LONDON: Daesh militant Alexanda Kotey, known for his part in a brutal murder squad, is thought to have been fleeing to Turkey when he was seized by US-backed Kurdish forces in northern Syria.
Kotey, 34, along with El Shafee Elsheikh, 29, was part of a notorious Daesh execution cell, known for participating in the brutal beheadings and torture of hostages, who knew them as the “Beatles” because of their British accents. “He was intending to escape toward Turkey with cooperation and coordination with friends of his on the Turkish side,” senior SDF official Redur Xelil told Reuters. “He is now under investigation with us,” he added. No information on Elsheikh was provided. A senior security official in Turkey described the claim as “nonsense.”
The pair were detained in January but American officials initially kept the news secret “to allow analysts more time to pursue the intelligence leads,” The New York Times said.
UK officials described the capture as a potential “treasure trove” of intelligence and are hoping to glean information on the whereabouts of John Cantlie, the British journalist captured by Daesh in 2012 alongside US journalist James Foley, who was beheaded in 2014.
Kotey and Elsheikh are already believed to have supplied valuable intelligence and could provide important insights on foreign fighters disbanded by the collapse of the so-called caliphate.
Tahir Abbas, a senior research fellow specializing in Islamophobia and radicalization at RUSI, a London-based think tank, told Arab News that their capture presented “vital and valuable opportunities” to gain greater insights into the workings of Daesh. “These individuals carry with them all sorts or knowledge and understanding of what went on inside” as well as “how people came from the UK and other European countries to Syrian and Iraq.”
Kotey, described by friends as a “quiet and humble” football fan of Ghanaian-Greek Cypriot origin, acted as a recruiter for Daesh and is believed to have encouraged several UK nationals to join the group. According to the US State Department, he “likely engaged in the group’s executions and exceptionally cruel torture methods, including electronic shock and waterboarding.”
Elsheikh also participated in the torture and had a reputation for “waterboarding, mock executions, and crucifixions” the US State Department said.
The cell’s frontman was Mohamed Emwazi, known as Jihadi John, who became notorious after appearing in Daesh propaganda videos depicting the execution of Western hostages, including Foley, UK aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning, US aid worker Abdul-Rahman Kassig and Japanese hostage Kenji Goto. He was killed in a US drone strike in 2015 following an extensive manhunt.
According to US officials the cell beheaded at least 27 Western hostages and was responsible for torturing many more. They were known for their brutality, frequently beating the hostages they held in Raqqa, who knew them by their Beatles names — Ringo, Paul, John and George.
A fourth member of the group Aine Davis is imprisoned in Turkey after being arrested near Istanbul in 2015. Like the others, Davis lived in West London, where they are believed to have met before traveling to Syria to join Daesh.
There is now speculation over whether the pair, who may have had their British citizenships revoked under powers available to the UK Home Office, will be repatriated to the UK or put on trial in the US. Their capture by US forces and alleged participation in the killing of US hostages could see some in the Trump administration push for them to be moved to Guantanamo Bay.
In his State of the Union address last month, Trump announced a decision to keep the controversial detention facility open: “I am asking Congress to ensure that in the fight against Isis and Al-Qaeda we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists wherever we chase them down, wherever we find them. And in many cases, for them, it will now be Guantanamo bay.”
Both UK MP Tobias Ellwood, whose brother was killed in a terrorist attack in Bali in 2002, and the mother of James Foley, have called for the pair to receive a fair trial. Diane Foley told the BBC: “I would like them to be brought to trial in the US but as long as they are brought to fair trial and detained and justice is served I would be most grateful.
“It does not bring James back but hopefully it protects others from this kind of crime.”
“I would like them to spend the rest of their lives being detained in a prison.”
Speaking on BBC Radio 4, Nicolas Henin, a former hostage who was held for 10 months, described the cell’s cruel treatment of captives. “I don’t like the word but yes, some of us have been tortured,” he said, adding that the men’s accents had clearly identified them as British.
