Yemen’s Lahj security forces seize drone parts bound for Houthis 

Images of seized drone parts destined for the Houthis. (Supplied)
1 / 4
Images of seized drone parts destined for the Houthis. (Supplied)
Images of seized drone parts destined for the Houthis. (Supplied)
2 / 4
Images of seized drone parts destined for the Houthis. (Supplied)
Images of seized drone parts destined for the Houthis. (Supplied)
3 / 4
Images of seized drone parts destined for the Houthis. (Supplied)
Images of seized drone parts destined for the Houthis. (Supplied)
4 / 4
Images of seized drone parts destined for the Houthis. (Supplied)
Short Url
Updated 05 June 2023
Follow

Yemen’s Lahj security forces seize drone parts bound for Houthis 

Images of seized drone parts destined for the Houthis. (Supplied)
  • Rights groups call for impartial investigation of prisoner’s death within militia-run jail in Ibb province

AL-MUKALLA: Security forces in Yemen’s Lahj province on Sunday intercepted a shipment of drone components headed for the Houthis, the latest in a series of similar interceptions of weapons and explosives bound for Houthi-controlled areas. 

The Giants Brigade’s 2nd Brigade in Lahj halted a van transporting sealed boxes from Aden, and after opening the boxes, soldiers discovered motors, batteries, cameras, and other drone parts, and the shipment was buried within toys and covered with motorcycles.

Despite scrutiny at Aden port or other government-controlled entrance points, many local officials and journalists believe the Houthis were able to transport weapons into Yemen through government-controlled areas. 

“The event (in Lahj) demonstrates that the Houthi militia is still preparing for war rather than peace,” Fatehi bin Lazerq, editor of Aden Al-Ghad newspaper, told Arab News, adding that if multiple military and security forces cooperate, the shipment would not have had to travel through dozens of checkpoints in government-controlled areas.

“If we presume that the shipment left the port of Aden or another province, it must have passed through dozens of security checkpoints. As a result, it throws light on the fact that the Houthi(s are) still transporting … weaponry through legitimate government channels, owing to a lack of cooperation among security services.”

It comes as security officials at Yemen’s Shehin Border Crossing with Oman revealed the seizure of 355 kg of potassium permanganate, an ingredient that can be used in the manufacturing of cocaine, which was hidden among cargo on two vehicles bound for Houthi-controlled Sanaa.

During the past eight years, many supplies of weapons or drugs meant for the Houthis have been intercepted in government-controlled areas such as Marib, Hadramout and Mahra.

Separately, human rights groups have called for an impartial investigation into a prisoner’s death within a Houthi-run jail in the province of Ibb, accusing the Houthis of deliberately neglecting captives until they died.

Yemenis say that Faisal Al-Sabri, a prisoner in Ibb City’s Central Prison, was transferred to a city hospital after suffering a stroke and was left handcuffed in the hospital’s corridor due to a “lack of empty beds.”

The Houthis later returned him to the prison, where he died. 

Yemeni activists shared a photo of a handcuffed man wearing a blue prison uniform with an intravenous drip in his arm and lying on the ground, in what appeared to be the hospital in Ibb.

Human rights group Rights Radar said in a statement: “Rights Radar demands a probe into the circumstances behind the death of prisoner Faisal Al-Sabri, who died at the Central Prison in Ibb Governorate, central Yemen, just days after suffering a stroke and not receiving the proper treatment.”

Dozens of former detainees in Houthi jails have died soon after their release from illnesses contracted while in prison.

Many more Yemenis have perished in Houthi detention centers, either as a consequence of torture or because the Houthis denied them life-saving medicine. 


Tunisia detains Abir Moussi, prominent opponent of president

Tunisia detains Abir Moussi, prominent opponent of president
Updated 04 October 2023
Follow

Tunisia detains Abir Moussi, prominent opponent of president

Tunisia detains Abir Moussi, prominent opponent of president

TUNIS: Tunisia’s public prosecutor detained Abir Moussi, a prominent opponent of President Kais Saied, after she was arrested at the entrance to the presidential palace on Tuesday, lawyers said, the latest arrest targeting Saied’s political rivals.

“Moussi was detained for 48 hours in charges of processing personal data, obstructing the right to work, and assault intended to cause chaos,” lawyer Aroussi Zgir said.

Authorities were not immediately available to comment.

Police this year have detained more than 20 leading political figures, accusing some of plotting against state security. Saied has described those detained as “terrorists, traitors and criminals.”

An assistant of Moussi said in a video on Facebook that Moussi was “kidnapped” in front of the Carthage Palace.

Moussi leads the Free Constitutional Party and is a supporter of late president Zine El Abidine ben Ali who was toppled by mass protests in 2011.

