BASRA: Police used tear gas to disperse around 150 protesters at the main entrance to Iraq’s giant Nahr Bin Omar oilfield on Sunday, police sources said, amid growing unrest in southern cities over poor public services and corruption.
Officials at the field in the southern oil hub of Basra said operations were running normally.
Production from Nahr Bin Omar, which is operated by the state-run Basra Oil Co., now stands at around 44,000 barrels per day, oilfield officials said.
On Friday, hundreds of Iraqi protesters stoned and tried to break into the provincial government headquarters in the southern oil hub of Basra demanding better public services and an end to pervasive corruption. Around 3,000 people gathered there again on Sunday and set fire to tires outside.
Protesters threatened to break into the field if the government did not respond to their demands to improve basic services and address their complaints over Basra’s drinking water, which residents say is undrinkable due to high salt levels.
“We will not allow the oilfield to operate unless we get clean water. No services, no jobs and now no clean water. We are fed up,” said Hassan Ali, a protest organizer.
Iraqi political blocs are attempting to form a coalition government after a May 12 parliamentary election tainted by allegations of fraud.
Oil exports from Basra account for more than 95 percent of OPEC producer Iraq’s state revenues. Any potential disruptions to production could severely impact Iraq’s limping economy.
Police also dispersed protesters who tried to prevent trucks moving on a main road to the east of Basra which leads to a border crossing with Iran, customs and police officials said.
Police disperse protesters at entrance to Iraq’s Nahr Bin Omar oilfield
Police disperse protesters at entrance to Iraq’s Nahr Bin Omar oilfield
- About 150 protesters gathered at the main entrance to Iraq’s giant Nahr Bin Omar oilfield in the southern oil hub of Basra
- Production from Nahran Bin Omar now stands at around 44,000 barrels per day
Israeli airstrikes kill 14 Palestinians in Gaza, tanks push south
CAIRO: Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed at least 14 Palestinians on Tuesday, at least 10 of them in one house in Gaza City, medics said as tanks pushed deeper toward the western area of Rafah in the south.
Medics said the Israeli airstrike on the house in the Daraj suburb of Gaza City destroyed the building and damaged nearby houses. Four other people were killed in two separate airstrikes in the city and the town of Beit Lahiya north of the enclave said medics, medics added.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
In Rafah, near the border with Egypt, Israeli tanks pushed deeper toward the western area of Mawasi, known as a humanitarian-designated area, residents said.
Heavy fire from tanks rolling into the area forced dozens of families sheltering there to flee northwards toward Khan Younis.
The war began when the Palestinian militant group Hamas stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and taking more than 250 hostages back to Gaza, according to Israeli authorities.
Israel then launched an air and land offensive that has killed more than 45,000 people, mostly civilians, according to authorities in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip.
The campaign has displaced nearly the entire population and left much of the enclave in ruins.
Israeli defence minister says Israel will have freedom of action in Gaza after defeating Hamas
DUBAI: Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Monday Israel will have security control over Gaza with full freedom of action after defeating Hamas in the enclave.
At least 100,000 bodies in Syrian mass grave, US advocacy group head says
- Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, are accused by Syrians, rights groups and other governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country’s notorious prison system
WASHINGTON: The head of a US-based Syrian advocacy organization on Monday said that a mass grave outside of Damascus contained the bodies of at least 100,000 people killed by the former government of ousted President Bashar Assad.
Mouaz Moustafa, speaking to Reuters in a telephone interview from Damascus, said the site at al Qutayfah, 25 miles (40 km) north of the Syrian capital, was one of five mass graves that he had identified over the years.
“One hundred thousand is the most conservative estimate” of the number of bodies buried at the site, said Moustafa, head of the Syrian Emergency Task Force. “It’s a very, very extremely almost unfairly conservative estimate.”
Moustafa said that he is sure there are more mass graves than the five sites, and that along with Syrians victims included US and British citizens and other foreigners.
Reuters was unable to confirm Moustafa’s allegations.
Hundreds of thousands of Syrians are estimated to have been killed since 2011, when Assad’s crackdown on protests against his rule grew into a full-scale civil war.
Assad and his father Hafez, who preceded him as president and died in 2000, are accused by Syrians, rights groups and other governments of widespread extrajudicial killings, including mass executions within the country’s notorious prison system.
