BAGHDAD: Iraqi intelligence services are questioning 47 French nationals, recently transferred from Syrian Kurdish custody, over their alleged involvement in crimes committed in Iraq by the Daesh group, officials said Friday.
“Iraq received 47 French nationals over a month ago from the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and they are currently under investigation,” an Iraqi security official told AFP on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to brief the media.
“They belong to Daesh,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.
The official said the security services also had documentary evidence and testimonies from Iraqi suspects that implicated the French nationals in “crimes against Iraqis.”
“They will be tried under Iraqi law,” the official said.
Iraq’s National Intelligence Service confirmed that the French nationals would face trial in Iraq.
It said the suspects were “wanted by the Iraqi judiciary for their involvement in terrorist crimes committed in Iraq” after the group captured swathes of the country in 2014.
Some of them were involved “in activities that threatened Iraqi national security from outside the country,” it added.
Iraqi courts have handed down hundreds of death sentences and life prison terms to people convicted of “terrorism” in trials some human rights groups have denounced as rushed.
Iraqi courts sentenced 11 French nationals to death in 2019, all of whom remain on death row.
French Daesh suspects transferred from Syria to be tried in Iraq
https://arab.news/njg9s
French Daesh suspects transferred from Syria to be tried in Iraq
- Security services also had documentary evidence and testimonies from Iraqi suspects
- “They will be tried under Iraqi law,” the official said
Israeli military says it struck Hezbollah sites in southern Lebanon
- Lebanon’s state news agency, NNA, reported that Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes targeting several places in the south
BEIRUT: The Israeli military said on Tuesday that it struck infrastructure belonging to Hezbollah in several areas in southern Lebanon, including what it described as a training compound used by the armed group’s Radwan forces.
Military structures and a launch site belonging to Hezbollah were also hit in the attacks, the military added in a statement.
The strikes come less than a week after Israel and Lebanon both sent civilian envoys to a military committee monitoring their ceasefire, a step toward a months-old US demand that the two countries broaden talks in line with President Donald Trump’s Middle East peace agenda.
Israel and Lebanon agreed to a US-brokered ceasefire in 2024 that ended more than a year of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah. Since then, they have traded accusations over violations.
Lebanon’s state news agency, NNA, reported that Israeli warplanes carried out a series of airstrikes targeting several places in the south.
