BAGHDAD: Iraqi Vice President Ayad Allawi on Monday warned there could be a “civil war” over the Kurdish-administered city of Kirkuk if talks over Kurdish independence are left unresolved.
Allawi, in an interview with The Associated Press, urged Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, as well as Iraq’s central government and its Iranian-backed militias, to show restraint and resolve their disputes over the oil-rich city.
Ruling out a military solution to the crisis, Ihssan Al-Shimari, an adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Al-Abadi, told Arab News: “Talking about a civil war between Kurds and Arabs is an attempt to pressure both sides — Baghdad and Kurdistan — but the reality on the ground doesn’t indicate any of these expectations.”
Al-Shimari said: “The prime minister has flatly refused to fight Kurdish citizens and still relies on constitutional measures, which offer a wide range of options to the federal government to deal with the crisis.”
He added: “Kirkuk is a disputed area, and according to the constitution its administration has to go back to the Iraqi federal government.”
Kirkuk was included in Iraqi Kurdistan’s independence referendum last month, even though it falls outside the autonomous Kurdish region in the country’s northeast.
The ethnically mixed city has been administered by Kurdish forces since 2014, when the Iraqi military fled a Daesh advance.
The referendum was held despite strong objections from Baghdad, Ankara and Tehran. Barzani has not yet declared independence.
“Iraqis should be left alone to discuss their own problems without interference,” said Allawi. “Kirkuk has become a flashpoint.”
The head of the Asaib Al-Haq militia, Qais Khazali, on Sunday warned that the Kurds were planning to claim much of northern Iraq, including Kirkuk, for an independent state, after they voted for independence in a controversial but non-binding referendum two weeks ago.
He said it would be tantamount to a “foreign occupation,” reported the Afaq TV channel, which is close to the state-sanctioned militia.
Allawi, a former prime minister, said any move by the country’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMUs), which include Asaib Al-Haq, to enter Kirkuk would “damage all possibilities for unifying Iraq” and open the door to “violent conflict.”
He said if the government controls the PMUs, as it claims, it “should restrain them, rather than go into a kind of civil war.” Allawi also urged the Kurdish side “not to take aggressive measures to control these lands.”
Mohammed Naji, a lawmaker and a senior leader of Badr — one of the most prominent Iraqi Shiite militias — told Arab News: “It’s early to pick up the last option (confrontation). The federal government will use all available measures to contain the crisis, and using (military) power to impose federal authority (in Kirkuk) and preserve the unity of Iraqi lands and people will be the last option.”
Naji said: “From the beginning, we’ve said the referendum is unconstitutional. It violates the first item of the Iraqi constitution, and any action that aims to divide Iraq is unacceptable to all Iraqis.”
He added: “Resolving the problem of Kirkuk and the other disputed areas would be according to the constitution, and we can go back to talks (with the Kurds) under the umbrella of the constitution.”
He continued: “We’ve asked both parties (Baghdad and Irbil) to abide by the constitution, but if the Kurdish brothers insist on their stubbornness, this means they want to go with the hardest option, which is confrontation.”
Al-Abadi demanded that the Kurdistan Regional Government annul the referendum result, and called for joint administration of Kirkuk. Baghdad has closed Iraqi Kurdistan’s airspace to international flights.
Turkey and Iran have threatened punitive measures against the Kurdish region, fearing the encouragement of separatist sentiment among their own Kurdish populations.
Iraqi VP sees danger of ‘civil war’ over Kirkuk
Iraqi VP sees danger of ‘civil war’ over Kirkuk
Urgent need for South Sudan food aid: WFP
- WFP said it would have to rely on expensive airdrops later in the year to reach isolated communities who are most at risk
- Funds received before the end of this year would enable WFP to transport food by road during the dry season
WFP said its stores of food supplies in South Sudan were empty and that it needed $404 million to prepare assistance for 2025 amid “spiralling operational costs and hunger.”
Without early funding, WFP said it would have to rely on expensive airdrops later in the year to reach isolated communities who are most at risk.
“It can take months to turn pledged donor funds into food in the hands of hungry people in South Sudan. The country’s limited road networks are impassable for much of the year — particularly in the east and central parts of the country where food insecurity is highest,” said Shaun Hughes, WFP’s acting country director for South Sudan, in a statement.
