HALABJA: Daesh may be on the wane in Iraq and Syria but for Iran, the threat is still strong, centered on Kurdish communities along the Iraq-Iran border where militants have operated in recent years.
The locals even have a nickname for the area, “Tora Bora,” after the mountain hideout Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden fled to after the US invaded Afghanistan in 2001, a senior Iraqi security official in the border region said.
In late January, three Revolutionary Guards were killed in the Bamo region fighting 21 Daesh militants who had sneaked in from Iraq. Three militants detonated suicide vests and two others were killed in the clash, the Guards said.
Days earlier, Iran’s intelligence ministry found a weapons cache in the town of Marivan on the Iranian side of the border that included TNT, C4, electronic detonators, grenades, ammunition clips for AK-47 machine guns and rocket propelled grenades.
The clash and discovery indicate that Daesh still has the ability to penetrate the tightly controlled security net of the Islamic Republic, which has largely managed to avoid the devastation wrought by the group in neighboring countries.
“Today (Islamic State) does not control a country ... in order to assert that they exist, they may carry out an attack any day,” Hossein Dehghan, a former defense minister and now an adviser to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said in a recent interview with the semi-official Tasnim news agency.
Halabja, the largest town on the Iraqi side, is most often remembered for a chemical attack ordered by then-President Saddam Hussein in 1988 which left thousands dead.
The presence of religious militants in the area around the town is not new: at the city’s entrance hang portraits of Iraqi Kurdish security forces, known as Peshmerga, killed in the battle against Daesh.
Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, the jihadist largely blamed for stoking a civil war between Iraq’s Sunnis and Shi’ites, led a group in the area called Ansar Al-Islam, which merged with Daesh in 2014.
Many of the Iranian and Iraqi Kurds now fighting with Daesh are part of a second generation of militants largely influenced by Zarqawi’s deadly legacy, Iraqi security officials and Peshmerga commanders familiar with the matter say.
Sunni Daesh militants see Shi’ites, who make up the majority of Iran’s population, as apostates and have repeatedly threatened to carry out attacks in the Islamic Republic. Kurds make up about ten percent of Iranians and are predominantly Sunni.
Hamai Hama Seid, a senior Peshmerga commander and member of the Iraqi Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party, said Kurdish Daesh militants take advantage of their knowledge of the language and region as well as strong cross-border ties.
“There are definitely ties between the Iranian and Iraqi extremists on the two sides of the border,” Seid said in the Iraqi border village of Tawila, only a few hundred meters from the Iranian border. He added: “The militants exploited this area because it’s mountainous, difficult and wooded.”
Many of the young men are poorly educated and have few economic opportunities, allowing extremist recruiters to flourish, Iraqi security officials and Peshmerga commanders say.
Iranian authorities say the arms cache found on the border was going to be used to attack civilians in public areas, a follow-up to the shocking assault on the parliament in Tehran and the mausoleum of the founder of Iran’s revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, last June that left at least 18 people dead and dozens wounded.
Daesh claimed responsibility for that assault and threatened more. The Revolutionary Guards responded by raining missiles on the militants in Syria and arresting dozens of suspects in Iran.
The June attack was conceived by an Iraqi militant using the nom de guerre Abu Aisha, a senior commander in a unit of Daesh fighting in Iraq and Syria made up exclusively of Kurds, according to the Iranian ministry of intelligence.
The Tehran attackers fought in Mosul and Raqqa and trained outside Iran, the ministry said.
Photos posted online show Abu Aisha, a member of Ansar Al-Islam prior to joining Daesh, beheading Peshmerga soldiers while wearing a traditional Kurdish outfit.
In the fall of 2016, a number of Kurdish Daesh militants led by Abu Aisha came to an Iraqi border village near Halabja to try to establish a base of operations which could carry out attacks in both Iran and Iraq, according to Iraqi security officials familiar with the matter.
Peshmerga killed Abu Aisha in December 2016, according to Iraqi security officials and Kurdish activist Mokhtar Hooshmand, who was jailed in Iran on national security charges from 2010 to 2012 and met dozens of Sunni extremists behind bars.
Afterward, Serias Sadeghi, who ran a bakery with his brother in Paveh, an Iranian town about 15 kilometers from the border, took over as lead planner for the Tehran attacks, Hooshmand said by telephone from outside Iran.
