ADEN: Clashes in several areas across Yemen on Friday killed 22 Shiite rebels and 11 members of pro-government forces, military officials said, after peace talks hit a new barrier.
Fierce battles erupted in the northern Jawf province when Houthi rebels attacked loyalists in Al-Motoon district, triggering a counter attack by government forces backed by warplanes from the Saudi-led coalition, a military official said. The fighting left 13 rebels dead, while eight loyalists were killed by mistake in an air strike that missed its target, the official added.
Further south, three Houthi rebels were killed in clashes in Bayhan, Shabwa province, another military official said.
And in the southwestern flashpoint city of Taiz, six rebels and three loyalists were killed in renewed fighting when insurgents attacked government troops on the southwestern outskirts of the city, a military official said.
Clashes have continued despite a UN-brokered cease-fire that entered into effect on April 11 and paved the way for peace talks in Kuwait.
Those talks received a new blow on Thursday when government representatives demanded a full withdrawal of Iran-backed rebels from territory seized since 2014.
On Wednesday, the rebel delegation said it would not sign up to any deal on military and security issues until there was agreement on a consensus president and a national unity government to oversee the transition.
The peace roadmap put forward by UN envoy Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed proposed the formation of a unity government in tandem with the withdrawal and disarmament of the rebels, although he acknowledged major differences between the two sides’ timetables.
33 killed in renewed clashes across Yemen
33 killed in renewed clashes across Yemen
Sudan’s army chief names former UN official Idris as new premier
- Idris, a career diplomat and past presidential candidate, was the director general of the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization
KHARTOUM: Sudan’s army chief and de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan appointed on Monday former UN official Kamil Idris as the country’s new prime minister, more than two years into a brutal war.
Idris, a career diplomat and past presidential candidate, was the director general of the United Nations’ World Intellectual Property Organization and has also served in Sudan’s permanent mission to the UN.
“The chairman of the sovereignty council issued a constitutional decree appointing Kamil El-Tayeb Idris Abdelhafiz as prime minister,” a statement from Sudan’s ruling Transitional Sovereignty Council read.
In 2010, Idris ran in the presidential elections against longtime Islamist-military ruler Omar Al-Bashir.
Since April 2023, the war in Sudan has pitted Burhan’s army forces against the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, commanded by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced 13 million and created what the United Nations describes as the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
Idris replaces veteran diplomat Dafallah Al-Hajj Ali, who was appointed by Burhan at the end of April and served less than three weeks as acting prime minister.
Burhan had earlier said that he would form a technocratic wartime government to help “complete what remains of our military objectives, which is liberating Sudan from these rebels.”
In April, the RSF announced it would form a rival government, a few weeks after signing a charter in Kenya with a coalition of military and political allies.
The move has raised international fears that Sudan would be permanently divided between the two sides, both of which have been accused of war atrocities.
The conflict has already carved up Sudan, with the army holding the north, east and center while the RSF dominates nearly all of Darfur and, with its allies, parts of the south.
Amnesty: US strike on Yemen migrant center may constitute humanitarian ‘violation’
- Amnesty International called on the U.S. to investigate a deadly airstrike on a migrant detention center in Yemen that killed 68 African migrants, citing potential violations of international humanitarian law
- The strike, part of the U.S. campaign against the Houthis, targeted a known detention site, prompting Amnesty to demand a transparent and independent inquiry into the civilian deaths
DUBAI: Rights group Amnesty International urged the United States on Monday to investigate possible violations of international law in a deadly strike on a migrant detention facility in Yemen.
Last month’s attack, which prompted international alarm and was part of the US bombardment campaign against the Houthis, killed 68 people held at a center for irregular migrants in Saada, the rebel authorities said at the time.
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, said that “the US attacked a well-known detention facility where the Houthis have been detaining migrants.”
The dead were all migrants from African countries, the Houthis had said.
To Callamard, “the major loss of civilian life in this attack raises serious concerns about whether the US complied with its obligations under international humanitarian law.”
“The US must conduct a prompt, independent and transparent investigation into this air strike,” she added.
A US defense official had told AFP in the aftermath of the strike that the military launched “battle-damage assessment and inquiry” into “claims of civilian casualties related to the US strikes in Yemen.”
Amnesty cited people who work with migrants and refugees in Yemen and visited two hospitals that treated the victims, saying that they had seen “more than two dozen Ethiopian migrants” with severe injuries including amputations.
The morgues at both hospitals had run out of space, the witnesses told Amnesty.
In mid-March, the United States began an intense, near-daily military campaign against the Houthis after they had renewed threats to attack vessels in the vital Red Sea and Gulf of Aden shipping lanes.
The campaign ended with a US-Houthi ceasefire agreement earlier this month.
The Houthis, who control large swathes of Yemen, began firing on Israel and Israeli-linked shipping in November 2023, weeks into the Gaza war triggered by an attack by the Yemeni rebels’ Palestinian ally Hamas.
Amnesty said it had analyzed satellite imagery and footage from the site of last month’s strike on Saada, in Yemen’s north.
The group said it was “unable to conclusively identify a legitimate military target” within the targeted prison compound, citing Houthi restrictions on independent investigations.
