Gunmen who held prosecutor captive in Istanbul killed

Armed men who took prosecutor hostage at a courthouse shot dead in rescue mission, with captive later dying in hospital.

 

Police said Kiraz was hospitalised and was undergoing a major surgery [Reuters]

Turkish security forces have carried out an operation to rescue a prosecutor held captive at an Istanbul courthouse, killing the two hostage-takers.
Selami Altiok, the city's police chief, said in a news conference on Tuesday that the attackers had been shot dead and that prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz was critically wounded during the operation. Kiraz later died at the hospital.
Mehmet Selim Kiraz was investigating the killing of Berkin Elvan, who died in March last year after spending 269 days in a coma due to injuries inflicted by police in the mass protests of early summer 2013.
The hostage-takers, who belonged to the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP/C), an outlawed leftist group, had announced a list of demands for the release of the prosecutor, saying that the officer who shot Elvan must appear on TV and confess his guilt.
Altiok said that police had been in communication with the armed men for six hours prior to the operation.
"After gunshots were heard from the room, security forces carried out the operation," Altiok added.
Gunshots and blasts were heard outside the courthouse during the operation, according to witnesses.
Turkish media earlier had showed photos of an armed man holding a gun to the prosecutor's head while his hands were tied.
Al Jazeera's Bernard Smith, reporting form outside the courthouse, said that investigators at the scene were focusing on how the guns used were brought into the well-protected building.
"Only lawyers are entitled to go into the courthouse without being searched," Smith said.
The hostage-takers threatened to kill Kiraz if the officer who shot Elvan was not arrested, setting a deadline of three hours for their demands to be met, according to a statement on the group's website.
List of demands
The hostage-takers had announced a list of demands for the release of the prosecutor, saying that the officer who shot Elvan must appear on TV and confess his guilt.
The police officer must also be tried in a people's court, not in the state courts, the list read.
Another demand was that the rights of those who attended rallies in solidarity with the Elvan family must be reinstated and that the prosecutions against them should be abolished. The group also demanded a safe exit of the armed men behind the hostage-taking.
Sami Elvan, Berkin's father, said on Twitter in a video statement that he did not want to see the prosecutor hurt.
The judicial process in the case of Berkin Elvan's death has been widely criticised in Turkey.
The Istanbul Police Department did not forward the identities of the policemen suspected of killing Elvan to the prosecutor's office until March, a year after the teenager's death.

Hundreds acquitted in alleged coup plot case in Turkey

A total of 236 suspects, including several generals, acquitted in so-called Sledgehammer case, which dated back to 2003.

 

Cevik Bir, the former deputy chief of the general staff, was among the suspects acquitted [EPA]

A Turkish court has acquitted more than 200 suspects accused of plotting a coup in 2003 against the government.
A total of 236 people, including several generals, were retried by an Istanbul court after Turkey's top court last year quashed their original convictions in the so-called Sledgehammer case.
"It is understood that the digital data in the file is not evidence. We reached the conclusion that it is not possible to find any relation between the suspects and the digital data in question," said prosecutor Ramazan Oksuz, according to the newspaper Hurriyet Daily News, demanding acquittal for all suspects.
The prosecutor reportedly said there was strong suspicion that the digital evidence put forward to convict the suspects was "fake", adding that it was not possible to link the data to the suspects.
Suspects acquitted included former generals Cetin Dogan, Ozden Ornek, Halil Ibrahim Firtina, Dursun Cicek, Bilgin Balanli, Ergin Saygun, Nejat Bek and Suha Tanyeri and Engin Alan.
The retrial process started in November last year, after Turkey's Constitutional Court decided that the rights of the suspects were breached in the previous process. The suspects were first convicted in 2012.
All involved with the case were released pending trial in June 2014 after the Constitutional Court ruling.
The case focused on an alleged coup attempt in 2003 to overthrow the government of the ruling Justice and Development Party.

Republicans see Obama as more imminent threat than Putin: Reuters/Ipsos poll

U.S. President Barack Obama pauses while speaking about the crisis in Ukraine from the White House in Washington March 17, 2014.

Kevin Lamarque

 

 

A third of Republicans believe President Barack Obama poses an imminent threat to the United States, outranking concerns about Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
A Reuters/Ipsos online poll this month asked 2,809 Americans to rate how much of a threat a list of countries, organizations and individuals posed to the United States on a scale of 1 to 5, with one being no threat and 5 being an imminent threat.
The poll showed 34 percent of Republicans ranked Obama as an imminent threat, ahead of Putin (25 percent), who has been accused of aggression in the Ukraine, and Assad (23 percent). Western governments have alleged that Assad used chlorine gas and barrel bombs on his own citizens.
Given the level of polarization in American politics the results are not that surprising, said Barry Glassner, a sociologist and author of "The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are afraid of the wrong things."
"There tends to be a lot of demonizing of the person who is in the office," Glassner said, adding that "fear mongering" by the Republican and Democratic parties would be a mainstay of the U.S. 2016 presidential campaign.
"The TV media here, and American politics, very much trade on fears," he said.
The Ipsos survey, done between March 16 and March 24, included 1,083 Democrats and 1,059 Republicans.
Twenty-seven percent of Republicans saw the Democratic Party as an imminent threat to the United States, and 22 percent of Democrats deemed Republicans to be an imminent threat.
People who were polled were most concerned about threats related to potential terror attacks. Islamic State militants were rated an imminent threat by 58 percent of respondents, and al Qaeda by 43 percent. North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un was viewed as a threat by 34 percent, and Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei by 27 percent.
Cyber attacks were viewed as an imminent threat by 39 percent, and drug trafficking was seen as an imminent threat by a third of the respondents.
Democrats were more concerned about climate change than Republicans, with 33 percent of Democrats rating global warming an imminent threat. Among Republicans, 27 percent said climate change was not a threat at all.
The data was weighted to reflect the U.S. population and has a credibility interval, a measure of accuracy, of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points for all adults (3.4 points for Democrats and 3.4 points for Republicans.)

Two missing men likely found amid NYC gas explosion rubble: fire official

Two bodies found on Sunday at the site of a gas explosion that destroyed three New York City apartment buildings last week, injuring 22 people, were believed to be those of two unaccounted for men, the city's top fire official said.
The bodies were found about 20 feet apart of one of the buildings reduced to rubble by the blast and fire in Manhattan's East Village neighborhood on Thursday, Fire Department Commissioner Daniel Nigro told reporters.
While Nigro said a medical examiner had not officially determined that the remains belonged to the two people who remain unaccounted for, local broadcaster NY1 News said one of the missing men, 23-year-old Nicholas Figueroa, had been identified by his family as one of the bodies found on Sunday. Also missing was Moises Lucon.
"Those were the two people that had been reported missing and we think we found those two," Nigro said, though he did not rule out the chance of a third victim. "The feeling is that everyone who had been reported missing has now been found."
Figueroa and Lucon were believed to be in a sushi restaurant in the building where the explosion occurred, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has said. Lucon, 26, worked at the restaurant, according to NY1 News.
On Sunday, rescue workers could be seen digging through the rubble backed by cranes hoisting debris and a front loader pushing twisted metal and bits of furniture into a pile on a street. Rescuers had been using used cadaver dogs to search for victims.
At a nearby restaurant, Local 92, a sign read: "Our hearts [are] with people who got hurt and lost their homes."
In all, three buildings collapsed out of four that caught fire, and 11 buildings were evacuated, leaving residents of 144 apartments homeless.
Investigators were looking into whether gas and plumbing work being done privately in one building led to the explosion, and utility Con Edison said that its utility crew found dangerous gas line connections that created a "hazardous situation" during a visit in August prompted by the smell of gas in the basement.
The utility said it shut off the building's gas for about 10 days, until it was determined to be safe.
The basement could hold the key to the cause of the devastation, police said. On Friday, de Blasio said the blast was possibly tied to someone inappropriately tapping into a gas line.
Nigro also said workers had not reached the basement of the building and authorities had not reached any conclusions about the cause of the blast.
An hour before the blast Con Edison inspectors had been at the scene and determined that pre-existing work was not satisfactory, but the problems were not safety-related, de Blasio said.

