile, more than 465,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, over a million injured, and over 12 million - half the country's prewar population - have been displaced from their homes. Here is the story of the conflict in Syria, explained from the beginning:

What caused the uprising?

While lack of freedoms and economic woes drove resentment of the Syrian government, the harsh crackdown on protesters inflamed public anger .

* Arab Spring: In 2011, successful uprisings - that became known as the Arab Spring - toppled Tunisia's and Egypt's presidents. This gave hope to Syrian pro-democracy activists.

* That March, peaceful protests erupted in Syria as well, after 15 boys were detained and tortured for writing graffiti in support of the Arab Spring. One of the boys, a 13-year-old, was killed after having been brutally tortured.

* The Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded to the protests by killing hundreds of demonstrators and imprisoning many more.

* Free Syrian Army: In July 2011, defectors from the military announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group aiming to overthrow the government, and Syria began to slide into civil war.

* While the protests in 2011 were mostly non-sectarian, the armed conflict surfaced starker sectarian divisions. Most Syrians are Sunni Muslims, but Syria's security establishment has long been dominated by members of the Alawi sect, of which Assad is a member.

* In 1982, Bashar's father ordered a military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, killing tens of thousands of people and flattening much of the city.

* Even global warming is said to have played a role in sparking the 2011 uprising. Severe drought plagued Syria from 2007-10, causing as many as 1.5 million people to migrate from the countryside into cities, exacerbating poverty and social unrest.

International involvement

Foreign backing and open intervention have played a large role in Syria's civil war. Russia entered the conflict in 2015 and has been the Assad government's main ally since then.

* Regional actors: The governments of majority-Shia Iran and Iraq, and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, have supported Assad, while Sunni-majority countries, including Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia supported anti-Assad rebels.

* Since 2016, Turkish troops have launched several operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) near its borders, as well as against Kurdish groups armed by the United States.

* Anti-ISIL coalition: The US has armed anti-Assad rebel groups and led an international coalition bombing ISIL targets since 2014.

* Israel carried out air raids inside Syria, reportedly targeting Hezbollah and pro-government fighters and facilities. The first time Syrian air defences shot down an Israeli warplane was in February 2018.

US and Russia

The US has repeatedly stated its opposition to the Assad government backed by Russia but has not involved itself as deeply.

* Chemical red line: Former US President Barack Obama had warned that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a "red line" that would prompt military intervention.

* In April 2017, the US carried its first direct military action against Assad's forces, launching 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air force base from which US officials believe a chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun had been launched.

* CIA training: In 2013, the CIA began a covert programme to arm, fund and train rebel groups opposing Assad, but the programme was later shut down after it was revealed that the CIA had spent $500m but only trained 60 fighters.

* Russia's campaign: In September 2015, Russia launched a bombing campaign against what it referred to as "terrorist groups" in Syria, which included ISIL as well as anti-Assad rebel groups backed by the USA. Russia has also deployed military advisers to shore up Assad's defences.

* At the UN Security Council, Russia and China have repeatedly vetoed Western-backed resolutions on Syria.

Peace talks

Peace negotiations have been ongoing between the Syrian government and the opposition in order to achieve a military ceasefire and political transition in Syria, but the main sticking point has been the fate of Assad.

* Geneva: The first round of UN-facilitated talks between the Syrian government and opposition delegates took place in Geneva, Switzerland in June 2012.

* The latest round of talks in December 2017 failed amid a tit-for-tat between Syrian government and opposition delegates over statements about the future role of Assad in a transitional government.

* In 2014 Staffan de Mistura replaced Kofi Annan as the UN special envoy for Syria.

* Astana: In May 2017, Russia, Iran and Turkey called for the setup of four de-escalation zones in Syria, over which Syrian and Russian fighter jets were not expected to fly.

* Sochi: In January 2018, Russia sponsored talks over the future of Syria in the Black Sea city of Sochi, but the opposition bloc boycotted the conference, claiming it was an attempt to undercut the UN effort to broker a deal.

Rebel groups

Since the conflict began, as a Syrian rebellion against the Assad government, many new rebel groups have joined the fighting in Syria and have frequently fought one another.

* The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a loose conglomeration of armed brigades formed in 2011 by defectors from the Syrian army and civilians backed by the United States, Turkey, and several Gulf countries.

* In December 2016, the Syrian army scored its biggest victory against the rebels when it recaptured the strategic city of Aleppo. Since then, the FSA has controlled limited areas in northwestern Syria. Since January 2018 it has been fighting with Turkey to capture Afrin from Kurdish fighters seeking self-rule.

* ISIL emerged in northern and eastern Syria in 2013 after overrunning large portions of Iraq. The group quickly gained international notoriety for its brutal executions and its energetic use of social media to recruit fighters from around the world.

* Other groups fighting in Syria include Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Iran-backed Hezbollah, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

The situation today

Fighting in Syria continues on two main fronts:

* Eastern Ghouta: In February 2018, Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes escalated bombing of Eastern Ghouta, resulting in hundreds of civilians deaths.

* Eastern Ghouta has been under siege since 2013 and is the last remaining rebel stronghold near the capital, Damascus.

* Afrin: Turkey and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) began in January 2018 a military operation against the YPG in northwestern Syria, near Afrin. Pro-government forces have also joined the fight.

* On February 24, the UN passed a resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire across Syria, but exempted military operations against "terrorist" groups.

Syrian refugees

Now having gone on longer than World War II, the war in Syria is causing profound effects beyond the country's borders, with many Syrians having left their homes to seek safety elsewhere in Syria or beyond.

* As of February 2018, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) had registered over 5.5 million refugees from Syria and estimated that there are over 6,5 million internally displaced persons (IDP) within Syria's borders.

* Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan are hosting most of the Syrian refugees, many of whom attempt to journey onwards to Europe in search of better conditions.

* The 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees describes a refugee as any person who, "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country".

* In 2017, about 66,000 refugees returned to Syria, according to reports. With much of Syria in ruins, and a population deeply traumatised by war, one thing is certain: rebuilding Syria after the war will be a lengthy, difficult process.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180305ee340002x



Afghanistan: Suicide car bomber hits Kabul

268 words
2 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

At least 22 people have been wounded in a suicide bombing in the Afghan capital Kabul close to foreign embassies.

At least one person has been killed and 22 others wounded in a suicide bombing in the Afghan capital, Kabul, according to government officials.

The explosion took place on Friday around 9:00am local time (04:30 GMT) near a vehicle belonging to foreign workers in the eastern part of the city, Najib Danish, a spokesperson for the interior ministry, said.

Nasrat Rahimi, Danish's deputy spokesperson, said a 12-year-old boy was killed in the blast.

Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley, reporting from Kabul, said Afghanistan’ interior ministry confirmed the attack was a suicide bombing against "foreign forces".

"We understand that to be NATO employees who were travelling in convoy," Birtley said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the explosion.

The Afghan capital has seen a spate of deadly attacks carried out by the Taliban and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, whose affiliate in Afghanistan has grown in recent years.

In January, Taliban claimed responsibility for two separate attacks that killed nearly 130 people.

The blast comes two days after Afghan President Ashraf Ghani offered to recognise the Taliban as a legitimate political group, as part of a proposed process he said could lead to talks aimed at ending more than 16 years of war.

On Thursday, Taliban fighters killed at least six policemen in an attack at a checkpoint in southern Afghanistan, officials said.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180302ee3200131



Where is al-Qaeda in Syria?

1,580 words
1 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Despite Russia and the Syrian-regime saying they're fighting al-Qaeda in Syria, the group's presence has been shrinking.

In late December 2017, General Valery Gerasimov, head of Russia's General Staff, told the Russian daily Komsomolskaya Pravda that the "destruction of Jabhat al-Nusra fighters" was a priority task in Syria for 2018. About a week later, Syrian regime forces, with Russian and Iranian support, launched an offensive on rebel-held Idlib province. Syrian state media claimed they were fighting al-Qaeda. A month later, the Syrian regime escalated its bombardment of the rebel-held Eastern Ghouta enclave, near the capital, Damascus. As civilian casualties exceeded 500 in just a week and aid agencies warned of a humanitarian disaster, Syria and Russia maintained the bombardment was targeting Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (or al-Nusra Front, formerly affiliated with al-Qaeda). "Jabhat al-Nusra fighters are not stopping their provocations. In Eastern Ghouta, they are bombarding residential neighbourhoods of Damascus, including the Russian embassy and trade mission," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on February 19 during a conference in Moscow. Russia and the Syrian government have often evoked the threat of Jabhat Fateh al-Sham or al-Qaeda to justify military operations that have violated de-escalation agreements over the past year. But according to analysts, al-Qaeda's ideological successor, Jabhat al-Nusra, and the group it formed in January 2017 called Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have a small presence in Eastern Ghouta and declining influence in Idlib, northern Hama, and western Aleppo provinces. Internal conflicts following its split from al-Qaeda and defections have additionally weakened the armed group.

Small HTS presence in Eastern Ghouta

Jabhat al-Nusra was founded in January 2012 and gradually gained strength and followers in areas controlled by Syrian opposition armed groups. Unlike other areas in Syria, in Eastern Ghouta, the group's presence has been largely limited by other, much larger groups. According to Ahmed Abazeid, an Istanbul-based Syrian researcher, at its peak Jabhat al-Nusra had no more than 1,000 fighters in Eastern Ghouta. Defections, clashes with other armed groups and arrests have reduced the number to about 250 men. In April 2017, Jaish al-Islam (the Army of Islam), one of the main Islamist armed factions in Eastern Ghouta, attacked the HTS and expelled it from the territories under its control. The HTS had sided with Failaq al-Rahman (the Rahman Legion), another major Islamist armed group in the enclave, during clashes with Jaish al-Islam. This resulted in the two groups, which together have about 15,000 fighters, splitting control of Eastern Ghouta. HTS was also sidelined, Abazeid said. "The majority of areas which the Russians are now bombing or are trying to advance in - especially those under the control of Jaish al-Islam - don't have any fighters of Jabhat al-Nusra," he added. Even Failaq al-Rahman has sought to isolate HTS fighters. In late February, a group of armed factions, including Failaq al-Rahman and Jaish al-Islam, sent a letter to the UN declaring their readiness to "evacuate" the remaining HTS fighters from Eastern Ghouta within 15 days. The spokesperson of Failaq al-Rahman, Wael Olwan, told Al Jazeera that in November 2017 the group had informed Russia that they are ready to evacuate HTS to Idlib province. According to him, the Russians did not let the evacuation happen. On February 28, Lavrov - responding to a question from the media on the sidelines of a UN Human Rights Council session - said that Russia "will not object" to the removal of HTS fighters and their families from Eastern Ghouta. "[The current resolution] says unambiguously that the ceasefire regime will not apply to the terrorists. If our colleagues at the UN and those who have influence with Jabhat al-Nusra coordinate this evacuation, we will not object," he said. HTS, as well as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) , has been left out of the February 24 UN ceasefire resolution on Eastern Ghouta and similar de-escalation initiatives in the past. Jaish al-Islam and Failaq al-Rahman have not. Jaish al-Islam was also designated "moderate opposition" in a December 2016 list released by the Russian defence ministry and participated in the Russian-backed Astana talks. Representative of Failaq al-Rahman have also attended peace talks in Geneva.

Anti-HTS offensive in northern Syria

Jabhat al-Nusra was part of the loose alliance of armed factions that took over Idlib city and the province in the spring of 2015. Its influence over the province steadily grew at the expense of other factions and despite frequent civilian protests against their oppressive presence and human rights violations. In July 2016, Jabhat al-Nusra announced its split from al-Qaeda in Syria and changed its name to Fateh al-Sham. The move came three years after a large number of its fighters broke off from its ranks to join what came to be known as ISIL, which also rejected al-Qaeda's authority. "That [move] back then was dismissed as a publicity stunt. If you look at the details, you realise that this was more than just a PR move," said Heiko Wimmen, a project director at the Brussels-based research organisation International Crisis Group. According to him, since the summer of 2016, the armed group has sought to reinvent itself as a nationalist armed group movement, giving less priority to international movement. "This doesn't mean that they have become nicer people. It means [different] tactics, ideology and leadership," said Wimmen. In mid-January 2017, what was still called Jabhat Fateh al-Sham attacked positions of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and a number of other smaller armed groups in Idlib province, entering a standoff with Ahrar al-Sham, one of the largest Islamist factions in the region, which was also included on Moscow's "moderate opposition" list. As a result of the tensions, smaller factions sought protection from Ahrar al-Sham, while others joined Fatah al-Sham, which changed its name to Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham. In July 2017, tensions between the two large armed groups escalated again, and HTS attacked Ahrar al-Sham and its allies, which withdrew after week-long clashes allowing their adversary to dominate Idlib province. In November 2017, the HTS formed the Syrian Salvation Government, which in December issued an ultimatum to the Syrian Interim Government of the Turkey-based Syrian opposition to cease all operations in the province. In early January, Syrian regime forces with the help of Iran-backed militias and Russian air support, launched an offensive in southern Idlib province, causing tens of thousands of civilians to flee. In response, FSA-affiliated groups and Ahrar al-Sham, Nour al-Din al-Zinki (previously associated with the HTS) and others created two separate operation rooms to counter the regime advances. In mid-January, Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, the leader of the HTS, called for unity among armed factions in Idlib, but instead of heeding his call, other armed groups accused the HTS of withdrawing from areas in southern Idlib province to the benefit of the regime. A month later, an alliance of Ahrar al-Sham, Nour al-Din al-Zinki and Soqour al-Sham attacked HTS. The factions managed to take over large areas in southern Idlib province, northern Hama province and western Aleppo province. Earlier this week, Syrian opposition media reported that HTS sent reinforcements to Idlib city, its main stronghold, and Bab al-Hawa crossing on the border with Turkey. HTS fighters managed to repel an attack on the crossing and counter-attack at other locations in Idlib. Bab al-Hawa serves as a major source of income for the armed group, which imposes a levy on goods that pass through it. According to Wimmen, the attack on HTS was expected. "The way [the HTS] basked in their victory, they were getting a lot of people ready to line up against them once the [time] was right, with the external threat removed," he said. The deployment of Turkish troops in Idlib province stopped the regime offensive and gave a chance to HTS' adversaries to attack it, he added. "[The operation] has been quite successful. After it, you can no longer say that Idlib is under exclusive HTS control," Wimmen said. Before the attack, HTS had already been weakened by internal clashes, defections and killings. In late 2017, more than 35 high-profile foreign members of the HTS were assassinated, some of them al-Qaeda loyalists who were displeased with the formal split of the group. According to Wimmen, some of the internal instability within HTS was the result of Turkish involvement. "Turkey has tried to drive wedges into HTS because they see it as very problematic, and in particular the foreign element in it," said Wimmen. "They are hoping to split it and hoping to arrive at a point where the real hardliners, who are mostly foreigners, and who you cannot make any deals with, form only a small faction that you can destroy without too much damage and cost." According to him, Turkey is likely to retain influence over Idlib and is, therefore, seeking to steer hardline armed groups into local governance. The Turkish presence in Syria's north is also likely to stave off future plans by the Syrian regime to recapture the area, Wimmen said. Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180302ee3100106



Turkey rejects US 'double standards' in Syria ceasefire

414 words
1 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Turkey on Thursday accused the US of a double standard by specifying which "terrorist" groups can be fought in Syria and which cannot be. Several Turkish government officials criticized earlier US remarks that implied that Turkey's operations in Afrin are in violation of the UN's Syria ceasefire resolution. Speaking to reporters in Ankara, Deputy Prime Minister Bekir Bozdag said: "Afrin is not mentioned there [in the UN resolution] ... Terrorists are all the same, you cannot divide them into bad and good ones. The United States behaves illogically guided by double standards, this cannot be accepted. " When asked by reporters on Tuesday if Turkey is "violating the UN ceasefire" in Syria, US Department of State spokesperson Heather Nauert said that she would "encourage Turkey to go back and read the UN resolution." The UN Security Council on Saturday, February 24, passed a resolution calling for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria.

Exceptions

Quoting the UN resolution, Heather Nauert said: "[the UN] demands that all parties cease hostilities without delay and engage immediately to ensure full and comprehensive implementation of this demand by all parties for a durable humanitarian pause for at least 30 consecutive days throughout Syria." But Nauert added "It [the resolution] affirms that the cessation of hostilities shall not apply to military operations against the Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), also known as Daesh, al-Qaeda, and al-Nusrah Front, and all other individuals, groups, undertakings, and entities associated with al-Qaeda and ISIL and other terror groups as designated by the Security Council." "So I think the resolution was clear here in naming exactly which groups are considered to be exempt from the ceasefire."

Turkey's view

Turkey has stressed that the ceasefire is meant to give relief to civilian areas hit hard by Syrian government air raids, and has nothing to do with Turkey's "counterterrorism" operation in Afrin, northwestern Syria. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hami Aksoy said that Nauert "couldn't understand the focal point of the resolution or wants to distort it". "In Operation Olive Branch in Afrin, Turkey is exercising its right to self-defence based on Article 51 of the UN Charter," said Aksoy. According to Turkey, the UN ceasefire resolution is meant to provide humanitarian and medical relief to the battered Syrian enclave of Eastern Ghouta, the target of a five-year siege by the Syrian government. Anadolu news agency

Document AJAZEN0020180301ee31000xd



Syrian civil war map: Who controls what?

276 words
1 March 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

A map of the Syrian civil war that shows who controls what after years of fighting.

Syrian government

* Main cities under government control are: Aleppo, Latakia, Tartus, Hama, Homs, Damascus, Palmyra, Abu Kamal.

ISIL control

* After the battle for Raqqa, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) remains in control of the area near Abu Kamal, surrounded by government forces westward and Kurdish forces in the east.

Kurdish control

* Other groups fighting in Syria include Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Iran-backed Hezbollah, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

* They control: Afrin, Raqqa, Qamishli, Hasakah

Other groups

* The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a loose conglomeration of armed brigades formed in 2011 by defectors from the Syrian army and civilians aiming to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

* Since the battle of Aleppo, the FSA has remained in control of limited areas in northwestern Syria.

* Main cities: Idlib, and the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus.

Eastern Ghouta

* Eastern Ghouta has been under siege since 2013, as the last rebel stronghold near the capital, it has become the target of relentless bombing by the Syrian government.

* Jaish al-Islam, Faylaq al-Rahman and Ahrar al-Sham are the largest armed grounds in control of the Eastern Ghouta suburb.

* Al-Qaeeda offshoot, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as al-Nusra Front) also has a minor presence, unwelcomed by the other groups.

* As of February 28, the most intense bombing has been in the towns of Douma, Misraba and Harasta near the front lines.

Al Jazeera and agencies

Document AJAZEN0020180301ee31000jh



Stranded in Libya: ISIL's Tunisian women and children

1,591 words
28 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Dozens of relatives of Tunisians who fought with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant caught in diplomatic limbo.

Baraa Zayani is nearly four years old and has spent more than half of his life in a Libyan prison. His only offence: he was born to a Tunisian father, now deceased, who joined the ranks of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) abroad.

Zayani, and his mother Wahida Bin Mokhtar Rabhi, 30, have been held in the Maitiga prison in Tripoli since February 2016, after a US air attack exposed a network of ISIL cells in Sabratha, a coastal city about 130 kilometres east of the Tunisian border.

Rabhi, her son, and her husband, Ezzeddine Ben Habib Zayani, a mechanic who allegedly manufactured explosives and car bombs, were trying to flee south when Libyan militia members intercepted and began shooting at them.

Baraa's father was killed and he and his mother eventually wound up in the custody of the Special Deterrence Forces, a militia affiliated with Libya's internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli.

More than two years later, Rabhi and her son now sit in diplomatic limbo, along with 36 other Tunisian women and children being held in the Maitiga prison. At least a dozen other women and children are being held in a separate facility in Misrata.

Ambiguous charges

Officials in the GNA have been engaged with Tunisian authorities to negotiate the return of these women and children for almost a year, yet, for various reasons, the cases have stalled.

{articleGUID} The issue of repatriation for the Libyans is not confined to the imprisoned women and children, but also includes the question of suspected Tunisian ISIL fighters, said Ahmad Ben Salem, spokesman for the Special Deterrence Forces, in a phone interview.

According to Ben Salem, there are more than 60 Tunisian ISIL suspects currently in prison: some are awaiting trial in Libya; others are being held on ambiguous charges pertaining to Libya's national security. Tripoli also seeks to return at least 80 bodies of alleged Tunisian ISIL fighters who died on Libyan soil and are in morgues.

Tunis and Tripoli are both dependent on numbers provided by Libyan militias - difficult to independently verify, said one Tunisian diplomat involved in the case. Even if the numbers are accurate, political control of Libya is split across four regions and numerous local actors, making it almost impossible to account for a complete number, said the diplomat, who asked to remain anonymous.

The Special Deterrence Forces said it is ready to release the women and children in Maitiga prison, but only with an official commitment from Tunis to address the question of repatriation of its citizens in its entirety.

Tunis, on the other hand, is focusing on repatriating the children, which has delayed any immediate resolution, said Mostafa Abdelkebir, a prominent human rights activist in Tunisia.

"Tunisia wants only the children and Libya wants the whole folder to be dealt with at once," said Abdelkebir.

'Children first'

Recently, in response to an inquiry made by a parliamentarian, Khaoula bin Aicha, the Tunisian foreign ministry said Libya previously refused to return the children through the Red Cross, seeking to coordinate exclusively with Tunisia instead. The language used in the published correspondence confirmed that Tunisian efforts are concentrated on imprisoned children and avoid specifically addressing female detainees.

The document indicated that proving the children's parentage will be one of several steps in confirming the Tunisian citizenship of the remaining children - a task that might prove daunting. Tunis shut down both its embassy and consulate in Tripoli, in 2014 and 2015, respectively, after a number of its officials had been kidnapped by Libyan militiamen. It only reopened the offices in April 2016, leaving any child born during those two years likely unregistered with the state.

Yet, for the Tunisian "children first" approach, an even greater hurdle remains: Most of these women refuse to be separated from their children.

"The children are a protection tool for these women," said Abdelkebir. The women fear that if the children are repatriated, then they will be forgotten, he explained.

They also feel safer with their children with them in prison, he said. "I understand them."

Official Tunisian statements presumed these women guilty of ISIL affiliation, yet there is no evidence of due process or trial in Tunisia or Libya to determine their alleged status. Some women said they were either held against their will by their husbands, or were unaware of their husbands' ties to the armed group.

Moncef Abidi, Rabhi's brother, said his sister only began to see "suspicious behaviour" from her husband in late 2015, but was not able to seek help.

"The moment she felt the danger she became a hostage," said Abidi. "She used to call her mother crying, saying she wants to come back ... But he [Zayani] blackmailed her with her son. He told her that she can go back, but she would have to leave her son."

Regardless of the nature of their ISIL affiliation, most of the women want to go back to Tunisia and are ready to stand before Tunisian courts, said Ben Salem.

"But they [Tunisian authorities] can't just take the children and go," he said.

Humanitarian case

To date, only one detainee has been successfully repatriated to Tunisia: a three-year-old orphan whose parents were killed in the same US air attack that affected Rabhi and her family. After a year in the Maitiga prison, Tamim Jandoubi was returned to the custody of his maternal grandfather in October last year.

But the case of the women and children has become a "humanitarian" one, said Ben Salem.

Many of these women and children require constant medical and psychological care. When his family was fleeing Sabratha two years ago, young Zayani was caught in the crossfire and hit by multiple bullets in his back and stomach. He was taken to a hospital in Tripoli to undergo surgery while his mother, who was taken to prison, was falsely told that her only son did not survive. A few months later, a video was released showing an emotional reunification of Rabhi and her son. Amid the hysterical cries and weeping of his mother, Zayani, wide-eyed and unsmiling, appeared to be distant and quiet for a child who has not seen a parent for months.

"If Tunis does not repatriate these children from Libya, what are they going to be when they get older? Doctors? Engineers? No, they are going to adopt radical ideas," said Mohamed Iqbel Ben Rejeb, founder and president of the Rescue Association of Tunisians Trapped Abroad (RATTA), an NGO founded in 2013 to advocate for the safe return of families and children caught in conflicts abroad.

"What will their mothers teach them? To love their country? Their country abandoned them," said Ben Rejeb.

'No clear strategy'

A Tunisian delegation headed to Libya in April 2017 supposedly to meet the women and children, who had been bussed to an auditorium for the occasion, but failed to show up without an explanation - leaving the Libyans puzzled. Another delegation eventually went to Libya last October, as part of the effort to bring back Jandoubi - the first evidence of a Tunisian endeavour on the ground.

Tunisian authorities have accounted for the government's lack of prior efforts, citing persistent security concerns. The Tunisian diplomat further attributed the slowness of the process to Libyan red tape and lengthy judicial proceedings.

But some analysts blame the ongoing plight of these detainees on the lack of a clear Tunisian strategy for ISIL returnees, more broadly.

"The issue is more political than it is legal," said Ahmad Nadhif, a Tunisian journalist and the author of several publications on radicalisation in Tunisia.

Tunisian authorities "use legal justifications as an excuse", said Nadhif. "There is a staunch rejection from within Tunisian society, [an unwillingness] to admit that Tunisia is one of the leading exporters of jihadists," he added.

