LOS ANGELES: A former Syrian military official who oversaw prisons with widespread allegations of abuse has been arrested in Los Angeles.
Samir Ousman Al-Sheikh, 72, was arrested last week at Los Angeles International Airport on immigration fraud charges, specifically that he denied on his US visa and citizenship applications that he had ever carried out any abuse in Syria, according to a criminal complaint filed on July 9.
Al-Sheikh, who was in charge of Syria’s infamous Adra prison, “provided materially false information on his visa application by falsely stating that he had not committed, ordered, incited, assisted, or otherwise participated in extrajudicial killings, political killings, or other acts of violence,” the complaint states. Al-Sheikh has been a resident of Los Angeles since 2020.
Investigators were considering additional charges, according to court papers.
“This is the highest level Assad regime official arrested anywhere in the world, it is the highest regime official arrested in the United States for sure, if not the only one of his type,” Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, said Wednesday. “This is a really big deal, it’s unprecedented.”
Human rights groups and United Nations officials have accused the Syrian government of widespread abuses in its detention facilities, including torture and arbitrary detention of thousands of people, in many cases without informing their families about their fate. Many remain missing and are presumed to have died or been executed.
Other players in Syria’s civil war, now in its 14th year, have also been accused of abuse of detainees, including insurgent groups and the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which guard suspected and convicted Islamic State members imprisoned in northeastern Syria.
The war, which has left nearly half a million people dead and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million, began as peaceful protests against the government of Bashar Assad in March 2011.
Syrian official who oversaw prisons with widespread allegations of abuse arrested by US officials
https://arab.news/w39h6
Syrian official who oversaw prisons with widespread allegations of abuse arrested by US officials
- Samir Ousman Al-Sheikh, 72, was arrested last week at Los Angeles International Airport on immigration fraud charges
- Al-Sheikh, who was in charge of Syria’s infamous Adra prison, ‘provided materially false information on his visa application’
Death toll rises as Israeli West Bank raids enter second day
- The army said one of those killed in the Khan Yunis area was a militant who took part in the October 7 attack
- Israel began coordinated raids in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarem early on Wednesday
Tulkarem: The death toll climbed Thursday as Israel pressed a large-scale military operation in the occupied West Bank for a second day, despite UN concerns it is “fueling an already explosive situation.”
The operation was launched as violence raged on in the other main Palestinian territory, the Gaza Strip, which has been devastated by war since Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.
Israel began coordinated raids in the northern West Bank cities of Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarem early on Wednesday, in what the military called a “counter-terrorism” operation.
Columns of Israeli armored vehicles backed by troops and warplanes were sent in before soldiers encircled refugee camps in Tubas and Tulkarem, as well as Jenin, and exchanged fire with Palestinian militants.
The army said it killed five militants in Tulkarem on Thursday, bringing to 14 the overall death toll since the launch of the West Bank operation.
“Following exchanges of fire, the forces eliminated five terrorists who had hidden inside a mosque” in Tulkarem, the military said.
Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad confirmed the death of Muhammad Jabber, also known as Abu Shujaa, its commander in the Nur Shams refugee camp in Tulkarem.
The violence has caused significant destruction, especially in Tulkarem, whose governor described the raids as “unprecedented” and a “dangerous signal.”
AFPTV footage showed bulldozers ripping up the asphalt from streets in the city. Widespread damage was reported to infrastructure, including to water and sewage networks.
The Palestinian health ministry said 12 Palestinians were killed on the first day of the operation.
Witnesses said the Israeli forces had withdrawn from Al-Farra refugee camp in Tubas where several Palestinians were killed on Wednesday.
An AFP journalist said clashes were taking place in Jenin, where a drone was seen flying overhead. Another said Israeli soldiers were operating in Tulkarem.
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Club said at least 45 people had been arrested in the West Bank since the start of the Israeli operation.
The United Nations expressed concerns about the situation.
UN chief Antonio Guterres, in a statement, called for an “immediate cessation of these operations.”
He condemned the use of air strikes on civilian targets and “the loss of lives, including of children.”
“These dangerous developments are fueling an already explosive situation in the occupied West Bank and further undermining the Palestinian Authority,” the UN statement said.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas on Wednesday cut short a visit to Saudi Arabia to address the crisis, while Jordan’s King Abdullah II appealed for a ceasefire in Gaza to stop the spread of violence.
Since the war began, at least 637 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli troops or settlers, according to the United Nations.
Nineteen Israelis, including soldiers, have been killed in Palestinian attacks or during army operations, according to Israeli official figures.
Violence also raged in Gaza, where the Israeli military on Thursday said it “eliminated dozens” of militants during the past day in close-quarters combat and air strikes.
