BAGHDAD: The head of the Daesh in Iraq and Syria has been killed in Iraq in an operation by members of the Iraqi national intelligence service along with US-led coalition forces, the Iraqi prime minister announced Friday.
“The Iraqis continue their impressive victories over the forces of darkness and terrorism,” Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said in a statement posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Abdallah Maki Mosleh Al-Rifai, or “Abu Khadija,” was “deputy caliph” of the militant group and as “one of the most dangerous terrorists in Iraq and the world,” the statement said.
A security official said the operation was carried out by an airstrike in Anbar province, in western Iraq. A second official said the operation took place Thursday night but that Al-Rifai’s death was confirmed Friday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.
The announcement came on the same day as the first visit by Syria’s top diplomat to Iraq, during which the two countries pledged to work together to combat Daesh.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Fouad Hussein said at a news conference that “there are common challenges facing Syrian and Iraqi society, and especially the terrorists of Daesh.” He said the officials had spoken “in detail about the movements of Daesh, whether on the Syrian-Iraqi border, inside Syria or inside Iraq” during the visit.
Hussein referred to an operations room formed by Syria, Iraq, Turkiye, Jordan and Lebanon at a recent meeting in Amman to confront Daesh, and said it would soon begin work.
The relationship between Iraq and Syria is somewhat fraught after the fall of former Syrian President Bashar Assad. Al-Sudani came to power with the support of a coalition of Iran-backed factions, and Tehran was a major backer of Assad. The current interim president of Syria, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, was previously known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani and fought as an Al-Qaeda militant in Iraq after the US invasion of 2003, and later fought against Assad’s government in Syria.
But Syrian interim Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani focused on the historic ties between the two countries.
“Throughout history, Baghdad and Damascus have been the capitals of the Arab and Islamic world, sharing knowledge, culture and economy,” he said.
Strengthening the partnership between the two countries “will not only benefit our peoples, but will also contribute to the stability of the region, making us less dependent on external powers and better able to determine our own destiny,” he said.
The operation and the visit come at a time when Iraqi officials are anxious about an Daesh resurgence in the wake of the fall of Assad in Syria.
While Syria’s new rulers — led by the Islamist former insurgent group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham — have pursued Daesh cells since taking power, some fear a breakdown in overall security that could allow the group to stage a resurgence.
The US and Iraq announced an agreement last year to wind down the military mission in Iraq of an American-led coalition fighting the Daesh group by September 2025, with US forces departing some bases where they have stationed troops during a two-decade-long military presence in the country.
When the agreement was reached to end the coalition’s mission in Iraq, Iraqi political leaders said the threat of Daesh was under control and they no longer needed Washington’s help to beat back the remaining cells.
But the fall of Assad in December led some to reassess that stance, including members of the Coordination Framework, a coalition of mainly Shiite, Iran-allied political parties that brought current Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammad Shia Al-Sudani to power in late 2022.
Head of the Daesh in Iraq and Syria has been killed, Iraqi prime minister says
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Head of the Daesh in Iraq and Syria has been killed, Iraqi prime minister says
- “The Iraqis continue their impressive victories over the forces of darkness and terrorism,” Al-Sudani said
- Syrian interim Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan Al-Shibani focused on the historic ties between the two countries
Sudan’s war-ravaged Khartoum tiptoes back to life after recapture by army
- In a lightning offensive in March, the army recaptured the city center, including the presidential palace and the airport
- Within the next six months, the UN expects more than two million displaced people to return to the capital if security conditions allow
KHARTOUM: In war-ravaged Khartoum donkey carts clatter over worn asphalt, the smell of tomatoes wafts from newly reopened stalls and pedestrians dodge burnt-out cars left by two years of war.
Life is slowly, cautiously returning to the Sudanese capital, weeks after the army recaptured the city from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) who had held it since soon after fighting erupted in April 2023.
Stallholder Maqbool Essa Mohamed was laying out his wares in the large market in the southern neighborhood of Kalakla.
“People feel safe again,” he said. “Business is moving and there’s security.”
Just weeks ago this market was deserted – shops shuttered, streets silent and snipers perched on rooftops.
In a lightning offensive in March, the army recaptured the city center, including the presidential palace and the airport, and the RSF was shed back into the western outskirts of greater Khartoum.
But the RSF remain within artillery range of the city center, as they demonstrated twice this week with a bombardment of the army’s General Command headquarters last Saturday followed by shelling of the presidential palace on Thursday.
