middle-east
Fuel tanker explodes in Lebanon, killing 20, wounding dozens
A fuel tanker truck exploded early Sunday in northern Lebanon, killing 20 people and wounding dozens more, the Lebanese Red Cross said. It was not immediately clear what caused the blast.
The Lebanese Red Cross said its teams recovered 20 bodies from the site of the explosion in the village of Tleil and evacuated 79 people who were injured or suffered burns in the blast.
Read:Mired in crises, Lebanon hopes summer arrivals bring relief
Hours after the blast, Lebanese Red Cross members were still searching the area in cease there were more victims as Lebanese soldiers cordoned the area.
Lebanon’s Health Minister Hamad Hassan called on all hospitals in northern Lebanon and the capital, Beirut, to receive those injured by the explosion, adding that the government will pay for their treatment.
Hospitals in northern Lebanon were calling on people to donate blood of all types and local TV stations showed a telephone number for those interested in donating blood to call.
The explosion comes as Lebanon faces a severe fuel shortage that has been blamed on smuggling, hoarding and the cash-strapped government’s inability to secure deliveries of imported fuel.
Tleil is about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Syrian border, but it was not immediately clear if the fuel in the tanker was being prepared to be smuggled to Syria. where prices are much higher compared to those in Lebanon.
Read:'No Sweets': For Syrian refugees in Lebanon, a tough Ramadan
The fuel crisis deteriorated dramatically this week after the central bank decided to end subsidies for fuel products — a decision that will likely lead to price hikes of almost all commodities in Lebanon, already in the throes of soaring poverty and hyperinflation.
On Saturday, Lebanese troops deployed to petrol stations, forcing owners to sell fuel to customers. Some gas station owners have been refusing to sell, waiting to make gains when prices increase with the end of subsidies.
The Lebanese army also has been cracking down on smugglers active along the Syrian border, confiscating thousands of liters of gasoline over the past days.
Lebanon’s consumption of diesel increased sharply over the past few months amid severe power cuts for much of the day that increased people’s reliance on private generators.
Read:3rd Lebanon Cabinet member resigns over Beirut blast
Lebanon has for decades suffered electricity cuts, partly because of widespread corruption and mismanagement in the small Mediterranean nation of 6 million, including 1 million Syrian refugees.
Sunday’s explosion was the deadliest in the country since an Aug. 4, 2020, blast at Beirut’s port killed at least 214, wounded thousands and destroyed parts of the capital.
Taliban sweep across Afghanistan's south, take 4 more cities
The Taliban completed their sweep of Afghanistan’s south on Friday, taking four more provincial capitals in a lightning offensive that brought them closer to Kabul just weeks before the U.S. is set to officially end its two-decade war.
In the last 24 hours, the country’s second- and third-largest cities — Herat in the west and Kandahar in the south — have fallen to the insurgents, as has the capital of the southern province of Helmand, where American, British and NATO forces fought some of the bloodiest battles of the conflict.
The blitz through the Taliban’s southern heartland means the insurgents now hold half of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals and control more than two-thirds of the country. The Western-backed government in the capital, Kabul, still holds a smattering of provinces in the center and east, as well as the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
While Kabul is not directly under threat yet, the resurgent Taliban were battling government forces in Logar province, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the capital. The U.S. military has estimated that Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days and that the Taliban could overrun the rest of the country within a few months. They have already taken over much of the north and west of the country.
READ: Taliban press advance after capturing 2 major Afghan cities
The Taliban captured Lashkar Gah following weeks of heavy fighting and raised their white flag over governmental buildings, said Attaullah Afghan, the head of the provincial council in Helmand. He said that three army bases outside of the city remain under government control.
In Tirin Kot, the capital of the southern Uruzgan province, Taliban fighters paraded through a main square, driving a Humvee and a pickup seized from Afghan forces. Local officials confirmed that the Taliban also captured the capitals of Zabul province in the south and Ghor in the west.
With security rapidly deteriorating, the United States planned to send in 3,000 troops to help evacuate some personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Britain and Canada are also sending forces to aid their evacuations. Denmark said it will temporarily close its embassy, while Germany is reducing its embassy staff to the “absolute minimum.”
The United Nations chief urged the Taliban to immediately halt the offensive and negotiate “in good faith” to avert a prolonged civil war. In his strongest appeal to the Islamic militant group, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply disturbed” by indications that the Taliban were “imposing severe restrictions in the areas under their control, particularly targeting women and journalists.”
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have fled their homes amid fears the Taliban will return the country to the sort of brutal, repressive rule it imposed when it was last in power at the turn of the millennium. At that time, the group all but eliminated women’s rights and conducted public executions as it imposed an unsparing version of Islamic law. An early sign of such tactics came in Herat, where insurgents paraded two alleged looters through the streets on Friday with black makeup smeared on their faces.
There are also concerns that the fighting could plunge the country into civil war, which is what happened after the Soviets withdrew in 1989.
