Iraq’s president will summon the Turkish ambassador over airstrikes in Iraq’s Kurdish region

A member of Kurdish forces attends the funeral of a member of the Iraqi counter-terrorism service who was killed in a drone strike on the small military airport of Arbid in Sulaimaniya in Kurdistan region, in Kirkuk, Iraq September 19, 2023. (REUTERS)
A member of Kurdish forces attends the funeral of a member of the Iraqi counter-terrorism service who was killed in a drone strike on the small military airport of Arbid in Sulaimaniya in Kurdistan region, in Kirkuk, Iraq September 19, 2023. (REUTERS)
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Updated 20 September 2023
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Iraq’s president will summon the Turkish ambassador over airstrikes in Iraq’s Kurdish region

Iraq’s president will summon the Turkish ambassador over airstrikes in Iraq’s Kurdish region
  • Rashid belongs to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party, which has its main seat of power in Sulaymaniyah

BAGHDAD: The Iraqi president announced Tuesday that he will summon Turkiye’s ambassador and hand him a formal letter of protest over recent Turkish airstrikes on Iraqi territory.
The official protest came a day after an airstrike on a military airport in Arbat, southeast of the city of Sulaymaniyah in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Three members of the region’s counterterrorism force died and three of the Kurdish Peshmerga forces were wounded, according to local officials.
“Day after day, systematic military attacks on Iraqi territory, specifically in (the Kurdish) region, are escalating without military or security justification,” Iraqi President Abdul Latif Rashid said in a statement.
The “aggression targeted innocent civilians and military and security headquarters,” he said.
Rashid belongs to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) party, which has its main seat of power in Sulaymaniyah.
There was no immediate comment from Turkiye.
The targeted airport had recently undergone rehabilitation to facilitate the training of anti-terror units affiliated with the PUK, one of the two often-competing main parties in the region.
Bafel Talabani, the party’s leader, in an official statement on Monday labeled the alleged Turkish attack as part of a series of “conspiracies” aimed at jeopardizing Kurdistan’s security. He urged the federal government to “uphold its constitutional and national duties” in safeguarding Iraq’s territory and airspace, specifically in the Kurdish region.
US Ambassador to Iraq Alia Romanowski in a statement posted on the platform X, formerly known as Twitter) condemned the attack on the airport.
“We reaffirm our support for respect of Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity — both are essential to Iraq’s stability and security,” she said.
Also on Monday, the Kurdistan National Congress, an umbrella organization of Kurdish groups and parties, said in a statement that one of its members was killed inside the group’s office in Irbil. It gave no details.
Turkiye often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq that it believes to be affiliated to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkiye since the 1980s.
Ankara considers the PKK and allied Kurdish groups in Syria and Iraq as terrorist organizations.
In April, Turkiye closed its airspace to flights to and from Sulaymaniyah International Airport, citing an alleged increase in Kurdish militant activity threatening flight safety.
Days later, the Syrian Democratic Forces — Kurdish-led forces operating in northeast Syria that are allied with the United States but considered by Turkiye to be an offshoot of the PKK — accused Turkiye of launching a strike on the airport when SDF commander Mazloum Abdi was at the site. Abdi was unharmed.
Also on Tuesday, Iraqi officials announced that they had carried out an agreement to disarm members of Iranian Kurdish dissident groups based in northern Iraq and to relocate their members from their current bases near the Iranian border. Iran has periodically carried out airstrikes on the groups’ sites on Iraqi territory.
A joint committee set up by the central government in Baghdad and the Kurdish regional government, said the bases had been “permanently evacuated” and their occupants “transferred to a place far from the border.”

 


CNN producer Ibrahim Dahman loses nine relatives in Israeli strike on Gaza

CNN producer Ibrahim Dahman loses nine relatives in Israeli strike on Gaza
Updated 10 sec ago
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CNN producer Ibrahim Dahman loses nine relatives in Israeli strike on Gaza

CNN producer Ibrahim Dahman loses nine relatives in Israeli strike on Gaza
  • Israel resumed combat operations after a seven-day temporary truce with Hamas
  • Dahman’s childhood home in Gaza City has been destroyed in the Israeli offensive

DUBAI: CNN producer Ibrahim Dahman lost nine relatives in an Israeli air strike in northern Gaza, CNN reported.

Dahman had escaped to Egypt with his family, but on Sunday heard news that at least nine family members were killed when the building they were living in Beit Lahia took a direct hit by an Israeli strike.

His uncle, and the uncle’s wife, daughter and two grandchildren, as well as his aunt, her husband and two children perished, while at least two other relatives are in critical condition and others are still buried under the rubble.

Dahman’s childhood home in Gaza City was also destroyed in a separate strike on an adjacent building the same day, CNN reported.

“I will never be able to forget every stone and corner of the house in which I was born and raised and in which my children were born,” Dahman said in the CNN report.

“They were extremely peaceful and simple people, and their entire lives were devoted solely to work and raising their sons and daughters. They have no affiliation with any organization or group… Pray to God to have mercy on them all.”

Dahman’s brother had earlier called to tell him that his home in Gaza City, where he was born and grew up, has been reduced to ruins by the Israeli bombardment.

He had just finished renovating the apartment months before the Hamas attack, and told CNN he had fond memories living there, including celebrating his sons’ birthdays with cake and candles surrounded by family.

“Unfortunately, I left all my memories, my belongings, and the gifts that my bosses sent me at work in this house, all of which were lost under the rubble now.”

