Iraq

[angelburst29]

According to US Joint Special Operations Command reports, elements of the Iraqi elite Counter Terrorism Service overwhelmed the Ureibi and Rifaie districts of Mosul in the early morning hours on Sunday, bringing the battle to reclaim the Iraqi town from Daesh extremists close to the end.

'Last Dying Breath': Daesh Nearly Eliminated in Battle for Mosul
https://sputniknews.com/military/201705151053613206-daesh-faces-end-in-mosul/

As Iraqi forces, backed by the US military, have pushed into those final areas of Mosul still occupied by Daesh, the brutal seven-month urban battle for the city is seen to be nearing its close.

Daesh is drawing its last dying breath," asserted Lieutenant General Qasim Nazzal, the commander of the ninth division, speaking with Iraqi state television on Sunday.

Daesh fighters are broken and quickly retreating from fronts," he added, cited by Reuters.

A densely populated area of narrow streets, Mosul's Old City — like much of the rest of the town — has been devastated in the long battle, and remaining civilians that have not been able to escape have been reduced to eating grass, according to reports.

Iraqi Brigadier General Yahya Rasoul stated that Daesh elements are in control of no more than nine percent of the western area of the city.

"It's a very small area," Rasoul told Reuters. "God willing, this is the final phase."

Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces captured the strategic hilltop of Tal Al-Sheikh near the al-Qaiwaran area in the Nineveh Province, local media reports said.

Iraqi Forces Capture Large Hilltop Southwest of Al-Qaiwaran
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960225001370

The Iraqi popular forces will now push further East towards the al-Qaiwaran area, as they look to expel the ISIL terror organization from Tal ‘Afar, Al Masdar reported.

Tal ‘Afar is one of ISIL’s final strongholds in Iraq, it was one of the first towns to fall to the terrorist group in the Summer of 2014.

PMF also invaded the village of Mabhal al-Mahdi, North of Qaiwaran, engaging in intense encounters with the militant group.

A handful of villages have been recaptured over the past few days during the operation targeting Qaiwaran and neighboring Baaj. The offensive coincides with government battles in the city of Mosul, where only a few districts are left to announce a full recapture of the city and end seven months of fighting.

Iraqi commanders say they predict Mosul to be IS-free before the end of May. They said recently they became in control over 90 percent of territory of the Western flan of the city. Government troops retook Eastern Mosul in January.

Chief of the Iraqi Federal Police Shaker Jowdat said on Monday that the country's Quick Reaction Forces seized control over the largest chemical arms-manufacturing workshop of ISIL in Mosul city in Northern Iraq.

ISIL's Largest Chemical Weapons Workshop Seized by Iraqi Forces in Mosul
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960225001134

Jowdat said in a statement that his forces in a fresh round of operations West of Mosul engaged in fierce clashes with ISIL and managed to capture 15 sq/km of area North-West of Mosul and the villages of Hasouneh and Dejleh, a gas-cylinder workshop, and blocks number 1, 2, 3 and 4 of the al-Haramat residential complex.

He further added that the Iraqi police have liberated half of al-Eqtesadeen and Tamouz 17 region, and transferred civilians to the Northern districts of Mosul in a timely plan.

Jowdat said that Iraq's Quick Reaction Forces managed to seize the largest ISIL workshop used for making chemical weapons and defused tens of landmines and bombs planted by the terrorists in Tamouz 17 region.

Reports said earlier today that the ISIL terror group is in serious trouble inside their de-facto Iraqi capital, as the government forces close-in on the terrorist group’s last positions in Mosul city.

The Iraqi Armed Forces managed to capture the Rifa’i and Aribi districts on Sunday after a short battle with the depleted ISIL militants inside Western Mosul, Iraqi News reported.

With the Rifa’i and Aribi districts captured, the Iraqi Armed Forces are now in control of more than 90 percent of Western Mosul, leaving the ISIL on their last legs inside the provincial capital.

In the coming days, the Iraqi Armed Forces are expected to capture the remaining districts under the ISIL’s control and put an end to the terrorist group’s presence inside the city.

The explosion of a home-made bomb destroyed the vehicle used by Taliban militants in the Kandahar province of Afghanistan and killed 10 militants, according to local media.

Home-Made Bomb Claims Lives of 10 Taliban Militants in Southern Afghanistan
https://sputniknews.com/asia/201705141053606037-afghanistan-taliban-victims-explosion/

A total of 10 militants of the Taliban terrorist group, outlawed in many countries, including Russia, were killed and seven more were injured in an explosion of a home-made bomb in the southern part of Afghanistan, local media reported Sunday.

The Khaama Press news agency reported, citing the country's Defense Ministry, that the explosion destroyed the vehicle used by militants in the Kandahar province.

The news outlet added that 10 more terrorists were killed in the operation carried out by the government forces in Kandahar.

Authorities in Sanaa declared a state of emergency in the Yemeni capital, where a deadly outbreak of cholera has spread rapidly.

Yemen Declares State of Emergency over Cholera Outbreak
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960225001015

The health ministry said in a statement it was “unable to contain this disaster” and appealed for international humanitarian assistance to deal with the crisis, Al-Waght reported.

Yemen has been since March 25 subjected to a devastating aggression by Saudi-led coalition, and less than half of the country’s health facilities are functioning two years into the conflict.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Sunday the cholera outbreak has killed 115 people and left 8,500 ill between April 27 and Saturday.

This is the second outbreak of cholera in less than a year in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country.

The World Health Organization now classifies Yemen as one of the worst humanitarian emergencies in the world alongside Syria, South Sudan, Nigeria and Iraq.

Critical food imports are also at an all-time low as many of the country’s Red Sea ports are blockaded by the Saudi-led coalition.

 

[angelburst29]

Iraq's popular Mobilization Forces cut off the main supply route of the ISIL terror group in West of Mosul, according to the media service.

Iraqi Volunteer Forces Cut off ISIL Main Supply Route in West of Mosul
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960227001291

The popular forces said the Iraqi troops “were able to cut off the street linking between Tal Qasab and Qairawan,” which is considered “the ISIL main supply route in North of Qairawan”, Iraqi News reported.

Moreover, “the 40th brigade’s missiles shelled ISIL strongholds in al-Qahira, in South of Qairawan.”

Roads in villages of Tal al-Dala’ and Thara al-Karrah, located South of Qairawan, were combed after being liberated on Tuesday, the media service added. Huge losses were inflicted on the enemy near villages in north of Qairawan.

The troops also “received dozens of families fleeing ISIL from villages North of Qairawan,” according to the statement.

Many villages in Qairawan region, a main ISIL bastion which links between Tal Afar town and the Syrian borders, have been freed since an the troops launched an offensive on Friday to free the region.

An Iraqi Army official in Nineveh province said he expects full liberation of the Western side of Mosul by Friday.

Army Commander: Iraqi Forces to Drive ISIL out of Western Mosul by Friday
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960227000986

Iraqi troops managed to retake most regions and districts in Western Mosul from the ISIL terrorists,” an Iraqi army commander told Sputnik, expecting the whole region to be freed by Friday.

In a statement earlier on Tuesday, Federal Police Chief Lt. Gen. Shaker Jawdat announced that his troops were in control of 80 percent of Iqtisidayeen and 17 Tamuz (July 17th) districts, in addition to eight other pivotal targets that were previously retaken.

“The troops shelled ISIL's defense lines as well as their headquarters North of the Old City and killed dozens of the militants. Fifteen sq/ km were freed,
168 booby-trapped vehicles were destroyed, 200 landmines were removed while 24 bombs were defused,” he added.

“Six families detained by ISIL in 17 Tamuz were freed. They were kept for several days inside one of the houses with the doors locked and the house booby-trapped to prevent them escape,” he added.

“The total number of families evacuated from battlefields have reached 850 so far since the start of the last phase of military operations in Western Mosul on May 6,” Jawdat said.

In a press conference, the Joint Operations Command declared on Tuesday controlling 89.5 percent of Western Mosul and killing 16,467 members of the ISIL since beginning of operations in Western Mosul.

Abdulaziz bin Habtoor who has been appointed by former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh to form a national salvation government warned of plots hatched by Saudi Arabia and the UAE to disintegrate his country.

Salvation Gov't PM Warns of Saudi, UAE Plots to Disintegrate Yemen
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960227001242

"The events in the Southern and Eastern provinces of Yemen are the result of Saudi Arabia and the UAE's occupation, specially as the two countries have an old plot to disintegrate Yemen again and turn them into regions under their control," Habtoor, the former governor of Aden, was quoted as saying by al-Mayadeen news channel on Wedneday.

He said that Riyadh and Abu Dhabi are rivals in taking control over the Southern parts of Yemen.

Saudi Arabia launched brutal aggression against its Southern neighbor on 27 March 2015 in a bid to restore power to Yemen's resigned president who fled to Riyadh after Yemeni people's uprising in 2015.

Western countries, specially the US and Britain, are among key suppliers of weapons used by the Saudi regime to commit atrocities and war crimes in Yemen.

Over 14,100 Yemenis, mostly civilians including women and children have been killed during the ongoing Saudi-leg aggression on Yemen.

The Saudi military aggression has also taken a heavy toll on Yemen’s facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, mosques and factories. This illegal aggression has prompted retaliation from Yemeni forces including launching missile attacks on Saudi military installations in the country’s capital Riyadh.

 

[angelburst29]

The people of few conflicted countries including Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria hardly seem to get out of bloody wars. Syria, which is battling the regime change, would land into the same bloody fate of Afghanistan if it undergoes this transition. In both cases – before and after the regime change- the natives of these territories should pay the price of the West’s ambitious and hegemonic conspiracies.

In Afghanistan, Civilian Casualties Happen by Design, Not by Accident
http://www.globalresearch.ca/in-afghanistan-civilian-casualties-happen-by-design-not-by-accident/5590933

May 20, 2017 - Afghanistan’s death toll from the US-led war is placed at 100,000 people. This startling figure sparks the speculation that the US and allies were just watching the people dying over this period. The US-based Brown University’s “Costs of War” study finds that at least 100,000 civilians have lost their lives to the war between 2001 through 2014.

It added to the injury when the year 2015 ended up with record-high human casualities than any single year since 2001. And then at the end of the following year 2016, United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) described the causalities “shocking” and “unprecedented”. The rate is set to go up as the US mulls over sending further reinforcements and F-16 fighters jets that suggest fierce war.

The Brown University’s finding seems to be authentic, because it is strongly circulated among Afghan war experts that an average of 20 people die a day in Afghanistan that constitute the estimated number when calculated. On the opposite front, the UNAMA reports the Afghan fatalities about one third of the Brown University’s figure. This UN agency’s compilation of war victims is unfounded and impartial and it amounts to complicity or clemency towards war instigators – by not disclosing the right statistic or just by sufficing to call on warring sides to heed for civilians life.

The Brown University’s study concludes that over 370,000 people have died due to direct war violence in Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan since 2001.
It also revealed that the costly war in terms of life and expenditure didn’t result in inclusive, transparent, democratic governments in Afghanistan and Iraq.

According to the Syrian Centre for Policy Research (SCPR), Syrian fatalities caused by war, directly and indirectly, amount to 470,000 people. It states the number is twice the UN’s figure of 250,000 victims collected nearly a year ago. The SCPR’s report estimates that 11.5% of the country’s population has been killed or injured since the crisis erupted in March 2011.

In Afghanistan, civilians are killed for certain causes, and it is not by accident. Last month, ten Taliban suicide infiltrates killed 170 soldiers in a military headquarter in northern Balkh province [the unofficial figure put dead between 300 and 400 soldiers]. The harrowing and murderous Balkh carnage could serve as a best example behind many civilian and military deaths in Afghanistan. In days after the massacre, the US Secretary of Defense James Mattis arrived in Kabul and informed of a new Washington strategy on the way in a press conference with the top US commander, as a response to the incident.

The carnage apparently became a motive for the likely shift in US’s policy that might be deployment of further US troops, more military hardware and demanding additional NATO forces in Afghanistan. In this context, Australia has already said it is open to sending more soldiers after Berlin signaled reservations.

In a single sentence: it was not the carnage that caused the strategy change, but it was, indeed, the strategy change that caused the carnage.

Afterwards, in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, the US National Intelligence Chief Daniel Coats spoke of a downhill security in Afghanistan through 2018. He said: “Even if NATO deploys more troops, the political and security situation in Afghanistan will likely get worse”.

In spite of being the most powerful military in a recent ranking, the US casts the Taliban “unbeatable”. The US officials since long predict each coming year “dangerous” for Afghanistan. But how do they know that?

The other day, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Joseph Dunford speaking at Saint Michael’s College in Vermont also followed the track of James Mattis and Daniel Coats and stressed on sending more troops to Afghanistan. While speaking, he hinted at the latest Afghan Army massacre and raised it as basis to lobby the audience. The US never bothers to deliver a statement repeatedly unless the issue is concerned for it.

These high-ranks’ back-to-back rhetoric speech comes as the US is vigilant of measurable Russian support of the Taliban fronts in parts of Afghanistan.

In October 2015, the Taliban militants rushed into the unseen mass-killing of civilians on the streets of northern Kunduz city and converted it into a ghost city. The war analysts believed it was the US’s intrigue to send shockwaves into the Central Asian countries and importantly Russia.

Following the Kunduz attack, Sen. John McCain appeared to say that: “The Taliban’s strength has been fueled by the Obama Administration’s scheduled troop withdrawal”.

He critically directed the Kunduz attack’s blame to Obama administration’s “untimely” troop drawdown. He wanted the troops to stay behind and only such a tragedy was feasible to push the troop-pullout plan in reverse.