Warplanes hit Yemen's Sanaa overnight, after dawn: residents

 Warplanes struck the Yemeni capital of Sanaa overnight and after daybreak on Monday, residents said, the fifth day of a campaign by Saudi-led forces against Houthi forces opposed to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
One resident said the strikes appeared to hit mainly around the presidential palace, adjacent to the diplomatic quarter of the capital.
"It was a night from hell," a Yemeni diplomat said.
Residents said the strikes also targeted weapons depots near Nugum mountain, which overlooks the city.
Riyadh announced on March 26 that it and nine other Sunni Muslim countries had begun air strikes against the Shi'ite Houthi militia, who control the capital and are backed by Iran, Saudi Arabia's main regional foe.
Iran, which denies helping the Houthis militarily, has condemned the offensive.
The Health Ministry, controlled by the Houthi movement, said on Sunday air strikes had killed 35 people and wounded 88 during the night of Saturday-Sunday. The figures could not be independently confirmed.
In Aden, held by Hadi's embattled supporters, explosions and bursts of automatic-weapons fire could be heard late into the night across the southern port city.
No independent information was immediately available on the origin of the clashes. But callers to Aden television said it was a new push by the Houthis and allied Saleh fighters from the north toward Sheikh Uthman, a residential suburb of Aden.


No word was available on casualties. Some Arab television satellite channels said Houthis force were about 30 km (20 miles) north of Aden.
Aden al-Ghad newspaper published pictures of a number of burned tanks, armored vehicles and other military vehicles that it said were destroyed during fighting in past days.

Iraqi advance moves slowly on ISIL-held Tikrit

Iraqi troops say battle to retake city will not be easy, with areas "littered with bombs and booby-traps".

 

Iraqi forces battling the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group have warned the operation to retake Tikrit will not be quick, with areas in and around the city "littered with bombs and booby-traps".
Iraqi security forces said on Sunday that they were slowly rolling into the city's western area with the help of US-led air strikes despite Shia militias boycotting the offensive.
"Our advance is slow because of the IEDs and booby-trapped roads," Brigadier-General Thamer Mohamed told the Reuters news agency.
"There is some resistance from the enemy, but it's mainly due to the booby-traps set up on the roads, in the houses, shops and government facilities. As you can see, our units are advancing and we have air support."
Despite more than 20,000 fighters launching the offensive on March 2, most Iranian-backed Shia armed groups have boycotted the current advance in protest against US-led air strikes that began on Thursday at the request of the Baghdad government.
Meanwhile, several injured Shia fighters told Al Jazeera that the US was to blame for their injuries after striking their positions near Tikrit.
Since Thursday, when the US air strikes began, at least 17 Iraq security personnel have been killed and another 100 wounded around Tikrit, a security officer told Reuters.
Shia militias, aligned with Tehran, have repeatedly said they do not need US support to drive ISIL from Tikrit, the home city of Iraq's former long-time leader Saddam Hussein.

Fighting grips Aden as Houthis continue to push south

Clashes continue in Yemen's coastal city, as bombing by Saudi-led coalition targets Houthis' air-defence capabilities.

 

Fierce fighting has been reported in Yemen's coastal city of Aden as Houthi rebels continued their push south despite a fifth night of Saudi-led airstrikes against the group's positions.
Clashes were reported in the Dar Saad district of Aden on Sunday as fighters loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi battled Houthis trying to push their way to the city's northern gate.
Hadi loyalists told Al Jazeera they had recaptured the airport, which has changed hands several times in recent days, as a gun battle raged in Aden's central Crater district.
Nearly 100 people are reported to have been killed in the violence in Aden in recent days.
Heavy fighting was also reported in Shabwa province, with local tribes in Beihan telling Al Jazeera that at least 40 Houthi fighters were killed in battles there.
The clashes came as Nabil el-Araby, the head of the Arab League, said Saudi-led airstrikes would continue until the Houthis layed down their weapons and withdrew.

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"Yemen was on the verge of collapse which prompted a reaction from Arab states and the international community," el-Araby said.
"The [airstrikes] came after all other means to achieve a peaceful solution ...  were exhausted. The [strikes] will continue until the Houthis hand over their weapons."
Meanwhile, Adel al-Jubeir, Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, said the kingdom was keeping its options open over whether to send ground troops to Yemen.
"I don't know that anyone wants to go into Yemen but we don't rule anything out," Jubeir was quoted by the Reuters news agency as saying. "Right now the objective is being achieved through an air campaign,"
The campaign, now entering its fourth day, continued to target the Houthis' Scud missiles, leaving most of their launching pads "devastated," Brigadier General Ahmed Asiri, the spokesman for the Arab coalition bombing Houthi targets, said.
"The coalition has been targeting the air defence capabilities of the Houthis, including Surface-to-air missiles, artillery, and anti-aircraft batteries," he said before accusing the Houthis of amassing a "huge stockpile of weapons in all cities of the republic."
Coalition warplanes struck military targets at airports in the capital Sanaa and in Hodeida, the main Red Sea port.
However, Asiri said operations over Hodeida were halted for two hours to allow the evacuation of 500 Pakistani nationals.

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In the northern city of Saada, a Houthi stronghold near the Saudi border, raids hit bases under the control of the group and their ally, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, who still controls most army units.
Saleh stood down after a 2011 uprising but still wields wide influence in Yemen.
He appealed on Saturday to Arab leaders meeting in Egypt to halt their offensive and resume talks on political transition in Yemen, promising that neither he nor his relatives would seek the presidency.
Riyadh Yasin, Hadi's foreign minister, dismissed his comments as "the talk of losers".
Meanwhile, Saudi-owned television channel Al-Arabiya broadcast a detailed account of a proposal by Saleh's son Ahmed to the Saudi leadership to head off military intervention.
Al-Arabiya said Prince Mohammad rejected Ahmed's proposal where he said he would break with the Houthis.
"There must be a return to legitimacy in the form of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to lead Yemen from the capital Sanaa," it quoted him as saying.

Houthis threaten Saudi Arabia with suicide bombings

Shia fighters threaten to undertake suicide operations in the kingdom if Saudi-led airstrikes in Yemen continue.

 

Yemen's Houthi fighters have threatened to undertake suicide bombings in Saudi Arabia if the kingdom continues to launch airstrikes against the group's positions.
Abdel Mon'em Al-Qurashi, a senior member of the Houthis Executive Committee, said on Saturday that the group would destroy the Saudi regime for its "aggressive" policies, Iran's Fars news agency reported.

"If Saudi Arabia continues its aggressions against the oppressed Yemeni people, [Houthi] fighters will pave the way for the Saudi regime's destruction by conducting martyrdom-seeking operations inside Saudi Arabia in the coming hours," Quraishi told Fars.
The threat came as the spokesman for the Arab coalition bombing Houthi targets in Yemen, Brigadier General Ahmed Asiri, said Houthi fighters were mobilising towards the Saudi border.
"Saudi forces are trying to deter the Houthis from mobilising in areas near Jizan and Najran using artillery and apache helicopters," Asiri said.
"We will not allow the Houthis to bring their forces near the southern border of Saudi Arabia."
Saudi-led airstrikes have bombed Houthi targets for three consecutive nights, in what they call Operation Decisive Storm, after assembling a coalition of more than 10 countries, five of them members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.
On Saturday, airstrikes hit Sanaa International Airport and the adjoining military airport, causing damage to planes, airport infrastructure and runways.
The airstrikes hit multiple provinces in Yemen, including Houthi strongholds and the bases of army units loyal to the group's main ally, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
In the southern coastal city of Aden, several people were killed on Saturday after a series of blasts rocked an arms depot at the foot of Jabal Hadid mountain overlooking Aden.
The cause was not immediately clear but residents had been looting the arsenal of Soviet-era weapons.
Troops guarding the depot had abandoned their posts earlier this week after their commanders fled.
According to the Houthi-run interior ministry, at least 24 civilians were killed in Friday's strikes, bringing the toll from Thursday and Friday to 45 civilians.
The figures of civilian and combatant casualties could not be independently confirmed, though Amnesty International said at least six children were among those killed in Sanaa on Thursday.

