Middle-East
Death toll from sinking of Lebanon migrant boat climbs to 89
Thousands of Palestinians held prayers on a small soccer field in a refugee camp in northern Lebanon on Saturday, to mourn one of the scores of migrants who died after their boat sank off Syria’s coast this week, even as others vowed to undertake the same perilous voyage.
Abdul-Al Abdul-Al, 24, kissed his father goodbye Tuesday before boarding a crowded boat leaving from a nearby town seeking a better life in Europe. It was his 14th attempt to flee the crisis-hit Mediterranean country, this time ending with the return of his dead body. He was to be buried in the camp where he was born, his father, Omar, told The Associated Press during the funeral procession.
The head of al-Basel Hospital in Syria’s coastal city of Tartus said Saturday that the death toll has reached 89, adding that of the 20 others who were receiving treatment at the medical center, six were discharged.
The Lebanese army announced Saturday that troops have detained the man who allegedly organized the deadly trip.
The incident was the deadliest so far as a surging number of Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians have been trying to flee Lebanon by sea to Europe in search of jobs and stability. In Lebanon, tens of thousands have lost their jobs while the the national currency has dropped more than 90% in value, eradicating the purchasing power of thousands of families and pulling three-quarters of the population into poverty.
Alongside 1 million Syrian refugees, the small country of Lebanon is home to tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees and their descendants. Many live in the dozen refugee camps that are scattered around the country. Palestinians suffer wide discrimination in Lebanon where they are deprived from doing specific jobs or own property and since the end of the 1975-90 civil war many have migrated.
After noon prayers were held at Nahr el-Bared, hundreds of people gathered in a yard used to play football where Abdul-Al’s coffin was placed in the middle. Prayers were held before the body was carried to a nearby cemetery where thousands of people had gathered to witness the young man being laid to rest.
Omar Abdul-Al said that his son had tried to leave Lebanon before but did not succeed as sometimes the migrant boats he took had technical problems or faced high seas. Sometimes he had to swim back to shore, the man said.
“We don’t want to live here anymore. We want to leave,” said Omar Abdul-Al, adding that he encouraged his late son to leave and now he is encouraging his four other sons to leave Lebanon. He added that his sons are all well educated but they cannot find jobs.
“We are passing through a severe crisis. There is no medication or bread or anything,” the father said. He added that many other Palestinians were planning to go on the boat but it did not fit more people.
Another relative of Abdul-Al screamed that “there is a disaster in Nahr el-Bared” saying that there are about 30 people missing from the camp who were on the boat. He said people are selling their homes and cars in order to go.
Several others have been buried since Friday.
There were conflicting reports on how many people were on board the boat when it sank, with some saying at least 120. Details about the ship, such as its size and capacity, were also not clear.
In the aftermath of the disaster, the Lebanese army said troops stormed Friday the homes of several suspected smugglers, detaining eight people involved in trafficking people abroad.
Residents in northern Lebanon say that people pay about $6,000 for an adult and $3,000 for a child to reach Europe.
At the morgue, Omar Abdel-Al said he found his son’s body “intact” though it was difficult to identify many of the dozens of other corpses kept there.
“Anyone that comes with a boat, people are ready to go,” he said.
Hijab protests: US takes action to increase Iranians’ access to internet
The United States is stepping up its support for the free flow of information to the Iranian people, according to Deputy Secretary of the Treasury, Wally Adeyemo, as Iranians take to the streets to condemn the killing of Mahsa Amini.
After Ebrahim Raisi’s administration blocked internet access for the majority of Iran, US Treasury Department issued licences on Friday to broaden the selection of internet services available to Iranians, Al Arabiya reports.
Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian women, was taken into custody last week for “improper hijab” and shortly thereafter went into a coma. She passed away on Friday – sparking protests in Iranian streets and on social media.
Read: At least 26 dead from protests in Iran, suggests state TV as violent unrest continues
Foreign diplomats based in Tehran and internet monitoring organizations claim that several regions of the nation have blocked or restricted access to the internet, the Al Arabiya report says.
