LONDON: British Daesh militants could face trial in Syria under plans announced by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is holding thousands of prisoners in the country’s northeast.
The SDF’s political arm, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, announced on Thursday that it would begin putting the militants on trial in Syria in March, The Independent reported.
The announcement followed a meeting between the SDF’s foreign relations committee and Finland’s Foreign Ministry.
“We explained our intention to set up a special court for Isis (Daesh) to the Finnish government and asked for help from the legal and technical aspects, and that this trial be transparent and public,” the administration said in a statement.
The SDF has been calling for foreign governments to repatriate their citizens who joined Daesh so they can face trial in their own countries.
However, the UK and other European countries have refused to bring them home, citing security risks.
“Unfortunately many states have not responded to our appeals. For example, we have handed over less than 10 percent of Isis-linked children to their countries so far,” the statement said.
“There is the urgent need for a solution to this issue in our region, and to pressure states to receive their nationals.”
More than 1,000 foreign militants have been held in detention by the SDF since the territorial defeat of Daesh last year.
Around 40 of these fighters are British — 10 men and 30 women who are being held separately along with their children.
The SDF is a Kurdish-led armed group that had been a key member of the international coalition fighting Daesh.
Meanwhile, a British woman who ran away to join Daesh as a teenager lost a legal challenge on Friday aimed at restoring her citizenship, which was revoked on national security grounds.
Shamima Begum, one of three London schoolgirls who traveled to Syria in 2015, resurfaced at a refugee camp in the country last year and told reporters she wanted to come home.
But her apparent lack of remorse has triggered criticism in Britain, and the family has expressed its own shock at her lack of repentance.
Former Home Secretary Sajid Javid revoked her citizenship, but she challenged the decision before the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.
She argued that she is not the citizen of another country, and that Javid’s decision left her stateless.
But the tribunal ruled in Javid’s favor on Friday. Judge Doron Blum said the decision did not breach the Home Office’s “extraterritorial human rights policy by exposing Ms Begum to a real risk of death or inhuman or degrading treatment.”
The tribunal ruled that she was “a citizen of Bangladesh by descent,” and therefore not rendered stateless.
Her attorney, Daniel Furner, said the decision was baffling and would be appealed.
Begum’s family has long argued that she has never had a Bangladeshi passport and that she is from the UK.
British Daesh militants to be put on trial in Syria
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British Daesh militants to be put on trial in Syria
- The SDF’s political arm announced on Thursday that it would begin putting the militants on trial in Syria in March
- A British woman who ran away to join Daesh as a teenager lost a legal challenge on Friday aimed at restoring her citizenship, which was revoked on national security grounds
Food shortages bring hunger pains to displaced families in central Gaza
- Almost all of Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people now rely on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant
DEIR AL-BALAH: A shortage in flour and the closure of a main bakery in central Gaza have exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation, as Palestinian families struggle to obtain enough food.
A crowd of people waited dejectedly in the cold outside the shuttered Zadna Bakery in Deir Al-Balah on Monday.
Among them was Umm Shadi, a displaced woman from Gaza City, who told The Associated Press that there was no bread left due to the lack of flour — a bag of which costs as much as 400 shekels ($107) in the market, she said, if any can be found.
“Who can buy a bag of flour for 400 shekels?” she asked.
Nora Muhanna, another woman displaced from Gaza City, said she was leaving empty-handed after waiting five or six hours for a bag of bread for her kids.
“From the beginning, there are no goods, and even if they are available, there is no money,” she said.
Almost all of Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people now rely on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant. Food security experts say famine may already be underway in hard-hit north Gaza. Aid groups accuse the Israeli military of hindering and even blocking shipments in Gaza.
Meanwhile, dozens lined up in Deir Al-Balah to get their share of lentil soup and some bread at a makeshift charity kitchen.
Refat Abed, a displaced man from Gaza City, no longer knows how he can afford food.
“Where can I get money?” he asked. “Do I beg? If it were not for God and charity, my children and I would go hungry,”
Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah — Netanyahu
- Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed US truce proposal to end Israel-Hezbollah war
- Israel insists any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in area bordering Israel
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to operate militarily against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah even if a ceasefire deal is reached in Lebanon.
“The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.
