VALENCIA: Venezuela’s military was hunting a group of “mercenaries” on Monday who made off with weapons after an attack on an army base carried out against what they called the “murderous tyranny” of President Nicolas Maduro.
Around 20 men led by an army officer who had deserted battled troops in the base in the third city of Valencia for three hours early Sunday, officials said.
The raid ended with two of the attackers being killed and eight captured, Maduro said on state television.
The other 10 escaped with weapons taken from the facility, according to officials who said an “intense search” was underway for them.
Maduro claimed the “terrorist” group had ties to Colombia and the US.
The incident heightened fears that Venezuela’s deepening political and economic crisis could explode into greater violence, perhaps open armed conflict.
Officials insisted afterward that all was normal across the country.
Military helicopters flew overhead and tactical armored vehicles patrolled the streets in Valencia, a major northwestern city, in a climate of tension on Sunday after the attack.
Locals said a nighttime curfew was imposed. Police dispersed protesters who had set up flaming barricades across roads.
The armed forces said in a statement “a group of civilian criminals wearing military uniforms and a first lieutenant who had deserted” carried out the attack.
Maduro said the lieutenant, among those captured, was “actively giving information and we have testimony from seven of the civilians.”
Maduro congratulated the army for its “immediate reaction” in putting down the attack, saying they earned his “admiration.”
Venezuela’s opposition has repeatedly urged the military to abandon Maduro.
But Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, the head of the armed forces, has said the military’s loyalty was unshakable.
In a video posted online just before the attack, a man presenting himself as an army captain named Juan Caguaripano declared a “legitimate rebellion... to reject the murderous tyranny of Nicolas Maduro.”
Speaking with 15 men in camouflage standing by him, some of them armed, he demanded a transitional government and “free elections.”
It was not known if he was the lieutenant referred to in the military statement, demoted for deserting, or whether he was another renegade officer.
That statement said the lieutenant involved had deserted three years ago and taken refuge in Miami, in the US state of Florida.
Venezuela has become increasingly isolated internationally as Maduro tightens his hold on power through a contested loyalist assembly that started work this week.
The opposition, which controls the legislature, has been sidelined. Its leaders are under threat of arrest after organizing protests — fiercely countered by security forces — that have left 125 people dead in the past four months.
The new Constituent Assembly, packed with Maduro allies including the president’s wife and son, has quickly used its supreme powers to clamp down on dissent.
On Saturday, it ordered the dismissal of the attorney general, Luisa Ortega, who had broken ranks with Maduro to become one of his most vociferous critics.
The US accuses Maduro of installing an “authoritarian dictatorship” that has turned Venezuela into an international pariah.
The US, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama and Peru have slammed the “illegal” sacking of Ortega.
And Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil have indefinitely suspended Venezuela from the South American trading bloc Mercosur for its “rupture of the democratic order.”
“Each step by the Constituent Assembly is a step toward the precipice by this government,” the leader of the opposition parliament, Julio Borges, told a news conference in Caracas on Sunday.
“The only thing it has left is brute force... The only thing it wants is to cling to power,” he said, calling for more protests.
Venezuela army hunts assailants after attack on base
Venezuela army hunts assailants after attack on base
US university apologizes after contractors spray paint in faces of pro-Palestine protesters
LONDON: The president of a Cleveland university in the US state of Ohio has apologized to students after hired contractors sprayed pro-Palestinian demonstrators in the face earlier this week while attempting to cover up a mural, local media has reported.
Students at Case Western Reserve University painted the Advocacy and Spirit walls on Monday night with the Palestinian flag and messages that included “I dream of breaking the siege,” “Come together in peace” and the number of Palestinian children killed in Gaza since war between Israel and Hamas broke out in October, Cleveland.com said.
Prompted by an unprecedented attack by Hamas on Oct. 7, Israel retaliated with an offensive that has so far killed almost 35,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the territory’s health ministry.
A video showed the students, who are accusing the contractors of assault, trying to block the contractors from painting over the wall by standing in front of it, and one student wearing a face shield, was seen completely covered in white paint.
The video was shared by the Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com by Case’s Students for Justice in Palestine group.
The contractors had been hired by the university’s president, Eric Kaler, early on Tuesday because “the administration said the messaging was ‘threatening, intimidating and antisemitic,’” Cleveland.com said, adding that he later released a statement apologizing to the community for the incident, saying he was “disturbed by what occurred.”
He added: “Let me be clear: No students — or any individuals — should ever be treated this way, especially on a campus where our core values center on providing a safe, welcoming environment. This is not who we are as an institution, and I am deeply sorry this ever occurred.”