Israel’s military resumed combat operations against Hamas in Gaza last week after accusing Hamas of violating a seven-day temporary truce by firing toward Israeli territory.

The seven-day pause, which began on Nov. 24 and was extended twice, had allowed for the exchange of dozens of hostages held in Gaza for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and facilitated the entry of humanitarian aid into the shattered coastal strip.

Israel has sworn to annihilate the Palestinian militant group, which rules Gaza, in response to the Oct. 7 rampage when Hamas gunmen killed 1,200 people and took 240 hostages.


Iran says it sent a capsule with animals into orbit as it prepares for human missions

Iran says it sent a capsule with animals into orbit as it prepares for human missions
Updated 53 min 1 sec ago
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Iran says it sent a capsule with animals into orbit as it prepares for human missions

Iran says it sent a capsule with animals into orbit as it prepares for human missions
TEHRAN, Iran: Iran said Wednesday it sent a capsule into orbit carrying animals as it prepares for human missions in coming years.
A report by the official IRNA news agency quoted Telecommunications Minister Isa Zarepour as saying the capsule was launched 130 kilometers (80 miles) into orbit.
Zarepour said the launch of the 500-kilogram (1,000-pound) capsule is aimed at sending Iranian astronauts to space in coming years. He did not say what kind of animals were in the capsule.
State TV showed footage of a rocket named Salman carrying the capsule into space.
Iran occasionally announces successful launches of satellites and other space crafts. In September, Iran said it sent a data-collecting satellite into space. In 2013, Iran said it sent a monkey into space and returned it successfully.
It says its satellite program is for scientific research and other civilian applications. The US and other Western countries have long been suspicious of the program because the same technology can be used to develop long-range missiles.

Iran Revolutionary Guards seize two vessels smuggling 4.5 million liters of fuel — Tasnim

Iran Revolutionary Guards seize two vessels smuggling 4.5 million liters of fuel — Tasnim
Updated 06 December 2023
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Iran Revolutionary Guards seize two vessels smuggling 4.5 million liters of fuel — Tasnim

Iran Revolutionary Guards seize two vessels smuggling 4.5 million liters of fuel — Tasnim

DUBAI: Iran’s Revolutionary Guards’ Navy have seized two vessels smuggling 4.5 million liters of fuel, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Wednesday.
Tasnim said 34 foreign crew have been detained by the Guards in the operation.
Iran, which has some of the world’s cheapest fuel prices due to heavy subsidies and the plunge in the value of its national currency, has been fighting rampant fuel smuggling by land to neighboring countries and by sea to Gulf Arab states.


Israel reviewing strike that harmed Lebanese troops, army says

Israel reviewing strike that harmed Lebanese troops, army says
Updated 06 December 2023
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Israel reviewing strike that harmed Lebanese troops, army says

Israel reviewing strike that harmed Lebanese troops, army says
  • Lebanese army say the soldier, a sergeant, was killed when an army position was shelled by Israel on Tuesday

JERUSALEM: The Israeli army said on Wednesday it was reviewing a strike that harmed Lebanese troops in south Lebanon, an apparent reference to Israeli shelling that killed a Lebanese soldier and wounded three others the previous day.
“The Lebanese Armed Forces were not the target of the strike. The IDF expresses regret over the incident. The incident is under review,” the Israeli military said in a statement.
Israel and the heavily armed Lebanese group Hezbollah have been exchanging fire across the Lebanese-Israeli border since the start of the war between the Palestinian group Hamas and Israel on Oct. 7.
The Lebanese army said the soldier, a sergeant, was killed when an army position was shelled by Israel on Tuesday.
The Israeli army said its soldiers had acted in “self defense to eliminate an imminent threat that had been identified from Lebanon” from a “known launch area and observation point” used by Hezbollah.
The UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon UNIFIL noted in a statement on Tuesday it was the first Lebanese army soldier killed during the hostilities, and that the Lebanese army had not engaged in conflict with Israel.


The Gaza Strip: Tiny, cramped and as densely populated as London

The Gaza Strip: Tiny, cramped and as densely populated as London
Updated 06 December 2023
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The Gaza Strip: Tiny, cramped and as densely populated as London

The Gaza Strip: Tiny, cramped and as densely populated as London
  • Gaza has a population density of about 5,500 per square kilometer

GAZA: The war between Israel and Hamas has seen fierce Israeli bombardment that has flattened broad swaths of the Gaza Strip. Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands have been displaced.
And all that is happening in a tiny, densely populated coastal enclave.
Gaza is tucked among Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea. The strip is 25 miles (40 kilometers) long by some 7 miles (11 kilometers) wide. It has 2.3 million people living in an area of 139 square miles (360 square kilometers), according to the CIA Factbook.
That’s about the same land size as Detroit, a city that has a population of 620,000, according to the US Census Bureau. It’s about twice the size of Washington and 3½ times the size of Paris.
Gaza has a population density of about 14,000 people per square mile (5,500 per square kilometer). That’s about the same as London, a city brimming with high-rise buildings, but also many parks. Gaza has few open spaces, especially in its cities, due to lack of planning and urban sprawl.
Gaza’s density is even tighter in its urban cores like Gaza City or Khan Younis, where tens of thousands are packed into cramped neighborhoods and where density rates become more comparable to certain cities in highly populated Asia.
An Israeli-Egyptian blockade, imposed after the Hamas militant group seized power in 2007, has greatly restricted movement in and out of Gaza, adding to the sense of overcrowding.