“We are worried. There is fighting everywhere in Afghanistan. The provinces are falling day by day,” said Ahmad Sakhi, a resident of Kabul. “The government should do something. The people are facing lots of problems.”
The U.N. refugee agency said nearly 250,000 Afghans have been forced to flee their homes since the end of May, and 80% of those displaced are women and children. In all, the agency said, some 400,000 civilians have been displaced since the beginning of the year, joining millions who have fled previous rounds of fighting in recent decades.
Peace talks in Qatar between the Taliban and the government remain stalled, though diplomats are still meeting, as the U.S., European and Asian nations warned that battlefield gains would not lead to political recognition.
“We demand an immediate end to attacks against cities, urge a political settlement, and warn that a government imposed by force will be a pariah state,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy to the talks.
But the Taliban advance continued.
Fighting was still underway inside Puli-e Alim, with government forces holding the police headquarters and other security facilities, said Hasibullah Stanikzai, the head of the Logar provincial council. He spoke by phone from his office, and gunfire could be heard in the background. The Taliban, however, said they had captured the police headquarters and a nearby prison.
The onslaught represents a stunning collapse of Afghan forces after the United States spent nearly two decades and $830 billion trying to establish a functioning state. U.S. forces toppled the Taliban in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which al-Qaida planned and executed while being sheltered by the Taliban government.
With only weeks remaining before the U.S. plans to withdraw its last troops, the fighters now advancing across the country ride on American-made Humvees and carry M-16s pilfered from Afghan forces.
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Afghan army has rotted from within due to corruption and mismanagement, leaving troops in the field poorly equipped and with little motivation to fight. The Taliban, meanwhile, have spent a decade taking control of large swaths of the countryside.
That allowed them to rapidly seize key infrastructure and urban areas once President Joe Biden announced the timeline for the U.S. withdrawal, saying he was determined to end America’s longest war.
“Whatever forces are left or remaining that are in the Kabul area and the provinces around them, they’re going to be used for the defense of Kabul,” Roggio said. “Unless something dramatically changes, and I don’t see how that’s possible, these provinces (that have fallen) will remain under Taliban control.”
READ: Taliban take 10th Afghan provincial capital in blitz
A day earlier, in Herat, Taliban fighters rushed past the Great Mosque in the historic city — a structure that dates to 500 BC and was once a spoil of Alexander the Great — and seized government buildings. Herat had been under militant attack for two weeks.
In Kandahar, insurgents seized the governor’s office and other buildings, and officials fled, witnesses said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the defeat has yet to be acknowledged by the government, which has not commented on the latest advances.
Civilians were likely wounded and killed in airstrikes, Nasima Niazi, a lawmaker from Helmand, said Thursday. U.S. Central Command has acknowledged carrying out several strikes in recent days, without providing details.
Meanwhile in neighboring Pakistan, the country’s national security adviser urged Afghan leaders to seek a negotiated settlement with the Taliban to avoid further violence. Moeed Yusuf made the appeal Friday while speaking to reporters in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.
Taliban sweep across Afghanistan’s south; take 4 more cities
The Taliban completed their sweep of the country’s south on Friday as they took four more provincial capitals in a lightning offensive that brought them closer to Kabul, just weeks before the U.S. is set to officially end its two-decade war.
In just the last 24 hours, the country’s second- and third-largest cities — Herat in the west and Kandahar in the south — have fallen to the insurgents as has the capital of the southern province of Helmand, where American, British and NATO forces fought some of the bloodiest battles of the conflict.
The blitz through the Taliban’s southern heartland means the insurgents now hold half of Afghanistan’s 34 provincial capitals and control more than two-thirds of the country — weeks before the U.S. plans to withdraw its last troops. The Western-backed government in the capital, Kabul, still holds a smattering of provinces in the center and east, as well as the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
While Kabul isn’t directly under threat yet, the resurgent Taliban were battling government forces in Logar province, some 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the capital. The U.S. military has estimated that Kabul could come under insurgent pressure within 30 days and that the Taliban could overrun the rest of the country within a few months. They have already taken over much of the north and west of the country.
In the south, the insurgents swept through three provincial capitals on Friday.
Attaullah Afghan, the head of the provincial council in Helmand, said that the Taliban captured Lashkar Gah following weeks of heavy fighting and raised their white flag over governmental buildings. He said that three national army bases outside of the city remain under control of the government.
Atta Jan Haqbayan, the provincial council chief in Zabul province, said the local capital of Qalat fell and that officials were in a nearby army camp preparing to leave.
Bismillah Jan Mohammad and Qudratullah Rahimi, lawmakers from Uruzgan province, said local officials surrendered Tirin Kot. Taliban fighters paraded through a main square there, driving a Humvee and a pickup seized from Afghan security forces.
In the country’s west, meanwhile, Fazil Haq Ehsan, head of the provincial council in Ghor province, said its capital, Feroz Koh, also fell to the insurgents.
