THE HAGUE: The world’s chemical watchdog said Monday that it was “seriously concerned” by large gaps in Syria’s declaration about its chemical weapons stockpile, as large quantities of potentially banned warfare agents might be involved.
Syria agreed in 2013 to join the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, shortly after an alleged chemical gas attack killed more than 1,400 people near Damascus.
“Despite more than a decade of intensive work, the Syrian Arab Republic chemical weapons dossier still cannot be closed,” the watchdog’s director-general Fernando Arias told delegates at the OPCW’s annual meeting.
The Hague-based global watchdog has previously accused President Bashar Assad’s regime of continued attacks on civilians with chemical weapons during the Middle Eastern country’s brutal civil war.
“Since 2014, the (OPCW) Secretariat has reported a total of 26 outstanding issues of which seven have been fulfilled,” in relation to chemical weapon stockpiles in Syria, Arias said.
“The substance of the remaining 19 outstanding issues is of serious concern as it involves large quantities of potentially undeclared or unverified chemical warfare agents and chemical munitions,” he told delegates.
Syria’s OPCW voting rights were suspended in 2021, an unprecedented rebuke, following poison gas attacks on civilians in 2017.
Last year the watchdog blamed Syria for a 2018 chlorine attack that killed 43 people, in a long-awaited report on a case that sparked tensions between Damascus and the West.
Damascus has denied the allegations and insisted it has handed over its stockpiles.
Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011 after the government’s repression of peaceful demonstrations escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in foreign powers and global jihadists.
The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.
Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog
https://arab.news/9c5zr
Syria’s ‘large quantities’ of toxic arms serious concern: watchdog
- The war has killed more than half a million people, displaced millions, and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry
Iraq drone attacks wound 5 Kurdish security personnel
IRBIL: Five Iraqi Kurdish security personnel were wounded in two drone attacks in northern Iraq in less than 48 hours, authorities in the autonomous Kurdistan region said on Tuesday.
Authorities blamed a “terrorist group” for the separate attacks in a region that has seen repeated clashes between Turkish forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
“A terrorist group launched two separate drone attacks yesterday (Monday) and this morning targeting peshmerga bases” in Dohuk province, the region’s security council said. The attacks wounded five peshmerga, it added.
Kamran Othman of the US-based Community Peacemakers Teams, who monitor Turkish operations in Iraqi Kurdistan, confirmed the attacks but was unable to identify the perpetrators.
He added that the peshmerga were establishing a new post in a “sensitive area” that has long been the site of tension between the PKK and Turkish forces. There was no immediate claim for the attacks, which came weeks after the PKK announced a ceasefire with Turkiye in response to their jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan’s historic call to the group to dissolve and disarm.
Blacklisted as a “terrorist group” by the EU and the US, the PKK has fought the Turkish state for most of the past four decades.
US hit more than 1,000 targets in Yemen since mid-March
- Since March 15, “USCENTCOM strikes have hit over 1,000 targets, killing Houthi fighters and leaders...,” Parnell said
- CENTCOM on Sunday had put the figure at more than 800 targets
WASHINGTON: US forces have struck more than 1,000 targets in Yemen since Washington launched the latest round of its air campaign against the Houthi militants in mid-March, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
The Houthis began targeting shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in late 2023 and the United States responded with strikes against them starting early the following year.
Since March 15, “USCENTCOM strikes have hit over 1,000 targets, killing Houthi fighters and leaders... and degrading their capabilities,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement, referring to the military command responsible for the Middle East.
CENTCOM on Sunday had put the figure at more than 800 targets hit since mid-March, saying hundreds of Houthi fighters had been killed as a result.
Hours after that announcement, Houthi-controlled media said US strikes had hit a migrant detention center in the city of Saada, killing at least 68 people, while a United Nations spokesperson later said preliminary information indicated that those killed were migrants.
A US defense official said the military is looking into reports of civilian casualties resulting from its strikes in Yemen.
Attacks by the Iran-backed Houthis have prevented ships from passing through the Suez Canal — a vital route that normally carries about 12 percent of the world’s shipping traffic.
The militants say they are targeting shipping in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza, which has been devastated by Israel’s military after a shock Hamas attack in October 2023.
Iran fire contained after blast at key port; 70 killed
TEHRAN: Firefighters have brought under control a blaze at Iran’s main port, following a deadly explosion blamed on negligence, authorities said.
The explosion, heard dozens of kilometers away, hit a dock at the southern port of Shahid Rajaee on Saturday.
At least 70 people were killed and more than 1,000 others suffered injuries in the blast and ensuing fire, which also caused extensive damage, state media reported.
Red Crescent official Mokhtar Salahshour told the channel that the fire had been “contained” and a clean-up was underway.
State television aired live footage on Tuesday showing thick smoke rising from stacked containers.
