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clairemann

Yemen: Saudi-led coalition denies targeting detention center after airstrikes kill doze... - 0 views

  • (CNN)The coalition led by Saudi Arabia fighting in Yemen denied that it deliberately targeted a detention center in airstrikes on Friday that killed dozens and caused a nationwide internet blackout.
  • At least 82 people were killed and 266 injured in the attack, the majority of whom are in critical condition, according to Houthi Health Minister Taha Al-Mitwakel. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) earlier said 70 people were killed and 130 were wounded.
  • Another airstrike early Friday hit a telecommunications building in the strategic port city of Hodeidah, causing a nationwide internet blackout, according to NetBlocks, an organization that tracks network disruptions.
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  • The coalition launched an offensive in 2015 to restore Yemen's internationally recognized government after it was ousted by the Houthis. The coalition has intensified its attacks in the wake of a deadly Houthi missile and drone strike in the UAE capital Abu Dhabi earlier this week.
  • The International Committee of the Red Cross said Friday it was "deeply concerned about the intensification of hostilities" and "deplores the human toll this escalation has caused." US Secretary of State Antony Blinken also called for deescalation.
  • "The escalation in fighting only exacerbates a dire humanitarian crisis and the suffering of the Yemeni people,
  • "From what I hear from my colleague in Sa'ada there are many bodies still at the scene of the airstrike, many missing people," said Ahmad Mahat, head of the MSF mission in Yemen. "It is impossible to know how many people have been killed. It seems to have been a horrific act of violence."
cjlee29

Mosul Fight Unleashes New Horrors on Civilians - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Islamic State has moved hundreds of civilians from villages around the city to use as human shields,
  • United Nations said the militants may have killed nearly 200 people.
  • hit a Shiite mosque in northern Iraq, killing more than a dozen women and children.
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  • A sulfur plant set on fire by the Islamic State has sent dozens of people for treatment for respiratory problems, and several journalists have been hurt, and two killed, covering the fighting.
  • “ISIS has lost hundreds of its members from airstrikes when they withdraw, so now they are forcibly displacing the residents of villages they are leaving and using them as human shields,”
  • The human toll and factional distrust are early examples of the complex humanitarian crisis
  • killed close to 200 people, including civilians and children, in and around Mosul in the past week.
  • Among them were said to have been 50 former Iraqi policemen
  • Mr. Colville said that in one case, several women and children, including a 4-year-old, who were being held as human shields by Islamic State fighters were suddenly gunned down by the militants, possibly because they were lagging behind the group.
  • Although the government’s military operation itself is largely meeting its goals in progressing toward the city, the turmoil surrounding it is a sign of just how difficult it would be to secure a lasting peace across Iraq’s many divisions even after a victory.
  • So far, about 9,000 people have fled the fighting as Kurdish and Iraqi government forces have moved to secure villages around the city, according to the United Nations.
  • as the United Nations has worked to protect civilians, it has at times been undermined by the Iraqi security forces.
  • On the military front, the Islamic State has managed to launch two attacks on cities far from Mosul, diverting the attention of Iraqi security forces and the warplanes of the American-led coalition.
  • Kurdish officials in Kirkuk responded by forcing out hundreds of Arab families who had sought safety there, according to United Nations officials and local residents, as they feared that terrorists had sneaked into the city posing as displaced civilians.
  • local authorities were exacting collective punishment on Arabs for the crimes of the Islamic State
  • Local officials blamed the American-led coalition, but United States military officials have said the episode was not the result of a coalition airstrike.
  • Some have suggested that an artillery shell hit the mosque, but Human Rights Watch said the evidence it had seen “is consistent with an airstrike.” The Iraqi forces are also conducting airstrikes, and Human Rights called for a thorough investigation.
  • Citing safety concerns, the Iraqi government said recently that it would begin restricting journalists’ access to the front lines
nataliedepaulo1

Airstrikes by Russia Buttress Turkey in Battle vs. ISIS - The New York Times - 0 views

  • WASHINGTON — Russian warplanes have carried out airstrikes to support Turkey’s offensive in northern Syria against the Islamic State, an important evolution in a budding Russian-Turkish partnership. The deepening ties threaten to marginalize the United States in the struggle to shape Syria’s ultimate fate.
  • Russia and Turkey had already been involved in a joint effort to establish a cease-fire in Syria — one that does not involve the United States. At the same time, ties between the United States and Turkey have come under growing strain as the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has become increasingly alarmed about the Kurdish forces known as the Y.P.G. The United States has aligned itself with those forces to combat the Islamic State in Syria.
  • The Russians notified the United States about the flights using a special hotline between Russian forces in Syria and the American air war command at Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar. The hotline’s goal is to “deconflict” air missions carried out by the Russians and the American-led coalition.
julia rhodes

