WASHINGTON: US prosecutors are accusing two senior Syrian officials of overseeing a notorious prison that tortured peaceful protesters and other political prisoners, including a 26-year-old American woman who was later believed to have been executed.
The indictment was unsealed Monday, two days after a shock militant offensive overthrew Syrian President Bashar Assad. The US, UN and others accuse him of widespread human rights abuses in a 13-year battle to crush opposition forces seeking his removal from power.
The war, which began as a largely nonviolent popular uprising in 2011, has killed half a million people.
The indictment, filed Nov. 18 in federal court in Chicago, is believed to be the US government’s first against what officials say were networks of Assad intelligence services and military branches and other allied groups that detained, tortured and killed thousands of perceived enemies.
It names Jamil Hassan, director of the Syrian air force’s intelligence branch, who prosecutors say oversaw a prison and torture center at the Mezzeh air force base in the capital, Damascus, and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, who prosecutors say ran the prison.
The indictment charges the two with conspiring to commit cruel and inhuman treatment of civilian detainees during the course of the Syrian civil war. Detainees at the prison were whipped, kicked, electrocuted, burned and subjected to other mental and physical abuse, including being housed in cells alongside corpses of dead detainees, prosecutors allege.
Victims included Syrians, Americans and dual citizens, the indictment said. The US-based Syrian Emergency Task Force has long pushed federal prosecutors for action on the cases, including that of 26-year-old American aid worker Layla Shweikani.
The group presented witnesses who testified of Shweikani’s 2016 torture at the prison. Syrian rights groups believe she was later executed at the Saydnaya military prison in the Damascus suburbs.
“Now it is our time to capture these criminals and bring them to the United States for trial,” the Syrian Emergency Task Force said in a statement Monday. The group’s leader, Mouaz Moustafa, said his relatives were among those tortured at the prison.
Federal prosecutors said they had issued arrest warrants for the two officials, who remain at large.
Prospects of bringing them to trial were unclear. Assad’s toppling by the militants over the weekend has scattered his government and left citizens searching prison torture centers around the country for survivors and evidence.
US indictment accuses two Syrian officials of torture at notorious prison
https://arab.news/8j3ec
US indictment accuses two Syrian officials of torture at notorious prison
- Indictment is believed to be the US government’s first against what officials say were networks of Assad intelligence services and military branches
Fire danger diminishes in Southern California even as crews continue to battle Malibu blaze
- Malibu is a community of about 10,000 people on the western edge of Los Angeles renowned for its stunning scenery of seaside bluffs and Zuma Beach featured in Hollywood films
With much of the coastal city under evacuation orders and warnings, residents waited anxiously to see whether their properties had been spared by the fire, which erupted late Monday and grew to more than 6 square miles (16 square kilometers). The blaze, dubbed the Franklin Fire, was just 7% contained.
About 20,000 residents remained under evacuation orders and warnings Wednesday evening, said Capt. Jennifer Seetoo of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department
Firefighters had “a lot of success” battling the blaze Wednesday thanks to the improving weather, but it continued to burn in an area of very steep terrain that is difficult to access, CalFire Assistant Chief Dusty Martin said.
The National Weather Service said the week's strongest Santa Ana winds, with gusts that reached 40 mph (64 kph), have passed. Forecasters said that all red flag warnings, which indicate conditions for high fire danger and Santa Ana winds, were discontinued.
Santa Anas are notorious seasonal winds that blow dry air from the interior toward the coast, pushing back moist ocean breezes.
Much of the devastation occurred in Malibu, a community of about 10,000 people on the western edge of Los Angeles known for its stunning bluffs and Zuma Beach, which features in many Hollywood films.
Flames burned near horse farms, celebrities’ seaside mansions, and Pepperdine University, where students were forced to shelter in place on campus for a second night Tuesday.
Faculty members are determining how best to complete the semester, which ends at Pepperdine this week. Final exams were postponed or canceled, depending on the class, university spokesperson Michael Friel said. An early analysis showed little to no damage to structures on campus, the university said.
