BAGHDAD: Fewer than 1,000 Daesh fighters remain in Iraq and Syria, the US-led international coalition fighting the hard-line militant group said on Wednesday, a third of the estimated figure only three weeks ago.
Iraq and Syria have both declared victory over Daesh in recent weeks, after a year that saw the two countries’ armies, a range of foreign allies and various local forces drive the fighters out of all the towns and villages that once made up their self-proclaimed caliphate.
The US has led an international coalition conducting air strikes against Daesh since 2014 when the group swept across a third of Iraq. US troops have served as advisers on the ground with Iraqi government forces and with Kurdish and Arab groups in Syria.
“Due to the commitment of the Coalition and the demonstrated competence of our partners in Iraq and Syria, there are estimated to be less than 1,000 ISIS terrorists in our combined joint area of operations, most of whom are being hunted down in the desert regions in eastern Syria and Western Iraq,” the US-led coalition told Reuters in an emailed statement.
ISIS is an acronym used for Daesh.
The figure excludes areas in western Syria under the control of President Bashar Assad’s government and his allies.
Assad’s main ally Russia also said on Wednesday the main battle with Daesh in Syria was over. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the key task in Syria was now destroying another Islamist group, the Nusra Front.
The US-led coalition had said on December 5 that there were less than 3,000 fighters remaining. Iraq declared “final victory” over the group on December 9.
Most of the fighters had been killed or captured over the past three years, the coalition said on Wednesday. It would not respond to a question on whether some fighters could have escaped to other countries, saying it would not “engage in public speculation” but said it was working on preventing that.
“We can tell you that we are working with our partners to kill or capture all remaining ISIS terrorists, to destroy their network and prevent their resurgence, and also to prevent them from escaping to bordering countries,” it said.
Less than 1,000 Daesh fighters remain in Iraq and Syria, US-led coalition says
Less than 1,000 Daesh fighters remain in Iraq and Syria, US-led coalition says
UAE had hottest April on record: met office
UAE has been gripped by a heatwave for several days
DUBAI: The UAE endured its hottest April on record with an average daily high of 42.6 degrees Celsius (108.7 Fahrenheit), the National Center of Meteorology (NCM) said.
That topped the average daily high of 42.2 Celsius (108 Fahrenheit) recorded in April 2017, said the center, which has been keeping comprehensive figures since 2003.
UAE has been gripped by a heatwave for several days that has prompted authorities to warn residents to drink plenty of fluids and avoid work outdoors during the hottest part of the day.
NCM meteorologist Ahmed Habib said the culprit was a mass of very hot air that had blown in from the desert.
On April 27, temperatures in the emirate of Fujairah peaked at 46.6 Celsius (115.9 Fahrenheit), the second highest ever recorded in April in the UAE.
This year’s heatwave stands in stark contrast to April 2024, when the UAE was swept by its heaviest rains in 75 years, in which four people died.
Scientists of the World Weather Attribution network said last year’s rains were “very likely” exacerbated by global warming.
‘No dumping ground’: Tunisia activist wins award over waste scandal
- The 57-year-old was among seven environmentalists from different countries handed this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize
- Gharbi “helped spearhead a campaign that challenged a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia,” the Goldman committee said
TUNIS: Tunisian environmentalist Semia Labidi Gharbi, awarded a global prize for her role exposing a major waste scandal, has a message for wealthy nations: developing countries are “no dumping ground.”
Gharbi was among the first to speak out when Italy shipped more than 280 containers of waste to the North African country in 2020.
The cargo was initially labelled as recyclable plastic scrap, but customs officials found hazardous household waste — banned under Tunisian law.
“It’s true, we are developing countries,” Gharbi said in an interview with AFP. “But we are not a dumping ground.”
The 57-year-old was among seven environmentalists from different countries handed this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize — commonly known as the “Green Nobel” — in California last week.
The Goldman committee said her grassroots activism helped force Italy to take the waste back in February 2022.
Gharbi “helped spearhead a campaign that challenged a corrupt waste trafficking scheme between Italy and Tunisia,” the Goldman committee said.
And her endeavours ultimately led to the return of 6,000 tons of “illegally exported household waste back to Italy,” the US-based organization added.