Even though McCain and others have long sought more troops or continued war on terrorism, Afghanistan loses more inhabitants to the fake war with every year going by.

Even the waves of so-called “terrorists attacks” in Germany, Holland and France last year underscores that these are the conspiracy theories aimed at continuous war in Syria and elsewhere. Many Europeans would still keep faith with the war-mongers’ cooked-up stories and back the US and NATO’s intervention in Syria. The sole purpose of all these planned attacks was and is to demonize the Islamic State or Al-Qaeda and draw a whole support to wage a filthy war against “the nations” where these terrorists operate.

Unrest in Afghanistan is a recipe for more US weapons’ sales to war-exposed countries, viable drug trafficking that generates a profit far beyond measure, unearthing of underground resources worth of several trillion dollars, restraining of the regional military and economic rival powers and so others.

The insurgent groups – be it in Afghanistan, Syria or Iraq depending on the nature of war – have always chanted their slogans against the military forces or the incumbent governments – not civilians. But the wars have instead largely cost the ordinary people’s lives.

In almost every Taliban attack where the NATO and Afghan forces or government officials were targets, quite a few normal people have fallen victim. Typically, in a recent suicide attack on NATO fleet in Kabul, no international servicemen died or injured, but dead were only passersby and passengers of a minivan running behind the convoy.

The terrorist groups have left almost no public establishment un-attacked over this period, from hospitals and TV stations to universities and restaurants have tasted the undue violent killings. In March, Kabul’s Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan hospital was penetrated by several suicide bombers. Every war front including the Taliban leadership understands the immunity and neutrality of hospitals having no issue with war, but the armed men indifferently set off a killing spree and shot dead every one they came across in the hospital including ailing and elderly people and children.

The militants are, of course, aided and abetted by external and internal elements and this is just a show of distorted reality in Afghanistan used by war architects to hold a foot on the ground. While the terrorist groups have nothing in mind to achieve by slaughtering innocents, it rather gives birth to grounds for the West’s presence and drag the fake war well into the future.

This war is stoked or afloat thanks, in most part, to the “kill and then blame” policy. This is well captured in Syria’s Khan Sheikhon chemical attack. First the gas attack that was over-amplified in the world media was fabricated and later the ground was prepared for the US to carry out Tomahawk missile strikes on Syrian Shayrat airbase without finding that the Khan Shaikhon chemical attack was launched from this base.

According to Afghan Human Rights organization, the Afghan war has claimed some 40,000 lives only between 2009 and 2016. Laal Gul an Afghan Human Rights expert says: “The Afghan and NATO security officials never disclose a true statistic of victims of an attack”.

It is aimed to simmer down public fury.

In Afghanistan, another excuse for civilian causalities is that the Taliban loyalists bury IEDs or landmines on public avenues allegedly for striking Afghan Army or the NATO’s convoy, but in many instances a civilian vehicle often packed with people has run over the explosives and torn apart. In an extremely disturbing episode, a footage released earlier showed that an old man rushes to the scene where his entire family’s car was blown up by a roadside bomb and desperately looks to women and children’s blood-soaked corpses that litter around the explosion point. Later it features that the man burst into tears as he lifts a lifeless child’s body.

People of Afghanistan are put to suffer this way along the one-and-a-half-decade-long US “war on terror”.

This is while Trump is considering sending more troops to Afghanistan. In 2011, there were 100,000 US soldiers on the ground with almost the same causality rate of present day. Fewer more troops are not up to making a twist in civilian life.

Many years ago, an Afghan journalist who was not named over security reasons learned about a mind blowing fact after contacting a Taliban spokesman and asking about those innocents killed in the Taliban suicide bombing, who replied: “Those Afghans [other than foreign troops] killed in the blast would go straight to the heaven along with the suicide bomber”.

The intensifying conflict tells that another huge bulk of people is about to perish in the future. The people of Afghanistan and other war-wrecked nations can no longer tolerate such a vortex which is putting them on agony.

 

[angelburst29]

Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces continued to gain more ground in the Western Nineveh Province from the ISIL militants, liberating five more villages in the province over the past 24 hours.

ISIL Unable to Hold Ground as Iraqi Forces Liberate Five More Villages Near Syria Border
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960306000965

Engaging seemingly demoralized ISIL militants, the PMF managed to take control over the villages of Tall Ghiza, Hatimyia, Qabosyia, North Kabisa and South Kabisa.

Amid the ongoing advance, an ISIL car bomb raced towards PMF positions only to be blown apart before reaching the Iraqi forces' positions.

The PMF offensive looks to liberate the ISIL stronghold of Al-Ba’aj and push towards the Syrian border, possibly even crossing the border in support of the Syrian Armed Forces.

Earlier, the volunteer troops announced full liberation of Qairawan.

Many villages in Qairawan region, a main ISIL bastion which links between Tal Afar town and the Syrian borders, have been freed since the troops launched an offensive on May 12 to free the region.

Last week the troops announced liberated of Sahl Sinjar airbase, located south of Qairawan, in addition to cutting off a main supply route between the freed Tal Banat village and Qairawan.

A senior ISIL leader was reportedly killed in an attack against security checkpoint, Northeast of Diyala, a local source from the province said.

ISIL Emir Reportedly Killed as Attack against Checkpoint Foiled in Diyala
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960306001279

The source confirmed the death of so-called emir of Hamreen lake after being profoundly wounded while taking part in an attack against a security checkpoint in the vicinity of the lake,” Al Sumariya reported.

The murder of the leader, who was Iraqi national, according to the source,”is another blow against ISIL in Hamreen, where the group failed to revive its cells once again.”

The group escalated attacks against government, paramilitary troops and civilians in Diyala and neighboring Salahuddin over the past few months.

Several offensives were launched over the past few months in eastern and Northeastern regions in Diyala. Earlier this month, the command launched offensives at four regions of al-Nada basin, Hamreen, Wadi Thilab and Tilal Qazlaq in the province.

ISIL still holds a few areas in Salahuddin, Diyala, Anbar and Kirkuk, occasionally using them as launching points for its attacks against civilians and security. The Iraqi government is currently employing most of its military power in a major campaign to drive ISIL out of Mosul, its largest stronghold in Iraq.

Commander of Iraqi Popular forces of Hashd al-Shaabi Jabbar al-Ma'amouri said that ISIL's Mufti (religious leader) in Western Nineveh and four of his aides were killed in Iraqi Air Force raid.

ISIL's Mufti, Four Aides Killed in Iraqi Airstrikes in Nineveh Province
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960306001343

Al-Ma'amouri said that the Iraqi fighter jets targeted the vehicle of the ISIL Mufti in the Eastern part of al-Ba'aj county, resulting in the death of the Mufti and four of his assistances.

He further added that his forces engaged in fierce clashes with ISIL and managed to take control of the villages of Eastern Rambous and Western Rambous North of al-Ba'aj.

A local source said earlier today that a senior ISIL leader was reportedly killed in an attack against security checkpoint, Northeast of Diyal.

The source confirmed the death of so-called emir of Hamreen lake after being profoundly wounded while taking part in an attack against a security checkpoint in the vicinity of the lake,” Al Sumariya reported.

The murder of the leader, who was an Iraqi national, according to the source, is another blow against ISIL in Hamreen, where the group failed to revive its cells once again.

The group escalated attacks against government, paramilitary troops and civilians in Diyala and neighboring Salahuddin over the past few months.

A military source said on Friday that 18 Afghan Army soldiers were killed and several more wounded in Taliban terrorists' attack on an army base located in Zangitan village in Shah Wali Kot district.

Taliban Terrorists Attack Afghan Army Base in Kandahar, Kill 18 Soldiers
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960305000538

The source told TOLO news that at least 18 service members of the Afghan National Amy (ANA) were killed, 16 wounded and four others were taken away by the Taliban after a group of fighters of the group attacked an army base in Shah Wali Kot district in Southern Kandahar province on Thursday night.

Security forces have not commented on the report so far.

This is the second attack of the Taliban on army bases in Kandahar in the past week. On Monday May 22, 11 Afghan National Army soldiers were killed and nine others were wounded in a Taliban attack on an army base in Achakzai village in Shah Wali Kot district.

Meanwhile, almost 20 Taliban insurgents were killed in the attack, said 205 Atal military Corps in Kandahar.

Three US lawmakers want to block a proposed $110 billion sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, as those weapons could be used in the Yemeni war, making Washington a party to the bloody conflict.

US Senators: $110Bln Arms Sale to Riyadh to Drag Washington into Yemen War
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960305000370

The lawmakers introduced a joint resolution to force a vote to block a proposed $110 billion arms sale to Saudi Arabia, Senator Chris Murphy’s office said in a statement, Sputnik reported.

"US Senators Chris Murphy and Rand Paul, members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and US Senator Al Franken introduced on Thursday a joint resolution of disapproval to force the US Senate to vote on a resolution blocking a portion of new weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in support of their military campaign in Yemen," the statement said on Thursday.

US President Donald Trump, during his trip to Riyadh over the weekend, unveiled a deal to provide Saudi Arabia with $110 billion in weapons.

Murphy noted that Saudi Arabia's involvement in the war in Yemen has caused scores of civilian deaths and allowed groups like ISIL and Al-Qaeda to flourish in the country.

"Thousands of civilians are being killed in the US-backed Saudi war in Yemen while terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIL are getting stronger by the day. Selling the Saudis precision-guided munitions that are going to be used to target civilians makes us complicit in this humanitarian and national security disaster," Murphy said.

For his part, Paul questioned the wisdom of providing weapons to a nation that has supported terrorist groups in the past and has failed to uphold human rights.

"Given Saudi Arabia’s past support of terror, poor human rights record, and questionable tactics in its war in Yemen, Congress must carefully consider and thoroughly debate if selling them billions of dollars of arms is in our best national security interest at this time," Paul said.

Franken said the bipartisan resolution would send a message that Americans do not approve of the killing of civilians.

"Thousands of civilians have been unjustly killed or wounded by Saudi-led forces in the Yemeni civil war. But despite this tragedy, the US continues to sell billions of dollars of weaponry to the Saudis while turning a blind eye to their indiscriminate killing of children, women, and men in Yemen. Our bipartisan resolution would block the latest weapon sale and help demonstrate that the US won’t stand for what the Saudis are doing to innocent people," Franken said.

In 2016, Senators Paul, Murphy and Franken introduced a resolution to block the sale of $1.15 billion in Abrams tanks and other weapons to Saudi Arabia.
The resolution was defeated in the Senate by a vote of 71 to 27, allowing the sale to go ahead.

 

[angelburst29]

According to the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, up to 80 people were killed in an explosion and 350 wounded in the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Afghan Health Ministry Says 80 Killed, 350 Wounded in Kabul Blast
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201705311054147766-afghanistan-kabul-blast/

Up to 80 people were killed in an explosion and 350 wounded in the Afghan capital of Kabul as casualty numbers continue to rise, local media quoted the Ministry of Public Health as saying Wednesday.

A NATO Resolute Support mission spokesman was quoted as saying the explosion took place early Wednesday near the German Embassy and in the vicinity of the mission's headquarters.

Daesh has claimed responsibility for the deadly blast in the Afghan capital of Kabul, local 1TV channel reported on Wednesday.

Daesh Claims Responsibility for Blast in Afghan Capital of Kabul
https://sputniknews.com/asia/201705311054152817-daesh-kabul-blast/

According to the Afghan Health Ministry, up to 90 people were killed and 380 more were injured in the explosion close to the Zanbaq square in the diplomatic quarter of the city/

According to the preliminary information of the country's Interior Ministry, an explosive device had been planted in a car used to transport water.

A BBC employee was killed and 4 journalists were injured in the blast. Moreover, the German Embassy's staff was wounded in the attack.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reported that the Taliban terrorist group, which is outlawed in Russia among other such groups, denied responsibility for the blast.

The attack has already been condemned by a number of Afghan politicians, such as President Ashraf Ghani and by foreign officials, including Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.

Field sources reported that the Hashd al-Shaabi (Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces) is ready to fight against ISIL along with the Syrian Army troops to free the strategic al-Tanf border-crossing.

Iraqi Hashd Al-Shaabi Ready to Liberate Syria's Al-Tanf Border-Crossing
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960310001334

The sources said that following deployment of forces at borders with Syria the Hashd al-Shaabi is coordinating with the Syrian army to jointly storm ISIL and free al-Tanf border town and region.

The sources further said that the army soldiers have now engaged in tough battle with terrorists in Syria's Badiyeh (desert) towards South to recapture the al-Tanf border-crossing, adding Hasha al-Shaabi tries to go through the army-held regions in Syria to move towards North and open a way to al-Tanf.

Earlier today, the Badr Organization affiliated to the Hashd al-Shaabi (Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces) announced in statement that 17km of Iraq's borderline with Syria has been cleaned up of ISIL terrorists in its forces' operation.

The statement said that the Iraqi forces managed to advance against ISIL along the country's border with Syria from the entrance of the village of Um Jaris towards the village of Jayr Qalfas and the town of al-Qa'em, restoring security to 17km of borderline.

The statement added that Jayer Qalfas is now under the Iraqi forces' siege and terrorists' supply lines to the village have been cut off, adding that the cleansing operation in the village will kick off soon.

The statement went on to say that 13 terrorists, including four suicide attackers, were killed and their bomb-laden vehicles were destroyed in the attack.

The Badr Organization affiliated to the Hashd al-Shaabi (Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces) announced in statement on Wednesday that 17km of Iraq's borderline with Syria has been cleaned up of ISIL terrorists in its forces' operation.

Long Chunk of Iraq-Syria Borderline Fully Cleaned up of Terrorists
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960310000886

The statement said that the Iraqi forces managed to advance against ISIL along the country's border with Syria from the entrance of the village of Um Jaris towards the village of Jayr Qalfas and the town of al-Qa'em, restoring security to 17km of borderline.

