GENEVA: Moscow has participated in war crimes connected with deadly air strikes in Syria, UN investigators said Monday, warning that Ankara could also be responsible for similar crimes against Kurds there.
The charges come as tensions soar between Turkey and Russian-backed Syrian forces following escalating clashes in the last rebel stronghold of Idlib, but predates the latest unrest.
The UN Commission of Inquiry on the rights situation in Syria said in its latest report that it had evidence that Russian planes participated in two air strikes, in Idlib and in rural Damascus last July and August, which killed more than 60 people.
The report, which covers the period from July 2019 to January 10 this year, said there was evidence to prove Russian planes took part in both attacks, and that since the attacks were not directed at military objectives they amounted to a “war crime.”
The investigators also said Turkey might be held criminally liable for serious violations by its allies, the Syrian National Army rebel fighters.
Turkish troops and their Syrian proxies overran a swathe of northern Syria last October, after a military campaign against Kurdish forces resulted in tens of thousands fleeing their homes.
The UN investigators referred to allegations that Ankara-backed Syrian rebels had carried out executions, home confiscations and looting.
They highlighted in particular the case of Hevrin Khalaf, the 35-year-old leader of the Future Syria Party, who on October 12 was pulled from her car and executed along with her driver.
They had been traveling from Qamishli when members of the Syrian National Army’s Brigade 123 pulled Khalaf from the car by her hair and mutilated her body before the executions.
The Commission said there were “reasonable grounds” to believe that the Syrian National Army fighters committed several war crimes, including “murder.”
If it could be shown they had acted under “the effective command and control of Turkish forces” it could entail the “criminal responsibility for such commanders who knew or should have known about the crimes,” it warned.
While the investigators acknowledged they had not uncovered evidence the Turkish forces gave orders leading to the violations, the report pointed out that liability could also fall on those who “failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent or repress their commission.”
The investigators also referred to an air strike on a civilian convoy the same day as the Khalaf’s murder and in the same region that killed 11 people and wounded 74.
And they highlighted the apparent targeting of non-military sites such as strikes near the Aluk water station that cut the water supply to 460,000 people.
Ankara has denied involvement, but the commission urged “Turkish authorities to launch (their) own investigations and make the findings public.”
The UN’s Syria commission, set up in 2011 shortly after the civil war began, has repeatedly accused the various sides of war crimes and in some cases crimes against humanity. Monday’s report was the 19th to date.
It also indicated a range of violations by Damascus-backed forces, including targeting civilian sites such as schools and medical facilities in western Syria.
The investigators expressed alarm at the growing humanitarian tragedy at Syria’s border with Turkey, where they said some 1.5 million people displaced by violence around Idlib had become stranded in desperate conditions.
“It is scandalous that the international community has not been able ... to deal with the situation,” commission chair Paulo Pinheiro told reporters.
“You have children in open air with their families, without a tent, without shelter, without blankets,” he said, lamenting that “children are freezing to death.”
In nearly nine years of conflict, more than 380,000 people have been killed and millions have been displaced from their homes.
UN probe highlights Russia, Turkey roles in Syria ‘war crimes’
https://arab.news/2ryhb
UN probe highlights Russia, Turkey roles in Syria ‘war crimes’
- The UN Commission of Inquiry on the rights situation in Syria said in its latest report that it had evidence that Russian planes participated in two air strikes
- The investigators also said Turkey might be held criminally liable for serious violations by its allies, the Syrian National Army rebel fighters
Poland raids Russian spy network targeting EU
- The services said their operations were linked to charges filed earlier this year against a Polish citizen suspected of spying for Russia
- The Internal Security Agency is conducting activities as part of an investigation into espionage activities for Russia directed against European Union countries and institutions
WARSAW: Polish security services said Thursday they had raided a Russian spy network in cooperation with Czech intelligence, which a day earlier had busted a major Russian propaganda network.
The services said their operations were linked to charges filed earlier this year against a Polish citizen suspected of spying for Russia.
“The Internal Security Agency is conducting activities as part of an investigation into espionage activities for Russia directed against European Union countries and institutions,” agency spokesman Jacek Dobrzynski said on social media.
He added in a statement that the agency had carried out raids in the capital Warsaw and the southern city of Tychy and interrogations in connection with the case.
He said the spy network’s “goal was to implement the Kremlin’s foreign policy objectives, including weakening Poland’s position on the world stage, discrediting Ukraine as well as the image of EU organs.”
“The operations carried out are the result of the agency’s international cooperation with a number of European services, coordinated in particular with Czech partners.”
Dobrzynski added that the security agency’s operations began from an investigation that in January resulted in charges against a Polish citizen suspected of Russian espionage.
“The man, embedded in Polish and EU parliament circles, carried out tasks commissioned and financed by colleagues from Russian intelligence,” he said in the statement.
These tasks notably included “propaganda activity, disinformation as well as political provocation. Their objective was to build Russian spheres of influence in Europe.”
The security agency has not revealed the man’s identity.
The Czech Republic announced on Wednesday that it had busted a Moscow-financed network that spread Russian propaganda and wielded influence across Europe, including in the European Parliament.