At least 3,000 Tunisians are known to have travelled abroad to join armed groups since 2011. An estimated 800 Tunisians have returned to the country - a number disputed by analysts.

Nadhif said the only Tunisian strategy today is "the same policy [Zine al-Abidine] Ben Ali employed to treat those who returned from Iraq, Bosnia and Afghanistan: to put them in jail".

Tunisia enacted a new anti-terrorism law following two ISIL-claimed attacks on the Bardo museum and a Sousse beach resort in 2015, both of which were carried out by Tunisians trained in Libya. In the absence of rehabilitation and reintegration centres, courts are clogged with "terrorism" cases, with most returnees ending up in prison or under house arrest.

The question of how to deal with returning fighters and their families has periodically sparked fierce debates among Tunisians, with some secularist politicians even calling for them to be stripped of their nationality.

"The Tunisian society is experiencing what I like to call 'severe denial,'" said Monia Arfaoui, a Tunisian journalist who specialises in studying radicalisation of women.

"[They say] terrorism is foreign to us, no, it is not. These people are a product of the same society and culture. They went to the same schools as us.

"This could explain why there has been a widespread rejection of the returnees," she said, adding returnees will find their way back to the country eventually, whether legally or illegally through the border with Libya.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180301ee2s0008f



The two-state solution is still the only game in town

1,186 words
28 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Even after Donald Trump's Jerusalem decision, there is no feasible alternative to the two-state solution in Palestine.

US President Donald Trump's announcement on December 6 last year of his decision to recognise Jerusalem as the capital of Israel was a real shock not only for Palestinians but also for the international community as a whole. For many people, this decision was the final nail in the coffin for the two-state solution. But even b efore Trump's controversial announcement, some western politicians were arguing that a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is no longer feasible due to Israel's expansionist policies in the West Bank. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas reacted to Trump's Jerusalem decision with fury and went so far to say that the Palestinians would no longer accept the United States as a mediator in the peace process. Abbas also refused to meet with US Vice President Mike Pence when he visited the region. The international community joined Abbas in condemning Trump's decision, with a resounding majority of United Nations member states voting to declare the US president's recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital "null and void". But in the end, neither Abbas nor other world leaders were successful in convincing Trump to reverse his decision. {articleGUID} After the storm of anger dissipated, the world came to its senses, and most leaders realised that no peace process in the Middle East could ever advance without the support and approval of the US. This was clearly put by European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini when she said "Nothing without the United States, nothing with the United States alone". Despite attempts by the EU to change the current mechanism and create a negotiations framework that would involve multilateral brokers, the Palestinians were disappointed to find out that this was nothing more than wishful thinking - especially after senior Palestinian officials, who were dispatched to Moscow, Beijing and several Arab capitals after the Jerusalem announcement to find new international sponsors for negotiations, returned home empty-handed. This meant that the role of the US is and will be very central to any peace process in the Middle East regardless of Palestinians' perception of the US as a dishonest broker.

Palestinian Authority did not abandon the two-state solution

Even though the Palestinian Authority (PA) said it would not accept US mediation after Trump's Jerusalem decision, it did not renounce the two-state solution completely. Instead, the Palestinian leadership tried to limit the damage caused by the announcement and strengthen their position within the existing framework. The same tactic was adopted by other political parties involved in the peace process, such as the EU. Thus, many people, who thought the Jerusalem decision was the end of the two-state solution, now wonder why most stakeholders of the peace process still have hope for this approach, despite its failure to bring about sustainable peace decades after its conception. The answer to this question is simple: It is unbearable and costly for all stakeholders - albeit for different reasons - to abandon this solution. Currently, there are only three alternatives to the two-state solution, formation of a single democratic state with a one-man-one-vote system, formation of an Apartheid state like the one existed in South Africa in the eighties, or abandonment of all state-building efforts, which would undoubtedly result in a political vacuum. {articleGUID} Obviously, the first option means the end of Israel as we know it. In this scenario, the demographics of Israel would change drastically, with Palestinians becoming the majority in the area between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. There are around two million Palestinians in Israel and the same number of Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Therefore, this option is vehemently rejected by Israel. Far from considering accepting Palestinians as equal citizens, Israel's far right-parties are currently working hard to drive them outside the borders of Israel. On the Palestinian side, this idea has also not been taken seriously or discussed properly among the current Palestinian leadership or other prominent political factions. The PLO's strategy since the 1960's has been to establish an independent state. Some Palestinian players, such as Hamas, do not even believe in a peace process in the first place. On the European side, the EU has already invested huge amounts of money, time and energy to make the two-state vision a reality and it is finding it very hard to change direction after all these efforts. Also, trying to implement a democratic one-state solution would be hard for the EU, as Israel is strongly against this strategy. Many European states do not have the will or courage to have a full-blown confrontation with Israel, a state they view as an indispensable ally in the Middle East. And l et's not forget that the EU is not a government, but a union, and it needs the consensus of all its 28 member states to adopt a new foreign policy. This necessity slows down the decision-making process in the EU and limits the union's capabilities when significant policy shifts are needed. The second alternative to the two-state solution is an Apartheid state. Although this strategy is already de-facto implemented in the West Bank and even inside the state of Israel, no one is recognising it as a real option to end the conflict and achieve peace between the two parties. It is morally and politically costly, and would most certainly be strongly condemned by the international community. The final alternative to the two-state solution is to do nothing. But, if the international community denounces the two-state solution without offering an alternative, a major political vacuum, which would undoubtedly be filled with "extremist" non-state actors like the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), will materialise. Obviously, no one can afford this to happen. All in all, the two-state solution is still the only game in town. However, the rules of the game seem to be changing in Israel's favour. Both Israel and the US still theoretically accept this solution, but they want to shape it in a way that would benefit Israel and further victimise Palestinians. They have already laid the foundations for their version of the two-state solution by taking Jerusalem off the table. They will likely continue with abolishing the right of return for Palestinian refugees, permanently condemning them to bantustans in the West Bank. All this can be done under the umbrella of the two-state solution. For Palestinians, there is no way out of the two-state solution. What everyone needs to focus on now is not unlikely alternative solutions, but the shape the two-state solution is going to take under Trump's leadership. The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

Document AJAZEN0020180228ee2s0018i



Taliban: Doha office remains vital for talks

895 words
28 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Comments come amid reports in Kabul news media of efforts by Afghan government to shut down armed group's Doha office.

The Afghan Taliban has called for direct talks with the US to take place in its political office in Qatar.

A senior Taliban official based in Doha told Al Jazeera on Tuesday that the group invites US officials to its political office in Qatar to discuss a "peaceful solution" to end the bloodshed in Afghanistan.

His comments followed local news media reports in Kabul on Friday, claiming that the Afghan government has been discussing with Qatari authorities the closure of the Taliban's Doha office.

The media reports cited government officials as saying the Doha office had "no positive consequence in terms of facilitating the peace talks".

In an apparent warning to the Afghan government, the Taliban official said further talk of shuttering the Doha office would scuttle the group's offer of talks altogether.

The Taliban official also said that departure of American troops from Afghanistan remains a precondition for the group's talks offer.

"Our struggle is for the liberation of the country," he said. "It is not a power struggle. How can a liberation struggle be deemed complete without foreign forces pulling out?

"Since it is [only] the US which can decide and implement a decision for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, that is why direct talks with the US are necessary in the first phase.

"During a second phase, we can sit with the Afghan government and discuss all of the domestic issues."

The Taliban broached the possibility of direct talks with the US two weeks ago, with the group issuing a letter calling on Americans and "peace-loving congressmen" to convince US President Donald Trump to join negotiations.

Government 'ready to talk'

Following the overture, Afghan officials said on Tuesday the Taliban should instead hold discussions with the Kabul government, adding that they were willing to meet the group's representatives "anywhere".

"[The Taliban] have twice asked the US and said they are ready for direct talks with the United States. But the Afghan government is telling [the Taliban] that if you are Afghans, come and talk with Afghanistan. The Afghan government is ready to talk," Tolonews, a leading Afghan media outlet, quoted presidential spokesperson Haroon Chakhansuri as saying on Tuesday.

The back and forth came a day before of the second round of the Kabul Process conference. About 25 countries and organisations, including the UN and NATO, will attend Wednesday's meeting in the Afghan capital.

In December, General John W Nicholson Jr of the US army said his country would deploy more troops in an advisory role to Afghan forces in 2018, on top of the 14,000 American soldiers already stationed in Afghanistan.

The increase follows Trump's pledge in August 2017, saying the US will continue to fight in the country.

"We are not nation building again. We are killing terrorists," Trump said.

The US invaded Afghanistan in 2001 and has become the country's longest military intervention since Vietnam. It has also been the costliest, with more than $100bn spent so far.

'No tangible results'

Despite the latest developments, ordinary Afghans remain resigned to the prospect of continued violence and sceptical about diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

"If war took this long, peace will not come easy. The Kabul Peace conference will change nothing. As we have seen in the past, such conferences happen and end without any tangible results," Abbas Arifi, a graduate student at Ibn-e-Sina University in Kabul, told Al Jazeera.

"Politicians talk, smile and take photos at the end, and say they are hopeful about peace. [But] war is a fact and peace is a dream."

Fatima Roshanian, a Kabul resident, believes women should be involved in the peace process, but added: "The Taliban will not want any woman in such a position, so what's the point?"

Khalida Kazimi, a law student at Kabul University, says she does not believe in negotiating with the Taliban "who have killed many innocent people".

"Taliban kill people and the Afghanistan government want to make the peace deal with them. I find this very strange," she told Al Jazeera by phone from Kabul.

Surge in violence

As the Afghan army and US-led coalition forces battle the Taliban for control of territory, the overall security situation shows no signs of improvement.

At least 150 people were killed in suicide attacks in January alone.

On January 21, the Talibanorchestrated a bloody siege  at Kabul's Inter-Continental Hotel that left at least 20 dead.

A few days later on January 24, fighters belonging to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group killed three people at the office of Save the Children, in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

On January 27, a Taliban attacker drove an ambulance filled with explosives into the heart of Kabul, killing at least 103 people and wounding as many as 235.

A day later, at least 11 soldiers were killed  when fighters attacked a military academy, also in Kabul.

"How many conferences and peace processes have been held in Afghanistan and abroad? Why is fighting still ongoing in Afghanistan?" Khalida Kazimi asked.

Follow Shereena Qazi on Twitter: @ShereenaQazi

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180228ee2s000gq



International open letter calls for end to 'Syrian genocide'

445 words
27 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Letter, signed by over 200 artists, writers and musicians, says governments should take steps to stop the bloodshed.

Over 200 artists, activists, writers and musicians have issued an open letter calling for world governments to "stop the Syrian genocide".

The signatories come from across the globe, including many of the major actors in the conflict: Syria, Russia, the US and Turkey.

"The United Nations says it has run out of words on Syria, but we, the undersigned, still have some for the governments, parliamentarians, electorates" and decision-makers of the world, the letter, published at the New York Review of Books on Tuesday, begins.

The Syrian military, with support from Russian warplanes, is currently battering the besieged Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta.

The UN, along with US diplomats, has called for an immediate end to the military campaign, which UN chief Antonio Guterres has called "hell on earth".

Eastern Ghouta is the last rebel stronghold near Damascus, the Syrian capital. It has been under siege since 2013.

Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a humanitarian ceasefire in the enclave that was set to begin at 9am local time on Tuesday, though activists told Al Jazeera the temporary truce was violated less than two hours after it began.

Turkey has also mounted an assault on northern Syria's Afrin, which Kurdish forces freed from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group over the course of the five-year civil war.

The campaign has stirred tensions between Turkey and the US. The US armed and supported Kurdish forces in the fight against ISIL.

The Syrian air force is also bombarding Idlib, a northwestern province that is the last major population centre held by rebel forces.

Dozens of civilians have been killed in recent air raids, according to monitoring groups.

"Today, as Idlib and Afrin burn, the inevitable is unfolding in Ghouta, the huge open-air concentration camp about to enter its fifth year under siege. What happens next is predictable," the open letter states.

The writers called for UN member states to uphold the "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) under the UN Office on Genocide Prevention.

The R2P calls for signatories to take "appropriate diplomatic, humanitarian and other peaceful means, in accordance …o help protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity".

The measure was endorsed by all UN member states in 2005.

"The destruction of Syria was preventable, and can now only be ended by the elected and appointed members of democratic bodies if they fulfil their obligations" under the R2P, the letter said.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180227ee2r001be



Syrian civil war map: Who controls what?

179 words
27 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

A map of the Syrian civil war that shows who controls what after years of fighting.

Syrian government

* Main cities under government control are: Aleppo, Latakia, Tartus, Hama, Homs, Damascus, Palmyra, Abu Kamal.

ISIL control

* After the battle for Raqqa, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) remains in control of the area near Abu Kamal, surrounded by government forces westward and Kurdish forces in the east.

Kurdish control

* Other groups fighting in Syria include Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Iran-backed Hezbollah, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

* They control: Afrin, Raqqa, Qamishli, Hasakah

FSA control

* The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a loose conglomeration of armed brigades formed in 2011 by defectors from the Syrian army and civilians aiming to topple President Bashar al-Assad.

* Since the battle of Aleppo, the FSA has remained in control of limited areas in northwestern Syria.

* Main cities: Idlib, and the Eastern Ghouta suburb of Damascus.

Al Jazeera and agencies

Document AJAZEN0020180227ee2r000xm



Iraq seeks to lure investors to boost oil, gas output

88 words
27 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Iraqi government ministers are meeting oil executives in Berlin to discuss how to exploit its vast oil and gas reserves.

Iraq is hoping to lure international investors to help develop its oil and gas industry.

With victory declared over fighters from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), government ministers are meeting oil executives in Berlin, Germany to discuss how to exploit its vast reserves.

Al Jazeera's Dominic Kane reports from Berlin.

Document AJAZEN0020180227ee2r000p1



Russia-sponsored truce begins in Syria's Eastern Ghouta

339 words
27 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

A five-hour truce comes into effect in Syria's Eastern Ghouta, after intense government bombardment kills more than 550.

A five-hour "humanitarian pause" called by Russia has come into effect in Syria's Eastern Ghouta to allow civilians to evacuate the area that has been under continuous aerial bombardment. Russia's President Vladimir Putin had ordered a truce from 9am-2pm (7:00-12:00 GMT) on Tuesday, as air attacks and ground operations killed more than 550 civilians in the last eight days, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). On Monday, a suspected chemical attack killed one child, according to Syria's Civil Defence rescue team, also known as the White Helmets. The reported chlorine gas attack injured at least 18 others when it hit Eastern Ghouta's Al-Shifaniyah town close to the front lines, where rebels are fighting Syrian ground forces who have been trying to penetrate into the besieged enclave since Sunday. The bombardment of the rebel-held Damascus suburb has been one of the most intense in Syria's seven-year-old war, exacerbating a dire humanitarian situation in the enclave, home to about 400,000 people. A United Nations Security Council resolution passed on Saturday, calling for a 30-day ceasefire in Syria, but activists and locals said the shelling continued regardless. On Monday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for the immediate implementation of the resolution, describing the situation in Eastern Ghouta as "hell on Earth". Eastern Ghouta has been under rebel control since 2013, after which President Bashar al-Assad's government imposed a siege on the area in an attempt to drive out opposition fighters. Fighting is continues elsewhere in Syria as Turkey presses its offensive against a Kurdish militia in Afrin, rival rebel groups fight each other in western Idlib province, and a US-led coalition targets Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in the east. Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180227ee2r000m9



Nearly two dozen Afghan soldiers killed in multiple attacks

501 words
24 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

At least 23 killed in separate attacks in Kabul's diplomatic area and the country's Farah and Helmand provinces.

Nearly two dozen Afghan soldiers and three others have been killed in multiple attacks across the country.

At least 18 Afghan soldiers were killed on Saturday in the Bala Boluk district of western Farah province when Taliban fighters stormed an army checkpoint.

Meanwhile, two suicide car bombers killed at least two soldiers and wounded a dozen others in southern Helmand province.

In the first attack in Helmand province, Taliban fighters used a Humvee to enter an army base in Nad Ali district but were identified by soldiers and pushed away. At least two soldiers were killed in the incident.

A second car bomber targeted an NDS compound near a police headquarters in Helmand's provincial capital Lashkar Gah. At least seven people were wounded.

In a separate attack in the capital Kabul on Saturday morning, a bomber killed at least three people and himself near the diplomatic area of the city. The attack was later claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

According to Najib Danish, the ministry of interior spokesman, the suicide bombing took place in Kabul's Shash Darak area, bordering the Green Zone.

The area is near the NATO headquarters, and is not far from the US embassy.

The ministry of interior also said six other people were wounded, two of whom are in critical condition.

Al Jazeera's Tony Birtley, reporting from Kabul, said that the Kabul attack "particularly shows that ISIL is still active and capable of launching attacks".

"We're also seeing an increase by the Americans in aerial bombings …n the Taliban and especially, ISIL," he said.

"The equation is going from worse to worse. Every day, there's a new story about bloodshed, death, and dying here."

Hundreds killed this year

The Afghan army and US-led coalition forces continue to battle the Taliban for the control of areas in the country but the security situation has been deteriorating.

On January 21, the Talibanorchestrated a bloody siege at Kabul's Inter-Continental Hotel that left at least 20 dead.

A few days later on January 24, ISIL fighters killed three people at the office of Save the Children, in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

On January 27, a Taliban attacker drove an ambulance filled with explosives in the heart of Kabul killing at least 103 people and wounding as many as 235. A day later, at least 11 soldiers were killed when gunmen attacked a military academy, also in Kabul.

US President Donald Trump has committed an additional 3,000 US troops to Afghanistan in recent weeks, bringing the total number of American troops in Afghanistan to about 14,000.

But the recent deadly attacks have raised questions over the US president's strategy for winning the 16-year-long war.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180225ee2o000p8



ISIL claims deadly suicide car bombings in Yemen's Aden

356 words
24 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Civilian and military casualties reported in suicide car bombings outside counterterrorism camp in southwestern Aden.

Dozens of people have been killed or wounded in two suicide car bombings in the southern Yemeni port city of Aden, witnesses and local medics say.

Saturday's attack occurred outside the gate of a counterterrorism camp in the city's southwest, according to the witnesses.

The sources said the blasts caused civilian and military casualties.

Officials at Aden's main Jumhouriya hospital said the bodies of five victims, most of them soldiers, had arrived at the facility, along with a number of injured people including civilians, but gave no precise figures.

The attack on Saturday was claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) via the group's Amaq website.

The attack took place in an area known as Gold Mohr in Aden's Tawahi district, where the force of the blast damaged civilian cars parked outside the camp and showered the street with debris.

Aden, the seat of Yemen's internationally recognised government, has witnessed of late suicide bombings and blasts that target security officials.

The attacks are usually claimed by ISIL, also known as ISIS, or al-Qaeda's local affiliate.

Saturday's bombings were the first attack of its kind since gun battles erupted between southern separatists and the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi last month over control of Aden.

Residents described two large explosions in the area, where a cloud of grey smoke rose over the area, while ambulances raced to evacuate the wounded.

The residents initially said one of the bombers targeted an office of the separatist Southern Transitional Council, but a member of the group said there was no attack on the building.

Yemen has been locked in a power struggle since late 2014 between Hadi's government and Iran-allied Houthi rebels, who control the capital Sanaa.

In March 2015, Saudi Arabia and allies started an air campaign in Yemen against the Shia group when they started advancing towards Hadi's southern power seat of Aden.

News agencies

Document AJAZEN0020180224ee2o001ba



Refugee returns expected after Afrin operation: Turkey

473 words
22 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Turkish officials say infrastructure will be rebuilt in Afrin for voluntary returns after military offensive ends.

Tens of thousands of Syrians are expected to return to the Kurdish region of Afrin after Turkey finishes its military offensive against the YPG militia and secures the area, Turkish officials said on Thursday.

Turkey - together with the Syrian opposition Free Syrian Army (FSA) rebel group - last month launched an air-and-ground operation into Afrin in the northwest of Syria to vanquish the US-backed Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) fighters near its border.

Turkey hosts the vast majority of refugees who fled the war in Syria with 3.4 million displaced within its borders, according to the Turkish government. About 5.6 million Syrians have left the war-torn country since March 2011.

"Turkey will try to enhance the infrastructure and resources in Afrin after it is secured for them to return," said Yasin Aktay, a chief adviser to Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

{articleGUID} Turkey considers the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Syria and its armed wing YPG to be "terrorist groups" with ties to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The PKK has waged a decades-long armed fight against the Turkish state that has killed tens of thousands of people.

Aktay, also a senior member of parliament, said he expects tens of thousands of refugees to return to Afrin once the military operation is over.

"We know that many Syrian refugees in Turkey want to return home if a secure environment is established in their region of origin. However, others prefer to stay in Turkey until the whole country is secured," Aktay told Al Jazeera.

140,000 returned

Another official familiar with the issue, who asked to remain anonymous, said there are refugees in Turkey who left Afrin because of the Kurdish militia and they, in particular, would be the focus of any return.

"There are Kurdish refugees who escaped the group there," the official said.

{articleGUID} "We cannot give any expected numbers as all returns are going to be voluntary. We are in no position to force them to return to their home country."

He noted 140,000 Syrian refugees returned home after Turkey's previous cross-border operation - dubbed Euphrates Shield - that ended in March 2017 after seven months.

During that offensive, Turkey and the FSA captured the border town of Jarablus by the Euphrates River, removed Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters from the 100-km stretch of border, and advanced to the southern city of al-Bab, which was also under ISIL control.

The FSA, supported by Turkish troops, are still in control of the 200,000-square metre area.

Follow Umut Uras on Twitter: @Um_Uras

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180222ee2m00131



Syria's civil war explained from the beginning

1,363 words
22 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

In March, the Syrian conflict will enter its 8th year. Meanwhile, more than 465,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, over a million injured, and over 12 million - half the country's prewar population - have been displaced from their homes. Here is the story of the conflict in Syria, explained from the beginning:

What caused the uprising?

While lack of freedoms and economic woes fuelled resentment of the Syrian government, the harsh crackdown on protesters inflamed public anger .

* Arab Spring: In 2011, successful uprisings - that became known as the Arab Spring - toppled Tunisia's and Egypt's presidents. This gave hope to Syrian pro-democracy activists.

* That March, peaceful protests erupted in Syria as well, after 15 boys were detained and tortured for writing graffiti in support of the Arab Spring. One of the boys, a 13-year-old, was killed after having been brutally tortured.

* The Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded to the protests by killing hundreds of demonstrators and imprisoning many more.

* Free Syrian Army: In July 2011, defectors from the military announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group aiming to overthrow the government, and Syria began to slide into civil war.

* While the protests in 2011 were mostly non-sectarian, the armed conflict surfaced starker sectarian divisions. Most Syrians are Sunni Muslims, but Syria's security establishment has long been dominated by members of the Alawi sect, of which al-Assad is a member.

* In 1982, Bashar's father ordered a military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, killing tens of thousands of people and flattening much of the city.

* Even global warming is said to have played a role in sparking the 2011 uprising. Severe drought plagued Syria from 2007-10, causing as many as 1.5 million people to migrate from the countryside into cities, exacerbating poverty and social unrest.

International involvement

Foreign backing and open intervention have played a large role in Syria's civil war. Russia entered the conflict in 2015 and has been the Assad government's main ally since then.

* Regional actors: The governments of majority-Shia Iran and Iraq, and Lebanon-based Hezbollah, have supported al-Assad, while Sunni-majority countries, including Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia supported anti-Assad rebels.

* Since 2016, Turkish troops have launched several operations against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) near its borders, as well as against Kurdish groups armed by the United States.

* Anti-ISIL coalition: The US has armed anti-Assad rebel groups and led an international coalition bombing ISIL targets since 2014.

* Israel carried out air raids inside Syria, reportedly targeting Hezbollah and pro-government fighters and facilities. The first time Syrian air defenses shot down an Israeli war plane was in February 2018.

US and Russia

The US has repeatedly stated its opposition to the Assad government backed by Russia but has not involved itself as deeply.

* Chemical red line: Former US President Barack Obama had warned that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a "red line" that would prompt military intervention.

* In April 2017, the US carried its first direct military action against Assad's forces, launching 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air force base from which US officials believe a chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun had been launched.

* CIA training: In 2013, the CIA began a covert programme to arm, fund and train rebel groups opposing al-Assad, but the programme was later shut down after it was revealed that the CIA had spent $500m but only trained 60 fighters.

* Russia's campaign: In September 2015, Russia launched a bombing campaign against what it referred to as "terrorist groups" in Syria, which included ISIL as well as anti-Assad rebel groups backed by the USA. Russia has also deployed military advisers to shore up Assad's defences.

* At the UN Security Council, Russia and China have repeatedly vetoed Western-backed resolutions on Syria.

Peace talks

Peace negotiations have been ongoing between the Syrian government and the opposition in order to achieve a military ceasefire and political transition in Syria, but the main sticking point has been the fate of al-Assad.

* Geneva: The first round of UN-facilitated talks between the Syrian government and opposition delegates took place in Geneva, Switzerland in June 2012.

* The latest round of talks in December 2017 failed amid a tit-for-tat between Syrian government and opposition delegates over statements about the future role of al-Assad in a transitional government.

