Iraq security officials report explosion at US-led coalition airport base

US army soldiers queue to board a plane to begin their journey home out of Iraq from the al-Asad Air Base west the capital Baghdad, on November 1, 2011. (AFP)
US army soldiers queue to board a plane to begin their journey home out of Iraq from the al-Asad Air Base west the capital Baghdad, on November 1, 2011. (AFP)
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Updated 11 September 2024
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Iraq security officials report explosion at US-led coalition airport base

Iraq security officials report explosion at US-led coalition airport base
  • Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was expected in Iraq on Wednesday in his first trip abroad since taking office in July

BAGHDAD: Iraqi security forces said an explosion was heard at a US-led coalition’s military base at the Baghdad international airport late Tuesday, a day before Iran’s president was due to visit.
“At 23:00 (2000 GMT) an explosion was heard inside Baghdad International Airport in the area occupied by international coalition advisers,” according to a statement posted on social media platform X by the spokesman for the Joint Operations Command, Iraqi Major General Tahseen Al Khafaji.
“Iraqi security forces were unable ... to determine the origin of the explosion, which has not been claimed,” according to the statement, which was attributed to Iraqi security forces and also published by state news agency INA.
Air traffic was unaffected and no flights were interrupted, it added.
A senior military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that “two Katyusha-type rockets” had caused the explosion.
“One fell on the wall of the Iraqi anti-terrorist forces compound. The second was inside the base hosting the international anti-jihadist coalition led by Washington,” said the official.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian was expected in Iraq on Wednesday in his first trip abroad since taking office in July.
Relations between Iran and Iraq, both Shiite-majority countries, have grown closer over the past two decades.
Tehran is one of Iraq’s leading trade partners and wields considerable political influence in Baghdad where its Iraqi allies dominate parliament and the current government.
A spokesperson for the Iranian-backed Ketaeb Hezbollah (Hezbollah Brigades) armed group in Iraq slammed what he called “an attack” that aimed to “disrupt the Iranian president’s visit to Baghdad.”
In a post on X, the spokesperson Jaafar Al-Husseini called on the Iraqi security services to identify the perpetrators.
Over the past year, US-led coalition forces have been targeted dozens of times with drones and rocket fire in both Iraq and Syria as violence related to the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza has drawn in Iran-backed armed groups across the Middle East.
US forces have carried out multiple retaliatory strikes against these groups in both countries.
To defuse the situation and spare Iraq from the fallout of regional tensions, the United States and Iraq have been negotiating a phased pull-out of US-led anti-jihadist forces.
The United States has deployed around 2,500 troops in Iraq and 900 in Syria as part of the international coalition against the Daesh group.
Iraqi security forces say they are capable of tackling IS remnants unassisted, as the group poses no significant threat.
 

 


Turkish builder jailed for 865 years over quake collapse

Turkish builder jailed for 865 years over quake collapse
Updated 4 sec ago
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Turkish builder jailed for 865 years over quake collapse

Turkish builder jailed for 865 years over quake collapse
  • ‘Shoddy construction’ killed 96 in 14-story apartment block in southern city of Adana

RIYADH: A court in Turkiye sentenced a builder to 865 years in prison on Friday for the shoddy construction of a 14-story apartment block that collapsed during a powerful earthquake, killing 96 people.

Hasan Alpargun was convicted of “having caused the death and injury of more than one person with possible intent,” court officials said.

The 14-story building in the southern Turkish city of Adana was destroyed by a massive 7.8-magnitude quake in February 2023 that killed more than 53,500 people in Turkiye and nearly 6,000 in Syria. Only one of the building’s residents survived.
The apartment block was built in 1975. Its collapse immediately aroused suspicions because Adana, although less than 200 km from the earthquake’s epicenter, was largely spared from the violent tremors.
Alpargun fled to northern Cyprus on the day of the quake, but turning himself over to police a week later.
During the trial experts pointed to serious deficiencies in the construction of the building's support columns, as well as the quality of concrete used. Alpargun’s defense was that the construction had been approved by the appropriate authorities.
More than 260 people involved in the construction of buildings that collapsed during the earthquake were arrested, some while trying to flee the coutry.