Rebels in Syria Claim Control of Resources - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Islamist rebels and extremist groups have seized control of most of Syria’s oil and gas resources, a rare generator of cash in the country’s war-battered economy, and are now using the proceeds to underwrite their fights against one another as well as President Bashar al-Assad, American officials say.
  • control of them has bolstered the fortunes of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, and the Nusra Front, both of which are offshoots of Al Qaeda. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria is even selling fuel to the Assad government, lending weight to allegations by opposition leaders that it is secretly working with Damascus to weaken the other rebel groups and discourage international support for their cause.
  • The Nusra Front and other groups are providing fuel to the government, too, in exchange for electricity and relief from airstrikes, according to opposition activists in Syria’s oil regions.
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  • American officials say that his government has facilitated the group’s rise not only by purchasing its oil but by exempting some of its headquarters from the airstrikes that have tormented other rebel groups.
  • The scramble for Syria’s oil is described by analysts as a war within the broader civil war, one that is turning what was once an essential source of income for Syria into a driving force in a conflict that is tearing the country apart. “Syria is an
  • The Western-backed rebel groups do not appear to be involved in the oil trade, in large part because they have not taken over any oil fields.
  • Violence has damaged pipelines and other infrastructure, aggravating energy shortages and leaving the country heavily dependent on imports from its allies.
  • Oil has proved to be a boon for the extremists of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, who have seized control of most of the oil-rich northern province of Raqqa. The group typically sells crude to middlemen who resell it to the government but sometimes sells it directly to the government, said Omar Abu Laila, a spokesman for the rebels’ Supreme Military Council.
  • “Selling the oil brings in more cash, so why not sell it to the regime, which offers higher prices?” he asked.
  • While other American officials discounted the possibility of tactical military cooperation between the group and Mr. Assad’s government, they said that Syrian intelligence had almost certainly infiltrated opposition groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and the Nusra Front, to track their activities.
  • Mr. Assad’s government has become increasingly dependent on its foreign allies and imports most of its fuel from Iran and Iraq, while Hezbollah smuggles diesel and gasoline over the border from Lebanon, according to regional oil experts.
  • But local tribal leaders objected, saying that would simply invite government airstrikes to destroy the plant. So they brokered a deal to keep a limited amount of gas flowing so the area would not be bombed, Mr. Abdy sa
  • Recently, however, most of the area’s rebel brigades have left the administration of the wells to an Islamic legal commission set up to run local affairs, he said.
cjlee29

U.S. Weaponry Is Turning Syria Into Proxy War With Russia - The New York Times - 0 views

  • With the enhanced insurgent firepower and with Russia steadily raising the number of airstrikes against the government’s opponents, the Syrian conflict is edging closer to an all-out proxy war between the United States and Russia.
  • The increased levels of support have raised morale on both sides of the conflict,
  • Spirits are rising on the government side as well.
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  • Instead of a dim light at the end of a tunnel, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss military matters, the alliance is seeking something closer to victory.
  • as Russian airstrikes against Syrian insurgents have picked up, so have insurgent attacks
mollyharper

Monitors: Airstrikes hit hard-line rebel factions in Syria - 0 views

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    U.S.-led coalition airstrikes in Syria widened Thursday to target al-Qaeda-inspired rebels, a monitoring group said, in strategies that could complicate relations between the West and groups trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad. The attacks against the hard-line rebel factions highlight another layer in the attack plans in Syria, which have concentrated on the Islamic State.
Alex Trudel

Russian airstrike hits Syrian hospital, aid group says - CNN.com - 0 views

  • After the first airstrike hit near a hospital in eastern Idlib, Syria, no one was injured, according to one local man.
  • Activists say the incident was a "double-tap." That's when attackers strike, wait for first responders to arrive and then hit the same spot.
  • The Syrian-American Medical Society, which runs the hospital, says the strikes were launched by Russian warplanes.
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  • Some Russian airstrikes have appeared to hit areas controlled by various rebel groups, including some that are supported by the United States.Why Russia is pressing the 'accelerate' pedal in Syria
  • Russia denied on Thursday that it used cluster munitions.
rachelramirez