* In 2014 Staffan de Mistura replaced Kofi Annan as the UN special envoy for Syria.

* Astana: In May 2017, Russia, Iran and Turkey called for the setup of four de-escalation zones in Syria, over which Syrian and Russian fighter jets were not expected to fly.

* Sochi: In January 2018, Russia sponsored talks over the future of Syria in the Black Sea city of Sochi, but the opposition bloc boycotted the conference, claiming it was an attempt to undercut the UN effort to broker a deal.

Rebel groups

Since the conflict began, as a Syrian rebellion against the Assad government, many new rebel groups have joined the fighting in Syria and have frequently fought one another.

* The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a loose conglomeration of armed brigades formed in 2011 by defectors from the Syrian army and civilians backed by the United States, Turkey, and several Gulf countries.

* In December 2016, the Syrian army scored its biggest victory against the rebels when it recaptured the strategic city of Aleppo. Since then, the FSA has controlled limited areas in northwestern Syria. Since January 2018 it has been fighting with Turkey to capture Afrin from Kurdish fighters seeking self-rule.

* ISIL emerged in northern and eastern Syria in 2013 after overrunning large portions of Iraq. The group quickly gained international notoriety for its brutal executions and its energetic use of social media to recruit fighters from around the world.

* Other groups fighting in Syria include Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Iran-backed Hezbollah, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

The situation today

Fighting in Syria continues on two main fronts:

* Eastern Ghouta: Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes have continued to hit the rebel enclave of Eastern Ghouta, resulting in hundreds of civilians deaths.

* Eastern Ghouta has been under siege since 2013 and is the last remaining rebel stronghold near the capital, Damascus.

* The US also accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons.

* Afrin: Turkey and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) began in January 2018 a military operation against the YPG in northwestern Syria, near Afrin. Pro-government forces have also joined the fight.

* Also in northwestern Syria, Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham rebels claimed responsibility for shooting down a Russian warplane near Idlib on February 3.

Syrian refugees

Now having gone on longer than World War II, the war in Syria is causing profound effects beyond the country's borders, with many Syrians having left their homes to seek safety elsewhere in Syria or beyond.

* As of February 2018, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) had registered over 5.5 million refugees from Syria and estimated that there are over 6,5 million internally displaced persons (IDP) within Syria's borders.

* Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan are hosting most of the Syrian refugees, many of whom attempt to journey onwards to Europe in search of better conditions.

* The 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees describes a refugee as any person who, "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country".

* In 2017, about 66,000 refugees returned to Syria, according to reports. With much of Syria in ruins, and a population deeply traumatised by war, one thing is certain: rebuilding Syria after the war will be a lengthy, difficult process.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180222ee2m000uo



Montenegro: Grenade attack inside US embassy compound

419 words
22 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

An attacker blew himself up after throwing an explosive device into the US embassy compound in Podgorica, the Montenegrin government said Thursday.

Authorities in Podgorica have not released any theories as to the motive for the attack.

"In front of the @USEmbassyMNE building in #Podgorica, #Montenegro an unknown person committed suicide with an explosive device. Immediately before, that person threw an explosive device," the government tweeted, saying the device was "most probably" a hand grenade.

A US State Department spokesperson confirmed "a small explosion near the US Embassy compound" saying officials were "working closely with police to identify the assailant(s)".

A guard at the sports centre who asked not to be named said he "heard two explosions, one after another".

On its Twitter account, the embassy said it had cancelled all visa services for Thursday, adding that access for US citizens "will be available today on an emergency basis".

New NATO member

The heavily guarded US embassy building is located on the outskirts of Podgorica's city centre, near the secret police headquarters and the Moraca River.

Montenegro, a small Adriatic state of some 660,000 people, joined NATO last May. The decision to become a member provoked violent protests by the pro-Russian opposition in 2015.

In October 2016, authorities said they had thwarted a plot by pro-Russian fighters to storm parliament and overthrow the pro-Western government on the eve of general elections.

Authorities alleged that "Russian state bodies" were involved in the conspiracy, which they say aimed at preventing Montenegro from joining NATO.

In October 2011, the US embassy in Sarajevo in neighbouring Bosnia was attacked by a Muslim man.

Mevlid Jasarevic opened fire with an automatic rifle at the embassy, wounding a police officer. He was also injured in the exchange of fire and arrested.

Jasarevic was later sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment.

According to figures published in November by a regional think-tank, a thousand people from the Western Balkans have gone to join the fighting in Syria and Iraq since 2012.

Twenty-three of those were from Montenegro, whose population is predominantly Orthodox Christian.

Last month, a court in Montenegro for the first time sentenced one of its citizens for having fought in Syria.

Hamid Beharovic, 39, was found guilty of having fought for the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL) also known as ISIS, between April 2015 and May 2016. He was given a six-month jail term.

AFP news agency

Document AJAZEN0020180222ee2m000rt



Turkey denies reports Syria will help YPG in Afrin

614 words
19 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Turkey says reports Syrian army will aid Kurdish YPG in Afrin are false, adding such a move will be a 'major disaster'.

Turkey's deputy prime minister has dismissed as "false" media reports that Syrian government forces were poised to enter a Kurdish enclave in Syria's Afrin.

Bekir Bozdag, however, warned any move by Syrian soldiers to help the Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, repel a Turkish offensive in northwestern Syria would be a "major disaster" for the region.

Turkey will continue its air and ground offensive against the YPG "with determination until the last terrorist is rendered ineffective", Bozdag told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting on Monday.

He was responding to a report by the Syrian state-run SANA news agency earlier in the day that said pro-government forces would enter Afrin "within a few hours to support its people's stand against Turkish regime's attack".

The report by SANA raised fears of a potential clash between Turkish troops and Syrian forces, which are backed by Russia and Iran.

SANA said the planned deployment followed an agreement between the Syrian government and the YPG.

But a spokesman for the YPG denied agreeing on a deal with Damascus.

"There is no agreement. There is only a call from us for the Syrian army to come in and protect the borders," Nouri Mahmoud told Reuters news agency late on Monday.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's troops pulled out of most of northern Syria in 2012, as nationwide protests against his rule spiralled into a civil war.

The YPG, part of the US-backed umbrella organisation Syrian Democratic Forces, gained control of large swathes of territory in northern Syria during the course of an offensive against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

US support for the YPG has infuriated Turkey as it considers the group a "terrorist" organisation. Ankara sees YPG as part of the banned Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK), which has waged a decades-long bloody rebellion against the Turkish state in southeastern parts of the country.

On January 20, Turkey opened a new front in the long-running Syrian war when it launched a major offensive to expel YPG fighters from Afrin.

Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, speaking at a news conference in Amman, Jordan, said his country would hit back if Assad's forces intervened in Afrin to help the YPG.

"If the regime is entering to protect the YPG, then no one can stop us, stop Turkey or the Turkish soldiers," he said.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency on Monday reported President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held telephone conversations with his Russian and Iranian counterparts about the latest developments in Afrin.

Russia's stand could determine how the conflict plays out, said Kamran Matin, a lecturer at the Sussex University in the United Kingdom.

"A lot depends on the details of this agreement [between the Syrian government and the Kurds] and whether or not Russia is on board," he told Al Jazeera.

"If Russia is indeed supporting this deployment, that means it would act in defence of its ally in case of an attack by Turkish forces on Syrian forces in Afrin. Or more easily, it can close the airspace for the Turkish air force to operate, which would make any military operation by Turkey very difficult because it is the superior air force that has given them the edge in Afrin."

The foreign ministers of Turkey, Iran and Russia are set to meet in Istanbul, Turkey's largest city, on March 14.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180220ee2j000mf



Will Turkish and Syrian armies fight in Afrin?

233 words
19 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Tensions escalate amid reports the Syrian military is deploying forces to fight the Turks alongside the Kurdish YPG.

After seven years of war, the complex mosaic that is the battlefield in Syria can still surprise. The US, Russia, Iran, Turkey, and the Syrian regime are all involved with forces on the ground and desperate to make political gains. Afrin, in northern Syria, is now the focus of the conflict, and the situation is getting even more complicated. Last month Turkey launched an operation to seize Afrin from the Kurdish fighters of the YPG - a group Ankara considers "terrorists" and a threat so close to its border. The US has been supporting YPG in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Syria and continues to do so, making relations with Ankara even tenser. And Turkey is now facing a new and more direct confrontation. Syrian pro-government forces will help the US-backed Kurdish soldiers in fighting Turkish troops for control. What's next for war-torn Syria? Presenter: Peter Dobbie Guests: Mehmet Yegin - affiliate of the political science department at Bilkent University Salih Muslim Mohammed - diplomatic committee member of Tev-Dem - The Movement for a Democratic Society Joshua Landis - director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180220ee2j0002v



Cavusoglu: 'Nobody can stop' Turkish forces in Afrin

646 words
19 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Turkish foreign minister made remarks in response to reports that Syrian forces will fight alongside YPG against Turkey.

The Turkish foreign minister has said that Syrian forces cannot stop its army's advances in Afrin, in response to reports that the Syrian regime forces will fight alongside Kurdish YPG fighters in the border town.

Speaking at a press conference in the Jordanian capital, Amman, Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday that Turkey welcomed the entry of Syrian forces into Afrin if it was to confront fighters belonging to the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

{articleGUID} "If so, there is no problem. However, if they are entering [Afrin] to protect YPG/PKK, nobody can stop the Turkish army," he added, referring to the armed Syrian Kurdish group YPG, which controls Afrin, and banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) active in Turkey.

Ankara considers the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), active in Syria, and its armed wing YPG, to be "terrorist groups" with ties to the PKK, which has waged a bloody armed rebellion for decades in southeast Turkey.

The PKK has been designated a "terrorist" group by the United States, the European Union and Turkey.

"We have always expressed our support for Syria's territorial integrity ... We are one of the countries with the utmost support for it," Cavusoglu said.

The YPG fighters claimed earlier in the day that they had reached a deal to allow regime troops to enter Afrin in the northwestern part of the border town.

Assad forces to back YPG

Nuri Mahmoud, a spokesman for the YPG, told Al Jazeera earlier on Monday that they are calling on the Syrian government forces "to preserve a united Syria", in a development that could mean regime forces might directly confront Turkish troops in the region.

Turkey and the Free Syrian Army (FSA) - an Ankara-backed armed Syrian opposition group - launched an air and ground operation into Afrin last month to push the US-backed YPG fighters out and create a buffer zone on its southern border.

{articleGUID} "Syrian soldiers haven't yet arrived. We are calling on the Syrian army to protect Afrin, because we'd love to preserve a unified Syria," Mahmoud told Al Jazeera.

"We are saying this because the international community continues to address the Syrian leadership as sovereign and we call on this authority to protect its territory."

He added that Syrian government forces are expected to arrive within two days.

The PYD/YPG has come to control large swaths of northern Syria, including Afrin, in the course of the Syrian war as it led the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) umbrella organisation in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

US support for the SDF has infuriated Turkey and created the ongoing diplomatic crisis between the two NATO allies.

This latest development highlights the complex battlefield of northern Syria, which hosts a large number of actors, including the PYD/YPG, the Syrian government, rebel factions, Turkey, the US and Russia.

Syrian state news agency SANA also carried a report saying pro-government forces "will arrive in Afrin within a few hours to support its people's stand against the Turkish regime's attack on the area and its people".

A few hours after the SANA report, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke on the phone with Russian President Vladimir Putin and discussed the "latest developments in Afrin", according to the Anadolu news agency.

They also discussed their efforts to set up new observation posts in Idlib in northern Syria, Anadolu said.

The posts are part of a joint Turkish, Russian and Iranian agreement to set up de-escalation zones in four areas in the region. Turkish forces have already established six observation posts in Idlib to monitor any fighting.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180219ee2j0015u



ISIL claims attack on pro-government militia in Iraq

307 words
19 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

ISIL claims responsibility for an attack that killed more than two dozen fighters in Iraq's Kirkuk province.

More than two dozen members of a pro-government militia in Iraq have been killed after being ambushed by disguised Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters.

Twenty-seven members of Hashd al-Shaabi, or the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), were killed after clashes broke out late Sunday in Hawija, a town in Iraq's oil-rich Kirkuk province, the militia said in a statement on Monday.

ISIL - also known as ISIS - claimed responsibility for the attack and said 30 people had been killed in the ambush, local media reported.

It was the deadliest attack against PMF fighters since October when pro-government forces retook Hawija from ISIL.

The killings raise questions about the continued presence of ISIL fighters in Iraq after Baghdad declared victory in its fight against the armed group in December.

The PMF, an Iran-backed paramilitary group aligned with the Iraqi government in its battle against ISIL, said the attackers had been wearing Iraqi army fatigues and were manning a fake checkpoint.

PMF soldiers were conducting security operations around Hawija at the time of the attack, the militia said.

A senior police officer in the province, who asked not to be named, told AFP news agency most of the bodies had been beheaded.

Iraq recaptured vast expanses of territory from ISIL fighters last year, including the major cities of Mosul, Ramadi and Fallujah.

Last week, international donors pledged $30bn to help the Iraqi government rebuild the country in the aftermath of the four-year battle against ISIL.

Homes, schools and hospitals across Iraq have been destroyed in the fighting, and the country is struggling to rebuild its shattered infrastructure and economy.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180219ee2j0015v



China launches anti-poverty drive in restive Xinjiang

356 words
18 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Three-year plan aims to bring 400,000 people out of poverty in the region amid concerns of a rise in armed groups.

China plans to pull 400,000 people out of dire poverty this year in its restive Xinjiang region as the central government fears a rise in the ranks of local armed groups.

A three-year poverty eradication plan will focus on the northwestern region's 22 poorest counties, the official Xinhua news agency reported on Sunday.

China launched a major security operation in the Muslim-majority territory in response to deadly violence that erupted in recent years that Beijing blames on ethnic Uighur "separatists".

Xinjiang is home to about 10 million Uighur Muslims who say they routinely face discrimination along with cultural and religious repression. Beijing denies the allegations.

Hundreds of people have been killed in Xinjiang in violence between Uighurs, who speak a Turkic language, and migrants from the Han Chinese ethnic majority, especially in the Uighur dominated southern part of Xinjiang.

{articleGUID} Fears have been raised that some Uighurs may have joined armed groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known ISIS) fighting in Syria and Iraq. ISIL released a video last year purportedly showing Uighur fighters training in Iraq and vowing to strike targets in China.

Xinhua did not say how much China's government will spend on the anti-poverty initiative. More than $960m was spent to combat poverty last year, with about 80 percent of the funds earmarked for four impoverished prefectures: Kashgar, Hotan, Kizilsu and Aksu.

Chinese officials will be sent to 192 areas in the four counties and work until 2020 to bring people out of poverty.

The drive is part of a broader push by China's ruling Communist Party to tackle rural poverty and to raise the annual income of citizens above the official poverty line of $362 by 2020.

China's gross domestic product per person is $8,123, according to the World Bank. China brought nearly 13 million rural people out of poverty in 2017.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180219ee2i0008f



12 ISIL widows sentenced to death, life by Iraqi court

562 words
18 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

A dozen foreign women who joined ISIL husbands while fighting in Iraq sentenced by a court in Baghdad.

A Turkish woman was sentenced to death and 11 other foreign widows to life in jail by an Iraqi court, for their involvement with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

The 12 women - 11 Turks and an Azeri, some of whom appeared at the court in Baghdad nursing infants - were convicted on Sunday, despite pleas they had been duped or forced by their husbands to join them in Iraq.

The women, aged between 20 and 50, were all arrested in Mosul or Tal Afar, where their husbands were killed as Iraqi forces recaptured the northern cities from ISIL last year.

Only the woman condemned to death, speaking through an interpreter, acknowledged she willingly travelled to Iraq with her husband and their children.

"We had to leave Turkey because my husband was a wanted man. I wanted to live in an Islamic state where sharia (Islamic law) is the law of the land," she said.

But "I regret having come," said the 48-year-old Turkish woman, whose husband and two sons were killed in air attacks.

She broke down in tears, while another Turk almost fainted.

Duped?

The state-appointed defence lawyers argued the women had all been duped into coming to Iraq and were not involved in any acts of violence.

But they were found guilty under Article 4 of Iraq's anti-terrorism law against "any person who commits, incites, plans, finances or assists in acts of terrorism", and for illegal entry into the country.

"I got to know my husband through the internet. He proposed we meet in Turkey, but an intermediary there told me he would drive me to my future husband, without saying where," said Angie Omrane, the Azeri woman.

"I thought we were staying in Turkey, but I found myself in Syria and then my husband took me to Iraq."

Leila, one of the Turkish women, said: "My husband forced me to come to Iraq by threatening to take away my two-year-old son if I didn't follow him. I didn't take part in any violent action. I stayed at home the whole time."

A judicial source said the sentencing of the women by a three-judge panel had followed weeks or even months of questioning. They have one month to lodge an appeal.

{articleGUID} A total of 509 foreign women, including 300 Turks, are being held in Iraq, with 813 children, a security source told AFP news agency.

Germany's ISIL teen

German media, citing judicial sources, reported on Sunday that a German teenager identified as "Linda W" was sentenced to six years in prison for her involvement with ISIL.

The seventeen-year-old travelled from Germany to Iraq via Turkey and Syria in mid-2016 and married an ISIL fighter from Chechnya.

She expressed regret at joining ISIL, in an interview after her arrest in Mosul last summer.

"I want to go home to my family. I want to get out of the war, away from the weapons, the noise. I don't know how I came up with such a dumb idea. I've completely ruined my life," she said.

Al Jazeera and news agencies

Document AJAZEN0020180219ee2i0008e



Qatar-Gulf crisis: All the latest updates

630 words
17 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Here are all the latest updates of the Qatar-Gulf crisis, now in its eighth month.

Seven months ago, an air, sea and land blockade was imposed on Qatar by neighbouring countries. Here are the latest developments as of Saturday, February 17:

Munich Security Conference

"It has been a futile crisis, manufactured by our neighbours," Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani told a major security conference held in Germany on Friday. "By defusing the impact of the illegal and aggressive measures imposed on our people, Qatar has preserved its sovereignty."

* "Those aggressive actors wish to use smaller states as pawns within their power games and sectarian conflicts. It is vital to the interests of the people of the Middle East to guarantee the sovereignty of states like Qatar."

Tillerson in Kuwait

* On Tuesday, the US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said that the restoration of Arab Gulf unity was in the best interest of all parties in the region.

* Tillerson made the assertion at a press conference held in Kuwait, where he is attending a high-level meeting between members of a US-led coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Asian Championships League

* On Monday, Al Gharafa of Qatar opened its Asian Championships League campaign in Abu Dhabi against Al Jazira of United Arab Emirates.

* UAE requested to play those games in a third country, but the idea was rejected by the Asian Football Confederation, which organises the tournament featuring 32 teams split into eight groups of four.

* "Clubs from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates should be played on a home and away basis in 2018 as per the AFC regulations," the AFC said in a recent statement.

* The soccer federations of the UAE and Saudi Arabia accepted the decision though expressed reservations about how it had been made.

Anti-Qatar conference

* On Sunday, a report on Buzzfeed revealed that Daniel Kawczynski, a British parliamentarian, was paid 15,000 British pounds ($20,700) to help organise an anti-Qatar conference in London.

* At the time, analysts described the conference as an attempt to gather support for a coup in Qatar and accused Saudi Arabia and the UAE of funding it.

Russian president's invitation

* On Wednesday, the Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani met the President of the Russian Republic of Ingushetia Yunus-bek Yevkurov in Doha.

* During the meeting, they reviewed the relations between Qatar and Ingushetia and discussed aspects of cooperation in economic, trade and investment, as well as means of developing them.

* President Yunus-bek Yevkurov handed a written message from Russian President Vladimir Putin, including an invitation to visit Russia.

Calls to end the blockade

* On Tuesday, local media reported that Dr Ali bin Smaikh al-Marri, Chairman of the National Human Rights Committee (NHRC), called on the European Union countries and some other nations to join international human rights organisations demanding an immediate end to the blockade imposed on Qatar.

Louvre Map

* On Monday, Qatar's National Human Rights Committee reported that the Louvre museum apologised and opened an official inquiry into the incident where Abu Dhabi's Louvre Museum map omitted the Qatari Peninsula.

Bilateral agreements

* Anti-terrorism: On Monday, both countries held a session of official talks and signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on the "fight against terrorism" and organised crime."

* Sierra Leone: On Monday, both countries signed an agreement encouraging and protecting mutual investments and an agreement on air services between the two governments.

* Sierra Leone was not among the eight countries that downgraded ties with Qatar at the start of the crisis.

June 5, 2017 - February 02, 2018 For all previous developments click here Al Jazeera and news agencies

Document AJAZEN0020180217ee2h000xe



Libya: From Arab Spring to failed state?

272 words
17 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

We debate whether today's war-torn Libya can be blamed on the legacy of Colonel Gaddafi's 42 years in power.

A political solution remains out of reach for Libya seven years after the toppling of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.

The country is grappling with civil war, humanitarian crises and the threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), leading some to suggest Gaddafi should not have been removed from power.

Was the 2011 foreign intervention into Libya a mistake?

"It [was] a huge mistake and I think both Libyans and the world is paying for it", says Hafed al-Ghwell, a columnist at Arab News and former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council.

"It was a civil war between two sides of Libya in 2011. There [was], and still [is], significant tribal presence that is in support of Gaddafi and ... still loyal to him," he says. "NATO and Europe intervened on behalf of one side against another."

Mustafa Abushagur, former deputy prime minister of the post-Gaddafi government, disagrees.

"What is going on today is really [that] we are paying for the legacy of the regime," he says. "If the intervention had not happened, Libyans could have been killed, thousands by thousands by the hands of Gaddafi."

"When Gaddafi was toppled, there [were] no institutions in the country to be able to carry on," says Abushagur.

In this week’ Arena, Hafed Al Ghwell and Mustafa Abushagur debate the pros and cons of today's Libya.

Follow UpFront on Twitter@AJUpFront and Facebook.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180217ee2h000m9



Tillerson says US-Turkish relations at 'crisis point'

614 words
17 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Turkey demands US 'turn words into actions' as Pentagon continues to back Syrian Kurdish YPG in fight against ISIL.

The US secretary of state has acknowledged that his country's relationship with Turkey is "at a bit of a crisis point", as his Turkish counterpart, Mevlut Cavusoglu, demanded that the United States "turn words into actions" to resolve their differences in dealing with the Syrian crisis.

At a joint press conference in Ankara on Friday, Rex Tillerson said the US-Turkey alliance "is too valuable" for the two countries not to take action together, particularly on their dispute over the US' support of the armed Syrian Kurdish YPG, considered a "terrorist group" by the Turkish government.

"Ours is not an alliance of convenience or of temporary interest. It is a time-tested alliance built on common interest and mutual respect," Tillerson said.

"Our two countries share the same objectives in Syria."

Standing next to Tillerson, Cavusoglu said Turkey's relationship with the US "is at a critical stage", and the two allies need to decide whether "to mend fences, or go in a different direction".

Cavusoglu said "some of the promises" the US made "were not kept", alluding to Turkey's demand that the US-backed YPG leave the Syrian town of Manbij and move east of Euphrates River.

As part of the effort to mend US-Turkish relations, Cavusoglu announced that the two countries have agreed to establish a "joint mechanism" to deal with disputes and to take "collective response".

But neither Cavusoglu nor Tillerson provided details about the plan.

A war of words between Turkey and the US has escalated ever since Turkey launched a military offensive into the Afrin region of northern Syria in January, in an effort to root out the YPG.

Turkey had also reacted angrily to reports that the US wanted to arm as many as 30,000 Kurdish troops in Syria's Manbij.

The ongoing operation has left at least 30 Turkish soldiers and over a thousand of YPG fighters killed, according to reports.

Earlier this week, Turkey demanded the US expel the YPG from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition, which has been fighting the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group in Syria.

The Turkish government views the YPG as an extension of the outlawed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long war against Turkey.

{articleGUID} Earlier this month, Erdogan accused the US of sending stockpiles of weapons to the YPG in Syria, a claim Tillerson himself denied on Thursday.

Erdogan then threatened to deliver an "Ottoman slap" - a tactic used by Ottoman forces in the 17th century that, according to legend, could be instantly fatal - if the US does not get out of the way.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Ibrahim Fraihat, a Middle East analyst at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, said the Turks are "very angry" over US policy in Syria.

Reflecting Turkish anger towards the US, hundreds of demonstrators marched through the streets of Ankara on Friday in protest against Tillerson's visit and demanded the US cut ties with the YPG.

Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, reporting from Ankara, said it is "very difficult to see" how the two countries can resolve their differences over the YPG dispute.

Turkish sentiments against the US have also grown. A recent poll found that 79 percent of Turks hold an unfavourable view of the US government, with only 18 percent having a favourable view.

Even people-to-people ties are affected with 67 percent of Turks having an unfavourable view of Americans.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180217ee2h000jo



Has the Arab Spring failed Libya and Bahrain?

520 words
17 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

We ask if the Arab Spring has ultimately failed to bring change to Libya and Bahrain, or if there's hope for the future.

In this week's UpFront, we debate who is to blame for the chaos in Libya and whether the situation is better now than under the rule of Muammar Gaddafi. And in a Special Interview, we ask activist Maryam al-Khawaja about Bahrain's uprising seven years on, the state of the country's opposition parties and whether charges of Iranian influence are true.

