ANKARA: Turkey has ordered the arrest of 128 military personnel over suspected links to the network accused by Ankara of orchestrating an attempted coup in 2016, state-run Anadolu news agency said on Tuesday.
Police were looking for just over half of the suspects in the western coastal province of Izmir and the rest across 30 other provinces, Anadolu said.
They were suspected of being supporters of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, who is accused by Turkish authorities of masterminding the failed putsch three years ago. Gulen has denied any role.
More than 77,000 people have been jailed pending trial, while about 150,000 people from the civil service, military, and elsewhere have been sacked or suspended from their jobs under crackdowns since the attempted coup.
Rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies have criticized the scope of the crackdown, saying Erdogan has used the abortive coup as a pretext to quash dissent.
The government has said the security measures are necessary due to the gravity of the threat Turkey faces, and has vowed to eradicate Gulen’s network in the country.
Turkey orders arrest of 128 military personnel over suspected Gulen links
Turkey orders arrest of 128 military personnel over suspected Gulen links
- Arrested military personnel are suspected of being supporters of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen
- Rights groups and Turkey’s Western allies have criticized the scope of the crackdown
Sudan demands emergency UN meeting on UAE ‘aggression’
- For months the regular army has accused the United Arab Emirates of supporting the RSF, a charge the UAE denies
PORT SUDAN, Sudan: Sudan has requested an emergency UN Security Council meeting on what it calls UAE “aggression” for allegedly supporting paramilitaries battling the army, a diplomatic source said Saturday.
The fighting broke out in April last year between the regular army, headed by Sudan’s de facto leader Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan, and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) led by his former deputy Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo.
For months the regular army has accused the United Arab Emirates of supporting the RSF, a charge the UAE denies.
“Yesterday, our permanent representative to the United Nations submitted a request for an urgent session of the Security Council to discuss the UAE’s aggression against the Sudanese people, and the provision of weapons and equipment to the terrorist militia,” the source told AFP.
The country’s official SUNA news agency confirmed that Sudan’s UN representative, Al-Harith Idriss, had submitted the request.
SUNA cited Idriss as saying this was “in response to the UAE representative’s memorandum to the Council,” and that “the UAE’s support for the criminal Rapid Support militia that waged war on the state makes the UAE an accomplice in all its crimes.”
In a letter to the Security Council last week, the UAE foreign ministry rejected Sudan’s accusations that it backs the RSF.
The letter said the allegations were “spurious (and) unfounded, and lack any credible evidence to support them.”
Separately on Saturday, the UN Security Council expressed “deep concern” over escalating fighting in Sudan’s North Darfur region and warned against the possibility of an imminent offensive by the RSF and allied militias on El Fasher.
The city is the last Darfur state capital not under RSF control and hosts a large number of refugees.
United Nations officials put out similar warnings Friday, with the UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk expressing his “grave concern.”
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesperson’s office said an attack on El Fasher “would have devastating consequences for the civilian population... in an area already on the brink of famine.”
The Sudan war has killed tens of thousands of people and forced more than 8.5 million people to flee their homes in what the United Nations has called the “largest displacement crisis in the world.”
In December, Khartoum demanded that 15 Emirati diplomats leave the country after an army commander accused Abu Dhabi of supporting the RSF, and protests in Port Sudan demanded the expulsion of the UAE ambassador.
The Wall Street Journal, citing Ugandan officials, reported last August that weapons had been found in a UAE cargo plane transporting humanitarian aid to Sudanese refugees in Chad, prompting a denial from Abu Dhabi.
Hezbollah says fires drones and guided missiles at Israel
- The border between Lebanon and Israel has seen near-daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began nearly seven months ago
BEIRUT: Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement said Saturday it had targeted northern Israel with drones and guided missiles after cross-border Israeli strikes killed three people, including two of its members.
A statement from the group said it “launched a complex attack using explosive drones and guided missiles on the headquarters of the Al Manara military command and a gathering of forces from the 51st Battalion of the Golani Brigade.”
The Israeli army said its Iron Dome air-defense system “successfully intercepted a suspicious aerial target that crossed from Lebanon into the area of Manara in northern Israel.”
The army also “struck the sources of fire” of several anti-tank missiles launched from Lebanon into the Manara border area, it added.
Lebanon’s National News Agency later reported that an Israeli air strike on a house in Srebbine village had wounded 11 people, one seriously.
Earlier Saturday, Israeli fighter jets “struck a Hezbollah military structure in the area of Qouzah in southern Lebanon,” the army said in a statement.
The border between Lebanon and Israel has seen near-daily exchanges of fire since the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza began nearly seven months ago.
In two separate statements earlier Saturday, Hezbollah mourned the deaths of two fighters from the villages of Kafr Kila and Khiam.
