LONDON: One of the men believed to have carried out the deadly weekend attack in central London was a known extremist who was filmed unfurling a black flag resembling the one used by Daesh and raised the suspicion of a neighbor after allegedly trying to lure local youngsters to join his radical campaign.
On Monday, British police identified that man, Khuram Shazad Butt, a 27-year-old Pakistan-born Briton, as one of the assailants, saying he was known to authorities, though they had no evidence he was planning an attack. They identified a second attacker who had not aroused suspicion prior to Saturday’s rampage that killed seven people.
As details about Butt emerged, however, they prompted questions of whether he could have been stopped sooner.
He had appeared in a documentary, “The Jihadis Next Door,” that aired on British television last year. Neighbors identified Butt from the film’s footage Monday, pointing to a scene in which he is shown participating in a provocative prayer session at Regents Park, near London’s biggest mosque helping to display a black flag covered in white Arabic lettering similar to the one used by the Daesh group, which took responsibility for the attack.
Butt is also seen in the film sprawling on the lawn and nodding as he listens to a sermon in which the speaker tells those gathered: “This is not the real life, my dear brothers. This is a passing time for us.”
Butt’s apparent zealotry led one neighbor, Erica Gasparri, to contact police about 18 months ago. The 42-year-old mother of three was working at a local school when she noticed Butt, who was also known as Abu Mohamed, meeting with local children and trying to draw them into his radicalism.
“It was wrong what he was doing,” Gasparri said. “He kept talking about (Daesh). I got very angry.”
Salaudeen Jailabdeen, who lived near Butt, said the alleged assailant had once been ejected from a local mosque for interrupting an imam. Another neighbor, Michael Mimbo, said he saw the van used in the attack near his home on Saturday, but didn’t see who was behind the wheel. He said the vehicle was seen going the wrong way down a one-way street and was later seen speeding off, followed closely by a small red car.
The second alleged attacker was identified by police as Rachid Redouane, who alternately used the surname Elkhdar, and claimed to be Moroccan and Libyan. He used two different birthdates that would make him either 25 or 30, authorities said.
Police have not yet released the identity of the third person involved in carrying out the attack on London Bridge, where the van swerved into pedestrians, and in nearby Borough Market, where the knife-wielding assailants slashed and stabbed anyone in their path. Besides the dead, dozens more were wounded by the men, who wore fake suicide vests to make themselves look even more imposing.
All three were ultimately shot and killed by police. Twelve others taken into custody have since been released.
All of it happened in just eight minutes, and though police have won praise for their response, it has led to a political fight certain to dominate the waning days before Thursday’s national elections. The campaign roared back into public view Monday after a one-day hiatus, with Prime Minister Theresa May and Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn trading blame over one another’s security stances.
May served as home secretary for six years before becoming prime minister last year, a period in which the number of police dropped by about 20,000 officers. That fact provided a line of attack for Corbyn, who called on May to resign even as he said the best remedy was to vote her out.
“There’s an election on Thursday, that’s the chance,” he said, citing an “appalling” cut in police staffing levels. “We’re calling for a restoration of police numbers, and there’s a call being made for her to go, because of what she’s done on the police numbers.”
May said she has protected police budgets and increased the number of armed officers and matched Corbyn’s finger-pointing with some of her own, saying her opponent wasn’t fit to safeguard Britain at a time of heightened threat. “We have given increased powers to the police to be able to deal with terrorists, powers which Jeremy Corbyn has boasted he has always opposed,” she said.
Given the speed with which the attack was ended, it wasn’t clear whether having more police on the beat would have prevented it, but questions persisted over whether investigators had the resources to look into such complaints and whether crucial opportunities were missed that could have saved lives.
It was the third attack in as many months where suspects had been on the radar of British authorities.
Under the British government’s counterterrorism program, residents are encouraged to alert police to suspicious activity. Police then cross-check whether the person has been reported for similar activity. From there, a number of scenarios can unfold. The matter can be dropped or if the complaint seems warranted, police and security officials can open an investigation. The real test comes in determining whether the person has the potential to become violent and what resources are available to investigate. Watching a suspect around the clock can require some 20 officers or security agents.
London attacker featured in TV documentary ‘The Jihadis Next Door’
London attacker featured in TV documentary ‘The Jihadis Next Door’
Syrian Al-Jazeera presenter returns to post-Assad Hama after 12 years in exile
- Fakhouri, a former presenter at the Syrian TV station, fled the country in 2012 after tight censorship
- He was interrogated by the State Security Department over revolution coverage
DUBAI: Syrian Al-Jazeera presenter Ahmad Fakhouri received an overwhelming welcome from crowds of hundreds of people as he returned to his hometown Hama after 12 years in exile.