US Deputy Secretary of Treasury, Wally Adeyemo, was quoted: “As courageous Iranians take to the streets to protest the death of Mahsa Amini, the United States is redoubling its support for the free flow of information to the Iranian people.”
He claimed that the US was assisting Iranians in becoming better armed to thwart efforts by the government to restrict them.
Read: Protests over hijab: Iranians experience near-total internet blackout
The licences, according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, will enable IT companies to offer more digital services to Iranians, such as cloud computing services, to enhance their online security and privacy.
Following the most recent fatal protests and the death of Mahsa Amini, the US issued sanctions against Iran's morality police and six Iranians on Thursday. Iran Human Rights claims that during the protests, Iranian security forces had killed at least 31 citizens (IHR).
77 migrants killed as boat sinks off Syrian coast
At least 77 people were killed when a boat carrying migrants sank off Syria this week, the country’s health minister said Friday, amid fears the death toll could be far higher.
The incident was deadliest so far as a surging number of Lebanese, Syrians, and Palestinians have been trying to flee crisis-hit Lebanon by sea for a better future in Europe. Tens of thousands have lost their jobs while the Lebanese pound has dropped more than 90% in value, eradicating the purchasing power of thousands of families that now live in extreme poverty.
Syrian authorities said victims’ relatives have started crossing from Lebanon into Syria to help identify their loved ones and retrieve their bodies. The vessel left Lebanon on Tuesday and news of what happened first started to emerge on Thursday afternoon. The boat was carrying Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinians.
Syrian state-run TV quoted Health Minister Mohammed Hassan Ghabbash as saying 20 people were rescued and were being treated at al-Basel hospital in Syria’s coastal city of Tartus. He added that medical authorities have been on alert since Thursday afternoon to help in the search operations.
An official at al-Basel, speaking on condition of anonymity under regulations, told The Associated Press that eight of those rescued were in intensive care. The official also confirmed the 77 deaths. There were conflicting reports on how many people were on board the vessel when it sank, with some saying at least 120. Details about the ship, such as its size and capacity, were also not clear.
Lebanese Transport Minister Ali Hamie said the survivors included 12 Syrians, five Lebanese and three Palestinians. Eight bodies have been brought back to Lebanon early Friday, according to Lebanese Interior Minister Bassam Mawlawi.
After sunset Friday, bodies of more victims, including two Palestinians, were brought to Lebanon. They were taken in seven ambulances and headed south from the Arida border crossing toward the northern city of Tripoli.
Read: Border patrol: 9 migrants die crossing swift Texas river
Earlier in the day, Tartus governor Abdul-Halim Khalil told the pro-government Sham FM Radio that the search was underway for more bodies off his country’s coast. Khalil said the boat sank on Wednesday.
Syria’s state news agency, SANA, quoted a port official as saying that 31 bodies were washed ashore while the rest were picked up by Syrian boats in a search operation that started Thursday evening.
Wissam Tellawi, one of the survivors being treated at al-Basel, lost two daughters. His wife and two sons are still missing. The bodies of his daughters, Mae and Maya, were brought to Lebanon early Friday and buried in their northern hometown of Qarqaf.
“He told me by telephone, ‘I am fine’ but the children are lost,” said Tellawi’s father, who identified himself as Abu Mahmoud. The father told the local Al-Jadeed TV that his son gave smugglers the family’s apartment in return for taking him and his family to Europe.
In the aftermath of the disaster, the Lebanese army said troops stormed Friday the homes of several suspected smugglers, detaining four in the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest and most impoverished. Three others were detained in the nearby village of Deir Ammar.
The military said the suspects were involved in smuggling of migrants by sea while others were planning to buy boats for the same reason.
Lebanon,— with a population of 6 million, including 1 million Syrian refugees, has been in the grips of a severe economic meltdown since late 2019 that has pulled over three-quarters of the population into poverty.
For years, it was a country that received refugees from Mideast wars and conflicts but the economic crisis, rooted in decades of corruption and mismanagement, has changed that dramatically.
Read: 7 migrants die, 280 rescued off Italian island of Lampedusa
Prices have been skyrocketing as a result of hyperinflation, forcing many to sell their belongings to pay for smugglers to take them to Europe as the migration intensified in recent months.