Hezbollah reckons with future amid Beirut strikes

Hezbollah reckons with future amid Beirut strikes
Updated 45 min 56 sec ago
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Hezbollah reckons with future amid Beirut strikes

Hezbollah reckons with future amid Beirut strikes
  • With many top Hezbollah commanders dead, replacing Nasrallah would be an even bigger challenge if he is dead or incapacitated, say analysts
  • Nasrallah himself became Hezbollah leader when Israel killed his predecessor and he has been at constant risk of assassination ever since.

BEIRUT: Killing or incapacitating Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah would deal a significant blow to the Iran-backed Lebanese group he has led for 32 years, analysts said on Friday after reports Israel targeted him with a strike.
A source close to Hezbollah said Nasrallah was still alive after the attack on the southern suburbs of Beirut, a Hezbollah stronghold, on Friday evening. A senior Iranian security official said Tehran was checking on Nasrallah’s status.
Replacing Nasrallah would be an even bigger challenge now than at any point for years, after a series of recent Israeli attacks that have killed top Hezbollah commanders and raised questions over its internal security.
“The whole landscape would change big time,” said Mohanad Hage Ali, deputy research director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut.
“He has been the glue that has held together an expanding organization,” Hage Ali said.
Hezbollah, which was formed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards in the early 1980s to battle Israel, is also a major social, religious and political movement for Lebanese Shiite Muslims, with Nasrallah at its heart.
“He became a legendary figure, kind of, for the Lebanese Shia,” said Hage Ali.

An Iranian demonstrator shows a portrait of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on his cell phone in support of Hezbollah at the Felestin (Palestine) Square in downtown Tehran early Saturday. (AP)

Nasrallah himself became Hezbollah leader when Israel killed his predecessor and he has been at constant risk of assassination ever since.
“You kill one, they get a new one,” said a European diplomat of the group’s approach.
However, amid a sudden series of Israeli successes in its war against Hezbollah and an onslaught of air strikes, his death would greatly aggravate an already fraught moment for the group.
“Hezbollah will not collapse if Nasrallah is killed or incapacitated, but this will be a major blow to the group’s morale. It would also underline Israel’s security and military superiority and access,” said Lina Khatib, an associate fellow at the Chatham House policy institute in London.
The potential impact of Nasrallah’s death on Hezbollah’s military capabilities is also unclear. Israel and Hezbollah have been exchanging fire for a year across the Lebanese border in their worst conflict since 2006, triggered by the war in Gaza.
“Israel will want to translate this pressure into a new status quo in which its north is secure, but this will not happen quickly even if Nasrallah is eliminated,” Khatib said.
Hezbollah claimed several rocket attacks on Israel in the hours after the Beirut strike in what analysts said was an effort to show it could still carry out such operations after Israel said it targeted Hezbollah’s command center.
“Israel has declared war. It is a full-scale war, and Israel is using this opportunity to eliminate the leadership structure and destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure,” said Fawaz Gerges, professor of international relations at the London School of Economics.
“They are breaking Hezbollah’s power. There’s no need to kill every member of Hezbollah but if you destroy its combat structure and force them to surrender. It loses credibility,” Gerges said.

Successors
Any new leader would have to be acceptable both within the organization in Lebanon but also to its backers in Iran, said Philip Smyth, an expert on Shiite militias.
The man widely regarded as Nasrallah’s heir, Hashem Safieddine, was also still alive after Friday’s attack, the source close to Hezbollah said.
Safieddine, who oversees Hezbollah’s political affairs and sits on the group’s Jihad Council, is a cousin of Nasrallah and like him is a cleric who wears the black turban denoting descent from Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
The US State Department designated him a terrorist in 2017 and in June he threatened a big escalation against Israel after the killing of another Hezbollah commander. “Let (the enemy) prepare himself to cry and wail,” he said at the funeral.
Nasrallah “started tailoring positions for him within a variety of different councils within Lebanese Hezbollah. Some of them were more opaque than others. They’ve had him come, go out and speak,” said Smyth.
Safieddine’s family ties and physical resemblance to Nasrallah as well as his religious status as a descendent of Mohammed would all count in his favor, Smyth said.


