Daesh long gone, but former Iraqi oil hub still dead

A member of the Iraqi forces guards a checkpoint in the northern Iraqi city of Baiji on Nov. 27, 2017. Two years after the jihadists of Daesh were forced from this one-time industrial hub, Baiji remains a devastated ghost city as pledges of funds to help rebuild life have failed to materialize. (AFP/Mahmud Saleh)
Updated 11 December 2017
Follow

Daesh long gone, but former Iraqi oil hub still dead

BAIJI, Iraq: A white rocking horse and a child’s toy car lie abandoned on a dusty lane in the Iraqi city of Baiji, a small sign of the ruin that can be seen all around.
Two years after the jihadists of Daesh were forced from this one-time industrial hub, Baiji remains a devastated ghost city as pledges of funds to help rebuild life have failed to materialize.
Home to what was once Iraq’s biggest oil refinery, its rubble-strewn streets are lined by the twisted carcasses of buildings, and in 2016 it was declared a disaster zone by the national parliament.
“Up until now there has been no money to reconstruct the town despite the promises made by Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi,” Khaled Hassan Mahdi, a member of the regional council, told AFP.
Instead, Mahdi said, all available funds have gone into financing Iraq’s military campaign against Daesh, which Hadi declared defeated after three years of brutal fighting.
“And even if the ministries unblock the money, it will only go to restoring infrastructure, water, roads, electricity, but not pay benefits to people or give them aid to rebuild their homes.”

For Baiji, 200 kilometers (124 miles) north of Baghdad, its role as a major industrial center boasting sprawling oil and chemical plants seems like a distant memory.
“It will be very difficult to rehabilitate the Baiji refinery, which was built in 1975 and used to produce 250,000 barrels a day, as so much equipment has been pillaged,” a high-ranking official in Iraq’s North Oil Company told AFP.
Even if the facility does get up and running again, the official said, then “it won’t have the same capacity as before.”
The level of devastation in Baiji is among the worst left behind after Baghdad’s punishing campaign to reclaim its towns and cities from the grip the jihadists, who fought fierce house-to-house battles to cling on to the city.
“Baiji is the most destroyed place in Iraq after western Mosul,” said council member Khazal Hammadi, referring to the obliterated old heart of the country’s second city.
Before the jihadist’s seized control in 2014 the city had a population of some 180,000 people.
“Now 90 percent of Baiji is destroyed and the people have still not returned,” city councillor Sheikh Hatef Bassam said.
Wearing a black and white checked keffiyeh headscarf, he insists that “the destruction was the work of the IS terrorists after local Arab tribes rejected their presence,” using a different acronym for Daesh.
But the full story of Baiji’s downfall is far more protracted and complex.
After the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Baiji found itself at the heart of the so-called “Sunni triangle” where those loyal to ousted leader Saddam Hussein continued to wage a ferocious insurgency — and the oil infrastructure was attacked repeatedly.
Daesh swept into the city in June 2014 as the Iraqi forces collapsed and after more than a year in control were forced out by government troops and allied militias with the help of air power from a US-led coalition in October 2015.

Traffic has long ceased along Baiji’s wrecked main highway and, apart from a few military checkpoints, life is nowhere to be seen.
“The city is destroyed and the houses are uninhabitable,” said local militia commander Hajj Ibrahim Taha.
“The roads are destroyed, the water system is damaged, electricity is non-existent and all the people have left.”
Local police chief Saad Nafus said that some families come back from time to time to check their houses, but they have to get “authorization” from security officials who still worry about jihadists returning.
In a camp for displaced people run by charities in the region, three kilometers north of the city of Tikrit, former Baiji resident Amer Abbas has no idea if his home is still standing or not.
“We are afraid that we will find nothing if we go back,” he said.
Nearby, Said Imad Ahmed said he already knows full well that his house has been destroyed and that for the foreseeable future he will remain trapped in the camp.
“I don’t have any money to rebuild and the government has given us nothing,” he said.
“We have no choice but to remain here.”


Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah

Updated 17 sec ago
Follow

Lebanon says 2 hurt as Israeli troops fire on people returning south after truce with Hezbollah

Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details
It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border

BEIRUT: At least two people were wounded by Israeli fire in southern Lebanon on Thursday, according to state media. The Israeli military said it had fired at people trying to return to certain areas on the second day of a ceasefire with the Hezbollah militant group.
The agreement, brokered by the United States and France, includes an initial two-month ceasefire in which Hezbollah militants are to withdraw north of the Litani River and Israeli forces are to return to their side of the border. The buffer zone would be patrolled by Lebanese troops and UN peacekeepers.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said two people were wounded by Israeli fire in Markaba, close to the border, without providing further details. It said Israel fired artillery in three other locations near the border. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
An Associated Press reporter in northern Israel near the border heard Israeli drones buzzing overhead and the sound of artillery strikes from the Lebanese side.
The Israeli military said in a statement that “several suspects were identified arriving with vehicles to a number of areas in southern Lebanon, breaching the conditions of the ceasefire.” It said troops “opened fire toward them” and would “actively enforce violations of the ceasefire agreement.”
Israeli officials have said forces will be withdrawn gradually as it ensures that the agreement is being enforced. Israel has warned people not to return to areas where troops are deployed, and says it reserves the right to strike Hezbollah if it violates the terms of the truce.
A Lebanese military official said Lebanese troops would gradually deploy in the south as Israeli troops withdraw. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief media.
The ceasefire agreement announced late Tuesday ended 14 months of conflict between Israel and Hezbollah that began a day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack out of Gaza, when the Lebanese militant group began firing rockets, drones and missiles in solidarity.
Israel retaliated with airstrikes, and the conflict steadily intensified for nearly a year before boiling over into all-out war in mid-September. The war in Gaza is still raging with no end in sight.
More than 3,760 people were killed by Israeli fire in Lebanon during the conflict, many of them civilians, according to Lebanese health officials. The fighting killed more than 70 people in Israel — over half of them civilians — as well as dozens of Israeli soldiers fighting in southern Lebanon.
Some 1.2 million people were displaced in Lebanon, and thousands began streaming back to their homes on Wednesday despite warnings from the Lebanese military and the Israeli army to stay out of certain areas. Some 50,000 people were displaced on the Israeli side, but few have returned and the communities near the northern border are still largely deserted.
In Menara, an Israeli community on the border with views into Lebanon, around three quarters of homes are damaged, some with collapsed roofs and burnt-out interiors. A few residents could be seen gathering their belongings on Thursday before leaving again.

Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal

Updated 40 min 3 sec ago
Follow

Algeria facing growing calls to release French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal

  • “The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said
  • The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release”