The scandal took on national proportions in Tunisia and saw the sacking of then environment minister Mustapha Aroui, who was sentenced to three years in prison.
A total of 26 people, including customs officials, were prosecuted.
Yet the waste remained at the port of Sousse for more than two years, with Tunisian rights groups criticizing the authorities’ inaction as Italy failed to meet deadlines to take it back.
Global waste trade often sees industrialized nations offload rubbish in poorer countries with limited means to handle it.
“What is toxic for developed countries is toxic for us too,” said Gharbi. “We also have the right to live in a healthy environment.”
She added that while richer countries can manage their own waste, developing ones like Tunisia have “limited capacity.”
The Goldman committee said Gharbi’s campaigning helped drive reforms in the European Union.
“Her efforts spurred policy shifts within the EU, which has now tightened its procedures and regulations for waste shipments abroad,” it said.
Gharbi, who has spent 25 years campaigning on environmental threats to health, said she never set out to turn the scandal into a symbol.
“But now that it has become one, so much the better,” she said with a smile.
She hopes the award will raise the profile of Tunisian civil society, and said groups she works with across Africa see the recognition as their own.
“The prize is theirs too,” she said, adding it would help amplify advocacy and “convey messages.”
‘Deadly blockade’ leaves Gaza aid work on verge of collapse: UN, Red Cross
- “The humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse,” the ICRC warned
- WFP said a week ago that it had sent out its “last remaining food stocks” to kitchens
GENEVA: Two months into Israel’s full blockade on aid into Gaza, humanitarians described Friday horrific scenes of starving, bloodied children and people fighting over water, with aid operations on the “verge of total collapse.”
The United Nations and the Red Cross sounded the alarm at the dire situation in the war-ravaged Palestinian territory, demanding international action.
“The humanitarian response in Gaza is on the verge of total collapse,” the International Committee of the Red Cross warned in a statement.
“Without immediate action, Gaza will descend further into chaos that humanitarian efforts will not be able to mitigate.”
Israel strictly controls all inflows of international aid vital for the 2.4 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
It halted aid deliveries to Gaza on March 2, days before the collapse of a ceasefire that had significantly reduced hostilities after 15 months of war.
Since the start of the blockade, the United Nations has repeatedly warned of the humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine again looming.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said a week ago that it had sent out its “last remaining food stocks” to kitchens.
“Food stocks have now mainly run out,” Olga Cherevko, a spokeswoman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, told reporters in Geneva Friday via video link from Gaza City.
“Community kitchens have begun to shut down (and) more people are going hungry,” she said, pointing to reports of children and other very vulnerable people who have died from malnutrition and ... from the lack of food.”
“The blockade is deadly.”
Water access was also “becoming impossible,” she warned.
“In fact, as I speak to you, just downstairs from this building people are fighting for water. There’s a water truck that has just arrived, and people are killing each other over water,” she said.
The situation is so bad, she said that a friend had described to her a few days ago seeing “people burning ... because of the explosions and there was no water to save them.”
At the same time, Cherevko lamented that “hospitals report running out of blood units as mass casualties continue to arrive.”
“Gaza lies in ruins, Rubble fills the streets... Many nights, blood-curdling screams of the injured pierce the skies following the deafening sound of another explosion.”
She also decried the mass displacement, with nearly the entire Gaza population being forced to shift multiple times prior to the brief ceasefire.
Since the resumption of hostilities, she said “over 420,000 people have been once again forced to flee, many with only the clothes on their backs, shot at along the way, arriving in overcrowded shelters, as tents and other facilities where people search safety, are being bombed.”
Pascal Hundt, the ICRC’s deputy head of operations, also cautioned that “civilians in Gaza are facing an overwhelming daily struggle to survive the dangers of hostilities, cope with relentless displacement, and endure the consequences of being deprived of urgent humanitarian assistance.”
The World Health Organization’s emergencies director Mike Ryan said the situation was an “abomination.”
“We are breaking the bodies and the minds of the children of Gaza. We are starving the children of Gaza,” he told reporters on Thursday.
Cherevko slammed decision makers who “have watched in silence the endless scenes of bloodied children, of severed limbs, of grieving parents move swiftly across their screens, month, after month, after month.”