Sadeghi knew Abu Aisha and had crossed back and forth into Iraq with him multiple times.
“Sadeghi was still very eager that this operation be carried out,” Hooshmand said. “He played a key role.”
During the attack on Khomeini’s mausoleum, Sadeghi detonated a suicide vest, shooting up an orange fireball captured on amateur video. The other four attackers were also killed.
Critics of the Iranian government say the Islamic Republic is reaping what they sowed in the area: it failed to crack down earlier on the militants because they served as a counter-balance to secular groups who opposed the central government.
The Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), an Iranian opposition group fighting for greater autonomy for the Kurdish community, posted a report online in 2014 about militants spreading propaganda for Daesh and trying to recruit young men for the group in Iran. They named Sadeghi as an individual actively recruiting in Paveh.
“They were in most of the mosques in Kurdistan and spread propaganda but none of them were arrested by the Islamic Republic,” said Mohammad Saleh Ghaderi, a representative of the PDKI in Irbil.
Attempts to reach representatives from the Iranian Ministry of Interior were not successful. But documents show Iranian authorities were aware of the growing threat.
A report issued by Iran’s Ministry of Interior noted in 2014: “Many Salafist Iranian Kurds have announced the readiness to join Daesh in Iraq and many have traveled to Syria.
“Salafi and Takfiri Iranian groups are pumping Iranian Kurdish youth toward Islamic State and sending them to Iraq,” the report said, using terms employed by Iranian officials to describe Sunni religious extremists.
“Not a day goes by that funerals are not held for them in Iranian Kurdistan and Iraqi Kurdistan,” the report said. It added: “In the future we will witness a large number of Iranian Kurds ... joining Islamic State.”
Daesh threatens Iran from ‘Tora Bora’ borderlands
Daesh threatens Iran from ‘Tora Bora’ borderlands
Turkiye arrests leader of far-right party on charges of inciting violence through social media
- Ozdag, a 63-year-old former academic, is an outspoken critic of Turkiye’s refugee policies and has called for the repatriation of millions of Syrian refugees
ANKARA, Turkiye: Turkish authorities on Tuesday arrested the leader of a far-right opposition party on charges of inciting violence through a series of anti-refugee posts on social media, his party said.
Umit Ozdag, the leader of Turkiye’s anti-immigrant Victory Party, was detained by police on Monday as part of an investigation into allegations that he insulted President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a speech he delivered a day earlier.
The Istanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s office, however, released Ozdag from custody on charges of insulting the president but subsequently ordered his arrest on charges of “inciting hatred and hostility among the public,” the party said.
Prosecutors presented 11 of the politician’s posts on the social platform X as evidence against him, the party said. The prosecutor’s office also held Ozdag responsible for anti-Syrian refugee rioting that erupted in the central Turkish province of Kayseri last year, during which hundreds of homes and businesses were attacked.
Ekrem Imamoglu, the popular mayor of Istanbul who is seen as a possible candidate to challenge Erdogan in the next elections, criticized Ozdag’s arrest, saying on X that “Everyone knows that this is political meddling in the judiciary.”
Imamoglu, who is a member of Turkiye’s main opposition party, was convicted of insulting members of Turkiye’s electoral board in 2022 and faces a two-year ban from politics if his conviction is upheld by a court of appeals.
Ozdag, a 63-year-old former academic, is an outspoken critic of Turkiye’s refugee policies and has called for the repatriation of millions of Syrian refugees.
The politician was being taken to Silivri prison on the outskirts of Istanbul, according to his party.
Mehmet Ali Sehirlioglu, the party’s spokesman, would temporarily assume leadership of the Victory Party.
Yemen Red Sea port capacity down sharply after hostilities, UN says
- Houthis have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since November 2023 in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip
GENEVA: Operations at a Red Sea port in Yemen used for aid imports have fallen to about a quarter of its capacity, a UN official said on Tuesday, adding it was not certain that a Gaza ceasefire would end attacks between the Iran-backed Houthis and Israel.
Houthis have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since November 2023 in solidarity with Palestinians in the war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. This has prompted Israel to strike port and energy facilities, including the Red Sea port of Hodeidah.