The statement added that Jayer Qalfas is now under the Iraqi forces' siege and terrorists' supply lines to the village have been cut off, adding that the cleansing operation in the village will kick off soon.

The statement went on to say that 13 terrorists, including four suicide attackers, were killed and their bomb-laden vehicles were destroyed in the attack.

Reports said that Commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Major General Qassem Soleimani was pictured with Hashd Al-Shaabi in Northwestern Iraq on Monday.

The AMN reported that the prominent Iranian general was advising the high command of the Popular Mobilization Units during their important operation along the Syrian border-crossing.

With the capture of ISIL’s last crossing in Nineveh province, the Popular Mobilization Units will now turn their attention South towards the Takfiri terrorist group’s final stronghold on the Syrian border.

Iraqi Federal Police forces made more gains against ISIL militants in Western Mosul, taking over a commando training facility run by the terror group.

Iraqi Police Take over ISIL “Commando School” in Western Mosul, Evacuate More Civilians
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960310000917

The force’s chief. Lt. Gen. Shaker Jawdat, said in statements that his troops took over the so-called “commandos school” in Zanjili, adding that they also continued to open safe exits for thousands of civilians stranded in the battlefield.

Police forces have been bombarding Zanjili with heavy artillery and Grad rockets to facilitate advances by ground troops, said Jawdat.

Earlier, a security source was quoted by Shafaaq News website saying that the army’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service evacuated the civilians from Zanjili, one of a last three districts adjacent to IS’s last bastion in western Mosul: the Old City.

Syrian militants declared that Washington has increased its arms supplies to them in order to block Iraq's pro-government Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) from creating a supply route between Iraq and Syria.

US Arming Syrian Militants on Border with Iraq to Block Popular Forces
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960310000192

The PMU, also known as Hashd al-Shaabi, reached the Syrian border on Monday during their anti-ISIL operations being carried out to the West of Mosul, presstv reported.

They have played a major role in the liberation of Daesh-held areas to the South, Northeast and North of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad, ever since the Takfiri terrorists launched an offensive in the country in June 2014.

On Tuesday, a leader of one of the militant groups operating under the US-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA) underlined that there has been an increase in foreign military support. “There's no way we can let them open the Baghdad-Damascus highway," Tlass Salameh said.

A commander of another militant group operating with the FSA also announced that since earlier in the month a steady flow of weapons had been arriving at their base. "The equipment and reinforcements come and go daily ... but in the last few weeks they have brought in more heavy military vehicles, TOW (missiles), and armored vehicles," he added.

The PMU’s top commander, Hadi al-Ameri, has said that his forces’ reaching the Syrian border will help Damascus forces reach in from their side.

Meanwhile, Ameri said the US’s airstrikes during the operations to liberate Mosul from ISIL were almost useless.

 

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The Iraqi Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) have liberated the Resala residential compound south of Al-Ba’aj town. Thus, the PMU has besieged ISIS in Al-Ba’aj from three directions so far.

US-led Coalition Bombing Mosul With White Phosphorus (Video, Photos)
https://southfront.org/us-led-coalition-bombing-mosul-with-white-phosphorus-video-photos/

In the course of its advance, the PMU destroyed an ISIS VBIED coming from Syria and captured another one. Furthermore, engineer units continued building fortifications at the Syrian-Iraqi border, and the PMU continued temporarily evacuating civilians from the Al-Baaj area.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi army and the US-led coalition increased shelling of the Old Mosul area in western Mosul. The US-led coalition artillery bombed ISIS positions using white phosphorus shells, which led to the spread of fires.

Iraqi security forces continued advancing against ISIS in Zinjili district. According to pro-government sources, 119 ISIS fighters have been killed in the Sahha district before capturing it.

ISIS claimed that its snipers killed 4 Iraqi soldiers in the Zinjili district. ISIS also said that the group will target a gathering of PMU fighters in the village of Jair, south of Sinjar.

The ISIS-linked news agency Amaq published photos showing clashes southwest of Sinjar.

It is expected that the PMU will be able to capture the whole Syrian-Iraqi border area in the west of Al-Ba’aj in the coming days. However, it is not known until now if some militias from the PMU would enter Syrian territory under an official request.

Iraqi paramilitary forces continued operations to clear the borders with Syria from militants, killing a number of members of the ISIL, including a senior leader.

Iraqi Forces Advancing against ISIL near Syrian Borders
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960313000893

A statement by Hashd al-Shaabi (Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces) said through its media service that forces had killed six members of the ISIL’s commando forces, including Hassan Kanahs al-Zebeidi, a senior leader, at Matallat al-Markeb village near the borders with Syria, IraqiNews reported.

Earlier on Friday, the media outlet said mobilization forces recaptured one village near the borders.

Coincidently with government troops’ operations in Mosul, army warplanes have been backing PMU operations against ISIL holdouts near the Syrian borders, most notably at the Qairawan and Baaj regions. Mobilization commanders had said thei recaptured Qairawan and continue currently to clear Baaj, recently announcing they reached the borderline and revealing plans to hand over security at that region to Iraqi police forces.

Iraqi forces have been approaching ISIL’s last entrenchment in Western Mosul in the Old City since earlier late April. Operations to recapture Western Mosul launched on February 19th. Eastern Mosul was liberated in January.

As the countdown has started for accomplishing the recapture of the Western part of the strategic city of Mosul from the ISIL as Iraq's joint military forces have laid full siege on the terrorists in the few districts that are still under the group's control, reports said the Takfiri group has lost nearly 2,ooo members in the Western part of the strategic city.

Iraq: 2,000 ISIL Members Slain amid Western Mosul Battle
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960313000704

Hisham al-Hashemi, an Iraqi security analyst, said ISIL terrorist group has lost at least 2,000 members, nearly 300 bombers and 350 snipers ever since the military operation to liberate Western Mosul started more than three months ago.

He added that the Takfiris have also lost control over 93 percent of the territories they once held in Western Mosul.

Hashemi further noted that Iraqi government forces and their allies have also destroyed seven ISIL arms depots and two chemical plants during the mentioned period, and shot down 75 unmanned aerial vehicles.

The Yemeni army and popular forces have taken full control of the country's presidential palace and al-Tashrifat military base in Ta'iz province, the Defense Ministry announced Saturday.

Yemen's Army, Popular Forces Capture Presidential Palace, al-Tashrifat Military Base in Ta'iz
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960313001149

Yemen's presidential palace and al-Tashrifat military base are now under the control of the army and popular forces, the Yemeni defense ministry said.

At least 37 militias loyal to former fugitive President Mansour Hadi were killed in the military operations.

The announcement was made in the backdrop of similar claims by pro-Hadi forces who had earlier claimed maintaining control over the presidential palace and al-Tashrifat military base.

In a relevant development on Sunday, Yemen's Ansarullah movement said that its forces had killed a commander of Sudanese Army unit participating in Saudi-led intervention in an attack in Midi district in Hajjah Nrovince, Northwestern Yemen.

“The Yemeni army and popular committees have targeted Sudanese forces in the outskirts of Midi desert by means of rockets and artillery shelling, killing the commander of these forces,” a military source within the popular forces said, Saba News reported.

The military source did not specify the name of the Sudanese officer, only noting that he was a colonel, without giving further details.

RT Arabic cited a Sudanese military source denying reports of the Yemeni media.

The Sudanese source said: “Only 15 soldiers were killed and 70 wounded, some of them seriously. However, what Yemen’s Saba agency reported, about 83 Sudanese soldiers and 4 senior officers killed, is not true”.

The Sudanese military are the largest Arab force in Saudi-led coalition engaged in ground battles against Yemeni Army and the popular committees, and they are paying high price for such an active participation, as many Sudanese opposition newspapers constantly criticize president Omar Al Bashir for his decision to intervene in Yemen.

At least 20 people were killed and dozens injured in three back-to-back explosions which tore through a cemetery in Khair Khana area in the Afghan capital on Saturday afternoon.

Afghanistan: Dozens Killed in Series of Blasts in Kabul
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960313001412

The blasts occurred during a funeral was being held for a protester, the son of Senator Mohammad Alam Izdyar, who was killed during demonstrations a day earlier, according to TOLO news.

According to the health ministry, three explosions have ripped through a funeral in Kabul, killing at least 20 people and wounding 35.

Officials were not able to confirm the type of explosive as the security forces have cordoned off the cemetery area and have advised people to avoid the area.

Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive of Afghanistan, was among those gathered for the funeral of the son of senior Afghan politician.

Meanwhile, Taliban has denied its role in the Khair Khana bombing.

Yesterday, Ezadyar's son was killed in the mass rally in Kabul after security forces opened fire on demonstrators.

Friday's protesters took to the streets to decry perceived security failures after a massive blast on Wednesday killed at least 90 people and wounded 450 more in Kabul.

ISIL has been attempting to expand its presence in Afghanistan, while the Takfiri terrorist group ISIL‍ has claimed responsibility for Wednesday's suicide bombing in Kabul.

Demonstrations were continuing for a second day on Saturday, despite calls from officials to disperse, when the new explosions rang out across Kabul.

 

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Cholera cases in Yemen could quadruple in the next month to 300,000, the regional director of Unicef said Friday, calling the spread of the disease in the war-ravaged country “incredibly dire.”

Unicef Fears Yemen Cholera Outbreak Could Hit 300,000 in Coming Weeks
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/02/world/middleeast/unicef-yemen-cholera-saudi-war.html

Friday June 2, 2017 - Speaking by phone after visiting Yemen, the agency’s regional director, Geert Cappelaere, said he had never seen a cholera outbreak of that size in the country, which already is contending with the risk of a famine and a collapse of the health care system because of the war.

Half the cholera cases in Yemen belong to children, Mr. Cappelaere said, and parents have little recourse because many hospitals and clinics are closed or lack supplies.

Mr. Cappelaere, who was named Unicef’s director for the Middle East and North Africa last year, worked for the agency in Yemen from 2009 to 2012. This was his first trip since then back to the country, poorest in the Arab world.

“We are responding to a major crisis without having the basics,” he said. “The reality is incredibly dire.”

Cholera, a bacterial disease spread by water contaminated with human waste, causes potentially fatal dehydration if left untreated. It has been expanding at an alarming rate in Yemen for the past month, from a few thousand cases to roughly 70,000. Most areas of the country are affected, Mr. Cappelaere said.

Unicef, also known as the United Nations Children’s Fund, has provided clean water to roughly one million people, rehydration kits and other medicine to help fight the outbreak. Like other aid groups, it has implored combatants in the conflict to pause so that more can be done.

Mr. Cappelaere said Unicef was calculating that without significant intervention, “within a few weeks’ time” the number of Yemen cases could reach 250,000 to 300,000.

Cholera deaths in war-torn Yemen have surged into the hundreds, more than a quarter of Yemenis face famine, and parents are selling girls into marriage to buy food, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

Cholera, Famine and Girls Sold Into Marriage for Food: Yemen’s Dire Picture
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/30/world/middleeast/yemen-civil-war-cholera-famine-girls-marriage-united-nations.html

MAY 30, 2017 - The description of Yemen by the top United Nations aid official, Stephen O’Brien, the under secretary general for humanitarian affairs and emergency-relief coordinator, was perhaps his most dire yet in a series of alarming updates on the crisis.

“If there was no conflict in Yemen, there would be no descent into famine, misery, disease and death — a famine would certainly be avoidable and averted,” Mr. O’Brien told the United Nations Security Council.

He depicted the crisis as man-made, implicitly placing part of the blame on the Saudi Arabia-led military coalition that has been bombing Yemen’s Houthi rebels and their allies for over two years. He also blamed the Houthis.

“The people of Yemen are being subjected to deprivation, disease and death as the world watches,” he said.

Mr. O’Brien also implored the Saudis to avoid an attack on Hodeidah, the only port in Yemen that can still handle shiploads of food and medicine.
Virtually all of the basic needs in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, must be imported.

Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies have vowed to crush the Houthis, seeing them as proxies for Iran’s influence in the region. The Saudis have pledged to retake all territory seized by the Houthis, who are from the north of Yemen, and reinstate the Saudi-backed government that was forced to flee the capital, Sana, in 2015.

Although widely criticized for indiscriminate bombings in Yemen, the Saudis have also suggested they are in no rush to end a war that has ravaged their neighbor, leaving roughly 10,000 Yemenis dead and millions destitute and at risk of disease.

Mohammed bin Salman, the deputy crown prince and defense minister of Saudi Arabia, said in a televised interview on May 2 that his side could just exhaust the Houthis and starve them of supplies.

Last week, the Saudis received a strong signal of American support when President Trump visited Saudi Arabia and signed a $110 billion weapons deal, including warplanes and armaments that could presumably be deployed in the Yemen conflict.

For Mr. O’Brien and other international aid advocates, the conflict has become the world’s largest food security crisis, which has now been aggravated by a fast-spreading cholera outbreak.

Horrific conditions in Yemen continue to grow worse: Cholera deaths in war-torn Yemen have surged into the hundreds, more than a quarter of Yemenis face famine, and parents are selling girls into marriage to buy food, the United Nations said on Tuesday.

The Atrocious U.S.-Backed War on Yemen Continues
http://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/the-atrocious-u-s-backed-war-on-yemen-continues/

May 31, 2017 - It bears repeating again that the humanitarian catastrophe now consuming the people of Yemen is entirely man-made. This catastrophe could still be prevented from getting worse if there were sufficient pressure on the warring parties to halt the fighting along with adequate funding for relief efforts and a lifting of the blockade that has been starving the country for over two years. Unlike some other conflicts where the U.S. and other Western powers have little or no influence, the war on Yemen is one waged by U.S. clients and fueled by U.S. and British support for the intervening governments.