Funds received before the end of this year would enable WFP to transport food by road during the dry season from December to April.
“Airdrops are always (a) last resort for WFP. Every dollar spent on planes is a dollar not spent on food for hungry people,” said Hughes.
WFP said it had to double deliveries by airdrop in 2024, adding $30 million to its operational costs.
It said more than half — 56 percent — of people in South Sudan face crisis levels of hunger.
This is expected to worsen due to high inflation, flooding and people fleeing conflict in neighboring Sudan.
Since gaining independence in 2011, South Sudan has remained plagued by chronic instability, violence, economic stagnation and climate disasters.
Like other aid agencies, WFP’s resources have been stretched thin by multiple global crises.
It said only 2.7 million of the 7.1 million hungry people received assistance during South Sudan’s lean season in 2024, and most received half rations.
47 Palestinians killed overnight in Israeli strikes in central Gaza, Palestinian news agency says
- Israel’s assault on Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to rubble
GAZA: Forty seven Palestinians were killed and dozens injured, most of them children and women, in overnight Israeli bombardment of the city of Deir Al-Balah, the Nuseirat camp and the town of Al-Zawayda in the central Gaza Strip, the Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Friday.
The Gaza war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on Gaza has killed more than 43,000 Palestinians and reduced most of the enclave to rubble, Palestinian authorities say.
At least 46 Palestinians were killed in Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, mostly in the north where one attack hit a hospital, torching medical supplies and disrupting operations, the enclave’s health officials said.
Israel’s military has accused the Palestinian militant group Hamas of using Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya for military purposes and said “dozens of terrorists” have been hiding there. Health officials and Hamas deny the assertion.
The health ministry in the Gaza Strip called for all international bodies “to protect hospitals and medical staff from the brutality of the (Israeli) occupation.”
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said on Thursday that one of its doctors at the hospital, Mohammed Obeid, had been detained last Saturday by Israeli forces. It called for the protection of him and all medical staff who “are facing horrific violence as they try to provide care.”
Israel fights a seemingly endless war in Gaza’s most devastated region
- Since its Oct. 7 attack into Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, Hamas has taken heavy losses
- esidents say Israeli forces raid shelters for the displaced, forcing people out at gunpoint
JERUSALEM: More than a year into a war that has ricocheted across the Middle East, Israeli troops are still battling Hamas in the most heavily destroyed and isolated part of the Gaza Strip.
In northern Gaza, Hamas militants carry out hit-and-run attacks from bombed-out buildings. Residents say Israeli forces have raided shelters for the displaced, forcing people out at gunpoint. First responders say they can barely operate because of the Israeli bombardment.
Since its Oct. 7 attack into Israel that sparked the war in Gaza, Hamas has taken heavy losses. The recent killing of its top leader, Yahya Sinwar, was viewed as a possible turning point, yet the two sides do not appear any closer to a ceasefire, and Hamas, which still holds scores of hostages, remains the dominant power in Gaza.
The conflict has drawn in militants from Lebanon to Yemen, and their key sponsor, Iran, has inched closer to all-out war with Israel. But in northern Gaza, the war seems stuck in a loop of devastating Israeli offensives, followed by Hamas fighters regrouping.
Israel is once again ordering mass evacuations, severely restricting aid despite global outrage and raiding hospitals it says are used by militants.
In the northern border town of Beit Lahiya — one of the first targets of last year’s ground invasion — two Israeli strikes this week killed at least 88 Palestinians, including dozens of women and children. The military said its target was a spotter on the roof.
As the war grinds on, Israel is resorting to ever more draconian measures. There is even talk of adopting a surrender-or-starve strategy proposed by former generals.
On Monday, Israel passed legislation that could severely restrict the UN agency that is the largest aid provider in Gaza despite protests by the United States and other close allies. It accuses the agency of allowing itself to be infiltrated by Hamas, allegations denied by the UN
Another offensive, as Hamas keeps filling the void
Israel launched its latest offensive in northern Gaza in early October, focusing on Jabaliya, a crowded, decades-old urban refugee camp where it says Hamas had regrouped.
Hamas-led militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducted another 250 that day. Israel’s offensive has killed over 43,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, who do not say how many were combatants but say more than half were women and children.