Palestinian-Ameican student, Ameer Alkayali, 18, who was seen being completely sprayed in the video, said: “I stood against the wall, and the painters asked ‘Should we continue?’ The cops showed general confusion and didn’t tell them to stop. So, as seen in the video, they continue to just paint right over us.
“They told us to not put our hands in front of the machine because it’s dangerous. And we put our hands up, and they still continued to paint on our hands and sprayed us with it?”
Alkayali, who has been protesting with Case students sine they set up their encampment last week has also previously been detained and released by local police and now says “plans to take legal action against Case’s administration and its public safety department,” Cleveland.com reported.
“We were coughing, and it didn’t come out of my skin for hours,” he said. “Like it’s still in my hair. I can see it under my nails, and there was no sort of medical or any assistance with the situation after from Case or local police.”
Case said it was investigating the incident and since then, the wall has been painted over with a pro-Israeli message, saying: “They call for intifada so we call them terrorists.”
“Kaler said the college will ‘hold individuals responsible for this behavior, including the failure of our own officers to intervene,’” Cleveland.com said.
On Wednesday, “Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb and the city’s police chief, Annie Todd, urged Kaler and his administration to think of the students’ rights,” the news outlet said.
“We support 1st Amendment rights and implore CWRU leadership to consider this and think about how the decisions they make and the actions they take – especially against those who are abiding by the law – will influence some of the progress we have collectively made as a city. At the same time, we urge individuals to demonstrate peacefully,” Bibb and Todd said.
Sit-ins and demonstrations demanding an end to the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip continued to spread across several American and European universities, while local media reported that US police have arrested or detained more than 2,400 students who participated in protests in support of Palestine.
Thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters rally in Madrid
- Spain is one of Israel’s harshest critics in Europe and leading efforts to recognize a Palestinian state
MADRID: Thousands of pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through Madrid on Saturday to demand a ceasefire in war-torn Gaza and a severing of ties between Spain and Israel.
Numbering around 4,000 according to the authorities, protesters held up banners and signs condemning a “genocide” in Gaza and lauding the “resistance” of the Palestinian people.
Palestinians have been “crammed” in southern Gaza and “now they are displaced again from one place to another while there are no more safe places,” said 57-year-old Jaldia Abubakra, referring to Israeli evacuation orders in the city of Rafah.
Around 30 organizations called for the rally before the 76th anniversary of what Palestinians call the “Nakba” (“catastrophe“), when 760,000 people fled their homes during the 1948 war that accompanied Israel’s creation.
Spanish students have set up peaceful sit-ins and camps at universities in Madrid, Barcelona and Valencia in recent days, mirroring similar pro-Palestinian campus movements across the United States and Europe.
Earlier this week, Spanish universities expressed willingness to suspend ties with any Israeli educational institution that failed to express “a clear commitment to peace.”
Spain is one of Israel’s harshest critics in Europe and leading efforts to recognize a Palestinian state.
The Gaza war started with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza, at least 36 of whom the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Mali national dialogue recommends longer military rule
- Months-long nationwide consultations, boycotted by many of the opposition, culminated with several recommendations, including extending the transition to five years from two, effectively prolonging the junta’s rule to 2027
BAMAKO: Participants in Mali’s national dialogue have recommended extending the military-led transition to democracy by three years and allowing junta leader Assimi Goita to stand in the eventual election.
The West African country has been under military rule since a coup in 2020, and tensions have risen over the junta’s failure to stick to a promised timeline for the return to constitutional rule.
Months-long nationwide consultations, boycotted by many of the opposition, culminated with several recommendations, including extending the transition to five years from two, effectively prolonging the junta’s rule to 2027.
BACKGROUND
Mali has been under military rule since a coup in 2020, and tensions have risen over the junta’s failure to stick to a promised timeline for the return to constitutional rule.
The substantial delay is likely to deepen concerns about democratic backsliding in West and Central Africa, where there have been eight coups over the past four years.
On the security front, participants in the consultations advised the authorities to be open to dialogue with Islamist armed groups and engage with all Malian armed movements.
On the Sahara Desert’s southern fringe, Mali has been plagued by violence since 2012, when militants hijacked an uprising by the Tuareg groups who complained of government neglect and sought autonomy for the desert region they call Azawad.
Deep insecurity, economic hardships, election delays, and the authorities’ recent move to limit political activities have stoked frustration with the junta in some quarters. In April, an alliance of political parties and civil society organizations formed and refused to participate in the national dialogue.