In recent months, the party has organized protests against Saied. Moussi accuses Saied of ruling outside the law, and said that she is ready to make personal sacrifices to save Tunisia.

In front of the La Goulette police station, dozens of angry Moussi supporters protested, shouting slogans against Saied amid a heavy police contingent who cordoned off the building.

Earlier on Tuesday, Moussi said in a video that she went to the presidential reception office to file an appeal in local elections expected at the end of the year. She said that this step was necessary so that she could later file an appeal in the Administrative Court.

Saied, a retired law professor who was elected president in 2019, shut down the elected parliament in 2021 and moved to rule by decree, actions his opponents described as a coup. Saied has said he needed to save Tunisia from years of chaos, denying his actions were a coup.

On Friday, jailed opposition leader Rached Ghannouchi, another critic of Saied, began a three-day hunger strike. Later five other prominent opposition figures also went on hunger strike in prison.


Paramilitary shells kill 10 civilians in Khartoum: activists

Paramilitary shells kill 10 civilians in Khartoum: activists
Updated 04 October 2023
Follow

Paramilitary shells kill 10 civilians in Khartoum: activists

Paramilitary shells kill 10 civilians in Khartoum: activists

PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Paramilitary artillery that struck a mosque and other civilian buildings in the Sudanese capital killed 10 people on Tuesday, local activists said.
It is the latest incident in which multiple civilians have been killed in Khartoum during nearly six months of war between Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan and his former deputy, Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.
A local resistance committee said “10 civilians were killed and 11 wounded in artillery shelling by the Rapid Support Forces in Al-Samrab neighborhood,” across the Blue Nile river to the north of central Khartoum.
The committee is one of many groups that used to organize pro-democracy protests and now provide assistance during the war.
“Some shells fell on a mosque, a health center, and citizens’ homes,” the committee said by telephone to AFP in the eastern city of Port Sudan.
On September 12 a medical source told AFP that “17 civilians were killed” by paramilitaries in northern Khartoum, where witnesses reported RSF shelling.
Those deaths came two days after at least 51 people were killed and dozens wounded in air strikes on a southern Khartoum market, according to United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk.
The worst of the violence has been concentrated in Khartoum and the western region of Darfur, but North Kordofan — a crossroads between the capital and Darfur — has also seen fighting.
Nearly 7,500 people have been killed in Sudan since the conflict broke out on April 15, according to a conservative estimate from the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data project.
Battles have displaced almost 4.3 million people within Sudan, in addition to around 1.2 million more who have fled across borders, UN figures show.


Leap into future: Qatar begins construction on mega gas field expansion

Leap into future: Qatar begins construction on mega gas field expansion
Updated 03 October 2023
Follow

Leap into future: Qatar begins construction on mega gas field expansion

Leap into future: Qatar begins construction on mega gas field expansion
  • Qatar is set to raise its output of LNG by 60 percent or more to 126 million tons a year by 2027

RAS LAFFAN, Qatar: Qatar’s state-owned energy giant began construction Tuesday on a project to expand production from the world’s biggest natural gas field through an export terminal on the country’s northeast coast.

There has been mounting demand for Qatari gas as European consumer nations have scrambled to replace lost Russian deliveries since President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale war on Ukraine early last year.

The emir presided over a glitzy ceremony to lay the foundation stone for the North Field expansion at Ras Laffan, QatarEnergy’s onshore gas processing base 80 km north of Doha.

Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that the project “falls within our strategy toward strengthening Qatar’s position as a global producer of liquefied natural gas.”

Qatari Energy Minister Saad Al-Kaabi called the project a “leap toward our country’s leadership in the field of energy.”

By increasing production at the field, which extends under the Gulf into Iranian territory, Qatar is set to raise its output of LNG by 60 percent or more to 126 million tons a year by 2027.

LNG from the expansion is expected to start coming on line in 2026.

Asian countries led by China, Japan and South Korea have been the main market for Qatari gas, but it has also been increasingly sought by European countries since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine early last year.

Chairman of France’s TotalEnergies, Patrick Pouyanne told reporters the North Field Expansion was a “huge project,” coming as demand for LNG from Europe increases.

“We need more supply. That’s clear. Still the market is fragile,” Pouyanne said. “This project is a major one and will give some relief to this market,” he added.

Total signed a $1.5 billion deal with QatarEnergy in September last year giving it a 9.3 percent stake in Qatar’s North Field South project, the second phase of the field’s expansion.

In June 2022, the French energy giant became the first partner in the first phase of the expansion, North Field East, investing more than $2 billion for a 25 percent share.