Prague said the group used the Prague-based Voice of Europe news site to spread information seeking to discourage the European Union from sending aid to Ukraine, which has been battling a Russian invasion since February 2022.
The Czech government has added the Voice of Europe and two pro-Kremlin Ukrainian politicians — Viktor Medvedchuk and Artem Marchevsky — to its sanctions list in relation to the network’s activities.
The Denik N daily said the news site had published statements by politicians demanding the EU halt aid to Ukraine.
Some European politicians cooperating with the news site were paid from Russian funds that in some cases also covered their 2024 EU election campaign, the daily adds.
The payments targeted politicians from Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands and Poland, Denik N said, citing a Czech foreign ministry source.
Asked about the network, a spokeswoman for the German interior ministry said “this case is another example of Russia’s extensive and wide-ranging influence activities.”
“The Federal Republic of Germany also remains an important target of Russian influence operations,” she told AFP.
“The German security authorities will continue to use all available means and in cooperation with their foreign partners to investigate such influence operations and take measures to prevent them.”
Moscow attack death toll rises to 143: authorities
- By Wednesday afternoon, 80 people injured in the attack, including six children, remained in hospital
- The previous day that many people in shock had initially not returned to the hospital for treatment
MOSCOW: The death toll from the attack on a Moscow concert hall claimed by Islamic extremists rose on Wednesday to 143, Russian authorities said.
Authorities listed the names of the dead on the Russian ministry for civil defense and emergency situations five days after last Friday’s attack, the deadliest claimed to date by Daesh on European soil and the worst in Russia in two decades.
By Wednesday afternoon, 80 people injured in the attack, including six children, remained in hospital, TASS news agency quoted Russian Health Minister Mikhail Murashko as saying.
An anonymous medical source told TASS 205 people had received outpatient care.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Tatiana Golikova told reporters the previous day that many people in shock had initially not returned to the hospital for treatment.
On Friday, gunmen opened fire at the Crocus City concert hall near Moscow, also setting fire to the venue.
Four attack suspects — all from Tajikistan according to Russian state media — are under arrest along with several suspected accomplices.
A Moscow court has ordered the men be held in pre-trial detention until May 22 — a date likely to be extended until a full trial.
Russia said Saturday it had arrested 11 people in connection with the attack. There has been no information on the other seven.
The attack was swiftly claimed by Daesh although Moscow has repeated its initial line of a link to Ukraine.
Kyiv rejects any involvement.
Russia has for some years been a target of Daesh owing to its role in suppressing unrest in regions with a substantial Muslim majority as well as its support for the regime in Syria’s civil war.
On Monday, three days after the attack, President Vladimir Putin admitted for the first time that the presumed gunmen were radical Islamists but continued to insist on a link to Ukraine, saying the perpetrators were headed there when they were caught some 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the border.
French parliament condemns 1961 Paris massacre of Algerians
- In recent years France has made a series of efforts to come to terms with its colonial past in Algeria
- The text of the resolution, which is largely symbolic, stressed the crackdown took place “under the authority of police prefect Maurice Papon”
PARIS: The French parliament’s lower house on Thursday approved a resolution condemning as “bloody and murderous repression” the killing by Paris police of dozens of Algerians in a crackdown on a 1961 protest to support Algerian independence.
In recent years France has made a series of efforts to come to terms with its colonial past in Algeria.
Dozens of peaceful demonstrators died during a crackdown by Paris police on a protest by Algerians in 1961. The scale of the massacre was covered up for decades by French authorities before President Emmanuel Macron condemned it as “inexcusable” in 2021.
The text of the resolution, which is largely symbolic, stressed the crackdown took place “under the authority of police prefect Maurice Papon” and also called for the official commemoration of the massacre.
The bill, put forward by Greens lawmaker Sabrina Sebaihi and ruling Renaissance party MP Julie Delpech, was approved by 67 lawmakers, mainly representatives of the left and Macron’s party.
Eleven voted against, all members of the far-right National Rally party.
Sebaihi said the vote represented the “first step” toward the “recognition of this colonial crime, the recognition of this state crime.”
The term “state crime” however does not appear in the text of the resolution, which was jointly drafted by Macron’s party and the Elysee Palace. The subject remains highly sensitive both in France and Algeria.
The Paris police chief at the time, Papon, was in the 1980s revealed to have been a collaborator with the occupying Nazis in World War II and complicit in the deportation of Jews. He was convicted of crimes against humanity but later released.
On the 60th anniversary of the bloodshed in 2021, Macron acknowledged that several dozen protesters had been killed, “their bodies thrown into the River Seine.”
The precise number of victims has never been made clear and some activists fear several hundred could have been killed.
“Let us spare a thought here today for these victims and their families, who have been hit hard by the spiral of violence,” Dominique Faure, the minister for local and regional authorities, said on Thursday.
She noted that efforts had been made in the past to recognize the massacre.
In 2012, then president Francois Hollande paid “tribute to the victims” of a “bloody crackdown” on the men and women demonstrating for “the right to independence.”
