Aden airport reopens as governor demands probe into attack

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Travelers wait at the airport of Yemen's southern city of Aden on January 3, 2021, as activity resumes after explosions rocked the building on December 30, killing or injuring dozens of people. (AFP)
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A man walks to the airport building in Yemen's city of Aden on January 3, 2021, as activity resumes after explosions rocked the building on December 30, killing or injuring dozens of people. (AFP)
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Passport control staff wait at their stations at the airport in Yemen's southern city of Aden on January 3, 2021, as activity resumes after explosions rocked the building on December 30, killing or injuring dozens of people. (AFP)
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A firefighting vehicle is stationed on the tarmac of the airport of Yemen's southern city of Aden on January 3, 2021, as activity resumes after explosions rocked the building on December 30, killing or injuring dozens of people. (AFP)
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People stand outside of the airport building in Yemen's southern city of Aden on January 3, 2021, as activity resumes after explosions rocked the building on December 30, killing or injuring dozens of people. (AFP)
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Updated 04 January 2021
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Aden airport reopens as governor demands probe into attack

  • On Sunday, the airport received a Yemenia airline flight arriving from Sudan’s capital Khartoum
  • Yemen’s interior minister and the governor of Aden were at the airport to receive the flight

AL-MUKALLA: Yemen’s Aden airport reopened on Sunday, days after a deadly Houthi missile attack killed more than 25 people and brought operations to a halt, officials and media said.
National carrier Yemenia said on Sunday that it was resuming flights to Aden. A plane coming from Khartoum landed at the airport, even as workers were retrieving debris and fixing the damage caused by the attack.
Aden Gov. Ahmed Hamid Lamlis said the airport would remain a “symbol of peace” and renewed calls for an international investigation into the airport attack, the official Saba news agency reported.
“We reiterate that Aden is strong and seeks peace,” he said at a ceremony to celebrate the airport’s reopening. “This is our message to the international community and we call (on) it to investigate this crime.”
The governor, the commander of the Arab coalition in Aden, Brig. Gen. Nayef Al-Otaibi, and senior government officials released white doves as peace signs.
Yemen’s new Prime Minister Maeen Abdul Malik Saeed and several government officials accused the Iran-backed Houthis and military experts from Iran of staging the airport attack. They called for an international investigation and branded the Houthi militia a terrorist group.

BACKGROUND

• Yemen’s new PM accused the Iran-backed Houthis and military experts from Iran of staging the airport attack.

• They called for an international investigation and branded the Houthi militia a terrorist group.

• Yemen’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that at least 9,328 Houthi fighters were killed in 2020 in fighting with government forces or in Arab coalition airstrikes.

Yemen’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday that at least 9,328 Houthi fighters, including 688 officers with different military rankings, were killed in 2020 in fighting with government forces or in Arab coalition airstrikes.
The highest number of Houthi deaths was recorded in October and August when 1,220 and 700 rebels were killed.
The ministry also said that coalition warplanes and army troops had destroyed 27 arms and ammunition depots and 573 vehicles belonging to the Houthis. The army and allied tribesmen had shot down 104 explosive-laden drones fired by the militia in 12 months.
The war in Yemen began in late 2014, when the Houthis stormed Sanaa and expanded their military footprint across the country. 
A coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened in support of the internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and managed to put an end to the Houthi military expansion.
It also helped government forces to take the offensive on the battlefields.


Iran calls to expel Israel from UN after Syria strike

Updated 5 sec ago
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Iran calls to expel Israel from UN after Syria strike

  • Iran's foreign ministry also called for “an arms embargo” against Israel

TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign ministry called Sunday for an arms embargo on Israel and the expulsion of its arch-foe from the United Nations, following a deadly strike in Syria.
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran “strongly condemned the aggressive attack carried out today by the Zionist regime against a residential building” in the Damascus area.
The strike on an apartment belonging to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, killed nine people including a Hezbollah commander, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Baghaei called for measures against Israel, including “an arms embargo” and its “expulsion from the United Nations.”
Regional tensions have soared since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the Palestinian Hamas militant group’s unprecedented attack on Israel.
The conflict has drawn in Tehran-aligned militants in the region, and included rare direct attacks between Iran and Israel.
Since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting army positions and fighters including from Hezbollah.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.


Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq

Updated 10 November 2024
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Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq

  • Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory

BAGHDAD: Turkish drone strikes killed five members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service and security sources said on Sunday.
The first Turkish strike targeted a vehicle in a mountain area near Iraq’s northern province Dohuk late on Saturday, killing three, including one person identified by the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service statement as a “senior PKK official,” the statement added.
Another drone strike on Sunday targeted a vehicle, killing two fighters from the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a militia affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), two security sources and a local official in the district of Sinjar told Reuters.
Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory.
The PKK launched an insurgency against Ankara in 1984 with the initial aim of creating an independent Kurdish state. It subsequently moderated its goals to seeking greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeast Turkiye.

