MANILA: Philippine intelligence operatives have arrested a 64-year-old Iraqi national and accused him of having links with the Palestinian organization Hamas.
Taha Mohammed Al-Jabouri was presented to the media by Philippine National Police (PNP) Director General Ronaldo Dela Rosa on Monday. He was arrested at the weekend by PNP Intelligence Group operatives in Barangay Malabanias, Angeles City.
Citing intelligence information passed to the PNP by the Iraqi Embassy in Manila, Dela Rosa claimed Al-Jabouri is “a chemist with knowledge of explosives who is known to have close ties with militant extremist movements in the Middle East.”
According to the PNP chief, Al-Jabouri arrived in Manila from Istanbul on Aug. 27, at the height of preparations for the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit, which was held in November and was attended by 20 world leaders, including US President Donald Trump.
“Since then he evaded detection after the Iraqi Embassy in Manila alerted the Philippine intelligence community of his presence,” Dela Rosa said.
On Saturday night police were tipped off by local authorities in Angeles City of the presence of a suspicious-looking man with Middle Eastern features, fitting the description and photographs provided by the Iraqi Embassy. PNP intelligence operatives were immediately sent to the area and at around 3 a.m. on Sunday they arrested Al-Jabouri.
The police claim Al-Jabouri admitted, under interrogation, that he had served as a consultant for Hamas in Damascus before moving to Istanbul in 2012. He also claimed to have been responsible for improving Hamas’ “rocket technology.”
The suspect further revealed that he traveled to Manila to meet a Chinese business group, which hired him as a consultant.
However, Dela Rosa said the police have yet to establish whether Al-Jabouri has been involved in any illegal activity in the Philippines, or the threat the suspect may pose. They are, he said, checking if Al-Jabouri has links with any local militant groups.
At present, charges will be filed against the Iraqi national as an illegal alien, as his 90-day visa has already expired. Philippine authorities are coordinating with the Iraqi Embassy to deport Al-Jabouri.
Dr. Rikard Jalkebro, a visiting security expert from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said the arrest shows that the Philippines, and other countries in Southeast Asia, are a common choice for people who are trying to escape justice in their home countries.
Jalkebro, however, questioned the wisdom of making Al-Jabouri’s arrest public, and other aspects of the affair.
The biggest question, he said, is: “What is the Iraqi government, or the Iraqi Embassy’s underlying reason for reporting Al-Jabouri?”
He continued, “I’m not sure of the point of alerting the media about this arrest. I think that might have been a bit preemptive. (It seems they are) highlighting the fact that he has links to Hamas and that he is Iraqi in order to, not necessarily spread fear, but to spread some kind of caution and highlight that yes, we do have foreign terrorists in the country.”
“I think it sounds very odd to mention that you freelance for Hamas. That doesn’t add up to me,” he told Arab News. “It sounds like a reason for the government to say, ‘Look at this. We have a foreign terrorist.’”
64-year-old Iraqi arrested in Philippines accused of Hamas ties
64-year-old Iraqi arrested in Philippines accused of Hamas ties
Trump set to repeal scientific finding that serves as basis for US climate change policy
- The endangerment finding is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet
WASHINGTON: The Trump administration on Thursday will revoke a scientific finding that long has been the central basis for US action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change, the White House announced.
The Environmental Protection Agency will issue a final rule rescinding a 2009 government declaration known as the endangerment finding. That Obama-era policy determined that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health and welfare.
President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin will “formalize the rescission of the 2009 Obama-era endangerment finding” at a White House ceremony, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday.
The action “will be the largest deregulatory action in American history, and it will save the American people $1.3 trillion in crushing regulations,” she said. The bulk of the savings will stem from reduced costs for new vehicles, with the EPA projecting average per vehicle savings of more than $2,400 for popular light-duty cars, SUVs and trucks. Leavitt said.
The endangerment finding is the legal underpinning of nearly all climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources that are heating the planet. It is used to justify regulations, such as auto emissions standards, intended to protect against threats made increasingly severe by climate change — deadly floods, extreme heat waves, catastrophic wildfires and other natural disasters in the United States and around the world.
Legal challenges would be certain for any action that effectively would repeal those regulations, with environmental groups describing the shift as the single biggest attack in US history on federal efforts to address climate change.
EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch said the Obama-era rule was “one of the most damaging decisions in modern history” and said EPA “is actively working to deliver a historic action for the American people.”
Trump, who has called climate change a “hoax,” previously issued an executive order that directed EPA to submit a report on “the legality and continuing applicability” of the endangerment finding. Conservatives and some congressional Republicans have long sought to undo what they consider overly restrictive and economically damaging rules to limit greenhouse gases that cause global warming.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman who was tapped by Trump to lead EPA last year, has criticized his predecessors in Democratic administrations, saying they were “willing to bankrupt the country” in an effort to combat climate change.
Democrats “created this endangerment finding and then they are able to put all these regulations on vehicles, on airplanes, on stationary sources, to basically regulate out of existence ... segments of our economy,″ Zeldin said in announcing the proposed rule last July. ”And it cost Americans a lot of money.”
Peter Zalzal, a lawyer and associate vice president of the Environmental Defense Fund, countered that the EPA will be encouraging more climate pollution, higher health insurance and fuel costs and thousands of avoidable premature deaths.
Zeldin’s push “is cynical and deeply damaging, given the mountain of scientific evidence supporting the finding, the devastating climate harms Americans are experiencing right now and EPA’s clear obligation to protect Americans’ health and welfare,” he said.
Zalzal and other critics noted that the Supreme Court ruled in a 2007 case that planet-warming greenhouse gases, caused by burning of oil and other fossil fuels, are air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
Since the high court’s decision, in a case known as Massachusetts v. EPA, courts have uniformly rejected legal challenges to the endangerment finding, including a 2023 decision by the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
Following Zeldin’s proposal to repeal the rule, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reassessed the science underpinning the 2009 finding and concluded it was “accurate, has stood the test of time, and is now reinforced by even stronger evidence.”
Much of the understanding of climate change that was uncertain or tentative in 2009 is now resolved, the NAS panel of scientists said in a September report. “The evidence for current and future harm to human health and welfare created by human-caused greenhouse gases is beyond scientific dispute,” the panel said.
