KHARTOUM: US President Joe Biden on Thursday threatened to impose new sanctions over Sudan’s conflict, saying the fighting “must end,” as gunfire and explosions rocked Khartoum for a 20th straight day.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Sudan since the fighting between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan’s forces and his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Daglo’s Rapid Support Forces began on April 15 over a dispute on the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army.
As the latest cease-fire expired at midnight, the army said it was ready to abide by a new seven-day truce, but there was no word from its foes in the paramilitary RSF.
Biden signed an executive order on Thursday that broadens authority to impose sanctions on those responsible for the violence, although it does not name potential targets.
The US leader said in a statement that those facing the sanctions were “individuals responsible for threatening the peace, security, and stability of Sudan; undermining Sudan’s democratic transition; using violence against civilians; or committing serious human rights abuses.”
“The violence taking place in Sudan is a tragedy — and it is a betrayal of the Sudanese people’s clear demand for civilian government and a transition to democracy. It must end,” he said.
Within hours of the latest supposed cease-fire taking effect, witnesses in Khartoum reported loud explosions and exchanges of fire on the streets around dawn and clashes during the day in the city of five million people.
The foreign ministry later accused the RSF of attacking the Indian embassy in Khartoum, the latest in a spate of such incidents which the diplomatic mission did not immediately confirm.
The fighting has killed about 700 people so far across Sudan, most of them in Khartoum and Darfur, according to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project.
The UN refugee agency said it was preparing for an outflow of 860,000 people from the north African country, adding $445 million would be needed to support them just through October.
“The needs are vast, and the challenges are numerous. If the crisis continues, peace and stability across the region could be at stake,” said Raouf Mazou, the UNHCR’s assistant chief of operations.
More than 100,000 people have already fled Sudan since the fighting erupted.
On the day the fighting began, Burhan and Daglo had been due to meet with international mediators to discuss the RSF’s integration into the army — a key condition for the transition to democratic rule.
Instead, Khartoum awoke to the sound of gunfire ringing through the streets.
The UN’s top humanitarian official, Martin Griffiths, on Wednesday visited Sudan to try to negotiate safe passage for aid and aid workers, after six trucks laden with food supplies from the World Food Programme were looted on their way to the war-torn western region of Darfur.
Darfur is still scarred by a war that erupted in 2003 when then president Omar Bashir unleashed the Janjaweed militia, mainly recruited from Arab pastoralist tribes, against ethnic minority rebels.
The Janjaweed — whose actions led to war crimes charges against Bashir and others — later evolved into the RSF.
The United Nations said Darfur civilians were again being armed in the latest fighting.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said violence in the West Darfur state capital, El Geneina, has “resulted in the loss of at least 191 lives.”
“Dozens of settlements have been burnt and destroyed, and thousands have been displaced,” it said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres acknowledged Wednesday the international community had “failed” Sudan.
“A country like Sudan, that has suffered so much... cannot afford a struggle for power between two people,” said the UN chief.
Mediation efforts have multiplied since the conflict began, but the army said Wednesday it favored those of the East African regional bloc IGAD, because it wanted “African solutions to the continent’s issues.”
Arab League foreign ministers are to meet on Sunday to discuss the conflict ahead of a summit in Saudi Arabia later this month, a diplomat told AFP.
Nearly 450,000 civilians have fled their homes since fighting began, the International Organization for Migration said, including the more than 115,000 who have sought refuge in neighboring countries.
Since Bashir’s ouster in a 2019 coup, international mediators have sought to bring civilians and the military to the negotiating table.
But in the process, analysts believe, they gave too much credit to Burhan and Daglo, who worked together in the coup that derailed the transition to elective civilian rule before falling out in a power struggle.
Exiled rebel leader Abdel Wahid Nur — a veteran of decades of fighting in Darfur — said “the Sudanese people want neither of them.”
“They want a civilian government,” he told AFP, adding there can be “no winner” in the current conflict.
President Biden threatens Sudan sanctions as latest truce unravels
https://arab.news/mn4yr
President Biden threatens Sudan sanctions as latest truce unravels
- Biden signed an executive order on Thursday that broadens authority to impose sanctions on those responsible for the violence
- The fighting has killed about 700 people so far across Sudan
Iraq says to eliminate pollutant gas flaring by end of 2027
- The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a statement Monday evening pointed to “a rise in the level of eliminating gas flaring” in the country
BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities on Monday announced that the energy-rich country would eliminate the polluting practice of gas flaring by the end of 2027, a statement from the prime minister’s office said.