The army said one of those killed in the Khan Yunis area was a militant who took part in the October 7 attack.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on October 7, resulting in the deaths of 1,199 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized 251 people, 103 of whom are still captive in Gaza, including 33 the Israeli military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 40,602 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry. The UN rights office says most of the dead are women and children.
The war has devastated Gaza and triggered a humanitarian crisis.
The United Nations said it was still delivering humanitarian assistance despite the upheaval to civilians and aid teams caused by repeated Israeli evacuation orders and military operations.
“It’s just catastrophic,” said Louise Wateridge, a spokesperson for the UN agency for Palestine refugees, or UNRWA.
“What we’re seeing now is families, mothers, children dragging their belongings,” she said on social media platform X.
“There’s very limited access to any kind of vehicles for this kind of displacement now, and people just don’t know where to go.”
As emergency services crumble under the strain of the war, Gaza’s civil defense agency said ambulance and fire services had been severely degraded, with most “hit by Israeli strikes.”
In the latest bloodshed, the agency said Israeli shelling killed five displaced people in a tent east of Khan Yunis.
16 dead in Yemen floods as search goes on: Houthi media
- Civil defense teams recovered the bodies of 16 of the 38 people posted as missing in Al-Mahwit province west of the capital Sanaa
- Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of seasonal rains in the Yemeni highlands
Dubai: At least 16 people have been killed in flash floods in a rebel-held district of Yemen, rebel media reported Thursday, as search efforts continued for others still missing.
Civil defense teams recovered the bodies of 16 of the 38 people posted as missing in Al-Mahwit province west of the capital Sanaa, the Iran-backed Houthi rebels’ Al-Masirah television reported, citing a local official.
Landslides triggered by torrential rains had crashed through homes and businesses in the province’s Melhan district on Tuesday night burying some of their occupants.
The rebel administration’s deputy prime minister Mohammed Miftah, told Al-Masirah that “road closures due to the floods hindered the arrival of rescue teams for several hours.”
The heavy rains that have been falling in highland provinces for a week have also affected neighboring Hodeida province on the Red Sea coast.
In the government-held town of Hais, Ahmed Suleiman and his children survived, but he told AFP “the floods swept away our homes, our livestock, all our belongings, our blankets, everything we had in the house.”
Another resident, Saud Majashi, said “our belongings, our beds, our food... the floods took everything.”
The mountains of western Yemen are prone to heavy seasonal rainfall. Since late July, flash flooding has killed 60 people and affected 268,000 across Yemen, according to the United Nations.
“In the coming months, increased rainfall is forecast, with the central highlands, Red Sea coastal areas and portions of the southern uplands expected to receive unprecedented levels in excess of 300 millimeters (12 inches),” the World Health Organization warned on Monday.
Earlier this month, the United Nations warned that $4.9 million was urgently needed to scale up the emergency response to extreme weather in war-torn Yemen.
Climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of seasonal rains in the Yemeni highlands, much of which are controlled by the Houthi rebels.
A decade of war with the internationally recognized government propped up by a Saudi-led coalition has ravaged health care infrastructure and left millions dependent on international aid.
Fighting rages in Gaza as Palestinians hope for a pause for polio vaccinations
- UN hopes to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza starting September 1
- Benjamin Netanyahu denies Israel plans for general humanitarian truce
CAIRO/GAZA: Palestinians in Gaza were waiting on Thursday to see if there would be a pause in fighting to allow a polio vaccination campaign to begin, as the conflict raged across the besieged enclave, killing at least 20 people.
The United Nations is preparing to vaccinate an estimated 640,000 children in Gaza, where the World Health Organization confirmed on Aug. 23 that at least one baby has been paralyzed by the type 2 poliovirus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
The UN, which called for a humanitarian truce earlier this month, hopes to begin the vaccination campaign on Sept. 1, said Juliette Touma, communications director of UNRWA, the UN Palestinian refugee agency.
The World Health Organization named the baby as Abdul-Rahman Abu Al-Jidyan. He will turn one year old on Sept. 1.
His mother Nivin Abu Al-Jidyan said she feared for her son after she was told by health officials they could do little to help him.
“I was shocked that my son got this disease amid the war and the closure of border crossings, under these conditions and lack of medicine for him, it’s a shock. Would he remain like this?” Abu Al-Jidyan said on Thursday.
“He is my only baby boy. It’s his right to travel and be treated; it’s his right to walk, run and move like before...It is unfair that he stays thrown in the tent without care or attention,” she said from a tent in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
At Nasser Hospital, in the southern city of Khan Younis, Umm Eliane Baker fears her 19-month-old daughter may be vulnerable to polio due to ill health brought on by malnutrition.
She hopes her baby will be vaccinated soon, but said she is worried about moving safely in an area where there have been repeated Israeli strikes.