With security rapidly deteriorating, the United States planned to send in 3,000 troops to help evacuate some personnel from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. Britain and Canada are also sending forces to aid their evacuations. Denmark said it will temporarily close its embassy in Kabul, while Germany is reducing its embassy staff to the “absolute minimum.”
READ: Taliban press advance after capturing 2 major Afghan cities
Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have fled their homes amid fears the Taliban will return the country to the sort of brutal, repressive rule it imposed when it was last in power at the turn of the millennium. At that time, the group all but eliminated women’s rights and conducted public executions as it imposed an unsparing version of Islamic law. An early sign of such tactics came in Herat, where insurgents paraded two alleged looters through the streets on Friday with black makeup smeared on their faces.
There are also concerns that the fighting could plunge the country into civil war, which is what happened after the Soviets withdrew in 1989.
“We are worried. There is fighting everywhere in Afghanistan, the provinces are falling day by day,” said Ahmad Sakhi, a resident of Kabul. “The government should do something, the people are facing lots of problems.”
The U.N. refugee agency said nearly 250,000 Afghans have been forced to flee their homes since the end of May, and that 80% of those displaced are women and children. It says some 400,000 civilians have been displaced since the beginning of the year, joining millions who have fled previous rounds of fighting in recent decades.
Peace talks in Qatar between the Taliban and the government remain stalled, though diplomats are still meeting, as the U.S., European and Asian nations warned that battlefield gains would not lead to political recognition.
“We demand an immediate end to attacks against cities, urge a political settlement, and warn that a government imposed by force will be a pariah state,” said Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy to the talks.
But the Taliban advance continued.
READ: Taliban take 10th Afghan provincial capital in blitz
Hasibullah Stanikzai, the head of the Logar provincial council, said fighting was still underway inside Puli-e Alim, with government forces holding the police headquarters and other security facilities. He spoke by phone from his office, and gunfire could be heard in the background. The Taliban, however, said they had captured the police headquarters and a nearby prison.
The onslaught represents a stunning collapse of Afghan forces after the United States spent nearly two decades and $830 billion trying to establish a functioning state. U.S. forces toppled the Taliban in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, which al-Qaida planned and executed while being sheltered by the Taliban government. The fighters now advancing across the country ride on American-made Humvees and carry M-16s pilfered from Afghan forces.
Bill Roggio, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said the Afghan army has rotted from within due to corruption and mismanagement, leaving troops in the field poorly equipped and with little motivation to fight. The Taliban, meanwhile, have spent a decade taking control of large swaths of the countryside.
That allowed them to rapidly seize key infrastructure and urban areas once President Joe Biden announced the timeline for the U.S. withdrawal, saying he was determined to end America’s longest war.
“Whatever forces are left or remaining that are in the Kabul area and the provinces around them, they’re going to be used for the defense of Kabul,” Roggio said. “Unless something dramatically changes, and I don’t see how that’s possible, these provinces (that have fallen) will remain under Taliban control.”
A day earlier, in Herat, Taliban fighters rushed past the Great Mosque in the historic city — a structure that dates to 500 BC and was once a spoil of Alexander the Great — and seized government buildings.
Herat had been under militant attack for two weeks, with one wave blunted by the arrival of warlord Ismail Khan and his forces. But on Thursday afternoon, Taliban fighters broke through the city’s defensive lines.
READ: US keeping distance as Afghan forces face Taliban rout
The insurgents circulated photos and a video showing Khan in their captivity as well as video footage that appeared to show captured military helicopters.
In Kandahar, insurgents seized the governor’s office and other buildings, witnesses said, adding that the governor and other officials fled the onslaught. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the defeat has yet to be acknowledged by the government, which has not commented on the latest advances.
The Taliban had earlier attacked a prison in Kandahar and freed inmates inside, officials said.
On Thursday, Nasima Niazi, a lawmaker from Helmand, said civilians likely had been wounded and killed in airstrikes. U.S. Central Command has acknowledged carrying out several strikes in recent days, without providing details or commenting on the concerns over civilian casualties.
Pakistan, meanwhile, opened its Chaman border crossing for people who had been stranded in recent weeks. Juma Khan, the Pakistan border town’s deputy commissioner, said the crossing was reopened following talks with the Taliban.
US vows to isolate Taliban if they take power by force
A U.S. peace envoy brought a warning to the Taliban on Tuesday that any government that comes to power through force in Afghanistan won’t be recognized internationally after a series of cities fell to the insurgent group in stunningly quick succession.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy, traveled to Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban maintain a political office, to tell the group that there was no point in pursuing victory on the battlefield because a military takeover of the capital of Kabul would guarantee they would be global pariahs. He and others hope to persuade Taliban leaders to return to peace talks with the Afghan government as American and NATO forces finish their pullout from the country.