Gas flaring during the production or processing of crude is intended to convert excess methane to carbon dioxide, but the process is often incomplete, resulting in further methane release.
Iraq has the third highest global rate of gas flaring, after Russia and Iran, having flared about 18 billion cubic meters of gas in 2023, according to the World Bank.
The office of Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani in a statement Monday evening pointed to “a rise in the level of eliminating gas flaring” in the country.
The office said that the current rate of elimination stood at 67 percent, with the aim of raising that rate to 80 percent by the end of 2025.
It added that the country aims to fully eliminate gas flaring by the end of 2027, compared to the previous administration’s target of 2030.
In 2017, Iraq joined a World Bank-led initiative aiming to end gas flaring globally by 2030.
Gas flaring is cheaper than capturing the associated gas, processing and marketing it.
In an April report, Greenpeace Middle East and North Africa said gas flaring “produces a number of cancer-linked pollutants including benzene.”
Iraq is considered by the United Nations to be one of the five countries most vulnerable to some impacts of climate change.
In recent years, it has suffered increasingly from droughts and further desertification, with the country gripped by dust storms much of the year.
Defense minister acknowledges Israel killed Hamas leader in Iran
- The comments by Israel Katz appeared to mark the first time that Israel has admitted killing Ismail Haniyeh
- Katz said the Houthis leadership would meet a similar fate to that of Haniyeh
JERUSALEM: Israel’s defense minister has confirmed that Israel assassinated Hamas’ top leader last summer and is threatening to take similar action against the leadership of the Houthi group in Yemen.
The comments by Israel Katz appeared to mark the first time that Israel has admitted killing Ismail Haniyeh, who died in an explosion in Iran in July.
Israel was widely believed to be behind the blast, and leaders have previously hinted at its involvement.
In a speech Monday, Katz said the Houthis would meet a similar fate as the other members of an Iranian-led alliance in the region, including Haniyeh.
He also noted that Israel has killed other leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah, helped topple Syria’s Bashar Assad, and destroyed Iran’s anti-aircraft systems.
“We will strike (the Houthis’) strategic infrastructure and cut off the head of the leadership,” he said.
“Just like we did to Haniyeh, Sinwar, and Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon, we will do in Hodeida and Sanaa,” he said, referring to Hamas and Hezbollah leaders killed in previous Israeli attacks.
The Iranian-backed Houthis have launched scores of missiles and drones at Israel throughout the war, including a missile that landed in Tel Aviv on Saturday and wounded at least 16 people.
Israel has carried out three sets of airstrikes in Yemen during the war and vowed to step up the pressure on the militant group until the missile attacks stop.
New conflict in northeast Syria could bring ‘dramatic consequences’, UN envoy says
- Turkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union
BEIRUT: Tensions in northeast Syria between Kurdish-led authorities and Turkish-backed groups should be resolved politically or risk “dramatic consequences” for all of Syria, the United Nations envoy for the country Geir Pedersen told Reuters on Monday. Hostilities have escalated between Syrian rebels backed by Ankara and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast since Bashar Assad was toppled on Dec. 8.
Syrian armed groups seized the city of Manbij from the SDF on Dec. 9 and could be preparing to attack the key city of Kobani, or Ayn Al-Arab, on the northern border with Turkiye.
“If the situation in the northeast is not handled correctly, it could be a very bad omen for the whole of Syria,” Pedersen said by phone, adding that “if we fail here, it would have dramatic consequences when it comes to new displacement.” The SDF — which is spearheaded by the Kurdish YPG — has proposed to withdraw its forces from the area in exchange for a complete truce. But Turkiye’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking alongside Syria’s de facto new leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa on Sunday in Damascus, said the YPG should disband totally.
Turkiye regards the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants who have fought an insurgency against the Turkish state and are deemed terrorists by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.
Pedersen said a political solution “would require serious, serious compromises” and should be part of the “transitional phase” led by Syria’s new authorities in Damascus. Fidan said he had discussed the YPG presence with the new Syrian administration and believed Damascus would take steps to ensure Syria’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday the country will remain in close dialogue with Sharaa. Kurdish groups have had autonomy across much of the northeast since Syria’s war began in 2011, but now fear it could be wiped out by the country’s new Islamist rule. Thousands of women rallied on Monday in a northeast city to condemn Turkiye and demand their rights be respected.
Pedersen said Sharaa had told him in meetings in Damascus last week that they were committed to “transitional arrangements that will be inclusive of all.”
But he said resolving tensions in the northeast would be a test for a new Syria after more than a half-century of Assad family rule.
“The whole question of creating a new, free Syria would be off to a very, extremely ... to put it diplomatically, difficult start,” he said.
