Category Archives: Middle East and North Africa

Met police kept families of Isis schoolgirls ‘in the dark’

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Shamima Begum and the other Bethnal Green girls who travelled to Syria could have been stopped, their parents say

The families of a group of Bethnal Green schoolgirls who went to Syria to join Islamic State have accused the Metropolitan police of Islamophobia over its handling of their cases.

The relatives – including those of Shamima Begum, the 19-year-old whose UK citizenship was revoked by the home secretary last week – were treated as suspects and were not privy to intelligence that may have prevented three of the eight girls reaching Syria, according to lawyers, a former senior Scotland Yard officer and community sources.

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Where Jesus once preached, the holy waters are draining away

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Climate change and conflict have left the river Jordan a stagnant stream and the Sea of Galilee critically low

If Jesus were alive today, he might reconsider a baptism in the river Jordan; there’s a good chance he’d pick up an eye infection. Faecal bacteria in the pungent, murky waters have risen in recent years to up to six times the recommended levels.

Once a raging torrent, the lower Jordan has been starved of water to become a stagnant stream, filled with sewage and dirty run-off from farms. Around 95% of its historical flow has been diverted by agriculture during the past half-century. And the river’s primary source, the Sea of Galilee – where Christians believe the son of God walked on water – has for years been dammed to prevent its demise.

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Trump’s cronies are in secret talks to sell nuclear tech to Saudi. The risks are clear

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The congressional report on this multibillion-dollar scheme provides further evidence of attempts to monetise the Trump presidency

The idea that the US might sell state-of-the-art nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia, potentially enabling Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s reckless regime to build nuclear weapons, sounds so far-fetched as to be almost grotesque.

After all the near-hysterical American and Israeli warnings about the risk of Iran, the Saudis’ arch-rival, acquiring the bomb, surely even Donald Trump would balk at such breathtaking – and dangerous – hypocrisy?

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Saudi sisters trapped in Hong Kong fear for their lives: ‘We would be executed’ – video

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Two sisters who fled Saudi Arabia and have been in hiding in Hong Kong for nearly six months say they did so to escape beatings at the hands of their brothers and father. The pair say they have renounced their Muslim faith, and that Saudi diplomats intercepted them at the airport in Hong Kong and prevented them from boarding a connecting flight to Australia

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Saudi sisters trapped in Hong Kong fear death penalty if deported

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Pair say they have fled family abuse and will either be killed or made to marry if forcibly returned

Two Saudi sisters trapped in Hong Kong say chronic physical abuse by male family members prompted them to flee the kingdom, where they fear they will be forcibly returned.

The two are the latest example of Saudi women trying to escape from the ultra-conservative kingdom who find themselves dodging officials and angry family.

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State of emergency declared in Sudan by under-fire president

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Clashes between police and protesters break out as Omar al-Bashir announces measures

Sudan’s president, Omar al-Bashir, has appointed a new prime minister, but left the country’s current defence, foreign and justice ministers in place following a declaration of a one-year state of emergency.

Just hours after announcing that he would dissolve the country’s central and state governments, Bashir appointed new state governors who were all from the military, according to a presidency statement.

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Second Briton says he wants to be allowed back to UK from Syria

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Jack Letts left the country a year before Shamima Begum and is suspected of joining Isis

A second Briton who left to go to Syria has said he wants to return to the UK. Jack Letts, who is suspected of joining Islamic State, said he missed Britain, but doubted he would ever be allowed to return.

Letts, 23, who was dubbed “Jihadi Jack” by British media and holds dual nationality through his Canadian father, told ITV News he did not believe either nation would help him because “no one really cares”.

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Hoda Muthana’s father sues in bid to bring his daughter back to US

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Ahmed Ali Muthana files suit after officials said New Jersey-born daughter was not a US citizen and would not be allowed home

The father of an Alabama woman who joined the Islamic State group in Syria is suing to bring her home after the Trump administration took the extraordinary step of declaring that she was not a US citizen.

Hoda Muthana, 24, told the Guardian this week that she regretted leaving the US to join the terrorist group and wants to return from Syria with her 18-month-old son. She has said she is willing to face prosecution in the United States over her incendiary propaganda on behalf of the ruthless but dwindling group.

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Shamima Begum: I am willing to change to keep British citizenship

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Nineteen-year-old who joined Isis asks UK to show ‘a bit more mercy’ in assessing her case

Shamima Begum has said she is “willing to change”, as she issued a plea to the UK government for “mercy” after the home secretary moved to strip her of her British nationality.

The British-born 19-year-old, who travelled from east London to Syria to join Islamic State in 2015, wants to return from Syria because her newborn son is unwell, and she does not wish to allow him to return to the UK alone.

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What is the truth about Shamima Begum’s citizenship status?

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Experts split over whether Sajid Javid’s move to revoke her UK citizenship is legal

According to the UK government, she is no longer a British citizen. The Home Office wrote to Begum’s parents on 19 February saying they had made the order to remove her citizenship that day.