It said they had been “martyred on the road to Jerusalem,” the phrase it uses to refer to members killed by Israeli fire.
Hezbollah has intensified its targeting of military sites in Israel since tensions soared between Israel and Iran over the bombing of Tehran’s Damascus consulate on April 1, widely blamed on Israel.
Iran to release crew members of seized Portugal-flagged ship
- The ship’s seizure took place hours before Iran carried out its first-ever direct attack on Israel, launching hundreds of drones and missiles
TEHRAN: Iran said on Saturday it would release the crew members of a Portuguese-flagged ship that its forces seized this month in the Gulf.
The Revolutionary Guard Corps took over the MSC Aries with 25 crew members on board near the Strait of Hormuz on April 13.
Tehran later said the ship belonged to its Israel and was being investigated for alleged violations of international maritime law.
“The humanitarian issue of the release of the ship’s crew is of great concern to us,” Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in a phone call with his Portuguese counterpart Paulo Rangel.
BACKGROUND
The ship’s seizure took place hours before Iran carried out its first-ever direct attack on Israel, launching hundreds of drones and missiles.
“We have given consular access to their ambassadors in Tehran and announced to the envoys that the crew members will be released and extradited,” he was quoted as saying in a statement from his ministry, without elaborating.
Following the ship’s seizure, Portugal summoned Iran’s ambassador to demand its immediate release.
On April 18, India said one of the 17 Indian crew members had returned home and that the others were granted consular access.
“They are in good health and not facing any problems on the ship. As for their return, some technicalities are involved,” an Indian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on Thursday.
The ship’s seizure took place hours before Iran carried out its first-ever direct attack on Israel, launching hundreds of drones and missiles.
The Israeli military said nearly all of the projectiles were intercepted.
Israel and the US have denounced the seizure of the ship as an act of “piracy.”
Regional tensions have soared since war broke out nearly seven months ago between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
‘World has never seen such a rapid increase in hunger,’ WFP regional director Corinne Fleischer tells Arab News
- Overlapping conflicts and residual pandemic effects have forced World Food Programme to reduce assistance, says top aid official
- Says Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, Sudan and South Sudan stand to benefit from $10 million contribution by Saudi Arabia’s KSrelief
DUBAI: With budgets squeezed by rising prices and limited donations, humanitarian agencies are struggling to respond to the world’s multiple, overlapping crises, contributing to a rise in malnutrition, a top aid official has warned.
Corinne Fleischer, the World Food Programme’s regional director for the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe, said that her agency had been forced to reduce its assistance to communities in several crisis contexts.
“This is due to conflicts, the impact of COVID-19, and the impact the Ukraine war has on food prices,” Fleischer told Arab News in an interview in Dubai. “Hunger is going up and governments are now looking at their own economies and needs.
“The humanitarian system is really challenged. It is a dramatic situation.”
Fleischer, who recently held a meeting in Egypt with Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, supervisor-general of the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Center (KSrelief), said that WFP was very pleased to have strengthened its relationship with the Saudi aid agency.
“We signed an agreement where KSrelief will provide $10 million for our operations in Ukraine, $5 million for Palestine, $4.85 million to Yemen, and $1.4 million for Sudan and South Sudan,” she said.
“The focus of these contributions is of course saving lives and providing nutrition with a focus on mothers, pregnant and nursing mothers and young children under two.”
This additional financial assistance could prove lifesaving for the population of Gaza, which has endured months under Israeli siege.
More than six months after Israel launched its military offensive and placed tight restrictions on the flow of commercial goods and humanitarian aid permitted to enter the Palestinian enclave, the population has been brought to the brink of famine.
“I have never seen, even the world has never seen, such a rapid increase in hunger, where now 50 percent of the population is starving,” Fleischer said.
According to WFP figures, 0.8 percent of Gazan children were categorized as malnourished prior to the war. Just three months into the conflict, that number rose to 15 percent. A further two months later, it rose to 30 percent.
“From the beginning, we knew where the conflict might go, so we made sure we have enough food at the borders for 2.2 million people to be able to move in as soon as we can,” Fleischer said.
INNUMBERS
• 1.1 million Gazans experiencing catastrophic hunger — a number that has doubled in just 3 months.
• 1/3 Sudanese — 18 million people — facing acute or emergency food insecurity 1 year into the conflict.
• 900,000 Syrian refugees in Lebanon that WFP provided with food and other basic needs in February alone.
Although WFP continues to bring aid deliveries into Gaza, the number of trucks allowed in is far too limited to meet the needs of the stricken population. Some 500 trucks were entering the enclave prior to the war. Now barely 100 are permitted to enter — at a time when needs are at their greatest.
“We use the Rafah corridor, the Jordan corridor, which we’ve also set up, but the aid from there goes through Kerem Shalom and this is where the choke point is,” Fleischer said.