The insurgents have captured six out of 34 provincial capitals in the country in less than a week, including Kunduz in Kunduz province — one of the country’s largest cities. On Sunday, they planted their flag in the main square, but government forces still controlled the strategic airport and an army base on the city’s outskirts.
READ: Senior photojournalist Lutfur Rahman Binu passes away
They are now battling the Western-backed government for control of several others. Late on Tuesday, Taliban forces entered Farah and were seen in front to the provincial governor’s office.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed tweeted the insurgents had taken the city, which is the capital of a province with the same name. But Abdul Naser Farahi — a lawmaker from the area who is in Kabul — said the government still retained control of the intelligence department and a military base.
After a 20-year Western military mission and billions of dollars spent training and shoring up Afghan forces, many are at odds to explain why the regular forces have collapsed, fleeing the battle sometimes by the hundreds. The fighting has fallen largely to small groups of elite forces and the Afghan air force.
The success of the Taliban blitz has added urgency to the need to restart the long-stalled talks that could end the fighting and move Afghanistan toward an inclusive interim administration. The insurgents have so far refused to return to the negotiating table.
Khalilzad’s mission in Qatar is to “help formulate a joint international response to the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan,” according to the U.S. State Department.
He plans to “press the Taliban to stop their military offensive and to negotiate a political settlement, which is the only path to stability and development in Afghanistan,” the State Department said.
Meanwhile, the Taliban military chief released an audio message to his fighters on Tuesday, ordering them not to harm Afghan forces and government officials in territories they conquer. The recording was shared on Twitter by the Taliban spokesman in Doha, Mohammad Naim.
In the nearly five-minute audio, Mohammad Yaqoob, the son of late Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, also told the insurgents to stay out of abandoned homes of government and security officials who have fled, leave marketplaces open and protect places of business, including banks.
READ: Taliban press on, take another Afghan provincial capital
It was not immediately clear if Taliban fighters on the ground would heed Yaqoob’s instructions. Some civilians who have fled Taliban advances have said that the insurgents imposed repressive restrictions on women and burned down schools. The office of the U.N. human rights chief said it has received reports of summary executions and military use and destruction of homes, schools and clinics in captured areas.There have also been reports of revenge killings. The insurgents have claimed responsibility for killing a comedian in southern Kandahar, assassinating the government’s media chief in Kabul and a bombing that targeted acting Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi, killing eight and wounding more. The minister was not harmed.
The intensifying war has driven thousands of people to Kabul, where many are living in parks. The fighting has also increased the number of civilian casualties.
The U.N. human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, said Tuesday that her office had counted at least 183 deaths and hundreds of injuries among civilians in a handful of cities in recent weeks – but cautioned that “the real figures will be much higher.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross said that its staff has treated more than 4,000 Afghans this month in their 15 facilities across the country, including in Helmand and Kandahar, where Afghan and U.S. airstrikes are trying to rein in the Taliban onslaught.
“We are seeing homes destroyed, medical staff and patients put at tremendous risk, and hospitals, electricity and water infrastructure damaged,” Eloi Fillion, ICRC’s head of delegation in Afghanistan, said in a statement. “The use of explosive weaponry in cities is having an indiscriminate impact on the population.”
The surge in Taliban attacks began in April, when the U.S. and NATO announced they would end their military presence and bring the last of their troops home. The final date of the withdrawal is Aug. 31, but the U.S. Central Command has said the pullout is already 95% complete.
On Monday, the U.S. emphasized that the Biden administration now sees the fight as one for Afghan political and military leaders to win or lose — and showed no sign of stepping up airstrikes despite the Taliban gains.
Khalilzad, the architect of the peace deal the Trump administration brokered with the Taliban, was expected to hold talks with key regional players and will likely seek a commitment from Afghanistan’s neighbors and other counties in the region not to recognize a Taliban government that comes to power by force. When the Taliban last ran Afghanistan, three countries recognized their rule: Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Senior Afghan officials have also travelled to Doha, including Abdullah Abdullah, who heads the government’s reconciliation council. Pakistan’s national security adviser, Moeed Yusuf, on Monday called for “reinvigorated” efforts to get all sides in the conflict back to talks, describing a protracted war in Afghanistan as a “nightmare scenario” for Pakistan.
Yusuf refused to definitively say whether Pakistan, which holds considerable sway over the Taliban, would recognize a Taliban government installed by force, saying instead that Pakistan wants to see an “inclusive” government in Kabul.
Saudi Arabia opens Umrah pilgrimage to vaccinated worshipers from abroad
After about a year and a half of not receiving overseas worshippers due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Saudi Arabia will gradually begin receiving Umrah pilgrimage requests from abroad for vaccinated pilgrims starting Monday.
With a capacity that would rise to 2 million pilgrims from 60,000 pilgrims per month, Islam's two holiest sites Mecca and Medina will start welcoming visitors from abroad to their mosques while maintaining Covid-19 precautionary measures, Saudi Press Agency reported Sunday.