Washington has considerable leverage that it could use to rein in the Saudi-led coalition and possibly halt their campaign all together, but only if it is willing to use it. To date, neither the Obama nor the Trump administration has been willing to do that.

The U.S. and the coalition governments also have ample resources that they could use to alleviate the hardship of millions of starving and diseased Yemenis. These people suffer in large part because of the coalition intervention that our government has supported to the hilt, and so there is a special obligation on the governments responsible for this to redress the wrongs that have been done to them. Millions of Yemeni lives are threatened and thousands are being lost because of a foolish decision to try to reimpose a discredited leadership on Yemen, and the U.S. has helped enable the creation of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in a misguided desire to “reassure” the client states responsible for wrecking the country. Yemenis have done nothing to us or their neighbors that could possibly justify the treatment that has been meted out to them, and they are the victims of an indefensible and atrocious war that most of the world chooses to ignore. Meanwhile, some of the world’s most powerful governments–including ours–seek to profit from the death and destruction.

UN Special Envoy for Yemen said that a plan for Al Hodeida is aimed at keeping the Yemeni port open for international aid deliveries.

Al-Hodeida Port in Yemen Needs Protection for Aid Deliveries to Continue - Envoy
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201705301054134970-yemen-aid-deliveries/

May 30, 2017 - A plan for Al Hodeida is aimed at keeping the Yemeni port open for international aid deliveries, UN Special Envoy for Yemen Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.

"I have proposed an agreement to avoid military clashes in Hodeida," Cheikh Ahmed said. "My proposal, which includes security, economic and humanitarian elements, would allow for the continued flow of commercial and humanitarian supplies."

The special envoy added his proposal will also ensure that no funds are diverted from customs revenues and taxes, so the money can then be used to pay salaries and support services rather than used for military purposes.

Cheikh Ahmed warned that the spread of fighting in the city would lead to tremendous losses of civilian life and infrastructure that is needed to offload commercial and humanitarian supplies.

He also noted with regret the overall lack of progress in settling the conflict, blaming continued fighting on the "reluctance of the key parties to embrace the concessions needed for peace."

Moreover, Cheikh Ahmed called on the parties to urgently start a dialogue to prevent further aggravation of the situation.

In an interview with Sputnik, Yemen's Deputy Information Minister Hashim Sharafaddin made a point of expressing his disappointment with the United Nations, which has repeatedly ignored the country's requests for humanitarian assistance amid starvation and devastating Saudi bombardments.

UN Ignores War-Torn Yemen's Pleas for Aid, State Employees 'Have Nothing to Eat'
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201705281054057819-yemen-crisis-un-assistance-airport-sanaa/

May 28, 2017 - Yemeni Deputy Information Minister Hashim Sharafaddin told Sputnik that the current negotiations between the UN Secretary-General's special representative for Yemen Ismail Sheikh uld Ahmed and the country's officials were aimed at finding a solution to the Yemeni conflict and clinching a truce before the start of Ramadan, which began on May 26.

First and foremost, it is necessary to resolve the pressing issues which are riding roughshod over ordinary Yemenis, according to Sharafaddin.

He specifically underscored the need to pay salaries to employees and open an international airport in Sanaa as soon as possible.

"The crisis with wages has dragged on. During the transfer of the Central Bank of Yemen from Sanaa to Aden, the UN assured the Yemenis of timely payments, but no concrete actions have been taken yet," Sharafaddin said.

"The UN does not extend a helping hand to [the Yemeni people] despite the blockade imposed on the country because of the war that is being waged by the enemy coalition. State employees have not received money for nine months, they simply have nothing to eat," he added.

Sharafaddin urged the UN to add to the early opening of the international airport in Sanaa, Yemen's largest city, which he said is of special importance.

He said that the airport's closure had resulted in the death of many Yemeni patients who needed urgent treatment abroad.

As for Ismail Sheikh uld Ahmed, he is currently on a regional tour; he met Yemeni President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi in Saudi Arabia last week.

According to the UN Secretary General's special envoy, the purpose of his current visit is "to convince the conflicting parties to establish a truce in Yemen even ahead of the start of the Muslim holy fast in the month of Ramadan," which began on Friday, May 26.

Ismail Sheikh uld Ahmed stressed that "the truce could become a promising prologue for the beginning of the inter-Yemeni dialogue."

In Sanaa, Sheikh Ahmed plans to hold talks with representatives of the Houthi movement Ansar Allah as well as groups supporting former Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was president of pre-unification North Yemen in 1978-1990 before becoming president of the unified country between 1990 and 2012.

Forces backed by the United Arab Emirates have taken over the airport in the southern city of Aden, according to Yemeni security officials, further fueling tension between internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the UAE.

UAE-backed forces gain control over Aden airport
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/uae-backed-forces-gain-control-aden-airport-47742701

May 31, 2017 - Forces backed by the United Arab Emirates have taken over the airport in the southern city of Aden, according to Yemeni security officials, further fueling tension between internationally recognized President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and the UAE.

The officials said that one soldier from among the forces guarding the airport died in clashes Wednesday morning. The officials spoke anonymously as they were not authorized to brief the media.

The UAE contributed forces to the Saudi-led coalition that secured Hadi's return to the country following his exile in 2014. Hadi was originally forced to flee the capital, Sanaa, when it was seized by Shiite rebels, and Aden became his temporary seat of power.

However, tensions have grown between Hadi and the UAE over control of Aden's airport, the main gateway to Yemen's second largest city. UAE-led forces have made several previous unsuccessful attempts to seize the airport.

Hadi's supporters accuse the UAE of aiding groups attempting to create an independent government in the south of Yemen, which would allow the leading economic power in the region to maintain a permanent presence in the south with its strategic ports.

Conflicts over the airport started in February when the head of airport security Saleh al-Emeiry, an ally of the UAE, refused to allow Hadi's plane to land in Aden. Hadi ordered Emeiry fired and clashes broke out when armed Hadi loyalists arrived at the airport to enforce his decree. Since then control of the airport had remained split between UAE-backed forces and Hadi supporters.

In May, Hadi sacked two senior officials from the south who allegedly supported the separation and had ties to the UAE. The move was met with protests in the south and fueled further calls for separation.

Meanwhile, The United Nations envoy for Yemen said on Tuesday that the cholera outbreak in the war-ravaged country has killed over 500 people since the disease reemerged last month.

Ismael Ould Cheikh Ahmed said at a Security Council briefing that there are 60 thousand suspected cases of the cholera in its second outbreak in Yemen in six months.

The UN envoy said that Yemen's collapsing medical sector contributed to the rapid outbreak, noting that less than 45 percent of medical facilities are functioning and only half of Yemenis have access to clean water.

The World Health Organization said in its latest update on Monday that the disease continues to spread but at a slower pace, putting the death toll at 471.

A Saudi-led coalition has been battling Shiite Houthi rebels in Yemen since March 2015, in a war that has killed more than 10,000 civilians.

Yemen's raging humanitarian crisis was created artificially "from A to Z", the Norwegian Refugee Council secretary general said.

UN's Egeland 'Shocked to the Bones' by Unprecedented 'Man-Made' Famine in Yemen
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201705031053246990-egeland-yemen-famine/

May 3, 2017 - Nearly seven million people have been left by the international community to starve in war-torn Yemen, Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary General and adviser to the UN special envoy for Syria on humanitarian issues Jan Egeland said following the visit to the country.

"I am shocked to my bones by what I have seen and heard here in war- and hunger- stricken Yemen. The world is letting some 7 million men, women and children slowly but surely, be engulfed by unprecedented famine. It is not a drought that is at fault. This preventable catastrophe is man-made from A to Z," Egeland said as quoted on the Norwegian Refugee Council website.

The Saudi-led and Western-backed military coalition has threatened to attack the port of Hudaydah, the main humanitarian lifeline in the country, Egeland added, stressing that this was something that could worsen the situation even further.

The United Nations humanitarian chief has said Yemen is facing "total social, economic and institutional collapse".

Yemen facing total collapse as war continues, UN warns
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-40101639

Stephen O'Brien told members of the UN Security Council that "urgent action is required to stem the suffering".

More than two years of civil war in the country has triggered a humanitarian crisis, with almost seven million people on the brink of famine.

A resurgence of a cholera outbreak has also resulted in 60,000 suspected cases since April and 500 associated deaths.

Mr O'Brien said that despite "very generous pledges" at a conference in Yemen in April, the UN's appeal for $2.1bn (£1.6bn) for humanitarian aid was only 24% funded.

US lawmakers have introduced legislation seeking to block at least a portion of US President Donald Trump's massive sale of weapons to Saudi Arabia.

US lawmakers seek to stop massive Trump Saudi weapons deal
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/05/26/523229/US-lawmakers-seek-to-block-110bn-Saudi-arms-deal

Fri May 26, 2017 - Republican Senator Rand Paul and Democratic Senators Chris Murphy and Al Franken introduced a resolution of disapproval in the Senate on Thursday to force a vote on whether to block about $500 million of the $110 billion arms deal.

Paul said he opposes the arms deal because Riyadh supports terror groups and could use the weapons in the war against Yemen.

“Given Saudi Arabia's past support of terror, poor human rights record, and questionable tactics in its war in Yemen, Congress must carefully consider and thoroughly debate if selling them billions of dollars of arms is in our best national security interest at this time,” Paul said in a statement.

Saudi Arabia has agreed to buy $110 billion of US weapons, with options to buy up to $350 billion over 10 years. Saudi Arabia was the first stop on Trump's first overseas trip this week, and he marked the visit by announcing the arms deal in Riyadh on May 20.

Trump has said he wants to encourage international weapons sales as a way to create jobs in the United States.

In September, the Senate voted 71-27 against a joint effort by the same three senators to block another military deal with Saudi Arabia worth of $1.15 billion, signed by Trump’s predecessor Barack Obama.

Obama’s administration suspended the planned sale of precision-guided munitions in December 2016 because of concerns over the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen and civilian casualties.

US Republican Senator Rand Paul is pushing for a vote on President Donald Trump’s recent $110 billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia, arguing that it would make Washington complicit in the Riyadh regime’s ongoing war crimes in Yemen.

Rand Paul seeks Senate vote on Trump’s $110bn Saudi arms deal
http://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2017/05/24/522991/US-Trump-Saudi-deal-Rand-Paul-Senate

Wed May 24, 2017 - Paul, who ran against Trump in last year’s presidential race, was expected to introduce the measure on Wednesday, according to his aide.

The Kentucky lawmaker is hoping for a vote in early June. The Arms Export Control Act allows Paul to bring up the measure in the Senate after 10 calendar days.

Trump signed the $110 billion deal during the first leg of his maiden overseas trip in Saudi Arabia over the weekend.

Reportedly brokered by the Republican president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the massive package includes American missiles, bombs, armored personnel carriers, Littoral Combat Ships, terminal high altitude area defense (THAAD) missile systems and munitions.

Three US lawmakers want to block a proposed $110 billion sale of arms to Saudi Arabia, as those weapons could be used in the Yemeni war, making Washington a party to the bloody conflict.

US Senators Say $110Bln Arms Sale to Riyadh Will Drag Washington Into Yemen War
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201705261053997338-us-arms-saudi-yemen/

"US Senators Chris Murphy and Rand Paul, members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and US Senator Al Franken introduced on Thursday a joint resolution of disapproval to force the US Senate to vote on a resolution blocking a portion of new weapons sales to Saudi Arabia in support of their military campaign in Yemen," the statement said on Thursday.

 

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As Yemen is struggling with a cholera epidemic, Saudi warplanes have reportedly stricken a health center treating cholera patients in the impoverished country’s extreme Northwest.

Saudi Bombers Hit Yemen's Cholera Treatment Center
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960314000405

Health authority announced that the attack killed and injured a number of people at the facility in the Sa’ada Province, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported.

The United Nations announced that the cholera outbreak in war-torn Yemen has claimed the lives of nearly 600 people in about a month amid a deadly Saudi military campaign against the impoverished Arab country.

"In just over one month, close to 70,000 cholera cases were reported with nearly 600 fatalities," UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Regional Director Geert Cappelaere said, following a trip to the crisis-hit country.

He added that the spread of the highly contagious disease "is incredibly fast" in the country, making the already dire situation for children "a disaster."

“Countless children around Yemen die every day in silence from causes that can easily be prevented or treated like cholera, diarrhoea or malnutrition,” he further said, warning that the number of suspected cholera-hit cases would likely reach 130,000 within the next two weeks.

The country's Health Ministry has already announced that 19 of a total 22 Yemeni provinces are threatened by the disease. On May 14, it also declared a state of emergency in the capital Sana'a in connection with the epidemic.

A multi-ethnic humanitarian group disclosed that the ISIL terrorist group has killed dozens of civilians in the past two days while they were fleeing the embattled city of Mosul.

Iraq: Bodies of Civilians Fleeing ISIL Litter Mosul Streets
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960314000155

Dave Eubank, from the Free Burma Rangers (FBR), told Reuters on Saturday that the bodies of the victims who were escaping from West Mosul’s Zanjili neighborhood lay on the ground near the frontline with Iraqi forces.

"Over the past two days ISIS (ISIL or Daesh) has been shooting people escaping this area," he said, adding that "I saw over 50 dead bodies yesterday … and we rescued one little girl and one man. But there are still more."

About 700,000 people have already fled Mosul, but up to 200,000 civilians are still trapped in harrowing conditions in the city’s ISIL-controlled areas, most of them in the Old City.