Rights groups say evidence of Assad abuses must be protected
- The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents
BEIRUT, Lebanon: Three rights group on Monday appealed to Syria’s new rulers to urgently preserve evidence of atrocities committed under former president Bashar Assad.
Such evidence — including government and intelligence documents as well as mass graves — will be essential for establishing the fate of tens of thousands of people forcibly disappeared, and for prosecuting those responsible for crimes under international law, the groups said.
“The transitional Syrian authorities should urgently take steps to secure and preserve evidence of atrocities committed under the government of former president Bashar Assad,” said Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Association of Detainees and Missing Persons in Sednaya Prison (ADMSP).
The Saydnaya complex, the site of extrajudicial executions, torture and forced disappearances, epitomised the atrocities committed against Assad’s opponents.
“Every additional minute of inaction heightens the risk that a family may never discover the fate of their missing loved one, and an official responsible for horrific crimes may never be brought to justice,” Shadi Haroun, ADMSP program manager, said in a statement issued by Amnesty.
The statement said investigators from the three organizations visited detention facilities, mass graves and the military court after Islamist-led rebels toppled Assad on December 8.
“In all of the detention facilities visited, researchers observed that official documents were often left unprotected, with significant portions looted or destroyed,” the groups said.
They said they gathered testimony that security and intelligence personnel burned some material before they fled, but in other cases the armed groups who took control of the facilities, or newly-freed prisoners, also burned and looted material.
The researchers said they themselves saw ordinary people and some journalists “take some documents.”
“These documents may contain vital information,” the watchdogs said, calling on the new authorities to coordinate with fact-finding bodies created by the United Nations, “after urgently securing these locations and ensuring that the remaining evidence is not tampered with.”
The rights groups said they also underscored to Syria’s new authorities “the importance of securing the sites of the mass graves across the country,” having seen “local residents and families of the disappeared try to dig up some of the remains.”
They said officials from Syria’s new administration had promised the visiting researchers that they would “strengthen security around key facilities.”
On Sunday Robert Petit, the visiting head of a UN investigative body for Syria, said it was possible to find “more than enough” evidence to convict people of crimes under international law, but there was an immediate need to secure and preserve it.
Women rally for equal rights in Syria after Assad’s fall to Islamists
- Hostilities between the SDF and a Turkiye-backed Syrian force known as the Syrian National Army have escalated since Assad was ousted, with the SDF driven out of the northern city of Manbij
QAMISHLI, Syria: Thousands of women rallied in the northeastern Syrian city of Qamishli on Monday to demand the new Islamist rulers in Damascus respect women’s rights and to condemn Turkish-backed military campaigns in Kurdish-led regions of the north.
Many of the protesters waved the green flag of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), an affiliate of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units militia (YPG) that Turkiye deems a national security threat and wants disbanded immediately.
“We are demanding women’s rights from the new state ... and women must not be excluded from rights in this system,” said Sawsan Hussein, a women’s rights activist.
“We are (also) condemning the attacks of the Turkish occupation against the city of Kobani.”
Kurdish groups have enjoyed autonomy across much of the north since Syria’s civil war began in 2011. The Kurdish YPG militia, which leads the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) armed group, is a major force in the area.
But Syria’s power balance has shifted away from these groups since the Islamist Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham group (HTS) swept into Damascus and toppled Bashar Assad two weeks ago, establishing a new administration friendly to Ankara.
Syria’s dominant Kurdish groups embrace an ideology emphasising socialism and feminism — in contrast to the conservative Sunni Islamist views of HTS, a former Al-Qaeda affiliate.
Turkiye views the YPG as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and is deemed a terrorist group by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union.
Hostilities between the SDF and a Turkiye-backed Syrian force known as the Syrian National Army have escalated since Assad was ousted, with the SDF driven out of the northern city of Manbij.
Syrian Kurdish leaders have warned that Turkish forces are mobilizing for an offensive on the SDF-controlled city of Kobani at the Turkish border, also known as Ayn Al-Arab.
There is widespread apprehension among Syrians that the new Damascus administration will gravitate toward hard-line Islamist rule, marginalizing minorities and women from public life.
Obaida Arnout, a spokesperson for the Syrian transitional government, said last week that women’s “biological and physiological nature” rendered them unfit for certain governmental jobs.
Hemrin Ali, an official in the Kurdish-led administration of northeastern Syria, told Reuters at Monday’s rally: “Yes to supporting the YPJ. Yes to preserving the rights and gains of the women’s revolution in northern and eastern Syria.”