“I will be extremely frustrated if they are not offered a fair trial, and I don’t think that the local authorities in northern Syria or that detention in Guantanamo would be justice,” he said. “I would like them brought back to Britain.”
All four members of the group are believed to have been radicalized in London. Kotey, a father of two who converted to Islam in his twenties, joined an aid convoy to Gaza in 2009 and never returned. Investigators believe he became radicalized while attending Al-Manaar mosque in Ladbroke Grove, alongside Emwazi.
“It’s right that they are returned to the UK and face justice accordingly,” Abbas, the research fellow at RUSI, said. “Yes they carried out undoubtedly heinous acts but they were, if their citizenship hasn’t been revoked, British citizens, who still have a claim to their Britishness on some level and we as a state should acknowledge that and process them through the justice system — that would be the right and fair thing to do and it would send the right signals.”
Elsheikh and his younger brother Mahmoud, who was killed while fighting for Daesh in Iraq, came from a family of Sudanese refugees. His mother Maha Elgizouli claimed her “perfect” son was influenced by the sermons of a radical West London Islamist cleric, Hani Al-Sibai, who once described the London bombings as a “great victory” for Al-Qaeda.
Egyptian-born Al-Sibai, 55, has been linked to numerous extremists, including Emwazi and Elsheikh, and is cited as an influence on the Tunisian terror group that trained Seifeddine Rezgui Yacoubi before he killed 38 tourists on a Tunisian beach in 2015.
Elgizouli said in an interview that she confronted the cleric and slapped him, saying “What have you done to my son?” After learning that Elsheikh was involved with the groups, she said: “That boy now is not my son. That is not the son I raised.”
Despite attempts by successive British governments to deport Al-Sibai he continues to live in West London.
The UK Home Office has faced similar problems with radical preachers in the past, notably Egyptian-born cleric Abu Hamza Al-Masri and Jordanian Abu Qatada, who was eventually deported to Jordan in 2014.
A report published in Oct. 2017 by The Soufan Center found that thousands of Daesh fighters had already returned to their home countries, including at least 425 to the UK — more than any other country in Europe.
How four British extremists went from West London to heading a brutal Daesh death cell
How four British extremists went from West London to heading a brutal Daesh death cell
Manmohan Singh, India’s reluctant prime minister, dies aged 92
- The first Sikh in office, 92-year-old Singh was being treated for age-related medical conditions
- He is credited with steering India to unprecedented economic growth, lifting millions out of poverty
NEW DELHI: Described as a “reluctant king” in his first stint as prime minister, the quietly spoken Manmohan Singh was arguably one of India’s most successful leaders.
The first Sikh in office, Singh, 92, was being treated for age-related medical conditions and died after he was brought to hospital after a sudden loss of consciousness on Thursday.
He is credited with steering India to unprecedented economic growth and lifting hundreds of millions out of dire poverty. He went on to serve a rare second term.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: “India mourns the loss of one of its most distinguished leaders, Dr. Manmohan Singh Ji.”
He applauded the economist-turned-politician’s body of work.
Born into a poor family in a part of British-ruled India now in Pakistan, Singh studied by candlelight to win a place at Cambridge University before heading to Oxford, earning a doctorate with a thesis on the role of exports and free trade in India’s economy.
He became a respected economist, then India’s central bank governor and a government adviser but had no apparent plans for a political career when he was suddenly tapped to become finance minister in 1991.
During that tenure to 1996, Singh was the architect of reforms that saved India’s economy from a severe balance of payments crisis, promoted deregulation and other measures that opened an insular country to the world.
Famously quoting Victor Hugo in his maiden budget speech, he said: “No power on earth can stop an idea whose time has come,” before adding: “The emergence of India as a major economic power in the world happens to be one such idea.”
Singh’s ascension to prime minister in 2004 was even more unexpected.
He was asked to take on the job by Sonia Gandhi, who led the center-left Congress party to a surprise victory. Italian by birth, she feared her ancestry would be used by Hindu-nationalist opponents to attack the government if she were to lead the country.