German pilot told partner 'everyone will know my name'

Ex-girlfriend of Andreas Lubitz says he told her he wanted to "change the system" and was angry about career prospects.

 

Searches at Andreas Lubitz's homes turned up documents pointing to "an existing illness and appropriate medical treatment" [AFP]

The co-pilot suspected of deliberately crashing a passenger plane in the French Alps told his girlfriend he was in psychiatric treatment, and that he was planning to do something that everyone would remember.
The German mewspaper Bild published an interview on Saturday with a woman who said she had had a relationship in 2014 with Andreas Lubitz, the man French prosecutors believe locked himself alone into the cockpit of the Germanwings Airbus on Tuesday and steered it into a mountain, killing all 150 people on board.
"When I heard about the crash, I remembered a sentence, over and over again, that he said," the woman, a flight attendant of 26 named only as Maria W, told Bild.
"One day I'll do something that will change the system, and then everyone will know my name and remember it'," she said he told her.
"I didn't know what he meant by that at the time, but now it's obvious," the attendant said.
"He did it because he realised that, due to his health problems, his big dream of working at Lufthansa, of a having job as a pilot, and as a pilot on long-distance flights, was nearly impossible."
On Friday, German authorities said they had found torn-up sick notes showing that the co-pilot was suffering from an illness that should have grounded him on the day of the tragedy.
Germanwings, the budget airline of the flag carrier Lufthansa, has said he had not submitted any sick note at the time.
Maria W told the paper: "We always talked a lot about work and then he became a different person.
"He became upset about the conditions we worked under: too little money, fear of losing the contract, too much pressure."
A Lufthansa spokesman declined to comment, the Reuters news agency reported.

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Searches conducted at Lubitz's homes in Dusseldorf and in the town of Montabaur turned up documents pointing to "an existing illness and appropriate medical treatment," but no suicide note was found, said Ralf Herrenbrueck, a spokesman for the Dusseldorf prosecutors' office.  
Ripped-up sick notes 
The documents included ripped-up sick notes covering the day of the crash, which "support the current preliminary assessment that the deceased hid his illness from his employer and colleagues," Herrenbrueck said in a statement.  

Doctors commonly issue employees in Germany with such notes excusing them from work, even for minor illnesses, and workers hand them to their employers.
Doctors are obliged to abide by medical secrecy unless their patient explicitly tells them he or she plans to commit an act of violence.
Prosecutors did not specify what illness Lubitz may have been suffering from, or say whether it was mental or physical.
German media reported on Friday that Lubitz, who appeared happy and healthy to acquaintances, had suffered from depression.
The Dusseldorf University Hospital said on Friday that Lubitz had been a patient there over the past two months and last went in for a "diagnostic evaluation" on March 10.
It declined to provide details, citing medical confidentiality, but denied reports it had treated Lubitz for depression.  

Citing German media, Al Jazeera's Dominic Kane, reporting from Montabaur, said Lubitz had a history of depression, and broke off his pilot training in 2009 to undergo psychiatric treatment.

Carsten Spohr, the chief executive of Lufthansa, said that though Lubitz had suspended his pilot training, which began in 2008, he later continued and was able to qualify for the Airbus A320 in 2013. 

Syrian rebels capture Idlib city in joint offensive

Rebel groups, including al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, seize Idlib city for the first time after five days of clashes.

 

At least six different rebel groups took part in the operation to capture Idlib from President Assad's forces

Syrian rebels, including al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria, have captured the northwestern city of Idlib for the first time from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, activists and the rebels have said.
The "Fattah Army" coalition - including the al-Nusra Front, Jund al-Aqsa, Jaish al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq, Ajnad al-Sham, and Faynad al-Sham - seized Idlib city on Saturday after more than five days of fierce fighting.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict through a network of activists on the ground, said the rebels had taken control of all of the city after collapsing government forces withdrew.
"Al-Nusra Front and its allies have captured all of Idlib," the Britain-based watchdog said, adding that at least 130 people were killed in the offensive.
"Thanks be to God, the city of Idlib has been liberated," the Nusra Front wrote on one its Twitter account, the AFP news agency reported.
Meanwhile, Syrian state TV said government forces were repositioning their units in the south of the city.
The losses in Idlib mark the second blow to government forces this week, after rebels, led by Nusra, captured the ancient and strategic town of Busra Sham in the south.
More than 220,000 people have been killed in the conflict, which began with popular protests in March 2011 and ultimately turned into a civil war following a brutal military crackdown.

Saudi Arabia vows to do 'everything' to protect Aden

Spokesman for Arab coalition says priority is to protect Yemen's southern port city from advancing Houthis.

 

The spokesman for the Arab coalition bombing Houthi targets in Yemen has said the kingdom and its allies will do whatever it takes to stop Yemen's second largest city from falling to the Shia rebels.
Brigadier General Ahmed Asiri, the spokesman of Operation Decisive Storm, said in Riyadh on Friday that the coalition's "main objective [is] to protect the government in Aden".
The coastal city is the last base of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi after his elected government was forced out of the capital, Sanaa.

Analysis from our correspondent

Asiri said the coalition was in complete control of Yemen's airspace and was trying to weaken the Houthis air defence system and cut off supply lines.

Civilians fleeing
Asiri's remarks came as warnings were raised that a humanitarian disaster could unfold should the conflict escalate.
Bashrahil Hesham Bashrahil, a journalist based in Aden, said civilians were scared and leaving the city with the once busy streets now eerily quiet.
"The markets are closed, businesses are closed and their is a real shortage of food," Bashrahil told Al Jazeeera.
"Banks have been shut since Thursday and will not reopen until the security situation has been addressed.
"While power supplies have not yet been effected there is a real sense of fear should the fighting worsen," he said. "Hospitals are struggling to cope with the number of injured and are appealing for blood donations."
Houthis and Hadi loyalists have been clashing on the outskirts of the city in the last few days, leaving many casualties.
Aden is believed to harbour dozens of army defectors and Houthi fighters.
Hadi left Aden on Thursday under Saudi protection. After a stop in Riyadh, he arrived on Friday in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh where he is to attend an Arab Summit focusing on the military intervention in Yemen.
Saudi Arabia has been bombing Houthi targets since Thursday, after assembling a coalition of more than 10 countries, five of them members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.
On Friday, air strikes struck at least six provinces, with bombardment shaking Sanaa and anti-aircraft weaponry being fired in response. Civilians were fleeing from areas near military bases and installations.
Further strikes hit Saada, the main Houthi stronghold, targeting locations where the groups leader, Abdel-Malek al-Houthi might be, Yemeni military officials said.
The Houthi-run health ministry says 39 civilians have been killed in air strikes so far. Amnesty International said six children were among those killed in Sanaa on Thursday.
Egyptian and Saudi warships have been deployed to the strategic Bab al-Mandab strait, a key trade and oil route separating the Arabian Peninsula from east Africa.
An Egyptian military official told the Associated Press news agency that two destroyers and two other vessels were at the strait.

Syrian President Assad says open to dialogue with US

Embattled leader says he is open to dialogue with anyone but will not compromise on sovereignty of his country.

 

The United States still wants a negotiated political settlement to Syria's civil war that excludes Assad [EPA]

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is open to having a dialogue with the United States, but there can be no "pressuring of the sovereignty" of his country, he has said in an interview with CBS' "60 Minutes".
Asked in an excerpt of the interview that aired on Thursday about recent comments by US Secretary of State John Kerry that Washington would have to negotiate with the Syrian leader to end the conflict there, Assad said: "As principal, in Syria we could say that every dialogue is a positive thing, and we are going to be open to any dialogue with anyone, including the United States, regarding anything based on mutual respect."
While saying there had been no direct communication between Damascus and Washington, Assad, who has been fighting rebels since 2011, added: "Any dialogue is positive, as I said, in principal, of course, without pressuring the sovereignty of Syria."
The United States still wants a negotiated political settlement to Syria's civil war that excludes Assad, US officials said earlier this month after Kerry's comments.
The State Department said later that Kerry was not specifically referring to Assad and that Washington would never bargain with him.
Washington has made clear its top priority in Syria is the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group, who have seized large parts of the country as well as parts of Iraq.