As the countdown has started for accomplishing the recapture of the Western part of the strategic city of Mosul from the ISIL as Iraq's joint military forces have laid full siege on the terrorists in the few districts that are still under the group's control, reports disclosed that the Takfiri group has lost nearly 2,ooo members in the Western part of the strategic city.

Hisham al-Hashemi, an Iraqi security analyst, said ISIL terrorist group has lost at least 2,000 members, nearly 300 bombers and 350 snipers ever since the military operation to liberate Western Mosul started more than three months ago.

He added that the Takfiris have also lost control over 93 percent of the territories they once held in Western Mosul.

A local source from Nineveh said a huge underground prison with dozens of detainees from Anbar province was found in West of Mosul.

Iraq: Dozens of Civilians Found in Huge ISIL Underground Prison in Western Mosul
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960314000489

“While liberating Western Mosul districts, Iraqi troops found a huge underground prison, where dozens of detainees from Fallujah, Ramadi, Saqlawiyah and Karma cities were held,” the source told Al-Sumaria News.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source added that “the detainees were released. They were secured by Iraqi troops ahead of being treated. They were then transferred to another place to check their identities.”

UN estimates put the number of civilians stranded at the battlefield in the Old City at 200,000, saying they suffer severe shortages in food and medicine.

The Eastern side of Mosul was retaken in January after three months of battles. Another major offensive was launched in February to recapture the Western flank of the city.

Iraqi commanders have stressed that more than 90 percent of territories in Western Mosul is under Iraqi troops control.

Iraq's Volunteer forces continued operations to clear the borders with Syria from militants , killing six members of the ISIL, including a senior leader.

6 ISIL Commandos Killed by Iraqi Forces near Syrian Borders
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960314000518

A statement by Polular Mobilization Forces, also known as Hashd al-Shaaib, said that the Iraqi forces had killed six members of the ISIL commando forces, including Hassan Kanahs al-Zebeidi, a senior leader, at Matallat al-Markeb village near the borders with Syria, Iraqi News reported.

Earlier, the media outlet said mobilization forces recaptured one village near the borders.

Coincidently with government troops’ operations in Mosul, army warplanes have been backing PMF operations against ISIL holdouts near the Syrian borders, most notably at the Qairawan and Ba'aj regions. Mobilization commanders had said thei recaptured Qairawan and continue currently to clear Baaj, recently announcing they reached the borderline and revealing plans to hand over security at that region to Iraqi police forces.

Speculations have emerged that the Iraqi forces could seek to link up with forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who is also fighting the ISIL militants, by crossing the borders into Syria. The Hashd als-Shaabi officials have, however, assured they would not take the step without an Iraqi legislature decision.

 

[angelburst29]

As Yemen is struggling with a cholera epidemic, Saudi warplanes have reportedly stricken a health center treating cholera patients in the impoverished country’s extreme Northwest.

Saudi Bombers Hit Yemen's Cholera Treatment Center
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960314000405

Health authority announced that the attack killed and injured a number of people at the facility in the Sa’ada Province, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network reported.

The Saudi regime, in yet another attack against Yemeni civilians, mounted an airstrike on a medical center treating cholera patients in the northwestern province of Sa'ada, as the Arabian Peninsula country is suffering a cholera epidemic.

Saudi Fighter Jets Bombard Yemeni Medical Center
https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2017/06/04/1427546/saudi-fighter-jets-bombard-yemeni-medical-center

A number of people were injured in the airstrike hitting the medical center in Qahza on Saturday night, Yemen’s al-Masirah television network quoted a statement issued by health authorities in the province as saying.

The attack by the Saudi-led coalition also damaged the building and medical equipment, forcing the medical center to halt its treatment activities,
according to the statement.

The attack came as the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that the death toll of months-long cholera in war-torn Yemen has risen to 605, with suspected cases exceeding 73,700.

"Cholera continues to spread in Yemen. Over 73,700 suspected cholera cases and 605 associated deaths have been reported in 19 governorates," WHO said on its official twitter account.

WHO had put the figure at 532 and the number of suspected cases at 65,300 on Wednesday.

The deadly disease has been rapidly spreading across Yemen since April 27, WHO said.

The organization warned that the healthcare system in Yemen is on the verge of collapse as many hospitals have shut down because of the ongoing conflict, saying only 45 percent of Yemen's hospitals are operational, and they are facing a shortage of supplies and staff.

 

[angelburst29]

The Iraqi military, who were filmed torturing and abusing civilians, are “mainly supervised by US commanders,” a member of the Baghdad Security Committee, has said, telling RT that American military personnel have “some type of immunity” in such cases.

Iraqi forces carrying out tortures in Mosul mostly supervised by US – security official (Video)
https://www.rt.com/news/391156-iraq-torture-forces-us/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdofv2BsPug (2:43 min.)

Saad Al-Muttalibi was responding after damning photos by freelance photographer Ali Arkady were released to the media. The pictures show Iraq’s elite Emergency Response Division (ERD) in Mosul torturing and abusing their captives suspected of having links with Islamic State (IS, also known as ISIS/ISIL).

“It is a war and a war is a horrible thing… It is a fact of war that innocent people will pay with their lives. Such action [torture and abuse] by army is definitely unsanctioned by the [Iraqi] government. We have a number of officers either facing trial or spending prison sentences here in Baghdad because of human right violations,” he said.

The rapid response units were trained by the Americans and are close to the US command,” he said. “They [US commanders] have some type of immunity that we can’t question them,” he added.

The American military has continued to work with the EDR despite the special forces unit being blacklisted in 2015 under the Leahy Act, which requires foreign military units to be banned from receiving US military aid if there is “credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.”

A US military spokesman, cited by ABC News, said that although an investigation into new evidence of ERD’s alleged atrocities is warranted, there is no legal reason why the US cannot continue to work with the unit.

“Leahy vetting does not prevent the US from working with the ERD, as we do with other elements of the Iraqi Security Forces, to help ensure a coordinated effort among different elements of the ISF in the fight to defeat ISIS in Mosul,” US Army Col. Joe Scrocca told ABC News.

In one photo series released by Akardy, the EDR soldiers are seen torturing a man in what is known as the strappado. It shows horrendous images where a detainee is hanged by his arms to the ceiling, blindfolded, with officers standing next to him and adding weights to his back to intensify the agony.

Al-Muttalibi told RT that the man in the picture “wasn’t murdered” and he “is alive.”

“The problem with that particular individual is that his son and his brother are members of ISIS. Unfortunately the officer in charge took matter into his own hands,” he said, adding, that the authorities are currently conducting an investigation into the matter.

Al-Muttalibi questioned if the pictures were taken in context, drawing an example of the “quality of the photos” and “the angles of light.”

“As if they [the photos] were orchestrated. The cameraman took a dramatic position to take the picture,” he suggested, adding that the officer who tortured the man and other troops are currently in custody.

Baghdad has taken full responsibility for the case, Al-Muttalibi said.

“Iraqi side is taking steps [to handle the situation], I can’t say the same about the Americans. We don’t know what they are doing.”

RT contacted the press service of General Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF–OIR) which said that the Coalition “does not condone or support any violation of the laws of armed conflict.”

“Any violation of the law of armed conflict would be unacceptable and should be investigated in a transparent manner and those deemed responsible held accountable in accordance with due process and Iraqi law,” the statement said.

According to OIR, the US government’s “support to the counter-ISIS campaign is conducted by, with, and through the central government of Iraq.”

“…At no time were US forces aware of or informed of these allegations until you brought them to our attention. At which point, we brought them to the attention of the government of Iraq and it is our understanding that they have already opened up an investigation into the allegations.”

Earlier, Human Rights Watch said the photos could possibly also cast a shadow on US and other members of the coalition in the Middle East.

“The US and other members of the anti-ISIS coalition risk complicity in Iraqi abuses given their participation in military operations with the country’s security forces,” HRW statement said.

Communications and Advocacy Director for Human Rights Watch in Middle East & North Africa, Ahmed Benchemsi, has called on international governments to be careful when granting military support.

“What we recommend to the US and other international governments is to condition all military support on demonstrable and measurable steps to end abuses. Promises are not enough,” he said.

A civil rights group is asking German authorities to issue an arrest warrant for the recently appointed deputy director of the CIA over claims she oversaw the torture of terrorism suspects 15 years ago.

Rights group asks Germany to arrest CIA deputy director
https://www.mail.com/int/news/europe/5254198-rights-group-asks-germany-to-arrest-cia-deputy-dir.html#.1258-stage-hero1-2

The prosecutor's office confirmed Wednesday the complaint had been received and was being reviewed. Similar complaints against senior U.S. officials in the past haven't resulted in arrest warrants. Advocates describe waterboarding as a form of "enhanced interrogation." Critics say it amounts to torture, because prisoners are made to feel they are drowning.

Haspel was the first female career CIA officer selected to be deputy director in February. The submission by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights — seen by The Associated Press — centers mainly on the case of Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi citizen and senior al-Qaeda member who was among scores of Islamic extremists detained worldwide in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Drawing on media report and congressional testimony, attorneys for the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights allege that Zubaydah was waterboarded 83 times in August 2002, while Haspel was in charge of a detention facility in Thailand known as Cat's Eye base or Detention Site Green.

The submission identifies two CIA contractors, psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, as the only people authorized to have contact with Zubaydah during that time and claims they were answerable to Haspel.

The American Civil Liberties Union is currently suing Mitchell and Jessen on behalf of three men who say they were tortured using techniques the psychologists designed. A U.S. Senate investigation in 2014 found their interrogation techniques produced no useful intelligence in the so-called war on terror, but some former intelligence officials say the techniques have produced valuable intelligence.

"For the purposes of determining criminal liability, what is most relevant is the fact that as head of the secret prison in Thailand, Gina Haspel followed each day of Abu Zubaydah's torture from Aug. 4 to 23, 2002, and she alone had the responsibility to end this torture but failed to do so," the submission to German prosecutors states. It also cites the case of Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, the alleged mastermind of the USS Cole bombing in 2000, who was waterboarded at Cat's Eye base in November 2002.

Both men are now held at the U.S. detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In a separate legal proceeding, Europe's top human rights court ruled in 2014 that Poland had violated the rights of Zubaydah and al-Nashiri by allowing the CIA to secretly imprison them on Polish soil from 2002-2003 and facilitate conditions under which they were tortured.

The ruling by the European Court of Human Rights marked the first time any court has passed judgment on the rendition program launched by U.S. President George W. Bush after 9/11. Civil rights groups have tried to prosecute several senior U.S. officials implicated in the torture program, including former CIA director George Tenet, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, top CIA legal counsel John Rizzo and Geoffrey Miller, the former commander of the Guantanamo Bay detention center.

Tuesday's submission naming Haspel is the first in Germany against a high-ranking official still in service with the CIA. The agency declined to comment on the German group's legal efforts to have Haspel arrested.

A spokeswoman for Germany's federal prosecutor's office said a preliminary investigation into the torture allegations was opened in late 2014, following the partial release of the U.S. Senate report. "We are grateful for all information that sheds light on the allegations," Frauke Koehler told The Associated Press, adding that the latest evidence would be reviewed as a matter of course.

While German prosecutors can investigate serious crimes committed outside the country, there has to be a link of some kind to Germany — such as the victim or the suspect being in the country — for them to open a formal criminal probe.

The only case with a clear link to Germany that's been prosecuted so far is that of Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese descent, who said he was tortured at a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan. The group argues in the current suit that the renditions in question are part of the broader U.S. program with multiple links to Germany.

Munich prosecutors issued arrest warrants in 2007 for 13 CIA agents involved in the operation , but the German government has refused to seek their extradition.

 

[angelburst29]

Back-dated article Tuesday, 25 Oct 2011

It has been called the largest airborne transfer of currency in the history of the world. But finding out what happened to all the money involved has become one of the biggest financial mysteries of all time.

NY Fed's $40 Billion Iraqi Money Trail (Videos)
http://www.cnbc.com/id/45031100

Beginning in the very earliest days of the war in Iraq, the New York Federal Reserve shipped billions of dollars in physical cash to Baghdad to pay for the reopening of the government and restoration of basic services.

The money was packed onto pallets inside a heavily guarded New York Federal Reserve compound in East Rutherford, New Jersey, trucked to Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, and flown by military aircraft to Baghdad International Airport.

By one account, the New York Fed shipped about $40 billion in cash between 2003 and 2008. In just the first two years, the shipments included more than 281 million individual bills weighing a total of 363 tons. But soon after the money arrived in the chaos of war-torn Baghdad, the paper trail documenting who controlled it all began to go cold.

Since then, investigators have spent years trying to trace what happened to the enormous amount of money shipped in the frantic days of the occupation of Iraq. Although there have been hundreds of pages of reports, Congressional hearings, and inquiries from Washington to Baghdad, no one in Congress, a special inspector general’s office, the Department of Defense or the Iraqi government itself can say with certainty what exactly happened to all of that money.

Much of it may have been spent on the things it was intended for—but billions of dollars may have simply been stolen. The thefts likely ranged from complicated contracting schemes to brazen appropriations of billions in cash still in their New York Fed plastic wrappers.

To find out what happened, a special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction has focused on the chain of custody—who was responsible for the money, minute by minute, as it made its way to Baghdad.

And although the money was handled by a variety of trained American officials and military officers in the first legs of its trip halfway around the world, CNBC has learned that something unusual happened on the Baghdad side of the transaction: Each of the money flights to Baghdad was met at the airport in Iraq by the same man.

The previously unknown Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) official was tasked with picking up the bales of billions as they were unloaded from C-17s and arranging for them to get to the Central Bank of Iraq in downtown Baghdad. It was a perilous journey of about seven miles over a road the U.S. military called “Route Irish” through territory often controlled by insurgents. Travelers faced the threat of rocket propelled grenades, mortars, car bombs and IEDs.

