UK teen who joined Daesh gives birth in Syrian refugee camp

Renu Begum, eldest sister of Shamima Begum, holds a picture of her sister, who ran away to join Daesh aged 15. (AFP)
Updated 19 February 2019
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UK teen who joined Daesh gives birth in Syrian refugee camp

  • Renews appeal to be allowed back to Britain with her newborn baby
  • Shamima Begum and two friends fled London to join the terror network in 2015 aged just 15

LONDON: A teenager who joined the Daesh group in Syria but now wants to return to Britain on Sunday gave birth in a refugee camp, as European governments grapple with what to do with returning extremists ahead of a US troop pullout.
Shamima Begum, whose fate has stirred controversy ever since she and two friends fled London to join the terror network in 2015 aged just 15, told Sky News she had delivered a boy.
“I just gave birth so I’m really tired,” the 19-year-old said as she made a renewed appeal to be allowed back to Britain with her newborn baby.

“I’m afraid he might even die in this camp. I feel a lot of people should have sympathy for me, for everything I’ve been through,” she said.
“I didn’t know what I was getting into when I left. I just was hoping that maybe for the sake of me and my child they let me come back,” she added.
Her case comes as European nations struggle with how to deal with extremists eager to return home following the disintegration of Daesh’s “caliphate” in eastern Syria.
US President Donald Trump again demanded on Saturday that they take back hundreds of captured Daesh fighters.
Trump said on Twitter that the United States was asking Britain and other continental allies “to take back over 800 Daesh fighters that we captured in Syria and put them on trial.”
The demand came as he prepared — ahead of the pullout of US troops — to declare the group’s so-called “caliphate” destroyed, with US-led Arab and Kurdish forces close to capturing its last Syrian territorial holdout.
“The US does not want to watch as these Daesh fighters permeate Europe,” Trump added.
“Time for others to step up and do the job that they are so capable of doing. We are pulling back after 100% Caliphate victory!“
Begum, previously gave birth to two other children after marrying in Syria. Both children died.
Leading politicians, including interior minister Sajid Javid, have vowed to prevent her return, pointing to her lack of remorse for joining the terror group.
Begum told Sky News she was aware of Daesh’s brutal tactics, including conducting beheadings, but did not regret going to Syria.
“I knew about those things and I was OK with it at first,” she said. “They take care of you... you’re living under Islamic law.
“I don’t regret it because it’s changed me as a person, made me stronger, tougher.”
The teenager, who said she had had no contact with British officials, added the government should not block her homecoming because she was “just a housewife” while there.
“I never made propaganda, I never encouraged people to come to Syria.
“They don’t really have proof that I did anything that is dangerous,” she said.
Europe has long been grappling with how to respond to foreign fighters, and their supporters or dependants, caught in Syria.
However the looming US departure has created a deadline for those governments whose citizens joined IS and have now been captured by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Britain’s government appears split on the issue.
Culture Secretary Jeremy Wright, a former attorney general — the country’s chief legal adviser — told the BBC on Sunday that it was “obliged, at some stage at least, to take them back.”
He noted it was “a matter of international law and domestic law.”
However, writing in The Sunday Times — under the headline “if you run away to join Daesh, I will use all my power to stop you coming back” — Javid insisted the government should strip “dangerous individuals of their British citizenship.”
He said Britain had already exercised this power more than 100 times.
“In considering what actions need to be taken now, I have to think about the safety and security of children living in our country,” Javid wrote.
Other European countries that have chosen to leave the extremists in SDF detention are now being forced to confront the situation.
“All German citizens — including those who are suspected of fighting for the so-called Islamic state — have a fundamental right to travel back into Germany,” a German foreign ministry source said Sunday.
Belgian justice minister Koen Geens told Flemish broadcaster VRT there was the need for a “European solution” to the issue, but appeared irked by Trump’s blunt call.
“It would have been nice for friendly nations to have these kinds of questions raised through the usual diplomatic channels rather than a tweet in the middle of the night,” he said in Dutch.