 


Egypt hosts 1.2 million Sudanese, with ‘hundreds’ arriving daily: UN

Sudanese who fled the war in their country cool off on the banks of the Nile river in the Egyptian city of Aswan. (File/AFP)
Updated 10 November 2024
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Egypt hosts 1.2 million Sudanese, with ‘hundreds’ arriving daily: UN

  • Egypt currently hosts 546,746 Sudanese refugees who are officially registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR

CAIRO: Hundreds of people fleeing war-torn Sudan arrive in neighboring Egypt every day, a UN official said Sunday, adding to more than 1.2 million who have found refuge there, according to official figures.
The war between rival Sudanese generals since April 2023 has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, with 3.1 million of them seeking shelter beyond the country’s borders, according to the UN.
Egypt currently hosts 546,746 Sudanese refugees who are officially registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR, as well as others who are awaiting registration, said Christine Bishay, associate external relations officer at UNHCR Egypt.
A UNHCR report issued on Friday said that “recent data from the government of Egypt indicates that more than 1.2 million Sudanese have sought international protection in Egypt.”
This has made the North African country the largest host of Sudanese refugees despite imposing stricter entry requirements during the war in Sudan, which shares a long border with Egypt.
Sudanese nationals “now make up two-thirds of the country’s total registered refugee population” of 827,644 people representing 95 nationalities, including Syria, South Sudan and Eritrea, she said.
“Initially, at the very beginning of the conflict, thousands of Sudanese arrived in Egypt on a daily basis, before stabilising to a few hundreds per day,” Bishay added.
Cairo had initially waived visa requirements for Sudanese women, children and men over 50 at the start of the war.
But a month after the conflict erupted, the Egyptian government introduced visa entry requirements for all Sudanese, leaving many to resort to irregular crossings.
In September this year, Egypt further tightened entry requirements, obliging people entering from Sudan to obtain “prior security clearance” alongside a consular visa, according to Egypt’s interior ministry.
Raga Ahmed Abdel Rahman, a 27-year-old Sudanese woman who crossed into Egypt illegally in August, told AFP she had paid about 500,000 Sudanese pounds ($830) to travel in a pick-up truck with 16 others.
The desert journey, which took a gruelling day and a half, was “exhausting and terrifying,” Abdel Rahman said.
“We were constantly afraid of being stopped by RSF forces,” she added, referring to the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces who have been battling the regular army.
Hundreds of thousands of others who fled Sudan have sought refuge primarily in neighboring countries, including Chad, South Sudan and Libya.
In the report published on Friday, UNHCR Egypt warned that the humanitarian crisis caused by Sudan’s war has placed “immense pressure on Egypt’s resources and infrastructure.”
Hanan Hamdan, UNHCR representative to Egypt’s government and the Arab League, said that “the burden on Egypt is unsustainable and requires immediate and substantial international assistance to ensure the protection and well-being of those affected by the conflict.”
UNHCR also noted that so far, just over half of the funding needed for an aid scheme for Sudanese refugees has been secured.
The Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan 2024 “has received $1.52 billion in funding, which is 56.3 percent of the required $2.7 billion,” the UN agency said.
“Despite this significant contribution, the funding gap remains substantial.”


Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province

Updated 10 November 2024
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Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province

  • Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers

TEHRAN: At least five members of Iran’s security forces were killed Sunday in a “terror attack” in the restive southeast, where authorities have been conducting operations against rebels, local media reported.
The Fars news agency reported that in a “terror attack in Saravan county, in the south of the Sistan-Baluchistan province, five members of the security forces were killed.”
Sistan-Baluchistan borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces. It is one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim provinces in Shiite-dominated Iran.
For years it has faced unrest involving drug-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and extremists.
Fars said that after the attack in Saravan, “units stationed in the region were quickly deployed to pursue the criminals.”
Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers.
That attack was later claimed by the Pakistan-based Sunni jihadist group Jaish Al-Adl (Arabic for Army of Justice).
Local media reported that those behind the October attack have been killed in the current security operation.
Some 15 militants have been reported killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province since the October attack, including three on Sunday, state television said.
It also said more than 30 suspects have been arrested.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, Jaish Al-Adl is designated a terrorist organization by both Iran and the United States.


Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks

Updated 10 November 2024
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Israel PM says okayed Lebanon pager attacks

  • Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-Sept.
  • They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon

JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday he okayed a deadly September attack on Hezbollah communications devices which exploded in Lebanon, the first time Israel has admitted involvement.
Hezbollah had previously blamed its arch-foe for the blasts that dealt a major blow to the Iran-backed militant group, and vowed revenge.
“Netanyahu confirmed Sunday that he greenlighted the pager operation in Lebanon,” his spokesman Omer Dostri told AFP of the attacks.
Hand-held devices used by Hezbollah operatives detonated two days in a row in supermarkets, on streets and at funerals in mid-September.
They killed nearly 40 people and wounded nearly 3,000, and preceded Israel’s ongoing military operation in Lebanon.
Hezbollah began low intensity strikes on Israel in support of Hamas following its ally’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel which triggered the Gaza war.
Strikes have intensified since war broke out in Lebanon in late September, when Israel escalated its air campaign against Hezbollah and later sent ground troops into south Lebanon.