Transit was so dangerous that returning American GI’s often posted YouTube videos of their trips on Route Irish, just for the bragging rights of having been there.

The CPA official was a stocky, middle-aged naturalized American citizen of Lebanese descent who was born in Saudi Arabia. His first name is Basel.
At his request, CNBC has agreed to withhold his last name from this story. Basel ferried cash in Baghdad for the CPA and the American embassy from 2003 until 2008—all told handling, he said, about $40 billion in cash.

His job made him the very last American to see that money before it disappeared into the vaults at the Central Bank of Iraq. And it may have made him the only person in the history of the world to oversee the movement of $40 billion in a combat zone.

It doesn’t seem that anyone in the US government planned ahead of time to put so much responsibility—and temptation—into the hands of just one man. Former Republican Connecticut Congressman Christopher Shays co-chaired the Commission on Wartime Contracting, digging into waste, fraud and abuse in Iraq. He has traveled to Iraq scores of times to oversee US efforts there. Shays did a double take when CNBC told him how much money Basel said he handled in Iraq.

“Wait, one person?” Shays asked. “One person received $40 billion?” Asked what he thinks about that, Shays said, “It just blows you away.”

Moving Billions Began In The Federal Reserve Compound, East Rutherford, NJ The enormous undertaking of moving the billions began in the heavily guarded Federal Reserve compound on 100 Orchard Street in East Rutherford, NJ. There, carefully screened employees loaded pallets of cash into tractor-trailers for their journey down I-95 toward Washington, DC. The money came from an account held at the New York Fed called the “Development Fund for Iraq” which was made up of billions of dollars in Saddam Hussein’s financial assets that had been frozen under various US and global sanctions regimes. They weren’t taxpayer dollars , but the US government was responsible for making sure they got where they were going.

A typical pallet held 640 bundles, which the handlers called “bricks,” with a thousand bills in each bundle. Each pallet weighed 1,500 pounds, and they were separated by color. Gold seals were used for $100 bills, brown seals held $50 bills, purple seals $20, and so on.

The operation was handled with the utmost secrecy—just imagine what could have happened if the mafia found out which trucks held the money. The chain of custody of the cash was rigorously documented as it left the custody of the New York Fed and was signed over to Air Force officers, who oversaw the loading of C-17 transport planes and flew with the bales of money on the long flight to Baghdad. When the cargo holds were unloaded in Baghdad, Basel was there. But his presence on the receiving end of the largest airborne currency transfer in history began almost entirely by accident.

As a fluent speaker of multiple Arabic dialects, Basel had come to Iraq as a civilian with the American military. Both he and his former boss say Basel was sitting in a waiting area in Saddam Hussein’s palace in early 2003, waiting for his first assignment. While he was waiting, a US Treasury official burst into the room, looking for a translator.

“I have a situation here,” the official said. Basel raised his hand to help. Soon he found himself wrangling with a crew of Iraqi truck drivers who had been told to make a delivery to the Central Bank of Iraq. But the bank was closed for the night, and they did not understand the instructions their American overseers were trying to impart about where to store their trucks. Basel intervened, untangling the confusion.

Impressed, the Treasury official, David Nummy, recruited Basel on the spot. Nummy said he soon put Basel in charge of meeting the cash flights from Washington at Baghdad airport, largely because he found Basel to be trustworthy. “He proved himself to be very reliable,” Nummy said of Basel in an interview with CNBC. “Very competent. Very committed and he performed a great service during the time that I was there.”

“I'm not surprised that he turned out as good as he did,” Nummy said. “I think its … one of many examples we hear of people being in the right place at the right time and find their calling really by circumstance.”

Basel said he brought two senior Iraqi government officials with him to the airport for each flight, and those people signed receipts presented by the Air Force officials for the money, witnessing each other’s signature. It was for the government’s protection—and his own. Basel wanted to be able to prove that he had turned over the money as promised. But in the chaos of war planning, no one seems to have thought about paperwork. Basel said the CPA didn’t give him any forms or documents with which to record the transfer of the billions. So he wrote up his own, using Microsoft Word.

One document Basel showed CNBC was a one-page receipt of shipment for a billion-dollar delivery in April of 2006. Basel typed it up himself. It read, in part: “This is to testify that we, the undersigned, have received in our custody from [Basel’s full name] … the total amount of USD 1,000,000,000.00 (United States Dollars One Billion Only).” At the bottom were the hastily scrawled signatures of two officials of the Central Bank of Iraq.

“Its my neck on the line,” Basel said. “I documented the hell out of this.” With the Iraqi government signatures in place, the money was in legal custody of the government of Iraq from the instant it was unloaded from the C-17s. It was Basel’s job to make sure it stayed that way, at least until it got to the vaults of the Central Bank of Iraq.

Though he said he had no formal security training, Basel demonstrated a flair for subterfuge. Knowing a successful heist of the cash would be a momentum-shifting bonanza for the growing Iraqi insurgency, Basel rolled out a variety of tricks to keep the insurgents from figuring out just how much cash was moving right past them. He didn’t repeat the same configuration of trucks and cars to carry the money, so any watching insurgents or criminals wouldn’t be able to pin down a pattern of which vehicles carried cash. On some of the most dangerous missions, he eschewed the bristling military security convoys that would be a sure sign that something important was being shipped.

He worked on scheduling the timing of the flights, so they wouldn’t arrive in Baghdad at a dangerous moment. He hired scouts to park on overpasses and drive the route ahead of the convoy to report on suspicious activity. And he used jammers to block the cell phone signals of any insurgents who tried to call in details of the convoy’s movement or trigger a bomb in the roadway.

On one billion-dollar run, Basel used garbage trucks to throw the insurgents off the trail. “I hired garbage trucks, and in the back of the garbage truck you had $1 billion dollars.” Basel said. “And I was in the front with a gun pointed at the driver. I said to him, ‘don't try anything funny. If everything goes well, you'll make $1,000. If you make a move, I'll kill you right here and drive the rest of the way myself.’”

He said the drivers he hired were thrilled to get $1,000, and that none ever tried to steal a single bill. It helped, he said, that he never used the same driver twice.

And he was not averse to using force. “I am willing and able to engage any entity,” said. “I will open fire first and ask questions later.” He held a firm belief in overwhelming firepower. “If you want to mess with a .50 cal (machine gun), go ahead and be my guest. You will lose every time.”

Basel’s Baghdad job came with enormous risks. At one point, the insurgents placed a million-dollar bounty on his head. At another, the Iraqi government issued a warrant for his arrest. Basel laughs off both incidents, saying the bounty should have been higher, and that the arrest warrant was a political trap designed to damage his credibility.

He said through all that, he never lost a shipment. “My record shows, you give Basel $10 billion to deliver, and Basel delivers $10 billion plus $400,” he said. “I delivered more money than I received.” That was possible, he explained, because the U.S. military came to him with any cash they found during nighttime raids on insurgent hideouts. Figuring that money rightly belonged to the Iraqi government, Basel said he delivered it to the Central Bank along with the pallets of cash from the New York Fed.

Basel said he didn’t steal any of the Baghdad billions, but he knows who stole at least some of it.

Asked whether he thinks any of the money he delivered was stolen or misappropriated, Basel said, “absolutely, without a doubt.” But asked who stole it, he said, “I’m sure I have an idea, but I can’t name names.” That’s because, he explained quietly, “I have a wife and family to worry about.”

High-Alert Security In East Rutherford - When CNBC showed up in front of the East Rutherford Operations Center of the New York Fed to record a video segment for this story, police officers working for the Fed shooed our camera crew off the driveway and onto a small strip of public land that abuts the facility. Later, when we returned to our cars in the parking lot of a nearby convenience store, three police cars— including an unmarked car—blocked our exit. A local police officer politely asked us who we were and why we were taking pictures of the Fed. Satisfied that we were who we said we were, he let us go.

Such high-alert security is understandable, given the huge amounts of currency processed at the sleek modern facility, which was opened in 1992. The accounts held there for the Iraqi government alone are enormous. Despite the $40 billion Basel said he has distributed to the Central Bank of Iraq over the years, the value of the accounts at the New York Fed haven’t gone down—they’ve gone up.

That’s because the government of Iraq continues to pour the proceeds of its newly refurbished oil industry into its accounts at the Fed in New York. In April, the Iraqi government informed the UN security council that it was going to open a new account at the Fed to replace the Development Fund for Iraq account that had been established years earlier. Baghdad will continue to operate a second account, called the “Oil Proceeds Receipts Account” that serves as a cash reserve for the Iraqi Central Bank, supporting the Iraqi currency.

The New York Fed is experienced at this sort of thing—it also holds billions in reserves for a slew of other countries around the world. The New York Fed’s website explains that it offers custodial accounts for foreign government cash and “vault services” services for their gold. The Fed invests the money in “overnight repurchase agreements, or U.S. Treasury and agency securities. The Federal Reserve does not give investment advice.”

Officials at the Fed declined to comment for this story, even to confirm the existence of Iraqi accounts it holds. But publicly, the Fed says that taken together, its gold holdings “constitute the world's largest concentration of monetary gold; the U.S. Treasury's depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, is the second largest.”

To this day, say several sources, the New York Fed is still rolling trucks filled with bills to Baghdad. According to one source familiar with the Central Bank of Iraq, the amounts are much smaller now than they were in the early days of the war.

Many people in Iraq like to hold dollars instead of dinars. And the Central Bank sells dollars for Iraqi dinars at a fixed exchange rate in auctions it holds on most business days. According to the Central Bank of Iraq, for example, on September 12th 2011, it sold $12.3 million in cash at auction.

As for Basel, his experiences in Iraq opened up huge new opportunities for him around the world. Before the war, he lived in a modest townhouse in suburban Centreville, VA, outside of Washington, DC. But Basel didn’t return to the United States after his time in Baghdad. Instead, he set himself up as one of the world’s leading experts in transporting cash in war zones, operating a business out of his new home of Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, where we sat down with him for an interview.

Today, Basel says he is planning a trip to Sudan, and is negotiating for a contract to transport billions of dollars in cash into newly liberated Libya. The man who escorted $40 billion says he still needs to earn a living.

On Wednesday: A new report from the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction has followed the money trail in Baghdad farther than ever before. Eamon Javers will look at his findings, and where the money may have gone.

 

[angelburst29]

The Iraqi army forces continued their military advances against ISIL terrorists and managed to take control of al-Waleed crossing and a strip along Iraq's borders with Syria and Jordan.

Iraqi Army Takes Control of Strip Along Common Borders with Syria, Jordan
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960327001152

The Iraqi forces under the joint command headquarters started a massive military operation dubbed as 'al-Fajr' to take control of the border strip.

The military operation took place with the participation of border guards, tribal forces and backup of the Iraqi fighter jets and international coalition.

Al-Waleed is close to the al-Tanf border crossing on the common border, which is the key to the Baghdad-Damascus Highway and also links up to the main Baghdad-Amman route.

ISIL seized al-Waleed in May 2015, almost a year into its deadly terror campaign in Syria and Iraq. It used the bridgehead to expand its grip there to the entirety of the common border.

Syrian forces are also advancing toward al-Tanf, where the US forces have been based since last year on a mission to train anti-Damascus militants.

A shooting incident at Camp Shaheen, headquarters of the 209 Corps of the Afghan National Army, inflicted injuries to seven US servicemen, NATO's Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan said Saturday.

At Least 7 US Servicemen Injured in ‘Insider Attack’ in Afghanistan
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201706171054729534-us-injuries-camp-troops/

Earlier in the day, the mission issued a statement, saying that the attack, which took place at 2 p.m. local time (approximately 9:30 GMT) killed one Afghan serviceman and wounded another.

"UPDATE: Seven U.S. service members wounded, evacuated for treatment. Insider attack Camp Shaheen, Mazar-e Sharif under investigation," the mission wrote on its Twitter account.

​The US-led NATO mission in Afghanistan formally ended its operations in December 2014 after a presence in the country since 2001 to help local authorities defeat the Taliban Islamist movement. The NATO-led Resolute Support mission, focused on training, advising and assisting Afghan National Defense and Security Forces (ANDSF) and Afghan Security Institution (ASI) organization, was launched on January 1, 2015.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Funeral services have been set for three U.S. soldiers from Fort Campbell who were killed in Afghanistan.

Funerals set for airborne soldiers killed in Afghanistan
https://www.stripes.com/news/us/funerals-set-for-airborne-soldiers-killed-in-afghanistan-1.474155#.WUX4ef6WwdV

The Defense Department says Sgt. Eric M. Houck, 25, of Baltimore, Maryland; Sgt. William M. Bays, 29, of Barstow, California; and Cpl. Dillon C. Baldridge, 22, of Youngsville, North Carolina, died of gunshot wounds on June 10 in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan. They were part of the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, located on the Kentucky-Tennessee line.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam's office says funeral services for Houck are scheduled Tuesday at the Community Chapel on Fort Campbell, followed by graveside service at Kentucky Veterans Cemetery West in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

Visitations for Bays will be at McReynolds-Nave & Larson Funeral Home in Clarksville, Tennessee, on Thursday, and at the Community Chapel on the base Friday. Burial information isn't available.

Baldridge's funeral will be in North Carolina, but no further information was immediately available.

"Our thoughts, prayers and condolences go out to the grieving families left behind and the Fort Campbell community," Haslam said in a statement.

Years after former US President Barack Obama drew down troop levels in Afghanistan, his successor is reversing course—though "this won’t affect the outcome there," says Max Abrahms, a counterterrorism theorist at Northeastern University in Boston.

