Iraq urges countries to repatriate their citizens from camp housing families of extremist Daesh group

Iraq's National Security Advisor Qasim al-Araji attends a conference about al-Hol camp in Syria where families of Daesh militants members live, in Baghdad,Iraq, June 12, 2023. (REUTERS)
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Updated 13 June 2023
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Iraq urges countries to repatriate their citizens from camp housing families of extremist Daesh group

  • Iraq has repatriated 1,396 families from Al-Hol constituting 5,569 of its citizens over the past weeks, said Iraq’s National Security Adviser Qasim Al-Araji who spoke at the conference

BAGHDAD: Iraq urged countries on Monday to repatriate their citizens from a sprawling camp in Syria housing tens of thousands linked to the extremist Daesh group, saying it has become a “source for terrorism.”
The statements were made during a conference in Baghdad discussing Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria. Iraqi officials, the UN representative in Iraq, some members of the international coalition fighting Daesh and ambassadors of several countries were present.
Al-Hol Camp — named after a town near the Iraqi border — is an open wound left by Syria’s 12-year conflict. Tens of thousands of people were taken to the facility after the extremist group’s defeat in Syria in March 2019.
The camp holds about 51,000 people, the vast majority women and children, including the wives, widows and other family members of Daesh militants, mostly Syrians and Iraqis.
There are also around 8,000 women and children from 60 other nationalities who live in a part of the camp known as the Annex. They are generally considered the most die-hard Daesh supporters among the camp residents.
There have been concerns that children at the camp were being taught extremist ideology by their mothers. Experts have warned that a future generation of Daesh fighters could emerge from Al-Hol.
“Ending the issue of Al-Hol camp has become a top national interest for Iraq,” said Ahmad Sahhaf, Iraq’s Foreign Ministry spokesman, according to the country’s state news agency.
Sahhaf called on the international community to urge all countries that have citizens at the camp “to repatriate them as soon as possible in order to eventually close the camp” because it has become “a dangerous epicenter” for Daesh gatherings.
Iraq has repatriated 1,396 families from Al-Hol constituting 5,569 of its citizens over the past weeks, said Iraq’s National Security Adviser Qasim Al-Araji who spoke at the conference. Despite the repatriations, some 25,000 Iraqis remain at the camp, making up nearly half its population.
The camp’s population is down from 73,000 people, mostly because thousands of its Syrian and Iraqi inhabitants were allowed to return home. But other countries have largely balked at taking back their nationals, who traveled to join Daesh after the radical group seized large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014.
Despite the extremist group’s defeat in Iraq in 2017 and Syria in 2019, Daesh sleeper cells still carry out deadly attacks in both countries. Over the past years, grisly crimes were committed inside Al-Hol.
Earlier this month, The US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces announced it handed over 50 Iraqi Daesh fighters to Baghdad. It also said that it repatriated 170 Iraqis who were living at the camp.
The Kurdish-led authority in northeast Syria has been urging countries to repatriate their citizens from the camp for years.
Last week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken co-hosted a meeting in Saudi Arabia for foreign ministers from the global coalition battling Daesh during which he announced nearly $150 million in new US funding for stabilization efforts in Syria and Iraq.

 


Several areas south of Sudan capital at risk of famine, says World Food Programme

Updated 12 sec ago
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Several areas south of Sudan capital at risk of famine, says World Food Programme

  • Several areas south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, are at risk of famine, the World Food Programme

GENEVA, June 10 : Several areas south of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum, are at risk of famine, the World Food Programme said on Tuesday, with need on the ground outstripping resources amidst a funding shortfall.
“The level of hunger and destitution and desperation that was found (is) severe and confirmed the risk of famine in those areas,” Laurent Bukera, WFP Country Director in Sudan, told reporters in Geneva via video link from Port Sudan. 


Abbas tells Macron he supports demilitarization of Hamas

Updated 24 min 33 sec ago
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Abbas tells Macron he supports demilitarization of Hamas

PARIS: Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has said that Hamas “must hand over its weapons” and called for the deployment of international forces to protect “the Palestinian people,” France announced on Tuesday.
In a letter addressed on Monday to French President Emmanuel Macron and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who this month will co-chair a conference on a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, Abbas outlined the main steps that he thinks must be taken to end the war in Gaza and achieve peace in the Middle East.
“Hamas will no longer rule Gaza and must hand over its weapons and military capabilities to the Palestinian Security Forces,” wrote Abbas.
He said he was “ready to invite Arab and international forces to be deployed as part of a stabilization/protection mission with a (UN) Security Council mandate.”
The conference at UN headquarters later this month will aim to resurrect the idea of a two-state solution — Israel currently controls large parts of the Palestinian territories.
“We are ready to conclude within a clear and binding timeline, and with international support, supervision and guarantees, a peace agreement that ends the Israeli occupation and resolves all outstanding and final status issues,” Abbas wrote.
“Hamas has to immediately release all hostages and captives,” Abbas added.
In a statement, the Elysee Palace welcomed “concrete and unprecedented commitments, demonstrating a real willingness to move toward the implementation of the two-state solution.”
Macron has said he is “determined” to recognize a Palestinian state, but also set out several conditions, including the “demilitarization” of Hamas.
In his letter, Abbas reaffirmed his commitment to reform the Palestinian Authority and confirmed his intention to hold presidential and general elections “within a year” under international auspices.
“The Palestinian State should be the sole provider of security on its territory, but has no intention to be a militarised State.”
France has long championed a two-state solution, including after the October 7, 2023 attack by Palestinian militants Hamas on Israel.
But formal recognition by Paris of a Palestinian state would mark a major policy shift and risk antagonizing Israel, which insists that such moves by foreign states are premature.