In a video posted on his social media channels, Fakhouri is seen waving at huge crowds who gathered in the streets in a collective moment of celebration after the fall of Bashar Assad’s regime.
“Come to us, Fakhouri,” people were seen cheering and chanting in the video which Fakhouri captioned “The people of Hama. None but you are my family and my support.”
Fakhouri, a former presenter at the Syrian TV station, fled the country in 2012 after tight censorship was placed on the media during the days of the revolution.
During a 2013 interview with Al Jazeera, Fakhouri said he was not allowed to cover the protests, then later was asked to use derogatory terms, such as “terrorists, infiltrators, and enemies of the homeland,” to describe the demonstrators.
“I was naive enough to ask Bouthaina Shaaban (media advisor to the Syrian Presidency) during high-level meetings to allow us to conduct interviews with the opposition, thinking that Syrian television belonged to the people and not to a specific faction,” Fakhouri had told Al Jazeera at the time.
He also reported being under constant surveillance from security and intelligence officers as a presenter.
Rejecting the regime’s policies that insisted on denying the protests, Fakhouri said he refrained from presenting live news, limiting his work to the weekly news bulletin. When he first decided to leave Syria, he discovered he was banned from travelling.
Shortly afterwards, he was summoned for an interrogation at the State Security Department, facing charges of inciting sectarian divisions and cooperating with foreign entities to disrupt public security. He was also accused of receiving money from his expatriate brother “to fund armed terrorists.”
He reported being blindfolded, and hearing “sounds of torture” and insults directed at detainees across from his interrogation room.
When he was released at the request of the media minister, Fakhouri decided to head to Aleppo where he hid for several months before the Free Syrian Army facilitated his escape.
“I do not need to mention why I decided to leave the regime's grip as everyone is aware of Assad’s crimes against the Syrian people,” said Fakhouri, noting that several of his media colleagues were detained over extended periods, including some who were died under torture.
“I can confirm that most of those working in Syrian media are looking for an opportunity to escape like I did.”
Fakhouri begun his journey in the media at the state radio in 2004 before moving to become a presenter in the Syrian TV.
After he left Syria, he became known for hosting the “Trending” news bulletin at BBC Arabic until he joined Al Jazeera as a presenter and documentary maker in 2022.
Fakhouri was among many Syrian expats who returned to a nation where jubilation took over since Assad’s iron-fisted regime was toppled by a lightning 11-day rebel offensive spearheaded by the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group on Dec. 8.
Since the fall of Assad’s five-decade dynastic rule, harrowing accounts of torture and executions of political prisoners, activists, and regime critics in state prisons — most notably the infamous Sednaya — have emerged publicly.
Media group urges release of detained South Sudan journalist
- Emmanuel Monychol Akop, editor-in-chief of local The Dawn newspaper, has not been seen since November 28
NAIROBI: South Sudan has detained a leading journalist, an international media organization said Friday as it urged his immediate release.
News of the apparent arrest followed a warning by the United Nations which denounced arbitrary detentions, including those of opposition party members or individuals associated with them.
Emmanuel Monychol Akop, editor-in-chief of local The Dawn newspaper, has not been seen since November 28, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
The international monitoring group said he had been detained by National Security Services (NSS) agents, citing his colleagues and an individual familiar with his case, who said he had been summoned to the organization’s headquarters in capital Juba.
“South Sudanese authorities must bring editor Emmanuel Monychol Akop before a court, present credible charges or release him unconditionally,” said Angela Quintal, head of CPJ’s Africa program.
She said the NSS had a “reputation for running roughshod over the rights of journalists,” adding that this detention “further tarnishes an already dismal press freedom record.”
Manager at The Dawn newspaper Moses Guot told the CPJ there were worries about Akop’s security.
“They should allow us to see him, at least to know about his health, and that would be a good start,” he said.
Akop was also detained in 2019 following a Facebook post criticizing a minister’s appearance during a diplomatic visit. He was held for a month before being released.
The arrest comes weeks after gunfire broke out at the home of a recently sacked intelligence chief, spooking many in the young country which since independence has grappled with insecurity.
In September South Sudan once again postponed the first elections in the nation’s history, pushing them back another two years.
South Sudan is one of the poorest countries on the planet despite large oil reserves and ranks 177 out of 180 countries on Transparency International’s corruption perceptions index.
