MANILA: Daesh has suffered a major setback in East Asia. The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) reported to have killed two of the main leaders of Daesh who have held parts of Marawi city on Mindanao in the Philippines since May 23.
The crisis has left more than 1,000 people dead, mostly members of the Maute group, but including 162 soldiers and policemen, and 47 civilians.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana on Monday announced the deaths of Isnilon Hapilon and Omarkhayam Maute. The two men were killed during an early morning ground assault on the remaining stronghold of the Maute group in Marawi.
“I confirm the killing of Isnilon Hapilon and Omar Maute,” Lorenzana said. The bodies of the slain militant leaders have been recovered and will be subjected to DNA tests, he added.
AFP Chief Gen. Eduardo Año called their deaths “the straw that has broken the camel’s back” and claimed “the Marawi crisis will be over sooner than later.”
Hapilon, a former Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) leader regarded by the US as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, was Daesh’s designated leader for Southeast Asia. The US had placed a $5 million bounty on him, while the Philippine government had offered a 17.4 million peso bounty (approximately $348,000).
Maute was the co-founder, along with his brother Abdullah, of Daesh. Maute had a 5 million peso bounty on his head.
Lorenzana said the offensive began at 2 a.m. and lasted around four hours. It was triggered by information provided by a former female hostage on the location of Isnilon and Maute, he added.
“She was able to confirm the presence of Isnilon and Maute in that particular building.”
Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Restituto Padilla said Hapilon was hit in the chest during an exchange of fire with government forces. Maute was shot in the head by a sniper.
Año said troops were also able to recover seven other bodies of suspected militants.
The operation also resulted in the rescue of 20 civilian hostages, including a two-month-old girl.
Steve Cutler, an international security analyst and former head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in Manila, told Arab News that the death of Hapilon and Maute is a major setback for Daesh.
“It is a huge blow to Daesh... and any dreams that Daesh have of establishing a caliphate here.”
Cutler said that the longer the Marawi crisis continues, the more strength the narrative of Daesh establishing a caliphate in East Asia has. But the death of the two leaders, he said, completely changes that narrative.
“These deaths are game changers. They remove the guiding lights — the leading personalities of the movement here,” Cutler said. They will be replaced, he added, but “the replacements are not charismatic leaders of the caliber of these two.”
And while the death of Hapilon and Maute diminishes the morale of the militants, it greatly improves that of the Philippine government.
“It strengthens the general view of the competence of the Philippine forces and their ability to fight effectively,” Cutler said. “Daesh is under destruction in the Middle East and their plans for the Philippines to become a hub in Southeast Asia are severely damaged.
“(The militants) will continue to fight, and will kill more. They are still dangerous and cannot be underestimated. But they will not succeed (in their aims),” he added.
Political analyst Ramon Casiple, however, while admitting it was a major blow to Daesh, described the deaths of the two militant leaders as “a temporary setback.”
“This will not stop them,” he said. “Remember, Daesh is a religious organization.” He warned that their deaths do not mean there is no longer a Daesh “presence” in the Philippines.
“There’s still the ASG and other groups (such as the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters),” he said, noting that a new generation with Daesh-provided strategies and tactics will eventually replace them.
Año believes it will just be a matter of days before the government can finally declare that Marawi has been freed from Daesh’s control.
“I’m certain that the neutralization of Hapilon and Omar is the last straw. The terrorists will crumble. It is a dead-end. There is nowhere to go for them,” Año said. He then urged the remaining Maute fighters to free their hostages.
Lorenzana said government forces are still pursuing Mahmud Ahmad, said to be Malaysia’s most wanted terrorist. Ahmad is suspected of channeling more than P30 million (approximately $600,000) from Daesh to fund the Marawi siege.
The army believes he is currently in one of the buildings inside the main battle zone.
Around 30 militants, including eight foreign terrorists, reportedly remain in the area. The militants are also believed to still hold 22 civilian hostages.