“We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks... even after a ceasefire,” to keep the group from rebuilding, he said.
Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached.
“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6” 2023, the eve of the strike by its Palestinian ally Hamas into southern Israel, he said.
Hezbollah then began firing into northern Israel in support of Hamas, triggering exchanges with Israel that escalated into full-on war in late September this year.
Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed a US truce proposal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war and was preparing final comments before responding to Washington, a Lebanese official told AFP on Monday.
Israel insists that any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in the area bordering Israel.
Defiant Lebanese harvest olives in the shadow of war
- A World Bank report this month said that “the disruption of the olive harvest caused by bombing and displacement is expected to lead to $58 million in losses” in Lebanon
KFEIR: On a mountain slope in south Lebanon, agricultural worker Assaad Al-Taqi is busy picking olives, undeterred by the roar of Israeli warplanes overhead.
This year, he is collecting the harvest against the backdrop of the raging Israel-Hezbollah war.
He works in the village of Kfeir, just a few kilometers (miles) from where Israeli bombardment has devastated much of south Lebanon since Israel escalated its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in September.
“But I’m not afraid of the shelling,” Taqi said, as he and other workers hit the tree branches with sticks, sending showers of olives tumbling down into jute bags.
“Our presence here is an act of defiance,” the 51-year-old said, but also noting that the olive “is the tree of peace.”
Kfeir is nine kilometers (six miles) from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, in the mixed Christian and Druze district of Hasbaya, which has largely been spared the violence that has wracked nearby Hezbollah strongholds.
But even Hasbaya’s relative tranquillity was shattered last month when three journalists were killed in an Israeli strike on a complex where they were sleeping.
Israel and Hezbollah had previously exchanged cross-border fire for almost a year over the Gaza conflict.
The workers in Kfeir rest in the shade of the olive trees, some 900 meters (3,000 feet) above sea level on the slopes of Mount Hermon, which overlooks an area where Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli-held territory meet.
They have been toiling in relative peace since dawn, interrupted only by sonic booms from Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier and the sight of smoke rising on the horizon from strikes on a south Lebanon border village.
Hassna Hammad, 48, who was among those picking olives, said the agricultural work was her livelihood.
“We aren’t afraid, we’re used to it,” she said of the war.
But “we are afraid for our brothers impacted by the conflict,” she added, referring to the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese displaced by the fighting.
Elsewhere in south Lebanon, olive trees are bulging with fruit that nobody will pick, after villagers fled Israeli bombardment and the subsequent ground operation that began on September 30.
A World Bank report this month said that “the disruption of the olive harvest caused by bombing and displacement is expected to lead to $58 million in losses” in Lebanon.
It said 12 percent of olive groves in the conflict-affected areas it assessed had been destroyed.
Normally, the olive-picking season is highly anticipated in Lebanon, and some people return each year to their native villages and fields just for the harvest.
“Not everyone has the courage to come” this time, said Salim Kassab, who owns a traditional press where villagers bring their olives to extract the oil.
“Many people are absent... They sent workers to replace them,” said Kassab, 50.
“There is fear of the war of course,” he said, adding that he had come alone this year, without his wife and children.
Kassab said that before the conflict, he used to travel to the southern cities of Nabatiyeh and Sidon if he needed to fix his machines, but such trips are near impossible now because of the danger.
The World Bank report estimated that 12 months of agriculture sector losses have cost Lebanon $1.1 billion, in a country already going through a gruelling five-year economic crisis before the fighting erupted.
Areas near the southern border have sustained “the most significant damage and losses,” the report said.
It cited “the burning and abandonment of large areas of agricultural land” in both south and east Lebanon, “along with lost harvests due to the displacement of farmers.”
Elsewhere in Kfeir, Inaam Abu Rizk, 77, and her husband were busy washing olives they plan to either press for oil or jar to be served throughout the winter.
Abu Rizk has taken part in the olive harvest for decades, part of a tradition handed down the generations, and said that despite the war, this year was no different.
“Of course we’re afraid... there is the sound of planes and bombing,” she said.
But “we love the olive month — we are farmers and the land is our work.”
