BERLIN: A German girl, who ran away from home shortly after converting to Islam, has been found in Iraq, prosecutors said Saturday.
The 16-year-old teenager, only identified as Linda W. in line with German privacy laws, is getting consular assistance from the German Embassy in Iraq, said prosecutor Lorenz Haase from the eastern German city of Dresden.
Haase wouldn't confirm media reports that the teenager from Pulsnitz in eastern Germany had been fighting for Daesh in Mosul.
"Our information ends with the girl's arrival in Istanbul about a year ago," he told The Associated Press, adding that further details about her whereabouts in the last year were part of an investigation.
Several female foreign Daesh fighters were detained by Iraq's military in Mosul recently, but Haase could not confirm that the German girl was part of that group.
Earlier this week, Iraqi officials said they had arrested a foreign woman they believe is German in Mosul's Old City. They said she had been recruited by an Arab Daesh member through social media. But they did not identify the woman as Linda W.
Photos of a disheveled young woman in the presence of Iraqi soldiers went viral online last week, but there were contradicting reports about the girl's identity — some said it was Linda W., while others identified her as either a Chechen Daesh fighter or a Yazidi girl.
Hundreds of Germans, among them several girls and young women, have in recent years left the country to join Daesh in Syria and Iraq. While some have been killed in battle and suicide bombings, and others have returned back to Germany, there is also a large number that have been unaccounted for, security officials here say. Many of them were radicalized via social media. Local newspapers reported last year that Linda W., who is from the small town of Pulsnitz near Dresden, was also in touch with Daesh members online before she ran away from home last summer. She started to cover her hair and wear long gowns before she disappeared from her family's home. Her mother later found a copy of the girl's plane ticket to Turkey under a bed, media reported.
In a different case, a French woman captured earlier this month in Mosul with her four children is facing possible prosecution in Iraq for allegedly collaborating with Daesh, in a test case for how governments handle the families of foreign fighters now that the extremists are in retreat.
The woman, believed to be in her 30s, was arrested July 9 along with her two sons and two daughters in a basement in Mosul's Old City, according to the Iraqi intelligence officials.
Two Iraqi intelligence officials said on Wednesday that the woman is being investigated in Baghdad and could face terrorism charges for illegally entering Iraq and joining Daesh, and that the French government wants the children handed over to France.
German runaway girl who converted to Islam found in Iraq
German runaway girl who converted to Islam found in Iraq
UNRWA chief vows to continue aid to Palestinians despite Israeli ban
OSLO: The UN’s Palestinian refugee agency UNRWA will continue to provide aid to people in the Palestinian territories despite an Israeli ban due to be implemented by the end of January, its director said Wednesday.
“We will ... stay and deliver,” UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini told a conference in Oslo. “UNRWA’s local staff will remain and continue to provide emergency assistance and where possible, education and primary health care,” he said.
Erdogan says Turkiye can ‘crush’ all terrorists in Syria
ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday urged all countries to “take their hands off” Syria and said Turkiye had the capacity and ability to crush all terrorist organizations in the country, including Kurdish militia and Islamic State.
Speaking in parliament, Erdogan said the Kurdish YPG militia was the biggest problem in Syria now after the ousting of former President Bashar Assad, and added that the group would not be able to escape its inevitable end unless it lays down its arms.
World must keep pressure on Israel after Gaza truce: Palestinian PM
OSLO: The international community will have to maintain pressure on Israel after an hoped-for ceasefire in Gaza so it accepts the creation of a Palestinian state, Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammed Mustafa said on Wednesday.
A ceasefire agreement appears close following a recent round of indirect talks between Israel and Hamas, with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying late Tuesday that a deal to end the 15-month war was “on the brink.”
“The ceasefire we’re talking about ... came about primarily because of international pressure. So pressure does pay off,” Mustafa said before a conference in Oslo.
Israel must “be shown what’s right and what’s wrong, and that the veto power on peace and statehood for Palestinians will not be accepted and tolerated any longer,” he told reporters.