Shia militias pull back as US joins battle for Tikrit

US says it told Iran-backed groups to withdraw, while some militias claim they pulled back in protest of US involvement.

 

The US general said that the campaign being waged by Iranian-back militias working with Iraqis had stalled [Reuters]

Iranian forces and Shia militia groups have pulled back from front line around Tikrit, as US airstrikes were launched to help Iraqi forces battling Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), a top US general has said.
General Lloyd Austin, the head of US Central Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday that the US agreed to come in with air strikes in Tikrit under the condition that the militias pull back.

I will not, and I hope we never, coordinate or cooperate with Shia militias Lloyd Austin, the head of US Central Command

The US General told the committee that he had insisted that Iranian-backed militias pull back before the US began flying intelligence-gathering flights over the weekend and dropping bombs on Wednesday.
"I will not, and I hope we never, coordinate or cooperate with Shia militias," he told the Committee.
The US general said that the campaign being waged by Iranian-back militias working with Iraqis had stalled. The ISIL group seized the Sunni city, Saddam Hussein's hometown, last year during its rapid advance across northern Iraq.
Austin said that the Iraqi government accepted as a condition of US airstrikes that Shia militias will not be part of the effort to stabilise the city once it is recaptured, the AP news agency reported.
However, spokespersons for a number of the militias rejected Austin's claim, saying they chose to withdraw from the battle for Tirkit in protest of the US entering the fray.
The Kataib Hizbollah and Asaib Ahl al-Haq militias both suspended their participation in Tikrit on Thursday , although the Badr Organisation, which is the largest and most powerful group within the Hashid Shaabi, said it would continue to fight.

It is not possible for Kataib Hizbollah or any of the resistance factions to be in the same trench as the Americans Jaafar al-Husseini, Military spokesman for Kataib Hizbollah

'Came to usurp our victory'
The US-led coalition joined the fray in Tikrit at the request of Iraqi military commanders, but Shia militia commanders publicly rejected any US role in the campaign to retake the ISIL bastion.
"We were able to conclude the battle ourselves, but the US came in order to usurp this major victory," Asaib Ahl al-Haq spokesman Naim al-Uboudi said.
Jaafar al-Husseini, a military spokesman for Kataib Hizbollah, criticised Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi for inviting the coalition to join the battle for Tikrit.
Speaking at an airbase where Iraqi planes were taking off to fly sorties over Tikrit, Iraq's Defence Minister Khaled al-Obeidi played down the role of Iranian advisers in the battle, the Reuters news agency reported.
"The Iranian advisers have nothing to do with the work of the air force," Obeidi said.
"The Iranians are working with the brothers in the Hashid Shaabi as advisers, and I think their presence is always in the rear positions."

Gas explosion in New York leaves many injured

At least 19 people injured, four of them critically, after four residential building catch fire in explosion.

 

A relocation centre for displaced residents was set up in a nearby elementary school [Reuters]

Four residential buildings in New York's East Village neighbourhood have caught fire from an apparent gas explosion and three have collapsed, injuring 19 people, authorities have said.
The blast shortly after 3pm local time on Thursday sent flames leaping into the sky and rocked the residential area in Manhattan. Bloodied victims ran from the buildings, collapsing on the street, witnesses said.
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said that preliminary evidence indicated it was a gas-related explosion.
Nineteen people were hurt. Four, all civilians, were in critical condition, a Fire Department spokesman said.
A New York police spokesman said there were no reports of anyone missing.
Failed inspection
The Con Edison utility said in a statement that its inspectors had been at the site on Thursday to evaluate work a plumber was doing in a building for a gas service upgrade. The work failed to pass inspection, it said.
The seven-alarm blaze in the neighbourhood of small businesses, restaurants and apartments involved more than 250 Fire Department personnel.
Moishe Perl, 64, who owns Moishe's Bake Shop nearby, said he heard an explosion, ran outside and saw the lower floors of a building start to crumble.
"Most of the people were running out of the building and climbing down the fire escape," he said, while others were helped out of windows by passersby.
Ben Mackinnon, 28, said he was drinking coffee in a cafe when he heard an explosion from across the street.
"The explosion was big enough that the door of the cafe blew open," Mackinnon said.
He said he saw several bloodied men emerge from a sushi restaurant where the explosion appeared to originate. One of them fell to the pavement.
Shameem Noor, a cashier at the Veselka restaurant about a block away, said he heard the blast and saw three or four people fall to the street.
The four buildings contain 49 flats, according to a spokesman for the American Red Cross at the scene. The ground floors were occupied by small eateries.
A relocation centre for displaced residents was set up in a nearby elementary school, the Red Cross spokesman said.

Coalition jets continue to hit Houthi targets in Yemen

Saudi Arabia leads attack on rebel military bases in second night of raids as embattled President Hadi flees to Riyadh.

 

Warplanes from a coalition led by Saudi Arabia have continued bombing Houthi targets in Yemen for a second day, including the Shia rebel group's stronghold of Saada, as embattled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi arrived in the Saudi capital Riyadh.
A spokesman of the coalition said on Thursday that the military operation against the Shia Houthi rebels would continue "as long as necessary". Brigadier Ahmed al-Asiri also said that "at the moment" there are no plans for the deployment of ground forces, but troops are "ready for all the circumstances".
President Hadi arrived in Riyadh on Thursday, with officials saying he would continue his journey to Egypt to take part in a two-day Arab League summit at the weekend.
That was the first confirmation of Hadi's whereabouts since the rebels began advancing this week on the main southern city of Aden, where the president has been holed up since fleeing the rebel-controlled capital last month.
Saudi Arabia began the air campaign on Thursday night, saying it had assembled a coalition of more than 10 countries, five of them members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.
The Saudi ambassador to the US, Adel al-Jubeir, said the coalition stood ready to do "whatever it takes" to protect Hadi's government.
Explosions have been heard in the capital, Sanaa, which has been under Houthi control since September. The Shia rebels seized power in a coup last month.
Thousands protest
Al Jazeera received reports that air strikes targeted a reception camp of new recruits joining militias loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh - who backs the Houthis - west of Sanaa.
Eyewitnesses also reported air strikes and loud blasts in Saada near the Saudi border, where a military unit was the target.
Al Jazeera also learned that the air strikes hit al-Anad Air Base in Aden in the south and the Tariq Air Base in the country's third city of Taiz.
Rights group Amnesty International said at least six children were among 25 people killed in the air strikes in the capital on Thursday. Earlier, Houthi sources said at least 18 people had been killed in the bombardment.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Sanaa against the air raids.
In a statement following the strikes, the White House said that the US was coordinating military and intelligence support with the Saudis but not taking part directly in the raids.
Jeff Rathke, a US State Department spokesman, said on Thursday that the US government "understands the concerns" of the Saudis and is "supportive of their effort".
Iranian condemnation
Houthi leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi, in a televised speech, described the Saudi-led operation as a "despicable aggression".
"What do they expect us to do, surrender, announce our defeat and act like cowards? Absolutely not. This is not how the honorable Yemeni people think. We will fight back. All 24 million Yemenis will stand united and face that despicable aggression," al-Houthi said.
Ousted president Saleh also called on the Houthis to stop attacking Aden, even as he denounced the Saudi air strikes inside his country.
Iran, which is accused of backing the Houthis but denies the charge, has condemned the intervention as "a dangerous step" that violated "international responsibilities and national sovereignty".
President Hassan Rouhani said it amounted to "military aggression" and "condemned all military intervention in the internal affairs of independent nations".
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, speaking from Switzerland where he is attending talks on his country's nuclear programme, warned that air strikes would lead only to  greater loss of life .
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's president, said that Iran had been trying to dominate the Middle East.
"It is really not possible to tolerate this. Iran has to understand," he said, adding that Tehran should withdraw any forces it had in Yemen as well as from Syria and Iraq.
Saudi television said the kingdom had deployed 100 fighter jets to the operation, while the United Arab Emirates had committed 30, Kuwait 15 each and Qatar 10. Bahrain said it had committed 12 fighter jets. All five are members of the GCC. There was no mention of Oman, the sixth GCC member.
Saudi Arabia had also mobilised 150,000 troops near the border.
Riyadh said it was boosting security on its borders and across the kingdom, including at the OPEC kingpin's crucial oil facilities.