Germany urged to explain Schengen ban on British Palestinian academic
- Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who has been volunteering in Gaza hospitals, was blocked entry to Germany and France in recent weeks
LONDON: A human rights group has urged Germany’s government to publicly announce if it has imposed a Schengen-wide entry ban on a British Palestinian surgeon and academic.
Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who has been volunteering in Gaza hospitals, was blocked entry to Germany and France in recent weeks and, on Thursday, Dutch officials told Palestine’s ambassador to the Netherlands he would not be allowed to enter the country for an event at the Palestinian Embassy in The Hague on May 15.
When blocked from entering France last Saturday, Abu-Sittah was placed in a holding zone at Charles de Gaulle airport before being expelled, according to French Sen. Raymonde Poncet Monge, who had invited him to speak at the senate.
Abu-Sittah posted to social media and told Human Rights Watch that French authorities at the airport had informed him he was barred due to a year-long ban imposed by Germany, without his knowledge.
A French official told the Associated Press that the German ban would be applied across the entire 29-country Schengen area.
“Dr. Abu-Sittah has seen firsthand the atrocities taking place in Gaza,” said Yasmine Ahmed, UK director at Human Rights Watch. “Germany should immediately explain why it has denied him entry and imposed this far-reaching ban on a leading health professional to speak in Berlin, Paris and The Hague about what he witnessed in Gaza.”
The prevention of Abu-Sittah from sharing his experience of treating patients in Gaza amid the Israel-Hamas war ravaging the enclave risked “undermining Germany’s commitment to protect and facilitate freedom of expression, and assembly and to nondiscrimination,” HRW said.
HRW also urged the UK and Scottish governments to push Germany into explaining Abu-Sittah’s Schengen-wide visa ban.
“In the midst of ongoing atrocities in Gaza, countries should be prioritizing ending complicity and promoting accountability,” Ahmed said. “Instead, Germany, in blocking Dr. Abu-Sittah from sharing his experience, is trying to block citizens from even hearing about the grave abuses taking place in Gaza. The UK government should immediately raise the reported ban with their German counterparts.”
Iraqi people smuggler who sent thousands across English Channel tracked down by BBC
- A BBC report released on Friday revealed how the organization tracked Majeed down and carried an interview with the fugitive
LONDON: A crime boss wanted in several countries for his role in the smuggling of an estimated 10,000 migrants across the English Channel has been tracked down, according to reports in the British media.
Iraqi Kurd Barzan Kamal Majeed, nicknamed “Scorpion” because of his WhatsApp avatar, had been missing since failing to appear in court in Belgium for a sentencing hearing in November 2022.
The UK’s National Crime Agency issued a warrant for his arrest that same year. Majeed had moved to the British city of Nottingham in 2013, but had been deported two years later.
A BBC report released on Friday revealed how the organization tracked Majeed down and carried an interview with the fugitive.
Rob Lawrie, a former soldier who now works with refugee support agencies, assisted the investigation, which tracked Majeed to his home in the Kurdistan city of Sulaymaniyah, close to the border with Iran.
During the interview, Majeed said he had lost count of the number of people he had helped smuggle and admitted that between 2016 and 2019 he was one of two people running a people-smuggling operation in Belgium and France.
However, he denied being the boss of the operation, adding: “A couple of people, when they get arrested, they say: ‘We’re working for him.’ They want to get less (of a) sentence.”
Majeed’s accomplice, Nzar Jabar Mohamad, was given a 10-year prison sentence at a British court in Oct. 2021 after admitting to attempting to bring 21 migrants into the UK.
He also denied culpability for the death of migrants who attempted the crossing, claiming he was merely a “money man” who “just took the money and booked places.” He added: “I never put anybody in a boat and I never killed anybody. Nobody forced them. They wanted to, they were begging the smugglers: ‘Please, please do this for us.’”
His profits from the operation, with some estimates putting the price of a crossing at £6,000 ($7,514) per person, enabled Majeed to purchase a villa in Marmaris in Turkiye, according to the local police
According to government figures, more than 9,000 migrants have crossed the English Channel in small boats so far this year, a 15-percent rise on the same period in 2022, which was a record-breaking year in which more than 45,700 migrants arrived.
In his interview with the BBC, Majeed claimed that some of his former co-smugglers were still operating today and that a few had even been granted British passports.
“In three days, one guy sent 170 or 180 people from Turkey to Italy, still holding a British passport. I want to go to some other country to do business. I can’t.”
Ann Lukowiak, a public prosecutor in Belgium who was part of the team that worked on convicting Scorpion, told the BBC she still hopes Majeed will be extradited from Iraq to face justice one day.
“It’s important to us to have sent the signal that you can’t do what you want,” she said. “We will eventually take him down.”