Domestic and overseas pilgrims will have to submit authorised Covid-19 vaccination certificates along with their Umrah request, an official of the Hajj and Umrah ministry said.
Vaccinated pilgrims from countries, which are on Saudi Arabia's entry-ban list, will have to undergo institutional quarantine upon arrival, the official added.
On July 25, Saudi Arabia said it would allow pilgrims living outside the country to undertake the Umrah pilgrimage starting August 10.
Read: International Umrah pilgrimage resumes on August 10
However, Umrah for Saudi citizens and residents in the Kingdom restarted that day.
In early July, the Ministry of Hajj and Umrah stopped receiving applications for Umrah to prepare for Hajj, which began on the 17th of the month.
As Saudi Arabia announced the resumption of Umrah service for pilgrims worldwide from 1st Muharram 1443 after the end of the Hajj season, all countries were allowed to send direct flights except for nine.
Pilgrims from India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Turkey, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and Lebanon would need to undergo a quarantine of 14 days in a third country before arriving in the Kingdom, the authorities said.
Read: Pilgrims return to Mecca for ‘umrah’ after 7 months
Also, it was made mandatory to be vaccinated against Covid-19 with complete doses of either Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or J&J; complete doses of China's vaccines with a booster shot of either Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or J&J.
Umrah is a voluntary Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina undertaken any time of the year. In February last year, it was suspended over fears of the Covid-19 outbreak.
However, the Kingdom reopened Muslim holy sites for Umrah after a six-month pause in October same year for domestic worshippers.
Iranians fear new bill will restrict internet even further
For Ali Hedieloo, a 40-year-old making wooden furniture in Iran’s capital, Instagram is more than just a surfeit of glossy images. Like an estimated 1 million other Iranians, it’s how he finds customers, as the app has exploded into a massive e-commerce service in the sanctions-hit country.
But now, the social media platform has come under threat. Iran moved last week toward further government restrictions on Instagram and other apps, as hard-line lawmakers agreed to discuss a bill that many fear will undermine communication, wipe out livelihoods and open the door to the banning of key social media tools.
“I and the people working here are likely to lose our jobs if this bill becomes effective,” said Hedieloo from his dimly lit workshop in the southern suburbs of Tehran, where he sands bleached wood and snaps photos of adorned desks to advertise.
Read: Desperate for vaccines amid surge, Iranians flock to Armenia
The bill has yet to be approved by Iran’s hard-liner dominated parliament, but it is already stirring anxiety among young Iranians, avid social media users, online business owners and entrepreneurs. Iran is a country with some 94 million internet devices in use among its over 80 million people. Nearly 70% of Iran’s population uses smartphones.
Over 900,000 Iranians have signed a petition opposing the bill. The protest comes at a tense time for Iran, with Ebrahim Raisi, the former judiciary chief and hard-line protege of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, assuming the country’s highest civilian position this week. Journalists, civil society advocates and government critics have raised the alarm about the possible increase of social repression once he takes office.
The draft legislation, first proposed this spring by conservative lawmakers, requires major foreign tech giants such as Facebook to register with the Iranian government and be subject to its oversight and data ownership rules.
Companies that host unregistered social media apps in Iran would risk penalties, with authorities empowered to slow down access to the companies’ services as a way to force them to comply. Lawmakers have noted that the crippling U.S. sanctions on Iran make the registration of American tech companies in the country impossible, effectively ensuring their ban.
The law would also criminalize the sale and distribution of virtual private networks and proxies — a critical way Iranians access long-blocked social media platforms like Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and YouTube. It also would bar government officials from running accounts on banned social media platforms, which they now use to communicate with citizens and the press. Even the office of the supreme leader has a Twitter account with over 890,000 followers.
And finally, the bill takes control of the internet away from the civilian government and places it under the armed forces.
The bill’s goal, according to its authors, is to “protect users and their rights.” Hard-liners in the government have long viewed social messaging and media services as part of a “soft war” by the West against the Islamic Republic. Over time, Iran has created what some have called the “halal” internet — the Islamic Republic’s own locally controlled version of the internet aimed at restricting what the public can see.
Supporters of the bill, such as hard-line lawmaker Ali Yazdikhah, have hailed it as a step toward an independent Iranian internet, where “people will start to prefer locally developed services” over foreign companies.
Read: Drone attacks by Iraqi militias reflect Iran’s waning hold
“There is no reason to worry, online businesses will stay, and even we promise that they will expand too,” he said.
Internet advocates, however, fear the measures will tip the country toward an even more tightly controlled model like China, whose “Great Firewall” blocks access to thousands of foreign websites and slows others.
Iran’s outgoing Information Technology Minister Mohammad Javad Azari Jahromi, whom the hard-line judiciary summoned for prosecution earlier this year over his refusal to block Instagram, warned that the bill would curtail access to information and lead to full-blown bans of popular messaging apps. In a letter to Raisi last month, he urged the president-elect to reconsider the bill.