Riding an unprecedented period of economic growth, Singh’s government shared the spoils of the country’s new found wealth, introducing welfare schemes such as a jobs program for the rural poor.
In 2008, his government also clinched a landmark deal that permitted peaceful trade in nuclear energy with the United States for the first time in three decades, paving the way for strong relations between New Delhi and Washington.
But his efforts to further open up the Indian economy were frequently frustrated by political wrangling within his own party and demands made by coalition partners.
“HISTORY WILL BE KINDER TO ME”
And while he was widely respected by other world leaders, at home Singh always had to fend off the perception that Sonia Gandhi was the real power in the government.
The widow of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi, whose family has dominated Indian politics since independence from Britain in 1947, she remained Congress party leader and often made key decisions.
Known for his simple lifestyle and with a reputation for honesty, Singh was not personally seen as corrupt. But he came under attack for failing to crack down on members of his government as a series of scandals erupted in his second term, triggering mass protests.
The latter years of his premiership saw India’s growth story, which he had helped engineer, wobble as global economic turbulence and slow government decision-making battered investment sentiment.
In 2012, his government was tipped into a minority after the Congress party’s biggest ally quit their coalition in protest at the entry of foreign supermarkets.
Two years later Congress was decisively swept aside by the Bharatiya Janata Party under Narendra Modi, a strongman who promised to end the economic standstill, clean up graft and bring inclusive growth to the hinterlands.
But at a press conference just months before he left office, Singh insisted he had done the best he could.
“I honestly believe that history will be kinder to me than the contemporary media or, for that matter, the opposition parties in parliament,” he said.
Singh is survived by his wife and three daughters.
UN calls for investigation into Pakistan’s alleged air strikes on Afghanistan border
- UN mission in Afghanistan says dozens of civilians killed in airstrikes this week by Pakistan in Paktika province
- Islamabad accuses Kabul of harboring militant fighters, allowing them to strike on Pakistani soil with impunity
KABUL: The UN mission to Afghanistan on Thursday called for an investigation into Pakistani air strikes in Afghanistan, in which the Taliban government said 46 people were killed, including civilians.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said it had “received credible reports that dozens of civilians, including women and children, were killed in airstrikes by Pakistan’s military forces in Paktika province, Afghanistan, on 24 December.”
“International law obliges military forces to take necessary precautions to prevent civilian harm,” the agency said in a statement, adding an “investigation is needed to ensure accountability.”
The Taliban government said the 46 deceased were mainly women and children, with another six wounded, mostly children.
An AFP journalist saw several wounded children in a hospital in the provincial capital Sharan, including one receiving an IV and another with a bandaged head.
A Pakistan security official told AFP on Wednesday the bombardment had targeted “terrorist hideouts” and killed at least 20 militants, saying claims that “civilians are being harmed are baseless and misleading.”
On a press trip to the area organized by Taliban authorities, AFP journalists saw four mud brick buildings reduced to rubble in three sites around 20-30 kilometers (10-20 miles) from the Pakistan border.
AFP spoke to multiple residents who said the strikes hit in the late evening, breaking doors and windows in villages and destroying homes and an Islamic school.
Several residents reported pulling bodies from the rubble after strikes targeted houses, killing multiple members of the same families.
Afghanistan’s Minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs Noorullah Noori called the attack “a brutal, arrogant invasion.”
“This is unacceptable and won’t be left unanswered,” he said during the site visit.
Pakistani foreign ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch did not confirm the strikes but told a media briefing on Thursday: “Our security personnel conduct operations in border areas to protect Pakistani from terror groups, including TTP.”
She was referring to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) — Pakistan’s homegrown Taliban group which shares a common ideology with its Afghan counterpart.
The TTP last week claimed a raid on an army outpost near the border with Afghanistan in which Pakistan said 16 soldiers were killed.
Baloch said Pakistan prioritized dialogue with Afghanistan, and that Islamabad’s special envoy, Sadiq Khan, was in Kabul meeting with officials where “matters of security” and “terror groups including TTP” were discussed.