US to Pour 4K More Troops Into Afghanistan as Daesh Takes Over Taliban Caves
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201706171054713393-us-more-troops-afghanistan-daesh/

The decision was made by Secretary of Defense James Mattis, who has been authorized by US President Donald Trump to set troop limits in Afghanistan. This could prove to be a strategic blunder by the president, according to Abrahms, who recently noted that passing off such responsibility is "dangerous."

The troop deployment marks the largest shift in manpower sent to the Middle East under the Trump administration.

An official announcement could come next week, Stars and Stripes reported, noting that a Trump administration official first reported the move on Thursday. Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis dismissed the reports to the military news outlet, insisting "no decisions have been made."

On Thursday, Sputnik reported that Daesh had made inroads into Al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden’s old hideout in Tora Bora, a network of tunnels and caves in eastern Afghanistan. In addition to Daesh’s presence, the Taliban remains a major threat to stability in the war-torn nation.

The unnamed official who spoke with Stars and Stripes claimed that most of the forces would be deployed to train Afghan security forces and advise their top commanders. A "smaller number" of the possible 4,000 troops would engage in direct counterterror combat operations against Daesh and the Taliban, the news agency noted.

The Afghan Defense Ministry would support the move, said spokesman Daulut Waziri. "The United States knows we are in the fight against terrorism," Waziri commented, adding, "we want to finish this war in Afghanistan with the help of the NATO alliance."

Afghani MP Nasrullah Sadeqizada disagreed, stressing that “the foreign troops who are here are not making it better.”

Iranian Interior Ministry’s Director of Border Affairs Majd Aqa-Babaei said that the Saudi coast guard opened fire on Iranian fishing boats in the Persian Gulf, killing a fisherman.

Saudi Coast Guard Opens Fire on Iranian Fishing Boats - Iranian Official
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201706181054731142-saudi-fire-iranian-boats/

The Saudi coast guard opened fire on Iranian fishing boats in the Persian Gulf, killing a fisherman, Iranian Interior Ministry’s Director of Border Affairs Majd Aqa-Babaei said.

"Accordingly and without establishing whether the Iranian boats had crossed Saudi borders, the coastguard of this country opened fire on the Iranian boats and an Iranian fisherman was killed due to a bullet hitting him in the waist," Babaei said Satursday, as quoted by Al-Masdar News.

The official stressed that the Saudi coast guard was not authorized to open fire on the boats, adding that such actions were not "compatible with human principles."

Saudi Arabia has not released any statement on the issue so far.

 

[angelburst29]

Iraqi armed forces have entered the Old City of Iraq's Mosul as part of the liberatation operation the city from Daesh militants.

Iraqi Forces Enter Mosul's Old City - US Special Envoy to Anti-Daesh Coalition
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201706181054744126-iraq-army-mosul-operation/

Iraqi armed forces have entered the Old City district of Iraq's Mosul as part of the operation to liberate the city from Daesh militants (terrorist organization banned in Russia), US Special Presidential Envoy for Global Coalition to Counter Daesh Brett McGurk said Sunday.

On Friday, Iraqi army launched an offensive against remaining terrorists in the ancient part of the city.

"Iraqi forces early this morning breach into old #Mosul, the final #ISIS-held district in the city. We are proud to stand with them," McGurk posted on his official Twitter page.

The Iraqi operation to recapture Mosul, the key stronghold of the Daesh in Iraq, began in October 2016 and resulted in the liberation of Mosul’s eastern part this January. Fighting continues in the city's west, with Iraqi forces trying to liberate the Old City.

A group of unidentified armed men kidnapped a US national in Kabul on Sunday, local media reported, citing a source in the security forces.

Armed Men Kidnap US Citizen in Afghanistan’s Capital of Kabul
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201706181054742404-kabul-kidnapping-citizen-afghanistan/

The Khaama news agency reported that the kidnapped was working on a project for the Afghan ministry of agriculture and the World Bank.

No group or individual has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

Earlier in the day, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said that two of its employees from the country’s consulate in the Afghan city of Jalalabad have gone missing since Friday while they were returning to Pakistan by land.

Terrorist groups, active in Afghanistan, such as the Taliban and the Islamic State, both banned in Russia, regularly kidnap foreign nationals for ransom and blackmail.

The foreign ministry of Pakistan said in statement Sunday that two of its officials from the country’s consulate in the Afghan city of Jalalabad have gone missing since Friday while returning to Pakistan by road.

Two Pakistani Officials Went Missing En Route From Afghanistan
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201706181054735561-pakistan-officials-missing-afghanistan/

According to the statement, the Afghan authorities informed Islamabad that the investigation and the search for the diplomats were launched.

“Two officials of our Consulate General Jalalabad are missing since 16th June 2017 while commuting to Pakistan by road. The matter has been raised with the relevant Afghan authorities for their safety and recovery, at the earliest,” the statement read.

“Pakistan has requested the Afghan Government that all efforts may be made to ensure early recovery of our officials and bring the perpetrators of this heinous crime to justice,” the Pakistani ministry said in statement.

The ministry underlined that it is in the constant contact on the matter with the Afghan authorities.

The Taliban terrorist group, banned in Russia, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack on the police headquarters in the Afghan eastern province of Paktia, local media reported Sunday.

Taliban Claims Responsibility for Attack on Police HQs in Afghanistan - Reports
https://sputniknews.com/asia/201706181054734453-taliban-attack-responsibility/

The information was reported by Khaama news agency.

Earlier in the day, an improvised explosive device was detonated near the parking area of the police headquarters, which allowed a group of militants to launch the attack.

According to Interior Ministry Spokesman Najibullah Danish, the police clashed with the attackers, who tried to enter the compound, killing three of them. Danish added that two police officers were killed.

Earlier this month, the Taliban claimed responsibility for killing three US soldiers in eastern Afghanistan.

A Kurdish official disclosed that over 1,600 Izadi children have been trained by the Daesh (ISIL or ISIS) terrorist group as suicide bombers and executioners over the past three years.

ISIL Turning Izadi Kids into Suicide Bombers
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The director of the Izadi Affairs Office of the Kurdistan Regional Government was quoted by the DPA as saying on Saturday that these children trained by the Takfiri terrorists are a global threat.

“It cannot be ruled out that Daesh could use them in terrorist actions in European countries as well as the US, Arab countries or elsewhere,” he noted.

According to recent figures, a total of 6,417 Izadis have managed to flee from the terrorists and were rescued by various liberating forces. Reports show that at least 9,900 Izadis were killed in the first few days of Daesh's operations in Iraq in 2017.

Back in August 2014, Daesh terrorists overran Sinjar, killing, raping, and enslaving large numbers of Izadis. The town was recaptured on November 13, 2015, during a two-day operation by Peshmerga forces and Izadi fighters.

The Office of Kidnapped Affairs in the Northern Iraqi city of Dohuk says around 3,500 Izadi Kurds are currently being held captive in the Daesh-held areas, and that a large proportion of the abductees are women and children.

A major plan of the ISIL terror group to establish the Khurasan province in Afghanistan was foiled by the Afghan security forces, the acting Minister of Defense Tariq Shah Bahrami said.

Afghan Defense Official: ISIL’s Major Plan to Establish Khurasan Province Foiled by Security Forces
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960328001287

Speaking during a press conference, Bahrami said the ISIL terrorist group was attempting to establish the Khurasan province under its so called caliphate in Kot and Achin district of Nangarhar, Khaama Press reported.

However, he said the Afghan forces managed to foil the plans of the terror group by taking immediate steps and launching counter-terrorism operations that inflicted heavy casualties to the fighters of the terror group.

Bahrami further added that the Afghan security forces have launched 12 large operations so far and dozens of medium and large operations while hundreds of airstrikes have been conducted on the hideouts of the terror group.

According to the acting minister of defense, at least 2,500 militants of the terrorist group have been killed during the operations until now and around 800 others have sustained injuries.

He also added that the loyalists of the terror group were also hit during the operations in Helmand, Farah, Zabul, and Uruzgan provinces.

In the meantime, he said the ISIL militants are only having sporadic and small operations in the named places but do not have the capability to launch large scale attacks.

The Saudi-backed forces carried out several attacks against the Yemeni forces, targeting their positions in the vast Midi Desert of Northern Yemen, local media said.

Saudi, Sudanese Forces Suffer Heavy Casualties in Failed Invasion of Yemen’s Midi Desert
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Despite their repeated attempts to infiltrate the Yemeni troops' defenses, the Saudi and Sudanese armies suffered heavy casualties in their failed attacks, forcing them to ultimately retreat North, Al Masdar reported.

In response to their failed offensive, the Saudi-led Arab Coalition began bombarding the densely populated cities of Northern Yemen, including the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, and ancient city of Sa’ada.

At least 15 civilians were killed or wounded by the Saudi airstrikes, a military source added.

Yemen has been since March 2015 under a brutal aggression by Saudi-led coalition. Tens of thousands of Yemenis have been injured and killed in Saudi-led strikes, with the vast majority of them are civilians.

The coalition has been also imposing a blockade on the impoverished country’s ports and airports as a part of his aggression which is aimed at restoring power to fugitive former president Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi.

However, the allied forces of the army and the committees have been confronting the aggression with all means.

Saudi warplanes have bombed a bustling marketplace in Yemen’s extreme Northwest, killing at least 24 people.

Saudi Bombing of Yemen Market Claims A Dozen Lives
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960328000956

The aircraft hit the al-Moshnaq market in Shada’a District in Sa’ada Province Saturday night as people gathered to buy staples for Eid al-Fitr, a festivity which marks the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan, the al-Masirah television reported.

The report said the casualty figure could rise because the aircraft kept bombing after relief teams arrived at the scene, adding that some of the fatalities have already been identified as relief workers, who died trying to reach the marketplace amid continued bombing.

 

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Unknown individuals beheaded a cameraman operating within the ISIL’s main media agency in Southwestern Kirkuk, a source said Tuesday.

ISIL Media Agency Cameraman Found Beheaded in Kirkuk
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960330001556

The source said that a cameraman working for Amaq News Agency, ISIL’s media arm, was found beheaded at a country road in al-Riyadh, southwest of the province, Al Sumariya reported. ISIL members were put on alert to search for the attackers, according to the source.

Al-Riyadh and other neighboring areas in Southwest Kirkuk have been under ISIL control since 2014, when the group emerged to proclaim a “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria. The group executed dozens of civilians and security members there, forcing thousands to flee homes.

Local tribal leaders and politicians from Kirkuk have mounted pressure on the Iraqi government to hasten with invading Hawija, suggesting that its people were experiencing a humanitarian crisis under the group’s rule. The Iraqi government is currently employing the largest portion of its military effort in Mosul, ISIL’s capital in Iraq where the group is reportedly cornered in a few square kilometers.

Several anonymous attacks against ISIL members have been reported over the past months since Iraqi forces, backed by a US-led coalition, launched a campaign to retake areas occupied by ISIL militants.

Three Iraqi officers were wounded as ISIL militants launched a chemical attack from Western Mosul’s Old City to hinder the advancing government troops.

Three Iraqi Servicemen Injured as ISIL Launch 10th Chemical Attack in Mosul
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960330001665

The mortar missile landed near an elite squad from the army’s Counter-Terrorism Service, three officers sustained intense vomiting and rashes from the missile which, contained a poisonous gas, probably mustard, Sputnik reported.

The affected personnel were taken late Monday to a makeshift hospital run by the squad, according to Sputnik, which said the attack was the tenth by ISIL militants since operations launched to retake Mosul in October.

Instances of chemical weapons use have been recurrently reported since an inventory of chemical arms was discovered by Iraqi forces inside laboratories of Mosul University in the Eastern side of Mosul, which government troops took over from ISIL in January.

The United Nations had previously confirmed cases of civilians being treated for symptoms of what seemed to be chemical agents.

The government of the Iraqi Kurdistan autonomous region invites all international organizations to monitor the upcoming independence referendum in order to ensure that the vote will be held in a legal and democratic manner, Kifah Mahmoud, the media adviser to the region’s prime minister, told Sputnik Tuesday.

Iraqi Kurdistan Invites International Observers to Monitor Independence Vote
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201706211054820873-iraqi-kurdistan-observers-independence-vote/

Earlier in June, Iraqi Kurdistan’s Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani set September 25 as the date for an independence referendum. The referendum will be held throughout Iraqi Kurdistan, as well as territories of the Nineveh, Kirkuk, Saladin and Diyala provinces claimed by both Iraqi Kurdistan and Iraq.

“We urge all international organizations to take part in the monitoring process of the upcoming referendum in order to ensure that it is held on the legal and democratic basis without the political fight,” Mahmoud said.

An explosion took place in Jalalabad city, the provincial capital of Nangarhar province in Eastern Afghanistan, leaving at least four people dead or wounded.

Explosion in Jalalabad City Leaves Judge Dead, 3 Civilians Wounded
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The provincial government in a statement said the incident took place in the vicinity of the 4th police district of the city after a magnetic bomb planted in the vehicle of a judge went off, Khaama Press reported.

The statement further added that the judge serving with the preliminary court of the anti-corruption Sher Rahman was killed in the explosion and three others were wounded.

At least two of his brothers and another civilian passing from the area in Shesham Bagh were wounded in the explosion, the statement said, adding that Mr. Rahman was initially wounded in the explosion and succumbed to his injuries after he was shifted to hospital for the treatment.

The provincial hospital officials are saying that the health condition of Rahman’s brothers and the civilian is satisfactory.

No individual or group including the Taliban insurgents has far claimed responsibility for the incident.

Nangarhar is among the relatively calm provinces in East of Afghanistan but certain remote districts of it have witnessed growing insurgency mainly led by Taliban and ISIL during the recent years.

