BAGHDAD: Iraq’s Prime Minister Mustafa Al-Kadhemi early Sunday visited in hospital a pro-democracy activist who has been critical of pro-Iran armed factions, after the campaigner had been abducted and assaulted.
Ali Al-Mikdam, a young Iraqi journalist, activist and researcher, had disappeared on Friday, sparking widespread concern from his friends and supporters, before he was released late Saturday, injured, on the outskirts of Baghdad.
A tweet from Khademi’s office said the premier had checked up “on the health of journalist and activist Ali Al-Mikdam in one of Baghdad’s hospitals after security forces released him from his kidnappers.”
Mikdam was a key figure in anti-government protests which swept Iraq for months from October 2019 calling for the removal of Iraq’s political class, which activists branded as inept and corrupt.
The protesters also rallied against the influence of Iran in the war-battered country, where powerful pro-Tehran armed factions have been integrated into the national security apparatus.
Mikdam, after receiving threats, had moved to Istanbul and then Irbil in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
He had returned to Baghdad eight days ago, his mother told AFP while he was missing on Friday.
“Only two days ago he told me he had received threats and gave me the phone numbers of his friends to contact them if anything bad happens to him,” his mother said then, holding back tears.
Killings, attempted murders and abductions have targeted more than 70 activists since the protest movement erupted in late 2019.
Authorities have failed to publicly identify or charge the perpetrators of the violence, for which no groups have claimed responsibility.
Pro-democracy activists are often portrayed as foreign stooges by Iraq’s powerful pro-Iran factions.
Last month, Iraq freed a commander of the state-affiliated Hashed Al-Shaabi, a Shiite paramilitary coalition, two weeks after he was arrested over the murder of a pro-democracy activist.
Mikdam’s most recent analysis, published with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy last month, criticized the ongoing wave of assassinations targeting journalists and scholars by armed factions.
Iraq PM visits activist in hospital after abduction, assault
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Iraq PM visits activist in hospital after abduction, assault
- Ali Al-Mikdam, a young Iraqi journalist, activist and researcher, had disappeared on Friday, sparking widespread concern
US vetoes UN resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza
The UN Security Council voted 14-1 in favor of the resolution sponsored by the 10 elected members on the 15-member council, but it was not adopted because of the US veto.
The resolution that was put to a vote “demands an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire to be respected by all parties, and further reiterates its demand for the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages.”
Hezbollah chief says response to Israeli strikes on Beirut will be on ‘central Tel Aviv’
BEIRUT: Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said in a speech broadcast Wednesday that the response to recent deadly Israeli strikes on Beirut would be on “central Tel Aviv.”
“The response must be expected on central Tel Aviv,” Qassem said, after deadly strikes on three central Beirut districts in recent days, one of which killed Hezbollah’s spokesman Mohammed Afif and four members of his media team.
More to follow...
Israel says not fighting Lebanese army, after soldiers killed
- “We emphasize that the (Israeli army) is operating precisely against the Hezbollah terrorist organization,” the military said
- “The (army) is looking into reports regarding soldiers of the Lebanon Armed Forces who were injured during the strike”
JERUSALEM: Israel’s military said Wednesday it was fighting the militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon, not the Lebanese army, after the latter said four of its soldiers were killed in Israeli strikes.
“We emphasize that the (Israeli army) is operating precisely against the Hezbollah terrorist organization and is not operating against the Lebanon Armed Forces,” the military told AFP in a statement.
The Lebanese army said Israeli fire killed a soldier Wednesday, a day after it said three other personnel died in a strike on their position in the town of Sarafand, some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the southern border.
South Lebanon has seen intense fighting between Israel and Hezbollah militants whose group holds sway in the area.
Israel’s military said it struck “a terrorist infrastructure site in which a number of Hezbollah terrorists were operating in the area of Sarafand” on Tuesday night.
“The (army) is looking into reports regarding soldiers of the Lebanon Armed Forces who were injured during the strike,” it added, but did not refer to the other deadly incident mentioned by the Lebanese army.
Since September 23, Israel has ramped up its bombing campaign in Lebanon, later sending in ground troops, after almost a year of cross-border exchanges begun by Hezbollah in support of its Palestinian ally Hamas.