Kerem Shalom, which used to be the main commercial crossing between Israel and Gaza, has been repeatedly blocked by Israeli protesters demanding the release of hostages.
WFP has called on Israel to open more crossing points and is now able to go through the Erez Crossing. According to Fleischer, this has allowed aid agencies to access communities in the north of Gaza, where famine is taking hold.
“We managed in the last month to bring food for about 350,000 people,” she said. “That is not enough for a whole month, but it’s a start.”
Fleischer said that it was a good sign that they were now able to use other road routes within Gaza to distribute aid, such as the Salah Al-Din Road, the main highway of the Gaza Strip, where WFP now sends regular convoys, and the Port of Ashdod, one of Israel’s three main cargo ports.
“We are now able to send wheat, flour and other foods, and that is hugely important,” Fleischer said. “Ashdod is a functioning port. It will be able to get us directly into Gaza and into its north.
“While the signs are good now that more openings are being provided, it needs to be sustained. We still have famine on our watch from the six months of not being able to send in any aid, and let me tell you what that means besides giving statistical numbers.
“When we come with our trucks, people jump on them. Not only that, they open the boxes, they take the food and eat it first before they take the rest to their families. Can you imagine how hungry they are?
“That is disastrous and so we need to be able to bring this down, to give confidence to people that food is coming on a daily basis so they also are not attacking our trucks. We need this to be sustained at a much larger scale. There are 2.2 million people in Gaza that need food.”
Fleischer said that private businesses such as bakeries must also be restored and reopened, as humanitarian agencies alone will not be able to sustain Gaza for the entirety of the conflict should it continue. WFP assistance has helped 16 to reopen.
“We are now restoring bakeries,” she said. “In the north, people haven’t eaten bread for a long time, and because we are able to go there currently, we are bringing fuel to bakeries as well as wheat, flour, yeast and sugar. So they’ve started operating again.
“We also have contacts with retail shops that we used before the war. Now we are working with them, we bring them our food and the parcels that we provide, and they distribute it, so they stay alive, they keep their workers, they open every day. So as soon as commercial food comes in again, they are ready.”
WFP has been touted as a potential replacement for the UN Relief and Works Agency as the primary aid agency working in Gaza after Israel raised allegations in January suggesting UNRWA staff had participated in the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7, leading several donor nations to suspend funding pending an investigation.
“We cannot replace UNRWA. That is very clear,” Fleischer said. “UNRWA does much more than bring food to people. We are distributing food in camps that are managed by UNRWA. It needs to stay. That is very clear.”
Gaza is not the only hunger hotspot in the region, nor the only one that has seen the provision of aid by WFP dwindle owing to funding constraints — the worst the agency has experienced in 60 years.
These budget cuts have raised concerns among refugee host countries such as Jordan and Lebanon about the continuation of assistance. “This can really impact stability and what it means for the region,” Fleischer said.
“Syria is no longer at the top of the list now. Two years ago it was. But then came the Ukraine war and now we have Gaza. Do you know how this translates in terms of the assistance we provide to Syrians? We are the safety net for them. They don’t get much subsidies.
“We went from supporting six million people every month with food to three, to now one million within seven months because of lack of funding. The situation is desperate. And now you also see malnutrition rates going up there.
“I can tell you in Syria, when we announced those cuts, we had weapons at our distribution points, people were so desperate. We also reduced up to 40 percent of aid to refugees in Lebanon.”
And it is not just displaced communities that the agency has to support. Fleischer said that the number of Lebanese citizens requiring aid had also risen dramatically due to the country’s grinding financial crisis.
Fleischer said that WFP has been able to work with the Lebanese government and the World Bank to gradually integrate those citizens to receive state welfare.
In the south, however, where Israel and Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia have traded fire along the shared border since the conflict began in Gaza, the situation is different.
“We have supported 62,000 people,” said Fleischer, referring to the communities displaced by the cross-border exchanges. “These are both Lebanese citizens and Syrian refugees who have been impacted by the tensions in the south of Lebanon.
“However, if it escalates, the UN and the humanitarian sector will not be able to handle it at this rate. It will exceed the funding and assistance capacity.”
Lebanese Forces leader Geagea voices concern over ‘undesirable’ escalation in south
- Expansion of war in Lebanon would complicate return of Israeli settlers to their homes, Hezbollah warns
- Samir Geagea-led meeting stresses that ‘weapons outside state institutions are a threat to Lebanese sovereignty’
BEIRUT: Lebanese Forces party leader Samir Geagea warned on Saturday that violent escalation in southern Lebanon could lead to an “undesirable situation.”
His remarks came amid the increase in clashes on the southern front, expanding a domestic rift set against Hezbollah’s support for Hamas in Gaza.