Iran’s ILNA news agency quoted Hossein Zafari, spokesman for the country’s crisis management organization, as saying the situation had improved significantly since Monday.
However, “the operation and complete extinguishing process may take around 15 to 20 days,” the agency reported.
Iran’s customs authority said port operations had returned to normal, according to the IRNA news agency.
The port of Shahid Rajaee lies near the major coastal city of Bandar Abbas on the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway through which one-fifth of global oil output passes.
Hormozgan provincial governor Mohammad Ashouri ruled out sabotage.
“The set of hypotheses and investigations carried out during the process indicated that the sabotage theory lacks basis or relevance,” he told state television.
The port’s customs office said the blast may have started in a depot storing hazardous and chemical materials.
Interior Minister Eskandar Momeni said there were “shortcomings, including noncompliance with safety precautions and negligence.”
Gaza’s vital community kitchens may soon shut, halt free meals
- Malnutrition cases rising, hitting children, pregnant women as critical lifeline faces threat
CAIRO/GAZA/GENEVA: It took five hours of queuing at a community kitchen in Gaza’s Nuseirat district for displaced grandmother Um Mohammad Al-Talalqa to get one meal to feed her hungry children and grandchildren.
But finding food may be about to get even tougher: Gaza’s community kitchens — lifelines for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians after 18 months of war — may soon have no more meals to provide.
Multiple aid groups said that dozens of local community kitchens risk closing down, potentially within days, unless aid is allowed into Gaza, removing the last consistent source of meals for most of the 2.3 million population.
“We are suffering from famine, real famine,” said Talalqa, whose house in the Gaza town of Mughraqa was destroyed by Israel. “I have not eaten anything since this morning.”
At the Al-Salam Oriental Food community kitchen in Gaza City, Salah Abu Haseera offers what he fears could be one of the last meals for the 20,000 people he and his colleagues serve daily.
“We face huge challenges in keeping going. We may go out of operation within a week, or maybe less,” Abu Haseera told Reuters by phone from Gaza.
Since March 2, Israel has completely cut off all supplies to the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip, and food stockpiled during a ceasefire at the start of the year has all but run out. It is the longest such closure the Gaza Strip has ever faced.
“The community kitchens, which the population in Gaza are relying more on, because there are no other ways to get food, are at a very big risk to shut down,” Juliette Touma, spokesperson for the UN Palestinian refugee agency, UNRWA, said.
About 10,000 cases of acute malnutrition among children have been identified across Gaza, including 1,600 cases of severe acute malnutrition, since the start of 2025, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report.
The Gaza Health Ministry said at least 60,000 children were now showing symptoms of malnutrition.
“We are seeing pediatric cases with moderate or severe acute malnutrition, and we are seeing also pregnant, lactating women that have difficulties breastfeeding; they themselves are malnourished or have a very insufficient calorie intake,” Julie Faucon, Medical Coordinator at Doctors Without Borders, said.
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said famine is no longer a looming threat and is becoming a reality.
Fifty-two people have died due to hunger and malnutrition, including 50 children, it added.
Abu Haseera said food is being sold at “fictional prices.” Prices have risen 1,400 percent compared to during the ceasefire, the World Food Programme said, adding that its stocks were now depleted.
Israel has previously denied that Gaza is facing a hunger crisis and says there is still enough aid to sustain the enclave’s population, but it has not made clear when and how aid will be resumed.
Arab League chief says Baghdad summit will bolster Arab solidarity, address Gaza crisis
- Ahmed Aboul-Gheit met with crown prince of Kuwait at Bayan Palace
LONDON: Kuwait’s Crown Prince Sheikh Sabah Khaled Al-Hamad Al-Sabah received Ahmed Aboul-Gheit, the secretary-general of the Arab League, at Bayan Palace.
Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Abdullah Al-Yahya, permanent representative of the Arab League, Talal Al-Mutairi, and other senior officials, attended the meeting.
Aboul-Gheit is visiting Kuwait, where he delivered a lecture at the Saud Al-Nasser Al-Sabah Kuwait Diplomatic Institute on Tuesday about the challenges of maintaining stability in the Arab region.
He stressed the significance of the upcoming Arab League summit in Baghdad next month to address challenges in the region, most importantly the Israeli war in Gaza, the KUNA agency reported.
He said that the Baghdad summit would be a platform to strengthen Arab solidarity and to address development in Gaza, Syria, Yemen, and Libya. He said assistant secretary-general Hossam Zaki would visit Baghdad to assess the arrangements for the Arab League summit, KUNA reported.
Aboul-Gheit said the Arab League is pursuing diplomatic efforts to promote the two-state solution, an issue expected to be discussed at a conference at the UN in June as part of a Saudi-French initiative aimed at drumming up support for the establishment of a Palestinian state.