Arena: Libya: From Arab Spring to failed state?

A political solution appears to remain out of reach for Libya seven years after Gaddafi's toppling. The country is grappling with civil war, humanitarian crises and the threat from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), leading some to question the 2011 foreign intervention that removed Gaddafi from power. "It [was] a huge mistake and I think both Libyans and the world is paying for it", says Hafed Al-Ghwell, a columnist at Arab News and former senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. "It was a civil war between two sides of Libya in 2011. There [was], and still [is], significant tribal presence that is in support of Gaddafi and ... still loyal to him," he says. "NATO and Europe intervened on behalf of one side against another." Mustafa Abushagur, former deputy prime minister of the post-Gaddafi government, disagrees. "What is going on today is really [that] we are paying for the legacy of the regime," he says. "If the intervention had not happened, Libyans could have been killed, thousands by thousands by the hands Gaddafi." "When Gaddafi was toppled, there [were] no institutions in the country to be able to carry on," says Abushagur.

Special Interview: What happened to Bahrain's revolution?

When the Arab Spring came to Bahrain in 2011, protesters took to the streets to demand reform, including a "real" constitutional monarchy, with an elected prime minister independent of the ruling Al-Khalifa family. In response, neighbouring Saudi Arabia intervened to quash the Shia-led protests on behalf of Bahrain's rulers, while authorities ordered the imprisonment of thousands of activists. But Maryam al-Khawaja, a Bahraini activist in exile in The Netherlands, believes it remains to be seen whether the uprising can be deemed a failure. "The people of Bahrain will continue to protest until they reach their …emands for civil and political rights," says al-Khawaja. When asked about Iran's alleged role in the uprising, she calls it a "self-fulfilling prophesy." "The more Iran speaks out - saying that there's oppression and torture in Bahrain, and the more there's a failure from the West to do so - the more the Bahraini people are going to find themselves in a position where they don't see any other way out or any other ally than Iran," says al-Khawaja. "Is it the best thing for Bahrain? Of course, it's not." Follow UpFront on Twitter @AJUpFront and Facebook. Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180217ee2h000jh



Rodrigo Duterte offers 'per head' bounty for rebels

936 words
15 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Rights groups, rebels and indigenous activists accuse Philippine president of encouraging troops to commit war crimes.

Human rights groups, rebels and indigenous activists have accused Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte of inciting the military to commit war crimes after he offered a $384 bounty for each communist rebel killed.

Duterte's "incendiary rhetoric" encourages violations of conventions on armed conflicts, Carlos H Conde of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement to Al Jazeera on Thursday.

"Duterte's pronouncements normalise the idea that government security forces can do as they wish to defeat their enemies - including committing summary executions," said Conde.

Last week, Duterte said he would train indigenous people, or lumads, to become paramilitary fighters and pay them 20,000 pesos ($384) for each communist rebel they kill in their communities in the southern island of Mindanao.

"You want money? I'll give you money," he said. "I will make it 20,000 pesos per head."

The controversial comments followed an earlier report quoting Duterte as telling the military to shoot female communist rebels in the genitals, to make them "useless".

Cash for killing

The president made the bounty offer after the recent killings of an indigenous leader and his son, who were known members of a paramilitary force in their community.

The armed communist rebel group, New People's Army, has claimed responsibility for the killing in early February, accusing the two of "land grabbing and extortion".

Jose Maria Sison, the exiled leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines, said Duterte is "acting like the chieftain of a criminal gang" with his order.

In a statement to Al Jazeera, Sison warned Duterte´ solution would result "in massacres and violations of human rights and international humanitarian law".

"The cheapest, most beneficial and best way to solve the nearly 50 years of armed conflict in the Philippines is to engage in peace negotiations," Sison said.

He said the government should address the root causes of the armed conflict and "work out comprehensive agreements on social, economic and political reforms in order to lay the basis for a just and lasting peace".

Instead of promoting measures to ensure those responsible for abuses, including communist rebels, are held accountable in accordance with international law, Duterte is "encouraging his troops to commit war crimes" with his bounty offer, Conde of Human Rights Watch said.

Rachel Chhoa-Howard of Amnesty International also denounced Duterte's latest policy as "both appalling and inhumane".

"By putting a price on human life, President Duterte has again exposed the callousness of his administration's policies," Chhoa-Howard said in a statement to Al Jazeera on Thursday.

"It encourages killing rather than capturing insurgents, in clear violation of the right to life."

'Insult to indigenous people'

Accusations of international law violations have hounded the Philippine leader since he came into office in 2016.

Recently, the International Criminal Court announced it had taken the first step to investigate Duterte for possible crimes against humanity over his drug war, which has killed thousands of people.

Meanwhile, the Alternative Learning Center for Agricultural and Livelihood Development (ALCADEV), one of the largest indigenous groups in the southern Philippines, said killing for money is not part of their culture.

"To even ask us to kill, as if killing is the way to peace in our communities, shows ignorance of our plight and our struggle.

"The underlying principle of our struggle to defend the land of our ancestors can never be bought," an ALCADEV statement posted on social media said.

"We've never asked you to kill anyone; all we've ever asked for is justice."

Chad Booc, who teaches indigenous children in Mindanao, told Al Jazeera the real culprit of violence in indigenous areas in the southern Philippines is the military.

He said the government is targeting indigenous lands, where coal mining operations are being planned.

Booc said the military had been harassing indigenous communities, alienating them, and turning them against the government.

He added that the indigenous community finds the president's offer "insulting" and feels outraged "that the president thinks so lowly of them, that they will be enticed to kill" for money.

Bloody rebellion

Jerome Succor Aba, head of an alliance of Muslim and indigenous groups, said in a statement that his community "survived centuries without much need of cash", by using the resources of their ancestral lands.

The communist rebels said they operate in the area to protect indigenous people from military harassment.

The Duterte administration has been engaged in on-and-off peace negotiations with the rebels since mid-2016.

But following new clashes between government forces and rebels in 2017, Duterte signed a proclamation labelling the communist fighters a "terrorist" group, essentially breaking off the peace process.

The military has also compared the communist rebels to armed Muslim fighters, who have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS). But the communists say they are fighting for social justice and equality.

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) launched a rebellion in 1968 that has so far claimed the lives of more than 30,000 people.

Meanwhile, Sison, the communist leader, warned of a "bigger civil war" in the Philippines, if Duterte "succeedds in concentrating powers in his hands as a fascist dictator".

Sison was referring to Duterte's push to change constitution that would pave the way to a federal form of government.

This article was updated to include the statement of Jose Maria Sison, the exiled leader of the Communist Party of the Philippines.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180216ee2f0005t



US and Turkey look to mend ties as Syria tension grows

657 words
15 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

On a visit to Turkey, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson hopes to ease anger over US support for Syrian-Kurdish YPG.

The US secretary of state has started a two-day visit to Turkey, where Rex Tillerson hopes to ease increasing tension between US and Turkish officials over the conflict in Syria.

A war of words between the NATO allies has escalated ever since Turkey launched a military offensive into the Afrin region of northern Syria last month in an effort to root out Kurdish YPG fighters, who figure among a US-backed coalition of armed groups.

On the heels of visits to Kuwait, Jordan and Lebanon, Tillerson arrived in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Thursday where he met President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Earlier this week, Turkey demanded the US expel the YPG from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) coalition, which has been fighting Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Syria with support from the US.

"We demanded this relationship be ended," Nurettin Canikli, Turkey's defence minister, told reporters in a briefing in Brussels on Thursday.

The Turkish government views the YPG as an extension of the outlawed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long war against Ankara.

"We want them [the US] to end all the support given to the Syrian arm of PKK, the YPG," Canikli said, as reported by Reuters news agency.

War of words

Earlier this month, Erdogan accused the US of sending stockpiles of weapons to the YPG in Syria, a claim Tillerson himself denied on Thursday.

The US has "never given heavy arms" to the YPG and, therefore, there is "nothing to take back", Tillerson said.

Turkey has also demanded that US troops leave Manjib, a Syrian town east of Afrin that is held by the Kurdish militia, or risk a confrontation.

In response, Paul Funk, the commander of US forces in Syria and Iraq, said the US and its partners in Syria would hit back if attacked.

{articleGUID} "You hit us, we will respond aggressively. We will defend ourselves," Funk said, during a visit to Manjib this month.

The Turkish president then threatened to deliver an "Ottoman slap" - a tactic used by Ottoman forces in the 17th century that, according to legend, could be instantly fatal - if the US does not get out of the way.

While Tillerson has taken a conciliatory tone saying this week the US was "keenly aware of the legitimate security concerns of Turkey", officials in Ankara have been more blunt.

"Our ties have reached a very critical stage," Mevlut Cavusoglu, Turkey's foreign minister, said on February 12, local media reported.

"Either we improve our ties, or they will deteriorate completely."

Other issues

The increasingly complex political reality in Syria has led to what Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy to Syria, described as the most "violent, dangerous and worrying" situation he has witnessed since he took up his post four years ago.

{articleGUID} "What we are seeing in Syria today not only imperils the de-escalation arrangements and regional stability, it also undermines the efforts for a political solution," de Mistura said on Wednesday.

But Syria is not the only cause of strained ties between Washington and Ankara.

Last year, the two countries temporarily suspended non-immigrant visa services at their respective embassies over the arrest of several staff members at the US consulate in Istanbul.

Turkish officials alleged the staff members had ties to Muslim leader Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara accuses of being responsible for a deadly failed coup in 2016.

While Gulen, who lives in self-imposed exile in the US, has denied the allegations, the Turkish government has put pressure on Washington to extradite Gulen to face charges for the attempted putsch.

The United States has so far refused to extradite the Muslim leader.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180216ee2f0005p



De Mistura: Civilians killed on horrific scale in Syria

599 words
15 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Violence in country called the most 'violent and worrying moment' as US and Russian diplomats again trade blame at UN.

The UN special envoy for Syria has given warning that violence in the country is the worst he has seen since taking the job four years ago.

Staffan de Mistura's remarks on Wednesday came as the US and Russia again traded blame at the UN over the ongoing conflict.

"Civilians have been killed on a horrific scale - reports suggest more than 1,000 civilians in the first week of February alone," he told the UN Security Council.

"I have been now four years as the special envoy. This is as violent and worrying and dangerous a moment as any that I have seen in my time of tenure so far."

De Mistura mentioned all the countries now fighting in Syria, including the Turkish operation around Afrin and the Syrian government's continued bombardment of Eastern Ghouta and Idlib.

He talked of developments in recent days, including the US attack on Assad's forces near Deir Az Zor and Israeli air attacks in Syria including on Iranian targets. But both these operations were later defended by Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN.

"The United States will always reserve the right to act in self-defence. The [Syrian President Bashar al-Assad] regime has become a front for Iran, Hezbollah, and their allies to advance the irresponsible and dangerous agenda for the Middle East," she told the Security Council.

She criticised Russia for failing to stop the Assad regime from bombing and gassing civilians, drawing a sharp response from Moscow's permanent representative to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia.

Nebenzia said the US and its allies should use their influence over the opposition groups to prevent violence.

Meanwhile, the UN's latest modest peace effort based on the outcome of a conference in the Russian city of Sochi seems now to be in doubt.

De Mistura wants to select members of a new committee to come up with a new constitution for Syria. But Syria's ambassador at the UN rejected that.

"Participants of the conference did not lend any authority for Mr De Mistura to set up this committee," said Bashar al-Jaafari, the Syrian diplomat.

Earlier on Wednesday, the first convoy of aid since November was delivered to Eastern Ghouta, a rebel-held enclave east of Damascus.

Diplomats point to a familiar and cynical pattern by the Syrian government. It is only when Syria is in the international spotlight, a small amount of aid is finally delivered.

Aid also reached Deir Az Zor, which was liberated in November last year from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Abdirahman Meygag, deputy director of the World Food Programme in Syria, told Al Jazeera from Damascus on Thursday that his team visited the city two days earlier for the first time since 2014.

"The majority of the city is uninhabitable, 80 percent of the city has been destroyed," he said.

"We have seen that there is no electricity, the majority of people depend on generators. Water is not running. The sewage system is disfunctional."

He also said thet the majority of the people depended on foreign assistance.

"For a year and a half the UN has been doing airdrop operations in Deir Az Zor city. We kept the people alive there. However, the city needs more than that and we are there to assist. We need to step up our operations."

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180215ee2f0010a



French Muslims urge Macron not to interfere in Islam

565 words
15 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Macron said he is considering a profound reorganisation of the way in which Islam is funded and its preachers schooled.

A leading representative of French Muslims has urged Emmanuel Macron not to interfere in the organisation of the country's second-largest religion, days after the president said he would try to redefine relations between Islam and the state.

The statement came from the leader of an organisation set up 15 years ago in a bid to defuse concern about conservative religious leaders and foster a form of Islam that would fit better with France's hard line secularism that insists on separation of church and state affairs.

"Everyone must stick to their role," Ahmet Ogras, president of the French Council of the Muslim Faith (CFCM), told Reuters in an interview.

"The Muslim faith is a religion and, as such, takes care of its own household affairs. The last thing you want is the state to act as guardian," said Ogras, a Frenchman of Turkish descent who has led the CFCM since mid-2017.

Macron, elected last May after a runoff victory over far-right leader Marine Le Pen, said in a February 11 newspaper interview he planned to revisit the way Islam was overseen.

"What I'd like to get done in the first half of 2018 is set down markers on the entire way in which Islam is organised in France," he told the Journal du Dimanche. The priority would be to "bring back what secularism is all about".

Traditionally Catholic France is home to the largest Jewish and Muslim communities in Europe, with the latter estimated at 6.5 million out of a population of 67 million.

'Emergency search-and-arrest powers'

The official rule is strict separation between religion and state, with the former considered a strictly private matter. The rule has been used to justify ban on the wearing of the Hijab, a headscarf worn by many Muslim women who feel it is part of their religion, by public service employees as well as any wearing of fully concealing head-to-toe veils in public places.

Macron has been under pressure to limit Muslim preachers and mosques, as a wave of attacks has killed more than 230 people in France since 2015.

The attacks were carried by Muslim individuals claiming to avenge French wars in Muslim countries.

France is militarily involved in Afghanistan and Mali, and in Syria it has reportedly provided material support to some armed groups fighting against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) and the Syrian government.

France's response to attacks on its soil has been to enact emergency search-and-arrest powers, which are made permanent under tougher security legislation. Several mosques have been shut and imams expelled.

Macron's declarations in the February 11 newspaper interview suggest he is considering a profound reorganisation of the way in which the Islam faith is funded and its preachers schooled.

Back in 2003, Nicolas Sarkozy, interior minister at the time and president from 2007 to 2012, engineered an agreement among the country's main Islamic groups to create the CFCM.

The idea was to have a council to speak for Muslims similar to the way the French Bishops' Conference speaks for Catholics or the Consistory speaks for Jews.

Reuters news agency

Document AJAZEN0020180215ee2f000uo



Civilian victims of Afghan war exceed 10,000 in 2017

611 words
15 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

At 2,295, suicide and complex attacks kill and injure more people than any previous recorded year in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan suffered more than 10,000 civilian casualties in 2017, as deadly suicide and complex attacks killed and injured more people than any previous year in the war-torn country, according to the UN.

In its annual report released on Thursday, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the UN Human Rights Office, documented 3,438 deaths and 7,015 injuries - a decline from the record-high figure in 2016.

"The chilling statistics in this report provide credible data about the war's impact, but the figures alone cannot capture the appalling human suffering inflicted on ordinary people, especially women and children," Tadamichi Yamamoto, the secretary-general's special representative for Afghanistan, said in a statement.

At nearly 2,300, 2017 recorded the highest number of civilian casualties from suicide and complex attacks in a single year since the UN mission began documentation in 2009.

The use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) - suicide and non-suicide - by armed groups led to the majority of the casualties last year, with ground engagements accounting for the second-highest number of victims.

"I am particularly appalled by the continued indiscriminate and unlawful use of IEDs such as suicide bombs and pressure-plate devices in civilian populated areas," Yamamoto said. "This is shameful."

{articleGUID} The report attributed 42 percent of the casualties to the Afghan Taliban, while noting an increase in victims of attacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, which was responsible for 10 percent of the casualties.

Pro-government forces, including Afghan national security forces and international military forces caused a fifth of the civilian casualties.

Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called for the "perpetrators to be held accountable".

"The people of Afghanistan, year after year, continue to live in insecurity and fear, while those responsible for ending lives and blighting lives escape punishment," he said in a statement.

"Such attacks are prohibited under international humanitarian law and are likely, in most cases, to constitute war crimes."

'Difficult year'

This year, a wave of attacks by armed groups have killed nearly 150 people in recent weeks.

On May 31, in the deadliest attack in the Afghan capital, at least 150 people were killed after a massive truck bomb ripped through the heart of Kabul's diplomatic district.

To date, no group has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Despite the decline in overall figures, Danielle Bell, UNAMA's human right director, said, "Much more needs to be done."

"It is the fourth consecutive year where we've seen more than 10,000 civilians killed or injured," she told Al Jazeera from Kabul.

"It has indeed been a difficult year."

"While we did see an improvement on the battlefield by Taliban and pro-government forces, more still needs to be done."

Women, children affected

Women and children continued to bear the brunt of the armed conflict.

UNAMA reported a five percent rise in female deaths at 359, with 865 injured.

Total child casualties stood at 3,179 (861 killed and 2,318 injured) - an overall 10 percent decrease compared with 2016.

"We cannot sleep day and night due to the frightening sounds of firing," an 11-year-old girl injured by a bullet during a ground engagement in Arghandab district, Zabul province in September, told UNAMA.

The UN agency also reported cases of sexual abuse and child recruitment by Afghan national security forces and anti-government elements.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180215ee2f000um



Elusive aid reaches Syria's besieged Eastern Ghouta

722 words
14 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Much-needed food and humanitarian supplies delivered to more than 7,000 Syrians in Eastern Ghouta on Wednesday.

An international aid convoy has delivered food and humanitarian supplies to a besieged, rebel-held area near Damascus, the first such distribution to reach Syria's Eastern Ghouta since late November.

The convoy delivered supplies to "over 7,000 civilians for a month" in the town of Nashabiyah, about 19km east of Damascus, on Wednesday, said Jakob Kern, Syria country director with the United Nations World Food Programme.

"We need much more such convoys. Fighting has to stop to deliver much-needed aid to all civilians in need," Kern said on Twitter.

Nine aid trucks delivered food parcels, flour, medicine, nutritional aid and medical supplies, said the Syrian Red Crescent, which helped organise the convoy.

About 400,000 people have been living under a government-imposed siege in Eastern Ghouta, an opposition-held area east of the Syrian capital, since 2013.

Local residents, half of whom are reportedly children, are suffering from a severe lack of food, medicine and medical supplies, which has crippled local hospitals.

While the area is one of a handful of "de-escalation zones" - in which opposition and government forces had promised to limit fighting under an internationally brokered deal last year - scores of people have been killed in Eastern Ghouta in February amid heavy Syrian state and Russian bombardments.

Almost 200 people were killed in Eastern Ghouta and Syria's northern Idlib province in only four days earlier this month.

Al Jazeera's James Bays, reporting from the UN headquarters in New York, said while the convoy delivered "desperately needed aid", the residents of Eastern Ghouta "require a lot more than one convoy because they have been cut off for so long".

"Aid supplies to besieged areas in Syria have been a continuing problem [for] the UN trying to get them in. Often, when there are aid trucks allowed in, supplies are taken from the trucks by the Syrian government," Bays said.

'Major confrontation'

Privately, international diplomats have questioned the timing of the aid delivery, Bays reported, with some calling it a "pretty cynical" move on the part of the Syrian government, which was seeking to alleviate pressure ahead of a meeting of the UN Security Council (UNSC).

"We've seen this pattern before, allowing a small amount of aid in, to reduce the pressure around the council table," Bays said.

The UNSC met on Wednesday to discuss the ongoing war in Syria and the increasingly complicated situation playing out in the country as fighting continues to rage on a number of fronts.

{articleGUID} Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy to Syria, said the situation in the country is the most "violent, dangerous and worrying" he has seen over the past four years.

In January, Turkey launched a military offensive in Afrin, a Kurdish-held region in northern Syria, in an effort to root out Kurdish YPG fighters from the border area.

While Turkey views the YPG as an offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long war with Ankara, the YPG has been an ally of the United States in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

That has led to an increasingly tense relationship between the US and Turkey.

Meanwhile, this month has also seen a surge in Syrian and Russian air raids on rebel-held areas of the country and cross-border confrontations between Syrian state forces and the Israeli military.

Syrian forces reportedly shot down an Israeli jet on February 10. The aircraft was returning from bombing an Iran-backed site in Syria after Israel said an Iranian drone entered its airspace earlier in the day.

Israel later retaliated further by shelling what it said were a dozen Syrian and Iranian targets inside the country.

"What we are seeing in Syria today not only imperils the de-escalation arrangements and regional stability, it also undermines the efforts for a political solution," de Mistura said on Wednesday.

Francois Delattre, France's ambassador to the UN, also told reporters "all the ingredients are present if we do nothing about it, urgently, for a major regional and international confrontation" in Syria.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180215ee2e000gv



Donors pledge $30bn for Iraq's post-ISIL reconstruction

459 words
14 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and several non-state actors, including the EU, promise to fund rebuilding in Iraq.

International donors have pledged tens of billions of dollars to help Iraq rebuild after a four-year war against ISIL has left large swathes of the country in ruins.

Iraq received $30bn in pledges to fund its reconstruction efforts, the government of Kuwait confirmed on Wednesday after the conclusion of a three-day, donor conference in its capital.

Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey were among several countries promising to offer loans and direct investments to help rebuild the country.

But Ibrahim al-Jaafari, Iraq's foreign minister, said later on Wednesday that the funds fall short of what is needed.

The country's Minister of Planning Qusai Abdelfattah said earlier this week that Iraq needs an estimated $88.2bn to achieve its goals, $22bn of which is needed "immediately".

Despite this, Antonio Guterres, secretary general of the United Nations, which was one of the summit's co-organisers, called the conference in Kuwait City "an enormous success".

Major donors

The conference - organised by Kuwait, Iraq, the European Union, the UN and the World Bank - sought funding from state and non-state actors, as well as private investors.

The goal was to help rebuild Iraq's destroyed homes, schools and hospitals, as well as revive its demolished infrastructure and economy following the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group.

The emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, pledged $2bn in loans and investments.

Saudi Arabia said it would provide $1.5bn, Qatar pledged $1bn and Turkey vowed to give Iraq $5bn in financial support.

The promises come as various non-governmental organisations also pledged $330m during the first day of the summit, which was attended by a total of 67 states and non-state actors.

Corruption has been a major concern in Iraq's quest to raise funds, however.

Last year, the country ranked 166 out of 176 nations that were found to be corrupt, according to the annual Corruption Perceptions Index released by advocacy group Transparency International.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had previously vowed that his government would work towards combatting corruption and bureaucracy in the country.

Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, said ahead of the summit that Iraq "has gone to great lengths" to reassure potential donors that their investments will be "as well spent as possible".

"An initial test for donors and investors might be to watch how many of these promised reforms and oversight mechanisms get enacted and implemented" by the Iraqi government, Dickinson tweeted.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180214ee2e001e1



Why do Italian fascists adore Syria's Bashar al-Assad?

1,691 words
14 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

From Italy to the US, the far right throws support behind the Syrian government as it is accused of war crimes.

Rome, Italy - Six and a half years into the ongoing bloodshed in Syria, General Issam Zahreddine, infamous for breaking the suffocating three-year siege of Deir Az Zor, was killed by a landmine.

He died in October 2017, when his vehicle hit an explosive in Hawija Saqr during the government's military campaign against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

For supporters of the Syrian opposition, Zahreddine was the "butcher of Deir Az Zor" and a leading culprit behind widespread torture that allegedly took place at the hands of authorities.

For Assad supporters, however, the general and the Assad government represent a fortress against the ethnic and religious sectarianism of a conflict which has provided few viable alternatives.

In May 2016, a year and a half before his death, photos circulated on social media appeared to depict Zahreddine posing next to the severed remains of people who were killed, sliced up and left hanging.

Yet outside Syria, from North America to Europe, some of Assad's most vocal supporters come from the far right.

Days after Zahreddine's death, posters mourning the general appeared across Italian cities and towns, according to a report by the Italian daily, La Stampa.

Those posters were printed by CasaPound, a self-proclaimed fascist party and one of many far-right groups worldwide that support Assad's government.

Along with Italy's far-right Forza Nuova, Greece's neo-fascist Golden Dawn, the UK's British National Party (BNP) and Poland's ultranationalist National Rebirth, among others, CasaPound is part of an international front rallying on behalf of the Syrian president and sending solidarity delegations to the war-ravaged country.

{articleGUID} Syria's conflict, which started as a mass uprising against Assad's rule in March 2011, quickly morphed into a full-fledged civil war and has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.

Throughout that war, both government forces and their allies and armed opposition groups have been accused of war crimes and human rights violations.

According to some estimates, more than 11 million people have fled their homes, finding refuge outside of the country or ending up internally displaced within its borders.

