Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

‘Now the war is coming to us’: Turkish towns in range of Kurdish shells

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Border residents feel the impact as fighting between Turkish and Kurdish forces escalates

On Wednesday, children in the Turkish town of Akçakale were happy to get a day off from school in honour of the launch of Operation Peace Spring aimed at Kurdish forces over the nearby border with Syria. They ran around the streets singing army songs and waving Turkish flags. “Get out of our way,” tabloid headlines read.

By Thursday the mood had changed drastically. Akçakale’s streets were dark with smoke from mortar and rocket fire after the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched a ferocious counter-attack from Tal Abyad, just over the border.

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Turkish president threatens to send 3.6m refugees to Europe

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Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warns he will ‘open the gates’ if Syria assault is called an ‘occupation’

The Turkish president has threatened to “open the gates” for Syrian refugees in his country to migrate to Europe if the continent’s leaders label Turkey’s military campaign in north-eastern Syria an “occupation”.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned European Union states he would “open the gates and send 3.6 million refugees your way” during a combative speech at a meeting of lawmakers from his Justice and Development (AK) party on Thursday afternoon.

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Italian judges find ‘serious neglect’ in mistaken identity case

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Prosecutors criticised over jailing of Eritrean man wrongly identified as human trafficker

Italian investigators who pursued a case against an Eritrean man accused of being one of the world’s most-wanted human traffickers in a case of mistaken identity were guilty of “serious neglect”, judges in Sicily have said.

In a 400-page judicial report, the court of assizes traced the three-year ordeal of Medhanie Tesfamariam Berhe, a 30-year-old refugee released from an Italian jail in July.

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Syria: Erdoğan’s eyes more likely to be on Putin than Trump

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Russia and Iran have troops in Syria and will see opportunities amid chaos of US impulsiveness

Donald Trump’s decision to give the green light – now seemingly turning amber – for Turkey to enter northern Syria has produced a torrent of criticism from European capitals to Washington Republicans, all pointing out that Ankara’s move will revive Islamic State, cause untold civilian deaths and land the US with an indelible reputation across the Middle East as an unreliable ally.

But the west has been losing traction in Syria over the past two years, and it may be the reaction of Russia and Iran, who have forces on the ground in Syria, that will most concern the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Their reaction may also reveal more about the long-term future of Syria’s eight-year civil war.

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Tens of thousands of civilians flee Turkish offensive in Syria

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Aid workers also join exodus amid warnings that campaign against Kurdish forces will put hundreds of thousands of lives at risk

Tens of thousands of civilians have taken flight in an effort to escape fighting after Turkish troops began a military operation against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, the UN refugee agency has said.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, more than 60,000 people have fled their homes since Wednesday.

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Turkish troops advance into Syria as Trump washes his hands of the Kurds

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  • Civilians flee as airstrikes and artillery hit border region
  • Trump on Kurds: ‘They didn’t help us in Normandy’

Turkish troops have advanced into north-eastern Syria, following airstrikes and artillery barrages aimed at US-backed Kurdish forces who control the region.

The Turkish military confirmed on Wednesday it had “launched the land operation into the east of the Euphrates river” and later said it had hit 181 “militant targets”.

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Explosions hit Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn on Turkish border – video

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There were signs of panic in Ras al-Ayn on Wednesday after Turkish forces launched an offensive into northern Syria. The move was triggered by Donald Trump's announcement that US troops would withdraw from the area, where thousands of captured Isis fighters and their families are held by Kurdish forces

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What is the situation in north-eastern Syria?

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Turkey has begun an offensive in an area controlled by the Kurdish-led SDF

The region makes up more than a quarter of the entire country and is the largest area outside of the control of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, and his allies. Until Turkey launched its latest offensive there on 9 October, it was controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which comprises militia groups representing a range of ethnicities, though its backbone is Kurdish. The Kurds are an ethnic group of about 30 million people spread across the Middle East who have been fighting for their own state for more than a century.

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Erdoğan’s Syrian incursion could be his biggest gamble yet

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Turkey’s president faces some difficult choices after being given green light by the US

For Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, it’s a case of be careful what you wish for. By most accounts, Turkey’s president bamboozled Donald Trump into giving a green light for an invasion of north-east Syria.

Yet now, having got what he wanted, Erdoğan faces some difficult choices. How far to go? Who is the enemy? And how long can such a big operation be sustained? It may be the biggest gamble yet by a politician known for taking risks.

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US ending support for Kurds in Syria will lead to genocide, says protester – video

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Protesters gathered outside the White House in Washington to demand Donald Trump reverse his decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria, warning that Kurds would be targeted in a Turkish offensive. The Turkish government claimed the US president had handed it the lead on the military campaign against Isis, and said its forces would be crossing into Syria 'shortly'

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Trump has handed over Isis fight in Syria, Turkey says, as offensive looms

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Ankara says military will cross border ‘shortly’, and claims US president gave green light, contradicting US denials

The Turkish government claimed that Donald Trump has handed it the leadership of the military campaign against Isis, and warned its forces would be crossing into Syria “shortly”.