It’s unclear how the blaze started. Officials said nine structures had been destroyed and at least six others had been damaged, though crews had only surveyed about 25% of the affected area, said Deputy Chief Albert Yanagisawa of the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
Lonnie Vidaurri’s four-bedroom home in the Malibu Knolls neighborhood is one of those destroyed. After evacuating to a hotel in Santa Monica with his wife and two young daughters, a neighbor called to tell Vidaurri that firefighters would need to break into his house.
“It’s pretty torched all around,” said Vidaurri, 53. He expects that the family’s pet bunnies did not survive the fire, and that they lost most of their things. “My girls cried, obviously, but it could have been worse.”
Mimi Teller, a Red Cross spokesperson who worked in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood, said many people arrived in their pajamas and were “definitely in shock.”
“Nobody even had a backpack, it was, ‘Get out now,’” Teller said. “One lady didn’t even have a leash for her dog, she just scooped them up.”
Shawn Smith said he was asleep early Tuesday when someone knocked on his RV at 3 a.m. to wake him up to evacuate the Malibu RV Park.
“You could see the fires rolling in, in over the canyon. It was like ‘Holy crap, this is real,'” he said.
He returned Wednesday to find that the RV park had been saved — firefighters stopped the flames just before they entered the area.
“We got lucky,” he said.
Van Dyke, one of many celebrities with homes in Malibu, said in a Facebook post that he and his wife, Arlene Silver, evacuated as the fire swept in. Although the couple and most of their animals evacuated safely, one of their cats, Bobo, escaped as they were leaving. “We’re praying he’ll be OK and that our community in Serra Retreat will survive these terrible fires," he wrote.
Cher evacuated from her Malibu home when ordered and is staying at a hotel, her publicist, Liz Rosenberg, said Tuesday.
The fire erupted shortly before 11 p.m. Monday and swiftly moved south, jumping over the famous Pacific Coast Highway and extending all the way to the ocean.
Alec Gellis, 31, stayed behind Monday night to save his home in Malibu’s Serra Retreat neighborhood from the flames. He used pumps in the home’s swimming pool to help spray water over the house and surrounding vegetation, turning the lush area “into a rainforest.”
Gellis said there were flames within 5 feet (1.5 meters) of the home on all sides. “The whole canyon was completely lit up.”
Utilities preemptively shut off power to tens of thousands of homes and businesses, starting Monday night, to mitigate the impacts of the Santa Ana winds, whose strong gusts can damage electrical equipment and spark wildfires.
As of Wednesday afternoon, electricity was still out for roughly 600 Southern California Edison customers, and the majority of those were in Los Angeles County, said utility spokesperson Gabriela Ornelas.
“We have been making significant progress,” she said.
But outages in Malibu were not included in that figure, Ornelas said. Some 3,300 customers in the Malibu area remained without power, due to safety shutoffs and for firefighter safety. Power was first shut off to most customers in Malibu on Monday evening.
The Woolsey Fire that roared through the area in 2018, killing three people and destroying 1,600 homes, was sparked by Edison equipment. Asked Wednesday if Edison equipment was involved in the Franklin Fire, Ornelas referred all questions regarding the cause to fire officials.
Trump taps election denier to head Voice of America
- Kari Lake is a hardline conservative who ran in 2022 as governor of the southwestern state of Arizona and for US Senate in 2024, losing both times
- She has repeatedly refused to accept her past election defeats, as well as Trump’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden
WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday appointed election denier Kari Lake to be the new director of Voice of America, the state-funded international media organization.
VOA has reach around the world, with programming in a slew of African, Asian and European languages, including Somali, Dari and French.
It receives US funding but is generally considered a reliable, independent media operation, covering global and US news for international audiences.
However, previous leadership under Trump’s first administration came under fire for politicizing the outlet.
Lake, a former television news anchor, is a hardline conservative who ran in 2022 as the Republican candidate for governor of the southwestern state of Arizona and for US Senate in 2024, losing both times.
She has repeatedly refused to accept her past election defeats, as well as Trump’s 2020 loss to Joe Biden.