Facebook, which owns Instagram, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Social media is a highly contested space in Iran, where the government retains tight control over newspapers and remains the only entity allowed to broadcast on television and radio. Over recent years, anti-government protesters have used social media as a communication tool to mobilize and spread their message, prompting authorities to cripple internet services.
During the turmoil in the fall of 2019, for instance, the government imposed a near-complete internet blackout. Even scattered demonstrations, such as the recent protests over water shortages in Iran’s southwest, have seen disruptions of mobile internet service.
But many ordinary Iranians, reeling from harsh American sanctions that have severed access to international banking systems and triggered runaway inflation, remain more preoccupied with the bill’s potential financial fallout.
As the coronavirus ravages Iran, a growing number of people like Hedieloo have turned to Instagram to make a living — tutoring and selling homemade goods and art. Over 190,000 businesses moved online over the past year.
Read:US takes down Iran-linked news sites, alleges disinformation
Although much about the bill’s fate remains uncertain, experts say it already has sent a chill through commerce on Instagram, where once-hopeful users now doubt they have a future on the app.
“I and everyone else who is working in cyberspace is worried,” said Milad Nouri, a software developer and technology analyst. “This includes a teenager playing online games, a YouTuber making money from their channel, an influencer, an online shop based on Instagram.”
He added: “Everyone is somehow stressed.”
British navy group: Hijackers have left vessel off UAE coast
The hijackers who seized a vessel off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf of Oman left the targeted ship on Wednesday, the British navy reported, without elaborating.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations reported that the incident, which it had described as a “potential hijack” the night before, was now “complete.” It did not provide further details.
Read:British navy group: ‘Potential hijack’ of ship off UAE coast
“The vessel is safe,” the group said, without identifying the ship. Shipping authority Lloyd’s List and maritime intelligence firm Dryad Global both named the hijacked vessel as Panama-flagged asphalt tanker Asphalt Princess. The vessel’s owner, listed as Emirati free zone-based Glory International, could not immediately be reached for comment.
Satellite-tracking data for the Asphalt Princess had showed it gradually heading toward Iranian waters off the port of Jask early Wednesday, according to MarineTraffic.com. Later, however, it stopped and changed course toward Oman, just before the British navy group announced the intruders had left.
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the attempted ship hijack, which unfolded amid heightened tensions between Iran and the West over Tehran’s tattered 2015 nuclear deal with world powers. Over the past few years, commercial shipping in vital Persian Gulf waterways has increasingly been caught in the crosshairs.
Most recently, the U.S., the U.K. and Israel have blamed Iran for a drone attack on an oil tanker linked to an Israeli billionaire off the coast of Oman that killed two people. The raid marked the first known fatal assault in the shadow war targeting vessels in Mideast waters. Iran has denied involvement.
Apparently responding to Tuesday’s ship seizure, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh described the recent maritime attacks in the Persian Gulf as “completely suspicious.” He denied that Iran played any role.
Read:India to maintain warships in Gulf zone to aid merchant ship
The U.S. military’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet and the British Defense Ministry did not return calls for comment about the reported hijack. The Emirati government did not immediately acknowledge the incident.
Late on Tuesday, as the reported hijack was underway, six oil tankers off the coast of Fujairah announced around the same time via their Automatic Identification System trackers that they were “not under command,” according to MarineTraffic.com. That typically means a vessel has lost power and can no longer steer.
The Gulf of Oman is near the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf through which a fifth of all oil passes. Fujairah, on the UAE’s eastern coast, is a main port in the region for ships to take on new oil cargo, pick up supplies or trade out crew.
For the past two years, after then-President Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from Iran’s nuclear deal and imposed crushing sanctions on the country, the waters off Fujairah have seen a series of explosions and hijackings. The U.S. Navy blamed Iran for a series of limpet mine attacks on vessels that damaged tankers.
In the summer of 2019, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard troops detained a British-flagged tanker, the Stena Impero, near the Strait of Hormuz — a raid that came after Britain seized an Iranian tanker off the coast of Gibraltar on suspicion the ship had been headed to Syria in violation of European Union sanctions.
Read:Data recovered as ship with chemicals sinking off Sri Lanka
Last year, an oil tanker sought by the U.S. for allegedly circumventing sanctions on Iran was hijacked off the Emirati coast and later ended up in Iran, though Tehran never acknowledged the incident.
And in January, armed Iranian Revolutionary Guard troops stormed a South Korean tanker and forced the ship to change course and travel to Iran. While Iran claimed it detained the ship over pollution concerns, it appeared to link the seizure to negotiations over billions of dollars in Iranian assets frozen in South Korean banks.
Taliban take much of provincial capital in south Afghanistan
The Taliban pressed ahead with their advances in southern Afghanistan on Tuesday, capturing nine out of 10 districts of the Helmand provincial capital, residents and officials said. Afghan government forces launched airstrikes, backed by the U.S., in a desperate effort to defend the city of Lashkar Gah.
