LONDON: Nine more people have been arrested in Morocco for connections to the four initial suspects in the killing of two Scandinavian university students in a remote corner of the Atlas Mountains, Moroccan authorities said Friday.
A total of 13 men have been detained after the murder of the female hikers from Denmark and Norway.
Morocco’s Central Bureau of Judicial investigations said the nine new suspects had been carrying arms and “suspicious materials” used in the manufacture of explosives at the time of their arrests.
It said electronic devices, an unauthorized hunting rifles, knives and materials that could be used for bomb-making were found in the course of the raids. No further details were available.
The bodies of the two young Scandinavian hikers murdered by suspected extremists in the High Atlas mountains in Morocco were flown to Copenhagen on Friday, a police source said.
The remains of Danish student Louisa Vesterager Jespersen, 24, and 28-year-old Maren Ueland from Norway were put on the same plane that left Casablanca for the Danish capital, a police spokesman said.
Norway’s National Criminal Investigation Service (NCIS) has been investigating the footage circulating on social media.
Moroccan authorities said Thursday that four suspects arrested following the murder of the two tourists had pledged allegiance to Daesh, but Norway’s National Crime Investigation Service (NCIS) said that “neither Norway nor Denmark was mentioned in the video, nor was there anything specific about what action they should perform.”
The bodies of the two women were found on Monday, after they had pitched their tent at an isolated mountain site two hours walk from the tourist village of Imlil.
Authorities in Morocco consider the killings a terrorist act. The women’s bodies were discovered Monday with stab wounds in their necks.
Norway’s news agency NTB said Ueland’s autopsy would be performed in Norway.
The NCIS said it was trying to map the women’s activities before their departure for Imlil, a frequent starting point for treks to Mount Toubkal, North Africa’s highest peak. The women were found 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from the village.
Norwegian police said on Friday that a video purportedly showing the killings of the two women in Morocco by suspected Daesh militants is probably authentic.
Moroccan authorities have said four suspects arrested over the murder had pledged allegiance to Daesh in a video posted on social media before the killings. The women were found with knife wounds to the neck, Morocco said.
A separate video of the actual deaths, also on social media, was likely to be real, Norwegian police said.
“When it comes to the assessment of the video that purportedly shows the killings, there is still a certain amount of technical analysis and assessment to be done,” NCIS said in a statement.
“We still believe, however, that we have grounds to say that so far, there is nothing concrete to show that this video is not real.”
Norwegian police were not immediately available for further comment, while their Danish counterparts said they were still analizing the video and the Moroccan authorities said on Thursday they working on authenticating it.
Later on Friday, Norwegians planned to march with torches through Bryne, the coastal hometown of Maren Ueland, to express solidarity with her family.
On Saturday, a gathering will be held outside the Norwegian Embassy in the Moroccan capital Rabat in support of the families of the victims and to condemn terrorism. Thousands of people have said on Facebook that they would attend.
Both women had lived in southern Norway, where they attended university.
Morocco is generally considered safe for tourists but it has been routing out extremist militants for years.
Compared to other countries in North Africa, Morocco has been largely insulated from militant attacks.
The most recent took place in April 2011, when 17 people were killed in the bombing of a restaurant in Marrakech.
Nine more arrested in Morocco over murder of Scandinavian tourists
Nine more arrested in Morocco over murder of Scandinavian tourists
- The video filmed in a remote part of Morocco’s Atlas Mountains ‘is likely authentic’
- In another video, 4 suspects appear to pledge allegiance to Daesh
Iraq requests end of UN assistance mission by end-2025
- Prime PM said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organizations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission
The mission, headquartered in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, was set up with a wide mandate to help develop Iraqi institutions, support political dialogue and elections, and promote human rights.
Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani said Iraq wanted to deepen cooperation with other UN organizations but there was no longer a need for the political work of the UN assistance mission, known as UNAMI.
The mission’s head in Iraq often shuttles between top political, judicial and security officials in work that supporters see as important to preventing and resolving conflicts but critics have often described as interference.