Infographic Yemen [Daylife]

US-led coalition pounds ISIL targets in Tikrit

US conducts airstrikes against ISIL in support of Iraqi forces and Iran-backed militia as they try to retake city.

 

The Iraqi military had lobbied for US-led coalition airstrikes as the battle for Tikrit was stalled [AP]

US-led coalition warplanes have launched their first airstrikes against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets in Tikrit, in a boost to Iraqi forces fighting alongside Iran-backed militia on the ground.
A US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said on Wednesday that American warplanes and aircraft from allied nations were striking up to a dozen targets in the northern Iraqi city, the Reuters news agency reported.
A second US official stressed that Washington in no way would coordinate with the Iranian-backed militia or seek to empower them in Iraq, even if those fighters might share the same narrow tactical objective as Iraqi forces in Tikrit.
In language that appeared to intentionally omit the Iranian-backed militia, Lieutenant General James Terry, the senior US commander of the US-led coalition, said the strikes were aimed at enabling "Iraqi forces under Iraqi command".
"These strikes are intended to destroy ISIL strongholds with precision, thereby saving innocent Iraqi lives while minimising collateral damage to infrastructure," Terry said.
'Last page of operations'
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said Iraqi forces would prevail with the support of "friendly" countries and the international coalition, including arms, training and aerial support.
"We have opened the last page of the operations," Abadi said on state television.
It has been carrying out strikes elsewhere in Iraq since August.
As coalition aircraft entered the fray, Iraqi forces shelled ISIL-held positions in Tikrit, resuming an offensive that had stalled for almost two weeks.
"Military operations in Tikrit started at around 9pm local time by pounding ISIL positions with artillery, mortars and Katyusha rockets," said provincial council member Hadi al-Khazraji.
More than 20,000 troops and allied paramilitary groups have been taking part in the offensive and have suffered heavy casualties on the edge of the city, 160km north of Baghdad.
The Iraqi military had lobbied for US-led coalition airstrikes while Iran backed paramilitary forces opposed such a move. One militia leader, Hadi al-Amiri, boasted three weeks ago that his men had been making advances for months without relying on US air power.

Source: Reuters

French prosecutor says pilot deliberately crashed plane

Co-pilot, said to have no terrorism links, was alone at plane's controls and intentionally slammed it into mountainside.

 

The co-pilot of a Germanwings flight that slammed into an Alpine mountainside "intentionally" sent the plane into its doomed descent, killing all 150 people on board, a French prosecutor has said.
Marseille prosecutor Brice Robin said on Thursday that the commander left the cockpit, presumably to go to the lavatory, and then was unable to regain access.
In the meantime, he said, co-pilot Andreas Lubitz manually and "intentionally" set the plane on the descent that drove it into the mountainside in the southern French Alps.
It was the co-pilot's "intention to destroy this plane," Robin said.
The information was pulled from the black box cockpit voice recorder, but Robin said the co-pilot did not say a word after the commanding pilot left the cockpit.
'Alive until impact'
"We hear the captain then speaks via an interphone to the co-pilot, no response of co-pilot, he taps on door, no response of co-pilot, all we can hear is the sound of breathing, until impact suggesting the co-pilot was alive until impact," Robin said.
The Airbus A320, on a flight from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, began to descend from cruising altitude after losing radio contact with ground control and slammed into the remote mountain on Tuesday morning.

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RELATED: Plane crashes blamed on deliberate pilot action

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German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere said that current information suggested that the co-pilot had no links to terrorism.

"According to the current state of knowledge and after comparing information that we have, he does not have a terrorist background," he said.

In the German town of Montabaur, acquaintances said Lubitz was in his late twenties and showed no signs of depression when they saw him last fall as he renewed his glider pilot's license.

"He was happy he had the job with Germanwings and he was doing well," said a member of the glider club, Peter Ruecker, who watched him learn to fly. "He gave off a good feeling."

Co-pilot described as a 'quiet but friendly young man' [Facebook] [Daylife]

Lubitz had obtained his glider pilot's license as a teenager, and was accepted as a Lufthansa pilot trainee after finishing a tough German college preparatory school, Ruecker said. He described Lubitz as a "rather quiet" but friendly young man.
Lufthansa has yet to officially identify the pilots but said the co-pilot joined Germanwings in September 2013, directly after training, and had flown 630 hours.
The head of Lufthansa, Germanwings' parent company, said no security "in the world" could protect an airline from the kind of action taken by the co-pilot.

"Whatever safety provisions you have in a company, however high the standards, such an isolated case cannot be completely ruled out," Lufthansa chief executive Carsten Spohr told reporters.
Families brought to France
The families of victims were being flown to Marseille on Thursday before being taken up to the zone close to the crash site.
Al Jazeera's Charlie Angela, reporting from near the crash site in the French Alps, said that two planes carrying the families were bound for Marseille and both groups were to travel on by road to the site.

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Our correspondent added that planes took off from Barcelona and Dusseldorf, adding that some relatives who preferred not to fly were travelling by bus from the Spanish city.

"The aim is to get these families as close as possible to the crash site. It is two hours on foot. Some of them might also be flown over the crash site."

Yemen's Hadi leaves Yemen amid air strikes on Houthis

President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi arrives in Riyadh as raids on rebel targets are reported in Sanaa, Aden and Taiz.

 

Yemen's embattled president has left the country's southern city of Aden, to visit Saudi Arabia and Egypt in a bid to consolidate support for the ongoing Saudi-led military offensive against Houthi rebels.
Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi arrived in the Saudi capital on Thursday evening, before heading to Sharm el-Sheikh to attend the Arab Summit on Saturday, according to Saudi state television.
Hadi's trip followed air strikes by a Saudi-led coalition on Houthi targets in the Yemeni capital Sanaa early on Thursday. He reportedly left the city of Aden under Saudi security protection.
On Thursday night, Al Jazeera received reports that new air strikes have targeted a reception camp of new recruits of forces loyal to ousted President Ali Abdullah Saleh west of the capital Sanaa.
Hakim al-Masmari, editor-in-chief of the Yemen Post, told Al Jazeera that he could hear the sound of air strikes and gunfire in the capital.
Al Jazeera has learned that air strikes also hit al-Anad Air Base in Aden and the Tariq Air Base in the country's third city of Taiz. Eyewitnesses also reported air strikes and loud blasts in the northern Houthi stronghold of Saada, near the border with Saudi.
A spokesman of the Saudi-led coalition said on Thursday that the military operation against the Houthis will continue "as long as necessary." Brigadier Ahmed al-Asiri also said that "at the moment" there are no plans for the deployment of ground forces, but troops are "ready for all the circumstances."
Rights group Amnesty International said at least six children were among 25 people killed in the air strikes in the capital on Thursday. Earlier, Houthi sources said at least 18 people had been killed in bombardment.
Officials said the strikes, carried out by 100 jets from Saudi Arabia and coalition members, had hit targets in Sanaa, Aden, and Saada, a Houthi stronghold during the first phase of the military operation.
Houthi military barracks and air bases controlled by the rebels were destroyed in the operation, dubbed "Decisive Storm", Fayez al-Duweiri, a retired Jordanian general and defence analyst, told Al Jazeera.
Iranian condemnation
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Sanaa, Houthi spokesman Mohammed al-Bukhaiti called the military action a declaration of war on Yemen.
Yemen's ousted leader Ali Abdullah Saleh also called on the Houthis to stop attacking Aden, even as he denounced the Saudi air strikes inside his country.
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, speaking from Switzerland, warned that air strikes would lead only to greater loss of life .
"Military action from outside of Yemen against its territorial integrity and its people will have no other result than more bloodshed and more deaths," he told the Iranian-owned al-Alam television channel.
He also called for an "urgent dialogue" among the Yemeni factions "without external interference".
Iran has been accused of backed the Houthis in the struggle for control of Sanaa - a charge Tehran denies.
In a statement following the strikes, the White House said that the US was coordinating military and intelligence support with the Saudis but not taking part directly in the strikes.
Jeff Rathke, a US State Department spokesman, said on Thursday that the US government "understands the concerns" of Saudi is is "supportive of their effort".
The European Union, however, opposed the strikes with the EU High Representative and Vice President Federica Mogherini saying the operation "dramatically worsened the already fragile situation" and "risk having serious regional consequences."
"I'm convinced that military action is not a solution," she said, calling for an immediate return to negotiations to resolve the conflict.