The fall of Lashkar Gah would be a major turning point in the offensive the Taliban have waged over the past months as U.S. and NATO forces complete their pullout from the war-torn country. It would also be the first provincial capital captured by the Taliban in years.
Residents of the city, speaking to The Associated Press over the telephone, said the fighting has them trapped, hunkered down inside their homes and unable to step out for basic supplies. They said Taliban fighters were out openly in the streets, and that all but one Lashkar Gah district was under Taliban control.
READ: To reach a peace deal, Taliban say Afghan president must go
Elite commando units were dispatched from Kabul to aid Afghan forces as the government held on to key government buildings, including the local police and army headquarters.
Majid Akhund, deputy chairman of the Helmand provincial council, confirmed that the Taliban control nine Lashkar Gah districts and also the city’s TV and radio station, which had both gone off the air.
The Afghan forces commander for Helmand, Gen. Sami Sadat, in an audio message shared with journalists Tuesday urged residents in neighborhoods captured by the Taliban to evacuate immediately, though he did not clarify how they could do that amid the ongoing clashes. The message was an indication more airstrikes were planned.
“Please evacuate your families from your homes and their surroundings,” Sadat said. “We will not leave the Taliban alive. ... I know it’s hard ... we do it for your future. Forgive us if you get displaced for few days, please evacuate as soon as possible.”
Lashkar Gah is one of three provincial capitals under siege by the Taliban as they stepped up their onslaught against government forces. In recent months the Taliban swept through dozens of districts across the country, many in remote and rural, sparsely populated areas.
Afghan troops in those battles often surrendered or pulled out with barely a fight, frequently lacking re-supplies and reinforcements. Over the past weeks, the Taliban have also captured several lucrative border crossings with Iran, Pakistan and Tajikistan.
In the Afghan capital of Kabul on Tuesday scores of people waving the Afghan flag and shouting “God is great” came out to the streets in support of Afghanistan’s National Security and Defense Forces. They came out even as a powerful explosion rattled the city. No one took immediate responsibility.
A similar procession took place in the western city of Herat on Monday after Afghan soldiers pushed the Taliban back from the entrance to the city.
The Taliban have most recently turned their guns on provincial capitals as the withdrawal of the U.S. and NATO forces is now more than 95% complete. The final U.S. and NATO soldier are expected to be out of Afghanistan by Aug. 31.
The two other provincial capitals under siege are in the neighboring province of Kandahar, also in the south, and in western Herat province.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani on Monday blamed the hasty withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops for the deteriorating security situation, while analysts say deep corruption and poor training has left Afghan forces overwhelmed, leaving the elite commando units as the only bulwark against the advancing Taliban.
READ: Afghan president slams Taliban; rockets target Kabul palace
Afghanistan’s air force has been seriously hurt by the American and NATO withdrawal, which included contractors who had maintained the fleet of fighter aircraft. Washington’s watchdog overseeing U.S. taxpayers dollars spent in Afghanistan said the Afghan aircraft are flying 25% longer than they should before being maintained.
In Herat, the capital of the province by the same name, Afghan forces appeared on Tuesday to be able to push the Taliban back, with the insurgents on the edge of the city. Also, Herat city’s civilian airport re-opened.
The United Nations has repeatedly decried the rise in civilian casualties inflicted by both sides in the increasingly brutal conflict. The U.N. mission in a tweet Tuesday appealed for a quick end to the fighting in heavily populated urban areas. In the last three days, the U.N. said 10 civilians have been killed in Lashkar Gah and 85 were wounded. In southern Kandahar, at least five civilians wee killed and 42 were wounded.
Thousands more have been displaced, sad the U.N. Lashkar Gah residents said airstrikes inside the city were also driving people from their homes.
“With any bomb that hits the city, my 13- year-old son jumps and yells,” said Mohammad Khan, a resident of Lashkar Gah. He had moved half of his family out of the city and was trying to evacuate the other half out before the fighting pinned him down.
Another Lashkar Gah resident, Nizamuddin, who like many Afghans uses only one name, said he was hiding with his family in their home and was too afraid to step out.
The U.S. and other world leaders have warned the Taliban against a military takeover of Afghanistan, saying they would become an international pariah again if they tried to take power by force.
When they last ruled Afghanistan, the Taliban were recognized by only three countries — Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
Also Tuesday, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul tweeted: “The Taliban’s disregard for the dignity of each Afghan citizen and for human life more broadly has shocked the world. This is not how legitimate powers or governments behave.”
British navy group: ‘Potential hijack’ of ship off UAE coast
The British navy warned Tuesday of a “potential hijack” of a ship off the coast of the United Arab Emirates in the Gulf of Oman, without elaborating.
The British military’s United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations initially warned ships Tuesday that “an incident is currently underway” off the coast of Fujairah. Hours later, they said the incident was a “potential hijack.” They did not elaborate.
