https://arab.news/rw5k6
WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden vowed Monday to continue working to end the war in Gaza during his final months in office, after he bowed out of his reelection bid.
“I’ll be working very closely with the Israelis and with the Palestinians to try to work out how we can get the Gaza war to end, and Middle East peace, and get all those hostages home,” Biden said in a public call into his campaign headquarters, which has transitioned to supporting Vice President Kamala Harris.
BAGHDAD: Powerful Iran-backed militias in Iraq are ready to disarm to avert the threat of US airstrikes, they said on Tuesday.
The move follows repeated private warnings by US officials to the Iraqi government since Donald Trump took office as US president in January.
They told Baghdad that unless it acted to disband the militias on its soil, America could attack the groups.
“Trump is ready to take the war with us to worse levels, we know that, and we want to avoid such a bad scenario,” said one commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah, the most powerful militia.
Militia leaders said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had told them to do whatever they deemed necessary to avoid being drawn into a potentially ruinous conflict with the US.
The others that have offered to lay down their weapons are Nujabaa, Kata’ib Sayyed Al-Shuhada and Ansarullah Al-Awfiyaa.
Militia leaders said their main ally and patron, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, had told them to do whatever they deemed necessary to avoid being drawn into a potentially ruinous conflict with the US.
The militias are part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, about 10 armed factions with about 50,000 fighters and arsenals that include long-range missiles and anti-aircraft weapons.
They are a key pillar of Iran’s network of regional proxy forces, and have carried out dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel and US forces in Iraq and Syria since the Gaza war began in 2023.
Iraqi security officials said Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani was pressing for disarmament by all militias that declared their allegiance to the Revolutionary Guards or its Quds Force rather than to Baghdad.
Some have already quit their bases and reduced their presence in major cities including Mosul and Anbar for fear of airstrikes.
DAMASCUS: Pro-Turkiye Syrian groups have scaled down their military presence in a historically Kurdish-majority area of the country’s north which they have controlled since 2018, a Syrian defense ministry official said on Tuesday.
The move follows an agreement signed last month between Syria’s new authorities and Kurdish officials that provides for the return of displaced Kurds, including tens of thousands who fled the Afrin region in 2018.
The pro-Ankara groups have “reduced their military presence and checkpoints” in Afrin, in Aleppo province, the official told AFP, requesting anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Their presence has been “maintained in the region for now,” said the official, adding that authorities wanted to station them in army posts but these had been a regular target of Israeli strikes.
After Islamist-led forces ousted longtime ruler Bashar Assad in December, the new authorities announced the disbanding of all armed groups and their integration into the new army, a move that should include pro-Turkiye groups who control swathes of northern Syria.
Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies carried out an offensive from January to March 2018 targeting Kurdish fighters in the Afrin area.
The United Nations has estimated that half of the enclave’s 320,000 inhabitants fled during the offensive.
The Kurds and rights groups have accused the pro-Turkiye forces of human rights violations in the area.
Last month, the Kurdish semi-autonomous administration that controls swathes of northern and northeastern Syria struck a deal to integrate its civil and military institutions into those of the central government.
The administration’s de facto army, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), played a key role in the recapture of the last territory held by the Daesh group in Syria in 2019, with backing from a US-led international coalition.
A Kurdish source close to the matter said the people of Afrin were “waiting for all the checkpoints to be removed and for the exit of pro-Turkiye factions.”
Requesting anonymity as the issue is sensitive, the source told AFP that in talks with Damascus, the SDF was pushing for security personnel deployed in Afrin to be from the area.
The SDF is also calling for “international organizations or friendly countries from the international coalition” to supervise collective returns, the source added.
Syria’s new leadership has been seeking to unify the country since the December overthrow of longtime president Bashar Assad after more than 13 years of civil war.
This month, Kurdish fighters withdrew from two neighborhoods of Aleppo as part of the deal.
Syrian Kurdish official Bedran Kurd said on X that the Aleppo city agreement “represents the first phase of a broader plan aimed at ensuring the safe return of the people of Afrin.”
LONDON: The UAE’s foreign minister, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, discussed the urgent need to resolve the crisis in Gaza during meetings in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday with his Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts.