The strikes were the latest spike in hostilities on the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan, with border tensions between the two countries escalating since the Taliban government seized power in 2021.
Islamabad has accused Kabul’s authorities of harboring militant fighters, allowing them to strike on Pakistani soil with impunity — allegations Kabul denies.
Asian countries mark 20 years since the world’s deadliest tsunami
- Indonesia launched its early tsunami warning system in the aftermath of the 2004 disasters
- Its westernmost Aceh province was the hardest-hit, with some 170,000 people killed
JAKARTA: Herman Wiharta began that Sunday morning like many 11-year-olds would on a weekend: watching cartoon shows on TV.
But at around 8 a.m., he felt the powerful tremors from a 9.1-magnitude earthquake that struck off the coast of Indonesia’s Sumatra island, which then triggered the tsunami that inundated the coastline of more than a dozen countries and killed some 230,000 people.
Wiharta, now 31, recalled his brother calling out to him to leave their house in Banda Aceh minutes after the quake and how they had attempted to run to safety. He remembered hearing people scream about the rising sea water before he himself was swept away by a giant wave.
“I lost consciousness when the wave hit me and I woke up on a roof, confused. Thankfully, my brother and sister were also on that roof,” he told Arab News.
“We were able to see just how black the water was from that spot, how strong the currents were. The water was about 4 to 5 meters high; cars and motorbikes were floating, and I could see bodies being swept away by the currents, too. It was terrifying.”
The tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004 quickly escalated into a global disaster, with some 1.7 million displaced.
The brunt of the tsunami was felt in Indonesia, where almost 170,000 people perished. The country’s westernmost province of Aceh was the hardest-hit of all, while Sri Lanka, India and Thailand were among the worst-affected countries.
“It was impossible to sleep that night. We could still hear people screaming for help and the dogs were howling. Everything was just so eerie. The disasters happened so quickly, but they were deeply traumatizing,” Wiharta said.
“It was even worse the day after. We could see bloated human and animal corpses, and the smell was just terrible. I can still picture that scene in my mind to this day.”
Across Asia on Thursday, people attended ceremonies and memorials held to mark 20 years since the deadliest tsunami in recorded history.
Coastal communities were united in grief as they also commemorated how far they had come after two decades of rebuilding and regrouping.
In Sri Lanka, where more than 35,000 people were killed, survivors and relatives gathered in the coastal village of Peraliya to remember the 1,000 victims who died when waves derailed a passenger train.
In Thailand, where half of the death toll of 5,000 were foreign tourists, commemorations were held in Ban Nam Khem, the country’s worst-hit village. People laid flowers and wreaths at a wall curved in the shape of a tsunami, which also bears plaques with the names of the victims.
In India, where around 20,000 people perished, women led the rituals held at Pattinapakkam beach in Chennai, where they lit candles and offered flowers for the victims.
In Banda Aceh city, an official ceremony held at the Baiturrahman Grand Mosque began with a three-minute-long siren at the exact time the major earthquake caused giant waves. People also gathered for prayers at the city’s mass graves — Ulee Lheue and Siron — where thousands of unidentified and unclaimed tsunami victims are buried.
In the years since, infrastructure across Aceh has been rebuilt and is now stronger to withstand major disasters. Early warning systems have also been set up in areas closer to shores, to warn residents of a potential tsunami.
Indonesia’s early tsunami warning system was launched only in 2008 in the aftermath of the disasters, said Daryono, the head of the earthquake and tsunami center at Indonesia’s meteorology, climatology and geophysical agency.
“Before the 2004 Aceh earthquake and tsunami … there were too many people who did not understand the threat, or the danger and risks of a tsunami,” Daryono told Arab News.
“But what happened in 2004 became a starting point to raise awareness on earthquake and tsunami mitigation and also to develop high-tech monitoring for earthquakes and early tsunami warning systems.”