The U.S. military’s Mideast-based 5th Fleet and the British Defense Ministry did not immediately return calls for comment. The Emirati government did not immediately acknowledge the incident.
Also read: India to maintain warships in Gulf zone to aid merchant ship
Earlier, four oil tankers announced around the same time via their Automatic Identification System trackers that they were “not under command,” according to MarineTraffic.com. That typically means a vessel has lost power and can no longer steer.
An Oman Royal Air Force Airbus C-295MPA, a maritime patrol aircraft, was flying over the area where the ships were, according to data from FlightRadar24.com.
The event comes just days after a drone struck an oil tanker linked to an Israeli billionaire off the coast of Oman, killing two crew members. The West blamed Iran for the attack, which marked the first known assault to have killed civilians in the yearslong shadow war targeting commercial vessels in the region.
Iran denied playing any role in the incident, though Tehran and its allied militias have used similar “suicide” drones in attacks previously.
Also read: Data recovered as ship with chemicals sinking off Sri Lanka
Israel, the United States and United Kingdom vowed a “collective response” to the attack, without elaborating.
A birthday gift: Israeli woman donates kidney to Gaza boy
Idit Harel Segal was turning 50, and she had chosen a gift: She was going to give one of her own kidneys to a stranger.
The kindergarten teacher from northern Israel, a proud Israeli, hoped her choice would set an example of generosity in a land of perpetual conflict. She was spurred by memories of her late grandfather, a Holocaust survivor, who told her to live meaningfully, and by Jewish tradition, which holds that there’s no higher duty than saving a life.
So Segal contacted a group that links donors and recipients, launching a nine-month process to transfer her kidney to someone who needed one.
That someone turned out to be a 3-year-old Palestinian boy from the Gaza Strip.
“You don’t know me, but soon we’ll be very close because my kidney will be in your body,” Segal wrote in Hebrew to the boy, whose family asked not to be named due to the sensitivities over cooperating with Israelis. A friend translated the letter into Arabic so the family might understand. “I hope with all my heart that this surgery will succeed and you will live a long and healthy and meaningful life.”
Just after an 11-day war, “I threw away the anger and frustration and see only one thing. I see hope for peace and love,” she wrote. “And if there will be more like us, there won’t be anything to fight over.”
What unfolded over the months between Segal’s decision and the June 16 transplant caused deep rifts in the family. Her husband and the oldest of her three children, a son in his early 20s, opposed the plan. Her father stopped talking to her.
To them, Segal recalled, she was unnecessarily risking her life. The loss of three relatives in Palestinian attacks, including her father’s parents, made it even more difficult.
“My family was really against it. Everyone was against it. My husband, my sister, her husband. And the one who supported me the least was my father,” Segal said during a recent interview in her mountaintop home in Eshhar. “They were afraid.”
When she learned the boy’s identity, she kept the details to herself for months.
“I told no one,” Segal recalled. “I told myself if the reaction to the kidney donation is so harsh, so obviously the fact that a Palestinian boy is getting it will make it even harsher.”
Israel has maintained a tight blockade over Gaza since Hamas, an Islamic militant group that opposes Israel’s existence, seized control of the area in 2007.
The bitter enemies have fought four wars since then, and few Gazans are allowed to enter Israel. With Gaza’s health care system ravaged by years of conflict and the blockade, Israel grants entry permits to small numbers of medical patients in need of serious treatments on humanitarian grounds.
Matnat Chaim, a nongovernmental organization in Jerusalem, coordinated the exchange, said the group’s chief executive, Sharona Sherman.
The case of the Gaza boy was complicated. To speed up the process, his father, who was not a match for his son, was told by the hospital that if he were to donate a kidney to an Israeli recipient, the boy would “immediately go to the top of the list,” Sherman said.
On the same day his son received a new kidney, the father donated one of his own — to a 25-year-old Israeli mother of two.
In some countries, reciprocity is not permitted because it raises the question of whether the donor has been coerced. The whole ethic of organ donation is based on the principle that the donors should give of their own free will and get nothing in return.
In Israel, the father’s donation is seen as an incentive to increase the pool of donors.
For Segal, the gift that had sparked such conflict in her family accomplished more than she hoped. Her kidney has helped save the boy’s life, generated a second donation and established new links between members of perpetually warring groups in one of the world’s most intractable conflicts. She said she visited the boy on the eve of his surgery and maintains contact with his parents.
Segal said she honored her grandfather in a way that helps her cope with the grief of his death five years ago. The donation was an act of autonomy, she said, and she never wavered. And eventually her family came around — a gift, perhaps, in itself.
She said her husband understands better now, as do her children. And on the eve of Segal’s surgery, her father called.
“I don’t remember what he said because he was crying,” Segal said. Then, she told him that her kidney was going to a Palestinian boy.
For a moment, there was silence. And then her father spoke.
“Well,” he said, “he needs life, also.”