In April, a boat carrying dozens of Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians trying to migrate by sea to Italy went down more than 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Tripoli, following a confrontation with the Lebanese navy. Dozens were killed in the incident.
On Wednesday, Lebanese officials said naval forces rescued a boat carrying 55 migrants after it faced technical problems about 11 kilometers (7 miles) off the coast of the northern region of Akkar. It said those rescued included two pregnant women and two children.
At least 26 dead from protests in Iran, suggests state TV as violent unrest continues
Protesters across Iran continued to clash violently with security forces early Friday following the death of a young woman in police custody, as Iranian state TV suggested the death toll from the unrest could be as high as 26, without offering details.
Although the scope of the protests across some dozen Iranian cities and towns remains unclear, the movement represents the widest unrest since 2019, when rights groups said hundreds of people were killed in a violent crackdown. Iran has also disrupted internet access to the outside world, according to internet traffic monitor Netblocks, and tightened restrictions on popular platforms used to organize rallies like Instagram and WhatsApp.
An anchor on state TV said late Thursday that 26 protesters and policemen had been killed since the protests erupted last Saturday after the funeral of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, without elaborating on how authorities reached that figure. He said official statistics would be released later, but in past times of turmoil the Iranian government has not offered official death tolls.
The unrest has killed at least 11 people according to a tally by The Associated Press, based on statements from state-run and semiofficial media. Most recently, the deputy governor of Qazvin, Abolhasan Kabiri, said that a citizen and paramilitary officer had been killed in unrest that rocked two cities in the northwestern province.
The crisis unfolding in Iran began as a public outpouring over the the death of Amini, a young woman from a northwestern Kurdish town who was arrested by the country’s morality police in Tehran last week for allegedly violating its strictly-enforced dress code. The police said she died of a heart attack and was not mistreated, but her family has cast doubt on that account.
Amini's death has sparked sharp condemnation from Western countries and the United Nations, and touched a national nerve. Hundreds of Iranians across at least 13 cities from the capital, Tehran, to Amini's northwest Kurdish hometown of Saqez have poured into the streets, voicing pent-up anger over social and political repression. Authorities have alleged that unnamed foreign countries and opposition groups are trying to foment unrest.
“The death has tapped into broader antigovernment sentiment in the Islamic Republic and especially the frustration of women,” wrote political risk firm Eurasia Group, noting that Iran’s hardliners have intensified their crackdown on women’s clothing over the past year since former judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi became president.
“In the cold calculus of Iranian leaders ... a more forceful response is required to quell the unrest,” the group added.
Videos on social media show protesters in Tehran torching a police car and confronting officers at close range. Elsewhere in the capital, videos show gunfire sounding out as protesters bolt from riot police shouting, “They are shooting at people! Oh my God they're killing people!”
In the northwest city of Neyshabur, protesters cheered over an overturned police car. Footage from Tehran and Mashhad shows women waving their obligatory hijab head coverings in the air like flags while chanting, “Freedom!"
The scenes of women cutting their hair and burning their hijabs feed into a broader political debate over the role of religious strictures in a modern-day republic — questions that have plagued the Islamic Republic since its founding in 1979.
But the protests have also grown into an open challenge to the government. The chants have been scathing, with some calling for the downfall of the ruling clerics. The protesters cry, “Death to the dictator!” and “Mullahs must be gone!”
In a sign of the test that the protest movement posed to the government, hardline groups organized a counter-demonstration in Tehran on Friday. Thousands of women in traditional black chadors and men dressed in the style of the Basij, a volunteer force under the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, poured into the streets after Friday prayers to vent their anger over the unrest, state-run IRNA news agency reported.
“Death to America!”, “Death to Israel!" and “America’s mercenaries are at war with religion!", they chanted.
Iran's intelligence ministry warned citizens against joining “illegal” street rallies on Friday, threatening prosecution. Local officials have announced the arrest of dozens of protesters. Hasan Hosseinpour, deputy police chief in the northern Gilan province, reported 211 people detained on Friday. The government of the western Hamadan province said 58 demonstrators had been arrested.