Lebanon says two dead in Israel strike

Updated 10 June 2025
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Lebanon says two dead in Israel strike

BEIRUT: An Israeli strike killed a Lebanese father and son Tuesday in a southern village, the Lebanese health ministry and state media said, the latest deaths despite a November ceasefire.
A second son was also wounded in the strike in Shebaa, the state-run National News Agency reported. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.
“An Israeli enemy drone carried out a strike in the village of Shebaa, killing two people and wounding one,” a health ministry statement said.
Israel had warned on Friday that it would keep up its strikes on Hezbollah targets across Lebanon despite the condemnation expressed by the Lebanese government after a massive strike on south Beirut the previous night on the eve of the Eid Al-Adha holiday.
Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah said the strikes levelled nine residential blocks. The Israeli military said they targeted underground drone factories.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun condemned the strikes as a “a flagrant violation” of the November 27 ceasefire agreement, which was supposed to end more than a year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah that culminated in two months of full-blown war.


Israel commits ‘extermination’ in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say

Updated 10 June 2025
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Israel commits ‘extermination’ in Gaza by killing in schools, UN experts say

  • In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90 percent of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza

VIENNA: UN experts said in a report on Tuesday that Israel committed the crime against humanity of “extermination” by killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites in Gaza, part of a “concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life.”

The United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel was due to present the report to Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council on June 17.

“We are seeing more and more indications that Israel is carrying out a concerted campaign to obliterate Palestinian life in Gaza,” former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay, who chairs the commission, said in a statement.

“Israel’s targeting of the educational, cultural and religious life of the Palestinian people will harm the present generations and generations to come, hindering their right to self-determination,” she added.

The commission examined attacks on educational facilities and religious and cultural sites to assess if international law was breached.

Israel disengaged from the Human Rights Council in February, alleging it was biased.

When the commission’s last report in March found Israel carried out “genocidal acts” against Palestinians by systematically destroying women’s health care facilities during the conflict in Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the findings were biased and antisemitic.

In its latest report, the commission said Israel had destroyed more than 90 percent of the school and university buildings and more than half of all religious and cultural sites in Gaza.

“Israeli forces committed war crimes, including directing attacks against civilians and wilful killing, in their attacks on educational facilities ... In killing civilians sheltering in schools and religious sites, Israeli security forces committed the crime against humanity of extermination,” it said.

The war was triggered when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people in Israel in a surprise attack in October 2023, and took 251 hostages back to the enclave, according to Israeli tallies.

Israel responded with a military campaign that has killed over 54,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities.

Harm done to the Palestinian education system was not confined to Gaza, the report found, citing increased Israeli military operations in the West Bank and East Jerusalem as well as harassment of students and settler attacks there.

“Israeli authorities have also targeted Israeli and Palestinian educational personnel and students inside Israel who expressed concern or solidarity with the civilian population in Gaza, resulting in their harassment, dismissal or suspension and in some cases humiliating arrests and detention,” it said.

“Israeli authorities have particularly targeted female educators and students, intending to deter women and girls from activism in public places,” the commission added.


Israel says activist Greta Thunberg leaving on flight to France

Updated 10 June 2025
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Israel says activist Greta Thunberg leaving on flight to France

  • Israel says Greta Thunberg is being deported after Gaza-bound ship she was on was seized

PARIS: Israel on Tuesday said Swedish campaigner Greta Thunberg was leaving the country on a flight to France, after she was detained along with other activists aboard a Gaza-bound aid boat and taken to a Tel Aviv airport for deportation.
“Greta Thunberg is departing Israel on a flight to France,” Israel’s foreign ministry said on its official X account, along with two photos of the activist on board a plane.

Five French activists aboard the boat for Gaza were set to face an Israeli judge, the French foreign minister said on Tuesday.
“Our consul was able to see the six French nationals arrested by the Israeli authorities last night,” Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said on X. “One of them has agreed to leave voluntarily and should return today. The other five will be subject to forced deportation proceedings.”