Israel says it has killed over 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence, and the United States says Hamas is no longer capable of mounting an Oct. 7-style attack.
But Israeli forces have repeatedly returned to areas where they had battled before — only to face renewed attacks. At least 16 Israeli soldiers have been killed in northern Gaza since the latest operation began, including a 41-year-old colonel.
Israel has yet to lay out a plan for postwar Gaza and has rejected a US push for the Western-backed Palestinian Authority to return and govern with Arab support. Plainclothes Hamas security men still patrol most areas.
“It’s endless war,” said Michael Milshtein, a former Israeli military intelligence officer who now leads a Palestinian studies program at Tel Aviv University.
He says Israel has only two options to break the cycle: Either completely reoccupy Gaza, which would require several thousand troops to be stationed there indefinitely. Or secure a ceasefire with Hamas that involves the release of its hostages in exchange for Palestinians in Israeli jails, and a full Israeli withdrawal — the kind of deal that has long eluded US and Arab mediators.
“We are in Jabaliya for the fourth time, and maybe in the next month we will find ourselves there for the fifth and the sixth.” he said.
‘Leave now’ if you care about the lives of your children
Around a million people fled the north, including Gaza City, when Israel ordered its wholesale evacuation at the start of the war. They have not been allowed to return.
Some 400,000 have remained, even as Israel has encircled the area and obliterated entire neighborhoods and critical infrastructure.
The UN says at least 60,000 people have fled to Gaza City in recent weeks from Jabaliya and the northern border towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya.
Residents who remain describe being stuck in their homes for days at a time because of the fighting, with bodies rotting in the streets and rescue teams unable to venture out.
Amna Mustafa and her children were asleep before dawn in a crowded school-turned-shelter in Beit Lahiya last week when an Israeli drone hovering overhead ordered everyone to evacuate. “If you care about your life and the lives of your children, leave now,” it said.
She said men were ordered to strip down and taken away in trucks. The military says it makes every effort to avoid harming civilians, and that such procedures are used to search and detain militants who it says hide among civilians.
Women and children were ordered to walk to a nearby hospital, where Israeli soldiers searched them before allowing most to walk onward to Gaza City, several miles (kilometers) to the south. Mustafa said she spent two nights in the open before moving into a new tent camp in a soccer field.
“There is no food, no water, no blankets, no diapers and no milk for the children,” she said. “We are here waiting for God’s mercy.”
The Israeli military shared drone footage of a similar exodus, showing thousands of people walking down a plowed up road past tanks. It said Hamas had prevented them from leaving before its forces arrived, without providing evidence.
The UN human rights office warned earlier this month that Israel “may be causing the destruction of the Palestinian population in Gaza’s northernmost governate through death and displacement.”
Israel restricts aid despite US warnings
Israel has severely restricted aid to Gaza in October, allowing in only about a third of the humanitarian assistance that entered the previous month.
Alia Zaki, a spokesperson for the World Food Program, said Israel has not allowed UN agencies to deliver aid to the north outside of Gaza City since the latest offensive began.
Col. Elad Goren, a spokesperson for COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of civilian affairs in Gaza, attributed the lack of aid in the first half of the month to Jewish holiday closures and troop movements.
At a briefing last week, he said there was no need for aid deliveries in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya because there was “no population” left in either town. That was before this week’s strikes on Beit Lahiya killed scores of people.
The Biden administration has told Israel to increase the supply of aid entering Gaza, warning it of US laws that could require it to reduce its crucial military support.
Does Israel plan to empty the north?
Palestinians fear Israel is carrying out a strategy proposed by former generals in which aid to the north would be cut off, civilians would be ordered to leave and anyone remaining would be branded a militant. Rights groups say the plan would violate international law.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who visited the region last week for the 11th time since the start of the war, said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told him that Israel had not adopted the plan. The military has denied receiving such orders.
But the Israeli government has not publicly repudiated the plan, even after Blinken’s visit.
Milshtein says the fact that Israel is even considering it is “a post-traumatic phenomenon” born of desperation.
“Many people in the (Israeli military) know it’s a bad idea... But they say: ‘OK, we don’t have any other plan, so let’s try it.”
