BAGHDAD: US combat troops will not stay on in Iraq after the fight against Daesh is over, Iraq’s prime minister said Friday — a statement that followed an Associated Press report on talks between Iraq and the US on maintaining American forces in the country.
A US official and an official from the Iraqi government told the AP this week that talks about keeping US troops in Iraq were ongoing.
In his statement, Haider Al-Abadi emphasized that there are no foreign combat troops on Iraqi soil and that any American troops who stay on once Daesh militants are defeated will be advisers working to train Iraq’s security forces to maintain “full readiness” for any “future security challenges.”
While some US forces are carrying out combat operations with Iraqi forces on and beyond front lines in the fight against Daesh, Al-Abadi has maintained that the forces are acting only as advisers, apparently to get around a required parliamentary approval for their presence.
Any forces who remained would continue to be designated as advisers for the same reason, the Iraqi government official had told the AP.
Currently, the Pentagon has close to 7,000 US troops in Iraq, many not publicly acknowledged because they are on temporary duty or under specific personnel rules. At the height of the surge of US forces in 2007, there were about 170,000 American troops in the country. The numbers were wound down eventually to 40,000, before the complete withdrawal in 2011.
Meanwhile, Iraqi forces pushed further into Mosul from the north on the second day of a new push to speed up the nearly seven-month attempt to dislodge Daesh, commanders said Friday.
Daesh tried to block the troops’ northerly advance into their de facto Iraqi capital with suicide car bombs and sniper fire, Brig. Gen. Walid Khalifa, deputy commander of the 9th brigade, told Reuters in Hulayla, west of Musherfa.
His troops had killed about 30 militants and destroyed five car bombs before they could be used against them, he said.
Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool, a spokesman for the joint operations command, told Reuters the militants “didn’t have time to make barriers, the advance since yesterday has been good.”
An army statement said the Second Musherfa district as well as the Church and Mikhail’s Monastery area had been retaken.
The US-backed Iraqi forces’ new foothold aims to open escape routes for the hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped behind Daesh lines and, in turn, help troops’ progress.
Rasool said Iraqi forces rescued 1,000 families on Thursday.
Footage taken by a drone operated by the Iraqi 9th Armored Division over the northwestern suburb of Musherfa and seen by Reuters, showed the militants had scant defenses there, unlike in other parts of Mosul where streets are blocked by anti-tank barriers and vehicles.
No US combat troops to stay in Iraq after anti-Daesh fight: PM
No US combat troops to stay in Iraq after anti-Daesh fight: PM
UN Libya mission alarmed by reported torture footage in detention facility
- The UN mission said the footage was consistent with what it described as “documented patterns of human rights violations in detention facilities across Libya”
CAIRO: The UN Libya mission expressed on Tuesday its alarm over what it said was footage circulating on social media featuring “brutal torture and ill-treatment” of detainees at the Gernada detention facility in eastern Libya.
Reuters was unable to immediately independently verify the reported videos.
“As UNSMIL continues to verify the circumstances of the circulated footage, it strongly condemns these acts that constitute serious violations of international human rights law,” it said.
The UN mission said the footage was consistent with what it described as “documented patterns of human rights violations in detention facilities across Libya.”
It also called for an immediate investigation into the accusations, adding that it is coordinating with the General Command of Libyan National Army for “unrestricted access to UNSMIL’s human rights officers and other independent monitors to the Gernada facility as well as other detention centers under their control.”
There was no immediate comment from Libyan authorities over the circulating videos.
The North African country has plunged into chaos and lawlessness after the toppling the regime of former dictator Muammar Qaddafi in NATO-backed uprising in 2011.
Emirati observation satellite launches successfully from California
- MBZ-SAT was entirely developed by Emirati engineers at Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai
- Developers say it will enhance disaster-management by capturing high-res images of areas as small as 1 sq. meter
LONDON: The Emirati-developed observation satellite MBZ-SAT successfully launched on Tuesday evening from the Vandenberg Space Force Base in the US state of California.
Described by developers as the most advanced observation satellite in the Middle East, it was carried into space by a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket, the Emirates News Agency reported.
The satellite was entirely developed by Emirati engineers at the Mohammed bin Rashid Space Centre in Dubai. Final testing by the team ahead of launch took place at SpaceX’s facilities in the US.
Developers said the satellite will enhance disaster-management efforts by continuously capturing high-resolution images that can reveal details in areas as small as 1 sq. meter.
120 civilians killed in artillery shelling in Sudan
PORT SUDAN: At least 120 civilians were killed in artillery shelling of western Omdurman on Tuesday as fighting between the Sudanese army and paramilitary forces escalated again.
Rescuers said medical supplies were in critically short supply as health workers struggled to treat “a large number of wounded people suffering from varying degrees of injuries” in the capital Khartoum’s twin city just across the Nile River.