PARIS: Politicians, writers and activists have called for the release of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, whose arrest in Algeria is seen as the latest instance of the stifling of creative expression in the military-dominated North African country.
The 75-year-old author, who is an outspoken critic of Islamism and the Algerian regime, has not been heard from by friends, family or his French publisher since leaving Paris for Algiers earlier this month. He has not been seen near his home in his small town, Boumerdes, his neighbors told The Associated Press.
“The detention without serious grounds of a writer of French nationality is unacceptable,” France’s Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said on Wednesday.
He added Sansal’s work “does honor to both his countries and to the values we cherish.”
The European Parliament discussed Algeria’s repression of freedom of speech on Wednesday and called for “his immediate and unconditional release.”
Algerian authorities have not publicly announced charges against Sansal, but the APS state news service said he was arrested at the airport.
Though no longer censored, Sansal’s novels have in the past faced bans in Algeria. A professed admirer of French culture, his writings on Islam’s role in society, authoritarianism, freedom of expression and the civil war that ravaged Algeria throughout the 1990s have won him fans across the ideological spectrum in France, from far-right leader Marine Le Pen to President Emmanuel Macron, who attended his French naturalization ceremony in 2023.
But his work has provoked ire in Algeria, from both authorities and Islamists, who have issued death threats against him in the 1990s and afterward.
Though few garner such international attention, Sansal is among a long list of political prisoners incarcerated in Algeria, where the hopes of a protest movement that led to the ouster of the country’s then-82 year old president have been crushed under President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Human rights groups have decried the ongoing repression facing journalists, activists and writers. Amnesty International in September called it a “brutal crackdown on human rights including the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.”
Algerian authorities have in recent months disrupted a book fair in Bejaia and excluded prominent authors from the country’s largest book fair in Algeria has in recent months, including this year’s Goncourt Prize winner Kamel Daoud,
“This tragic news reflects an alarming reality in Algeria, where freedom of expression is no more than a memory in the face of repression, imprisonment and the surveillance of the entire society,” French-Algerian author Kamel Daoud wrote in an editorial signed by more than a dozen authors in Le Point this week.
Sansal has been a polarizing figure in Algeria for holding some pro-Israel views and for likening political Islam to Nazism and totalitarianism in his novels, including “The Oath of the Barbarians” and “2084: The End of the World.”
Despite the controversial subject matter, Sansal had never faced detention. His arrest comes as relations between France and Algeria face newfound strains. France in July backed Morocco’s sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara, angering Algeria, which has long backed the independence Polisario Front and pushed for a referendum to determine the future of the coastal northwest African territory.
“A regime that thinks it has to stop its writers, whatever they think, is certainly a weak regime,” French-Algerian academic Ali Bensaad wrote in a statement posted on Facebook.


Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

Updated 28 November 2024
Follow

Iranian Revolutionary Guards officer killed in Syria, SNN reports

DUBAI: Iranian Revolutionary Guards Brig. Gen. Kioumars Pourhashemi was killed in the Syrian province of Aleppo by “terrorists” linked to Israel, Iran’s SNN news agency reported on Thursday without giving further details.
Rebels led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham on Wednesday launched an incursion into a dozen towns and villages in northwest Aleppo province controlled by Syrian President Bashar Assad.


Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief

Updated 28 November 2024
Follow

Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire unlikely to hold: UK ex-spy chief

  • Richard Dearlove: Agreement suits both parties in ‘short to medium term’
  • Deal leaves Iran ‘exposed’ as its Lebanese ally is temporarily incapacitated

LONDON: The ceasefire deal struck this week between Israel and Hezbollah is unlikely to hold, a former head of MI6 has warned.

Richard Dearlove, who headed the British intelligence service from 1999 to 2004, told Sky News that the deal, which came into effect on Wednesday, is a “retreaded agreement from 2006.”

That initial deal was designed to keep Hezbollah away from the border region with Israel, overseen by the Lebanese military and the UN, but in effect it “did absolutely nothing,” he said.

This week’s deal suits both Israel and Hezbollah “in the short to medium term,” Dearlove said, adding: “The Israelis must know how much of the infrastructure of Hezbollah they’ve taken down … They haven’t taken it down completely, but maybe the Lebanese state can reassert some of its authority as the government of Lebanon and keep Hezbollah to an extent under control. We just have to wait and see what happens.”

He said the ceasefire deal will be a blow to Hezbollah’s backer Iran, leaving the latter “exposed” with one of its allies temporarily incapacitated.

But he warned that this could escalate into “direct” confrontation between Israel and Iran were the latter to launch another ballistic missile attack.


Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders

Updated 28 November 2024
Follow

Israeli FM: ‘No justification’ for ICC to take steps against Israeli leaders

  • The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives”

PRAGUE: Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar said on Thursday that the ICC had “no justification” for issuing arrests warrants for Israeli leaders, in a joint press conference with Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky.
Saar told Reuters Israel has appealed the decision and that it sets a dangerous precedent.
The foreign minister also said Israel would finish the war in Gaza when it “achieves its objectives” of returning hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza and ensuring the Iranian-backed group no longer controls the strip. Saar said Israel does not intend to control civilian life in Gaza and that he believes peace is “inevitable” but can’t be based on “illusions.”