Pentagon Says 'Jihadi John' Was Probably Killed in Airstrike - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Pentagon Says ‘Jihadi John’ Was Probably Killed in Airstrike
  • in a debate that paralleled the criticism over the Obama administration’s decision to target and kill Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric and a United States citizen, in Yemen in 2011.
  • The leader of this network was Bilal al-Berjawi, who was stripped of his British citizenship in 2011 after he went to Somalia to join the Islamist group known as the Shabab, and was killed by an American drone strike the next year.
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  • Britain is not formally taking part in military action in Syria — its Parliament having rejected such an intervention two years ago — but Britain and France are involved in the American-led air campaign against Islamic State targets.
redavistinnell

How the ISIS fight went global - CNN.com - 0 views

  • How the ISIS fight went global
  • Just one day before multiple machine gun and bomb attacks in the French capital left almost 500 people from all walks of life dead or wounded, U.S. President Barack Obama said that the U.S. strategy against the jihadist group has "contained" it but not yet succeeded in its effort to "decapitate" the group's leadership.
  • Two suicide bombers detonated devices in the port city on Thursday, claiming the lives of at least 43 and wounding another 239.
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  • Lebanese intelligence believes the bombers could be part of a cell dispatched to Beirut by ISIS leadership, the source said, but investigators are still working to verify the surviving suspect's claim
  • Last month at least 95 people were killed in twin bombings in Turkey's capital, Ankara, ripping through a peace rally near the city's main train station
  • The attack may have been retaliation for a recent change in Turkey's stance toward confronting the ISIS threat -- shortly before the attacks it had allowed the U.S. to launch strikes on ISIS from Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey.
  • Russia's recent, increased involvement in the fight against ISIS has seemingly escalated the terror group's responses.
  • Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, in which all 224 people on board were killed, the recent attacks in Lebanon and France suggest that the jihadists are lashing out.
  • A revelation Sunday that at least one of the Paris terrorists who killed more than 120 people on Friday entered Europe under cover as a refugee appears likely to fire up the security debate over what to do with them
  • Eventually, he made his way to Paris, where he was one of three men who blew themselves up at the Stade de France.
  • Seven people have been arrested in relation to the attacks in the raids, he said.
  • The authorities there have been making headway, however. At the beginning of the year a terror cell on the brink of carrying out an attack was the target of a raid which left two suspects dead and a third injured and apprehended.
  • Abu Nabil, an Iraqi national and longtime al Qaeda operative, was taken out in an airstrike authorized and initiated prior to the terrorist attacks in Paris on Friday night, Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said.
  • he infamous masked British executioner, who has apparently appeared in a number of gruesome videos in which ISIS captives were decapitated, was very likely killed in a drone strike earlier in the month.
  • Obama met with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of this weekend's G20 summit in Turkey and reportedly reached an informal agreement that there was a necessity for a ceasefire and transitional government in Syria to effectively combat the threat.
sarahbalick

Syria Blames U.S. in Base Bombing, but Americans Blame Russia - The New York Times - 0 views

  • The Syrian accusation, in a statement carried by the official news agency, was the first time that President Bashar al-Assad’s government had held the Americans responsible for bombing a Syrian military facility since the United States began airstrikes against Islamic State targets in Syria more than a year ago.
  • A statement from the United States-led Combined Joint Task Force said that the coalition had conducted four airstrikes on Sunday, “all against oil well heads,” about 35 miles from the base. “We did not strike any vehicles or personnel targets in this area,” the statement said. “We have no indication any Syrian soldiers were even near our strikes.”
  • “We’ve got a radar track showing a Backfire bomber flying directly over the town that the Syrians named a few minutes before the first claims that we killed some Syrian troops,”
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  • “Both President Putin and Russian officials at various levels repeatedly emphasized our belief that an effective counteraction against these dangerous developments is only possible on the platform of a united coalition and an absolute coordination of any joint efforts,”
jongardner04

Report: Russian bombs in Syria may have killed 59 civilians - CNN.com - 0 views

  • Airstrikes believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes in western Syria are reported to have killed dozens of civilians, Human Rights Watch says, suggesting that the bombings appear to be war crimes
  • "the strikes were by Russian forces because the sound of the planes was different from the sound made by Syrian air force planes, and the Russians fly much higher."
  • The U.S. military vowed to investigate the report. U.S. Central Command said at the time that coalition forces had carried out airstrikes in the area. But it said it had no indication that any civilians were killed in those strikes.
Javier E