“I cannot walk in the street and get bombed, or have something happen to my daughter, or have a targeted (attack). I need a truce, a ceasefire so I can give my daughter this injection (vaccine),” she said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this week denied media reports Israel was preparing for a generalized humanitarian truce, saying that a more limited plan had been presented.
“These are not pauses in the fighting to administer polio vaccines but only the allocation of certain places in the Gaza Strip,” he said in a statement.
Senior Hamas official Izzat El-Reshiq reiterated the group’s support for the UN and international organizations’ initiative for an urgent humanitarian truce across the enclave to allow the polio vaccination campaign.
He described Netanyahu’s statement as an attempt to thwart the process by refusing the UN call.
FAMILY ‘CONSUMED’ BY FIRE
On Thursday, Israeli forces continued to bombard areas across the Gaza Strip in their battle against Hamas-led militants. Palestinian health officials said Israeli military strikes have so far killed at least 20 people.
One strike on a house in Gaza City killed eight Palestinians, including children, they said, while three others were killed when an Israeli missile hit a motorcycle in Rafah, near the border with Egypt.
A neighbor of the bombed Gaza City house said they had managed to lower a ladder into the building to rescue a family trapped inside, but had only managed to extract one young girl.
“After that, the fire consumed them and we could not reach them,” he said.
The latest bloodshed in the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict was triggered on Oct. 7 when Palestinian Islamist group Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking about 250 hostages, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel’s subsequent assault on the enclave has killed over 40,000 Palestinians, according to the local health ministry, while also displacing nearly the entire population of 2.3 million, causing a hunger crisis and leading to genocide allegations at the World Court that Israel denies.
Iran’s president calls for investigation into case of death in custody
- Forensic pathologists carried out follow-ups to determine the cause of death of the accused
- Deceased was arrested on Aug. 24 following an altercation and tortured to death on the same day – rights group
DUBAI: Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian has ordered an investigation into the death in custody of a defendant in the northern city of Lahijan, state media reported on Thursday.
“Following the tragic incident in Lahijan, the president ordered the interior minister to form a committee to investigate all aspects of this incident and report its results to the cabinet as soon as possible,” the head of government public relations Elias Hazrati said.
Five policemen were arrested by the judiciary in relation to the case, according to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency, which did not reveal the deceased’s name, the charges he was facing, or the date on which he died.
“Following the violation of a citizen’s rights, necessary follow-ups were carried out and defendants related to the case were imprisoned based on a temporary arrest warrant,” Lahijan’s prosecutor, Ebrahim Ansari, said according to Mizan.
Ansari added that forensic pathologists carried out follow-ups to determine the cause of death of the accused, without providing additional information.
Iranian activist rights group Hengaw reported that the deceased, who it identified as 36-year-old Mohammad Mirmousavi, was arrested on Aug. 24 following an altercation and tortured to death on the same day.
Hengaw said this was the seventh case of a death in custody since the start of the year. Reuters could not verify this allegation.
A blurred video was circulated on social media showing the lacerated back of a topless man. Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the video.
The respect of citizens’ rights, including women and minorities, was one of the electoral promises of the relatively moderate Pezeshkian, who won the presidency in July.
In 2022, the death in custody of young Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for flouting Iran’s strict hijab laws, sparked months of nationwide protests in what became a major challenge to the Islamic Republic.
Iraq army says downed Turkish drone over northern city
- Initial investigation of the debris showed it was a Turkish military armed drone
- The drone fell in the center of Kirkuk, igniting a fire near some houses, but caused no casualties
BAGHDAD: The Iraqi military said it downed a Turkish drone over the northern city of Kirkuk on Thursday, as Ankara kept up its operations against Kurdish militants inside Iraq.
Falling debris damaged a house in the city center, police and army officials told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.
There were no reports of any direct casualties but the police official said a carpenter working on a nearby building site had been admitted to hospital after a fall.
“A Turkish drone which penetrated Iraqi airspace has been shot down,” the deputy air defense commander for Kirkuk, General Abdel Salam Ramadan, told a press conference at the site of the downing.
The aircraft had come “from the direction of Sulaimaniyah,” second city of the Kurdish autonomous region to the north, Ramadan said.
Ethnically mixed Kirkuk and its surrounding oil fields do not form part of the autonomous region but are directly administered by the federal government in Baghdad.
Turkiye has maintained dozens of military bases in northern Iraq for the past quarter of a century as part of its campaign against militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Its troops routinely carry out operations against PKK targets but it comments on them only sporadically.
The Iraqi federal government discreetly outlawed the PKK as a “banned organization” in March and earlier this month agreed a military cooperation deal with Ankara that will see joint training and command centers set up in the fight against the militants.
The leftist group, which has waged a deadly on-off insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, is blacklisted as a “terrorist organization” by Ankara and its Western allies.