Big blow to Daesh as Philippine army eliminates top militants
Big blow to Daesh as Philippine army eliminates top militants
Petition calling for suspension of UK arms sales to Israel handed to Downing Street
- Document by UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign signed by almost 70,000 people
- Protest against arms sales to Israel will take place outside Parliament on Wednesday
LONDON: A petition calling for the UK government to halt arms sales to Israel was handed in to 10 Downing Street on Tuesday by a pro-Palestinian activist organization and a cross-party group of lawmakers.
Launched on April 2 and signed by almost 70,000 people, the document, which is addressed to UK Foreign Secretary David Cameron, also urges the government to publish any legal advice it has received regarding possible breaches of international law.
“On 2nd April 2024, Israel killed seven World Central Kitchen aid workers, including UK citizens, in targeted air strikes in the Gaza Strip,” the petition, drawn up by the UK-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said.
“This attack, on an agency distributing food to a population facing famine, is part of the broader Israeli war crime — as acknowledged by the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell — of intentionally using starvation as a weapon of war.
“It also comes following Israel’s two week siege on Al-Shifa hospital, killing over 400 Palestinians and leaving the hospital complex in ruins.”
The UK’s Strategic Export Licensing Criteria, under which all arms exports are assessed, specifies that the government will not grant a license if it determines “there is a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate internal repression … or a serious violation of international humanitarian law,” according to a January 2023 report on developments in UK strategic export controls.
“The ICJ (International Court of Justice) ruling of plausible genocide therefore requires the UK to immediately halt arms transfers to Israel,” the petition said.
“It is also understood the government has received — though not published — legal advice that Israel is breaking international humanitarian law which would also require a suspension of arms exports.”
The ICJ issued a landmark ruling in January finding it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide, offering the first concrete step toward possible sanctions.
“UN experts have called on all states to immediately suspend arms exports to Israel, as required by the 1949 Geneva Conventions and to comply with the Genocide Convention,” the petition said.
“The UK is putting itself at legal risk by ignoring this advice, and is also isolating itself from key international partners including Canada, Belgium, Spain, the Netherlands and Italy, who have all suspended their arms exports to Israel.”
Conservative Party MP Alicia Kearns, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, on Friday said the UK Foreign Office “has received official legal advice that Israel has broken international humanitarian law, but the government has not announced it.”
On Monday in parliament, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak refused to deny the Foreign Office had received such advice and when asked by Labour Party MP Zarah Sultana whether Kearns was telling the truth said: “Israel is committed to and capable of complying with international humanitarian law.”
Ben Jamal, director of the PSC, said: “Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians and its attacks on Lebanon, Syria and Iran prove that arming it not only makes the UK complicit in violating international law but also in the sparking of a regional war with catastrophic consequences.
“Continuing to arm Israel cannot help the cause of peace or justice in the Middle East. Any government truly committed to upholding international law does not sell weapons to a state that continually breaches it.”
The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Tuesday that more than 33,000 Palestinians had been killed since Israel launched its assault on Gaza on Oct. 7, 70 percent of them women and children. Most of the civil infrastructure in the besieged enclave has been destroyed and the UN has issued warnings that famine is imminent for its population of 2 million people.
Israel uses British weaponry, surveillance technology and military equipment on Palestinians, and 15 percent of the components used by its F-35 aircraft to bomb Gaza are provided by the UK, according to the pro-Palestinian nongovernmental organization Friends of Al-Aqsa.
“Israeli bomber aircraft are being used in the ongoing genocide taking place in Gaza,” the UK-based group said.
According to a statement by the PSC, more than 1,000 lawyers, academics and retired judges, including the former President of the Supreme Court Baroness Brenda Hale, have signed an open letter stating that the “continued supply of arms to Israel puts the UK in breach of international law.”
On March 27, Sultana and a cross-party group of 134 UK lawmakers wrote to Cameron and Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch asking them to immediately suspend export licenses for arms transfers to Israel as “the case for this is overwhelming.”
Earlier this month, Cameron said the UK would not suspend arms sales to Israel, despite Canada, the Netherlands, Japan, Spain and Belgium announcing they would do so.