Today's Paper - The New York Times - 0 views

  • In urging more aggressive action against the group, some Republican presidential candidates, like Donald J. Trump, have expressed a willingness to attack targets even if civilians are present. Senator Ted Cruz seemed to suggest in a Republican debate last week that a Cruz administration would be able to “carpet-bomb” militants without harming civilians. But White House and Pentagon officials have made it clear that obvious civilian targets are off limits — and that attacking them would not only violate international law but undermine the effort to defeat the Islamic State.
  • More than 260 civilians have been killed in coalition strikes in Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a group based in Britain that tracks the conflict through a network of contacts in Syria. And the Islamic State has worked hard to exploit those deaths.
  • despites its limits, the bombing does appear to have blunted the advance of Islamic State fighters in most areas of Syria and Iraq by forcing them to disperse and conceal themselves. Mr. Obama said at the Pentagon that the Islamic State had lost 40 percent of the territory it originally seized in Iraq in June last year.
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  • The coalition has in recent weeks also increased attacks on the Islamic State’s oil wells, refineries and more than 400 tanker trucks that ferry the illicit cargo. American aircraft dropped warning leaflets and made strafing runs near the trucks to persuade the civilian drivers to abandon their vehicles before the bombing began, military officials said.
  • “The U.S. has indeed been successful in minimizing civilian harm in its airstrikes against ISIS, and should continue to take precautions even as they intensify airstrikes,” said Federico Borello, the executive director of the Center for Civilians in Conflict, an advocacy group.
  • The three-month-old Russian air campaign has stood in stark contrast to the caution of American military planners. The Russian campaign has mostly targeted rebel groups in northwestern Syria that are opposed to the government of President Bashar al-Assad, and it has deployed fighter jet that use largely unguided bombs to strike their targets, killing hundreds of civilians, human rights groups say.
  • The fear among many in Syria and the West is that the Russian campaign is handing the Islamic State and other militants a major propaganda victory. American officials say that if the United States were to go the same route, it would be likely to alienate the local Sunni tribesmen whose support is critical to ousting the militants, and the Sunni Arab countries that are part of the fragile American-led coalition.
ethanshilling

Airstrike Damages Gaza's Only Covid-19 Testing Lab, Officials Say - The New York Times - 0 views

  • Since Covid-19 first emerged in the blockaded Gaza Strip, a shortage of medical supplies has allowed authorities to administer only a relatively tiny number of coronavirus tests.
  • Now, the sole laboratory in Gaza that processes test results has become temporarily inoperable after an Israeli airstrike nearby on Monday, officials in Gaza said.
  • The strike, which targeted a separate building in Gaza City, sent shrapnel and debris flying across the street, damaging the lab and the administrative offices of the Hamas-run Health Ministry, said Dr. Majdi Dhair, director of the ministry’s preventive medicine department.
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  • The Israeli Army did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the strike. Since Israel began its bombing campaign in Gaza on May 10, the army has said that its airstrikes aim solely at militants and their infrastructure.
  • Over the past week, the authorities in Gaza have tested an average of 515 Palestinians daily for the virus. Only 1.9 percent of Gaza’s two million people were fully vaccinated as of Monday, according to official data, compared with 56 percent in Israel.
  • Unvaccinated Palestinians were crowding into schools run by the United Nations relief agency in Gaza, turning them into de facto bomb shelters. Matthias Schmale, the U.N. agency’s director of operations, said last week that those schools “could turn into mass spreaders.”
  • Mr. Schmale and the top World Health Organization official in Gaza, Sacha Bootsma, also said that all vaccinations had stopped when hostilities broke out, and that any vaccine supplies headed to the territory had been delayed by the closure of Gaza’s border crossings.
Javier E

I'm in Kyiv and awake at the darkest hour - as Putin's bombs rain down | Nataliya Gumen... - 0 views

  • I was one of those who until the very last moment could not accept the notion of a full-scale invasion with airstrikes on our major towns. Putin’s speech was sickening, but still there was a logical, if fictional, justification for a limited Russian operation. The full-scale attack on Ukraine destroys even that.
  • I told my Russian journalist friend about our mood. For years I have been reluctant to compare any dictator to Hitler, or any war to the second world war. The comparison, to me, seemed exaggerated, even vulgar.
  • But what other analogy is there? With no reason, in an act of pure madness, an old-fashioned air assault has been inflicted on a neighbouring country.
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  • There is a famous phrase, “4am Kyiv is bombed”. Every Ukrainian and Russian kid knows it. That’s how the announcement of the German bombardment of Kyiv in 1941 sounded.And here we are: 24 February 5am Kyiv is bombed by Russia.
  • I said that to my Russian colleague, and tried very hard not to show how my voice was trembling. She asked for forgiveness again.
  • A famous Russian independent journalist called me for a quote after Russia launched airstrikes all over Ukraine. We have never met but she started begging for forgiveness for what her country is doing and may do to mine. Both of us are experienced reporters and used to covering hard stories, conflicts. We talked, and we cried.
grayton downing

