Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

WhatsApp ‘hack’ is serious rights violation, say alleged victims

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Activists speak out after being warned of alleged cyber-attack to infiltrate mobile phones

More than a dozen pro-democracy activists, journalists and academics have spoken out after WhatsApp privately warned them they had allegedly been the victims of cyber-attacks designed to secretly infiltrate their mobile phones.

The individuals received alerts saying they were among more than 100 human rights campaigners whose phones were believed to have been hacked using malware sold by NSO Group, an Israeli cyberweapons company.

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Kurds call on US to block Turkish military drones from Syrian air space

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  • Unmanned weapons ‘targeting anything they wish to’
  • Kurds say Turks have killed 509 civilians and 412 troops

Syrian Kurds are asking the Pentagon to block US-controlled air space over north-eastern Syria to Turkish armed drones which they claim are causing significant civilian casualties.

Ilham Ahmed, the head of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), said the Kurds would hold the Pentagon responsible for Turkish war crimes if they did nothing to guarantee protection from the air.

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Unaoil executives admit paying multimillion-dollar bribes

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Three UK businessmen plead guilty in US to bribing officials in nine countries over 17 years

Three British businessmen have admitted their roles in paying multimillion-dollar bribes to officials in nine countries over 17 years, American prosecutors have said.

Two brothers from the Ahsani family, who ran the energy consultancy Unaoil, have pleaded guilty to facilitating the payment of bribes between 1999 and 2016 to officials in Africa and the Middle East.

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Italy to renew anti-migration deal with Libya

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Foreign minister says deal has reduced number of arrivals and deaths at sea

Italy is to renew its deal with the UN-backed government in Libya under which the Libyan coastguard stops migrant boats at sea and sends their passengers back to the north African country, where aid agencies say they face torture and abuse.

The foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, told the lower house of parliament that it would be “unwise for Italy to break off its agreement with Libya on handling asylum seekers and combating human trafficking”.

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Visual guide to the raid that killed Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi

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Baghdadi died in a US raid on a compound near the village of Barisha in north-west Syria

The US began to receive intelligence on the whereabouts of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi about a month before the 26 October raid, according to Donald Trump. Intelligence officials were able to scope out his exact location – near the village of Barisha in north-west Syria – in mid October.

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Baghdadi raid video released as US general warns of Isis reprisal attacks

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General Kenneth McKenzie says Isis will remain a threat as he shows footage of raid on leader’s Syria hideout

The US military has said it expects a retribution attack in the wake of the killing of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as it released the first footage of the raid by commandos on the Isis leader’s hideout.

The Pentagon showed brief black-and-white aerial footage on Wednesday night of the raid and the subsequent bombing of Baghdadi’s compound in northern Syria.

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Facebook removes Africa accounts linked to Russian troll factory

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Fake networks in eight nations are connected to man allegedly behind disinformation empire

Facebook has taken down accounts linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin – the businessman allegedly behind Russia’s notorious troll factory – which were actively seeking to influence the domestic politics of a range of African countries.

The company said on Wednesday it had suspended three networks of “inauthentic” Russian accounts. The Facebook pages targeted eight countries across the continent: Madagascar, the Central African Republic (CAR), Mozambique, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Sudan and Libya.

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How the US caught up with Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi | podcast

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The Guardian’s Martin Chulov describes how US special forces finally tracked down Baghdadi, who was killed in a raid at the weekend. Plus: Robert Booth on the criticism of the London fire brigade’s response to the Grenfell Tower disaster

US special forces finally caught up with the Islamic State leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, on Saturday at a safe house in the Syrian province of Idlib, one of the few areas of the country still outside regime control. In a night-time raid, Baghdadi detonated a suicide vest and killed himself and three of his children, according to Donald Trump.

The Guardian’s Middle East correspondent, Martin Chulov, has followed the rise and fall of Isis in the past five years from close quarters. He tells Rachel Humphreys what Baghdadi’s death will mean to the terrorist organisation, which has lost almost all the territory it held at its peak.

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The Guardian view on Lebanon and Chile: too little, too late for protesters | Editorial

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Mass unrest has seized both countries. The long-term causes will not be resolved quickly or easily

The events which have brought two countries to the brink were precipitated by apparently small policy shifts that proved emblematic of the ruling elite’s inability to answer or even understand their people’s basic needs while enriching themselves. Chile’s biggest political crisis since the return of democracy almost 30 years ago was triggered by a 3% rise in metro fares, the protests which have engulfed and paralysed Lebanon by a proposed tax on WhatsApp calls. But the underlying causes run far deeper, and have been building for much longer. There is deep anger at political and economic systems that have ignored most of the population.

These countries are, of course, very different. Lebanon has been staggering along for years, due to both political dysfunction and endemic corruption. The central bank governor warns that its economy – long shored up by remittances from overseas – is now days away from collapse. Recently it emerged that, before he became prime minister, Saad Hariri gave $16m to a South African model: a sum encapsulating the gulf between the lives of those at the top and the rest.

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Demonstrators killed in Iraqi holy city as protests gain momentum – video

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At least 18 people were killed and thousands injured in the holy city and pilgrimage site of Kerbala in Iraq, in one of the deadliest single attacks on protesters since anti-government demonstrations erupted earlier this month. Unidentified masked gunmen fired live rounds and teargas at protesters.