“Iraq has managed to take important steps in many fields, especially those that fall under UNAMI’s mandate,” Sudani said in a letter to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Iraq’s government has since 2023 moved to end several international missions, including the US-led coalition created in 2014 to fight Islamic State and the UN’s mission established to help promote accountability for the jihadist group’s crimes.
Iraqi officials say the country has come a long way from the sectarian bloodletting after the US-led invasion and Islamic State’s attempt to establish a caliphate, and that it no longer needs so much international help.
Some critics worry about the stability of the young democracy, given recurring conflict and the presence of many heavily armed military-political groups that have often battled on the streets, the last time in 2022.
Some diplomats and UN officials also worry about human rights and accountability in a country that frequently ranks among the world’s most corrupt and where activists say freedom of expression has been curtailed in recent years.
Iraq’s government says it is working to fight corruption and denies there is less room for free expression.
Somalia’s government also requested the termination of a UN political mission this week. In a letter to the Security Council, the country’s foreign minister called for the departure of the Nations Assistance Mission in Somalia (UNSOM), which has advised the government on peace-building, security reforms and democracy for over a decade. He provided no reason.
Gaza aid could grind to a halt within days, UN agencies warn
- Humanitarian workers have sounded the alarm this week over the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid
LONDON: Dwindling food and fuel stocks could force aid operations to grind to a halt within days in Gaza as vital crossings remain shut, forcing hospitals to close down and leading to more malnutrition, United Nations aid agencies warned on Friday.
Humanitarian workers have sounded the alarm this week over the closure of the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings for aid and people as part of Israel’s military operation in Rafah, where around 1 million uprooted people have been sheltering.
The Israeli military said a limited operation in Rafah was meant to kill fighters and dismantle infrastructure used by Hamas, which governs the besieged Palestinian territory.
“For five days, no fuel and virtually no humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip, and we are scraping the bottom of the barrel,” said the UNICEF Senior Emergency Coordinator in the Gaza Strip, Hamish Young.
“This is already a huge issue for the population and for all humanitarian actors but in a matter of days, if not corrected, the lack of fuel could grind humanitarian operations to a halt,” he told a virtual briefing.
More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah in the last five days
More than 100,000 people have fled Rafah in recent days, said Young.
Israel’s military on Monday called for Gazans to leave eastern Rafah, which triggered widespread international alarm.
The UN children’s agency UNICEF said more than 100,000 had left, with the UN humanitarian agency OCHA putting the figure at more than 110,000.
All eyes have been on Rafah in recent weeks, where the population had swelled to around 1.5 million after hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled fighting in other areas of Gaza.
Georgios Petropoulos, head of OCHA’s sub-office in Gaza, said the situation in the besieged Palestinian territory had reached “even more unprecedented levels of emergency.”
Countries around the world, including key Israeli backer the United States, have urged Israel not to extend its ground offensive into Rafah, citing fears of a large civilian toll.
Hamish Young, UNICEF’s senior emergency coordinator in the Gaza Strip, insisted Rafah “must not be invaded” and called for the immediate flow of fuel and aid into the Gaza Strip.
“Yesterday, I was walking around the Al-Mawasi zone, that people in Rafah are being told to move to,” he said, also speaking from Rafah.
“Shelters already lined Al-Mawasi’s sand dunes and it’s now becoming difficult to move between the mass of tents and tarpaulins.
AFP journalists in the Gaza Strip early Friday witnessed artillery strikes on Rafah on the territory’s southern border with Egypt.
Gaza’s bloodiest-ever war began following Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Vowing to destroy Hamas, Israel has conducted a retaliatory offensive that has killed more than 34,900 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Turkiye says it killed 17 Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, Syria
ANKARA: Turkish forces have killed 17 militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) across various regions of northern Iraq and northern Syria, the defense ministry said on Friday.