In June, Doha announced a 27-year deal to supply 4 million tons of gas a year to the China National Petroleum Corporation. The agreement matches the terms of a 2022 deal with China’s Sinopec that was the longest ever seen in the industry.

Britain’s Shell, Italy’s ENI and US giants ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil have also signed deals to partner in the expansion.

Qatar is one of the world’s top LNG producers, alongside the United States, Australia and Russia.

Qatar Energy estimates the North Field holds about 10 percent of the world’s known natural gas reserves.


Teen girl in coma after Iran metro assault: rights group

Teen girl in coma after Iran metro assault: rights group
Updated 03 October 2023
Follow

Teen girl in coma after Iran metro assault: rights group

Teen girl in coma after Iran metro assault: rights group
  • The teenager, named as Armita Garawand, had been badly injured in a run-in on the Tehran metro with female morality police officers
  • This has already been denied by the Iranian authorities who say that the girl “fainted” due to low blood pressure

PARIS: An Iranian girl aged 16 has been left in a coma and is being treated in hospital under heavy security after an assault on the Tehran subway, a rights group said on Tuesday.
The Kurdish-focused rights group Hengaw said the teenager, named as Armita Garawand, had been badly injured in a run-in on the Tehran metro with female morality police officers.
This has already been denied by the Iranian authorities who say that the girl “fainted” due to low blood pressure and that there was no involvement of the security forces.
Iranian authorities remain on high alert for any upsurge of social tension just over a year after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress rules for women.
Her death sparked several months of protests that rattled Iran’s clerical leadership and only dwindled in the face of a crackdown that according to activists has seen thousands arrested and hundreds killed.
Hengaw said that Garawand was left with severe injuries after being apprehended by agents of the so-called morality police at the Shohada metro station in Tehran on Sunday.
It said she was being treated under tight security at Tehran’s Fajr hospital and “there are currently no visits allowed for the victim, not even from her family.”
Though a resident of Tehran, Garawand hails from the city of Kermanshah in Kurdish-populated western Iran, Hengaw said.
Maryam Lotfi, a journalist from the Shargh daily newspaper, sought in the aftermath of the incident to visit the hospital but was immediately detained. She was subsequently released, it added.
The case has become the subject of intense discussion on social media, with a purported video of the incident said by some to show the teen, with friends and apparently unveiled, being pushed into the metro by female police agents.
Masood Dorosti, managing director of the Tehran subway system, denied there was “any verbal or physical conflict” between the student and “passengers or metro executives.”
“Some rumors about a confrontation with metro agents... are not true and CCTV footage refutes this claim,” Dorosti told state news agency IRNA.
The IranWire news site, based outside Iran, cited a source as saying she had sustained a “head injury” after being pushed by the officers.
A year after Amini’s death, Iranian authorities have launched a renewed push to crack down on women defying the Islamic republic’s strict dress rules for women, including the mandatory hijab.
The New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) said women and girls “face increased violence, arbitrary arrests and heightened discrimination after the Islamic Republic re-activated its forced-veiling police patrols.”


Torture scandal at Syrian military hospital

Torture scandal at Syrian military hospital
Updated 03 October 2023
Follow

Torture scandal at Syrian military hospital

Torture scandal at Syrian military hospital
  • Sick prisoners abused and left to die, new report by rights watchdog says

JEDDAH: Prisoners were routinely abused, tortured and left to die at a Syrian military hospital in Damascus, according to a damning report published on Tuesday.

Sick prisoners sent from detention centers for treatment at the Tishreen Military Hospital rarely received any medical attention. Instead, security forces and even medical and administrative staff inflicted “brutal torture” on detainees, including physical and psychological violence.

The report by the Association of Detainees and the Missing in Sednaya Prison, a watchdog in Turkey, covers abuses from the start of Syria’s civil war in 2011 to 2020, but the authors said they believed many of the practices persisted today.
Inmates arriving at the hospital were first held “in the same room where bodies of detainees were collected,”and sick detainees were forced to help transport prisoners’ corpses, the report said.
No postmortems were conducted and the hospital issued “death certificates with false information,” often giving heart attack, kidney failure or stroke as the cause of death. Sometimes inmates “between life and death”were placed among the corpses and left to die or even killed.
A survivor of the abuse, Abu Hamza, 43, was taken to the jail at the Tishreen hospital three times during his incarceration, but saw a doctor only once. “Prisoners were afraid to go to the hospital, because many did not return,” he said. “Those who were very sick would be left to die in the hospital lockup.”

The report said a jail officer would sometimes kill very sick detainees, or prisoners would be ordered to take part in doing so.
Tishreen hospital plays a “central role in enforced disappearances, covering up torture, falsifying the causes of death and other abuses amounting to crimes against humanity,” said watchdog co-founder Diab Serriya.