Protests that have gripped the country since 1 October were nflamed in the past week as university and high-school students joined demonstrators in Baghdad

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Lebanon PM Saad Hariri resigns amid mass protests

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Hariri says he intends to make ‘positive shock’ to country gripped by anti-government protests

Lebanon’s prime minister, Saad Hariri, has announced his resignation, in a move set to spark more uncertainty in a country paralysed by ongoing political crises and a nationwide protest movement that has risen up in response.

Hariri’s announcement came several hours after large groups of youths overran protest sites in downtown Beirut, ransacking tents and stalls set up by thousands of demonstrators who for the past 13 days have demanded an overhaul of the ruling class and an end to rampant corruption.

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Masked men gun down Iraqi protesters in holy city of Karbala

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At least 18 people killed and hundreds injured as anti-government protests continue

Masked gunmen have opened fire on Iraqi protesters in the Shia holy city of Karbala, killing at least 18 people and wounding hundreds, security officials said, in one of the deadliest single attacks on protesters since anti-government demonstrations erupted earlier this month.

The attack, which happened overnight, came as Iraqis took to the streets for a fifth consecutive day, protesting against corruption, lack of services and other grievances.

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‘They see us as slaves’: Kenyan women head for the Gulf despite abuse fears | Jillian Keenan and Njeri Rugene

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Kenyan government reforms promise to make domestic work safer in a region notorious for labour trafficking – but are they working?

In a busy recruitment agency in Nairobi’s central business district, dozens of women line the halls. All hope that today they will secure a job as a domestic worker in the Gulf states, cooking, cleaning and caring for another family thousands of miles from their own homes.

Pamela Mbogo* is one of them. The 29-year-old has found a job in Saudi Arabia starting next month. It’s not her first time as a domestic worker. On the previous occasion she lived and worked for a family in Bahrain, where she was abused and locked inside the house for days at a time. Yet, this time, Mbogo believes it will be different.

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Germany charges two Syrians with crimes against humanity

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Charges – including 59 counts of murder – linked to UN exhibition of torture photographs in 2015

Germany has charged two alleged former Syrian secret service officers with crimes against humanity, federal prosecutors have announced.

The two men were arrested in the capital, Berlin, and the southern state of Baden-Württemberg in February, in a coordinated operation by German and French police.

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Syrian Kurds say spy stole Baghdadi’s underpants for DNA test

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Syrian Democratic Forces also claim they played a key role in tracking down Baghdadi to a compound in northern Syria

Syrian Kurds say they managed to place a spy in Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s inner circle who stole a pair of the Isis leader’s underpants to prove his identity and then helped guide US soldiers to his Syrian hideout.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) claim they played a key role in tracking down Baghdadi to a compound in northern Syria where he was reportedly planning his escape over the nearby border into Turkey.

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Libya orders arrest of alleged trafficker who attended Italy migration talks

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Arrest warrant issued for Abd al-Rahman Milad, suspected of drowning dozens of people

The UN-backed government in Libya has ordered the arrest of a man described as one of the world’s most notorious human traffickers who was this month revealed to have attended meetings between Italian officials and a Libyan delegation to discuss controls on migration flows from north Africa.

In a note released on Monday by the interior ministry in Tripoli, authorities said Abd al-Rahman Milad, described by the UN security council as a ruthless human trafficker suspected of drowning dozens of people, was “a wanted man and an arrest warrant was issued against him”.

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Pelosi slams Trump for cutting Democrats out of loop on Baghdadi raid

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Top Democrats reacted with anger to Donald Trump’s decision to go ahead with the Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi raid without giving them advance notice, on grounds that they were not to be trusted with such highly sensitive information.

Related: Trump impeachment: Schiff expects battle over key witness John Bolton

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Nowhere left to run: how the US finally caught up with Isis leader Baghdadi

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The hunt for the Islamic State leader had lasted years until Iraqi officials got a break last month

Cornered in a dead-end tunnel, with a robot creeping towards him, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had nowhere left to run. Dogs barked in the darkness, a US soldier called out … and then came the thundering explosion that killed the world’s most wanted man – together with three terrified children he was using as human shields.

The US military finally caught up with the Islamic State leader in a remote hamlet of northwestern Syria, but not before he detonated a suicide vest strapped to his body as special forces troops disgorged from helicopters and crouched near the frugal stone house in which he was hiding.

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Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi killed in US raid – video

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Donald Trump confirmed on Sunday that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in a US special forces raid in the north-west of Syria. According to the president, the Isis leader died 'running into a dead-end tunnel, whimpering and crying and screaming all the way'. Trump made the announcement in Washington hours after tweeting: 'Something very big has just happened!'

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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s death comes as new order takes shape in Middle East

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In aftermath of Isis’s toxic mix of chaos and intolerance, new spheres of influence are being demarcated

Reports of his death had been frequent – and exaggerated. But not this time. Even as US forces were flying to Iraq the remains of the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, who was killed in Syria in the early hours of Saturday, a debate about his legacy was stirring.

For more than five years, Baghdadi, who was known by birth as Ibrahim Awwad Ibrahim Ali al-Badri, was the most wanted man on the planet – a figure who had turned an already potent post-invasion insurgency in Iraq into a formidable terrorist juggernaut that changed the course of history.

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