Sudan has been at war since April 2023 between the forces of rival generals. Most of Omdurman is under army control, while the rival paramilitary Rapid Support Forces hold Khartoum North and some other areas of the capital.
Greater Khartoum residents on both sides of the Nile regularly report shelling across the river, with bombs and shrapnel often hitting homes and civilians. Both the army and the paramilitaries have been accused of targeting civilians, including health workers, and indiscriminately shelling residential areas.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks. Port Sudan, the seat of Sudan's army-aligned government, was without power after a drone attack by the paramilitaries hit a hydroelectric dam in the north.
The war has killed up to 150,000 people, uprooted more than 12 million and pushed many Sudanese to the brink of famine.
Israelis, Gazans anxiously awaiting truce deal
- The attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures
JERUSALEM: Israelis and Gazans on Tuesday anxiously awaited a long-sought truce deal, with relatives of hostages calling for their release, and displaced Palestinians praying for a chance to return home.
Multiple officials from mediating countries involved in the negotiations have said a deal on a ceasefire and hostage-prisoner exchange is closer than ever, with Qatar saying negotiations were in their “final stages.”
In Israel, since the early morning, the families of hostages and their supporters gathered outside the parliament and the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to demand that every effort be made to secure a deal after months of disappointment.
“Time is of the essence, and time does not favor the hostages,” said Gil Dickmann, cousin of former hostage Carmel Gat, whose body was recovered from a Gaza tunnel in September.
“Hostages who are alive will end up dead. Hostages who are dead might be lost,” Dickmann said at a rally in Jerusalem. “We have to act now.”
Earlier on Tuesday, Dickmann and several other relatives of hostages still being held in Gaza met with Netanyahu to press him to agree to a deal.
“If we stop the war, we will receive all the hostages immediately,” said Eli Shtivi, father of former hostage Ilan Shtivi.
“So, that is what needs to be done.”
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
The attack, the deadliest in Israel’s history, resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
On that day, militants also took 251 people hostage, of whom 94 remain in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has since killed 46,645 people, the majority civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN.
The extensive military offensive has left much of Gaza in ruins, displacing most of its residents during the course of more than 15 months of war.
The longing to end the war is deeply felt in Gaza as well.
“I’m anxiously awaiting the truce. I will cry for days on end,” said Umm Ibrahim Abu Sultan, a resident of Gaza City now living in Khan Yunis after being displaced along with her five children. “We lost everything.”
She expressed disbelief at the possibility of reuniting with her husband, who remained in Gaza City.
“I’m waiting for the announcement of the agreement. I just want to go back to my home, my area, and my family. It feels like we’re coming back from the dead,” she said.
Displaced Gazan Hassan Al-Madhoun said he had been waiting for 15 months for a deal.
“I can’t even imagine how I’ll feel when we return to Jabalia and to our destroyed home,” he said.
“It will take time to process the extent of the loss. The martyrs are still buried under the rubble.”
Back in Israel, however, not everyone was in favor of a ceasefire.
“They (Hamas) need to raise their hands and say, ‘That’s it. We’re giving you the hostages back because you won,’ and that’s not what’s happening,” said Barbara Haskel at a rally protesting the proposed deal.
Palestinian health ministry says Israeli air strike kills 6 in West Bank
- The Palestinian ministry said among those killed was 15-year-old Mahmud Ashraf Mustafa Gharbiya
- Israeli forces make frequent raids on Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967
JENIN, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian health ministry said Tuesday that an Israeli air strike on the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank killed six people, including a teenager, with the Israeli military confirming it carried out an attack in the area.
“There are six martyrs and several injured as a result of the Israeli bombing of Jenin refugee camp,” the Ramallah-based ministry said in a statement.
The Israeli military did not offer details but said it had carried out “an attack in the Jenin area.”
The Palestinian ministry said among those killed was 15-year-old Mahmud Ashraf Mustafa Gharbiya.
Palestinian security forces of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) slammed the raid by the Israeli military.
“The pre-planned intervention ... thwarts all efforts being made to maintain security and order and restore life to normal,” said Anwar Rajab, spokesman for the Palestinian forces, in a statement.
“It reflects the occupation’s premeditated intentions to disrupt every national endeavour aimed at protecting our people.”
Israeli forces make frequent raids on Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since 1967.
Violence in the territory has soared since the war in Gaza broke out on October 7, 2023.
Israeli troops or settlers have killed at least 831 Palestinians in the West Bank since the start of the Gaza war, according to the health ministry.
At least 28 Israelis have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during Israeli military raids in the territory over the same period, according to Israeli official figures.
In recent weeks Jenin has also seen intra-Palestinian violence, with PA forces clashing with militants.
The clashes broke out amid a major PA raid on the Jenin camp after the December 5 arrest of a Jenin Battalion commander on charges of possessing weapons and illicit funds.
Armed factions in Jenin and elsewhere see themselves as offering more effective resistance to the Israeli occupation than the PA, which coordinates security matters with Israel.
