US and anti-Daesh forces must leave Iraq, PM Al-Sudani tells WEF

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Iraqi PM Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani, right, said in Davos that the US-led international coalition in Iraq is no longer needed, and its withdrawal is necessary for the security and stability of Iraq. (Supplied)
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Updated 19 January 2024
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US and anti-Daesh forces must leave Iraq, PM Al-Sudani tells WEF

  • Iraqi PM says ending US troop presence is ‘crucial for Iraq’s security and stability’ amid clashes with Iran-backed militias

DAVOS: US forces and their international allies must leave Iraq, especially considering the heightened tensions in the Middle East, the country's Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani said on Thursday. 

A US-led international anti-Daesh coalition has been operating in the country since 2014.

The end of the international coalition mission was a "necessity for the security and stability of Iraq,” he said during a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

“It is also a necessity for preserving constructive bilateral relations between Iraq and the coalition countries,” he added.

Al-Sudani, whose administration is backed by Iran-aligned parties, has repeatedly called for the withdrawal of foreign troops from Iraq.

The US has about 2,500 soldiers in Iraq and nearly 900 in Syria supporting the anti-Daesh coalition, which since 2021 has said it has stopped all combat operations, which train and advise the local military.

He was speaking in Davos as US forces continued its strikes on pro-Iran groups in response to attacks since mid-October on forces from the US and its allies deployed in Iraq, with at least 130 attacks, including 53 in Iraq and 77 in Syria, recorded between October last year and Jan. 11, according to the Pentagon.

Most of the drone or rocket attacks targeting US or allied forces have been claimed by the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, a loose alliance of Iran-linked armed groups that oppose US support for Israel in the Gaza war.

A US drone strike in early January killed a military commander and another member of Harakat Al-Nujaba, a faction of Hashed Al-Shaabi, a collection of pro-Iran former paramilitary units now integrated into the Iraqi armed forces.

During his Davos panel, Al-Sudani said an immediate dialogue was needed to “reach an understanding and a timetable regarding the end of the mission of international advisers.”

Al-Sudani said the coalition was no longer needed.

“Today, according to the analysis of all specialists in Iraq and among our friends, Daesh does not represent a threat to the Iraqi state,” he said.

“The sooner we withdraw the coalition, it is a necessity for the stability, the security of Iraq,” he added.

Speaking about the crisis in Gaza, Al-Sudani refuted claims by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s about how the Israel-Hamas war offered a chance to get back on track for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

Blinken, who attended the forum on Tuesday and Wednesday, said that doing so should involve broader efforts at improving Israel’s ties with Arab countries through normalization efforts, in a similar vein to the 2020 Abraham Accords.

“That is nothing new, what Blinken has said. Everybody has said the same thing,” he said. “What is being said by Blinken is refused by the Israeli government. Even the post-war scenario is refused from the Israelis.”

He continued: “The international community has failed,” the Iraqi leader added. “The International organizations have failed. The international institutions have failed in this unjustifiable, unacceptable death that is unraveling before us in Gaza.”

Iraq has set its sights on a three-year budget to move away from a dependence on oil revenue from 95% to 80%, Al-Sudani said.

 


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

Updated 10 June 2025
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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 10 June 2025
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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.”