More than a million Syrians have received or requested asylum in Europe, where rising far-right parties and populist groups have regularly rallied against their presence.

'Solidarity' delegations

Sitting in a neatly organised conference room in CasaPound's headquarters, a municipal building the group squatted 14 years ago, the party's prime ministerial candidate in the upcoming elections, Simone Di Stefano, boasted of their relationship with the Syrian government.

"Under the Assad regime, people can celebrate Christmas openly and women are not forced to wear a headscarf," Di Stefano told Al Jazeera, echoing common pro-Assad talking points.

"Of course, we like the ideology of the Syrian state, but we also support what they represent: freedom, openness as opposed to fundamentalism and modern [Arab] socialism."

In Italy, CasaPound has led far-right demonstrations against refugees and migrants, has reportedly attacked anti-fascists, and advocates a return to fascist rule - under which the country toiled from 1921 until its liberation at the end of World War II in 1945.

The party has worked closely with the European Solidarity Front for Syria (ESFS) - a coalition of neo-fascist and far-right groups that support Assad's government - and its members have joined delegations to Damascus to meet Syrian officials, Di Stefano said.

SANA, Syria's state news agency, has publicised the ESFS's visits.

In May 2016, when ESFS members met Assad aide Bouthaina Shaaban, SANA reported that the Italian "delegation expressed solidarity with the Syrians and condemned the crimes committed by armed terrorist organisations".

The group was full of hopes of "learning about what is happening in Syria and conveying the true image of the situation to the European people", the report continued.

Di Stefano, who himself has not been to Syria, proudly proclaims that CasaPound affiliates met Syrian First Lady Asma al-Assad in 2016.

Ada Oppedisano, president of Solidarite Identites (Sol.Id), a group that has pushed a pro-Assad narrative, later described the meeting as the type "you remember for a lifetime".

"We do it for [the Syrian] children that Asma told us about, and we do it for us too, for Italy, so that tomorrow we cannot say …hat the Italians have abandoned their Syrian brothers," Oppedisano said in an Italian-language report published in Il Primato Nazionale, a CasaPound-administered newspaper.

{articleGUID} That report was authored by Alberto Palladino, a CasaPound activist who was convicted of a violent attack that left five Democratic Party activists hospitalised in 2011.

Asked if there was a contradiction between opposing the influx of Syrian refugees, most of whom were displaced by governmental forces, and supporting Assad, Di Stefano insisted: "They mostly flee from rebels and ISIL."

According to a 2015 poll of nearly 900 Syrian refugees in Germany, more than half would return to their country if Assad quit.

Around 70 percent blamed the government for violence, while 31.5 percent pointed the finger at ISIL.

Ideological overlaps

Guido Caldiron, a Rome-based journalist and author of Extreme Right, argues that CasaPound's support for Assad stems from the group's ideological roots: Authoritarianism, Islamophobia and the perception that the Syrian government has resisted Israel.

Since its inception, the Assad government has marketed itself as a bulwark of resistance against Israel.

Yet, the demarcation line between the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and the rest of Syria was largely quiet between the 1973 Middle East War and the outbreak of Syria's civil war nearly seven years ago.

"There is the fact that Assad is authoritarian and nationalist, and most of all it's because [Assad] represents a non-religious world view, in their opinion," he told Al Jazeera.

"Another thing is that they see Assad as anti-Israel and anti-Zionist."

For CasaPound, the war in Syria is part of a larger assault by "globalists", Caldiron added.

{articleGUID} Leila al-Shami, a Syrian-British activist and co-author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, explained that the far right's relationship with Assad is rooted in the ideological overlap between European fascism and Baathism, the Syrian government's founding ideology.

"There is definitely an overlap, and it works on two levels - the first is the ideological roots of Baathism, which definitely incorporates elements of fascism and extreme nationalism," al-Shami told Al Jazeera.

Explaining that early Baathists "took inspiration from European fascism, particularly how to build a totalitarian state", al-Shami argued that many neo-fascists also see the Assad government as "resisting Israel and Muslims alike".

Meanwhile, the Assad government has seized the visits to "build legitimacy", saying it has international support and that these visitors know there is a conspiracy against Syria, the author said.

Broader Western far-right support

Far-right groups in North America and Europe supporting Assad's government is not a recent development.

In April 2017, American white supremacist Richard Spencer led an "anti-war" demonstration in Washington, DC, against the US bombing of a Syrian airbase.

Spencer is a leading figure in the "alt-right", a loosely-knit coalition of white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis.

Forza Nuova, another Italian neo-fascist party, has also defended Assad.

In October 2016, party leader Roberto Fiore, who fled Italy for several years in the 1980s after a police raid found a cache of weapons and explosives in his office, tweeted about his party's alliance with the Syrian ruler.

"Forza Nuova defends Assad and the Syrian people against attacks by ISIS and the USA," he wrote in a post accompanied by a photo depicting a group of Forza Nuova members raising a pro-Assad banner.

In 2013, the Greek far-right group Black Lily, a self-proclaimed national socialist organisation, claimed that it had sent fighters to Syria to support Assad's forces and fighters from Hezbollah, the Lebanese political and military group aligned with the Syrian government.

That same year, Nick Griffin, formerly of the British National Party and a member of the European Parliament from 2009 until 2014, ventured to Damascus as part of an international delegation of far-right and ultranationalist politicians from across Europe.

Griffin returned to Syria again the following year for a conference organised by the Syrian Ministry of Justice.

Yet, the white supremacist alliance with the Syrian government predates the war.

In 2005, David Duke, former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and notorious Holocaust denier, delivered a speech in Damascus on state television.

"It is only - in America and around the world - it is only the Zionists who want war rather than peace," he declared to a crowd.

"It hurts my heart to tell you that part of my country is occupied by Zionists, just as part of your country - the Golan Heights - is occupied by Zionists," Duke said, arguing that "Zionists" control the American media and much of the US government.

{articleGUID} Further back still, German Nazi war criminal Alois Brunner was reportedly given safe haven in Syria, where he advised the government on torture tactics until eventually falling out of favour with Hafez al-Assad, the current president's father and predecessor.

Brunner, who oversaw the deportation of 128,000 Jews to death camps during the Holocaust, was eventually detained and is believed to have died in custody in 2010.

Today, almost seven years into the Syrian civil war, there are no signs of the Assad-white supremacist alliance breaking down.

Back in CasaPound's headquarters, Di Stefano defended government attacks when pressed on the issue of human rights violations, including government forces' alleged use of barrel bombs in civilian areas.

"Even today, there are people taking up guns in the centre of the cities," he said.

"What should Assad do? Shouldn't he bomb those people? It's a civil war, unfortunately."

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180214ee2e0018h



Erdogan slams US 'support for Kurdish YPG fighters'

698 words
14 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Ankara says Washington can no longer use fighting ISIL as an excuse to support Kurdish fighters in northern Syria.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has slammed the US' support for Kurdish YPG fighters in northern Syria, warning that Washington's move to fund the group will impact Ankara's future decisions towards its NATO ally.

"The US decision to give financial support to the YPG ... will surely affect the decisions Turkey will take," Erdogan said on Tuesday.

"It will be better for them not to stand with the terrorists they support today. I am calling on the people of the United States - this money is coming out of the budget of the US, it is coming out of people's pockets," Erdogan said.

His comments were a response to the Pentagon's new defence budget that allocates $550m to military activities in Syria.

The US defence department requested $300m for Syrian "train and equip activities" and $250m for "border security requirements related to the counter ISIS mission," according to a copy of the budget.

Turkey last month started a military incursion, dubbed "Operation Olive Branch", into the Kurdish-held Afrin region in northwestern Syria to sweep Kurdish YPG fighters from its border there.

Top Turkish officials have threatened to extend the incursion to the Syrian town of Manbij, which is under the control of YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and warned US troops stationed there not to get in the way.

The US has reiterated that it has no plans to withdraw its forces from Manbij.

Paul Funk, the commander of US forces in Syria and Iraq, made a recent visit to Manbij and said that the US and its partners in Syria would hit back if attacked.

"You hit us, we will respond aggressively. We will defend ourselves," Funk said.

Erdogan took aim at that, saying: "It is obvious that those, who say they will 'give a sharp response' if they were hit, have not been hit by the Ottoman slap."

The "Ottoman slap" was a potentially fatal martial arts technique used by an elite infantry of the Ottoman Empire in the 17th century.

It was used when a soldier lost or dropped his weapon in battle and was supposedly devastating enough to cause a concussion or even break the enemy's neck.

Tit-for-tat

The US believes that the Turkish move into northern Syria undermines the larger fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

US Secretary of State Rex Tillersoncalled on allies to unite in the fight against ISIL and criticised Turkey's operation in Afrin.

"The end of major combat operations does not mean we have achieved the enduring defeat of ISIS," Tillerson said on Tuesday in meeting in Kuwait.

"[Turkey's operation] has detracted from our fight to defeat Islamic State in eastern Syria …orces have diverted from there to Afrin," he said, referring to ISIL.

Erdogan, however, said that the US could no longer use fighting ISIL as an excuse, as the group - according to the president - has been largely defeated in Syria.

"From now on, nobody has the right to use the Daesh as an excuse. The theatre of ISIL has ended," he said.

{articleGUID} The US has long supported the SDF as a "reliable ally" in its fight against ISIL, despite strong objections by Ankara, which sees the YPG, leading the coalition, as the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

About 40,000 people have been killed in Turkey since the PKK launched its fight against the Turkish state in the 1980s, seeking more autonomy for the Kurds.

Tillerson is expected to visit Turkey on Thursday.

Tillerson's planned visit to Turkey shows just how "serious this matter is," Department of State Spokesperson Heather Nauert said on Tuesday, referring to the stark differences in Turkish and US interests in Syria during a daily briefing.

"This is one of the areas of deep, deep concern on the part of the administration," Nauert told reporters in Washington.

"We certainly don't want to see violence to further escalate."

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180214ee2e000xe



Billions pledged for Iraq's post-ISIL reconstruction

315 words
14 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and several non-state actors, including the EU, agree to fund post-ISIL Iraq.

Several countries in the Middle East have pledged billions of dollars in aid to help war-torn Iraq in its mission to rebuild the country following a four-year war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group. A three-day summit on Iraq's reconstruction concluded in Kuwait City on Wednesday , with Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey pledging to offer loans and direct investments to help rebuild the country. The emir of Kuwait, Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, pledged to give $2bn in loans and investments. Saudi Arabia said it would provide $1.5bn, while Qatar pledged $1bn. Turkey also agreed to donate, vowing to provide $5bn in financial support. The donations come as various non-governmental organisations pledged $330m during the first day of the summit, which was attended by a total of 67 states and non-state actors. The conference - organised by Kuwait, Iraq, the European Union, the United Nations and the World Bank - is seeking funding from donors and investors to rebuild Iraq's destroyed homes, schools and hospitals, as well as revive its demolished infrastructure and economy. Iraq's Minister of Planning Qusai Abdelfattah had said his country needed an estimated $88.2bn to achieve its goals - $22bn of which are needed "immediately", he noted. In the quest to raise funds, corruption is a major concern for the country, which last year ranked 166 out of 176 nations that were found to be corrupt, according to the findings of the annual Corruption Perceptions Index conducted by Transparency International. Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had previously vowed that his government would work towards combatting corruption and bureaucracy in the country. Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180214ee2e000un



Tillerson urges coalition unity in fight against ISIL

427 words
13 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Tillerson's comments come during donor conference in Kuwait to support reconstruction and stabilisation efforts in Iraq.

The fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group is far from over, the US secretary of state has said, urging unity among Arab countries in the Gulf for the sake of regional stability. Rex Tillerson says the rift between Qatar and its former allies in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - namely Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain, as well as Egypt - is counterproductive to efforts to root out the group. The countries imposed a blockade on Qatar last June. "The end of major combat operations does not mean we have achieved the enduring defeat of ISIS," Tillerson said during a meeting on Tuesday in Kuwait City. He said US priorities are to prevent ISIS from establishing a so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria, recruiting new members and being able to train for future attacks. "Without continued attention and support from coalition members, we risk the return of extremist groups like ISIS in liberated areas of Iraq and Syria and their spread to new locations," he said. The US also pledged $200m to support stabilisation efforts in Syria, Tillerson announced. Ibrahim Fraihat, professor of conflict resolution at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies in Qatar, said Tillerson was "sending a message that the two tracks cannot be disconnected: that the war on terrorism can be affected by instability in the Gulf".

Iraq reconstruction

Tillerson's comments came during a three-day donor conference in Kuwait to support reconstruction and stabilisation efforts in Iraq. Experts estimate $88bn is needed to fund the reconstruction efforts, and, of that, $22bn is urgently needed to begin the rebuilding process, said Fraihat. Large parts of Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, which was long held by ISIL fighters, are still in ruins more than six months after it was retaken by the Iraqi government. "The US role is always key in any process, especially in Iraq. This whole thing started back in 2003 with the American invasion of Iraq and the regime change the US caused there," Fraihat told Al Jazeera. So far, the groups leading the reconstruction process in Iraq have been the European Union, World Bank, UN, Kuwait and the Iraqi government itself, he said. "The US should be taking a leading role in this, whether it's ... in terms of financing, or in terms of providing the support for this reconstruction process." Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180213ee2d0018j



Donors pledge more than $300m for post-ISIL Iraq

109 words
13 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Non-governmental organisations at the Kuwait-hosted conference over reconstruction in war-torn Iraq have pledged more than $300 million, far short of the $100 billion requested.

Iraq is hoping for more concrete pledges from international donors on the second day of a conference on rebuilding cities and infrastructure shattered by the conflict with ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS). On Monday, non-governmental organisations pledged more than $300 million to the reconstruction effort, far short of the $100 billion the government says it needs. Al Jazeera's Sami Zeidan reports from Kuwait.

Document AJAZEN0020180213ee2d000md



Israel squares off for showdown with Iran in Syria

1,147 words
12 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Tit-for-tat exchanges between Israel and Iran-backed Syria confront Russia with challenge of keeping a lid on tensions.

A surge in Israeli-Syrian cross-border incidents has turned into the "biggest" confrontation between the two countries in decades and confronted Russia with a new dilemma: how to preserve its ties with both sides.

The tit-for-tat attacks, which started on Saturday and continued until the following day, have been accompanied by a war of words, with Benjamin Netanyahu warning that Israel would continue to strike against any aggression.

"We dealt severe blows to the Iranian and Syrian forces," Netanyahu said, referring to Iranian bases present inside Syria.

The toughest Israeli aerial assault on Syrian and Iranian bases was reportedly in response to Syrian forces shooting down an Israeli fighter jet on Saturday and claims that an Iranian drone entered Israeli airspace.

The attacks, which killed at least six Syrian troops and allied militia members, targeted areas near the Syrian capital Damascus, with Israel warning about increased Iranian involvement along its borders with Syria and Lebanon.

A statement by the pro-government military alliance in Syria had said that the drones were being used against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group fighters.

But Israel's chief military spokesperson said Israel held Iran directly accountable for the incident.

On Saturday, Netanyahu told Russian President Vladimir Putin over the phone that Israel intended to counter Iran's actions, while Putin urged the Israeli leader to avoid any steps that could escalate tensions.

Russia, a strategic ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has maintained close relations with Netanyahu, who has been blaming Iranian paramilitary units in Syria of breaching its sovereignty by carrying out over-the-border attacks over the past six years.

The frequency of Israeli raids has intensified since 2012 when Iranian paramilitary fighters entered Syria following the start of the Syrian civil war.

Israel has never publicly admitted to such attacks, which vary from firing rockets to air raids.

Experts believe that the latest development forced Israel into admitting that it had launched attacks due to the shooting down of its F-16 fighter jet - the first time Israel had lost an aircraft to enemy fire.

"This was a major loss and defeat for Israel, and I don't think that this is something the [Israeli] regime could cover up," Mohammad Marandi, an academic at the University of Tehran, told Al Jazeera.

"The Israelis are using Iran as a scapegoat ... to be able to carry out attacks on regional countries and justify the continued subjugation of the Palestinian people."

Iran's presence in Syria has officially been aimed at combating ISIL, al-Qaeda and its affiliates. Marandi says Israel is supporting these groups on its borders.

'Weakening neighbours'

Israel and Syria have been at the brink of war ever since Israel occupied a part of the strategic Golan Heights that it annexed following the 1967 Six Day War.

The move played a role in Israel's decision to refrain from getting involved in the Syrian conflict.

Its occasional attacks against Syrian targets have been to stop what it describes as the delivery of advanced weaponry to the Iranian-backed Hezbollah, whose fighters are present in southern Lebanon.

Marandi says the issue is not Iran and its influence. Rather, it is Israel's attempt at weakening the Syrian

government, which along with Iran, is attempting to push al-Qaeda out of the country.

In 2016, former Mossad director Efraim Halevy revealed to Al Jazeera that Israel maintained "tactical" relations with al-Nusra Front - al-Qaeda's former affiliate in Syria.

"It's always useful [… to deal with your enemies in a humane way," Halevy said, revealing that Israel used to treat wounded fighters from al-Nusra Front.

{articleGUID} He also said that he would not support the treatment of wounded Hezbollah fighters because Hezbollah had targeted Israel.

When asked if a war between Hezbollah and Israel is imminent, Marandi said that it would not be in Israel's favour.

However, others believe that Russia - an ally of Syria, Iran, and Israel - is the only party that can limit the possibility of an upcoming regional war.

Following the latest attacks, Israel protested against Iran's presence and growing power in Syria.

"At the beginning, Israel and the US did not object to its [Iran] presence in Syria because back then, the opposition had the upper hand and the Syrian regime was on brink of defeat," Omar Kouch, a Syrian political analyst, told Al Jazeera.

"Up until 2016, when Russia intervened, the balance of power shifted in favour of the Syrian regime," Kouch explained.

"Israel did not want the fall of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's government. Its issue is not with the regime; its issue is with Iran, which threatens its security," he said.

"This is why several Israeli attacks in 2016, 2017, and today in 2018, were carried out."

'Rockets of various kinds'

According to Kouch, Iran knew that such attacks would occur.

"Iran and Syria were prepared, and several rockets of various kinds were fired," he said.

On Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said his country was ready to defend the region and warned that "increasing terrorism …ombing neighbouring countries" would not achieve Israel's objectives.

But a full-frontal war is unlikely at this time, Kouch believes, as Russia is trying to maintain its alliance with Iran and Israel simultaneously.

"These two equations [Iran's influence in the region and Israel's security concerns] are very difficult to balance - both projects are colonialist projects that are hugely conflicted," he said.

"And the presence of the many players make such frictions inevitable."

Last month, Netanyahu met Putin in Moscow to discuss Israeli concerns over Iran's presence in Syria.

"I will discuss with President Putin Iran's relentless efforts to establish a military presence in Syria, which we strongly oppose and are also taking action against," Netanyahu had said.

Ofer Zalzberg, an Israeli analyst with the International Crisis Group, said that Israel would inspect the drone from Saturday's incident and try to "demonstrate that it was indeed Iranian, in spite of Tehran's denials".

Zalzberg also agreed that Russia's alliance with both parties could thwart a potential escalation and perhaps meet each party's demands.

"If anyone can broker a reality in which Israel succeeds in its endeavour to stop Iranian bases from being permanently set up in Syria, and Iran succeeds in keeping Damascus a cooperative partner - it is Russia," he said.

The ongoing border violence is unlikely to stop, experts Al Jazeera spoke to predicted, a fact that puts civilian lives continuously at risk.

"Ultimately, the only losers here are the Syrian people and the Syrian revolution," said Kouch.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180213ee2c0005l



Iraqi tribesmen warn ISIL fighters' families

326 words
12 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

government seeks $90bn for reconstruction.

In Iraq's western Anbar province, tribesmen starting to rebuild have warned they will take revenge on the families of ISIL fighters if they return.

Anbar is the biggest province in Iraq and one of the last places to be freed from ISIL, or the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant group.

ISIL, also known as ISIS, swept into the province in 2013. The cities of Falluja, Ramadi and al-Qaim soon became urban battlefields.

"We don't want to go back to square one," Omar Shihan al-Alwani, who fought against ISIL, said.

"We're totally against that. If they come back, then blood will flow and neither tribes nor military operations will be able to stop it."

The homes of ISIL family members have been destroyed - a tactic ISIL itself has used in the past.

"We're not against [ISIL family members] returning, but the timing is bad and would risk provoking unrest and a return to bloodshed in the streets," said Omar Ibrahim, a former tribal fighter.

"We the fighters think that families of IS group members should be in a camp under the supervision of Iraqi government and experts such as religious leaders, professors and intellectuals. They should receive daily training sessions."

About 380 families of ISIL fighters including women and children are already detained in two camps across the province. They remain outcasts in Anbar's cities.

Rebuilding Iraq after nearly three years of war with ISIL will cost close to $90bn, according to Iraqi officials attending an international donor conference in Kuwait.

At the conference, Iraq is seeking investment for 157 reconstruction projects including the rebuilding of homes, hospitals and schools.

Throughout Iraq, 2.5 million people were displaced by the fighting. An estimated 138,000 housing units were damaged in the fight against ISIL, with half of them completely destroyed, an Iraqi official said.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180213ee2c0005n



Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi: 'Alive but wounded' in Syria

405 words
12 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Iraqi intelligence chief says Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi suffered severe wounds to his legs in air raid but is alive in Syria.

ISIL's leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is alive and being treated at a medical facility in northeastern Syria after being severely wounded in an air raid, a senior Iraqi official said.

The head of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) sustained serious wounds to his legs during air raids, Abu Ali al-Basri, Iraq's intelligence and counterterrorism department chief, was quoted on Monday by the government-run al-Sabah daily as saying.

"We have irrefutable information and documents from sources within the terrorist organisation that al-Baghdadi is still alive and hiding with the help of his collaborators," al-Basri said.

Al-Baghdadi - one of the world's most-wanted men with a $25m US bounty on his head - is currently in Syria's Jazeera desert, west of Deir Az Zor, he said.

He suffers from "injuries, diabetes and fractures to the body and legs that prevent him from walking without assistance", said al-Basri.

Despite a series of major military defeats over the past year, ISIL retains a significant presence in northeastern Syria's Hasakah province despite having lost most of its cross-border "caliphate", which al-Baghdadi announced in 2014 after his fighters' shocking military victories across the region.

It was unclear what air force was responsible for targeting ISIL's leader.

Al-Basri was quoted as saying he was wounded during air raids in Iraq.

Russia's defence ministry has said it may have killedal-Baghdadi in one of its air raids on the outskirts of Syria's Raqqa, an ISIL stronghold, until the group was ousted from the city late last year.

American broadcaster CNN on Monday quoted US officials as saying that al-Baghdadi was wounded in Raqqa and forced to relinquish command of the armed group because of his injuries.

"There have been isolated strikes by Russians in Raqqa, but as there's no timeline to it, we don't know if it's ours," an unidentified American official said of the attack that wounded the ISIL chief.

Another US official told the network it was unclear if he was again leading the group. "I do not know how much Baghdadi is day-to-day running the shop."

Al Jazeera and news agencies

Document AJAZEN0020180212ee2c001e6



James Mattis: Some PYD/PKK shifting to Afrin

370 words
12 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

James Mattis says some fighters of the Kurdish-led SDF are shifting towards Afrin region to fight Turkish troops.

Turkey has legitimate security concerns along its southern border with Syria, James Mattis, the US defence secretary, said, as Turkish forces continued their offensive against Kurdish fighters in Afrin. Mattis acknowledged that some members of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had shifted to the Afrin region in Syria's north, amid Turkey's ongoing operation against the coalition of armed groups, Anadolu news agency reported. "The distraction of what's going on up in Afrin right now, which is drawing off some of the [SDF] forces, which have got about 50 percent [of the Afrin region]," Mattis told reporters during his flight to Europe on Sunday, adding that the percentage could be less or more. The US has long supported the SDF as a "reliable ally" in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), despite strong objections by Ankara, which sees the coalition as the Syrian branch of the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party, PKK. The armed wing of the PKK - listed as a terrorist group by the US, EU, and Turkey - has taken about 40,000 lives in Turkey, including 1,200 since July 2015. Describing Turkey as the only NATO ally facing an active revolt, Mattis also reiterated that Ankara has real security concerns in the region. "They [Turkey] have a legitimate security concern, and we do not dismiss one bit of that, along that border with Syria," he stated, adding that Washington will continue to work closely with Turkey. The forces aligned to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the PKK in Afrin have launched hundreds of cross-border rocket attacks on Turkey, including dozens since late last month, killing and injuring many civilians. The Pentagon had previously stated that some PYD/PKK-led SDF elements were shifting its fighters, but did not specify where they were headed. Mattis is expected to meet his Turkish counterpart Nurettin Canikli in Brussels this week. Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch on January 20 to clear PYD/PKK and ISIL from Afrin. Anadolu news agency

Document AJAZEN0020180212ee2c001e5



US' Mattis says some PYD/PKK shifting to Afrin

398 words
12 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

The Pentagon had stated that some PYD/PKK-led SDF elements were shifting its forces, but did not specify where to

Turkey has legitimate security concerns along border with Syria and we do not dismiss that, says US defence secretary

US Defense Secretary James Mattis has acknowledged that some members of the PYD/PKK-led SDF had shifted to Afrin, Syria amid Turkey’ ongoing operation against the groups in the border region, according to Anadolu news agency.

