Fears grow for British couple held by Taliban as trial delayed

Peter and Barbie Reynolds. (Supplied/Sarah Entwistle)
Peter and Barbie Reynolds. (Supplied/Sarah Entwistle)
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Updated 24 March 2025
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Fears grow for British couple held by Taliban as trial delayed

Fears grow for British couple held by Taliban as trial delayed
  • Peter Reynolds, 79, wife Barbie, 75, have lived in Afghanistan more than 18 years 

LONDON: The family of a British couple fears for their health after their trial in Afghanistan was abruptly delayed, it was reported on Sunday.

Peter Reynolds, 79, and his wife Barbie, 75, who have lived in Afghanistan for more than 18 years and have become Afghan citizens, were arrested in February while traveling to their home in Bamyan Province.

The couple had been presented in chains at a Kabul court on Saturday but were informed “at the last minute” that their judge had been changed, delaying proceedings.

Their daughter Sarah Entwistle told The Guardian the conditions in their maximum-security prison were “brutal” and “what I imagine hell is like.”

Entwistle highlighted the severe deterioration of her parents’ health, saying: “Mum’s health is rapidly deteriorating, and she is collapsing due to malnutrition. She and the other women are provided only one meal a day, while the men receive three.”

She also expressed concern for her father, adding: “Dad’s health is also still declining, and he’s experiencing tremors in his head and left arm.”

She said that at court “they spent four hours sitting on the floor, chained to other prisoners, before being returned to the prison.”

She added: “At the last minute they were informed that they would not be seen by the judge. The guards indicated that a different judge would now be handling the case, and we continue to hope they will receive a fair hearing in the coming week.”

Mrs. Reynolds struggled to climb the four staircases to the courtroom, and Entwistle said: “There are still no charges against them, and no evidence of any crime has been submitted.

“We are, of course, devastated by this delay. It makes little sense, especially given that the Taliban have repeatedly stated that this situation is due to misunderstandings, and that they will be released soon.”

The couple, who married in Afghanistan in 1970, remained in the country following the Taliban’s takeover in 2021, saying they “couldn’t leave the country and the people they love, in their darkest hour.” They were arrested alongside an American friend, Faye Hall, and their Afghan translator, Juya.

Mr. Reynolds has reportedly suffered beatings and is in immense pain. Entwistle said: “His health has significantly deteriorated. We hear he now has a chest infection, a double eye infection, and serious digestive issues due to poor nutrition. Without immediate access to necessary medication his life is in serious danger.”

Appealing for their release, she urged the Taliban to show mercy, adding: “Again, we ask the Taliban to release Dad, Mum, Faye, and the interpreter as a gesture of goodwill during this season of Ramadan.”


ICE deports immigrant mother of an infant and 3 children who are US citizens, lawyers say

ICE deports immigrant mother of an infant and 3 children who are US citizens, lawyers say
Updated 15 sec ago
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ICE deports immigrant mother of an infant and 3 children who are US citizens, lawyers say

ICE deports immigrant mother of an infant and 3 children who are US citizens, lawyers say
  • Gracie Willis of the National Immigration Project said the mothers, at the very least, did not have a fair opportunity to decide whether they wanted the children to stay in the United States