Yet Aceh resident Wiharta was concerned with the direction of development in the province, particularly on the beaches of Aceh Besar district where many new cafes have been popping up in recent years.
“It’s important not to cut down the trees for the sake of building these cafes. It’s better to plant more trees, especially mangroves, so that they can help defend against potential tsunamis,” he said.
“I think the early warning systems also need to be fixed or reset to make sure that they are properly working for early evacuations, since many are either broken or stolen.”
Record number of migrants lost at sea bound for Spain in 2024: NGO
- The vast majority of the fatalities — 9,757 — took place on the Atlantic migration route from Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands
MADRID: At least 10,457 migrants died or disappeared while trying to reach Spain by sea in 2024, an NGO said Thursday, more than 50 percent more than last year and the most since it began keeping a tally in 2007.
The 58-percent increase includes 1,538 children and 421 women, migrants rights group Caminando Fronteras or Walking Borders said in a report which covers the period from January 1 to December 5, 2024.
It amounts to an average of 30 deaths per day, up from around 18 in 2023.
The group compiles its data from hotlines set up for migrants on vessels in trouble to call for help, families of migrants who went missing and from official rescue statistics.
It blamed the use of flimsy boats and increasingly dangerous routes as well as the insufficient capacity of maritime rescue services for the surge in deaths.
“These figures are evidence of a profound failure of rescue and protection systems. More than 10,400 people dead or missing in a single year is an unacceptable tragedy,” the group’s founder, Helena Maleno, said in a statement.
The victims were from 28 nations, mostly in Africa, but also from Iraq and Pakistan.
The vast majority of the fatalities — 9,757 — took place on the Atlantic migration route from Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands, which has received a record number of migrants for the second year in a row.
Seven migrant boats landed in the archipelago on Wednesday, Christmas Day, Spain’s maritime rescue service said on social media site X.
At their closest point, the Canaries lie 100 kilometers (62 miles) off the coast of North Africa. The shortest route is between the coastal town of Tarfaya in southern Morocco and the island of Fuerteventura in the Canaries.
But the Atlantic route to the Canary Islands is particularly dangerous because of strong currents.
Along with Italy and Greece, Spain is one of the three major European gateways for migrant arrivals.
According to the interior ministry, 60,216 migrants entered Spain irregularly between January 1 and December 15 — a 14.5 percent increase over the same time last year.
The majority, over 70 percent, landed in the Canaries.
Pope Francis opens special ‘Holy Door’ for Catholic Jubilee at Rome prison
- Francis opened the Catholic Holy Year, also known as a Jubilee, on Tuesday
- A Catholic Jubilee is considered a time of peace, forgiveness and pardon
ROME: Pope Francis made a visit on Thursday to one of the largest prison complexes in Italy, opening a special “Holy Door” for the 2025 Catholic Holy Year, in what the Vatican said was the first such action by a Catholic pontiff.
Speaking to hundreds of inmates, guards and staff at the Rebibbia prison on the outskirts of Rome, Francis said he wanted to open the door, part of the prison chapel, and one of only five that will be open during the Holy Year, to show that “hope does not disappoint.”
“In bad moments, we can all think that everything is over,” said the pontiff. “Do not lose hope. This is the message I wanted to give you. Do not lose hope.”
Francis opened the Catholic Holy Year, also known as a Jubilee, on Tuesday. A Catholic Jubilee is considered a time of peace, forgiveness and pardon. This Jubilee, dedicated to the theme of hope, will run through Jan. 6, 2026.
Holy Years normally occur every 25 years, and usually involve the opening in Rome of four special “Holy Doors,” which symbolize the door of salvation for Catholics. The doors, located at the papal basilicas in Rome, are only open during Jubilee years.
The Vatican said the opening of the “Holy Door” at Rome’s Rebibbia prison was the first time such a door had been opened by a pope at a prison since the start of the Jubilee year tradition by Pope Boniface VIII in 1300.
Francis has shown special attention for the incarcerated over his 11-year papacy. He often visits prisons in Rome and on his foreign trips.