Germany, Turkiye at odds over migrant deportation deal

Germany, Turkiye at odds over migrant deportation deal
Updated 28 September 2024
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Germany, Turkiye at odds over migrant deportation deal

Germany, Turkiye at odds over migrant deportation deal
  • Germany’s relations are sensitive with Turkiye, a fellow NATO member and home to Europe’s largest Turkish diaspora of some three million people

BERLIN: Germany said Friday it had agreed a plan with Turkiye under which Berlin will step up deportations of failed Turkish asylum seekers, but Ankara denied any such deal had been struck.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser posted on X that “we have now reached a point where returns to Turkiye can be carried out more quickly and effectively and that Turkiye will more speedily take back citizens who are not allowed to stay in Germany.
“This is another building block in limiting irregular migration.”
The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) daily reported that Turkiye had offered to soon take back up to 500 citizens per week on “special flights.”
In return, Germany would ease visa rules for Turkish citizens wanting to visit the EU country for holidays or business trips, it said.
The FAZ report said the plan had been agreed after months of talks between the offices of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The German interior ministry declined to officially comment on the details of the reports when contacted by AFP.
But later Friday, Turkiye’s foreign ministry said the reports “regarding the return of our citizens who do not have a legal right to reside in Germany to Turkiye is not true.
“No practice of mass deportation of our citizens has been authorized,” a ministry spokesman said in a message on social media platform X.

There has been heated debate about irregular immigration in Germany and other EU member states.
Germany’s relations are sensitive with Turkiye, a fellow NATO member and home to Europe’s largest Turkish diaspora of some three million people.
Many of them are part of the wave of so-called “guest workers” invited to Germany in the 1960s and 1970s, and their descendants.
The Scholz government has been under heightened pressure after a series of violent crimes and extremist attacks committed by asylum seekers.
The debate has fueled the rise of the far-right and anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party a year ahead of national elections.
The FAZ reported that an initial 200 Turkish citizens would be flown out to Turkiye on several scheduled flights leaving from a number of airports.
Beyond that, it said Turkiye had offered to take back up to 500 citizens per week from Germany on what would be declared “special flights” rather than charter flights.
The daily said the number of Turkish asylum requests in Germany rose sharply last year, with most applicants declaring they were members of the Kurdish minority.
This year, Turkish citizens accounted for the third-largest number of requests for asylum, after those from Syria and Afghanistan.
However, only a small minority of recent applications by Turkish nationals have been successful.
According to Germany’s interior ministry, the number of Turkish nationals in Germany required to leave has topped 15,000.
However, fewer than 900 were deported last year and thousands received stays of deportation, often because they declared they lacked valid travel documents, FAZ said.
 

 


Iran’s foreign minister accuses Israel of using US bombs in Beirut

Iran’s foreign minister accuses Israel of using US bombs in Beirut
Updated 28 September 2024
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Iran’s foreign minister accuses Israel of using US bombs in Beirut

Iran’s foreign minister accuses Israel of using US bombs in Beirut
  • Senior Hezbollah commanders were the target of Israel’s strike on the group’s central headquarters in Beirut’s suburbs on Friday

UNITED NATIONS: Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi accused Israel of using several US “bunker buster” bombs to strike Beirut on Friday.
“Just this morning, the Israeli regime used several 5,000-pound bunker busters that had been gifted to them by the United States to hit residential areas in Beirut,” he told a UN Security Council meeting on the Middle East.
Senior Hezbollah commanders were the target of Israel’s strike on the group’s central headquarters in Beirut’s suburbs on Friday, but it was too early to say whether the attack took out Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, a senior Israeli official said on Friday.

 

 


Wrapping up mission, US troops will leave some longstanding bases in Iraq under new deal

Wrapping up mission, US troops will leave some longstanding bases in Iraq under new deal
Updated 28 September 2024
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Wrapping up mission, US troops will leave some longstanding bases in Iraq under new deal

Wrapping up mission, US troops will leave some longstanding bases in Iraq under new deal
  • Under the plan, all coalition forces would leave the Ain Al-Asad air base in western Anbar province and significantly reduce their presence in Baghdad by September 2025