Sheikh Abdullah and Egypt’s minister of foreign affairs, Badr Abdel Ati, emphasized the need for intensified efforts to restore the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, and to secure the release of remaining hostages. In addition to the latest developments in the territory, they discussed other matters of regional and international interest.
In a separate meeting, the Emirati minister and Jordan’s foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, talked about the latest developments in the Middle East and ways in which regional stability might be enhanced.
In particular, they reviewed strategies for improving the humanitarian response in Gaza to ensure the urgent, safe and unobstructed delivery of adequate aid to its suffering inhabitants, the Emirates News Agency reported. They also reaffirmed their commitment to continued coordination between their countries on responses to regional crises and challenges.
BAGHDAD: A US trade delegation representing 60 companies was visiting Iraq to sign economic cooperation agreements with the private sector, Washington’s embassy in Baghdad said Tuesday.
The three-day visit, which began on Monday, comes amid fears of an international recession after US President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on numerous countries, which included 39 percent duties on Iraqi imports.
The US delegation consists of 101 members from 60 companies in the energy, technology and health sectors, who are set to meet with senior Iraqi officials and sign agreements, said an embassy statement.
It is the largest US trade mission to Iraq in the more than 100-year history of the US Chamber of Commerce, the embassy added.
In a post on X, the US mission said that a “pivotal memorandum of understanding to strengthen ties between the US and Iraqi private sectors” was signed on Monday between the US Chamber of Commerce and the Federation of Iraqi Chambers of Commerce.
“This partnership will foster long-term economic collaboration,” it said.
According to the office of the US trade representative in Iraq, total goods trade with the oil-rich country reached $9.1 billion in 2024, with US exports amounting to $1.7 billion.
US goods imports from Iraq totaled $7.4 billion.
During the visit, Iraq is expected to sign a “landmark agreement” with General Electric to develop a high-efficiency power plant, according to Farhad Alaaldin, foreign policy adviser to Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al-Sudani.
Last year, during Sudani’s visit to Washington, Iraq and the US signed several memoranda of understanding in the energy sector, including one with General Electric to ensure the maintenance of the Iraqi electricity grid.
Iraq’s power plants are currently highly dependent on gas imported from Iran, which provides about a third of its neighbor’s energy needs.
But Tehran has often cut supplies, exacerbating regular power outages.
Baghdad has repeatedly stressed the need to diversify energy sources to reduce its dependence on Iran.
Iraq has been trying to move past decades of war and unrest, including a sectarian struggle after the US-led invasion 2003 toppled dictator Saddam Hussein.
HODEIDAH, Yemen: Yemen’s Houthis on Tuesday said US strikes on the western province of Hodeida killed four people and wounded 13 others, a day after the group said it targeted Israel and US warships.
“Four killed and 13 wounded in a preliminary toll of the victims of the flagrant American aggression,” the militant's health ministry spokesman Anis Al-Asbahi said in a post on X.
The Houthis’ Al-Masirah TV channel had reported earlier on Tuesday “deaths and wounded in the US enemy’s targeting” of the Al-Hawak district in Hodeida.
It added that civil defense teams had rushed to the site and were working on putting out the fires and rescuing any survivors.
An AFP journalist near the site of the strike heard the sound of three violent blasts in succession.
Al-Masirah also reported a US strike on the communications network in the Amran province north of Sanaa, without providing further details.
Houthi-held areas of Yemen have seen near-daily strikes blamed on the United States since Washington launched an air campaign on March 15 to force them to stop threatening vessels in key maritime routes.
Since then, the Houthis have also launched attacks targeting US military ships and Israel, claiming to be acting in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.
The rebels began targeting ships transiting the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, as well as Israeli territory, after the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, pausing the attacks during a January ceasefire.
Israel cut off all supplies to Gaza at the start of March, and resumed its offensive on the Palestinian territory on March 18, ending the short-lived truce.
The new US campaign followed Houthi threats to resume attacks on vessels over Israel’s blockade on Gaza.
The Houthi attacks had crippled the vital Red Sea route, which normally carries about 12 percent of world shipping traffic, forcing many companies to make a much longer detour around the tip of southern Africa