Strikes hit south Beirut after Israeli evacuation orders — Lebanon news agency
- At least 1,829 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel began an air campaign targeting Hezbollah strongholds on Sept. 23
- Friday’s strikes come a day after Israeli PM Netanyahu met visiting US officials to discuss a possible deal to end the war in Lebanon
BEIRUT: At least 10 strikes hit Beirut’s southern suburbs at dawn on Friday, Lebanon’s official news agency said, after the Israeli army issued evacuation orders for buildings in the area.
AFPTV footage showed explosions followed by clouds of smoke that rang out in the city’s suburbs after the Israeli army ordered several buildings in Hezbollah’s stronghold to evacuate.
“The raids left massive destruction in the targeted areas, as dozens of buildings were leveled to the ground, in addition to the outbreak of fires,” the National News Agency (NNA) said.
Israeli warplanes carried out 10 raids targeting the suburban areas of Ghobeiry and Al-Kafaat, the Sayyed Hadi Highway, the vicinity of the Al-Mujtaba Complex, and the old airport road, it added.
The Israeli military has repeatedly bombarded south Beirut in recent weeks, while also carrying out deadly strikes elsewhere in the capital and across Lebanon.
Friday’s strikes come a day after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met visiting US officials to discuss a possible deal to end the war in Lebanon, with the death toll mounting on both sides of the border.
At least 1,829 people have been killed in Lebanon since Israel began an air campaign targeting Hezbollah strongholds on September 23, according to an AFP tally of Lebanese health ministry figures, though the real toll is likely higher.
Dead or alive? Scores missing after paramilitary group’s attacks in Sudan’s Al-Jazira state
- Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo's paramilitary RSF has been accused of killing people and "looting property including from markets and hospitals”
- Amnesty International said the RSF had gone berserk in eastern Al-Jazira state after a high-ranking officer defected to the national army
NEW HALFA, Sudan: Khadir Ali and his family managed to survive a harrowing paramilitary attack in war-torn Sudan. But by the time they got to safety, he realized that one person was missing.
“We escaped in total chaos — there was gunfire coming from every direction,” said the 47-year-old civil servant of the October 22 Rapid Support Forces attack on Rufaa in Al-Jazira state.
“But once we got out of the city, we noticed my nephew wasn’t with us,” he said.
Mohammed, 17, suffers from a congenital skin condition and “needs special care.”
The teenager is among scores of people reported missing as the RSF stages major attacks across eastern Al-Jazira state after a high-ranking officer from the area defected to the army.
In retaliation, the RSF has been “killing people in their homes, in markets and on the streets, and looting property including from markets and hospitals,” rights group Amnesty International said on Wednesday.
“Six days have passed, and we know nothing about him,” Ali said, speaking in New Halfa in Kassala state.
He and his family have taken refuge there after an arduous 150-kilometer (90-mile) journey.
At least 124 people have been killed and dozens wounded in the fighting in Al-Jazira state over the past 10 days, according to the United Nations.
The death toll for the whole month is at least 200.
War has raged in Sudan since April 2023 between the army under the country’s de facto ruler Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and the RSF, led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The conflict has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. More than half the population — 25 million people — face acute hunger.
So many persons missing
The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that more than 119,000 people have fled from Al-Jazira state amid the recent surge of violence.
Mohamed Al-Obaid from Al-Hajjilij village in the state told AFP his story.
“So far, we’ve counted 170 missing from our village. Entire families are unaccounted for,” he said from New Halfa, where some children arrive unaccompanied by family members.
Since February, communications networks and Internet services have been almost entirely severed in the state, making it practically impossible to check on someone’s whereabouts.
Activist Ali Bashir, who helps people get away from villages in eastern Al-Jazira, said “the communications blackouts are making the missing persons crisis even worse.”
Sudanese social media are filled with posts about missing persons, with activists sharing the pictures and names, many of them children or elderly.
Earlier this month, intense clashes between the army and the RSF spread to Al-Jazira’s Tamboul city.
Just hours after the army said it had taken control of Tamboul, witnesses reported that the paramilitaries were continuing to operate there, causing thousands of civilians to flee.
Among them was trader Osman Abdel Karim, who lost track of two of his sons during fighting on October 19.
“Two of my sons, one 15 and the other 13, were outside when the attack began that Saturday night, and we had to leave without them,” the 43-year-old said.
“Ten days have passed, and we don’t know if they’re dead or alive.”