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Shamima Begum’s family hope to bring her baby to UK

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Lawyer for family of 19-year-old who joined Isis in Syria is to ask her consent for plan

The family of Shamima Begum are exploring legal and practical options to bring her baby son to the UK without her while she embarks on the potentially lengthy appeal against the removal of her British citizenship, the Guardian has learned.

The lawyer representing the 19-year-old’s family is planning to travel to the refugee camp in Syria where she is living “as soon as possible” to set in motion the legal appeal process, and to ask her consent to bring her newborn son back to Britain while she awaits a resolution of her legally tangled case.

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The hair-raising hipsters of Baghdad – in pictures

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You see these gravity-defying quiffs everywhere in Iraq’s capital: on reception staff in the secure hotels, on waiters in cafes and on the youths who gather in Zawra amusement park on Friday afternoons. Often teamed with drainpipe trousers and a fitted jacket, the flashy, ostentatious haircut requires care. It says something of the city’s new confidence: a rejection of the long years of sanctions and war

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Endgame for the Isis ‘caliphate’ looms in small Syrian town

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Special forces said to be preparing to storm Baghuz to flush out last Islamic State diehards

They left Baghuz in a convoy of trucks, slowly snaking across the desert as thin trails of black smoke from mortar strikes drifted into the sky behind them.

The Islamic State fighters dangled their legs off the backs of vehicles normally used for transporting sheep. Brightly coloured keffiyehs wrapped around their faces, they stared at Kurdish troops as they passed without saying a word.

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I witnessed the purgatory of people trapped in Syria’s Rukban camp | Marwa Awad

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Constant hunger and thirst haunt those stranded in the desert, where escape means paying vast sums to smugglers

Between the southern border of Syria, Jordan and Iraq lies a stretch of land akin to purgatory. More than 40,000 people are stranded in Rukban, almost 300km from Damascus.

Families here are cut off from the world, facing hunger and lacking healthcare, transport and education.

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Despite the slaughter in Yemen, Britain is still chasing arms sales | Andrew Smith

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Defence contractors are in Abu Dhabi this week for the Middle East’s biggest arms fair – supported to the hilt by UK ministers

A Khaleeji bagpipe band, a colourful aircraft display, a performance by the Armenian Military Orchestra and a big show of support from the Emirate royal families. These were some of the touches at Sunday’s opening ceremony for the International Defence Exhibition and Conference (Idex 2019) in Abu Dhabi, the Middle East’s biggest arms fair.

It’s a decadent and distasteful celebration of militarism and weaponry. Missiles, rifles, tanks, helicopters and warships are on display for anyone that can afford them. More than 100,000 people will attend this week, including representatives from all of the world’s biggest arms companies and military delegates from 57 nations. Among those looking to do business is the UK government, which has sent a team of civil servants to support UK arms company reps in doing as much business as possible. Particularly with the uncertainty of Brexit on the horizon, they will pull out all stops to cement sales.

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Jeremy Hunt urges Germany to rethink Saudi arms sales ban

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UK foreign secretary visits Berlin after raising concerns about impact of moratorium

Jeremy Hunt, the British foreign secretary, will visit Berlin on Wednesday after urging Germany to exempt big defence projects from its efforts to halt arms sales to Saudi Arabia, or face damage to both its economic and European credentials.

Related: UK's arms export supervisor attacks NGOs over Yemen deaths

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Shamima Begum: Isis Briton faces move to revoke citizenship

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Family disappointed at Home Office decision and considering legal position, says lawyer

The family of a teenager who travelled to Syria to join Islamic State has been told the Home Office intends to revoke her British citizenship, according to their lawyer.

Shamima Begum, who left her home in Bethnal Green, east London, at the age of 15, is in a refugee camp in Syria, where she gave birth to a boy at the weekend.

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House investigates ‘White House plan’ to share nuclear technology with Saudis

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Top Trump officials pushed plan to share technology despite objections, according to House oversight committee report

Top White House officials pushed a plan to share nuclear technology with Saudi Arabia, despite objections from career national security staff, according to a new congressional report.

Related: A public holiday and gold-plated gun: Saudi crown prince feted on Asia tour

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Sharm el-Sheikh locals lament ‘wall’ going up around resort

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Project aims to recoup lost tourism income since downing of Russian plane in Sinai

Egyptian authorities have started work on a concrete barrier around the Sinai resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh, which has struggled to attract tourists since a Russian passenger jet crashed in the region shortly after taking off in 2015 in a terrorism-linked attack, killing 224 people.

Related: Egyptian president says Russian plane was deliberately downed

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Syrian Kurdish leader calls for international force to protect Kurds

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Ilham Ahmed says Kurds want observers on the border to ensure Turkey does not attack

The leader of the Syrian Kurds has called for a small international observer force to be stationed on the Turkey-Syria border to protect Kurds from what she says is the threat of crimes against humanity committed by Turkish forces.

Ilham Ahmed is co-chair of the Syrian Democratic Council – the political arm of the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which have been responsible for liberating much of north-eastern Syria from Islamic State.

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