Tehran University announced that it would move classes online for the next week amid the unrest, the semiofficial Fars news agency reported.
London-based watchdog Amnesty International has accused security forces of beating protesters with batons and firing metal pellets at close range. Videos show police and paramilitary officers using live fire, tear gas and water cannons to disperse the demonstrations.
Iran has grappled with waves of protests in the recent past, mainly over a long-running economic crisis exacerbated by American sanctions linked to its nuclear program. In November 2019, the country saw the deadliest violence since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, as protests erupted over a rise in the state-controlled price of gasoline.
Economic hardship remains a major source of anger today as the prices of basic necessities soar and the Iranian currency declines in value.
The Biden administration and European allies have been working to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, in which Iran curbed its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, but the talks have stalled for months.
Protests over hijab: Iranians experience near-total internet blackout
Iranians experienced a near-total internet blackout on Wednesday amid days of mass protests against the government over the death of a woman held by the country's morality police for allegedly violating its strictly-enforced dress code.
An Iranian official had earlier hinted that such measures might be taken out of security concerns. The loss of connectivity will make it more difficult for people to organize protests and share information about the government's rolling crackdown on dissent.
Iran has seen nationwide protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained for allegedly wearing the mandatory Islamic headscarf too loosely. Demonstrators have clashed with police and called for the downfall of the Islamic Republic itself, even as Iran's President Ebrahim Raisi addressed the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday.
The protests continued for a fifth day on Wednesday, including in the capital, Tehran. Police there fired tear gas at protesters who chanted “death to the dictator,” and “I will kill the one who killed my sister," according to the semiofficial Fars news agency.
London-based rights group Amnesty International said security forces have used batons, birdshot, tear gas, and water cannons to disperse protesters. It reported eight deaths linked to the unrest, including four people killed by security forces. It said hundreds more have been wounded.
Iranian officials have reported three deaths, blaming them on unnamed armed groups.
Witnesses in Iran, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said late Wednesday they could no longer access the internet using mobile devices.
“We’re seeing internet service, including mobile data, being blocked in Iran in the past couple of hours,” Doug Madory, director of internet analysis at Kentik, Inc., a network intelligence company, said late Wednesday.
“This is likely an action by the government given the current situation in the country," he said. “I can confirm a near total collapse of internet connectivity for mobile providers in Iran.”
NetBlocks, a London-based group that monitors internet access, had earlier reported widespread disruptions to both Instagram and WhatsApp.
Facebook parent company Meta, which owns both platforms, said it was aware that Iranians were being denied access to internet services. “We hope their right to be online will be reinstated quickly,” it said in a statement.
Earlier on Wednesday, Iran's Telecommunications Minister Isa Zarepour was quoted by state media as saying that certain restrictions might be imposed “due to security issues," without elaborating.
Iran already blocks Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and YouTube, even though top Iranian officials use public accounts on such platforms. Many Iranians get around the bans using virtual private networks, known as VPNs, and proxies.
In a separate development, several official websites, including those for Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the presidency and the Central Bank, were taken down at least briefly as hackers claimed to have launched a cyberattack on state agencies.
Hackers linked to the shadowy Anonymous movement said they targeted other Iranian state agencies, including state TV.
Central Bank spokesman Mostafa Qamarivafa denied that the bank itself was hacked, saying only that the website was “inaccessible” because of an attack on a server that hosts it, in remarks carried by the official IRNA news agency. The website was later restored.
Iran has been the target of several cyberattacks in recent years, many by hackers expressing criticism of its theocracy. Last year, a cyberattack crippled gas stations across the country, creating long lines of angry motorists unable to get subsidized fuel for days. Messages accompanying the attack appeared to refer to the supreme leader.
Amini's death has sparked protests across the country. The police say she died of a heart attack and was not mistreated, but her family has cast doubt on that account, saying she had no previous heart issues and that they were prevented from seeing her body.
In a phone interview with BBC Persian on Wednesday her father, Amjad Amini, accused authorities of lying about her death. Each time he was asked how he thinks she died, the line was mysteriously cut.