Two journalists killed in north Syria by ‘Turkish drone’
- Nazim Dastan, 32, and Cihan Bilgin, 29, were killed near the Tishrin dam east of Alepp
- The pair worked for Syrian Kurdish media outlets Rojnews and the Anha news agency
BEIRUT: Two journalists from Turkiye’s mainly Kurdish southeast have been killed, reportedly by a Turkish drone, while covering the fighting between an Ankara-backed militia and US-backed Kurdish fighters in Syria, journalists’ groups said Friday.
Nazim Dastan, 32, and Cihan Bilgin, 29, were killed on Thursday near the Tishrin dam east of Aleppo when their car was hit, the Dicle Firat Journalists’ Association said.
“We condemn this attack on our colleagues and demand accountability,” it said.
The pair worked for Syrian Kurdish media outlets Rojnews and the Anha news agency.
The Turkish Journalists Union also condemned the attack, saying they were “allegedly targeted by a Turkish UAV,” the technical name for a drone.
“We condemn the attack. Journalists cannot be subjected to attack while performing a sacred duty. Those responsible must be found and tried,” the union’s branch in the southeastern Kurdish-majority city of Diyarbakir said.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said two journalists had been killed in Aleppo province by a “Turkish drone strike.”
The pro-Kurdish Mezopotamya news agency also blamed a Turkish drone.
The Turkish army insists it never targets civilians but only terror groups.
The incident comes amid mounting concerns over a possible Turkish assault on the Kurdish-held Syrian border town of Kobani, also known as Ain Al-Arab.
Ankara is hoping Syria’s new Islamist HTS rulers will take steps to address the issue of Kurdish fighters in the north.
“If they address this issue properly, there would be no reason for us to intervene,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said this week.
Turkiye pushed for Assad’s ouster when the Syrian conflict erupted in 2011 with the violent suppression of peaceful protesters.
But after backing various opposition groups, Turkiye more recently shifted its focus to blocking what President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2019 dubbed a “terror corridor” in northern Syria, meaning the large area controlled by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces, which is backed by the US.
A Turkish defense ministry source on Thursday said Ankara would push ahead with its military preparations until Kurdish fighters “disarm,” stressing the ongoing threat along its border with Syria.
Israel media report accuses troops of indiscriminate killing of Gaza civilians
- Haaretz quoted soldiers, career officers and reservists who said commanders were given unprecedented authority to operate in the Gaza Strip
- Batallion commander: ‘Anyone crossing the line is a terrorist — no exceptions, no civilians. Everyone’s a terrorist’
JERUSALEM: A leading Israeli newspaper, citing unnamed soldiers serving in Gaza, described indiscriminate killings of Palestinian civilians in the territory’s Netzarim Corridor, prompting a firm rejection Friday from the military.
Haaretz, a left-leaning Israeli daily that has faced severe criticism from the country’s right-wing government, quoted soldiers, career officers and reservists who said commanders were given unprecedented authority to operate in the Gaza Strip.
They alleged commanders had ordered or allowed the killing of unarmed women, children and men in the Netzarim Corridor, a seven-kilometer-wide (4.3-mile-wide) strip of land that cuts across Gaza from Israel to the Mediterranean, and which has been turned into a military zone.
The report quoted an officer who recalled an incident in which a commander had announced that 200 militants were killed, when actually “only 10 were confirmed as known Hamas operatives.”
Soldiers meanwhile told Haaretz they received questionable orders to open fire on “anyone who enters” Netzarim.
“Anyone crossing the line is a terrorist — no exceptions, no civilians. Everyone’s a terrorist,” a soldier quoted a battalion commander as saying.
The soldiers also described how division commanders received “expanded powers” allowing them to bomb buildings or launch air strikes that previously required approval from the army’s top echelons.
The allegations contained in the Haaretz report could not be independently verified.
In a statement to AFP, the military rejected the accusations.
“All activities and operations conducted by (Israeli army) forces in the Gaza Strip, including in the Netzarim Corridor, are carried out in accordance with structured combat procedures, plans and operational orders approved by the highest ranks in the (army),” it said.
The military added that “all strikes in the area (of Netzarim) are conducted in accordance with the mandatory procedures and protocols, including targets that are struck in an urgent time frame due to essential operational circumstances where ground forces face immediate threats.”
“Incidents that give rise to concerns of deviations from IDF’s orders or ethical standards are thoroughly examined and addressed.”
Many soldiers who spoke to Haaretz pointed to a specific commander, Brig. Gen. Yehuda Vach, who last summer took charge of Division 252, which has been based in Netzarim.
One of the soldiers said of Vach — who was born in the settlement of Kiryat Arba in the occupied West Bank — that “his worldview and political positions were clearly driving his operational decisions.”