In a post on social media platform X, the ministry said its forces had “neutralized” 10 PKK insurgents found in the Gara and Hakurk regions of northern Iraq, and in an area where the Turkish military frequently mounts cross-border raids under its “Claw-Lock Operation.”
It said another seven militants were “neutralized” in two regions of northern Syria, where Turkiye has previously carried out cross-border incursions.
The ministry’s use of the term “neutralized” commonly means killed. The PKK, which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984, is designated a terrorist organization by Turkiye, the United States and the European Union.
Turkiye’s cross-border attacks into northern Iraq have been a source of tension with its southeastern neighbor for years. Ankara has asked Iraq for more cooperation in combating the PKK, and Baghdad labelled the group a “banned organization” in March.
Last month, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan held talks with officials in Baghdad and Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, about the continued presence of the PKK in northern Iraq, where it is based, and other issues. Erdogan later said he believed Iraq saw the need to eliminate the PKK as well.
Turkiye has also staged military incursions in Syria’s north against the YPG militia, which it regards as a wing of the PKK.
Erdogan and his ministers have repeatedly said that while Ankara is working on repairing ties with Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government after years of animosity, it will mount a new offensive into northern Syria to push the YPG away from its border.
Israeli demonstrators torch part of UN compound in Jerusalem
- Compound closed until proper security was restored
- Thursday’s incident was the second in less than a week
JERUSALEM: The main United Nations aid agency for Palestinians closed its headquarters in East Jerusalem after local Israeli residents set fire to areas at the edge of the sprawling compound, the agency said.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, said in a post on the social media platform X that he had decided to close the compound until proper security was restored. He said Thursday’s incident was the second in less than a week.
“This is an outrageous development. Once again, the lives of UN staff were at a serious risk,” he said.
“It is the responsibility of the State of Israel as an occupying power to ensure that United Nations personnel and facilities are protected at all times,” he said.
This evening, Israeli residents set fire twice to the perimeter of the UNRWA Headquarters in occupied East Jerusalem.
— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) May 9, 2024
This took place while UNRWA and other UN Agencies’ staff were on the compound.
While there were no casualties among our staff, the fire caused extensive damage… pic.twitter.com/ZqHFDNkiWC
UNRWA, set up to deal with the Palestinian refugees who fled or were forced from their homes during the 1948 war around the time of Israel’s creation, has long been a target of Israeli hostility.
Since the start of the war with Gaza Israeli officials have called repeatedly for the agency to be shut down, accusing it of complicity with the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza, a charge the United Nations strongly rejects.
Israel considers all of Jerusalem its indivisible capital, including eastern parts it captured in a 1967 war, which Palestinians seek as the future capital of an independent state.
Lazzarini said staff were present at the time of the incident but there were no casualties. However outdoor areas were damaged by the blaze, which was put out by staff after emergency services took time to respond.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli police.
Lazzarini said groups of Israelis had been staging regular demonstrations outside the UNRWA compound for the past two months and said stones were thrown at staff and buildings in the compound this week.
In footage shared with Lazzarini’s post, smoke can be seen rising near buildings at the edge of the compound while the sound of chanting and singing can be heard.
A crowd accompanied by armed men were witnessed outside the compound chanting “Burn down the United Nations,” Lazzarini said.
UKMTO reports hijacking attempt of vessel east of Yemen’s Aden
DUBAI: The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) organization said on Friday it had received a report of a failed hijacking attempt of a vessel 195 nautical miles east of Yemen’s Aden.
The vessel’s master reported being approached by a small craft carrying five or six armed people with ladders.
Houthi militants in Yemen have launched drone and missile attacks on shipping in and around the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean to show support for the Palestinians in the Gaza war.
Maritime sources say pirates may be encouraged by a relaxation of security or may be taking advantage of the chaos caused by attacks on shipping by the Iran-aligned Houthis.
After firing on the vessel, the people in the small craft were forced to abort their approach when the security team on the vessel returned fire, the UKMTO reported.
The vessel and its crew are reported to be safe, and the vessel is proceeding to its next port of call, it said.