“(The) impact of airstrikes on Hodeidah Harbor, particularly in the last weeks, is very important,” Julien Harneis, UN resident and humanitarian coordinator in Yemen told a UN meeting in Geneva on Tuesday via videolink.
Four of the port’s five tugboats needed to escort the large ships bringing imports had sunk, while the fifth was damaged, he said, without attributing blame.
“The civilian crews who man them are obviously very hesitant. The capacity of the harbor is down to about a quarter,” he added, saying the port was used to transit a significant portion of imported aid.
Since a Gaza ceasefire agreement last week, Yemen’s Houthis have said they will limit their attacks on commercial vessels to Israel-linked ships, provided the Gaza ceasefire is fully implemented.
“We are hopeful that sanity will prevail and people will be focused on solutions and peace, but we are nonetheless prepared as a humanitarian community for various degradations,” said Harneis, adding that the agency had contingency plans.
The Iran-aligned Houthis have controlled most of Yemen, including the capital Sanaa, since seizing power during 2014 and early 2015.
Suspected settlers attacked Palestinian villages hours before Trump rescinded Biden sanctions
- Even before taking office, Trump appears to have pressed Netanyahu to accept a Gaza ceasefire agreement with Hamas that strongly resembled one the Biden administration had been pushing for months
- On Tuesday, the charred shells of cars lay on the side of the road in Jinsafut and residents surveyed the damage to a burned storage space
JINSAFUT, West Bank: Shortly after suspected Jewish settlers stormed Palestinian villages in the occupied West Bank late Monday, setting cars and property ablaze, US President Donald Trump canceled sanctions against Israelis accused of violence in the territory.
The reversal of the Biden administration’s sanctions, which were meant to punish radical settlers, could set the tone for a presidency that is expected to be more tolerant of Israel’s expansion of settlements and of violence toward Palestinians. In Trump’s previous term he lavished support on Israel, and he has once again surrounded himself with aides who back the settlers.
Settler leaders rushed to praise Trump’s decision on the sanctions, which were first imposed nearly a year ago as violence surged during the war in Gaza. The sanctions were later expanded to include other Israelis seen as violent or radical.
Finance Minister and settler firebrand Bezalel Smotrich called it a just decision, saying the sanctions were a “severe and blatant foreign intervention.” In a post on social media platform X, he went on to praise Trump’s “unwavering and uncompromising support for the state of Israel.”
The West Bank’s 3 million Palestinians already live under seemingly open-ended Israeli military rule, with the Palestinian Authority administering cities and towns. Smotrich and other hard-line settler leaders want Israel to annex the West Bank and rebuild settlements in Gaza, territories that Israel seized during the 1967 Mideast war.
Palestinians want both territories for a future state and have long viewed the settlements as a major obstacle to peace, while the international community overwhelmingly considers them illegal. There are more than 500,000 settlers in the West Bank who have Israeli citizenship.
Late Monday, dozens of masked men who are widely believed to be settlers marauded through at least two Palestinian villages and attacked homes and businesses, according to officials in Jinsafut and Al-Funduq, which are roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of Jerusalem.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said it treated 12 people who were beaten by the men. It gave no details on their condition. Israel’s military said the men hurled rocks at soldiers who had arrived to disperse them, and that it had launched an investigation.
Violence has surged in the West Bank during the Gaza war, so it was not clear if the attack had any link to the inauguration. On Tuesday, meanwhile, Israel launched a deadly raid on the Jenin refugee camp.
Jalal Bashir, the head of Jinsafut’s village council, said that the men attacked three houses, a nursery and a carpentry shop located on the village’s main road. Louay Tayem, head of the local council in Al-Funduq, said dozens of men had fired shots, thrown stones, burned cars, and attacked homes and shops.
“The settlers were masked and had incendiary materials,” said Bashir. “Their numbers were large and unprecedented.”
On Tuesday, the charred shells of cars lay on the side of the road in Jinsafut and residents surveyed the damage to a burned storage space.
Growing impunity, even after Biden’s sanctions
Biden’s executive order against the settlers marked a rare break with America’s closest Middle East ally, and signaled his frustration with what critics say is Israel’s leniency in dealing with violent settlers.
Rights groups say that impunity has deepened since Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz exempted settlers from what is known as administrative detention — Israel’s practice of detaining individuals on security grounds without charge or trial — which is routinely used against Palestinians.