Another soldier said Vach had declared “there are no innocents in Gaza.”
The military said that the “statements attributed to him... were not made by him.”
“Any claim asserting otherwise is entirely baseless.”
The Haaretz report said Israeli soldiers spoke to the newspaper so that the Israeli “people need to know how this war really looks like, and what serious acts some commanders and fighters are committing inside Gaza.”
“They need to know the inhuman scenes we’re witnessing.”
Palestinian militant group Hamas, whose unprecedented October 7, 2023 attack on Israel sparked the current war, also reacted to the Haaretz report.
It said the testimonies offered “new evidence of unprecedented war crimes and full-fledged ethnic cleansing operations, carried out in an organized manner.”
Hamas, which has also been accused of indiscriminate killings of Israelis and other civilians on October 7 last year, demanded that the United Nations and the International Court of Justice “document these testimonies and take the necessary steps to stop the ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip.”
‘No longer afraid’: Journalists drop pseudonyms as Syrians reclaim voices after Assad’s fall
- Many Syrian journalists resorted to false names for fear of reprisals
- ‘Using a fake name was to many Syrians part of suppressing their identity,’ London-based Zouhir Masri tells Arab News
LONDON: Syrian journalists, long silenced in the shadow of the oppressive regime of Bashar Assad, are beginning to shed their pseudonyms and reclaim their real names in a symbolic act of liberation following the tyrant’s fall.
During Syria’s descent into chaos in 2012, many journalists and activists adopted pseudonyms to protect themselves and their families from the regime’s brutal retaliation. For years, speaking out meant risking persecution, imprisonment, or worse.
Zouhir Masri, a London-based journalist formerly known as Zouhir Al-Shimale, said: “In the past, activists and journalists used to use pseudonyms to cover their identity for safety reasons since most of them, including me, had their family members stuck in Syria and unable to leave.”
Masri explained to Arab News: “Now that Syria is free, lots of people have started to use their real names which were suppressed and kept hidden out of fear of retaliation from the Assad regime’s security forces.”
Masri, who fled his home in Aleppo in 2018 after the regime’s chemical attacks, is one of many journalists now revealing their true identities.
Prominent figures such as Malath Assaf, director of programs for the unofficially rebel-affiliated Aleppo Today, and Rami Jarrah, previously known by the pseudonym Alexander Page, are now openly discussing Syria’s future without fear of reprisal.
One journalist, Manal Al-Sahwi, who investigated Syria’s illicit Captagon trade and its links to the Assad family, shared her story on Facebook earlier this month.
She wrote: “For years, I wrote more than 150 articles in addition to my daily work on the Daraj website. I thought my name would be hidden forever. I worked on dozens of investigations, human rights reports, blogs and opinion articles, believing the truth must be told, even if we remain in the shadows.”
Revealing she had used the pseudonym Carmen Karim, she added: “I only hope that I will never return to writing under a pseudonym again.”
The Syrian Network for Human Rights has reported that at least 717 journalists and media workers were killed between March 2011 and May 2024, while 1,358 were arrested or kidnapped.
Even those who fled abroad often lived under the looming fear of the regime’s long reach.
“It is well known that the regime did not only target individuals but also relatives. Therefore, we could never work under our real names. Personally, I didn’t have the courage to do it,” Assaf said in a recent interview.
However, it was not only journalists who had been silenced in Assad’s regime.
For years many ordinary citizens resorted to pseudonyms when sharing their stories with the media, fearing the regime’s ruthless reprisals.
Now, following Assad’s fall, they are walking the streets of Damascus with a renewed sense of freedom and reclaiming their right to express themselves openly.
“Finally, I am no longer afraid to express my opinion. I was scared to speak about anything related to the country, even if it wasn’t related to politics. This was the case of every Syrian living in the republic of fear,” said Shifaa Sawan, previously known as Suham Al-Ali, a teacher in Damascus, in an interview with Berlin-based Syria Direct.
“The sunrise was different that first day. It was not like the days before the regime fell. I walked through Bab Touma, Al-Qaymariya, Al-Maliki and Umayyad Square. I went to the Presidential Palace, repeating (Abdul Baset) Al-Sarout’s song ‘Janna Janna Janna, Ghali ya Watanna’.”
As the world watches to learn what the future holds for Syria and its people, the fall of Assad’s regime has brought a renewed sense of hope. Citizens are reclaiming their identities, removing their metaphorical gags, and shouting their long-suppressed voices.
“Using a fake name was to many Syrians part of suppressing their identity and who they really are as (a) Syrian,” said Masri. “Now this is no longer the case.”