As he prepares to take office in January, Trump’s staffing announcements have consisted of close allies.
“I am pleased to announce that Kari Lake will serve as our next Director of the Voice of America,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social website.
“She will be appointed by, and work closely with, our next head of the US Agency for Global Media... to ensure that the American values of Freedom and Liberty are broadcast around the World FAIRLY and ACCURATELY, unlike the lies spread by the Fake News Media.”
In his first term, Michael Pack, Trump’s head of the US Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA, raised concerns when he moved in 2020 to strip an internal firewall at the organization meant to insulate the newsroom from political interference.
A VOA White House reporter was also investigated for supposed anti-Trump biases during Trump’s first administration.
Vulnerable Afghans struggle as Taliban rebuild Kabul roads
- Thousands affected by road development works spearheaded in Kabul by Taliban authorities since they swept to power in 2021
- 3,515 families forced from homes between Apr-Oct when seven informal settlements demolished to make way for development plans
KABUL: Mohammed Naeem knew the Kabul street where he and his brothers built matching apartment buildings was too narrow, but he was still in disbelief as their homes were reduced to rubble to widen the road.
He had received notice 10 days earlier that he would have to destroy three-quarters of his building immediately, one of thousands affected by road development works spearheaded in Kabul by the Taliban authorities since they swept to power in 2021.
Afghanistan’s largest city, Kabul has seen rapid and unruly urban development in the past decades, with side effects of snarled traffic and unregulated building.
While authorities and some residents praise the city’s road improvements as long overdue, many in the country — one of the poorest in the world — have been devastated by the loss of homes and businesses.
“We are pleased the government is constructing the road, the country will be built up,” said 45-year-old Naeem, perched on a pile of bricks in his gutted house in western Kabul, but he is desperate for the compensation the government promised.
“I’m in debt and I don’t have money, otherwise I could take my children somewhere away from the dust and all the noise... I could restart my life.”
Unemployed for years and having lost his tenants, Naeem and his family had no option but to stay in the shorn-off building — even as the harsh winter approaches — with its spacious apartments reduced to two rooms and a kitchen cordoned off by tarpaulin at the top of a broken staircase.
His toddler son, the youngest of six, swings a hammer against jagged bricks, imitating the laborers his father hired to dismantle their home of a decade.
For now, it’s a game, his mother told AFP, but sometimes he asks, “Why are you breaking the house down, dad?” she said, tears in her eyes. “Will you build another one?“
Some residents told AFP they were rushed to leave, with nowhere else to go, or did not receive any support from the government.
The municipality says those whose homes and businesses were completely or partially destroyed would be compensated and given “more than enough” time to move out and find new residences.
Kabul municipality representative Nematullah Barakzai said the government had paid out two billion Afghanis (nearly $30 million) in compensation this year, with road construction accounting for more than half of 165 projects.
“If you want a city to be organized and city services to reach to everyone equally, you need a planned city... all these roads are approved and essential,” Barakzai said.
While Kabul’s roads are paved, they are often narrow, without traffic lights or markers, with chaotic bumper-to-bumper traffic and accidents a daily occurrence.
The Land Grabbing Prevention and Restitution Commission recovered nearly 33,000 acres of state land in Kabul in two years “from usurpers, power abusers and illegitimate descendants,” justice ministry spokesman Barakatullah Rasuli told AFP.
“This process is continuing rapidly in all of Afghanistan’s provinces,” he said.
This month, the authorities announced work had started on a construction project to tackle population growth and lack of housing in the capital.
Widowed Najiba — not her real name — lost all but one of the eight rooms of the mud-brick home she built for herself and her four children to road expansion.
After a year and a half she has not received compensation, she said.
“I want either that they give me my money or new land so I could build a house, I don’t have anything else,” she told AFP.
“They say these lands belong to the government, if it was government land they should have told us at first.”
Some residents have praised the demolition of homes belonging to former warlords that had blocked roads in central Kabul since a construction boom after the end of the first Taliban rule in 2001.
The removal of barriers and opening of the street at the US embassy, closed after the Taliban’s return to power, has also been met with approval.