He was speaking at the start of the third meeting of the Global Alliance for the Implementation of the Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, gathering representatives from some 80 states and organizations in Oslo.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide, the host of the meeting, said a “ceasefire is the prerequisite for peace, but it is not peace.”
“We need to move forward now toward a two-state solution. And since one of the two states exists, which is Israel, we need to build the other state, which is Palestine,” he added.
According to analysts, the two-state solution appears more remote than ever.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, firmly supported by US President-elect Donald Trump, is opposed to the creation of a Palestinian state.
Israel is not represented at the Oslo meeting.
Norway angered Israel when it recognized the Palestinian state, together with Spain and Ireland, last May, a move later followed by Slovenia.
In a nod to history, Wednesday’s meeting was held in the Oslo City Hall, where Yasser Arafat, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
The then-head of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, Israeli prime minister and his foreign minister were honored for signing the Oslo accords a year earlier, which laid the foundation for Palestinian autonomy with the goal of an independent state.
Syrians in uproar after volunteers paint over prison walls
DAMASCUS: Families of missing persons have urged Syria’s new authorities to protect evidence of crimes under president Bashar Assad, after outrage over volunteers painting over etchings on walls inside a former jail.
Thousands poured out of prisons after Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad last month, but many Syrians are still looking for traces of tens of thousands of relatives and friends who went missing.
In the chaos following his ouster, with journalists and families rushing to detention centers, official documents have been left unprotected, with some even looted or destroyed.
Rights groups have stressed the urgent need to preserve “evidence of atrocities,” which includes writings left by detainees on the walls of their cells.
But a video appearing to show young volunteers paint over such writings at an unnamed detention center with white paint and adorning its walls with the new Syrian flag, the depiction of a fireplace or broken chains has circulated on social media in recent days, angering activists.
“Painting the walls of security branches is disgraceful, especially before the start of new investigations into human rights violations” there, said Diab Serriya, a co-founder of Association of Detainees and Missing Persons of Saydnaya Prison (ADMSP).
It is “an attempt to destroy the signs of torture or enforced disappearance and hampers efforts to... gather evidence,” he said.
Jomana Hasan Shtiwy, a Syrian held in three different facilities under Assad, often changing cells, said the writings on the walls held invaluable information.
“On the walls are names and telephone numbers to contact relatives and inform them about the fate of their children,” she said on Facebook.
In each new cell, “we would write a memory so that those who followed could remember us,” she said.
A petition appeared on Tuesday calling for the new Syrian authorities to better protect evidence, and give investigating the fate of those forcibly disappeared under Assad “the highest priority.”
It slammed what it called “the insensitive treatment of the sanctity” of former detention centers.
“Some have gone as far as to paint cells, obscuring their features, which for us represents... a great wronging of detainees,” said signatories, including ADMSP.
The president of the International Committee for the Red Cross said last week determining the fate of those who went missing during Syria’s civil war would be a “huge challenge.”
Mirjana Spoljaric said the ICRC was following 43,000 cases, but that was probably just a fraction of the missing.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, says more than 100,000 people have died in detention from torture or dire health conditions across Syria since 2011.
Iran’s navy unveils its first signals intelligence ship
DUBAI: Iran’s navy received its first signals intelligence ship on Wednesday, semi-official Tasnim news organization reported, a few days after the country’s army took delivery of 1,000 new drones.
The Zagros is a new category of military vessel equipped with electronic sensors and the ability to intercept cyber-operations and conduct intelligence monitoring, Tasnim said.
“The Zagros signals intelligence ship will be the watchful eye of Iran’s navy in the seas and oceans,” Navy Commander Shahram Irani said.
Earlier this month, Iran started two-month-long military exercises which have already included war games in which the elite Revolutionary Guards defended key nuclear installations in Natanz against mock attacks by missiles and drones.
The military drills and procurement come at a time of high tensions with arch-enemy Israel and the United States under incoming US president Donald Trump.
In October, the spokesperson of Iran’s government said the country plans to raise its military budget by around 200 percent to face growing threats.