Kurdish military leaders inside Syria said they were braced for the invasion and claimed there had been an Isis attack on its former stronghold of Raqqa. But reports from the city suggested the attack had been small scale.

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I thought I’d seen all the horrors possible here in Idlib – until now | Raed Al Saleh

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The terror being unleashed from the sky is the worst it’s ever been in my eight years of leading White Helmet rescue workers

Most of my country is in ruins. But the worst crisis of Syria’s conflict is unfolding now. Beautiful cities have become ghost towns, their inhabitants forced to flee the country or pushed into one of the last remaining areas outside of Assad’s control. More than 3 million people, half of whom are children, are trapped in Idlib, where a tyrant is unleashing horror from the sky. It’s the largest displacement crisis of the 21st century and yet Idlib’s people have been abandoned by the world.

After eight years leading teams of volunteer rescue workers, the White Helmets, I thought I had seen all the horrors possible. But looking at the state of Idlib today, I can honestly say it’s the worst my country has been.

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Donald Trump isolated as Republican allies revolt over US withdrawal from Syria

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Lindsey Graham and Mitch McConnell lead condemnation of foreign policy move that could prove ‘disaster in the making’

Donald Trump was dangerously isolated on Monday as, in a rare rebuke, some of his most loyal allies revolted against his decision to withdraw US troops from north-eastern Syria.

Related: US withdrawal from Syria leaves fate of Isis fighters and families in detention uncertain

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Egypt: children swept up in crackdown on anti-Sisi protests

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Security forces stop minors at checkpoints and check phones for ‘political’ material

More than 100 children are among thousands of people detained in Egypt in an effort to prevent further protests against the rule of Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi.

At least 3,120 people have been arrested since hundreds of people took to the streets on 20 September, according to the Cairo-based NGO the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms. Amnesty International said at least 111 children were arrested in the crackdown, “some as young as 11, with several detained on their way home from school”.

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Spread the word: the Iraqis translating the internet into Arabic

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Ameen al-Jaleeli and a team of student translators are working to empower people with knowledge

When Islamic State overran the Iraqi city of Mosul, human life was not the only thing in peril. Knowledge was, too.

Fortunately, Ameen al-Jaleeli understood this. He used a friend’s wifi to transfer a vast batch of Wikipedia files for offline usage. When the militants cut the cables in July 2016, he was ready.

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‘There will be chaos once again’: Kurds respond to Trump’s Syria decision

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Kurdish-held territories of north-eastern Syria prepare for assault by Turkish forces – and insist they will resist

Across the Kurdish-held territories of north-eastern Syria, people are steeling themselves for a long-threatened assault by Turkish forces – which now seems imminent after Donald Trump withdrew US forces from the area.

The Kurds took advantage of the chaos which has reigned in Syria since 2011, fighting off the Damascus regime to build their own autonomous statelet, known as Rojava.

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Latest betrayal of Kurds risks undermining defeat of Isis

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It is unclear whether Turkey has the will or capacity to take over detention camps

In early 2015, as Islamic State trampled over armies of the Middle East and menaced the west, the US turned to the Kurds for help. It was a familiar call, having been repeated over the decades whenever Washington needed a friend in the region. The outcome has been similar too.

Four years on, the people who helped safeguard the global order have been abandoned by the US on the eve of a Turkish push into Kurdish lands across north-eastern Syria. Betrayal has been an enduring theme whenever the US and the Kurds have partnered, but never before as nakedly as this.

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Sudden deaths of hundreds of migrant workers in Qatar not investigated

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Exclusive: in majority of cases, authorities do not perform postmortems, despite recommendations from regime’s lawyers

Qatar is failing to investigate the sudden deaths of hundreds of migrant works, the Guardian can reveal.

Hundreds of labourers in the World Cup host nation die each year, with the majority of the fatalities attributed to heart attacks or “natural causes” by the Qatari authorities. Many are young men who die in their sleep – a phenomenon locally dubbed “sudden death syndrome”.

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US to let Turkish forces move into Syria, dumping Kurdish allies

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White House reveals policy shift following conversation between Trump and Erdoğan

The White House has given the green light to a Turkish offensive into northern Syria, moving US forces out of the area in an abrupt foreign policy change that will in effect abandon the Kurds, Washington’s longtime military partner.

Kurdish forces have spearheaded the campaign against Islamic State in the region, but the policy swerve, after a phone conversation between Donald Trump and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Sunday, means Turkey would take custody of captured Isis fighters, the White House said.

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Saudi Arabia to allow unmarried foreign couples in hotel rooms

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Kingdom relaxes rules as it turns to tourism to bolster economy for post-oil era

Saudi Arabia has announced it is to allow unmarried foreign couples to rent hotel rooms together as the ultra-conservative kingdom begins offering tourist visas for the first time.

The tourism authority said in a statement on Twitter on Sunday that Saudi women travelling alone would also be able to check into a hotel by presenting valid ID. In the past, couples wanting to stay in a hotel had to prove they were married.

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