HARRISBURG, Pennsylvania: Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers have in recent days deported the Cuban-born mother of a 1-year-old girl — separating them indefinitely — and three children ages 2, 4 and 7 who are US citizens along with their Honduran-born mothers, their lawyers said Saturday.
The three cases raise questions about who is being deported, and why, and come amid a battle in federal courts over whether President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has gone too far and too quickly at the expense of fundamental rights.
Lawyers in the cases described how the women were arrested at routine check-ins at ICE offices, given virtually no opportunity to speak with lawyers or their family members and then deported within three days or less.
The American Civil Liberties Union, National Immigration Project and several other allied groups said in a statement that the way ICE deported children who are US citizens and their mothers is a “shocking — although increasingly common — abuse of power.”
Gracie Willis of the National Immigration Project said the mothers, at the very least, did not have a fair opportunity to decide whether they wanted the children to stay in the United States.
“We have no idea what ICE was telling them, and in this case what has come to light is that ICE didn’t give them another alternative,” Willis said in an interview. “They didn’t gave them a choice, that these mothers only had the option to take their children with them despite loving caregivers being available in the United States to keep them here.”
The 4-year-old — who is suffering from a rare form of cancer — and the 7-year-old were deported to Honduras within a day of being arrested with their mother, Willis said.
In the case involving the 2-year-old, a federal judge in Louisiana raised questions about the deportation of the girl, saying the government did not prove it had done so properly.
Lawyers for the girl’s father insisted he wanted the girl to remain with him in the US, while ICE contended the mother had wanted the girl to be deported with her to Honduras, claims that weren’t fully vetted by US District Judge Terry Doughty in Louisiana.
Doughty in a Friday order scheduled a hearing on May 16 “in the interest of dispelling our strong suspicion that the Government just deported a US citizen with no meaningful process,” he wrote.
The Honduran-born mother — who is pregnant — was arrested Tuesday on an outstanding deportation order along with the 2-year-old girl and her 11-year-old Honduran-born sister during a check-in appointment at an ICE office in New Orleans, lawyers said. The family lived in Baton Rouge.
Doughty called government lawyers on Friday to speak to the woman while she was in the air on a deportation plane, only to be called back less than an hour later and told that a conversation was impossible because she “had just been released in Honduras.”
In a Thursday court filing, lawyers for the father said ICE indicated that it was holding the 2-year-old girl in a bid to induce the father to turn himself in. His lawyers didn’t describe his immigration status, but said he has legally delegated the custody of his daughters to his sister-in-law, a US citizen who also lives in Baton Rouge.
Cuban-born woman is deported, leaving behind child and husband
In Florida, meanwhile, a Cuban-born woman who is the mother of a 1-year-old girl and the wife of a US citizen was detained at a scheduled check-in appointment at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Tampa, her lawyer said Saturday.
Heidy Sánchez was held without any communication and flown to Cuba two days later. She is still breastfeeding her daughter, who suffers from seizures, her lawyer, Claudia Cañizares, said.
Cañizares said she tried to file paperwork with ICE to contest the deportation Thursday morning but ICE refused to accept it, saying Sánchez was already gone, although Cañizares said she doesn’t think that was true.
Cañizares said she told ICE that she was planning to reopen Sánchez’s case to help her remain in the US legally, but ICE told her that Sánchez can pursue the case while she’s in Cuba.
“I think they’re following orders that they need to remove a certain amount of people by day and they don’t care, honestly,” Cañizares said.
Sánchez is not a criminal and has a strong case on humanitarian grounds for allowing her to stay in the US, Cañizares said, but ICE isn’t taking that into consideration when it has to meet what the lawyer said were deportation benchmarks.
Sánchez had an outstanding deportation order stemming from a missed hearing in 2019, for which she was detained for nine months, Cañizares said. Cuba apparently refused to accept Sanchez back at the time, so Sanchez was released in 2020 and ordered to maintain a regular schedule of check-ins with ICE, Cañizares said.


Trump urges ‘free’ transit for US ships through Panama, Suez canals

Trump urges ‘free’ transit for US ships through Panama, Suez canals
Updated 14 min 32 sec ago
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Trump urges ‘free’ transit for US ships through Panama, Suez canals

Trump urges ‘free’ transit for US ships through Panama, Suez canals
  • “American Ships, both Military and Commercial, should be allowed to travel, free of charge, through the Panama and Suez Canals!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump on Saturday urged free transit for American commercial and military ships through the Panama and Suez canals, tasking his secretary of state with making progress “immediately.”
Trump has for months been calling for the United States to take control of the Panama Canal but his social media post also shifted focus onto the vital Suez route.
“American Ships, both Military and Commercial, should be allowed to travel, free of charge, through the Panama and Suez Canals!” he wrote on his Truth Social platform.
He claimed both routes would “not exist” without the United States and said he had asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio to “immediately take care of” the situation.
Egypt’s Suez Canal, a key waterway linking Europe and Asia, accounted for about 10 percent of global maritime trade before attacks by Yemen’s Houthi rebels on shipping routes in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden.
The Iran-backed rebels began targeting vessels after the start of the Gaza war, claiming solidarity with Palestinians, forcing ships to take a long and costly detour around the southern tip of Africa.
Egypt said last year its canal revenues had plunged 60 percent, a loss of $7 billion.
The US military has been attacking Houthi positions since January 2024, but those assaults have intensified under Trump, with almost daily strikes in the past month.
Trump has vowed that military action would continue until the Houthis are no longer a threat to shipping.
 