Assad repeatedly denied that his government committed human rights violations and painted his detractors as extremists.
Syria’s UN Ambassador Koussay Aldahhak did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He assumed the role in January — while Assad was still in power — but told reporters last week that he was awaiting instructions from the new authorities and would “keep defending and working for the Syrian people.”
Moustafa arrived in Syria after Assad flew to Russia and his government collapsed in the face of a lightning offensive by rebels that ended his family’s more than 50 years of iron-fisted rule.
He spoke to Reuters after he was interviewed at the site in al Qutayfah by Britain’s Channel 4 News for a report on the alleged mass grave there.
He said the intelligence branch of the Syrian air force was “in charge of bodies going from military hospitals, where bodies were collected after they’d been tortured to death, to different intelligence branches, and then they would be sent to a mass grave location.”
Corpses also were transported to sites by the Damascus municipal funeral office whose personnel helped unload them from refrigerated tractor-trailers, he said.
“We were able to talk to the people who worked on these mass graves that had on their own escaped Syria or that we helped to escape,” said Moustafa.
His group has spoken to bulldozer drivers compelled to dig graves and “many times on orders, squished the bodies down to fit them in and then cover them with dirt,” he said.
Moustafa expressed concern that graves sites were unsecured and said they needed to be preserved to safeguard evidence for investigations.
Syria’s Golani says rebel factions to be ‘disbanded’, calls for lifting sanctions
- “Syria must remain united, and there must be a social contract between the state and all religions to guarantee social justice,” said Jolani
DAMASCUS: The leader of the Islamist group that toppled Bashar Assad said Monday that armed factions in war-torn Syria would be “disbanded” and their fighters placed under the defense ministry, and called for sanctions to be lifted so refugees can return.
Syrian president Assad was toppled by a lightning 11-day rebel offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group (HTS), whose fighters and allies swept down from northwest Syria and entered the capital on December 8.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed Al-Golani said Monday on the group’s Telegram channel that all the rebel factions “would “be disbanded and the fighters trained to join the ranks of the defense ministry.”
“All will be subject to the law,” said Golani, who now uses his real name, Ahmed Al-Sharaa.
He also emphasized the need for unity in a country home to different ethnic minority groups and religions, while speaking to members of the Druze community — a branch of Shiite Islam making up about 3 percent of Syria’s pre-war population.
“Syria must remain united,” he said. “There must be a social contract between the state and all religions to guarantee social justice.”
Several countries and organizations have welcomed Assad’s fall but said they were waiting to see how the new authorities would treat minorities in the country.
During a second meeting with a delegation of British diplomats, the HTS leader also spoke “of the importance of restoring relations” with London.
He stressed the need to end “all sanctions imposed on Syria so that Syrian refugees can return to their country,” according to remarks reported on his group’s Telegram channel.
HTS is rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda and proscribed as a terrorist organization by many Western governments, though it has sought to moderate its rhetoric.
Since the toppling of Assad, it has insisted that the rights of all Syrians will be protected.
UN chief welcomes aid commitments by new Syrian authorities
- Guterres called on the international community to rally behind the Syrian people as they “seize the opportunity to build a better future”
UNITED NATIONS: United Nations aid chief Tom Fletcher met with the commander of Syria’s new administration, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, and newly appointed Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Bashir on Monday to discuss scaling up humanitarian assistance in the country.
Following Fletcher’s meeting, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement that he welcomed the caretaker government’s commitment to protect civilians, including humanitarian workers.
“I also welcome their agreement to grant full humanitarian access through all border crossings; cut through bureaucracy over permits and visas for humanitarian workers; ensure the continuity of essential government services, including health and education; and engage in genuine and practical dialogue with the wider humanitarian community,” Guterres said.
Syria’s Bashar Assad was ousted after insurgent forces led by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham swept through Syria in a lightning offensive, ending more than 50 years of iron-fisted rule by his family.
Guterres called on the international community to rally behind the Syrian people as they “seize the opportunity to build a better future.” The United Nations says seven in 10 people in Syria continue to need humanitarian aid.
Fletcher also plans to visit Lebanon, Turkiye and Jordan, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. (Reporting by Michelle Nichols Editing by Bill Berkrot)
