Turkish police said they had arrested a Syrian national who was planning retaliation for New Zealand mosque attack
The Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, has cast doubt on a possible plot to target Anzac Day commemorations at Gallipoli despite the arrest of a man with suspected links to Islamic State by Turkish police.
The suspect, a Syrian national, was arrested after a police operation in Osmaniye and was among several Isis members detained.
Continue reading...Regarding Jeremy Beecham’s thoughts on Roger Waters (Letters, 19 April), I think we can take it as read Waters would not encourage Madonna to support the Assad regime by playing Damascus.
John Warburton
Edinburgh
• You failed to mention the two most important filmed rock concerts (Homecoming review – Beyoncé documentary is a triumphant celebration, 19 April): Monterey Pop and Woodstock. To write about seminal filmed rock gigs without mentioning them is like writing about influential 60s groups without mentioning the Beatles or the Stones.
Jon Ingram
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
New Zealand prime minister unhappy that details of Lousia Akavi’s abduction were made public by the aid agency
The revelation that a New Zealand nurse has been detained in Syria for five years has prompted tensions between the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the New Zealand government, with the prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, criticising the aid agency for releasing details of the woman’s abduction.
On Monday the New York Times, in conjunction with the ICRC, revealed that New Zealander Louisa Akavi, 63, had been abducted along with two Syrian colleagues on 13 October 2013.
Continue reading...Karen Nettleton finally gets the chance to embrace the orphaned children of Khaled Sharrouf
After more than five years of sleepless nights, Australian grandmother Karen Nettleton has finally had a chance to embrace her orphaned grandchildren – the children of Australia’s most notorious Isis terrorist, Khaled Sharrouf.
The emotionally charged moment when Nettleton was reunited with the children in a Syrian refugee camp was broadcast in an ABC TV Four Corners documentary on Monday night.
Continue reading...Aid group publishes open letter to political leaders, asking them to act on their words if elected
Save the Children has called on Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten to publicly commit – if they win the election – to bringing home the children of Australian foreign fighters in Syria.
In a letter published on Saturday, the aid organisation demanded that the major parties pledge to “stop the war on children” and repatriate those who were brought to the Syrian conflict or were born there to Australians who chose to fight with Islamic State.
Continue reading...Trump’s decision to recognise Israeli sovereignty over territory it seized from Syria sets a troubling precedent, experts fear
Under intense questioning about why the Israeli annexation of the Golan Heights was good but the Russian seizure of Crimea was bad, the US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, told senators that there was an “international law doctrine” which would be explained to them later.
It turned out there was no doctrine. The state department’s clarification of Pompeo’s remarks contained no reference to one, and experts on international law said that none exists.
Continue reading...Baghdad in talks with US to receive remnants of terror group held in detention centres in Syria
Baghdad and Washington are in talks to transfer and place on trial tens of thousands of suspected Isis fighters and their families from detention centres in Syria to prison camps in Iraq, with Iraqi officials seeking a multibillion dollar fee to receive remnants of the terror group captured over five years of war.
Discussions about what to do with Isis members, among them thousands of foreign men, women and children, have been pushed intensively by US officials, who have also lobbied coalition partners to remove their citizens from two cramped detention centres in Syria’s north-east, which one former senior US official described as a “volcano”.
Continue reading...The scenes of jubilation on the streets of Algeria on Tuesday night had vivid, almost uncanny echoes of events in the region eight years ago. A wave of protest in a youthful country has ousted an ageing, authoritarian leader who clung to power for years, at the head of a regime perpetuating a clientelist and unequal economy. The ailing 82-year-old president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, finally succumbed after weeks of protests, sparked by the announcement of his candidacy for a fifth term despite reports that he struggled even to speak.
The country’s oil wealth is drying up, reducing the government’s ability to temper popular discontent via state spending; over a quarter of its youth are unemployed; corruption is endemic. But it was the regime’s sheer contempt for its citizens in nominating a man who has barely been seen in public since a 2013 stroke, and the sense of national humiliation, which brought hundreds of thousands on to the streets. Those behind him hope that his departure will allow them to continue as before. Their opponents, now emboldened by victory, demand real change.
Continue reading...Once a magnet for would-be jihadists worldwide, Islamic State’s dominion collapsed amid infighting and paranoia
On a midwinter night in early January, the most wanted man in the world entered a home in a forsaken town near the Syrian border for a rare meeting with his surviving aides.
Continue reading...Kurdish-led group says last of militants cleared from stronghold of Baghuz
After almost five years, the battle to dismantle Islamic State’s brutal “caliphate” has ended with an announcement from US-backed forces that the militants have been driven out of their last stronghold of Baghuz.