 


French police hunt suspected killer of Muslim worshipper inside mosque

French police hunt suspected killer of Muslim worshipper inside mosque
Updated 27 April 2025
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French police hunt suspected killer of Muslim worshipper inside mosque

French police hunt suspected killer of Muslim worshipper inside mosque
  • The suspect was still at large on Saturday, regional prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini told AFP

MARSEILLE: French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou on Saturday denounced the fatal stabbing of a Muslim worshipper inside a mosque as police hunted the killer, who filmed his victim as he lay dying.
The attacker stabbed the worshipper dozens of times then filmed him with a mobile phone while shouting insults at Islam in Friday’s attack in the village of La Grand-Combe in the Gard region of southern France.
“A worshipper was murdered yesterday,” wrote Bayrou in a message posted on X. “The Islamophobic atrocity was displayed in a video,” he added.
“We stand with the victim’s loved ones, with the believers who are so shocked. State resources are mobilized to ensure the killer is apprehended and punished,” wrote Bayrou.
Earlier Saturday, investigators said they were treating the killing as a possible Islamophobic crime.
The suspect was still at large on Saturday, regional prosecutor Abdelkrim Grini told AFP.
The footage taken by the killer showed him insulting “Allah,” the Arabic term for God, just after he carried out the attack.
The alleged perpetrator sent the video he had filmed with his phone, showing the victim writhing in agony, to another person, who then shared it on a social media platform before deleting it.
The killing itself was not shown on the images posted on social media but was filmed by security cameras inside the mosque. In his own footage the killer notices these cameras and is heard saying: “I am going to be arrested — that’s for sure.”

According to another source, who also asked not to be named, the suspected perpetrator, while not apprehended, has been identified as a French citizen of Bosnian origin who is not a Muslim.
“The individual is being actively sought. This is a matter that is being taken very seriously,” said the prosecutor Grini.
“All possibilities were being considered, including that of an act with an Islamophobic dimension,” he added.
He confirmed that the French anti-terror prosecutors’ office was considering whether to take over the case.
The victim and the attacker were alone inside the mosque at the time of the incident.
After initially praying alongside the man, the attacker then stabbed the victim up to 50 times before fleeing the scene.
The body of the victim was only discovered later in the morning when other worshippers arrived at the mosque for Friday prayers.
According to prosecutor Grini, the victim, between 23 and 24 years old, was a regular worshipper at the mosque. The killer had never been seen there before.
According to several people AFP spoke to at the scene on Friday, the victim was a young man who arrived from Mali a few years ago and was “very well-known” in the village, where he was highly regarded.
A former mining center about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the town of Ales, La Grand-Combe suffers one of the highest unemployment rates in France after the end of coal mining.
On Friday, Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau described the murder as “appalling.”
He expressed his “support for the victim’s family and solidarity with the Muslim community affected by this barbaric violence in their place of worship on the day of prayer.”

 


Gabon’s constitutional court confirms Nguema’s victory

Gabon’s constitutional court confirms Nguema’s victory
Updated 26 April 2025
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Gabon’s constitutional court confirms Nguema’s victory

Gabon’s constitutional court confirms Nguema’s victory
  • The Constitutional Court announced a turnout of 70 percent in the election in which some 920,000 voters, including over 28,000 overseas, were registered to participate across more than 3,000 polling stations