Iraqis face tough homecoming a decade after Daesh rampage
- Baghdad has been pushing for the closure of the displacement camps, with the country having attained a degree of comparative stability in recent years
HASSAN SHAMI: A decade after Daesh group extremists rampaged through northern Iraq, Moaz Fadhil and his eight children finally returned to their village after languishing for years in a displacement camp.
Their home, Hassan Shami, is just a stone’s throw from the tent city where they had been living, and it still bears the scars of the fight against Daesh.
The jihadists seized a third of Iraq, ruling their self-declared “caliphate” with an iron fist, before an international coalition wrestled control from them in 2017.
Seven years on, many of the village’s homes are still in ruins and lacking essential services, but Fadhil said he felt an “indescribable joy” upon moving back in August.
Iraq — marred by decades of war and turmoil even before the rise of Daesh — is home to more than a million internally displaced people.
Baghdad has been pushing for the closure of the displacement camps, with the country having attained a degree of comparative stability in recent years.
Most of the camps in federal Iraq have now been closed, but around 20 remain in the northern autonomous Kurdistan region, which according to the United Nations house more than 115,000 displaced people.
But for many, actually returning home can be a difficult task.
After getting the green light from Kurdish security forces to leave the camp, Fadhil moved his family into a friend’s damaged house because his own is a complete ruin.
“Water arrives by tanker trucks and there is no electricity,” said the 53-year-old.
Although the rubble has been cleared from the structure he now lives in, the cinder block walls and rough concrete floors remain bare.
Across Hassan Shami, half-collapsed houses sit next to concrete buildings under construction by those residents who can afford to rebuild.
Some have installed solar panels to power their new lives.
A small new mosque stands, starkly white, beside an asphalt road.
“I was born here, and before me my father and mother,” said Fadhil, an unemployed farmer.
“I have beautiful memories with my children, my parents.”
The family survives mainly on the modest income brought in by his eldest son, who works as a day laborer on building sites.
“Every four or five days he works a day” for about $8, said Fadhil.
In an effort to close the camps and facilitate returns, Iraqi authorities are offering families around $3,000 to go back to their places of origin.
To do so, displaced people must also get security clearance — to ensure they are not wanted for jihadist crimes — and have their identity papers or property rights in order.
But of the 11,000 displaced people still living in six displacement camps near Hassan Shami, 600 are former prisoners, according to the UN.
They were released after serving up to five years for crimes related to membership of IS.
For them, going home can mean further complications.
There’s the risk of ostracism by neighbors or tribes for their perceived affiliation with Daesh atrocities, potential arrest at a checkpoint by federal forces or even a second trial.
Among them is 32-year-old Rashid, who asked that we use a pseudonym because of his previous imprisonment in Kurdistan for belonging to the jihadist group.
He said he hopes the camp next to Hassan Shami does not close.
“I have a certificate of release (from prison), everything is in order... But I can’t go back there,” he said of federal Iraq.
“If I go back it’s 20 years” in jail, he added, worried that he would be tried again in an Iraqi court.
Ali Abbas, spokesperson for Iraq’s migration ministry, said that those who committed crimes may indeed face trial after they leave the camps.
“No one can prevent justice from doing its job,” he said, claiming that their families would not face repercussions.
The government is working to ensure that families who return have access to basic services, Abbas added.
In recent months, Baghdad has repeatedly tried to set deadlines for Kurdistan to close the camps, even suing leaders of the autonomous region before finally opting for cooperation over coercion.
Imrul Islam of the Norwegian Refugee Council said displacement camps by definition are supposed to be temporary, but warned against their hasty closure.
When people return, “you need schools. You need hospitals. You need roads. And you need working markets that provide opportunities for livelihoods,” he said.
Without these, he said, many families who try to resettle in their home towns would end up returning to the camps.
Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah: Netanyahu
- Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to operate militarily against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah even if a ceasefire deal is reached in Lebanon.
“The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.
“We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks... even after a ceasefire,” to keep the group from rebuilding, he said.
Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached.
“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6” 2023, the eve of the strike by its Palestinian ally Hamas into southern Israel, he said.
Hezbollah then began firing into northern Israel in support of Hamas, triggering exchanges with Israel that escalated into full-on war in late September this year.
Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed a US truce proposal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war and was preparing final comments before responding to Washington, a Lebanese official told AFP on Monday.
Israel insists that any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in the area bordering Israel.