Just a few hours after a deadly Taliban attack that killed eight, Afghan authorities arrested a teenaged boy who attempted to blow himself up at Bagram Air Field, the largest US military base in Afghanistan.

Bagram Drama: Afghan Teen Would-Be Suicide Bomber Arrested Outside US Base
https://sputniknews.com/military/201706201054817657-afghan-teen-suicide-bomber-arrested/

The boy was detained outside the base's outermost gate with a suicide vest and hand grenades in his possession, according to Bagram authorities. However, Bagram police issued a conflicting report claiming that the boy had no suicide vest.

Bagram police officer Abdulsamad Zalmi said the boy, a resident of nearby Laghman province, was being investigated to see if he was part of a larger conspiracy, or if he had additional explosives stored nearby.

As for the Americans, United States Forces-Afghanistan claimed that a civilian armed with two hand grenades approached the base and was detained. "There were no injuries during the incident and a security sweep of the area yielded no additional explosives," USFOR-A said.

"He wanted to target a foreign forces convoy," Abdul Shakoor Quddusi, governor of Bagram district, told Stars and Stripes.

The arrest came just a few hours after another incident at Bagram base, where a group of fighters attacked a van transporting Afghan security personnel to the Air Field. The guards were on their way to work when they were attacked, according to Quddusi. Eight were killed and two wounded in the attack.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. They labeled the guards as American spies. Taliban fighters have recently increased the intensity of operations against coalition forces. On Saturday, at least one Afghan was injured and seven American servicemen were wounded in an attack on Camp Shaheen, an Afghan military base.

The Saturday before that, three US soldiers were killed in Nangarhar province when a Taliban agent that infiltrated Afghan security forces opened fire on them.

Bagram had about 3,000 Afghan workers stationed there before November 2016, when a worker detonated a suicide bomb that killed himself along with four Americans. 17 others were wounded in that attack. After that, the US limited the number of Afghans on base to 1,500.

US Defense Secretary James Mattis said earlier in June that he intended to present a new Afghan strategy to President Trump in coming weeks. Part of that plan is an expected increased deployment of American servicemen, around 3,000-5,000 people.

At present, there are about 8,400 American and 6,500 foreign troops deployed in Afghanistan, mostly in training and advisory roles.

At least eight Afghan servicemen were killed in an attack against US Bagram Air Base Afghan on Monday, local media reported.

At Least Eight Afghan Security Guards Killed in Attack on US Bagram Air Base
https://sputniknews.com/asia/201706201054786136-eight-afghan-gurads-killed/

Unidentified gunmen carried out an attack on US Bagram Air Base Afghan security guards killing eight and wounding another two, local media reported citing Bagram district governor. The incident took place on Monday night when a group of guards were on their way to work, Tolo news portal reported.

 

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The iconic al-Nuri mosque in Iraqi city of Mosul was blown up by ISIL terrorists, news outlets said citing the Iraqi military.

Iraqi Army: ISIL Blows up Landmark Grand al-Nuri Mosque with Leaning Minaret in Mosul
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The historical mosque in the Old City was particularly famous for its leaning minaret. It has now been destroyed, Reuters reported on Wednesday, quoting an Iraqi military statement, RT reported.

"The ISIL terror gangs committed another historical crime by blowing up the al-Nuri mosque and its historical al-Hadba minaret," the statement read.

The US Central Command called the destruction of the mosque a "crime against the people of Mosul and Iraq." Centcom said ISIL was solely responsible for the destruction of the landmark, as American forces vowed to bring the terrorists to justice.

"As our Iraqi Security Force partners closed in on the al-Nuri mosque, ISIL destroyed one of Mosul and Iraq's great treasures," said Maj. Gen. Joseph Martin, Commanding General of Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command-Operation Inherent Resolve. "This is a crime against the people of Mosul and all of Iraq, and is an example of why this brutal organization must be annihilated."

ISIL responded through it's propaganda wing Amaq, and blamed a US airstrike for the mosque’s destruction.

The demolition occurred as forces from Iraq's elite Counter Terrorism Service made their way to within 50 meters (164 ft) of the mosque, according to the statement. Officials had been hoping to recapture the historic building before the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The landmark structure, built in the 12th century, was where ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had declared the group's rule soon after it occupied the Iraqi city in 2014 and the black flag of ISIL had been flying from the minaret ever since.

ISIL has also demolished a 2,000-year-old Gate of God near Mosul, with the structure having been documented as an artifact from the ancient Assyrian city of Nineveh.

A senior Iraqi army commander said Thursday that a historic minaret which exploded during battles between ISIL and government troops on Wednesday had already been booby-trapped, virtually refuting scenarios laid by the terror group and the US on the origin of the explosion.

Iraqi Commander: Mosul’s Minaret Booby-Trapped before Explosion
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960401000921

Abdul-Ghani al-Assadi, commander of the army’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service, said in a press statement that the medieval Grand Nuri al-Kabir Mosque and its famous Hadbaa (leaning) Minaret had already been prepared for detonation once the group reached “total bankruptcy” as he put it, Iraqi News reported.

Assadi’s remarks come as ISIL and the US-led coalition traded blame Wednesday for the explosion that brought down the historic structure which stands at the mosque where ISIL first declared the establishment of its rule in Iraq in 2014.

Assadi said it had been ISIL’s habit to detonate historic sites in Mosul, reminding that the militants had previously blown up the Nabi Yunis shrine in Mosul.

A group of gunmen attacked a mosque in the Central Logar province of Afghanistan late on Wednesday night amid reports a former commander of Hezb-e-Islami has been killed.

Gunmen Attack Mosque in Afghanistan's Logar, Two Prayers Killed
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960401001019

The provincial government media office in a statement confirmed the attack on the mosque in Mohammad Agha district, Khaama Press reported.

The statement further added that a group of armed militants stormed into a mosque in Surkhabad area, leaving at least two prayer participants dead.

According to the provincial government, a tribal elder identified as Sher Agha Kochi was among those killed and two others were wounded.

In the meantime, the local officials in Mohammad Agha district said Kochi was a former commander of Hezb-e-Islami a local influential tribal elder. No individual or group has so far claimed responsibility behind the attack.

18 Israeli fighter jets along with two Gulfstream aircraft landed in Saudi Arabia on Thursday to prevent any hostile or military moves by former Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz who was replaced with Saudi King Salman's son.

18 Israeli Fighter Jets Deployed in S. Arabia to Prevent Coup
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Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz announced on Wednesday his decision to replace Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz with his own son, Mohammed bin Salman. After the decision was announced, the Israeli air force sent 18 of its fighter jets, including F16I, F15CD and F16CD, along with two Gulfstream aircraft, two tanker airplanes and two C130 planes, special for electronic warfare, to Saudi Arabia at the demand of the new crown prince bin Salman to block his cousin (bin Nayef)'s possible measures.

According to a royal decree, Mohammed bin Salman, 31, was also named deputy prime minister, and shall maintain his post as defense minister, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported on Wednesday.

Saudi media announced that King Salman has called for a public pledge of allegiance to the new crown prince in the holy city of Mecca on Wednesday night.

The SPA also confirmed that 31 out of 34 members of Saudi Arabia’s succession committee chose Mohammed bin Salman as the crown prince.

Just days ago, the Saudi king stripped Nayef of his powers overseeing criminal investigations and designated a new public prosecution office to function directly under the king’s authority.

In a similar move back in 2015, the Saudi king had appointed his nephew, then deputy crown prince Mohammed bin Nayef as the heir to the throne after removing his own half-brother Prince Muqrin bin Abdulaziz Al Saud from the position.

Under the new decree, King Salman further relieved Mohammed bin Nayef of his duties as the interior minister. He appointed Prince Abdulaziz bin Saud bin Nayef as the new interior minister and Ahmed bin Mohammed Al Salem as deputy interior minister.

Mohammed Bin Salman is already in charge of a vast portfolio as chief of the House of Saud royal court and chairman of the Council for Economic and Development Affairs, which is tasked with overhauling the country’s economy.

The young prince was little known both at home and abroad before Salman became king in January 2015.

However, King Salman has significantly increased the powers of Mohammed, with observers describing the prince as the real power behind his father’s throne.

The power struggle inside the House of Saud came to light earlier this year when the Saudi king began to overhaul the government and offered positions of influence to a number of family members.

In two royal decrees in April, the Saudi king named two of his other sons, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman and Prince Khaled bin Salman, as state minister for energy affairs and ambassador to the United States, respectively.

Late April, media source disclosed that Mohammad bin Salman has literally bribed the new US administration by paying $56m to Donald Trump.

According to reports, bin Salman is paying off the US to buy its support for finding a grip over the crown.

"Since Uncle Sam's satisfaction is the first step for the Saudi princes to get on the crown, paying off Washington seems to be a taken-for-granted fact," Rami Khalil, a reporter of Naba' news website affiliated to the Saudi dissidents wrote.

He added that since the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) is like a sword over the head of the al-Saud, they have no way out but to bribe the US, noting that the Yemen quagmire is also another reason for Riyadh to seek Washington's support.

Also, a prominent Yemeni analyst said earlier this month that the US has been paid several trillion dollars by Saudi Arabia to protect its crown, adding that Riyadh has recently bribed Washington's support for the Yemen war with $200bln.

"Washington has asked for more money to defend the Saudi regime and Riyadh has recently paid $200bln to the US for the costs of its support for the war in Yemen," Saleh al-Qarshi told FNA. "This is apart from the huge amounts of money that Saudi Arabia pays to the US treasury for protecting its crown," he added.

According to al-Qarshi, former Saudi Intelligence Chief Turki al-Feisal revealed last year that his country has bought the low-profit US treasury bonds to help the US economy.

As the defense minister, Mohammed bin Salman has faced strong international criticism for the bloody military campaign he launched against neighboring Yemen in 2015 amid his rivalry with bin Nayef, the then powerful interior minister.

The appointment of Saudi Arabian Prince Mohammed bin Salman as crown prince and increasing his role in the kingdom's affairs might have been the precondition for making multi-billion dollar deals the Saudis have inked with the US, said Lebanese expert on inter-Arab relations, Nidal Sabi.

Lebanese Expert: Bin Salman Appointment Precondition for Multi-Billion Dollar Deals with US
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Nidal Sabi told TASS that the appointment in the hierarchy of the House of Saud royal family marks "the logical conclusion of the period of changes in the highest levels of the country’s governance".

"It is obvious that King Salman’s decision to appoint his son as a crown prince, which was approved by the majority of the Allegiance Council members, had been agreed on with Washington during US President Donald Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May," the expert explained.

Trump travelled to Saudi Arabia in May on the first leg of a tour, which then took him to Israel, sealing an arms deal with Riyadh worth $350 billion over 10 years, with nearly $110 billion to take effect immediately.

According to Sabi, Washington earlier bet on Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, the First Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister, who used to be the Crown Prince before being replaced by the king’s son.

"Prince Muhammad bin Nayef was considered to be pro-American, he enjoyed the absolute trust of the United States after al-Qaeda’s network had been suppressed in the kingdom," the expert pointed out.

The $110 billion arms deal signed by Saudi King, Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and Trump, according to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, was a component of $350 billion in economic and military investments between the two countries over the next 10 years.

For the Saudis, the deal is equally important, as it includes tanks, artillery, helicopters, light close air support, intelligence-gathering aircraft, and air defense systems such as Patriot and THAAD, among other things.

A new report revealed US forces have been involved in interrogation of hundreds of inmates in clandestine prisons run by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in war-torn Yemen, with reports of brutal torture and abuses at the facilities.

Report: US Interrogates Inmates in Secret UAE-Run Jails in Yemen
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960401001094

According to the report, at least 18 secret jails across southern Yemen run by the UAE or by Yemeni militant loyal to the former Yemeni government, where prisoners face extreme abuse and torture on a routine basis, presstv reported.

Senior US defense officials confirmed to AP that the American forces have been involved in interrogations of detainees in Yemen but denied any participation in or knowledge of human rights violations.

Several torturing methods are being used at the jails, including the “grill” in which the victim is tied to a spit like a roast and spins in a circle of fire, according to the report.

Former inmates released from one main detention facility at Riyan airport in the southern city of Mukalla, said they were crammed into shipping containers covered with feces and blindfolded for weeks. They said they were beaten, trussed up on the “grill,” and sexually abused.

“The entire place is gripped by fear. Almost everyone is sick, the rest are near death. Anyone who complains heads directly to the torture chamber,” said a former detainee held for six months at Riyan airport.

So far, over 400 men have disappeared after being swept up in Mukalla.

The UAE secret jail network in Yemen was established during former US president Barack Obama’s administration and still continues its operations, according to the report.

Eight Emirati princesses were convicted of human trafficking by a Belgian court on Friday and were given suspended jail terms and fines in a case stemming from their treatment of servants at a Brussels luxury hotel nearly 10 years ago, their lawyer said.

Members of UAE Ruling Family Convicted in Belgium for Human Trafficking
http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13960402001377

The Brussels criminal court handed the eight women from Abu Dhabi's ruling al-Nahyan family 15-month suspended sentences for human trafficking and degrading treatment, the lawyer, Stephen Monod, said, the Daily Star reported.

He said the defence was pleased the case was finally resolved after nearly a decade.

"Belgian justice has appropriately assessed this case which has generated many misconceptions," he said in a statement.

The defendants were acquitted of the more serious charge of inhuman treatment but also ordered to pay a fine of 165,000 euros ($184,000), with half the sum suspended.

The eight accused did not appear in court throughout the proceedings.

The case was brought after a servant of the family slipped out of the hotel where the women stayed for several months in 2007 and 2008 and complained to Belgian police.