Report: Hundreds of thousands live under siege in Syria

Number of Syrians living under siege is three times higher than documented by UN, Syrian medical group says.

 

Only field emergency clinics respond to injuries resulted from government air strikes in besieged areas [Reuters]

At least 640,200 Syrians are living in areas under long term siege in the country's raging war, a report released by the Syrian Medical Society (SAMS) says - more than three times the estimate of the UN Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The report, Slow Death, is based on documentation of the lives and deaths of Syrians in their home country, giving a detailed and graphic account of the recorded cases.
SAMS Foundation is a Syrian-American medical organisation whose volunteer physicians deliver medical care in Syria, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon.

Twelve million people in Syria are in need, that is not one disaster that is 12 million disasters. Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN OCHA

The information in the report was gathered through interviews with medical professionals inside Syria and from written reports.
As of February 2015, OCHA officially recognised 11 besieged areas in Syria with the estimate of 212,000 civilians living in them.
The SAMS reports identified 38 additional communities that met their definition of besieged but had not been designated as such by OCHA.
Jens Laerke, a spokesperson for OCHA, told Al Jazeera that the reason figures were different is because of the difference in methodology and definitions that were used by each organisation.
"This [laying siege] is an illegal and outrageous tactic used by more than one side. It is catastrophic for the people inside those areas, we can only do so much," Laerke said.
"We as humanitarians have no answer to these tactics being used; we can only do our jobs and help those people in need by delivering humanitarian assistance. Twelve million people in Syria are in need; that is not one disaster, that is 12 million disasters."
"We recently launched a campaign on social media called "What does it take" which expresses the deep frustration felt by all international humanitarian organisations," Laerke added.
The report describes how the hundreds of thousands of Syrians living in the besieged areas are denied basic necessities such as food, water and medicine.
Hundreds of deaths have been reported from preventable causes, such as starvation, dehydration and lack of medical care.
The medical group demanded through their report that UN agencies immediately revisit their besieged designations and consider the inclusion of the additional areas.
A siege occurs when armed forces completely surround a populated area to trap armed groups, taking

control of all roads access to neighbourhoods.

Through military checkpoints, civilians are restricted entry or exit to those areas.
Access to those areas for humanitarian assistance is also limited or blocked altogether.
Life under siege
Often, a temporary ceasefire is neccesary for international and local aid organisations to be allowed to enter. In January 2015 only two areas were allowed humanitarian assistance, one of them being Al-Waer in Homs.
In addition to restricted access, sieges are often combined with continuous air and ground assaults and those injured in the attacks do not have access to proper treatment or medical aid.

Civilians in these areas have little or no access to basic necessities, such as food, water [drinking or personal use], fuel or medication.

Water is manually pumped from wells and transported to homes in buckets, exposing it to a host of contaminants. Moreover, water sources are often polluted by sewage, the SAMS report said.
According to the report, in the besieged Eastern Ghouta and in several other neighbourhoods, civilians are forced to forage for tree leaves and wild plants; a number of victims are said to have died from ingesting toxic vegetation while foraging.
At least 560 victims have died in several besieged areas, most of them in Damascus and Homs.
Most of the victims were children and people who could not physically cope with the harmful impacts of malnutrition, dehydration, and extreme cold.

Ukraine arrests officials on live TV in bribery case

Emergency services chief and his deputy accused of embezzling state funds and of illegal links to off-shore companies.

 

Ukrainian police have detained the head of the state emergency service and his deputy on suspicion of extorting bribes, during a televised government meeting in the capital Kiev.
Police handcuffed emergency services chief Serhiy Bochkovsky and his deputy, Vasiliy Stoyetsky, and marched the pair out of the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Prosecutors said the men embezzled state funds and were illegally involved with off-shore companies.
Interior Minister Arsen Avakov said the order to arrest Bochkovsky and Stoyetsky during a televised meeting "was not a show".
"We decided it was necessary to do it this way, during the Cabinet meeting, as inoculation, as a preventative measure against corrupt officials, of whom we unfortunately have many," Avakov said.
Avakov said the offices of the emergency services were being raided as part of investigations.
The government in Ukraine has vowed to take firm action to stamp out rampant corruption and the highly public nature of the detentions appeared designed to convey the impression that anti-graft measures are picking up pace.
Ukraine's economy, already hamstrung by crippling bureaucracy and corruption, has been further burdened by a war in the east with Russian-backed separatists.
The government has successfully negotiated a $17.5bn credit programme with the International Monetary Fund against the promise of deep and exhaustive reforms.
Speaking after Bochkovsky and Stoyetsky's detention, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said he would ask Western governments to assist in tracking down any funds salted away in foreign accounts by the officials.
"The government gave firm and clear orders for a real fight with corruption in the country - in a country which is at war, in a country which spends billions on the army and defence, where people are helping our armed forces, our state, and our country to survive in this horrible war with Russia."

Syrian rebels launch offensive to capture Idlib city

Rebel spokesman says armed groups push into city after fighting with troops left many casualties on both sides.

 

Rebels already control much of the outskirts of Idlib city and the surrounding countryside [AP]

Syrian rebels have launched a major offensive in a bid to seize control over the northwestern city of Idlib from government forces.
Abu Yazid, a spokesman for Ahrar al-Sham - one of the country's largest rebel groups - told Al Jazeera that his forces were part of a coalition of seven armed factions involved in the ongoing "Operation to Free Idlib".
The "Fattah Army" coalition - including al-Nusra Front, Jund al-Aqsa, Jaish al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq, Ajnad al-Sham, and Faynad al-Sham - asked residents to remain indoors as the offensive began on Tuesday morning.
Yazid said that after two hours of heavy fighting with security forces that resulted in many casualties on both sides, the fighters managed to push into the city and take control of some parts of it.
"Many military targets were attacked and we have been succeeding...Fighting is still ongoing in Idlib city and neighbouring areas," he added.
Rebels have controlled much of Idlib province since 2012. They are now trying to expand their control to the provincial capital, which President Bashar al-Assad's forces have so far managed to hold.
Syrian state TV on Tuesday quoted an unnamed military official as saying that government forces were repelling "attempts by terrorists groups to infiltrate the outskirts" of Idlib.

Morocco breaks up suspected ISIL cell

Authorities arrest 13 men they accuse of planning to launch attacks and recruiting people to fight in Syria and Iraq.

 

Authorities said the weapons seized were smuggled across the border with the Spanish enclave of Melilla [Reuters]

Morocco says it has dismantled an ISIL cell plotting to launch attacks across the country after security forces conducted operations in a number of cities, including Marrakesh.
Authorities say the men, aged between 19 and 37, were planning to kill public and military figures.
“The cell was holding a dangerous terrorist plan and was ready to endanger the country's safety and security," Reuters news agency quoted Abdelhaq Khyam, head of the Central Bureau for Judicial Investigations, as saying.
In addition to Sunday's arrests, police say they confiscated handguns, ammunition, mobile phones and computers.
"We learnt that they gave their allegiance to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) [group] and to [Abu Bakr] Baghdadi to the extent that they called their cell Wilaya of the Islamic State in the Far Maghreb," Khyam said.
The group is also suspected of recruiting people to fight in Iraq and Syria for ISIL.
According to authorities, 1,354 Moroccans are believed to have joined ISIL to fight in Syria and Iraq, of which 156 have returned to Morocco.
At least 246 of them have been killed in Syria and another 40 have died in Iraq, according to Khyam, who added that 185 Moroccan women had joined the group, along with 135 children.
Weapons smuggling
The group is alleged to have obtained its weapons through the Spanish enclave of Melilla on the state's northern coast.
Spanish and Moroccan security forces have been working together to dismantle smuggling networks based in their respective territories, and to dismantle ISIL recruitment cells.
The men, who were mostly apprehended in the city of Agadir on Morocco’s western coast, had not trained abroad but were in “permanent” contact with ISIL leaders, according to Khyam.
Part of their plan included attacking soldiers to acquire better weapons then decapitating and burning them, the AP news agency reported
Like in Tunisia, many young, disaffected Moroccans have sought to travel abroad to join ISIL in Syria and Iraq.
Last week an attack claimed by ISIL in Tunisia killed 21 people, mostly foreign tourists.