"The distraction of what's going on up in Afrin right now, which is drawing off some of the [SDF] forces, which have got about 50 percent," Mattis told reporters during his flight to Europe on Sunday, adding that the percentage could be less or more.

As for the reason for the armed group's mobilisation to Afrin, he said is because they believe "their fellow Kurds" in Afrin to be under attack, referring to Turkey's Operation Olive Branch in the northwestern Syrian province to clear PYD/PKK elements from there.

The US has long supported the PYD/PKK-led SDF as a "reliable ally" in its fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), over the strong objections of Ankara, which had documented that it is the Syrian branch of PKK.

The PKK - listed as a terrorist group by the US, EU, and Turkey - has taken some 40,000 lives in Turkey, including 1,200 since July 2015.

Describing Turkey as the only NATO ally with an active revolt facing it, Mattis also reiterated that Ankara has real security concerns in the region.

"They [Turkey] have a legitimate security concern, and we do not dismiss one bit of that, along that border with Syria," he stated, adding that Washington will continue to work closely with Turkey.

The PYD/PKK in Afrin has launched hundreds of rocket attacks on Turkey across the border, including dozens since late last month, killing and injuring many civilians.

The Pentagon had previously stated that some PYD/PKK-led SDF elements were shifting its fighters, but did not specify where they were headed.

Mattis is expected to meet his Turkish counterpart Nurettin Canikli in Brussels this week.

Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch on Jan. 20 to clear PYD/PKK and ISIL from Afrin, northwestern Syria.

Anadolu news agency

Document AJAZEN0020180212ee2c000p7



Iraq seeks $100 billion from donors for post-ISIL reconstruction

125 words
12 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Iraq seeks around $100 billion in foreign investment in transport, energy and agriculture as part of a plan to rebuild parts of the country and revive the economy after a three-year war on ISIL.

Iraq is hoping to raise billions of dollars at a donor conference starting on Monday in Kuwait - to finance the reconstruction after its campaign against ISIL (the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, also known as ISIS). It is estimated that $100bn is needed for the reconstruction. Large parts of Iraq's second-largest city, Mosul, are still in ruins, more than six months after it was retaken by the government. Al Jazeera’ Sami Zeidan reports from Kuwait.

Document AJAZEN0020180212ee2c000p3



Netanyahu: Air raids dealt serious blow to Iran, Syria

790 words
11 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Netanyahu says Israel to 'continue to strike back' amid tensions over downing of warplane by Syrian government forces.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, has described his country's most significant air attacks on Syria in decades as a heavy blow to Syria and Iran.

The attacks were in response to Syrian government forces shooting down an Israeli fighter jet on Saturday, and claims that an Iranian drone entered Israeli airspace.

The air attacks reportedly hit an airport on the outskirts of al-Suwayda, in southern Syria, and a weapons depot near the capital, Damascus.

Israel has sounded several warnings about the perceived, increased Iranian involvement along its borders with Syria and Lebanon.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin has urged Netanyahu to avoid any steps that could escalate tension.

Netanyahu has held several consultations with Putin, who, for his part, has sent forces to back Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Following the Israeli attacks, the two spoke again on Saturday, with Netanyahu conveying Israel's intention to counter Iran's actions.

Russian criticism

Russia's foreign ministry appeared to criticise Israel's actions by calling for restraint and respecting Syria's sovereignty.

"It is absolutely unacceptable to create threats to the lives and security of Russian servicemen who are in Syria at the invitation of its legitimate government," it said.

However, Netanyahu told a cabinet meeting on Sunday that Israel would continue to strike against any aggression.

"Yesterday, we dealt severe blows to the Iranian and Syrian forces," Netanyahu said.

"We made it unequivocally clear to everyone that our rules of action have not changed one bit. We will continue to strike at every attempt to strike at us. This has been our policy and it will remain our policy."

Saturday's air attacks marked the toughest Israeli aerial assault on Syria in decades.

Israel has confirmed its fighter jet was shot down by enemy fire, marking the first such instance for Israel since 1982, when it was fighting a war in Lebanon, according to a Washington Post report.

"Our preliminary understanding is that the plane crashed due to a ground-to-air missile," Lieutenant-Colonel Jonathan Cornicus, Israeli military spokesperson, said on Sunday.

"It was hit."

The jet was one of eight planes carrying out the Israeli raid inside Syria, said the report.

In the first, direct public acknowledgment of an attack inside Syria during the country's civil war, Israel also said it had bombed 12 military sites across the border - eight Syrian and four that it said were Iranian.

The Syrian military and its allies have denied that the Iranian drone violated Israel's airspace, according to a report by Syrian state-run SANA news agency.

The joint operations room, run by Syria, Iran, Russia and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, said the drone was on a regular mission, gathering intelligence on fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Sources in Damascus said there were casualties among Syrian forces.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which monitors the war in Syria through a network of activists on the ground, said that at least six Syrian troops and allied militia members were killed in the Israeli air attacks.

The six included Syrian and non-Syrian allied troops, the SOHR said, adding that Israel had targeted several bases east of the central province of Homs.

It said the bases are used by both Iranians and Russians deployed in support of the Assad government.

Israel is technically at war with Syria and occupies a chunk of the strategic Golan Heights that it seized in the Six Day War of 1967, and later annexed, in a move never recognised by the international community.

Israel has sought to avoid direct involvement in the Syria conflict but acknowledges carrying out dozens of air raids there, to stop what it calls deliveries of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah.

UN chief's appeal

Against this backdrop, the UN chief has called "for an immediate and unconditional de-escalation of violence".

"[All] concerned in Syria and the region have a responsibility and must abide by international law and relevant Security Council resolutions," Antonio Guterres said in a statement on Saturday.

Stephane Dujarric, the UN chief's spokesman, said: "The secretary-general is following closely the alarming military escalation throughout Syria and the dangerous spillover across its borders."

The White House issued a statement in which it said it supports Israel's "right to defend itself from the Iranian-backed Syrian and militia forces in southern Syria.

"We call on Iran and its allies to cease provocative actions and work toward regional peace," it said.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180212ee2b0008d



Assad quietly aids YPG against Turkey

1,041 words
11 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

YPG depend on Assad regime to supply Afrin against Turkey, Assad relies on YPG for grain and oil to supply his forces

US-backed YPG in northern Syria says it has reached agreements with the Russian and Iran-backed regime of Bashar al-Assad to allow reinforcements to be sent to Afrin, to sustain their war against Turkey. YPG is regarded by Turkey as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought a three-decade armed conflict in Turkey and is regarded as a terrorist group by the US and the European Union. Kino Gabriel, spokesman for the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said to Reuters news agency that YPG has reached an understanding with the Assad regime. "There are different ways to get reinforcements to Afrin, but the fundamental route is via regime forces. There are understandings between the two forces ... for the sake of delivering reinforcements to Afrin." While YPG depends on Assad to reach Afrin, Damascus also needs the YPG's cooperation to source grain and oil from areas of the northeast under Kurdish control, the source added. Pro-Assad forces backed by Russia and Iran, and YPG forces have fought each other elsewhere in Syria, and Damascus opposes YPG demands for autonomy. But, in Afrin, they have a common enemy and a mutual interest in blocking Turkish advances. A commander in the military alliance fighting in support of Assad said, on condition of anonymity, "The Syrian regime is helping the Kurds with humanitarian support and some logistics, like turning a blind eye and allowing Kurdish support to reach some fronts." Turkey, which regards the Kurdish YPG militia in Afrin as a terrorist organization and a threat to its southern border, launched an assault on the region last month. In return, YPG has asked Damascus to send forces into the region to fight the Turkish army. The Assad government shows no sign of doing so, but it is providing indirect help by allowing men and supplies to reach Afrin through the territory it controls, representatives of both sides told Reuters. Assad stands to gain while doing little. The arrival of reinforcements is likely to sustain YPG, bog down the Turkish forces, and prolong a conflict that is sapping the resources of military powers that rival Assad for control of Syrian territory. For the US, it is a welcomed development in Syria's seven-year-old war, as complicated as it may be. Nevertheless, its strategic ally, the YPG, must at times make deals with Assad for its survival.

Turkish campaign moves slowly

The Turkish military is making slow gains nearly three weeks into the operation it calls "Olive Branch". The US has relied on the YPG as a vital ground component of its war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Syria, and has backed the group in other Kurdish-controlled regions in northern Syria along the border with Turkey. But US forces are not in Afrin, so they have been unable to shield Afrin from the attack by Turkey, its NATO ally. The YPG, meanwhile, accuse Russia of giving a green light for the Turkish attack by withdrawing observers it deployed in Afrin last year. The Afrin war marks another twist in the complicated story of relations between Assad and the Syrian Kurdish groups, spearheaded by the YPG, that have carved out autonomous regions in northern Syria since the war began in 2011. The YPG controls nearly all of Syria's frontier with Turkey. But Afrin is separated from the bigger Kurdish-controlled region further east by a 100km-wide zone controlled by the Turkish military and its Syrian militia allies. For much of the war, Damascus and the YPG have avoided confrontation, at times fighting common enemies, including the rebel groups that are now helping Turkey attack Afrin. But tensions have mounted in recent months, with Damascus threatening to march into parts of eastern and northern Syria captured by the SDF, with support from the US-led coalition. Underlining that, pro-Assad forces attacked the SDF in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, drawing coalition air attacks overnight that killed more than 100 of the attackers, the coalition said. "The regime has allowed the YPG to bring people into Afrin, while attacking it east of Euphrates (River). I think that is indicative of the state of relations right," said Noah Bonsey, International Crisis Group's Senior Analyst on Syria. He added: "There is still a significant gap between the YPG and regime positions on the future of northeastern Syria."

Fighting for Afrin

The main Syrian Kurdish groups remain wedded to their vision of a Syria where they gain autonomy, in a form of federalism, that is at odds with Assad's determination to control all of Syria. Each side has allowed the other to maintain footholds in its territory. In YPG-held Qamishli, Assad forces still control the airport. In the Sheikh Maqsoud district of Aleppo, a regime city, YPG forces patrol the streets. Scores of Kurds from Sheikh Maqsoud have gone to Afrin to support the fight, Kurdish officials there said. The short journey requires movement through areas held by the government or its Iran-backed Shi'ite militia allies. "Of course people went from Sheikh Maqsoud - in the hundreds - to bear arms and defend Afrin," said Badran Himo, a YPG official from Sheikh Maqsoud. "Around 10 of them were martyred," he told Reuters as YPG forces held a rally to commemorate one of the dead. Earlier this week, witnesses say, people drove in a convoy of hundreds of cars to Afrin, from other YPG-held areas, to support the group. The Syrian government has ignored appeals by YPG authorities to guard the Syrian border at Afrin. "We tried to convince them, via the Russians, to at least protect the borders, to take a position, but we did not get a result," Aldar Khalil, a top YPG politician, told Reuters. "If they don't protect the borders, then at least they don't have the right to block the way for Syrian patriots who are protecting these borders, regardless of other domestic issues." Reuters news agency

Document AJAZEN0020180211ee2b000um



UN calls for immediate de-escalation in Syria

500 words
11 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Antonio Guterres says international law must be respected by all in Syria and the region following Israeli air raids.

The UN chief has called "for an immediate and unconditional de-escalation of violence" after Israel launched intensive air raids on what it called Iranian bases in Syria, raising tensions in the region.

"[A]ll concerned in Syria and the region have a responsibility and must abide by international law and relevant Security Council resolutions," Antonio Guterres said in a statement on Saturday.

"The secretary-general is following closely the alarming military escalation throughout Syria and the dangerous spillover across its borders," the UN chief's spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.

The Israeli army on Saturday launched "large-scale" attacks inside Syria after intercepting what it said was an Iranian drone that entered occupied Golan Heights and the subsequent downing of an Israeli fighter jet by Syrian air defence forces.

The UN chief's reaction came after Russia, which intervened in support of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad in 2015, said they were "seriously concerned" by the confrontation.

"We urge all parties involved to exercise restraint and to avoid any actions that could lead to an even greater complication of the situation," Russia's foreign ministry said in a statement.

"We consider it necessary to unconditionally respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria and other countries of the region," it added.

US support

The White House expressed its support for Israel after the hostilities.

"Israel is a staunch ally of the United States, and we support its right to defend itself from the Iranian-backed Syrian and militia forces in southern Syria," the White House statement released late on Saturday read.

"We call on Iran and its allies to cease provocative actions and work toward regional peace."

The Pentagon and the Department of State made similar comments earlier on Saturday.

The Syrian military and its allies denied that the drone violated Israel's airspace, Syria's state-run SANA news agency reported.

The joint operations room, run by Syria, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah, said the aircraft was on a regular mission gathering intelligence on fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Sources in Damascus said there were casualties among Syrian forces.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based monitor, said Israel had targeted several bases in the east of the central province of Homs.

It said the bases are used by both Iranians and Russians deployed in support of the regime.

Israel is technically at war with Syria and occupies a swath of the strategic Golan Heights that it seized in the Six Day War of 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.

Israel has sought to avoid direct involvement in the Syria conflict but acknowledges carrying out dozens of air raids there to stop what it calls deliveries of advanced weaponry to Hezbollah.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180211ee2b000jh



Tillerson's Turkey visit: Will it help mend ties?

500 words
10 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

US state secretary is expected in Ankara amid strained relations between the NATO allies over Kurdish rebels in Syria.

US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson visited Turkey twice during his first year in office, but his third trip due next week may well be the most important.

Turkish-US relations were strained during former President Barack Obama's tenure. Some observers say they've only become worse during President Donald Trump's administration - and they fear the NATO allies could clash militarily in Syria.

Tillerson's mission is to reduce the tensions.

Like Obama before him, Trump is backing the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) because of their success in reclaiming territory once held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) armed group.

That has angered Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The SDF is an umbrella group of fighters led by the People's Protection Units (YPG) - a Kurdish rebel group considered a "terrorist group" by Ankara.

Erdogan routinely accuses Washington of undermining his country's security by supporting Kurdish fighters inside Syria, refusing to extradite cleric Fethullah Gulen for allegedly plotting a failed coup attempt in Turkey in 2016 and for never trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

More worrisome for the US, Erdogan launched "Operation Olive Branch" in late January, sending his forces into the northwestern Syrian town of Afrin in order to prevent YPG rebels from taking control.

He is now threatening to send his troops east to Manbij, where the SDF and US troops are securing the city from ISIL fighters.

The US doesn't want that to happen, and Tillerson will repeat that message during his meetings.

On Friday, a senior state department official told reporters: "We are urging them to show restraint in their operations in Afrin, and to show restraint further along the line across the border in northern Syria."

"We need to work with the Turks more to figure out a way if there's a way that we can work with them to address their legitimate security concerns while, at the same time, minimising civilian casualties and above all else keeping everything focused on the fight against ISIL, which is not over," the official said.

But analysts say, on this trip, it's more important for Tillerson to listen than to talk.

Senior policy analyst Nicholas Danforth, of the Bipartisan Policy Center, told Al Jazeera he was cautiously optimistic.

"I continue to think that on both sides, sanity will prevail; that both sides will realise the damage they will suffer from a breakdown of the US-Turkish relationship, the NATO alliance, would be catastrophic, and therefore they will avoid provocative steps," he said.

"But again, rhetorically, on the ground, you have both sides working themselves into positions that will be increasingly difficult to back down from."

That fact will make Tillerson's third visit to Turkey one to watch.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180211ee2a000m9



Israeli F-16 jet shot down by Syria fire, says military

718 words
10 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

The Israeli military says one of its F-16 planes was shot down during their Syria operation targeting 'Iranian sites'.

An Israeli F-16 fighter jet has been shot down by Syrian military while targeting what it called Iranian sites responsible for launching a drone into occupied Golan Heights.

The Israeli military said on Saturday "a combat helicopter successfully intercepted an Iranian UAV that was launched from Syria and infiltrated Israel".

"IDF [Israel Defence Forces] has targeted the Iranian control systems in Syria that sent the #UAV into Israeli airspace. Massive Syrian Anti-Air fire, one F16 crashed in Israel, pilots safe," Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Conricus, Israeli military spokesman, said on Twitter.

Israeli media said the jet crashed in northern Israel.

"This is a dramatic development," Al Jazeera's Zeina Khodr, reporting from Lebanon's capital, Beirut, said.

"Israel has carried out dozens of attacks over the past one year but this is for the first time a Syrian military has shot down an Israeli plane," she said.

"It is also for the first time that Israel has said its planes carried out attacks inside Syria. In the past, the Israelis carried out attacks inside Syria but they would not mention anything about the target or even acknowledge attacks."

Israeli 'aggression'

Syria state television later cited a Syrian military official as saying that Israeli "aggression" targeted the Syrian army base in the central region of the country.

Sources in Damascus said there were casualties among Syrian forces.

In response, Syria shot down more than one Israeli fighter jets, according the official.

Sirens sounded in northern Israel as a result of massive Syrian fire.

Pro-government military alliance in Syria said in a statement later on Saturday that Israel would see a severe and serious response to its "terrorism" from now on.

The statement also said the drones - one of which Israel shot down - were being used against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

Israeli military said it was "monitoring events" and was "fully prepared for further action".

Israel's chief military spokesman, Brigadier General Ronen Manelis, said Israel held Iran directly responsible for the incident.

"This is a serious Iranian attack on Israeli territory. Iran is dragging the region into an adventure in which it doesn't know how it will end," he said in a statement.

"Whoever is responsible for this incident is the one who will pay the price."

Later on Saturday, Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed Israeli military spokesman as saying that Israel did not seek an escalation in the region.

"We are willing, prepared and capable to exact a heavy price from anyone that attacks us, however we are not looking to escalate the situation. This was a defensive effort triggered by an Iranian act of aggression and we are defending our airspace our sovereignty and civilians," the source said.

Al Jazeera's Imran Khan, reporting from West Jarusalem, said a big inquiry was likely to look into the incident.

"Israeli's pride themselves on the fact that they can patrol the airspace over the Arab world without much competition from anybody else, so this is going to be a big inquiry," he said.

"But now it's about the politics and optics of all this. The Israelis are now going to go after Iran, blame them squarely for this."

Bekaa Valley

Explosions could be heard in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley region near the Syrian border.

Al Jazeera's Khodr said Israel has been warning of late of increased Iranian involvement along its border in Syria and Lebanon.

"First they said they would not allow weapons to reach Hezbollah - the Lebanese armed Shia group [from Iran through Syrian territory]. And as of late, the Israelis have been saying that they won't allow to set up permanent bases in Syria," she said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been to Russia's capital Moscow and clearly the Russians have given him a green light to use the Syrian airspace, she said.

Israel has shot down several drones that previously tried to infiltrate its territory from Syria.

The targeting of an Iranian site in response, however, marks an escalation in the Israeli retaliation.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180210ee2a000m9



Turkey resumes Afrin operation in northern Syria

400 words
9 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Overnight air attacks hit 19 targets, 'neutralising' dozens of Syrian Kurdish YPG and ISIL fighters, Turkish army says.

Turkey has resumed air attacks in the enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, destroying more than a dozen targets and "neutralising" at least 34 rebels, the Turkish army says.

The fighters belonged to the Syrian Kurdish armed group YPG and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, according to the army.

Turkish state news agency Anadolu reported on Friday that Turkish armed forces struck 19 targets overnight, as part of its ongoing operation inside Syria.

According to Turkish media, Ankara's aerial campaign was briefly halted after Russia closed the airspace over Afrin, as a result of the downing of a Russian jet in neighbouring Idlib province.

Since the operation started in January 20, an estimated 1,062 YPG and ISIL fighters have been "neutralised", a term Turkey uses to imply that the fighters have either been killed, captured or have surrendered, according to Anadolu.

As of Sunday, at least 14 Turkish troops have also been reported killed in the fighting.

The Turkish military has said only "terror targets" are being destroyed in the operation, but Syrian Kurds said that villages full of civilians have also been repeatedly hit, with reports of more than a hundred killed.

Afrin's General Public Hospital was also quoted by Voice of America as saying that at least 26 children have been killed and 40 others injured from the Turkish attacks.

Earlier, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that between 15,000 to 30,000 civilians have been internally displaced in Afrin because of the operation.

Turkey insists that its operation in Afrin is "fully in line with international law", saying that the presence of the Syrian Kurdish YPG in the area is a "security threat" to the country.

Turkey sees the YPG - trained, armed and supported by the US to fight against ISIL - as an extension of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a bloody, decades-long uprising in the country.

Meanwhile, Oleg Syromolotov, Russia's deputy foreign minister, said on Thursday that the developments in Afrin have been "provoked" by the action of the US, accusing Washington of planning to supply "more weapons" to US-allied groups within Syria.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180210ee290005s



Trump's Palestine deal is a real estate transaction

1,226 words
9 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

The US is pursuing a plan to push Palestinians into northern Sinai and transfer part of the West Bank to Israel.

As President Donald Trump continues to bluster and tweet his way through a chaotic presidency, the Middle East is simmering dangerously close to a boiling point. Wars in Yemen and Syria are still burning hard, the feud between Qatar and the so-called Quartet of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Bahrain trundles on with no apparent end in sight, Iran continues to flex its military muscles, and both Iraq and Egypt struggle to contain terrorist attacks. Once again, all but forgotten are the Palestinians. Israel, buoyed by Trump's recognition of Jerusalem as its capital, continues, in flagrant disregard of international law and UN resolutions, to build settlements in the West Bank. And Trump threatens to cut off US aid because the Palestinians refused to meet his Vice President Mike Pence after the president had provocatively named Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. "They disrespected us a week ago by not allowing our great vice president to see them," he said during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The president said he was prepared to withhold "hundreds of millions" of dollars in aid, adding "That money is on the table and that money's not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace". The peace proposal that Trump likes best - and that his son-in-law and special Middle East adviser Jared Kushner is reportedly pursuing together with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - looks remarkably like a real estate transaction. Unsurprising, given that the 36-year-old Kushner has no previous experience in diplomacy, but an awful lot of it in wheeling and dealing in the high-stakes world of New York property ventures. {articleGUID} It has been called "the sanctuary plan". It involves the Palestinians surrendering some 50 percent of the West Bank to Israel. Palestinian cities and towns in the West Bank that are encircled by Israeli settlement projects would fall under the administrative control of Jordan. For their part, the Egyptians would agree to cede North Sinai to a new Palestinian entity contiguous with Gaza. The capital of this strange agglomeration would become a Palestinian town on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Abu Dis. Jerusalem whole and undivided would then become the capital of Israel. It is, of course, a madness. What would cause the Palestinians to give up their rights in the West Bank in return for a piece of Egypt riddled with terrorism? Why would Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi turn over more of his land, having already been roundly attacked for giving up two small islands in the Red Sea to the Saudis? But if one year of the Trump presidency has taught us anything, it is that the most extreme and ludicrous of positions can morph quickly into a crude and ugly reality. Now two stories are helping to nudge the sanctuary narrative along. The first was broken by the New York Times on February 3 about military support the Israelis have been providing Egypt in its fight against Ansar Beit al Maqdis (ABM), an affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) on the Sinai Peninsula. In 2014 ABM pledged allegiance to the self-proclaimed ISIL caliph, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi . The peninsula was declared Wilayat Sinai, the Sinai Province of ISIL. Over the years, the Egyptians have lost hundreds of police and soldiers in battling the terrorists in Sinai. In November 2017, the ISIL affiliate carried out an attack on a Sufi mosque that left more than 300 people dead. It was the single worst terrorist atrocity in Egypt's recent history. According to the New York Times, what it called a "secret alliance" has enabled the Israelis to carry out more than 100 air raids inside Egypt against the ABM over the past two years. The Egyptians have denied the claim, but crucially the Israelis have neither confirmed nor denied it. Using unmarked drones and fighter jets with their markings concealed, the Israelis have been trying to degrade the fighters' military capability, something that the Egyptian army has not been successful in doing. To return to the analogy of a real estate deal, if you are Jared Kushner and you want to evict problem tenants from a highly desired property with as little awkwardness as possible, you have to offer them something in return, and that something can't be a property overrun with heavily armed gangsters. So the Israelis are doing their bit to help secure the neighbourhood. For his part, President el-Sisi desperately needs to keep both the Saudis and the Israelis on side as he struggles with a sluggish economy and growing disenchantment with his heavy-handed rule. Saudi cash to the tune of several hundreds of millions of dollars will help keep the economy and el-Sisi afloat. For the Egyptian president, giving up a troublesome North Sinai may seem a small price to pay. For Mohammed bin Salman, a solution to the Palestinian "problem" that he helps to bring about, one that is very favourable to Israel, means that he can then draw on the Israelis - who after all have nuclear arms - to stand up to Iran in the struggle for regional hegemony. The US, grateful too, will put their military might into confronting Iran. And the Egyptians now living in North Sinai? Well, that is a question to be sorted out down the road presumably. {articleGUID} Meanwhile, the forced relocation of large numbers of people is an uncomfortable scenario for the Israelis to contemplate, given the horrific fate of Jews in the Holocaust. What better way to soften Israeli public opinion to a mass eviction of Palestinians than to first launch the deportation of undocumented African immigrants? Some 35,000 are facing precisely that plight. The Netanyahu government has vowed to forcibly repatriate these desperate economic migrants with a take it or leave it offer : $3,500 and a one-way ticket back to Africa, or jail. Gideon Levy, a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, in denouncing the forced repatriation project, wrote recently about what he called " far-reaching plans that only the extreme right talks about for now". With commendable clarity, he lays out what will come next should the government proceed with its efforts to remove the Africans: "If this mini-expulsion succeeds, expect more to come: prepare for a population transfer. If the first operation is successful, it will buoy hopes for additional expulsions. Israel will learn it can do it; that no one will stop it." So while the world sits back and watches, those who will be expelled from what is left of their land will be the Palestinians. Trump's desire to pull off the "biggest deal ever" coupled with Saudi money, Israeli backing and Egyptian connivance could see this ugly dream become a reality, one that yet again excludes the Palestinians from having any meaningful say. It is, to put it simply, a nightmare that should never be allowed to see the light of day. The views expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

Document AJAZEN0020180209ee290018k



US-led air raids in Syria 'kill 100 pro-Assad fighters'

447 words
8 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Syria accuses US-led coalition of 'war crimes' after air raids in oil-rich Deir Az Zor province target its fighters.