Ex-minister Yaalon accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza

Updated 17 sec ago
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Ex-minister Yaalon accuses Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza

  • Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said it was a “shame” for Israel to “have had such a figure as army chief and defense minister”

JERUSALEM: Israel’s former defense minister Moshe Yaalon on Saturday accused the Israeli army of “ethnic cleansing” in the Gaza Strip, sparking an outcry in the country.
“The road we are being led down is conquest, annexation and ethnic cleansing,” Yaalon said in an interview on the private DemocratTV channel.
Pressed on the “ethnic cleansing” appraisal, he continued: “What is happening there? There is no more Beit Lahia, no more Beit Hanoun, the army intervenes in Jabalia and in reality the land is being cleared of Arabs.”
The north of the Gaza Strip, which includes the areas Yaalon mentioned, has been the target of an Israeli offensive since October 6 aimed at preventing the Palestinian militant group Hamas from regrouping.
Yaalon, 74, was the head of the Israeli army between 2002 and 2005, just before Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza.
He served as defense minister and deputy premier before resigning in 2016 over disagreements with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
There was immediate anger in Israel at his comments.
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir said it was a “shame” for Israel to “have had such a figure as army chief and defense minister.”
Netanyahu’s Likud party, to which Yaalon once belonged, slammed his “empty and dishonest remarks,” calling them “a gift to the ICC and to the camp of Israel’s enemies.”
The statement was a reference to the International Criminal Court, which has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu and his ex-defense minister Yoav Gallant on suspicion of crimes against humanity and war crimes in Gaza.
The war in the Palestinian territory erupted after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, which resulted in 1,207 deaths, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory campaign has killed 44,382 people in Gaza, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry that the UN considers reliable.
Earlier this month, a UN special committee pointed to “mass civilian casualties and life-threatening conditions intentionally imposed on Palestinians.”
Israel’s prosecution of the war in Gaza was “consistent with the characteristics of genocide,” the committee said, in the first use of the word by the UN in the context of the current war in Gaza.
Israel has rejected the United Nations assessment as “anti-Israel fabrications.”
 

 


Hamas military arm releases new video of Israeli hostage in Gaza

Updated 30 November 2024
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Hamas military arm releases new video of Israeli hostage in Gaza

  • The family of hostage soldier Edan Alexander, 20, declined to comment but permitted the 3-1/2 minute video to be published
  • The video shows a pale-looking Alexander sitting in a dark space against a wall

JERUSALEM: Palestinian militant group Hamas published a video of an Israeli-American hostage on Saturday, in which he pleads for US President-elect Donald Trump to secure his release from captivity.
The family of hostage soldier Edan Alexander, 20, declined to comment but permitted the 3-1/2 minute video to be published. Alexander was abducted to Gaza during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack by Hamas on southern Israel.
The video shows a pale-looking Alexander sitting in a dark space against a wall, identifying himself, addressing his family, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Trump. It is unclear whether his statement was scripted by his captors.
Netanyahu said in a statement that the video was cruel psychological warfare and that he had told Alexander’s family in a phone call that Israel was working tirelessly to bring the hostages home.
Around half of the 101 foreign and Israeli hostages still held incommunicado in Gaza are believed to still be alive.
Hamas leaders were expected to arrive in Cairo on Saturday for ceasefire talks with Egyptian officials to explore ways to reach a deal that could secure the release of hostages in return for Palestinian prisoners.
The fresh bid comes after Washington said this week it was reviving efforts toward that goal.
The Hostages Families Forum urged the administrations of both outgoing US President Joe Biden and Trump — who takes office in January — to step up efforts in order to secure a hostage release.
“The hostages’ lives hang by a thread,” it said.


World Central Kitchen says pausing Gaza operations after Israeli strike

Updated 30 November 2024
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World Central Kitchen says pausing Gaza operations after Israeli strike

  • WCK in a statement said it “had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties to the October 7 Hamas attack“
  • “All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said

GAZA: US charity World Central Kitchen said Saturday it was “pausing operations in Gaza at this time” after an Israeli air strike hit a vehicle carrying its workers.
The Israeli military confirmed that a Palestinian employee of WCK was killed in a strike, accusing the worker of being a “terrorist” who “infiltrated Israel and took part in the murderous October 7 massacre” last year.
WCK in a statement said it “had no knowledge that any individual in the vehicle had alleged ties to the October 7 Hamas attack,” and did not confirm any deaths.
Earlier Saturday, Gaza civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP that five people were killed, including “three employees of World Central Kitchen,” in the strike in the main southern city of Khan Yunis.

“All three men worked for WCK and they were hit while driving in a WCK jeep in Khan Yunis,” Bassal said, adding that the vehicle had been “marked with its logo clearly visible.”
WCK confirmed a strike had hit its workers, but added: “At this time, we are working with incomplete information and are urgently seeking more details.”
The Israeli army statement said representatives from the unit responsible for overseeing humanitarian needs in Gaza had “demanded senior officials from the international community and the WCK administration to clarify the issue and order an urgent examination regarding the hiring of workers who took part in the October 7 massacre.”
It also said its strike in Khan Yunis had hit “a civilian unmarked vehicle and its movement on the route was not coordinated for transporting of aid.”
In April, an Israeli strike killed seven WCK staff — an Australian, three Britons, a North American, a Palestinian and a Pole.
Israel said it had been targeting a “Hamas gunman” in that strike, but the military admitted a series of “grave mistakes” and violations of its own rules of engagement.
The UN said last week that 333 aid workers had been killed since the start of the war in October of last year, 243 of them employees of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA.
Palestinian militants’ October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,207 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Israel’s retaliatory military offensive has killed 44,382 people in Gaza, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry which the United Nations considers reliable.