But the most vulnerable people have been the hardest hit by the clearances, such as the many internally displaced by Afghanistan’s decades of war, non-governmental groups said.
Sources familiar with the Kabul evictions told AFP 3,515 families were forced from their homes between April and October when seven informal settlements were demolished to make way for development plans, 70 percent of them dispersing around Kabul.
In June, the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) reported that around 6,000 people became homeless when authorities demolished internally displaced people’s settlements in the capital and called for evictions to halt “until legal safeguards, due process, and the provision of alternative housing are in place.”
Trump invites China’s Xi Jinping to attend inauguration, CBS News reports
WASHINGTON: US President-elect Donald Trump has invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to attend his inauguration next month, CBS News reported on Wednesday, citing multiple sources.
The invitation to the Jan. 20 inauguration in Washington occurred in early November, shortly after the Nov. 5 presidential election, and it was not clear if it had been accepted, CBS reported.
The Chinese embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Trump said in an interview with NBC News conducted on Friday that he “got along with very well” with Xi and that they had “had communication as recently as this week.”
It would be unprecedented for a leader of China, a top US geopolitical rival, to attend a US presidential inauguration.
Trump has named numerous China hawks to key posts in his incoming administration, including Senator Marco Rubio as secretary of state.
The president-elect has said he will impose an additional 10 percent tariff on Chinese goods unless Beijing does more to stop trafficking of the highly addictive narcotic fentanyl. He also threatened tariffs in excess of 60 percent on Chinese goods while on the campaign trail.
In late November, China’s state media warned Trump that his pledge to slap additional tariffs on Chinese goods over fentanyl flows could drag the world’s top two economies into a mutually destructive tariff war.
Separately on Wednesday, China’s US Ambassador Xie Feng read a letter from Xi to a US-China Business Council gala in Washington, in which the Chinese leader said Beijing was prepared to stay in communication with the US
“We should choose dialogue over confrontation and win-win cooperation over zero-sum games,” Xi said in the letter.
Xie added that the two countries should not decouple supply chains. But Nicholas Burns, the US ambassador to Beijing, said in a prerecorded video address that China at times tried to “sugar coat” challenging and competitive relations.
“No amount of happy talk can obscure our profound differences,” Burns said. (Reporting by Jasper Ward, David Brunnstrom, Michael Martina and Costas Pitas; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Mexican judge shot dead in violence-plagued Acapulco
MEXICO CITY: A judge was shot dead Wednesday in Mexico’s once-thriving beach city of Acapulco, local media and the state prosecutor’s office said.
Local press identified the slain judge as Edmundo Roman Pinzon, president of the Superior Court of Justice in Guerrero state, saying he was shot at least four times in his car outside an Acapulco courthouse.
The southern state of Guerrero is one the areas hardest hit in Mexico by violence linked to organized crime, and has seen a string of deadly attacks this year.
In October, the mayor of the state capital Chilpancingo was killed and decapitated just days after taking office.
Weeks later, armed clashes between alleged gang members and security forces left 19 people dead in the state. Last month, a dozen dismembered bodies were discovered in vehicles in Chilpancingo.
Acapulco, the state’s most populous city, was once a playground for the rich and famous, but has lost its luster over the last decade as foreign tourists have been spooked by bloodshed that has made it one of the world’s most violent cities.
On Wednesday, the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it was “investigating the crime of aggravated homicide against Edmundo N,” in line with the usual practice of not giving full names.
The killing comes just over a week after President Claudia Sheinbaum led a meeting of the National Public Security Council in Acapulco, with state governors in attendance.
Spiraling violence, much of it linked to drug trafficking, has seen more than 450,000 people murdered in Mexico since 2006, when the government launched an offensive against organized crime.
Sheinbaum, who took office in October as Mexico’s first woman president, has ruled out launching a new “war on drugs,” as the controversial program was known.
She has pledged instead to stick to her predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador’s “hugs not bullets” strategy of using social policy to address the causes of crime.
Last year, 1,890 murders were recorded in Guerrero.