Syria has accused the US-led coalition of "war crimes" after air raids in oil-rich Deir Az Zor province targeted its fighters.

A US official told Reuters news agency on Thursday that more than 100 pro-government fighters were killed in the overnight raids.

The US said they had responded to an "unprovoked attack" against the Washington-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), but did not give any details on casualties.

A Pentagon spokesperson told reporters that the SDF had "acted in self-defence with support" from the US-led coalition.

"Pro-regime forces initiated what appeared to be a coordinated attack on Syrian Democratic Forces east of the Euphrates river deconfliction line," Dana White said.

"Syrian Democratic Forces supported by the coalition targeted the aggressors with a combination of air and artillery strikes," she added.

Syrian news agency SANA disputed the US account and said that the US-led coalition had "attacked popular forces that were fighting" armed groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).

The Syrian government described the air raids as "a new aggression that poses a war crime and a crime against humanity".

It called on the UN Security Council to condemn the "massacre", according to state news agency SANA.

Russia, an ally of Assad, said the goal of the US military presence in Syria is "aimed at taking control of the country's economic assets and not at fighting against [ISIL]", Russian news agency TASS reported.

The SDF is a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters led by the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG).

"The area in which the attack took place is significant not just because it's one of the places known to have oil within Syria, but more importantly because who controls it on the ground is the Syrian Democratic Forces," Al Jazeera's Jamal Elshayyal, reporting from Gaziantep, on the Turkish side of the Syria-Turkey border, said.

"Washington depended heavily upon them in the fight against ISIL over the years and now find themselves in a situation where it's pegged against Turkey and others who accuse this militia of essentially being just as bad as ISIL themselves.

The air raids coincided with escalating violence elsewhere in Syria.

More than 200 people were killed in the Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta and in Idlib, while Turkey continues a military offensive to clear the YPG from the northwestern border town of Afrin.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180209ee28000md



US bombers halt the Taliban with no victory in sight

842 words
8 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

US and the Taliban are unleashing more violence to tilt the stalemate and favour their conditions at the table.

A more aggressive US strategy in Afghanistan has put the Taliban on the back foot, soldiers and police say, but recent, bloody attacks in Kabul show the group remains potent and a prolonged stalemate looms.

President Donald Trump in August unveiled a more hawkish military approach, including a surge in air attacks, aimed at forcing the Taliban to the negotiating table.

While Afghan security forces say the effect has been significant, the Taliban are still mobile in huge swaths of the country and, with foreign troop levels at about 15,000 compared with 140,000 in 2014, there appears little hope of outright military victory.

"The American air attacks have broken their back," said Nasrullah, a soldier in Kunar province on the Pakistani border. "They don't dare attack in large numbers because they know they'd all get killed. Without air support, we'd be struggling."

The Taliban made gains after NATO withdrew most of its combat troops in late 2014. Two years later, they were threatening several district centres and even two provincial capitals, including Kunduz, in the north, which was briefly captured.

Now the fighters no longer threaten the city, said Kunduz police chief Abul Hameed Hamidi.

Air attacks had been a "game changer", he said, along with a revived campaign of "night raids" aimed at capturing fighter leaders, which previous President Hamid Karzai banned because they were so unpopular.

Soldiers and police in districts outside Kunduz that were contested a year ago said the war had tilted in their favour.

"They can't face us and instead hide among civilians, plant roadside bombs and carry out suicide attacks," said soldier Abdul Karim.

Changed the picture

In Helmand province in the south, the Taliban have been pushed back 30 km from the provincial capital, Lashkar Gar, said governor Hayatullah Hayat, who also credited air attacks.

There were fears last year that the town could fall.

Helmand policeman Baz Gul said the air attacks had "changed the picture completely" and morale was high.

The US air attacks in Afghanistan in 2017 shot up to 4,361, according to US data, compared with 1,337 the previous year.

NATO's Resolute Support mission said on Tuesday the air campaign had been expanded in the north, with B-52 bombers striking Taliban positions.

The mission commander, General John Nicholson, said that the Taliban fighters could not win on the battlefield.

A Taliban spokesman denied that air attacks had forced fighters to flee, saying they were still operating in district centres and across the countryside.

According to a recent BBC study, the Taliban are openly active in 70 percent of districts. A spokesman for the NATO mission said the BBC estimate overstated the insurgents' "influence impact" and only about 12 percent of the population was under full Taliban control.

Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network think-tank told Reuters there were limits to what air power could achieve, while pointing out that the number of civilian casualties had risen, which could be used by the Taliban for propaganda.

"Pushing the Taliban back is not victory over them," he said. "The Taliban have proven that they are able to adjust and out-wait such campaigns before."

Escalating violence, including clashes with Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) in Afghanistan forced 360,000 people from their homes in 2017, with more than 2,600 civilians killed, according to the United Nations.

"No end"

Trump rejected talks with the Taliban after a January 27 bomb in Kabul killed 103 people, a week after a Taliban attack on a hotel killed four Americans and some 26 Afghans. But the long-term US aim remains to force the Taliban into a settlement, a top US official said later.

The Afghan government has also taken a tougher stand on talks, while the Taliban say negotiations depend on foreign troops leaving. They said the Kabul attacks were a response to Trump's aggression and threatened more.

The International Crisis Group think-tank said that, while US officials say their diplomatic and military efforts are aimed at reaching a settlement to the US' longest war - which officials estimate will cost taxpayers more than $45bn this year - diplomacy has clearly been downgraded.

"The US and Afghan governments hope a peace process will emerge from the ashes of this intensified military campaign, but a peace process has never been more remote in recent years," said the group's senior Afghan analyst, Borhan Osman.

"Both sides are unleashing more violence based on the same rationale that it would tilt this stalemate to favour their conditions at the table."

Afghan forces are steeling themselves for a drawn-out fight with a well-armed enemy.

"There must be another way out of this," said Sher Wali, a policeman in Nangarhar province. "Because it looks like it'll never end."

Reuters news agency

Document AJAZEN0020180208ee28001gt



Syria's civil war explained from the beginning

1,437 words
8 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

The Syrian civil war is the deadliest conflict the 21st century has witnessed so far.

The Syrian conflict will soon enter its eighth year. More than 465,000 Syrians have been killed in the fighting, over a million injured and over 12 million - half the country's prewar population - have been displaced from their homes. In 2011, what became known as the Arab Spring revolts toppled Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. That March, peaceful protests erupted in Syria as well, after 15 boys were detained and tortured for writing graffiti in support of the Arab Spring. One of the boys, 13-year-old Hamza al-Khateeb, was killed after having been brutally tortured. The Syrian government, led by President Bashar al-Assad, responded to the protests by killing hundreds of demonstrators and imprisoning many more. In July 2011, defectors from the military announced the formation of the Free Syrian Army, a rebel group aiming to overthrow the government, and Syria began to slide into civil war.

What caused the uprising?

Initially, lack of freedoms and economic woes fuelled resentment of the Syrian government, and public anger was inflamed by the harsh crackdown on protesters. Successful uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt energised and gave hope to Syrian pro-democracy activists. Many Islamist movements were also strongly opposed to the al-Assads' rule, which had targeted them for years. In 1982, Bashar's father, Hafez al-Assad, ordered a military crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, killing 10,000-40,000 people and flattening much of the city. Although the initial protests in 2011 were mostly non-sectarian, the armed conflict led to the emergence of starker sectarian divisions. Most Syrians are Sunni Muslims, but Syria's security establishment has long been dominated by members of the Alawi sect, of which al-Assad is a member. Minority religious groups tend to support the Assad government, while the overwhelming majority of opposition fighters are Sunni Muslims. Even global warming has been said to have played a role in sparking the 2011 uprising. Severe drought plagued Syria from 2007-10, causing as many as 1.5 million people to migrate from the countryside into cities, exacerbating poverty and social unrest.

International involvement

Foreign backing and open intervention have played a large role in Syria's civil war. Russia entered the conflict in 2015 and has been the Assad government's main ally since then.

* Regional actors: The governments of majority-Shia Iran and Iraq and Lebanon-based Hezbollah have supported al-Assad, while Sunni-majority countries, including Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia supported anti-Assad rebels.

* Since 2016, Turkish troops have launched several operations against ISIL near its borders, as well as against Kurdish groups armed by the United States.

* Anti-ISIL coalition: The US has armed anti-Assad rebel groups and led an international coalition bombing targets of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group since 2014.

* Israel carried out air raids inside Syria, reportedly targeting Hezbollah and pro-government fighters and facilities.

* Israel and Syria have technically been at war since 1948, but the border had been largely quiet since 1973.

US and Russia

The US has repeatedly stated its opposition to the Assad government backed by Russia but has not involved itself as deeply.

* Chemical red line: Former US President Barack Obama had warned that the use of chemical weapons in Syria was a "red line" that would prompt military intervention.

* In April 2017, the US carried its first direct military action against Assad's forces, launching 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles at a Syrian air force base from which US officials believe a chemical attack on Khan Sheikhoun had been launched.

* CIA training: In 2013, the CIA began a covert programme to arm, fund and train rebel groups opposing al-Assad, but the programme was later shut down after it was revealed that the CIA had spent $500m but only trained 60 fighters.

* Russia's campaign: In September 2015, Russia launched a bombing campaign against what it referred to as "terrorist groups" in Syria, which included ISIL as well as anti-Assad rebel groups backed by the USA. Russia has also deployed military advisers to shore up Assad's defences.

* At the UN Security Council, Russia and China have repeatedly vetoed Western-backed resolutions on Syria.

Peace talks

Peace negotiations have been ongoing between the Syrian government and the opposition in order to achieve a military ceasefire and political transition in Syria, but the main sticking point has been the fate of al-Assad.

* Geneva: The first round of UN-facilitated talks between the Syrian government and opposition delegates took place in Geneva, Switzerland in June 2012.

* The latest round of talks in December 2017 failed amid a tit-for-tat between Syrian government and opposition delegates over statements about the future role of al-Assad in a transitional government.

* In 2014 Staffan de Mistura replaced Kofi Annan as the UN special envoy for Syria.

* Astana: In May 2017, Russia, Iran and Turkey called for the setup of four de-escalation zones in Syria, over which Syrian and Russian fighter jets were not expected to fly.

* Sochi: In January 2018, Russia sponsored talks over the future of Syria in the Black Sea city of Sochi, but the opposition bloc boycotted the conference, claiming it was an attempt to undercut the UN effort to broker a deal.

Rebel groups

Since the conflict began, as a Syrian rebellion against the Assad government, many new rebel groups have joined the fighting in Syria and have frequently fought one another.

* The Free Syrian Army (FSA) is a loose conglomeration of armed brigades formed in 2011 by defectors from the Syrian army and civilians backed by the United States, Turkey, and several Gulf countries.

* In December 2016, the Syrian army scored its biggest victory against the rebels when it recaptured the strategic city of Aleppo. Since then, the FSA has controlled limited areas in northwestern Syria. Since January 2018 it has been fighting with Turkey to capture Afrin from Kurdish fighters seeking self-rule.

* ISIL emerged in northern and eastern Syria in 2013 after overrunning large portions of Iraq. The group quickly gained international notoriety for its brutal executions and its energetic use of social media to recruit fighters from around the world.

* Other groups fighting in Syria include Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Iran-backed Hezbollah, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dominated by the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG).

The situation today

Turkey and the Free Syrian Army have launched an offensive against Kurdish YPG groups in northern Syria, while Russian and Syrian government forces have intensified their offensive on the last remaining rebel stronghold near the capital.

* Ghouta bombing: Russian and Syrian government forces have killed more than 110 civilians in Eastern Ghouta within 48 hours as reported by monitoring groups in February 2018.

* The US also accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons in Eastern Ghouta, which has been under siege since 2013.

* Turkish offensive: On January 20, Turkey and allied groups began a military operation against the YPG in northwestern Syria, near Afrin.

* Also in northwestern Syria, Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham rebels claimed responsibility for shooting down a Russian warplane near Idlib on February 3.

Syrian refugees

Now having gone on longer than World War II, the war in Syria is causing profound effects beyond the country's borders, with many Syrians having left their homes to seek safety elsewhere in Syria or beyond. As of February 2018, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) had registered over 5.5 million refugees from Syria and estimated that there are over 6,5 million internally displaced persons (IDP) within Syria's borders. Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan are hosting most of the Syrian refugees , many of whom attempt to journey onwards to Europe in search of better conditions. The 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees describes a refugee as any person who, "owing to well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of his nationality and is unable or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of that country". In 2017, about 66,000 refugees returned to Syria, according to reports. With much of Syria in ruins, and a population deeply traumatised by war, one thing is certain: rebuilding Syria after the war will be a lengthy, difficult process. Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180208ee28000gp



Pakistan's youth seek justice for Naqeebullah Mehsud

1,748 words
7 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Group of young activists in Pakistan's north fight for tribal rights and pursue case of police killing.

Dera Ismail Khan, Pakistan –aqeebullah Mehsud never wanted this life, slaving away for long hours at a textile factory, scraping together the cash to start his own garment shop.

On the evening of January 3, he sat at a roadside restaurant in northern Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, with friends, discussing plans for how he was going to start that shop.

Armed men in plain clothes burst into the restaurant, demanding to know which of the young men was Naqeebullah Mehsud.

When he identified himself, the men grabbed Mehsud and took him away in their vehicle. It was to be the last time he was seen alive.

On January 13, police said that Naqeebullah had been among four Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) and Pakistani Taliban "terrorists" killed in a shootout with police in eastern Karachi.

The incident sparked national outrage, with relatives and friends protesting Naqeebullah's innocence.

They were joined by thousands of his fans - Naqeebullah ran a popular Facebookpage where he posted pictures of himself modeling clothes and hairstyles.

{articleGUID} Friends and family said that far from being a feared Taliban fighter who had killed several security forces personnel, as the police claimed, Naqeebullah was an aspiring male model.

A police inquiry was ordered by the Supreme Court, which was told that Rao Anwar, the police officer responsible for the killing, had presided over at least 444 killings in 745 police shootouts since he took over as a senior police official in Karachi's Malir district.

Anwar, long known as Karachi's version of 'Dirty Harry', is now on the run, wanted by the courts after the police inquiry found there was no evidence to suggest Naqeebullah was a member of the Taliban.

None of this, however, would have happened if it had not been for the Mehsud Tahaffuz Movement (MTM) - a grassroots group of young activists from Naqeebullah's native district of South Waziristan.

Born in violence

"He was a very honest person, he did not have any kind of pride or arrogance," said Abdul Wahid Mehsud, one of the founders of the MTM, and a friend to Naqeebullah.

"He said that he had worked a lot as a labourer, and that now that he was getting a good response from social media [to his modeling], he would open a shop [… and then all this fame would help to make the shop successful."

Abdul Wahid, 30, is one of the founders of the Mehsud Tahaffuz Movement (Mehsud Protection Movement), back when it was just eight students at Gomal University, in the town of Dera Ismail Khan, about 300km southwest of the capital Islamabad, and adjacent to South Waziristan.

The group was founded to fight for the rights of members of the Mehsud tribe, which hails from South Waziristan.

{articleGUID} The remote district in northwestern Pakistan is one of the country's poorest, and consistently scores among the lowest in countrywide socioeconomic surveys.

It is more widely known as the birthplace of the Pakistani Taliban, home to the group's founder Baitullah Mehsud and his successor Hakeemullah Mehsud, both of whom waged a bloody war against Pakistani security forces and civilians for years.

Driven from their homes in 2009, after the military launched a successful operation to displace the Taliban from its stronghold, most Mehsuds continue to live outside of their homeland, for want of both security and basic services like healthcare, education and employment.

The operation was brutal, and, MTM members allege, the military has not let up in its violence against South Waziristan residents who have chosen to return, often arbitrarily detaining them or subjecting whole villages to collective punishment if there is a security incident in their area.

"We have grown up watching all of this happen around us," Alam Zeb, 25, one of the group's most outspoken members, told Al Jazeera.

"In the end, we thought that someone should raise their voice, someone should ask the harsh questions. And we saw that there was no one. Not our political leadership, [… not our tribal leaders, [… no one is willing to ask these questions."

The MTM's fight focuses on three major issues: unexploded landmines and improvised explosive devices (IEDs) that remain strewn across South Waziristan, the alleged arbitrary detention of residents by the military and alleged harassment by the armed forces.

The military denies that it arbitrarily detains or assaults citizens in South Waziristan and elsewhere.

"In case of any sporadic terrorist or IED incident in the area, efforts to identify any possible resident facilitation to terrorists by the locals and to investigate details of the event, local populace is engaged strictly as per local [… tradition," said a military statement in response to Al Jazeera's questions.

On landmines, however, the MTM has emerged as the only group willing to organise victims and to lobby the military to do a more effective job of clearing explosives that have, so far, claimed at least 18 lives and wounded scores more since displaced Mehsuds began returning home in 2012.

"I am very thankful to them. I was not there that day, and for what they did I cannot thank them enough," said Khan Rasool, 50, whose daughter and grandson were severely wounded in a landmine explosion in South Waziristan last month.

MTM members, he said, helped to get them the medical care they needed.

Bringing the 'apocalypse'

The fight for Naqeebullah's case, was personal.

"He was from my area, I knew him, I had met him a few times," said Muhammad Idrees, 25, another of the group's founders, who says the case outraged Mehsud youths because it brought home the issue of the social profiling of Pashtuns, and particularly Mehsuds, as "terrorists".

Ihsanullah Mehsud, a member of the movement, narrated how on a recent trip to Pakistan's second city of Lahore he was denied accommodation at a hotel, after the hotel owner saw his last name on his national identification card.

Others quickly chimed in with similar stories.

"If [the MTM] hadn't raised their voice, [Naqeebullah] would have been considered the same kind of 'terrorist' as so many others who have been killed, in the hundreds, for years," said Ihsanullah.

Asked if they think that residents of South Waziristan are accorded the same human rights as other citizens in Pakistan, they laugh, apparently at the absurdity of the question.

"[In South Waziristan], the state of human rights is that when someone is killed in an explosion, [the army] goes there and oppresses the very people who were the targets. To ask them: 'Why did this explosion happen?'" narrates Alam Zeb.

"Essentially, to ask them 'Why did you die?'"

Since February 1, the MTM has led a sit-in of hundreds of people from across the country in the capital Islamabad, uniting demonstrators across political party lines, rallying around Naqeebullah's killing.

Their demands include the arrest and trial of Rao Anwar; the formation of an inquiry commission into similar extrajudicial killings by the police in Karachi and elsewhere; and an end to the policy of "assault and abduction of common people" after security incidents in South Waziristan and elsewhere.

"They say it is a sign of the Day of Judgment, when Pashtuns actually stand together," said Saeed Anwar Mehsud, a political leader from South Waziristan.

"It seems the MTM has brought about the apocalypse."

Subverting power structures

If the MTM is able to achieve that which has never happened before, it is also because they work in a manner that no one else does, using social media and grassroots activism to subvert traditional power structures.

"The tribal leadership of South Waziristan, they have almost all been killed," said Mansur Khan, director of research at the Islamabad-based FATA Resource Centre.

"The ones left now are sycophants to the government or military. And the MTM opposes those who are constantly standing with those in power."

In addition, Khan says, the young activists have been able to harness the power of social media to organise directly with common people, bypassing political parties and traditional leadership structures.

"Social media has become such a weapon for us, that we can use to make our voice or the voice of any person from the tribal areas heard. [… It has given every person a voice," said Alam Zeb.

Zeb is known for hosting Facebook Lives when landmine victims arrive at the local hospital in Dera Ismail Khan, documenting what happened to them, where the explosion occurred, and what government aid (if any) they were offered.

"This in itself is a way to protect yourself," he said, adding that once such videos have been broadcast, the authorities cannot deny that the problem exists.

Once, Idrees said, he was questioned by a man identifying himself as a member of Pakistan's military intelligence agency, asking why he was posting statements and victims' stories on social media, rather than approaching the military directly.

"I said that we have done this out of desperation," he said. "We have gotten tired, after all the times where we told you and you promised that the issues would be resolved by such and such time. And they were not."

The phone call carried a veiled threat, Idrees said, and it was not the first that members of the group have received.

Last year, several members were detained for hours by security forces, after leading a protest for landmine victims. Others have been kicked out of their homes for their activism.

"We are accused of being agents, of being after money from NGOs, but we have set those things aside and pay no attention to them," said Wahid.

"Even if they cut us into tiny pieces, we will not step backwards. We have burned our boats to enter this battlefield."

Back at the protest in Islamabad, Wahid and other speakers continue to rally the hundreds who refuse to leave until justice is done for Naqeebullah Mehsud.

The stage they stand upon is draped with 15ft high portraits of the young aspiring model, taken from his Facebook portfolio and now looking out upon the massive crowd.

"What he could not achieve in life, it seems he has achieved in death," said one bystander.

Asad Hashim is Al Jazeera's Web Correspondent in Pakistan. He tweets @AsadHashim.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180207ee27000gp



Ashraf Ghani: 'Philosopher king' or ethnonationalist?

1,098 words
5 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Despite being labelled as an intellectual politician, Ashraf Ghani has been pursuing reckless identity politics.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani seems to have earned respect among some political circles thanks to his impressive educational background. With a PhD in anthropology and years of experience teaching at top US universities, he has been praised for his career achievements. In May 2014, Ghani was ranked second among "world thinkers" of 2013 by Britain's Prospect Magazine.

Ghani enjoyed the high regard of some Afghans as well. His inauguration as the head of the National Unity Government of Afghanistan (NUG) in September 2014 was met with some optimism among the educated segments of society. And that was despite widespread fraud during the election process which led to a power-sharing deal between Ghani and his rival, Abdullah Abdullah.

Thanks to his reputation as a "top thinker", Ghani has long been portrayed as Plato's "philosopher king" - someone who can lead multi-ethnic Afghanistan towards much-needed civic nationalism and transform the country's image.

Having worked with the UN and the World Bank, Ghani was seen as someone who could bridge the ethnocentric socio-political divides. However, over three years have passed since Ghani started his tenure as the head of NUG, and his performance proved that he is much more of an ethnonationalist than a "philosopher king".

A 'philosopher king' in foreign affairs

In foreign affairs, Ghani has done much better than former Afghan President Hamid Karzai. By pursuing pragmatic foreign policy strategies, Ghani's government has improved its standing on the world stage and learned how to stand up to countries like Pakistan.

{articleGUID} Under his leadership, Afghanistan has raised its voice against state sponsors of "terrorism" at regional and global forums. It has succeeded in convincing the international community to put pressure on Pakistan to give up its support for the Taliban. The new US strategy towards South Asia and its tougher rhetoric on Pakistan followed the intense lobbying efforts of Ghani's government.

Afghanistan has also utilised regional mechanisms (such as the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia, the Heart of Asia - Istanbul Process, etc.) to promote the country as a key economic link between South and Central Asia. As a result, Afghanistan is participating in major regional projects in the spheres of trade, transport, and energy.

Progress in foreign affairs is crucial for the future of Afghanistan, and thus far Ghani has done well.

An ethnonationalist in domestic affairs

However, on the domestic front, Afghanistan seems to be going down an uncertain path. Ghani, an ethnic Pashtun, became president on the back of a very controversial election. Following accusations of unprecedented electoral violations, US Secretary of State John Kerry brokered a power-sharing deal between Ghani and the Jamiat-e Islami party candidate Abdullah Abdullah. While there were many reports of electoral fraud, the NUG Agreement made Ghani the president and Abdullah the chief executive officer, a position similar to a prime minister's seat.

The agreement that brought Ghani to power mandated the NUG with amending the constitution to change the absolute presidential system to a semi-presidential one, with a prime minister as the head of government. It was also supposed to reform the electoral system and distribute electronic national identity cards. All of these reforms, which could have helped the formation of a truly democratic political system inclusive of all ethnic groups, were supposed to be implemented within two years of the election.

{articleGUID} The NUG has been in power for nearly four years now, and none of these agreed measures has materialised. Furthermore, Ghani has made a number of controversial decisions that fuelled political tensions among the country's ethnic groups further. For example, he repealed a law that would have each citizen choose what ethnicity they are for the new biometric identification cards. Now everyone will be classified as "Afghan", a term many in the country perceive to refer to members of the Pashtun tribe. This has angered many non-Pashtun groups.