“Any attack that fails to distinguish between civilians and civilian objects on the one hand, and legitimate military targets on the other, even within the same compound, constitutes an indiscriminate attack and a violation of international humanitarian law,” Amnesty said.
Syria says foiled attempt to smuggle out 4 million captagon tablets
- The tablets were seized in the key port city of Latakia — the coastal heartland of deposed president Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority
DAMASCUS: Syrian authorities on Monday announced that they had thwarted an attempt to smuggle out four million tablets of captagon, an amphetamine-like narcotic that has flooded the region.
The interior ministry said in a statement that authorities seized “over four million captagon tablets that were tightly hidden inside industrial equipment designed for manufacturing flour used for human consumption.”
It said they had acted on “accurate information received from our sources about a shipment of drugs hidden inside industrial equipment prepared for smuggling outside the country.”
The tablets were seized in the key port city of Latakia — the coastal heartland of deposed president Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority.
Under Assad’s rule, captagon became Syria’s largest export during the civil war that erupted in 2011 and a key source of illicit funding for his government.
Since Assad’s ouster last December, the new Islamist authorities have discovered millions of captagon pills in warehouses and on military bases.
The interior ministry said those involved in the latest operation have been “arrested, the equipment containing the drugs has been seized, and the arrested individuals have been referred for investigation based on a decision issued by the public prosecution.”
Last week, Syrian authorities announced the seizure of around nine million captagon tablets that were headed for Turkiye, after a month-long operation.
Drug smuggling has persisted in Syria despite the new rulers’ efforts, with neighboring countries occasionally seizing large quantities of captagon.
Iraqi security forces seized more than a ton of captagon smuggled from Syria via Turkiye in March, and Jordan thwarted a smuggling attempt from Syria in April, confiscating “hundreds of thousands” of captagon tablets.
Netanyahu: Israel must avert Gaza famine ‘for diplomacy’ while pressing for full territorial control
Netanyahu: Israel must avert Gaza famine ‘for diplomacy’ while pressing for full territorial control
- Israel's blockade of Gaza since March 2 came under increasing international pressure to restore aid
- Netanyahu vows full military control of Gaza as humanitarian crisis deepens and international warnings mount
- The Israeli military issued an evacuation order for residents of Khan Younis
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Monday that Israel must prevent famine in Gaza for “diplomatic reasons,” even as he vowed to press ahead with military operations to “take control of all” of the war-torn territory.
His comments came amid mounting international concern over a deepening humanitarian crisis in Gaza and as Israeli forces launched what they called extensive new ground operations against Hamas.
“The fighting is intense and we are making progress. We will take control of all the territory of the Strip,” Netanyahu said Monday in a video posted to his Telegram channel.
“We will not give up. But in order to succeed, we must act in a way that cannot be stopped.”
‘Prevent Famine for Diplomacy’
Netanyahu also said it was necessary for Israel to prevent a famine in Gaza for “diplomatic reasons,” after his government announced it would allow limited food aid into the territory.
The premier’s defense of the decision to at least partially lift a more than two-month aid blockade followed criticism from far-right members of his coalition who opposed the move.
“We must not let the population (of Gaza) sink into famine, both for practical and diplomatic reasons,” Netanyahu said the Telegram video, adding that even friends of Israel would not tolerate “images of mass starvation.”
Israel has said its blockade since March 2 was aimed at forcing concessions from the Palestinian militant group.
But it came under increasing international pressure to restore aid to Gaza, where UN agencies have warned of critical shortages of food, clean water, fuel and medicines.
The territory was at “critical risk of famine,” with 22 percent of the population facing an imminent humanitarian “catastrophe,” the UN- and NGO-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) said this month.
Neytanyahu on Monday shrugged off criticism of the aid resumption as “natural,” calling the decision “difficult, but necessary.”
Evacuation Order
The Israeli military on Monday issued an evacuation order for residents of Gaza’s second-largest city, Khan Younis, and nearby towns.
Avichay Adraee, a military spokesperson, posted the order on his social medial accounts, saying the entire area “will be considered a dangerous combat zone.”
The evacuation order comes as Israel escalates its war in Gaza with new operations.
Iraqi FM arrives in Tehran to attend regional security forum
- The Tehran Dialogue Forum aims to discuss ways to enhance joint cooperation
DUBAI: Iraq’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Fuad Hussein arrived in Tehran on Sunday to take part in a forum on regional security, Iraqi state news agency INA reported.
The Tehran Dialogue Forum aims to “discuss ways to enhance regional security and joint cooperation, and exchange views on the political and economic challenges facing the region,” according to the INA report.
Hussein is expected to take part in sessions at the forum, which will host ministers, senior officials, research center leaders, and international experts.
He was received by Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for Middle Eastern and Gulf Affairs Mohammad Ali Beyk, alongside other Iranian Foreign Ministry officials and Nasir Abdul Mohsen Abdullah, Iraq’s ambassador to Iran, at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport.
“During his visit, the minister will meet with a number of senior officials in the Islamic Republic of Iran to discuss bilateral relations between the two countries and regional and international issues of common interest,” the report added.