The U.N. human rights office says the morality police have stepped up operations in recent months and resorted to more violent methods, including slapping women, beating them with batons and shoving them into police vehicles.
President Joe Biden, who also spoke at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, voiced support for the protesters, saying "we stand with the brave citizens and the brave women of Iran, who right now are demonstrating to secure their basic rights.”
The U.K. also released a statement Wednesday calling for an investigation into Amini's death and for Iran to “respect the right to peaceful assembly.”
Raisi has called for an investigation into Amini’s death. Iranian officials have blamed the protests on unnamed foreign countries that they say are trying to foment unrest.
Iran has grappled with waves of protests in recent years, mainly over a long-running economic crisis exacerbated by Western sanctions linked to its nuclear program.
The Biden administration and European allies have been working to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear accord, in which Iran curbed its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, but the talks have been deadlocked for months.
In his speech at the U.N., Raisi said Iran is committed to reviving the nuclear agreement but questioned whether it could trust America’s commitment to any accord.
Iran insists its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. It began ramping up its nuclear activities after then-President Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 agreement, and experts say it now likely has enough highly-enriched uranium to make a bomb if it chooses to do so.
Saudi Arabia announces new discovery of gold and copper ore in Madinah
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on Thursday announced the discovery of new sites for gold and copper ore deposits in the Madinah region.
According to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), the Saudi Geological Survey, represented by the Survey and Mineral Exploration Centre, said that the discoveries of gold ore were within the boundaries of Aba Al-Raha, the shield of Umm Al-Barrak Hejaz, in the Madinah region.
Copper ore was also discovered at four sites in the Al-Madiq area in the Wadi Al-Faraa region in Madinah.
These discoveries represent promising potentials for special copper deposits, from the mineral chalcocite (Cu2S), which is scattered, as well as some secondary copper carbonate minerals.
These are added to the list of discoveries during 2022, which will accelerate the pace of mining investment in the Kingdom and thus supporting the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 and the national economy. These discoveries in various locations in Saudi Arabia will contribute to the development of the national economy, with the influx of local and international investors to make investments in the thriving mining sector.
Conservation plan highlights Arabs’ fraught ties to Israel
Ayoub Rumeihat opened his palms to the sky in prayer as he stood among tombstones for Bedouins killed in action while serving the state of Israel.
Finishing the holy words, he gazed at the distant Mediterranean Sea across a valley full of olives and oak where his community has grazed goats for generations.
Rumeihat says the Bedouins, celebrated by the Israeli military for their knowledge of the land, fear the government now seeks to sever their ties to that same piece of earth.
Rumeihat and his fellow Bedouins see a plan to turn their land into a wildlife corridor as an affront to their service to the country. They say it’s in line with steps taken by nationalist Israeli governments against the Arab minority in recent years that have deepened a sense of estrangement and tested the community’s already brittle ties to the state.
The plan has sparked rare protests from Bedouins in Israel’s northern Galilee region — some of the few native Palestinians to embrace early Jewish settlers before Israel’s creation in 1948. Many have since served in the Israeli police and military, often fighting against fellow Palestinians.
“We were with you from the beginning,” said Rumeihat, standing next to a tombstone engraved with a Star of David in honor of a Bedouin tracker likely killed by a Palestinian. “We are like the lemon and the olive trees. How can you uproot us?”
Palestinian citizens of Israel make up 20% of the country’s 9 million people. They have citizenship and can vote, and some reach the highest echelons of government and business. But they have long faced discrimination in housing, jobs and public services and face neglect at the hands of the state. Many Jewish Israelis see them as a fifth column for their solidarity with the Palestinian cause.
Within that same minority are subgroups, like the Bedouins, who have become more embedded in Israeli society through their service in the security forces.
But in recent years, the Bedouins have accused Israel of belittling their service with its policies, particularly a 2018 law that defines the country as the nation state of the Jewish people. Bedouin and Druze Israelis, who both serve in the military, felt the law demoted them to second-class citizens.
The community sees the wildlife corridor as another slight. It will set controls on their grazing and could limit the residents’ housing options in the future.