Since April 2023, Sudan has been torn apart by a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted 13 million.
In greater Khartoum alone, more than 3.5 million people have fled their homes, leaving entire neighborhoods abandoned.
Within the next six months, the UN expects more than two million displaced people to return to the capital if security conditions allow.
Kalakla, a neighborhood on the road to Jebel Awliya – once an RSF bastion – suffered heavily during the war.
Its location close to a military base made it a prime target, with RSF fighters encircling the area and cutting off food and water for the civilians trapped inside.
In July 2023 activists called it “uninhabitable.”
But now women can be seen on the roadside brewing tea – a common sight before the war – as a man dragging his suitcase stands beside a minibus, newly arrived in the war-torn neighborhood.
Public transport has yet to return to normal as fragile security conditions and crumbling infrastructure impede movement.
With buses packed to capacity, weary commuters climb atop vehicles, preferring the risky ride over an indefinite wait for the next bus – which may not come for hours.
From January, the army began advancing in the greater Khartoum area and by late March had wrested back control of both Khartoum and the industrial city of Khartoum North just across the Blue Nile.
Standing amid the wreckage of the presidential palace, army chief Burhan declared: “Khartoum is free.”
The paramilitaries are now confined to the southern and western outskirts of Omdurman, the third of the three cities that make up greater Khartoum.
Both sides in the conflict have been accused of war crimes, including deliberately targeting civilians and indiscriminately bombing residential neighborhoods.
The RSF in particular has been notorious for systematic sexual violence, ethnic cleansing and rampant looting.
“They left nothing,” said Mohamed Al-Mahdi, a longtime resident. “They destroyed the country and took our property.”
Today, Mahdi steers his bicycle through the recovering market, where vehicles, animal carts and pedestrians jostle for space under the wary eye of the army.
Earlier this month, Sudan’s state news agency reported that the army-backed government plans to restore the water supply to the area – a basic necessity still out of reach for many.
But for vendor Serelkhitm Shibti, the costs of the war are not about lost income or damaged infrastructure.
“What pains me is every drop of blood that fell in this land, not the money I lost,” he said.
Israeli military strikes near Syria’s presidential palace after warning over sectarian attacks
DAMASCUS, Syria: Israel’s air force struck near Syria’s presidential palace early Friday hours after warning Syrian authorities not to march toward villages inhabited by members of a minority sect in southern Syria.
The strike came after days of clashes between pro-Syrian government gunmen and fighters who belong to the Druze minority sect near the capital, Damascus. The clashes left dozens of people dead or wounded.
The Israeli army said in a statement that fighter jets struck adjacent to the area of the Palace of President Hussein Al-Sharaa in Damascus. It gave no further details.
Pro-government Syrian media outlets said the strike hit close to the People’s Palace on a hill overlooking the city.
The Druze religious sect is a minority group that began as a 10th-century offshoot of Ismailism, a branch of Shiite Islam. More than half of the roughly 1 million Druze worldwide live in Syria. Most of the other Druze live in Lebanon and Israel, including in the Golan Heights, which Israel captured from Syria in the 1967 Mideast War and annexed in 1981. In Syria, they largely live in the southern Sweida province and some suburbs of Damascus.
US meets Syria’s top diplomat, urges action to protect Druze minority
- State Department spokeswoman confirms meeting in New York between US and Syrian delegations
WASHINGTON: The United States on Thursday confirmed meeting Syria’s top diplomat and called on the interim authorities to take action on concerns, as violence flares against the Druze minority.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shaibani last Friday raised his new country’s flag at the UN headquarters, marking a new chapter after the overthrowing in December of longtime ruler Bashar Assad.
State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce confirmed that US representatives met the Syrian delegation in New York on Tuesday.
She said that the United States urged the post-Assad authorities to “choose policies that reinforce stability,” without providing any assessment on progress.
“Any future normalization of relations or lifting of sanctions... will depend on the interim authority’s actions and positive response to the specific confidence-building measures we have communicated,” Bruce told reporters.
The demands were in line with those set out in December by the United States, then led by president Joe Biden, and include protecting minorities and preventing a role in Syria by Assad’s ally Iran.
Since the Islamist fighters toppled Assad, sectarian clashes have repeatedly flared.
The spiritual leader of the Druze community on Thursday alleged a “genocidal campaign” after two days of violence left 102 people dead.