Isis had held out for months against the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the small oasis town on the Euphrates river, clinging on to an area of land less than 700 sq metres wide despite fierce coalition bombing. But on Saturday an SDF spokesperson, Mustafa Bali, tweeted that the town had been liberated.
Continue reading...Announcement appeared to catch US allies off-guard as SDF spokesman says its fighters clashed overnight with Islamic State militants
The Trump White House has declared that the Islamic State no longer holds any territory inside Syria, but the claim was disputed by Kurdish-led forces on the ground who said clashes were continuing.
Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, told reporters that the acting defence secretary, Patrick Shanahan, had briefed Donald Trump and that the Pentagon had confirmed that the last vestiges of the Isis “caliphate” had been eliminated.
Continue reading...Russia, Iran and Turkey condemn US president while Syria vows to recapture territory lost in 1967 war
Syria has vowed to retake the Golan Heights as Donald Trump’s call for the US to recognise the occupied territory as part of Israel elicited strong responses from Russia, Turkey and Iran.
The president ended half a century of US foreign policy and broke from post-second world war international consensus that forbids territorial conquest during war with a tweet on Thursday that said it was time “to fully recognise Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights”.
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South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is the latest Democratic presidential hopeful to go on a hiring spree.
The 2020 Democratic candidate has nearly twenty jobs available on his website in five states for aspiring operatives.
In a sign that he may be leaning towards a presidential bid, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan has Iowa in the NCAA championship game, even though the team is a #10 seed. The state has the first in the nation caucuses.
Hogan has his home state Maryland Terps winning it all.
Never say never. pic.twitter.com/MjcIL7d8mE
Continue reading...Donald Trump has announced that the US will recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, captured from Syria in 1967, in a dramatic move likely to bolster Benjamin Netanyahu’s hopes to win re-election, but which will also provoke international opposition.
Previous US administrations have treated Golan Heights as occupied Syrian territory, in line with UN security council resolutions. Trump declared his break with that policy in a tweet.
Continue reading...Aid agencies struggle to cope with rise in new arrivals, with scores dying on the way to the settlements
An estimated 7,000 women and children from more than 40 nations, including the US, UK, Australia and Europe, are living in tense and chaotic conditions in camps in north-eastern Syria, where they are “not wanted” due to their supposed affiliation with Islamic State.
Among them are hundreds of unaccompanied or separated children, some just babies as young as five months, according to aid groups and other sources.
Continue reading...French intervention likely to add weight to criticism of UK’s reluctance to do likewise
France has repatriated five orphaned children of French jihadists from camps in north-east Syria, where a five-year offensive against Islamic State is drawing to a close.
Among the children repatriated were the three sons of a French woman who died under Isis rule. Officials retrieved them from a camp in northern Syria where they were being held with as many as 3,000 other children of Isis families.
Continue reading...Four years ago, Bashir Shikder’s wife Rashida flew from Florida to Syria with the couple’s young children to join Isis, ignoring anguished Bashir’s repeated pleas for her to return home. Now, after hearing news of his wife’s death, and that his children – Yusuf now nine, and Zahra, five – are being held by jihadists in the last corner of the terror group’s lands, Bashir travels to Iraq in the hope of crossing the border into Syria and rescuing them.
Continue reading...In 2012, Eliot Higgins began blogging about the news from his front room in Leicester. Seven years later, his investigative website Bellingcat has been responsible for revealing key aspects of some of the world’s biggest stories. And: Jonathan Freedland on the result of Theresa May’s meaningful vote
Eliot Higgins first became known for his investigations into the Syrian civil war, which he published on his blog Brown Moses. Higgins then went on to found Bellingcat, an investigative website that uses open source tools to expose the truth behind global news stories.
Higgins, who is the subject of a new documentary, tells Anushka Asthana how he and his international team of volunteers have gone about investigating some of the biggest stories of recent times, including the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in Ukraine and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in the UK. He examines the importance of this type of work in an era of fake news and the impact it has had on his professional and personal life.
Continue reading...Direct clashes under way and airstrikes target weapons stores in Baghuz
Airstrikes have targeted Islamic State weapons stores as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) launched an attack against the jihadists’ enclave in Baghuz near the Iraqi border.
An SDF official, Mustafa Bali, said the attack began at 6pm local time and “direct and fierce” clashes were under way.
Continue reading...Reema and Zara Iqbal – whose husbands died fighting for Isis – said to have five children between them
Two more British women who are being held in Syrian camps with their young children have reportedly had their citizenship removed.
The move comes as the home secretary, Sajid Javid, faces increasing criticism over the case of Shamima Begum, the 19-year-old Londoner who was stripped of her British citizenship on his orders, after the death of her three-week-old son.
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