Apart from that, Ghani has isolated a number of prominent non-Pashtun leaders. He fired his senior adviser, Ahmad Zia Massoud, a well-known ethnic Tajik figure and former vice president. He forced First Vice President General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the most powerful leader of the Uzbek community, into self-imposed exile after accusing him of ordering the kidnapping and rape of an elderly political opponent. Dostum has claimed that all accusations are part of a political plot against him.

Ghani has also severed relations with Mohammad Mohaqiq, a powerful Hazara leader who is one of CEO Abdullah's deputies. He has locked horns with General Atta Noor, a highly influential Jamiat figure from the Tajik ethnic group in the north. Noor had been the governor of Balkh Province for 13 years until Ghani fired him in December last year.

While Ghani has systematically forced non-Pashtun leaders out of the unity government, he has surrounded himself with Pashtun ethnonationalist leaders. He signed a controversial peace deal with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a notorious Pashtun tribal leader with ties to the Taliban, al-Qaeda and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) who is also known as "the butcher of Kabul" for the role he played in the destruction of Kabul in the 1990s civil wars.

Ghani has also appointed a handful of Pashtu-speaking advisors and has given them full access to government resources and decision-making authority within the Presidential Palace. For example, the president's national security adviser, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, is in charge of security institutions.

Under the NUG agreement, such executive powers should only be granted to the first vice president. Instead, Dostum is now in exile, and Ghani's adviser enjoys all the privileges of his position - hiring, firing, promoting and demoting within the national army and police.

The unprecedented executive power granted to Ghani's advisors makes them de-facto chief ministers overriding the decision-making of the individuals appointed to these positions under the NUG.

So, looking at his domestic policies, it is impossible to deny that Ghani has been acting like an ethnonationalist. Presidential elections are coming up in a year's time, and perhaps he thinks this strategy will guarantee him re-election. But pushing Afghanistan down a path of ethnic divisions is dangerous and could precipitate Ghani's political demise.

The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

Document AJAZEN0020180207ee250015r



Yemenis protest after US drone attack kills 7 in Shabwa

366 words
5 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Residents say the January 28 raid killed seven 'innocent civilians' as they were searching for a missing child.

Scores of Yemenis have taken to the streets of the southern province of Shabwa after a US drone attack killed at least seven civilians.

The January 28 drone attack decimated a car carrying at least six male members of the same family and another individual as they were searching for a "missing child" in Shabwa's Said district, residents said.

Saleh al-Aishi al-Ateeqi, a relative of one of the victims who organised the protest, told local media that "the victims were all innocent civilians who had nothing to do with any political or religious organisation."

Speaking at a protest in the city of Ateq on Sunday, al-Ateeqi blamed the Arab coalition at war with Yemen for the deaths, saying it was responsible for the country's airspace and protecting civilian lives.

The United States is the only force known to operate armed drones over Yemen and does not normally comment on its operations.

Increase in attacks under Trump

Washington has stepped up its use of drone attacks under President Donald Trump, with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism reporting at least 125 drone attacks last year.

The increased bombing comes despite a botched American raid against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) that killed a number of civilians on January 29, 2017.

The raid on Yakla, an impoverished and desolate town, resulted in the deaths of at least 16 civilians, including women and children.

The January 2017 raid attracted widespread media attention because one Navy SEAL was also killed in what marked the first operation of its kind authorised by Trump.

AQAP and the local affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, known as ISIS) have exploited Yemen's three-year war to carry out assassinations and bombings, mostly in lawless areas in the south.

According to the United Nations, more than 10,000 people have been killed in fighting - nearly half of them civilians - since a Saudi-led coalition launched air attacks on Yemen in March 2015.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180205ee25000uo



Saddam's eldest daughter Raghad on most wanted list

311 words
4 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

The names of 60 individuals including the daughter of late Saddam Hussein, Raghad, are on Iraq's most wanted list.

The Iraqi government has placed the name of late Saddam Hussein's daughter, Raghad, on the most wanted list, together with 59 other individuals.

The 60 people are wanted on suspicion of belonging to the Islamic State in Iraq and Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), al-Qaeda or the Baath Party.

The list, seen by AFP, includes the name of Saddam's daughter, Raghad, who lives in Jordan.

It also features 28 suspected ISIL fighters, 12 from Al-Qaeda and 20 from the Baath party, giving details of the roles they allegedly play in their organisations, the alleged crimes of which they are suspected, and, in most cases, photographs.

All are Iraqis, apart from Maan Bashour, a Lebanese man accused of recruiting fellow citizens to fight in Iraq.

The list includes senior members of the group, among them Fawaz Mohammad Mutlaq, a former officer in Saddam's Fedayeen paramilitary organisation who later became a member of the ISIL military council.

The name of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIL, is absent from the list. A senior security official contacted by AFP declined to explain why.

"These are the terrorists most wanted by the judicial authorities and the security services," the official said. "This is the first time we publish these names which, until now, were secret."

The ISIL fighters the document lists are accused of fighting in Iraq's second city, Mosul, and the surrounding province of Nineveh, as well as in the provinces of Kirkuk, Diyala and Anbar.

ISIL took a third of Iraq's territory during a lightning advance in 2014, before being beaten back by Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition.

AFP news agency

Document AJAZEN0020180205ee240008f



The Hague: Mosque vandalized

302 words
4 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

No group has claimed responsibility for act of vandalism in port city The Hague.

A mosque in the Dutch port city of The Hague has been vandalized late Friday.

So far, no group has claimed responsibility for the act of vandalism, in which a Turkish flag was crossed with red paint with slogans against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan also written on it.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency on Saturday, Sinasi Koc, the head of Ahi Evran Mosque, which is currently under construction and belongs to the Islamic Foundation in the Netherlands, condemned the attack.

Koc said the attack was probably related to Turkey’ ongoing Operation Olive Branch in Syria’ Afrin.

"There are those who do not want our unity and solidarity, and those who want to bring disorder to us. They will not succeed, for Allah is with us," Koc said.

Since Turkey launched Operation Olive Branch on January 20 to rid Afrin, northwestern Syria, of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD), the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS), there have been numerous attacks on mosques across Europe by PYD/PKK supporting groups.

According to the Turkish General Staff, the operation aims to establish security and stability along Turkey’ borders and the region as well as protect Syrians from oppression and cruelty.

In Rotterdam, supporters of the PYD/PKK organisation attacked Turkish demonstrators, an Anadolu Agency correspondent at the scene reported.

The supporters, who were holding banners at the market hall, also attacked reporters, not allowing them to take footage.

Europe has experienced a growing number of protests and violence from PYD/PKK supporters since the group launched a campaign two weeks ago to protest Turkey’ operation.

Anadolu news agency

Document AJAZEN0020180204ee24000p4



Turkish army suffers deadliest day in Syria's Afrin

461 words
4 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Eight Turkish soldiers killed in northern Syria, some of whom died after Kurdish forces hit their tank, army says.

Turkey says it has suffered its deadliest day yet in northern Syria since launching its offensive against YPG Kurdish fighters there more than two weeks ago.

On Saturday, eight Turkish soldiers were killed, according to a Turkish army statement.

Some died after their tank came under fire from Syrian Kurdish forces.

Turkey wants to push the YPG, which it says are "terrorists", out of Afrin to create a buffer zone along its southern border.

YPG fighters targeted the Turkish army tank in Sheikh Haruz, northeast of Afrin, killing five soldiers. Three other soldiers were killed in fighting elsewhere in Afrin.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim promised to retaliate in a statement on Twitter.

"They will pay for this twice as much. We have given the necessary response instantly, and we continue to do so," Yildirim said.

Immediately after the attack at Sheikh Haruz, an air operation targeting YPG positions and weapon storages in the area was launched, the army said.

Turkey's Operation Olive Branch began on January 20 along with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to clear armed Kurdish groups and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters from Afrin in northwestern Syria.

Since the start of the operation, Kurdish fighters have carried out cross-border attacks by firing rockets into southern Turkey.

According to the Turkish army, the operation aims to establish security and stability along Turkish borders and the region as well as to protect Syrians from what Ankara called "terrorist oppression and cruelty".

Russian retaliation

Meanwhile, Syrian rebels shot down a Russian warplane in northwestern Idlib province on Saturday, the Russian defence ministry said.

The pilot of the aircraft, a Sukhoi 25, used his ejection seat after his plane was hit by a man-carried portable air defence missile.

He was later killed when rebels tried to capture him.

"The pilot managed to report the ejection in the area controlled by the militants of Jabhat al-Nusra, but later he died fighting the terrorists," a statement by the Russian ministry of defence said.

The downing of the aircraft has been claimed by Hay'et Tahrir al-Sham, commonly known as Tahrir al-Sham. The group is spearheaded by the former al-Nusra Front, which used to be al-Qaeda's branch in Syria.

Moscow has retaliated with dozens of attacks in which at least 10 civilians were killed, according to local activists. Russia says it has killed 30 fighters.

There has been heavy fighting in Idlib for weeks. The UN says about 100,000 civilians have been displaced.

Al Jazeera and news agencies

Document AJAZEN0020180204ee24000gp



Refugees deported by Europe attacked by Taliban, ISIL

993 words
4 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Afghans deported and returned from Europe tell Al Jazeera how they are caught in the crossfire amid rising attacks.

Nasir, a 26-year-old shopkeeper from the northern Kunduz province, left as a refugee for Europe in July 2015 - the year his father, a local police officer, was killed by unknown assailants.

Last month, having returned to Afghanistan after being deported from Finland, he was injured in a Taliban-claimed massacre in Kabul that killed more than 100 people.

As he recovered in a hospital bed, with fractured legs and ribs, Nasir remembered the tough decisions he had to make following his father's death.

{articleGUID} In assaults across the country, the security apparatus, including local policemen, is often targeted.

Along with his mother and two brothers, the family used to spend "every moment in a state of constant fear".

"My mother asked us to leave. She knew after my father's death, we were in danger," said Nasir, using a pseudonym to protect his safety.

"It was a big decision to make. Leaving everything behind in Afghanistan, even my mother, was too difficult."

Shortly after his father's death, his brother was also attacked by a group of unknown men. It was then that Nasir decided to flee Afghanistan.

But fewer than three years later, he was back on Afghan soil.

He claims immigration officials in Finland pressured him to sign some forms, which he did not fully understand, essentially authorising his deportation.

In recent months, European countries have tightened borders and asylum policies, resulting in large groups of refugees being pushed back to Afghanistan - a volatile country where civilian casualties are at record levels.

"About nine months have passed since I returned from Finland to Kabul, where I work as a shopkeeper," Nasir told Al Jazeera. "Only my mother and my uncle's family know that I was deported. No one else, as my life is still in danger."

Recalling his brief time in Finland, Nasir said he felt unwanted but knew he was safer than in Afghanistan.

"I remember once I wanted to buy something from a supermarket, and even though I had money to pay the shopkeeper, he refused to sell it to me.

"That bothered me a bit, but at least my life was safe there, so I let it go."

According to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, as of September 2017, Afghans accounted for the largest group of asylum seekers to the bloc, with 170,045 applications pending approval.

Ineligible applicants are sent back to their home country or a "safe third country", which is expected to provide sufficient protection.

In 2015, 33 percent of first-instance applications by Afghan asylum seekers were rejected, according to Eurostat.

By the first three quarters of 2017, more than half of first-instance applications - or 52 percent - were rejected.

Nasir said living in Afghanistan means "facing death" every day.

'We don't want to die. There is no protection'

Hayat Hooman, a member of the persecuted Hazara minority, was sent back to Afghanistan from Sweden in 2016.

As a voluntary returnee from Europe, facilitated by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), he was promised financial assistance and reintegration resources.

But in July 2016, those incentives meant little when his friend was killed and he was wounded in an ISIL attack in Kabul on a peaceful protest by the Hazara minority that killed at least 80 people.

"I thought, if I get the money I will be able to start off something in Kabul that will help my family financially," Hooman said. "I felt my family needed me back in Afghanistan. They are very poor and I had to return back to earn something for them.

"But the situation in Afghanistan is getting so bad every day, that I might go back and apply for asylum again with my family.

"We don't want to die. There is no protection."

Bloodshed continues

The UN documented more than 16,290 security-related incidents in the first eight months of 2017.

In June 2017, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the situation in Afghanistan was "intensively volatile".

Between January 1 and June 30, 2017, UNAMA reported 5,243 civilian casualties including 1,662 deaths and 3,581 injured.

Despite the very obvious risk to citizens' safety, nine European countries - Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and France - are deporting or have decided to deport failed Afghan asylum seekers via the Joint Way Forward agreement between the EU and Afghanistan.

The 2016 agreement facilitates the return of thousands of Afghans. In return, the bloc promised to continue its aid package to Afghanistan.

European politicians and officials regularly describe some areas of Afghanistan as "safe".

But recent events have demonstrated that the security situation in Afghanistan is far from safe.

On January 21, the Talibanorchestrated a bloody siege at Kabul's Intercontinental Hotel that left at least 20 dead.

On January 24, Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters killed three people at the office of Save the Children, in the eastern city of Jalalabad.

A week later, more than 100 people lost their lives and 235 - including Nasir - were injured in the Taliban suicide attack in the heart of the capital.

In a November 2017 survey of Afghan returnees from Europe by REACH, which researches humanitarian issues, most respondents said they would make another attempt at returning to Europe.

Nasir is among those who are willing to take the risk again, he said, if he is able to fund the expensive journey.

"I know it will be difficult to get asylum, but I cannot live in fear every second in this country," he said. "How is Afghanistan safe for me? I need to know if I am not safe in Kabul, where else would I be?"

Follow Shereena Qazi on Twitter: @ShereenaQazi

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180204ee24000b6



US accuses Syria of chemical weapons use in East Ghouta

520 words
3 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

State Department says it is 'very concerned' as volunteer White Helmets group claims children among those suffocated.

The United States has accused the Syrian government of using chemical weapons against its people.

US State Department spokesman Heather Nauert said on Thursday that reports of chlorine gas being used against civilians in Eastern Ghouta were "very concerning".

"Russia is making the wrong choice by not exercising its unique influence. To allow [the] Syria regime to use chemical weapons against its own people is unconscionable. We will pursue accountability," she said, writing on Twitter.

Russia is Syria's closest ally, and has previously blocked attempts to investigate the suspected use of chemical weapons.

Nauert's comments follow a suspected chlorine gas attack in the rebel-held territory of Eastern Ghouta, on the outskirts of Damascus, on Thursday.

On Saturday, Syria's foreign ministry denied the allegations, according to Reuters news agency.

The White Helmets volunteer rescue group posted photos of the suspected attack on Twitter, under the hashtag "Douma Suffocating".

"3 civilians killed and many injured, including suffocation cases among children, women and #CivilDefense volunteers! 28 air raids, 70 surface-to-surface missiles, some loaded w/chlorine gas and 200 artillery shells targeted cities in #Eastern_Ghouta today! #Doumasuffocating", the group wrote on Twitter.

It was unclear whether White Helmets was suggesting the three people who had been killed died of suffocation.

The group claimed that volunteer Bilal Bayram was among the victims who was "suffocated by the chlorine gas attack".

Several children were also affected, the group said.

Rebel stronghold under siege

Eastern Ghouta is the last remaining rebel stronghold near the capital, Damascus, and has been under a government siege since 2013.

It is believed that around 400,000 people still live in the area, which suffers from acute food and medicine shortages.

A ceasefire deal for Eastern Ghouta was recently negotiated in Vienna by the Russians, but when implemented in late January, the truce only lasted a few hours.

"The civil war in Syria has not been at the top of the news agenda for at least weeks, but on Thursday the Trump administration made some serious concerns," said Al Jazeera's Rosalind Jordan, reporting from Washington, DC.

Off camera, reporters have been told that the US government believes the Syrian government still holds chemical weapons, Jordan said.

While the use of chemical and biological agents has been rare since World War I, in recent years the Syrian government and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) have been accused of using such weapons as a tool in the conflict.

Chemical weapons have been used on several occasions during the war, which has claimed at least 400,000 lives and displaced 22 million people since fighting began in 2011.

Last April, autopsy results revealed that chemical weapons were used in an attack which killed more than 80 people in Syria's Idlib province. Syrian President Bashar al-Assadsaid that suspected attack was a "fabrication" to justify a US military attack.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180203ee230015r



What Trump did not say about foreign policy

1,408 words
2 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

Even after his first State of the Union address, Trump's foreign policy is still a mystery.

As former speaker of the House of Representatives Tip O'Neill once said, "all politics is local". United States President Donald Trump adhered to this motto when he delivered his first State of the Union address on Tuesday, reserving approximately 80 percent of his 90-minute-long speech for domestic policy issues. He focused specifically on the Tax Reform Act and shrinking unemployment figures, and repeatedly congratulated himself for taking steps towards "building a safe, strong and proud America". In the brief moments that he touched upon foreign policy, he carefully avoided delving into salient issues like Syria, Yemen, the Gulf crisis or the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He avoided commenting on these significant foreign policy challenges either because his administration failed to produce coherent strategies to tackle them, or he simply did not want to taint an opportunity to brag about his "successful" first year in office by addressing thorny issues. Instead, he stuck to his usual talking points and criticised the Iran nuclear deal, praised the US military's success in its war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) and attacked "the cruel dictatorship" that is North Korea. He briefly mentioned his widely condemned decision to move the US embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, but rather than using this opportunity to respond to the controversy, or explain how this move fits into his plan to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he chose to launch an attack against the countries that voted against him in a UN vote about the issue. In his first State of the Union address, Trump also took a page from the Cold War playbook and resurrected the idea that the US is the protector of global freedoms. Just like Ronald Reagan and Richard Nixon frequently did in the 1980's, he shaped the sections of his speech that deal with foreign policy around advocacy of freedom and American morality. He told the gruelling story of North Korean defector Ji Seong-ho, and equated his yearning for freedom on the other side of the globe to the construct of freedom that is deeply rooted in America's exceptionalism and historical collective memory. He asserted it was "that same yearning for freedom that nearly 250 years ago gave birth to a special place called America." He also mentioned the recent protests in Iran against the government, and emphasised that "America stands with the people of Iran in their courageous struggle for freedom." Trump has perpetuated this pro-freedom narrative for more than one purpose. First, by presenting himself as a protector of human rights and freedoms, he implicitly countered his critics' argument that he is undermining the values of American democracy by his nativist, racist, misogynist, and Islamophobic positions. After all, there is growing conviction in the international community that Trump's America has relinquished its commitment to human rights and other liberties. Second, by taking a pro-freedom stance in his first State of the Union speech, Trump sought to affirm his extreme right-wing and Evangelical base's attachment to the idea of American exceptionalism, and ultimately positioned himself on a high moral ground close to his idol Reagan, who once said "Freedom is not the sole prerogative of a chosen few; it is the universal right of all God's children." Of course, Trump's moralistic call for freedom in Iran and North Korea was contradictory to his anti-globalist motto of "keeping America first", but it seems irony is lost on his supporters. A brief analysis of Trump's address at the Congress proposes a few revealing observations: First , Trump's realpolitik mindset that was apparent throughout his address showcased his preference for muscle-flexing military superiority as a deterrence strategy. By stating that he believes "weakness is the surest path to conflict, and unmatched power is the surest means of our defense", the president clearly demonstrated his inclination to focus on his country's "hard power" capabilities, and to neglect its considerable "soft power" resources. In his address, Trump expressed his intention to "modernise and rebuild our nuclear arsenal" and asked Congress to "fully fund" the US military, even though the US military spending - at 16 percent of the federal budget - already exceeds the military spending by China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, United Kingdom, India, France, and Japan combined. However, he refrained from mentioning cultural and educational exchanges and other forms of public diplomacy between nations. The decades-long practice of soft power by certain agencies, such as the State Department, the International Institute of Education, and the Smithsonian, has already been waning after he imposed a 40 percent cut on international programs at the State Department. Second, Trump's speech signals a selective resurrection of the Cold War paradigm, not against Russia the heir to the Soviet Union, but a nouveau Trumpian "axis of evil". In his State of the Nation address, Trump sought to overdramatise his stance on Korea, Iran, and ISIL, and praised himself for speaking against Iran's "corrupt dictatorship". He also vowed to impose sanctions on "communist and socialist dictatorships" in Cuba and Venezuela. But he did all this without indexing his strategy of containment, let alone deterrence. He advocates for a sharper, defensive realism, but does not seem to have a coherent foreign policy strategy beyond simplifications based on us vs them dichotomies. Third , Trump avoided addressing several elephants in the room. He uttered the word "Russia" only once as one of the two economic rivals of the US, and avoided any mention of Russian rivalry in the turbulent Middle East and beyond. Many Americans remain uneasy about Russia's growing influence in the region amidst Trump's isolationism, and criticise his lack of strategy in Syria, beyond his loud criticism of his predecessor Barack Obama's failure to act against Assad's use of chemical weapons. Since his decision to fire dozens of cruise missiles at the government-controlled Shayrat airbase in Syria, in retaliation for a suspected chemical weapons attack on a rebel-held town that killed scores of civilians , Trump has drifted between five conflicting policies: Assad must go, Assad can stay, fight ISIL first, let the Russians and Iranians fight our enemies, and let's see what Russia wants in Syria. Trump's address, which coincided with the Kremlin-hosted Sochi meeting on Syria , failed to clarify which one of these five strategies -or any strategy at all- the president is currently pursuing in Syria. Earlier this month, Pentagon implicitly gave green light to Turkey's military operation in Afrin, which is targeting Kurdish groups that allied themselves with the US in the fight against ISIL. In a recent phone call, President Trump urged his Turkish counterpart "to de-escalate, limit its military actions, and avoid civilian casualties and increases to displaced persons and refugees". All this raised new questions about the US' lack of strategy in Syria, yet the president did not clarify his administration's stance on Turkey's cross-border operation. In fact, he did not mention Turkey or the Kurds even once throughout his address. Fourth , the State of the Nation address showed that Trump's political radar does not seem to detect the upcoming crises in the Middle East and beyond. It showed that the president is not planning to adopt an informed, pro-active foreign policy strategy to lift up the US's standing in the world. The president claimed that his administration is "strengthen(ing) friendships around the world, while restoring clarity about our adversaries ." Unfortunately, this oversimplified us vs them dichotomy did nothing to ease the concerns of political observers about Trump's tendency to "distort reality" to fit his "personal myth of greatness". In his address to the nation, Trump called for a "new American moment", possibly in an attempt to carve himself a place next to true American statesmen in history books. But, as one commentator rightly put it, in the end, his first State of the Nation address did nothing but prove that "Donald Trump is the only politician in American history who looks smaller when surrounded by the trappings of the presidency". The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera's editorial stance.

Document AJAZEN0020180202ee22000ul



Saudi and UAE move to end standoff in Yemen's Aden

513 words
2 February 2018
Al Jazeera English
AJAZEN
English
Copyright 2018 Al Jazeera English. 

UAE-backed separatists took over Yemeni government buildings but Saudis and Emiratis insist that they have same goal.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE have called on Yemeni government fighters and southern secessionists to focus their efforts on fighting Houthi rebels, in an apparent attempt to end a standoff between the two sides in Aden.

Emirati-backed separatists took over large parts of the southern port city earlier this week, including military bases, but stopped short of advancing on the presidential palace after clashing with pro-government forces and briefly surrounding the building while Prime Minister Ahmed bin Daghr and his ministers were inside.

The move exposed potential divides between Saudi Arabia, which finances and arms the Yemeni government, and the UAE, which is providing direct financial and military aid to the separatist Southern Transitional Council and its armed militia.

Yemeni government officials accused the Emirati government of deploying fighter planes to help the separatist fighters.

In a statement published by the Saudi Press Agency on Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition said Riyadh and Abu Dhabi shared "one goal and a shared vision for Yemen".

"Saudi Arabia and the UAE have no ambitions but for Yemen to be a safe, stable, and able, Arab nation," the statement said.

While stopping short of expressing support for the Yemeni government, which is based in Aden because the capital is under Houthi rebel control, the coalition called on both sides to focus on the goal of "defeating the Houthi militias of Iran."

The separatists want greater autonomy for South Yemen, which was an independent state until reunification with the north in 1990.

They complain that the government has presided over rampant corruption and neglected southern regions.

The fighting in Aden has left at least 36 people dead and wounded more than 185 people since Sunday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Arab coalition intervention

The UAE and Saudi Arabia intervened militarily in Yemen in March 2015 after Houthi rebels swept across the country and threatened to conquer the last government stronghold of Aden.

While the coalition and government fighters successfully fended off the Houthi takeover of Aden, years of air attacks have failed to dislodge the Houthis from much of the rest of the country.

The coalition's stated aim of restoring President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi's rule still seems distant, as the capital Sanaa remains under Houthi control.

The Saudis have indicated they want out of the war and have largely limited their campaign to bombing raids, but the Emiratis have also committed troops to the effort to defeat the Houthis.

Separatists, government forces, and the Houthis, are competing for control over Yemeni territory alongside al-Qaeda and the local affiliate of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group.

The war has severely damaged the country's infrastructure with the UN warning that up to 8 million people are at risk of starvation and more than a million have contracted cholera.

Al Jazeera News

Document AJAZEN0020180202ee22000gs