The PSC said it would lead a “Stop Arming Israel” rally outside parliament at 6 p.m. on Wednesday.
US university pulls student speech after Jewish groups object
- Israel has killed at least 33,843 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory
LOS ANGELES: A top US university has canceled its plans for a graduation speech by a Muslim student over what it says are safety concerns, after pro-Israel groups criticized her selection.
The decision by the University of Southern California is the latest controversy to roil American higher education since the conflict between Israel and Hamas erupted in October.
Asna Tabassum, who has been attacked online for “antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric,” had been selected as class valedictorian — an honorary role whose holder traditionally gives an address in front of up to 65,000 people.
But on Monday the university’s provost, Andrew Guzman, announced the May 10 ceremony would go ahead without the speech.
“Unfortunately, over the past several days, discussion relating to the selection of our valedictorian has taken on an alarming tenor,” Guzman said in a statement.
“The intensity of feelings, fueled by both social media and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, has grown to include many voices outside of USC and has escalated to the point of creating substantial risks relating to security.”
Guzman’s statement gave no specifics, but the Los Angeles Times quoted Erroll Southers, the university’s associate senior vice president for safety and risk assurance, as saying the institution had received threats by email, phone and letter.
Individuals “say they will come to the campus,” he said.
Tabassum criticized the decision, which she said was the result of the university “succumbing to a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice.”
“Although this should have been a time of celebration for my family, friends, professors, and classmates, anti-Muslim and anti-Palestinian voices have subjected me to a campaign of racist hatred because of my uncompromising belief in human rights for all,” she said in a statement.
The Hamas attack that started the war on October 7 resulted in the deaths of 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to Israeli figures.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 33,843 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.
The fallout from the conflict has been felt around the world, and is particularly intense on US college campuses, where both pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups say they are being victimized and silenced.
On Wednesday the president of the prestigious Columbia University in New York will become the latest campus leader to face questions from US lawmakers about whether her institution is doing enough to combat anti-Semitism in the student body.
US to query Israel about 6-year-old’s killing in Gaza, State Dept says
- Israel has killed at least 33,843 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory
- “We’re going to go back to the government of Israel and ask them for further information,” Miller said at a press briefing, calling Hind Rajab’s death “an unspeakable tragedy, something that never should have occurred and never should occur”
WASHINGTON: The US State Department will ask Israel for more information about the January death of 6-year-old Palestinian Hind Rajab in Gaza, spokesperson Matthew Miller said on Tuesday, calling for a full investigation into the matter after a Washington Post report cast doubt on Israel’s earlier explanation.
The terrified girl trapped in a car in Gaza with her dead family had begged for help in a phone call to rescuers, in which gunfire could be heard as she described Israeli forces drawing near.
Relatives found her body 12 days later along with those of her aunt, uncle and their three children in their car near an ambulance and two dead ambulance workers who had tried to save her.
The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that an investigation had found Israeli armored vehicles were present in the area, contrary to the Israeli Defense Forces’ claim that a preliminary investigation had found its forces were not within firing range of the car in which she was trapped.
“We’re going to go back to the government of Israel and ask them for further information,” Miller said at a press briefing, calling Hind Rajab’s death “an unspeakable tragedy, something that never should have occurred and never should occur.”
“We would still welcome a full investigation into this matter and how it occurred in the first place,” Miller added.
Israel’s embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
US officials have said they are reviewing incidents of civilian harm in Israel’s six-month-old war in Gaza as part of processes meant to ensure US-provided weapons are not used in breaches of international humanitarian law.
Miller said in Hind Rajab’s case, rather than the United States conducting its own review, it had asked Israel what its own investigation had found.
“That’s what we’ll be going back to them to do with the new details that were raised by the Washington Post,” Miller said.
UN committee unable to agree on Palestinian bid for full membership
- An application to become a full UN member needs to be approved by the Security Council, where Israel ally the United States can block it
UNITED NATIONS: A United Nations Security Council committee considering an application by the Palestinian Authority to become a full UN member “was unable to make a unanimous recommendation” on whether it met the criteria, according to the committee report seen by Reuters on Tuesday.