The rally was called in the final year of France’s increasingly violent attempt to retain Algeria as a north African colony, and in the middle of a bombing campaign targeting mainland France by pro-independence militants.
However, Faure expressed reservations about establishing a special day to commemorate the massacre, pointing out that three dates already existed to “commemorate what happened during the Algerian war.”
“Much remains to be done to write this history, but in my opinion this is the only way to build a sincere and lasting reconciliation,” she said.
“I think it is important to let history do the work before considering a new day of commemoration specifically for the victims of October 17, 1961.”
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is set to travel to France for a state visit, scheduled for late September or early October, according to the Elysee.
However, National Rally lawmaker Frank Giletti criticized “excessive repentance” based on “lies.”
“By proposing this resolution, you are following in the footsteps of Emmanuel Macron, who has never stopped kneeling before the Algerian government, and who is working to mortify his own country through continuous repentance that has become unbearable,” he said.
France has made several attempts over the years to heal the wounds with Algeria, but it refuses to “apologize or repent” for the 132 years of often brutal rule that ended in 1962 after a devastating eight-year war.
French historians say half a million civilians and combatants died during the war for independence, 400,000 of them Algerian. The Algerian authorities say 1.5 million were killed.
France blocks fake Ukraine war recruitment website
- The site, which is now inaccessible, said 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine,” with immigrants given priority
- A link to the site — that resembled the French army’s genuine recruitment portal — had been posted on X, the French defense ministry said
PARIS: French authorities have uncovered a website containing a fake recruitment drive for French volunteers to join the war in Ukraine, the defense ministry said on Thursday.
The site has now been taken down by French services, a government source, who asked not to be named, told AFP without giving further details on the nature of the operation.
The site, which is now inaccessible, said 200,000 French people were invited to “enlist in Ukraine,” with immigrants given priority.
A link to the site — that resembled the French army’s genuine recruitment portal — had been posted on X, formerly Twitter, the French defense ministry said.
“The site is a fake government site,” the ministry said, also on X, “and has been reposted by malevolent accounts as part of a disinformation campaign.”
The ministry did not name any suspects in the website spoof, but a government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the site bore “the hallmarks of a Russian or pro-Russian effort as part of a disinformation campaign claiming that the French army is preparing to send troops to Ukraine.”
French President Emmanuel Macron angered the Russian leadership last month by hardening his tone on the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, refusing to rule out sending ground troops and insisting Europe had to do all that was needed for a Russian defeat.
Similar recent examples of disinformation posts included pictures of French army convoys wrongly presented as moving toward the Ukrainian border, the official said.
The fake website invited potential recruits to contact “unit commander Paul” for information about joining.
The defense ministry and government cyber units are investigating, ministry staff told AFP.
The French government has recently stepped up efforts to denounce and fight what it says are Russian disinformation and destabilization campaigns aimed at undermining French public support for Ukraine in its war against Russia.
Indonesian medics in Gaza ‘shocked’ by scale of humanitarian catastrophe
- Team of 11 Indonesian doctors, surgical nurses are part of emergency medical team in Gaza
- Medics say they ‘won’t be able to forget’ views of death and destruction
JAKARTA: Indonesian medics who are on an emergency mission in Rafah say they are shocked at the scale of human catastrophe in Gaza, as they witness the worst scenes of suffering they have ever seen.
A team of 11 Indonesian doctors and surgical nurses organized by the Jakarta-based Medical Emergency Rescue Committee entered Gaza last week as part of an emergency deployment led by the World Health Organization.
They are now working at a number of health facilities in Rafah, a city on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip where over a million Palestinians have sought refuge and Israel’s deadly bombings have increased.
“They are certainly shocked. These are medics who usually work in ordinary settings and are suddenly thrown into such heartbreaking scenes,” Sarbini Abdul Murad, chairman of MER-C’s executive committee, told Arab News on Thursday.
In Gaza, the medical volunteers not only witness the death and injury from Israeli attacks but also famine.
“They see the extent of people fighting to get food, or they see children fighting over scraps of meals to give to their family,” Murad said. “Their consciences are being sliced open as they bear witness to these scenes that they won’t be able to forget in their lives.”
Israeli attacks, which began in October, have killed more than 32,500 Palestinians and wounded 74,000 others, while over 1 million people in Gaza are at risk of imminent famine as Israel continues to block aid to the besieged strip.
The team of Indonesian medics is part of a larger emergency medical deployment led by the WHO and composed of members from different countries. It includes orthopedic physicians and surgical nurses to help victims of Israeli attacks who suffer injuries from bombings, missile attacks and gunshots.
They have been struggling with the limited amount of medicines and surgical equipment in the besieged territory.
“The medical sector in Gaza is extremely overwhelmed because of the number of victims and the fact that the number of doctors and health services available are inadequate,” Murad said.
“They handle war victims with traumatic burn injuries, and many patients have to undergo amputation as well.”
Israel has continued to bomb Gaza and block crucial humanitarian aid, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling on Monday for an immediate ceasefire in the strip during Ramadan.
A day after the council’s ceasefire resolution was passed, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said that there are reasonable grounds to believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.