 


Israel hits Hezbollah targets in Lebanon days into fragile truce

Updated 30 November 2024
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Israel hits Hezbollah targets in Lebanon days into fragile truce

  • The army said it had also struck “military infrastructure” on the Syria-Lebanon border, where it accused Hezbollah of smuggling weapons in violation of the truce
  • Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported “continued violations of the ceasefire” by Israel

JERUSALEM: The Israeli military carried out air strikes in Lebanon Saturday against Hezbollah activities that it said “posed a threat,” days into a fragile ceasefire between it and the Iran-backed group.
The army said it had also struck “military infrastructure” on the Syria-Lebanon border, where it accused Hezbollah of smuggling weapons in violation of the truce.
In a speech this week announcing his government was ready to accept a ceasefire after more than a year of hostilities with Hezbollah, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had warned that Israel would maintain “full military freedom of action” in the event of any breach.
In a statement on Saturday, the military listed four separate strikes in Lebanon on facilities, weapons and vehicles belonging to Hezbollah, saying it had acted “against activities in Lebanon that posed a threat to the State of Israel, violating the ceasefire understandings.”
Lebanon’s health ministry said that an Israeli “strike on a car in Majdal Zoun wounded three people including a seven-year-old child.”
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency (NNA) reported “continued violations of the ceasefire” by Israel, including an incident in which an Israeli tank “crushed a number of cars and surrounded some families” who were later evacuated by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Separately, Israel’s military said it had launched a “strike on military infrastructure sites adjacent to border crossings between Syria and Lebanon that were actively used by Hezbollah to smuggle weapons,” adding that the alleged smuggling took place after the ceasefire took effect.
The ceasefire deal, which was intended to end more than a year of cross-border exchanges of fire and two months of all-out war, went into effect early on Wednesday.
As part of the terms of the agreement, the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers will deploy in southern Lebanon as the Israeli army withdraws over a period of 60 days.
Hezbollah is also meant to withdraw its forces north of the Litani river, approximately 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the border, and dismantle its military infrastructure in southern Lebanon.
On Friday, the group’s chief Naim Qassem vowed to cooperate with the Lebanese army “to implement the commitments of the agreement.”
NNA reported that army chief Joseph Aoun met US Major General Jasper Jeffers to discuss “the general situation and coordination mechanisms between concerned parties in the south.”
The US military’s Central Command said Jeffers arrived in Beirut this week “to serve as co-chair for the implementation and monitoring mechanism of the cessation of hostilities.”
According to Lebanon’s health ministry, at least 3,961 people have been killed in the country since October 2023 as a result of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, most of them in recent weeks.
On the Israeli side, the hostilities have killed at least 82 soldiers and 47 civilians, authorities say.
Israel stepped up its campaign in south Lebanon in late September after nearly a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah in support of its ally Hamas following the Palestinian group’s October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel.


West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief

Updated 30 November 2024
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West faces ‘reckoning’ over Middle East radicalization: UK spy chief

  • MI6 head Richard Moore cites ‘terrible loss of innocent life’
  • ‘In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state’

LONDON: The West has “yet to have a full reckoning with the radicalizing impact of the fighting, the terrible loss of innocent life in the Middle East and the horrors of Oct. 7,” the head of Britain’s foreign intelligence service MI6 has warned.

Richard Moore made the comments in a speech delivered to the British Embassy in Paris, and was joined by his French counterpart Nicolas Lerner.

Moore said: “In 37 years in the intelligence profession, I’ve never seen the world in a more dangerous state. And the impact on Europe, our shared European home, could hardly be more serious.”

Daesh is expanding its reach and staging deadly attacks in Iran and Russia despite suffering significant territorial setbacks, he added, warning that “the menace of terrorism has not gone away.”

In October last year, Ken McCallum, the head of Britain’s domestic intelligence service MI5, said his agency was monitoring for increased terror risks in the UK due to the Gaza war. More than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in over a year of fighting.

In Lebanon, a 60-day truce agreed this week between Hezbollah and Israel brought an end to a conflict that has killed thousands of Lebanese civilians.