The Palestinian Authority is still expected to push the 15-member Security Council to vote — as early as this week — on a draft resolution recommending it become a full member of the world body, diplomats said.
Such membership would effectively recognize a Palestinian state. The Palestinians are currently a non-member observer state, a de facto recognition of statehood that was granted by the 193-member UN General Assembly in 2012.
But an application to become a full UN member needs to be approved by the Security Council, where Israel ally the United States can block it, and then at least two-thirds of the General Assembly.
The United States said earlier this month that establishing an independent Palestinian state should happen through direct negotiations between the parties and not at the United Nations.
The UN Security Council has long endorsed a vision of two states living side by side within secure and recognized borders. Palestinians want a state in the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, all territory captured by Israel in 1967.
Little progress has been made on achieving Palestinian statehood since the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the early 1990s.
The Palestinian push for full UN membership comes six months into a war between Israel and Palestinian Hamas militants in Gaza, and as Israel is expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank.
The Security Council committee on the admission of new members — made up of all 15 council members — agreed to its report on Tuesday after meeting twice last week to discuss the Palestinian application.
“Regarding the issue of whether the application met all the criteria for membership ... the Committee was unable to make a unanimous recommendation to the Security Council,” the report said, adding that “differing views were expressed.”
UN membership is open to “peace-loving states” that accept the obligations in the founding UN Charter and are able and willing to carry them out.
Assange extradition moves closer as US provides UK court with assurances
- Extradition sought over release of classified information
- Australia has urged US to drop charges against Assange
LONDON: The United States has provided assurances requested by the High Court in London which could finally pave the way for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be extradited from Britain.
Last month, the High Court ruled that, without certain US guarantees, Assange, 52, would be allowed to launch a new appeal against being extradited to face 18 charges, all bar one under the Espionage Act, over WikiLeaks’ release of confidential US military records and diplomatic cables.
Those assurances — that in a US trial he could seek a First Amendment right to free speech and that there was no prospect of new charges which could see the death penalty being imposed — have now been submitted by a deadline which fell on Tuesday.
The document, seen by Reuters, states that Assange “will have the ability to raise and seek to rely upon at trial the rights and protections given under the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.” However it adds that a decision on the “applicability of the First Amendment is exclusively within the purview of the US courts.”
The document also says that a sentence of death will neither be sought nor imposed.
“These assurances are binding on any and all present or subsequent individuals to whom authority has been delegated to decide the matters,” it said.
There will now be a further court hearing in London on May 20, but his lawyers have previously described US assurances given in other cases as not “worth the paper they’re written on,” echoing similar criticism from human rights group Amnesty International.
’EXTREME DISTRESS’
Assange’s wife Stella, whom he married while in prison in London, said the guarantees did not satisfy their concerns, describing them as “blatant weasel words.”
“The United States has issued a non-assurance in relation to the First Amendment, and a standard assurance in relation to the death penalty,” she said in a statement.
“The diplomatic note does nothing to relieve our family’s extreme distress about his future — his grim expectation of spending the rest of his life in isolation in US prison for publishing award-winning journalism.”
There was no immediate comment from the US Department of Justice or a High Court spokesperson.
Last week, US President Joe Biden said he was considering a request from Australia to drop the prosecution, which Assange’s US lawyer described as “encouraging.”
It was not clear what influence, if any, Biden could exert on a criminal case, but the Wall Street Journal has also reported that discussions are underway about a potential plea bargaining deal.
Assange, who is an Australian citizen, has spent more than 13 years in various legal battles in the English courts since he was first arrested in November 2010.
To his many supporters, he is an anti-establishment hero who is being persecuted for exposing US wrongdoing and details of alleged war crimes in secret, classified files.
The US authorities argue he is not being prosecuted for the publication of the leaked materials, but for the criminal act of conspiring with former US Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to unlawfully obtain them.
“The Biden administration must drop this dangerous prosecution before it is too late,” Stella Assange said.