Katz, who freed all Israelis held in administrative detention just last week, said those behind Monday’s attack should be held accountable in Israel’s more transparent criminal justice system.
Palestinian residents, meanwhile, are tried in Israeli military courts.
Biden’s sanctions were aimed at settlers who were involved in acts of violence, as well as threats against and attempts to destroy or seize Palestinian property. They later were broadened to include other groups, including Tzav 9, an activist organization that was accused of disrupting the flow of aid into Gaza by trying to block trucks heading into the territory.
Reut Ben-Chaim, a mother of eight who founded the group and was then slapped with sanctions that crippled her wellness company and prohibited her access to credit cards or banking apps, welcomed Trump’s step.
“We have heard in the last few days that the Trump administration is going to be the most pro-Israel there has been,” she told The Associated Press. “These actions, such as the removal of the sanctions … these are actions that already mark the way forward.”
Support for Israel could clash with wider ambitions
Trump has long boasted of his support for Israel, but he has also pledged to end wars in the Middle East that could require exerting some pressure on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Even before taking office, Trump appears to have pressed Netanyahu to accept a Gaza ceasefire agreement with Hamas that strongly resembled one the Biden administration had been pushing for months.
During his first term, Trump moved the American embassy to Jerusalem, recognized Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights — which it captured from Syria in the 1967 war — and presented a Mideast peace plan that was seen as overwhelmingly favorable to Israel.
He also let settlement construction in the West Bank surge unchecked.
But he seemed at the time to have tapped the brakes on Netanyahu’s plans to annex large parts of the West Bank, something Israel’s far-right settlers have demanded for years. Netanyahu said he temporarily shelved the idea as part of the agreement with the UAE.
Four wounded in Tel Aviv stabbing attack, attacker killed
- This was the second stabbing attack in Tel Aviv in four days, after another assailant seriously wounded a person on Saturday before being shot by an armed civilian
TEL AVIV: Four people were wounded in a stabbing attack on Tuesday in Tel Aviv while the attacker was killed, Israeli emergency service Magen David Adom said.
The police said an initial investigation “revealed that a terrorist armed with a knife stabbed three civilians on Nahalat Binyamin Street and one civilian on Gruzenberg Street.”
Ichilov hospital in Tel Aviv said it had received three stabbing victims, including one in “a serious condition with a knife wound to the neck” who was taken into surgery.
The Nahalat Binyamin street and surrounding neighborhood of Tel Aviv are popular for their restaurants and nightlife.
The area was cordoned off by the police, while an AFP journalist saw the dead body of a man on the street.
This was the second stabbing attack in Tel Aviv in four days, after another assailant seriously wounded a person on Saturday before being shot by an armed civilian.
UK PM tells Netanyahu peace process ‘should lead’ to Palestinian state
- Downing Street: The PM said ‘that the UK stands ready to do everything it can to support a political process, which should also lead to a viable and sovereign Palestinian state’
- Downing Street: The PM also ‘reiterated that it was vital to ensure humanitarian aid can now flow uninterrupted into Gaza, to support the Palestinians who desperately need it’
LONDON: UK premier Keir Starmer told Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday that any peace process in the Middle East should pave the way for a Palestinian state, Downing Street said.
The two leaders held a call that focused on the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, a UK government spokesperson said.
During the conversation, “both agreed that we must work toward a permanent and peaceful solution that guarantees Israel’s security and stability,” the British readout of the call added.
“The prime minister added that the UK stands ready to do everything it can to support a political process, which should also lead to a viable and sovereign Palestinian state.”
Starmer also “reiterated that it was vital to ensure humanitarian aid can now flow uninterrupted into Gaza, to support the Palestinians who desperately need it,” the statement added.
Starmer “offered his personal thanks for the work done by the Israeli government to secure the release of the hostages, including British hostage Emily Damari,” the statement added.
“To see the pictures of Emily finally back in her family’s arms was a wonderful moment but a reminder of the human cost of the conflict,” Starmer added, according to the statement.
A truce agreement between Israel and Hamas to end 15 months of war in Gaza came into effect on Sunday.
The first part of the three-phase deal should last six weeks and see 33 hostages returned from Gaza in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinian prisoners.