“How much more blood must be spilled before enough become enough?“
Two killed in safety valve incident at BAPCO Refining plant in Bahrain, 3rd person injured
DUBAI: Two workers have been killed in an incident at one of the Bahrain Petroleum Company’s (BAPCO) units, the country’s Ministry of Interior confirmed in a post on X.com.
Members of the Bahraini civil defense, working in cooperation with Bapco’s emergency teams, dealt with the leakage the post explained.
The Bahrain News Agency later reported that BAPCO Refining had confirmed that all precautionary measures had been taken regarding the leak that happened on Friday morning in a safety valve in one of BAPCO Refining’s units.
The statement added that the situation was under full control, the leak has been stopped and work had resumed.
The statement added that Bapco expressed its “sincere condolences, sympathy, and support” to the families of the two employees who died.
The national ambulance service transferred a third person who was injured to the hospital for treatment.
Illinois landlord to be sentenced in hate crime that left 6-year-old Palestinian American boy dead
- A jury convicted 73-year-old Joseph Czuba in February of murder and hate crime charges in the fatal stabbing of Wadee Alfayoumi and the wounding of his mother, Hanan Shaheen
- The family had been renting rooms in Czuba’s home in the Chicago suburb of Plainfield in 2023 when the attack happened
JOLIET: An Illinois landlord found guilty of a vicious hate crime that left a 6-year-old Muslim boy dead and wounded his mother days after the start of the war in Gaza in 2023 was due in court Friday for sentencing.
A jury convicted 73-year-old Joseph Czuba in February of murder and hate crime charges in the fatal stabbing of Wadee Alfayoumi, who was Palestinian American, and the wounding of his mother, Hanan Shaheen. The family had been renting rooms in Czuba’s home in Plainfield, about 40 miles (64 kilometers) from Chicago, in 2023 when the attack happened.
Central to prosecutors’ case was harrowing testimony from the boy’s mother, who said Czuba attacked her before moving on to her son, insisting they had to leave because they were Muslim. Prosecutors also played the 911 call and showed police footage. Czuba’s wife, Mary, whom he has since divorced, also testified for the prosecution, saying he had become agitated about the Israel-Hamas war, which had erupted days earlier.
Police said Czuba pulled a knife from a holder on a belt and stabbed the boy 26 times, leaving the knife in the child’s body. Some of the bloody crime scene photos were so explicit that the judge agreed to turn television screens showing them away from the audience, which included Wadee’s relatives.
“He could not escape,” Michael Fitzgerald, a Will County assistant state’s attorney, told jurors at trial. “If it wasn’t enough that this defendant killed that little boy, he left the knife in the little boy’s body.”
The jury deliberated for 90 minutes before returning a verdict. Czuba is eligible for a minimum prison sentence of 20 to 60 years or life, according to the Will County state’s attorney’s office.
Prosecutors declined to comment ahead of Friday’s hearing and have not said what sentence they will seek. Illinois does not have the death penalty.
The attack renewed fears of anti-Muslim discrimination and hit particularly hard in Plainfield and surrounding suburbs, which have a large and established Palestinian community. Wadee’s funeral drew large crowds and Plainfield officials have dedicated a park playground in his honor.
Czuba did not speak during the trial. His defense attorneys argued that there were holes in the case. His public defender, George Lenard, has not addressed reporters and declined comment ahead of the sentencing.
Shaheen had more than a dozen stab wounds and it took her weeks to recover.
She said there were no prior issues in the two years she rented from the Czubas, even sharing a kitchen and a living room.
Then after the start of the war, Czuba told her that they had to move out because Muslims were not welcome. He later confronted Shaheen and attacked her, holding her down, stabbing her and trying to break her teeth.
“He told me ‘You, as a Muslim, must die,’” said Shaheen, who testified in English and Arabic though a translator.
Police testified that officers found Czuba outside the house, sitting on the ground with blood on his body and hands.
Separately, lawsuits have been filed over the boy’s death, including by his father, Odai Alfayoumi, who is divorced from Shaheen and was not living with them. The US Department of Justice also launched a federal hate crimes investigation.