US to delay troop pullout from Afghanistan

President Barack Obama decides to maintain force of 9,800 through end of 2015 and stick to 2017 exit plan.

 

Obama said the US force would be kept at its current strength to train and assist Afghan forces [AP]

US President Barack Obama has granted Afghan requests to slow the withdrawal of US troops from the country and said he would maintain a force of 9,800 through the end of 2015 while sticking to a 2017 exit plan.
"It was my assessment as commander in chief that it made sense for us to provide a few extra months for us to be able to help on things like logistics," Obama said on Tuesday during a joint news conference with Afghan president Ashraf Ghani at the White House.
"The date for us to have completed our drawdown will not change," he said. "Providing this additional timeframe during this fighting season for us to be able to help the Afghan security forces succeed is well worth it."
Obama said that the US force would be kept at its current strength to train and assist Afghan forces, who took over responsibility for the fight against Taliban and other rebels at the start of the year.
The US president said that the pace of the US troop reduction in 2016 would be established later this year and the goal remained to consolidate US forces in the country in a presence at the Kabul embassy at the end of 2016.
Under a previous plan US forces were to have been cut to about half of the current level of just under 10,000 by the end of 2015, but US officials said improved relations with Afghan leaders contributed to a revision of the plan.
Plan welcomed
Since arriving on Sunday, Ghani has been feted by the Obama administration and is due to address Congress on Wednesday.
The welcome contrasts sharply with frosty relations that developed between Washington and Ghani's predecessor Hamid Karzai.
Some US lawmakers had also called for a slower pullout of troop levels. US Representative Mac Thornberry, a Republican who leads the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, said the decision announced on Tuesday was "appropriate."
"Iraq has shown us the consequences of leaving a fragile ally too early," he said in a statement. "The bottom line is that our own security is at stake."
Ghani and Afghanistan's Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah met at the presidential retreat at Camp David on Monday with top US officials including Defence Secretary Ashton Carter, who said Washington would fund Afghan security forces at least into 2017.

Search operations restart at French Alps crash site

One "damaged" recorder found in debris field where Germanwings airliner went down on Tuesday, killing all 150 on board.

 

Helicopter operations have resumed over mountainsides in the French Alps where a German airliner crashed, killing all 150 people on board.
Under overcast skies, with temperatures just above freezing, helicopters resumed flights on Wednesday over a widely scattered debris field.
The Airbus A320 operated by Germanwings, a budget subsidiary of Lufthansa, was less than an hour from landing in Dusseldorf on a flight from Barcelona on Tuesday when it unexpectedly went into a rapid descent.
One of the plane's "black box" recorders has been found, but it was unclear whether it was the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder.
A source close to the inquiry on the disaster told AFP news agency the device was "damaged" and was being sent to Paris for investigation.
Investigators will continue searching for the second recorder on Wednesday.
More than 300 policemen and 380 firefighters have been mobilised.
A squad of 30 mountain rescue police resumed attempts to reach the crash site by helicopter at dawn on Wednesday, while a further 65 police were seeking access on foot.
Remote crash site
Five investigators spent the night at the crash site.
It would take "at least a week" to search the remote site, Lieutenant-Colonel Jean-Marc Menichini said, and "at least several days" to repatriate the bodies.
Video images from a government helicopter on Tuesday showed a desolate, snow-flecked landscape, with steep ravines covered in scree. Debris was strewn across the mountainside.
The plane was "totally destroyed", a local MP who flew over the site said, describing the scene as "horrendous".
A crisis cell has been set up in the area between Barcelonnette and Digne-les-Bains along with an emergency flight control centre to coordinate chopper flights to the crash site.
French President Francois Hollande, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Mariano Rajoy, Spain's prime minister, were expected to reach the scene around 2pm local time (13:00 GMT).
The 144 passengers were mainly German and Spanish. At least three of victims were from the UK, British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said.
Honouring ceremony
The high school in the small German town of Haltern attended by the 16 students on the plane was set to hold an event Wednesday to honour the victims.
Spain, meanwhile, has declared three days of mourning and was to hold a minute of silence across the country at noon on Wednesday.

Germanwings said the aircraft, travelling from Barcelona to Dusseldorf, lost height for eight minutes before crashing near the ski resort of Barcelonnette.

The rapid descent was "unexplained", Brice Robin, Marseilles prosecutor, said.
The pilots did not send out a distress call and had lost radio contact with their control centre, France's aviation authority said.
Weather did not appear to be a factor in the crash, with conditions calm at the time, French weather officials said.
Lufthansa, the parent company of Germanwings, said it was working on the assumption the crash was an "accident".
"Anything else would be speculation," Heike Birlenbach, Lufthansa vice president, said from Barcelona.
She said the 24-year-old Airbus aircraft had undergone its last routine check on Monday.
Thomas Winkelmann, Germanwings executive, said the pilot had "more than 10 years of experience" and about 6,000 flying hours on an Airbus jet under his belt.
It was the first fatal accident in the history of Germanwings, and the deadliest on the French mainland since 1974 when a Turkish Airlines jet crashed, killing 346 people.

Canada to expand anti-ISIL operations into Syria

Extension of military mission due to be announced by PM as UN chief says Syrians feel "increasingly abandoned".

 

With the extension, Canada will become the second NATO member to strike ISIL targets in Syria [Reuters]

Canada's prime minister will announce a one-year extension of its military mission against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group and expand it to include air strikes on targets in Syria, according to a a senior official.
Stephen Harper will announce the extension when he presents a bill to parliament on Tuesday, the official said.
"Continuing to degrade ISIL will require striking its operations and infrastructure where they are located, including in Syria," says the motion, which was seen by the AP news agency.
Although the Canadian mission does not need parliamentary approval, the government is submitting it to a vote to show consensus.
Canadian air strikes have so far been limited to Iraq where the country has sent 69 special forces soldiers to train Kurdish peshmerga soldiers.
The Canadians' efforts complement those of the US, which has conducted the vast majority of the air strikes against ISIL.
Canada will be the first NATO country, other than the US, to conduct air strikes in Syria. Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the UAE have also carried out air strikes in Syria.
Syrians 'abandoned'
The move by Canada comes amid a warning by Ban Ki-moon, UN secretary-general, that Syrians feel "increasingly abandoned" by the international community as global attention focuses on fighting ISIL.
Ban said a lack of accountability during the four-year civil war has also led to a rise in allegations of war crimes, crimes against humanity and other abuses.
"While global attention is focused on the threat to regional and international peace and security which terrorist groups such as ISIL and the Nusra Front pose, our focus must continue to be on how best to help and support the Syrian people," Ban said in his monthly report, which was seen by the Reuters news agency.

Ban added that more than 220,000 people have been killed since security forces cracked down on a pro-democracy movement in 2011. Some four million Syrians have fled the country and 7.6 million are internally displaced.
Ban said the situation for about 4.8 million people in hard-to-reach areas, especially 212,000 people in besieged areas, was of "grave concern," hospitals and schools are being attacked, and international aid funding has failed to keep pace with needs.
The UN is seeking some $8.4bn to meet the humanitarian needs of the Syrian conflict in 2015, after only securing about half the funding it asked for in 2014.
ISIL seized vast amounts of territory in Syria and Iraq by capitalising on the instability caused by the respective conflicts in both countries.
Momentum has, however, tilted against them since the start of US-led air strikes after its rapid gains in Iraq last year.
The focus on ISIL has allowed other groups, such as the Nusra Front, to expand their territory and numbers, according to some analysts.
The group, once allied with ISIL, split after an attempt to forcibly merge the groups by ISIL's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The Nusra Front has since worked with other  factions against Baghdadi's fighters, but has also been involved in wrestling territory from other rebel factions, including ones backed by the US, such as Harakat Hazm.
The group now controls territory in Idlib, Hama and the Golan Heights, bordering territory currently occupied by Israel.
Public lashings
An opposition activist in Kafranbel, a town in Idlib, said the Nusra Front has established an elaborate network of social services and Islamic law courts and rules uncontested.