The Bedouins have started small weekly protests with Jewish supporters in the Galilee and also in Jerusalem, outside the offices of the prime minister and the Nature and Parks Authority.
The 2,600-acre (1,050-hectare) wildlife corridor is meant to allow foxes, quail and other animals to move safely around the urban landscape of Haifa, the country’s third-largest city. The Bedouins call the lush ravines of the area al-Ghaba, or “forest” in Arabic.
Environmentalists say wildlife corridors, which serve as safe migration zones for animals, are an important part of conservation efforts.
Uri Shanas, an ecology professor at the University of Haifa-Oranim, said the corridor was essential because the surrounding area is built up and the animals, especially the endangered mountain gazelle, require the land bridge.
“The only place that it’s still thriving in the world is in Israel and we are obliged to protect it,” he said.
Read: Gaza militants hold parade after latest battle with Israel
Palestinian citizens of Israel have in the past accused Israeli authorities of justifying land seizures under the guise of environmental stewardship. In January, Bedouins in southern Israel staged protests against tree planting by nationalists on disputed land. And advocacy groups say many forests in Israel were planted atop the ruins of Palestinian villages emptied during the events that led to Israel’s creation.
A spokeswoman for the parks authority, Daniela Turgeman, said the corridor plan was crafted with local leaders in the 1980s and surveyed plants and animals. She said that it allows for controlled grazing and said there are only “a few individuals who still have objections.”
The Bedouins object to the plan’s omission of traditional land-use rights and reject any limits on grazing. They claim private ownership of certain parcels and total grazing rights after settling in the area about 100 years ago, buying land, planting olive groves and farms, and building homes.
They also deny there was any prior consultation with the parks authority, which Turgeman said formed the plan after six recent meetings and “a joint tour” with local leaders.
Guy Alon, an official with the parks authority, told Israel’s Channel 13 TV in July that the wildlife corridor would benefit Jews and Arabs while respecting property rights and striking an ecological balance.
For “Bedouins who come and say ‘we want open spaces,’ the nature reserve offers just that,” he said. “Those who ask that we let them graze on the land, we respect that.” he said.
After learning of the plan, three Bedouin villages filed an objection, charging the corridor didn’t take into consideration private Bedouin property. The Haifa district planning committee rejected that objection, and an appeal is now being heard.
“Nature has been used as a political tool before many, many times, so for people there is no trust,” said Myssana Morany, a lawyer with the Arab legal rights group Adalah, which filed the objection on the residents’ behalf.
She said the parks authority has dealt with the Bedouins differently than it has with other citizens, pointing to nearby examples of its plans to integrate nature reserves with existing farms and other types of land use.
Environmental claims ring hollow to villagers who see ongoing construction at nearby Jewish villages as far more ecologically disruptive than grazing goats and olive groves.
Fatima Khaldi, 73, sitting in her large family home in the village of Khawaldeh, said local knowledge will protect the land more than any outside expertise. “Their whole goal is to remove us and destroy our heritage.”
Mustafa Rumeihat, 70, a distant relative of Rumeihat, said he’s worried his grandchildren won’t inherit the family ties to the land.
“I see myself dying of desperation,” he said, shuffling downhill from his pen of two dozen goats. “When my son asks me about the land, I won’t be able to answer him.”
Satellite image: Israel attack damaged Syrian airport runway
An Israeli attack targeting a Syrian airport tore a hole in the runway and also damaged a nearby piece of tarmac and structure on the military side of the airfield, satellite photos analyzed Friday by The Associated Press showed.
The attack Wednesday night on Aleppo International Airport comes as an Israeli strike only months earlier took out the runway at the country's main airport in the capital, Damascus, over Iranian weapons transfers to the country.
The satellite photos taken Thursday by Planet Labs PBC showed vehicles gathered around the site of one of the strikes at the airport, near the western edge of its sole runway. The strike tore a hole through the runway, as well as ignited a grassfire at the airfield.
Just south of the runway damage on the military side of the airport, debris lay scattered after another strike that struck an object on the tarmac and another structure.