Hezbollah’s opponents accuse it of “usurping” the power to make peace and war from the Lebanese state.
Many are demanding the implementation of UN Resolution 1701, adopted during the July 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, which explicitly empowers the UN Interim Force in Lebanon and the Lebanese Army to maintain peace along the so-called Blue Line demarcating the border with Israel.
BACKGROUND
The border between Lebanon and Israel has seen near-daily exchanges of fire since the Israel- Hamas war in Gaza began nearly seven months ago.
Geagea was speaking at a meeting at the party’s headquarters in Maarab, which included MPs from the Lebanese Forces, independent politicians, and opposition figures.
The meeting concluded with a warning that “weapons outside state institutions are a threat to Lebanese sovereignty and a blatant attack on the security of the Lebanese people and must be immediately withdrawn.”
The participants called on the government to “enforce Resolution 1701 and immediately issue orders to deploy the Lebanese Army under the Litani Line in the south and on the entire border, enhance border control with Syria, and implement the agreement on the return of refugees to their country.”
Geagea condemned “the presence of a state within the state that confiscates decision-making and facilitates smuggling through illegal crossings.”
He pointed out that “a certain group in Lebanon holds onto power and refuses to consider any resolutions. The latest problem is the military operations in southern Lebanon, which began with a decision from Hezbollah alone.”
He asked: “How can Hezbollah call for internal dialogue on the presidency of the republic while avoiding talks with the Lebanese people about dragging them into the war?”
Geagea said that Hezbollah “claims that the military operations are aimed at supporting Gaza, but events in southern Lebanon have not helped Gaza in any way but rather has only caused devastation for Lebanon.”
He cautioned: “Things are escalating, and we cannot remain spectators to what is happening.”
Geagea pointed out that “the data indicates that if the Lebanese Army deploys to all the points where Hezbollah is present in southern Lebanon, the danger will end, so what is the government waiting for to take action? The people of the south are paying the price for the presence of an Iranian military arm on the borders of Israel.”
On Saturday, Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s deputy leader, warned that a ceasefire in the south would help Israel, adding that “the ceasefire initiative in southern Lebanon will not be viable if it does not begin with a ceasefire in Gaza.”
This came against the backdrop of fears that full-blown war with Israel may break out, and amid US and French diplomatic efforts to avoid escalation, with both Hezbollah and the Israeli military having violated the rules of engagement and expanded hostilities deep into each other’s territory.
Qassem addressed the Israeli minister of defense, Yoav Gallant, “who wants settlers to return to their homes in the north,” saying: “War cannot make the residents of the north return to their homes. It will drive them further away and may permanently prevent their return.”
He added: “Expanding the aggression against Lebanon complicates their lives further.”
Qassem said: “Hezbollah decided to respond to the Israeli aggression proportionally, ensuring that any expansion of the Israeli attacks will be met with an expanded response. This is a firm decision.”
Qassem addressed those opposing linking the Lebanese southern front to the Gaza Strip front, saying that Hezbollah’s support for the Gaza Strip “disrupted present and future Israeli military plans in Palestine and Lebanon.”
He added: “The advantages go beyond supporting Gaza and protecting Lebanon and include forming a real deterrent force able to face Israel and prevent it from overstepping the boundaries.”
Hezbollah also announced in a statement that it targeted “new positions of the Israeli soldiers west of the Shomera settlement on Saturday, causing direct hits.”
On Friday night it struck “the Haboushit site and the headquarters of the Hermon Brigade in the Maale Golani barracks with dozens of Katyusha rockets.”
The escalation came after an Israeli military drone targeted a car deep into western Bekaa, killing two Al-Fajr Forces commanders, identified as Musab Said Khalaf and Bilal Mohammed Khalaf.
The Israeli military claimed Musab Khalaf had activated numerous “terrorist activities against Israel from Lebanese territory toward Jabal Er Rouss area (Har Dov) and other areas recently, in cooperation with Hamas in Lebanon, and has coordinated and carried out terrorist attacks against Israel.”
It said that his elimination “aimed at striking the organization’s capabilities in carrying out terrorist attacks planned recently against the State of Israel on the northern border.”
The Israeli military also fired heavy artillery shells on Lebanese border towns, especially Kfarchouba and Shebaa in the Aarqoub area and on the outskirts of the town of Tayr Harfa.
These attacks resulted in the killing of Lebanese civilian Qassem Asaad and the destruction of some homes and property in Kfarchouba.
The Israeli military said warplanes hit “Hezbollah facilities in the Jabal Al-Rihane area and Kfarkela.”
Hezbollah announced the death of one of its members, Rafay Fayez Hassan, 50, from the town of Khiam, who was killed in the shelling on Kfarkela.