“We urge the interim authorities to hold perpetrators of violence and civilian harm accountable for their actions and ensure the security of all Syrians,” Bruce said of the violence against Druze.
Children broken in mind and body by Israeli ‘abomination’ in Gaza
- UN health chief: ‘How much blood is enough?’
- We can’t live like this, say Palestinians
GENEVA: Palestinian children in Gaza are being physically and mentally broken by two months of an Israeli blockade on humanitarian aid and incessant pounding by airstrikes, UN health chiefs said on Thursday.
More than 1,000 children had lost limbs, thousands had severe spinal cord and head injuries from which they would never recover and many were psychologically damaged, World Health Organization emergencies chief Mike Ryan said.
“We have to ask ourselves, how much blood is enough to satisfy whatever the political objectives are?” he said. “We are watching this unfold before our very eyes, and we’re not doing anything about it.
“We are breaking the bodies and minds of the children of Gaza. We are starving the children of Gaza. We are complicit. As a physician I am angry. It is an abomination.”
Israel has interrupted or blocked the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza since the war began in October 2023, and imposed a total blockade on March 2. Since then the UN has repeatedly warned of a humanitarian catastrophe on the ground, with famine looming, and it said this week that acute malnutrition among Gaza’s children was worsening.
Meanwhile Israel continues to pound civilians in Gaza with daily airstrikes and artillery bombardments. Civil defense chiefs said at least 29 Palestinians were killed on Thursday. They included eight who died in an airstrike on the Abu Sahlul family home in Khan Younis refugee camp, four killed in another strike on Al-Tuffah in Gaza City, and others who died in an attack on a tent sheltering displaced people near the central city of Deir Al-Balah.
“We came here and found all these houses destroyed, and children, women and young people all bombed to pieces,” survivor Ahmed Abu Zarqa said after a deadly strike in Khan Younis.
“This is no way to live. Enough, we’re tired, enough. We don’t know what to do with our lives any more. We’d rather die than live this kind of life.”
Several countries send firefighting planes to Israel to help tackle major wildfire
JERUSALEM: Several countries were sending firefighting aircraft to Israel on Thursday as crews battled for a second day to extinguish a wildfire that had shut down a major highway linking Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and sent drivers scrambling from their cars.
The fire broke out around midday on Wednesday, fueled by hot, dry conditions and fanned by strong winds that quickly whipped up the flames, burning through a pine forest.
Several communities were evacuated as a precaution as the smoke turned the skies over Jerusalem gray.
The fire has burned about 20 sq. km and is the most significant fire Israel has had in the past decade, according to Tal Volvovitch, a spokesperson for Israel’s fire and rescue authority.
She said the fire has “miraculously” not damaged any homes.
Israel’s fire and rescue authority warned the public to stay away from parks or forests, and to be exceptionally careful while lighting barbecues.
Thursday is Israel’s Independence Day, which is typically marked with large family cookouts in parks and forests.
At least 12 people were treated in hospitals on Wednesday, mainly due to smoke inhalation, while another 10 people were treated in the field, Magen David Adom Ambulance services said.
Italy, Croatia, Spain, France, Ukraine, and Romania were sending planes to help battle the flames, while several other countries, including North Macedonia and Cyprus, were also sending water-dropping aircraft.
Israeli authorities said 10 firefighting planes were operating on Thursday morning, with another eight aircraft to arrive during the day.
Israel’s fire and rescue authority lifted the evacuation order on approximately a dozen towns in the Jerusalem hills on Thursday.
Three Catholic religious communities that were forced to evacuate from their properties on Wednesday could also return on Thursday, said Farid Jubran, the spokesperson for the Latin Patriarchate.
He said their agricultural lands, including vineyards and olive trees, suffered heavy damage, and some buildings were damaged.
But there were no injuries, and historic churches were not affected.
The main highway linking Jerusalem to Tel Aviv was opened again on Thursday, a day after the flames had encroached on the road, forcing drivers to abandon their cars and flee in terror.
On Thursday morning, broad swathes of burned areas were visible from the highway, while pink anti-flame retardant dusted the top of burned trees and bushes.
Smoke and the smell of fire hung heavy in the air.
In 2010, a massive forest fire burned for four days on northern Israel’s Mount Carmel, claiming 44 lives and destroying around 12,000 acres, much of it woodland.