Syria, like many Middle East nations, have dual-use airports that include civilian and military sides. Flights at the airport have been disrupted by the attack. Syria's Foreign Ministry late Thursday described the damage from the attack as severe, saying it hit the runway and “completely destroyed the navigational station with its equipment.”
Read:US says airstrikes in Syria intended to send message to Iran
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based opposition war monitor, alleged immediately after the strike that Israel targeted an Iranian missile shipment to the Aleppo airport. Iran, as well as Lebanon's allied Hezbollah militant group, has been crucial to embattled Syrian President Bashar Assad remaining in power since a war began in his country amid the 2011 Arab Spring.
Just before the strike, a transponder on an Antonov An-74 cargo plane flown by Iran's Yas Air sanctioned years earlier by the U.S. Treasury over flying weapons on behalf of the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard briefly pinged near Aleppo, according to flight-tracking data. The altitude and location suggested the plane planned to land in Aleppo.
Cargo aircraft over Syria often don't broadcast their location data, likely due in part to the international sanctions on Assad's government. A phone number listed to Yas Air rang unanswered Friday.
Iran and Syria's missions to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday from The Associated Press. Israel, which has conducted numerous attacks on Syria in its shadow war with Iran in the wider Mideast, has not directly acknowledged Wednesday's strike.
Syria's Foreign Ministry called on the U.N. Security Council to condemn the attacks, saying Damascus holds Israel responsible “for deliberately targeting the international airports of Damascus and Aleppo and for endangering civilian facilities and the lives of civilians.”
The strike comes as tensions across the wider Mideast remain high as negotiations over Iran's tattered nuclear deal with world powers hang in the balance.
Heavy gunfire rocks Iraq's Green Zone amid violent protests
Supporters of an influential Iraqi Shiite cleric fired rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns into Iraq's Green Zone and security forces returned fire Tuesday, a serious escalation of a monthslong political crisis gripping the nation.
The death toll rose to at least 30 people after two days of unrest, officials said.
After cleric Muqtada al-Sadr announced Monday he would resign from politics, his supporters stormed the Green Zone, once the stronghold of the U.S. military that's now home to Iraqi government offices and foreign embassies. At least one country evacuated its embassy amid the chaos.
Iraq’s government has been deadlocked since al-Sadr’s party won the largest share of seats in October parliamentary elections but not enough to secure a majority government — unleashing months of infighting between different Shiite factions. Al-Sadr refused to negotiate with his Iran-backed Shiite rivals, and his withdrawal Monday catapulted Iraq into political uncertainty and volatility with no clear path out.
Iran closed its borders to Iraq on Tuesday — a sign of Tehran’s concern that the chaos could spread, though streets beyond the capital's government quarter largely remained calm. The country's vital oil continued to flow, with global benchmark Brent crude trading slightly down at $103 a barrel.
A day after the stormed the Green Zone, supporters of al-Sadr could be seen on live television firing both heavy machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades into the heavily area through a section of pulled-down concrete walls. Security forces armed with machine guns inside the zone sporadically returned fire.
Some bystanders filmed the gunfight with their mobile phones, though most hid behind still-standing segments of wall, wincing when rounds cracked nearby. As al-Sadr's forces fired, a line of armored tanks stood on the other side of the barriers that surround the Green Zone, though they did not use their heavy guns.
At least one wounded man from al-Sadr's forces was taken away in a three-wheel rickshaw, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry visible in the background. Heavy black smoke at one point rose over the area, visible from kilometers (miles) away.
At least 30 people have been killed and over 400 wounded, two Iraqi medical officials said. The toll included both al-Sadr loyalists killed in protests the day before and clashes overnight. Those figures are expected to rise, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to release the information to journalists.
Members of Iraq's majority Shiite Muslim population were oppressed when Saddam Hussein ruled the country for decades. The 2003 U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam, a Sunni, reversed the political order. Just under two-thirds of Iraq is Shiite, with a third Sunni.
