BAGHDAD: Iraqi warplanes carried out a raid Sunday targeting Daesh group commanders in eastern Syria, in the second such strike on the militants since mid-April, the premier’s office said.
Prime Minister Haider Al-Abadi ordered the “painful strike” which targeted “a meeting of IS commanders south of Al-Dushashiya in Syrian territory,” a statement said, using another acronym for Daesh.
F-16 fighter jets were used in the early morning strike and the raid was “successful,” the spokesman of Iraq’s security media center, General Yehya Rassoul, said.
Dushashiya is in a desert region of Syria’s Hasakah province, where a US-backed Kurdish-led alliance is fighting the militants.
“After receiving information on the target in co-operation with Syria’s government and in co-ordination with coalition forces (led by the US), F-16s from the Iraqi air force led strikes against a Daesh command post, 10 kilometers from the Iraqi border inside Syria,” said General Mohammad Al-Askari, an adviser to Iraq’s defense ministry.
“This attack took place following a meeting of several Daesh commanders who were planning terrorist operations on Syrian or Iraqi territory,” he said.
The target “was completely destroyed and all the officials there were killed,” he said, without giving a death toll.
Askari also said Iraq hosts a center that co-ordinates military activity with Iran, Russia and Syria “against IS.”
“This is not the last strike in Syria. They will continue, in relation to the activities of Daesh.”
A week ago, Abadi told the media that Iraq would carry out air strikes against IS outside the country’s own borders.
On April 19, Iraq said it had carried out an air raid against Daesh in Syria that killed 36 Daesh fighters, near the town of Hajjin in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.
Iraq declared victory in December against Daesh, which launched a sweeping offensive in 2014 and at one point controlled a third of the country.
The militants still control pockets of desert along the border with Syria.
Iraq says its warplanes targeted Daesh militants in Syria
Iraq says its warplanes targeted Daesh militants in Syria
Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village threatened after record rains
- The one-time home of French philosopher Michel Foucault and writer Andre Gide, the village is protected under Tunisian preservation law, pending a UNESCO decision on its bid for World Heritage status
SIDI BOU SAID, Tunisia: Perched on a hill overlooking Carthage, Tunisia’s famed blue-and-white village of Sidi Bou Said now faces the threat of landslides, after record rainfall tore through parts of its slopes.
Last week, Tunisia saw its heaviest downpour in more than 70 years. The storm killed at least five people, with others still missing.
Narrow streets of this village north of Tunis — famed for its pink bougainvillea and studded wooden doors — were cut off by fallen trees, rocks and thick clay. Even more worryingly for residents, parts of the hillside have broken loose.
“The situation is delicate” and “requires urgent intervention,” Mounir Riabi, the regional director of civil defense in Tunis, recently told AFP.
“Some homes are threatened by imminent danger,” he said.
Authorities have banned heavy vehicles from driving into the village and ordered some businesses and institutions to close, such as the Ennejma Ezzahra museum.
- Scared -
Fifty-year-old Maya, who did not give her full name, said she was forced to leave her century-old family villa after the storm.
“Everything happened very fast,” she recalled. “I was with my mother and, suddenly, extremely violent torrents poured down.”
“I saw a mass of mud rushing toward the house, then the electricity cut off. I was really scared.”
Her Moorish-style villa sustained significant damage.
One worker on site, Said Ben Farhat, said waterlogged earth sliding from the hillside destroyed part of a kitchen wall.
“Another rainstorm and it will be a catastrophe,” he said.
Shop owners said the ban on heavy vehicles was another blow to their businesses, as they usually rely on tourist buses to bring in traffic.
When President Kais Saied visited the village on Wednesday, vendors were heard shouting: “We want to work.”
One trader, Mohamed Fedi, told AFP afterwards there were “no more customers.”
“We have closed shop,” he said, adding that the shops provide a livelihood to some 200 families.
- Highly unstable -
Beyond its famous architecture, the village also bears historical and spiritual significance.
The village was named after a 12th-century Sufi saint, Abu Said Al-Baji, who had established a religious center there. His shrine still sits atop the hill.
The one-time home of French philosopher Michel Foucault and writer Andre Gide, the village is protected under Tunisian preservation law, pending a UNESCO decision on its bid for World Heritage status.
Experts say solutions to help preserve Sidi Bou Said could include restricting new development, building more retaining walls and improving drainage to prevent runoff from accumulating.
Chokri Yaich, a geologist speaking to Tunisian radio Mosaique FM, said climate change has made protecting the hill increasingly urgent, warning of more storms like last week’s.
The hill’s clay-rich soil loses up to two thirds of its cohesion when saturated with water, making it highly unstable, Yaich explained.
He also pointed to marine erosion and the growing weight of urbanization, saying that construction had increased by about 40 percent over the past three decades.
For now, authorities have yet to announce a protection plan, leaving home and shop owners anxious, as the weather remains unpredictable.