Remaining rebel groups in the province operate only with Nusra's approval, he said.At the same time, the Nusra Front has become increasingly aggressive towards local populations.
In January, members of the group reportedly shot a woman dead in front of a crowd in Idlib after they accused her of being a prostitute.
The group also has carried out public lashings, crucifixions and kidnappings - though it has not publicised the atrocities like ISIL.
Activists in southern Syria say the Nusra Front was behind the January bombing that destroyed the shrine of a 13th century Muslim scholar.
Nusra issued a statement denying it was involved but activists say its members were seen placing the bombs.

Remains of Iraqi troops found in mass grave in Yathrib

Bodies of men wearing Iraqi uniforms found buried in central town, as army steps up assault on ISIL-held city of Tikrit.

 

The remains of Iraqi soldiers have been found at a mass grave in the town of Yathrib, about 170km north of Baghdad, after reportedly being killed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.
An official security source told local media on Monday that a mass grave containing the remains of the troops was found in the town, with the soldiers thought to have been killed by ISIL.
The source said it was unclear how many bodies had been been discovered, but said uniforms had been found in the graves. He added that work to uncover the remains was ongoing.
The find comes as the Iraqi army, supported by Shia fighters, said it was laying "full siege" to Tikrit, north of Yathrib, with ISIL fighters now surrounded.
The military - backed by at least 20,000 Shia fighters - has been fighting to regain control of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown, one of several predominantly Sunni conurbations to fall to ISIL last year.
Khaled al-Obeidi, Iraq's defence minister, said operations to recapture Tikrit had been on hold for nearly a week, with the army trying to minimise casualties by not rushing the final assault.
"When we see that the time is right for the Tikrit alliance, we will storm in as quickly as possible," he said.
"Tikrit is under full siege. We are taking caution to not take any losses and to protect civilians in the city."
The Tikrit siege is one of the first major operations in which the US-led coalition is not taking part, with US officials saying they were not asked to participate.
Possible divide
Against the backdrop of the Tikrit siege, the head of a Shia armed group has criticised the Iraqi army, saying it has asked for coalition air strikes to help retake the city.
Hadi al-Ameri's remarks on Sunday pointed to a possible divide between the Iraqi army and Shia units, most of which are made up of fighters.
While the US has been working to train Iraqi military brigades, it has not worked with the Shia groups, since doing so would bring them uncomfortably close to Iran, which offers significant assistance to the groups.
John Brennan, CIA director, said having the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force direct Iraqi forces against ISIL is complicating the US mission.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Brennan described General Qassem Soleimani as being "very aggressive and active" in advising the Shia militias, adding that he "wouldn't consider Iran an ally right now inside Iraq".
Iranian advisers have played a prominent role on the frontlines of Iraq's Salahuddin province.
If Iraqi forces are unable to push ISIL back and recover lost territory, US President Barack Obama would be faced with a choice of accepting failure in Iraq or committing US combat troops - something both Washington and Baghdad officials have spoken firmly against.
Meanwhile, multiple bombings hit the Iraqi capital on Monday killing at least 19 people and wounded 36.
The deadliest bombing struck a busy commercial street in the Habibiya section of Baghdad's Sadr City.
At least nine people were killed there and 22 others wounded, officials said.

Syria rebels capture crew of downed military helicopter

Four government airmen taken hostage after aircraft crashes in northwestern Idlib province, activist group says.

 

Human rights groups have repeatedly accused the Syrian government of using barrel bombs in civilian areas [AFP]

Syrian rebels have captured several government airmen after their helicopter crashed in a rebel-held area of the country's northwest, activists have said.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that four crew members had been taken prisoner near Jabal al-Zawiya, about 10km north of the town of Maarat al-Numan in Idlib province.

Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said opposition fighters, including members of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Nusra Front, had taken most of the crew prisoner.
Another airman survived the crash but was reportedly killed by his captors, and the fate of a suspected sixth airman was unknown, the observatory said.
Syria's state news agency confirmed that a helicopter had crashed in Idlib after a mechanical problem and said the authorities were looking for the crew.
An amateur video posted online showed rebels inspecting the wreckage of the helicopter, which had rolled onto its side on a rocky hill.
The aircraft's blue undercarriage was partially torn and the nose badly damaged.
Photographs posted by activists online showed the same crash site and at least two airmen in rebel custody.
Activists say the Syrian military frequently uses helicopters to drop crude barrel bombs - giant canisters packed with hundreds of pounds of explosives and scrap metal - on rebel-held towns and neighbourhoods.
President Bashar al-Assad has denied that barrel bombs are used by the military.

Tunisia launches manhunt for third museum attacker

Maher bin Al-Moulidi Al-Qaidi named as suspect as president says "three aggressors" were involved in raid in Tunis.

 

Tunisian security forces have begun a manhunt for a third attacker in the assault on the Bardo museum that killed 21 people, mostly foreign tourists, the president has said.
Tunisia's Interior Ministry said on Sunday it was seeking the whereabouts of Maher bin Al-Moulidi Al-Qaidi, four days after two of the other gunmen involved in the attack were killed.
President Beji Caid Essebsi told French TV network iTele that the attack involved "three aggressors" and that the third man had escaped.
"Two were killed, but there is one who is now on the run," he said. "In any case, he will not get very far."

Maher bin Al-Moulidi Al-Qaidi has been named as a primary suspect.

Authorities had earlier released security camera footage showing two of the gunmen walking through the museum, carrying assault rifles and bags.
At one point they encountered a third man with a backpack walking down a flight of stairs. They briefly acknowledged each other before walking in opposite directions.
The footage was accompanied by two stills, said to be showing the bodies of the two gunmen - named as Yassine Laabidi, 20, and 26-year-old Hatem Khachnaoui. Both men were killed after the assault.
The two Tunisians reportedly trained in neighbouring Libya and left the country last December, Rafik Chelly, the country’s secretary of state, said days after the attack.
On Saturday, Essebsi said security "failures" had helped facilitate the attack on the museum, the deadliest on the north African country since the 2002 suicide bombing in Djerb.

"There were failures" which meant that "the police and intelligence were not systematic enough to ensure the safety of the museum", Essebsi told the weekly Paris Match .
Essebsi also said there were as many as 10,000 young Tunisian "jihadists" in all.
"Among the often desperate young unemployed, the call to jihadism has worked," he said.
"Four thousand Tunisians have joined jihad, in Syria, Libya and elsewhere, and some 500 have already come back here, where they pose a threat. That is not to mention the five or six thousand others we have succeeded in preventing from leaving."
Twenty-one people, all but one of them foreign tourists, were killed when the gunmen stormed the museum last Wednesday, in an attack claimed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) although authorities said they had not established any link with armed groups.
Essebsi, however, stressed that the country's security forces "responded very effectively to quickly put an end to the attack on the Bardo, certainly preventing dozens more deaths if the terrorists had been able to set off their suicide belts", he was quoted as saying on the Paris Match website.

Guards on coffee break 
A senior Tunisian politician on Friday said the guards supposed to be protecting the museum and the nearby Parliament were having coffee at the time of the assault.
"I found out there were only four policemen on security duty around the Parliament [compound], two of whom were at the cafe. The third was having a snack and the fourth hadn't turned up," deputy speaker Abdelfattah Mourou told the AFP news agency.
Authorities on Saturday launched a crackdown, arresting more than 20 suspects in a nationwide security operation.
Ten of those arrested are believed to be directly involved in the Bardo attack, Interior Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui said.  
"There is a large-scale campaign against the extremists," he said. The ministry released a photograph of another suspect and asked Tunisians to help with information.  
The government plans to deploy the army to major cities to improve security following the shootings, officials said.