WASHINGTON: The US announced an agreement with the Iraqi government Friday to wrap up the military mission in Iraq of an American-led coalition fighting the Daesh group by next year, with US troops departing some bases that they have long occupied during a two-decade-long military presence in the country.
But the Biden administration refused to provide details on how many of the approximately 2,500 US troops still serving in Iraq will remain there or acknowledge it will mark a full withdrawal from the country.
“I think it’s fair to say that, you know, our footprint is going to be changing within the country,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh told reporters Friday without providing specifics.
The announcement comes at a particularly contentious time for the Middle East, with escalating conflict between Israel and two Iranian-backed militant groups — Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza — threatening a broader regional war. Bases housing US forces and contractors have been regularly targeted by Iran-backed militias over the last several years, and those attacks intensified late last year and early this spring after the Israel-Hamas war broke out nearly a year ago.
For years, Iraqi officials have periodically called for a withdrawal of coalition forces, and formal talks to wind down the US presence in the country have been going on for months.
US officials who briefed reporters Friday said the agreement will bring about a two-phase transition in the troops assigned to Iraq that began this month. In the first phase, which runs through September 2025, the coalition mission against Daesh will end and forces will leave some longstanding bases.
Following the November election, American forces will start departing from Ain Al-Asad air base in western Iraq and from Baghdad International Airport, according to Iraqi government officials who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity. Those forces will be moved to Hareer base in Irbil, in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
In the second phase, the US will continue to operate in some fashion from Iraq through 2026 to support counter-Daesh operations in Syria, a senior Biden administration official and a senior defense official said on the condition of anonymity on a call with reporters to provide details ahead of the announcement.
Ultimately, the US military mission would transition to a bilateral security relationship, the US officials said, but they did not indicate what that might mean for the number of American troops who remain in Iraq in the future.
The Iraqi officials said some American troops may stay at Hareer base after 2026 because the Kurdistan regional government would like them to stay.
“We have taken an important step in resolving the issue of the international coalition to fight Daesh,” Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani said in a speech this month. He noted “the government’s belief in the capabilities of our security forces that defeated the remnants of Daesh.”
The continued presence of US troops has been a political vulnerability for Sudani, whose government is under increased influence from Iran. Iraq has long struggled to balance its ties with the US and Iran, both allies of the Iraqi government but regional archenemies.
“We thank the government for its position to expel the international coalition forces,” Qais Khazali, founder of Asaib Ahl Al-Haq — an Iran-backed Iraqi Shia militia that has conducted attacks against US forces in Iraq — said last week.
But critics caution that this year’s surge of Daesh attacks in Syria across the desert border from Iraq suggest the drawdown in Iraq is a “really significant cause for concern,” said Charles Lister, a senior fellow with the Middle East Institute research center in Washington.
The US withdrawal from Iraq isn’t because Daesh has disappeared, Lister said. “The withdrawal is because there’s a significant proportion of the policy-making community in Baghdad that doesn’t want American troops on Iraqi soil.”
The agreement marks the third time in the last two decades that the US has announced a formal transition of the military’s role there.
The US invaded Iraq in March 2003 in what it called a massive “shock and awe” bombing campaign that lit up the skies, laid waste to large sections of the country and paved the way for American ground troops to converge on Baghdad. The invasion was based on what turned out to be faulty claims that Saddam Hussein had secretly stashed weapons of mass destruction. Such weapons never materialized.
The US presence grew to more than 170,000 troops at the peak of counterinsurgency operations in 2007. The Obama administration negotiated the drawdown of forces, and in December 2011, the final combat troops departed, leaving only a small number of military personnel behind to staff an office of security assistance and a detachment of Marines to guard the embassy compound.
In 2014, the rise of the Daesh group and its rapid capture of a wide swath across Iraq and Syria brought US and partner nation forces back at the invitation of the Iraqi government to help rebuild and retrain police and military units that had fallen apart and fled.
After Daesh lost its hold on the territory it once claimed, coalition military operations ended in 2021. An enduring US presence of about 2,500 troops stayed in Iraq to maintain training and conduct partnered counter-Daesh operations with Iraq’s military.
In the years since, the US has maintained that presence to pressure Iranian-backed militias active in Iraq and Syria. The presence of American forces in Iraq also makes it more difficult for Iran to move weapons across Iraq and Syria into Lebanon, for use by its proxies, including the Lebanese Hezbollah, against Israel.