Read:Iran closes border to Iraq, flights stop amid violent unrest
Now, the Shiites are fighting among themselves after the Americans largely withdrew from the nation, with Iranian-backed Shiites and Iraqi-nationalist Shiites jockeying for power, influence and state resources.
It’s an explosive rivalry in a country where many remain way of the Iranian government’s influence even though trade and ties remain strong between its peoples. Iraq and Iran fought a bloody war in the 1980s that saw a million people killed.
Al-Sadr’s nationalist rhetoric and reform agenda resonates powerfully with his supporters, who largely hail from Iraq’s poorest sectors of society and were historically shut out of the political system under Saddam.
Al-Sadr's announcement that he is leaving politics has implicitly given his supporters the freedom to act as they see fit.
Iranian state television cited unrest and a military-imposed curfew in Iraqi cities for the reason for the border closures. It urged Iranians avoid any travel to the neighboring country. The decision came as millions were preparing to visit Iraq for an annual pilgrimage to Shiite sites, and Tehran encouraged any Iranian pilgrims already in Iraq to avoid further travel between cities.
Kuwait, meanwhile, called on its citizens to leave Iraq. The state-run KUNA news agency also encouraged those hoping to travel to Iraq to delay their plans.
The tiny Gulf Arab sheikhdom of Kuwait shares a 254-kilometer- (158-mile-) long border with Iraq.
The Netherlands evacuated its embassy in the Green Zone, Foreign Affairs Minister Wopke Hoekstra tweeted early Tuesday.
“There are firefights around the embassy in Baghdad. Our staff are now working at the German embassy elsewhere in the city,” Hoekstra wrote.
Dubai's long-haul carrier Emirates stopped flights to Baghdad on Tuesday over the ongoing unrest. The carrier said that it was “monitoring the situation closely.” It did not say when flights would resume.
On Monday, protesters loyal to al-Sadr pulled down the cement barriers outside the government palace with ropes and breached the palace gates. Many rushed into the lavish salons and marbled halls of the palace, a key meeting place for Iraqi heads of state and foreign dignitaries.
Iraq’s military announced a nationwide curfew, and the caretaker premier suspended Cabinet sessions in response to the violence.
Iran closes border to Iraq, flights stop amid violent unrest
Iran closed its land borders to Iraq as flights to the country halted Tuesday amid violence in Baghdad following an influential Shiite cleric's announcement he would resign from politics.
The death toll rose to 20 Iraqis on Tuesday after the unrest erupted the previous day, according to a senior medical official.
Iraq's military said four rockets were launched into the heavily fortified Green Zone, the seat of Iraq's government where armed clashes raged overnight between a militia royal to Iraqi cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and Iraqi security forces.
Iranian state television cited “unrests” and “curfew” in Iraqi cities for the reason for the border closures. It urged Iranians avoid any travel to Iraq while urging Iran's Shiite pilgrims in Iraq to avoid further travel between cities.
Also read: Clashes erupt after Iraqi Shiite cleric resigns, 15 dead
The decision came as millions of Iranians were preparing to visit Iraq for annual pilgrimage to Shiite sites.
Kuwait meanwhile has urged its citizens in neighboring Iraq to leave the country. The state-run KUNA news agency also encouraged those hoping to travel to Iraq to delay their plans over the eruption of violent street clashes between rival Shiite groups in the country.
The tiny Gulf Arab sheikhdom of Kuwait shares a 254 kilometer (158 mile)-long border with Iraq.
Dubai's long-haul carrier Emirates stopped flights to Baghdad on Tuesday over the ongoing unrest in Iraq. The carrier said that it was “monitoring the situation closely.”
It did not say whether flights would resume for Wednesday.
Also read: Officials: Landslide at Shiite shrine in Iraq kills 7
Protesters loyal to cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who resigned Monday, pulled down the cement barriers outside the government palace with ropes and breached the palace gates. Many rushed into the lavish salons and marbled halls of the palace, a key meeting place for Iraqi heads of state and foreign dignitaries.
Iraq’s military announced a nationwide curfew, and the caretaker premier suspended Cabinet sessions in response to the violence. Medical officials said dozens of protesters were wounded by gunfire and tear gas and physical altercations with riot police.