Israel insists on right to act against Hezbollah in any deal to end fighting
- Lebanon’s government is likely to view any such demand as an infringement on its sovereignty
- Hochstein told reporters the talks had made “additional progress”
BEIRUT: Israel’s defense minister says his country insists on the right to act militarily against Hezbollah in any agreement to end the fighting in Lebanon.
Lebanon’s government is likely to view any such demand as an infringement on its sovereignty, complicating efforts to end more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah that erupted into all-out war in September.
Defense Minister Israel Katz said in a statement Wednesday that “the condition for any political settlement in Lebanon is the preservation of the intelligence capability and the preservation of the (Israeli military’s) right to act and protect the citizens of Israel from Hezbollah.”
Lebanese officials mediating between Israel and Hezbollah have called for a return to United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the 2006 war between the sides.
It calls for Hezbollah militants and Israeli forces to withdraw from a buffer zone in southern Lebanon patrolled by UN peacekeepers and Lebanese troops.
US envoy Amos Hochstein, who has spent months trying to broker a ceasefire, held a second round of talks on Wednesday with Lebanon’s parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, an ally of Hezbollah who has been mediating on their behalf.
Hochstein told reporters the talks had made “additional progress,” and that he would be heading to Israel “to try to bring this to a close, if we can.” He declined to say what the sticking points are.
Israeli strikes and combat in Lebanon have killed more than 3,500 people and wounded 15,000, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The war has displaced nearly 1.2 million people, or a quarter of Lebanon’s population.
On the Israeli side, 87 soldiers and 50 civilians, including some foreign farmworkers, have been killed by attacks involving rockets, drones and missiles. Hezbollah began firing on Israel the day after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack triggered the war in Gaza.
That attack killed some 1,200 people in Israel, mostly civilians, and another 250 were abducted. Around 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, at least a third of whom are believed to be dead. Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed nearly 44,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Lebanese army said in a statement a soldier was killed by an Israeli airstrike that hit his vehicle on the road linking Burj Al-Muluk and Qalaa in southern Lebanon. The Israeli military said it was looking into reports.
The night before, three soldiers were killed by an airstrike that targeted an army post in the town of Sarafand, near the coastal city of Saida.
Wissam Khalifa, a resident of Sarafand who lives next to the army post and was injured in the strike, said he was shocked that it was targeted.
“It’s a safe residential neighborhood. There is nothing here at all” that would present a target, he said. “Regarding the martyred soldiers, I don’t even know if there was a gun in the center. Why did this strike happen? We have no idea.”
The Lebanese army has not been an active participant in the fighting between Israeli forces and Hezbollah over the past 13 months, but more than 40 soldiers have been killed in the conflict.
Altogether, more than 3,500 people have been killed in Lebanon since Oct. 8, 2023, the vast majority of them in the past two months.
US envoy to travel to Israel in bid to seal Hezbollah ceasefire
- “So I will travel from here in a couple hours to Israel to try to bring this to a close if we can,” Hochstein said in Beirut
BEIRUT: US envoy Amos Hochstein said he will travel to Israel on Wednesday to try to secure a ceasefire ending the war with Lebanon’s Hezbollah group after declaring additional progress in talks in Beirut.
Hochstein, who arrived a day earlier in Beirut, said he saw a “real opportunity” to end the conflict after the Lebanese government and Hezbollah agreed to a US ceasefire proposal, although with some comments.
“The meeting today built on the meeting yesterday, and made additional progress,” Hochstein said after his second meeting with Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, endorsed by the Iran-backed Hezbollah to negotiate.
“So I will travel from here in a couple hours to Israel to try to bring this to a close if we can,” Hochstein said.
The diplomacy aims to end a conflict that has inflicted massive devastation in Lebanon since Israel went on the offensive against Hezbollah in September, mounting airstrikes across wide parts of the country and sending in troops.
Israel says its aim is to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people evacuated from its north due to rocket attacks by Hezbollah, which opened fire in support of Hamas at the start of the Gaza war in October 2023.
Hezbollah, still reeling from the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah and other commanders, has kept up rocket fire into Israel, including targeting Tel Aviv this week. Its fighters are battling Israeli troops on the ground in the south.
Although diplomacy to end the Gaza war has largely stalled, the Biden administration aims to seal a ceasefire in the parallel conflict in Lebanon before President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January.
“We are going to work with the incoming administration. We’re already going to be discussing this with them. They will be fully aware of what we’re doing,” Hochstein said.