Syria's Confirmation of Airstrike May Undercut Israel's Strategy of Silence - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • “Once this red line has been crossed, it’s definitely going to be crossed time and again from now on,
  • Mr. Ganor said the United States and Europe should be as concerned as Israel, because Syria’s chemical weapons could end up in the hands not just of Hezbollah but of jihadist organizations like Al Qaeda or its proxies.
grayton downing

Syria's Confirmation of Airstrike May Undercut Israel's Strategy of Silence - NYTimes.com - 0 views

  • Syria and Israel are technically at war
  • People are on edge and keep asking if we know anything about what may develop.”
mcginnisca

News Today - The Atlantic - 0 views

  • Syrian rebels group, including Islamists formerly linked to al-Qaeda, launched a military offensive to break the government’s siege of Aleppo, the last major rebel-held city in Syria where 275,000 people have been trapped for months.
  • Russian and Syrian airstrikes have pounded the rebel-held eastern part of the divided city. Civilian targets, humanitarian convoys, and hospitals have been struck. The government controls the western portion of Aleppo
  • rebels fired missiles at al-Nayrab, in the east of the city, killing 15 people and wounding 100 others
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  • Eastern Aleppo is the last major rebel stronghold in Syria, but taking it won’t be easy. Assad is backed not only by the Russian military—airstrikes and a soon-to-arrive naval fleet in the Mediterranean—but also fighters from Iran, and Hezbollah, the Shia militia from neighboring Lebanon
marleymorton

US military is 'not coordinating airstrikes with Russia in Syria', Pentagon says - 0 views

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    The Pentagon has flatly denied a Russian government claim that both nations' warplanes conducted a joint combat mission in Syria. On Monday, the Russian defense ministry claimed to have received coordinates of Islamic State positions via a US-Russian communications channel, and that two jets from the US-led coalition participated in a strike alongside Russian aircraft.
Megan Flanagan

Shabab Attack on Hotel in Mogadishu, Somalia, Kills Over a Dozen - The New York Times - 0 views

  • at least 15 people dead and creating a fiery scene of wrecked cars, crumbled buildings, panic and smoke that stretched for blocks in the heart of Mogadishu, the capital.
  • The Shabab, a Somali militant organization that has attacked several other hotels in similar fashion, claimed responsibility for the assault.
  • Somalia has been increasingly violent.
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  • are competing with the Islamic State and are desperate to demonstrate their militant prowess.
  • Somalia’s government and its Western allies, including the United States, have gone on the offensive, increasing the frequency of their strikes against militants.
  • United States killed about 150 Shabab fighters in airstrikes on a training camp; the attack was one of the deadliest single assaults in recent Somali history.
  • merican officials have said the troops’ primary role is to train and assist the African Union and Somali forces fighting the Shabab.
  • Two Somali lawmakers have been confirmed dead, and the authorities said the death toll could rise.
  • “I am scared,” said Abdulkadir Hassan
katyshannon

Russia launches offensive against Syria - 0 views

  • Russian warships in the Caspian Sea fired cruise missiles Wednesday as Syrian government troops launched a ground offensive in central Syria in the first major combined air-and-ground assault since Moscow began its military campaign in the country last week.
  • missiles flew nearly 1,500 kilometers (930 miles) over Iran and Iraq and struck Raqqa and Aleppo provinces in the north and Idlib province in the northwest, Russian officials said. The Islamic State group has strongholds in Raqqa and Aleppo, while the al-Qaida-linked Nusra Front has a strong presence in Idlib.
  • a week after Russia began airstrikes in Syria, its longtime ally, on Sept. 30, and added a new dimension to the complex war that has torn apart the Mideast country since 2011
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  • Syrian official and activists said government troops pushed into areas in the central province of Hama and south of Idlib in the boldest multipronged attack on rebel-held areas, benefiting from the Russian air cover. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
  • Moscow
  • has mainly targeted central and northwestern Syria, strategic regions that are the gateway to Assad's strongholds in Damascus, and along the Mediterranean coast where Russia has a naval base.
  • The Islamic State group is not present in the areas where the ground fighting is underway.
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