DAKAR: Gabon’s constitutional court has confirmed that Gen. Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema, Gabon’s interim president who staged a 2023 coup, won the Central African nation’s April 12 presidential election.
According to the final results announced by the Constitutional Court, Oligui Nguema won the election with 58,074 votes, which accounts for 94.85 percent.
Oligui Nguema’s tally increased by almost 5 percent compared to the provisional results announced the day after the April 12 vote by the Ministry of the Interior.
He defeated seven other candidates, including the immediate past Prime Minister Alain Claude Bilie-By-Nze, who came in a distant second with 3 percent of votes cast. None of the other six candidates crossed the 1 percent mark.
Bilie-By-Nze recently said that Oligui Nguema took advantage of state resources to support his campaign. The government denies this.
Local observers deemed the conduct of the election satisfactory in nearly all the polling stations monitored.
The Constitutional Court announced a turnout of 70 percent in the election in which some 920,000 voters, including over 28,000 overseas, were registered to participate across more than 3,000 polling stations.
The Interior Ministry had previously announced a higher turnout of 87.21 percent in its provisional results announced the day after the vote.
Gabon’s first election since the 2023 military coup ended a political dynasty that lasted over 50 years.
It was seen as a crucial election for the central African nation’s 2.3 million people, a third of whom live in poverty despite its vast oil wealth.
Oligui Nguema, the former head of the country’s Republican Guard, toppled President Ali Bongo Ondimba nearly two years ago.
He hopes to consolidate his grip on power for a seven-year term in office and is set to be inaugurated on May 3.

 


African peacekeeping mission in Somalia ‘needs 8,000 more troops’

African peacekeeping mission in Somalia ‘needs 8,000 more troops’
Updated 26 April 2025
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African peacekeeping mission in Somalia ‘needs 8,000 more troops’

African peacekeeping mission in Somalia ‘needs 8,000 more troops’
  • Envoys hold a three-day meeting to discuss the security situation and the progress of ‘stabilization mission’

NAIROBI: The African peacekeeping mission in Somalia requires an additional 8,000 troops, even as Burundi is expected to withdraw its contingent, a statement from military heads from troop-contributing countries said.

The African Union Support and Stabilization Mission in Somalia, or AUSSOM, is tasked with combating the Al-Shabab group, whose attacks are stoking fears of a terrorist resurgence in the Horn of Africa nation.
But Burundi’s planned pullout, which diplomatic sources said was triggered by a spat with Mogadishu over the state of its soldiers’ equipment, would deprive the mission of around one-fifth of its current manpower.

BACKGROUND

Officials say insufficient troops have created security gaps ‘resulting in the resurgence of Al-Shabab taking control of significant territory in both Middle and Lower Shabelle.’

Envoys from Djibouti, Ethiopia, Egypt, Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, the African Union, and multilateral organizations held a three-day meeting in Uganda this week to discuss the security situation in Somalia and the progress of AUSSOM.
In a statement, the officials said insufficient troops had created security gaps “resulting in the resurgence of Al-Shabab taking control of significant territory in both Middle and Lower Shabelle.”
“As a consequence, both Jowhar and Mogadishu are under imminent threat by Al-Shabab,” the statement said.
Somalia has long struggled with the violent Islamist insurgency.
However, the Al-Qaeda-linked group had been forced onto the defensive in 2022 and 2023 by Somali forces backed by African Union-led peacekeepers.
Recent attacks in key towns have provoked worries of the organization’s resurgence, with the militants targeting President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud’s convoy in the capital, Mogadishu, in March.
The security representatives recommended “an additional 8,000 to AUSSOM Troops to address the current security situation in Somalia so as not to roll back the hard-earned gains.”
The mission, which replaced the previous ATMIS deployment, has 11,146 soldiers.
But the withdrawal of Burundi troops with no prospect of replacement “will create more gaps and exacerbate the already deteriorating situation,” the statement added.
Somalia and Burundi have been at loggerheads over the number of troops Burundi should contribute to the mission, with Mogadishu requesting only around 1,000 Burundian soldiers — far below Burundi’s proposal of 2,000.
According to an African diplomat, Somalia “felt that Burundi was not sufficiently equipped for such a large number of soldiers.”
“Our government saw the Somali proposal as a lack of consideration, a lack of respect when you consider the sacrifices Burundi has made to bring peace back to Somalia,” a senior Burundian official said.
A statement by the AU dated April 15 instructed the UN office in Somalia to facilitate the repatriation of Burundi’s contingent.
The envoys also addressed the mission’s significant financial challenges, urging international partners to address the deficit of $96 million for ATMIS and $60 million to cover four months of AUSSOM — which has been in operation since January.