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ANKARA: Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s announcement of the death of Daesh’s leader last week highlights Turkiye’s leading role in regional security and boosts his claims to be tough on terrorists in the days before crunch elections, analysts have said.
The Turkish president said on April 30 that agents from the MIT security agency had killed Abu Hussein Al-Qurayshi in Syria the previous day, but gave no further details. Reuters reported local and security sources as saying that he died in a raid in the northern town of Jandaris, which is controlled by Turkiye-backed rebel groups.
Erdogan said he was committed to “continue our fight against terrorist organizations without discrimination.”
The previous leader of Daesh, Abu Ibrahim Al-Qurayshi, died in February last year in a US raid on his hideout in northern Syria. His predecessor Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi was killed near Idlib in October 2019 in another US raid.
Abu Hussein Al-Qurayshi was appointed as Daesh leader in November 2022.
“The operational tempo of US strikes against Daesh leadership means that we barely even know who these individuals are, we only know their nom de guerre,” Colin P. Clarke, director of research at the Soufan Group, told Arab News.
“The last few ISIS (Daesh) caliphs have almost no media footprint because they were so busy trying to stay alive.”
The Turks, similarly, are “now able to track these Daesh leaders closely, and take action, so Daesh in Syria is reeling from repeated targeted assassinations against its upper echelon of leadership,” he said.
Clarke said that he expected these operations were being timed for Erdogan’s maximum election benefit.
“He has always presented himself as a strong figure, and he’s working to make that contrast in this election with (opposition leader Kemal) Kilicdaroglu,” he said.
“The strongman image is something Erdogan has cultivated over his time in office, so touting high-level counterterrorism operations will help him continue to make that case.”
MIT previously caught Daesh fundraiser Kasim Guler, also named Abu Usama al-Turki, while trying to sneak into Turkiye in June 2021 with weapons and explosives.
He had been allegedly planning to assassinate politicians, including Kilicdaroglu.
MIT also detained several high-profile Daesh figures who had directed several suicide attacks in Turkiye.
Turkiye designated Daesh as a terror group in 2013. It has launched a string of outrages since then, including an October 2015 suicide attack on a peace march in Ankara that killed 109 people.
Turkish security forces have prosecuted an intense crackdown on the group in the months leading up to the country’s May 14 elections. Nine foreign nationals were arrested in an anti-Daesh operation in Ankara last week, taking to 35 the total number arrested inside Turkey since the start of the year.
Nihat Ali Ozcan, a security analyst at the Ankara-based think tank TEPAV, said the operation against the Daesh leader last month in Syria was also a message for the West,
“It gives the message that Turkiye has assumed an active role in the fight against all radical terror groups,” he told Arab News.
“Turkiye is still part of this regional counter-terror effort and intends to underline the fact that it does not only target the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) but also Daesh,” Ozcan said.
In the meantime, Turkish forces continue their operation against the PKK in northern Iraq with airstrikes against hideouts.
GENEVA: More than 800,000 people may flee Sudan as a result of fighting between military factions, including many who had already come there as refugees, a UN official said on Monday.
“Without a quick resolution of this crisis we will continue to see more people forced to flee in search of safety and basic assistance,” Raouf Mazou told a member state briefing in Geneva.
“In consultation with all concerned governments and partners we’ve arrived at a planning figure of 815,000 people that may flee into the seven neighboring countries.”
The estimate includes around 580,000 Sudanese, he said, with the others existing refugees from South Sudan and elsewhere.
So far, he said some 73,000 people have already fled to Sudan’s seven neighbors: South Sudan, Chad, Egypt, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Central African Republic and Libya.
At the same briefing, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator in Sudan warned that the humanitarian crisis was turning into a “full blown catastrophe” and that the risk of spillover into neighboring countries was worrying.
“It has been more than two weeks of devastating fighting in Sudan, a conflict that is turning Sudan humanitarian crisis into a full blown catastrophe,” Abdou Dieng, resident and humanitarian coordinator in the country, said via video link.
RIYADH: US special envoy for Yemen Tim Lenderking will visit Saudi Arabia and Oman to advance ongoing efforts to secure a new agreement and launch a comprehensive peace process in the war-torn country.
During his Gulf tour, Lenderking will meet with Saudi, Yemeni, Omani, and international partners to discuss their coordinated efforts to further ongoing peace talks.
“The US is working closely with the UN, Saudi Arabia, Oman, and other partners to build on the UN-mediated truce, which has delivered the longest period of calm since the war began, to support an inclusive, Yemeni-led political process that permits Yemenis to shape a brighter future for their country,” the State Department said.
A two-month truce was first agreed in Yemen in April 2022 and was renewed several times after that. It is “broadly holding” a year later, according to the UN envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg.
LONDON: Leading Palestinian activist Mohammed El-Kurd has lambasted what he regards as the mainstream media’s biased coverage in favor of the foregrounding of pro-Israel “talking points” — and called for reporting that centers the voices, experiences and agency of Palestine’s citizens.
El-Kurd made the comments during a live discussion held on April 24 in London titled “Against Erasure: Why Palestinian Voices Must Finally Take Centre Stage,” attended by journalists and campaigners.
During the discussion, attended by Arab News, El-Kurd explored the challenges of what he considers distorted and hostile coverage, the role of art, literature and other media in the struggle for Palestinian liberation, and finding ways of connecting Palestinian realities with Western audiences.
The award-winning poet is best known for being one of the leading voices of the #SaveSheikhJarrah movement. In 2021, he was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by TIME Magazine alongside his sister Muna.
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The event, hosted by independent media platform Palestine Deep Dive and publisher Haymarket Books, took place against the backdrop of his recent viral BBC interview in which he criticised a presenter for his reporting of Israeli police raids on Al-Aqsa Mosque. He went on to chastise fellow news commentator Peter Ricketts, a former British diplomat, for his “clear lack of expertise” on Palestine, stating: “I’m amazed by how far removed you are from the matter.”
“When you turn the question on its head, when you correct the presenter, you are changing the power dynamic in the interview itself. You are having the observer, the viewer, question the integrity of that media platform and thus give you more authority on the subject,” El-Kurd said on stage in conversation with The New Arab opinion editor Malia Bouattia.
El-Kurd said that the dehumanization of Palestinians has become normalized, particularly after the First Intifada and that they have been “depicted as terrorists.” Therefore, he argued, advocates navigating through the landscape of mainstream media are tasked with additional hurdles in order for their voices to be heard.
“We have the truth on our side, but the truth is not enough. Those of us who are advocates, who go on TV, must acquire a certain kind of political education,” he said.
“It is not enough to be just a subject of violence, it’s not enough to just have the bruises. You must also be able to be compelling,” he added.
Explaining his uncompromising approach in his BBC interview, pushing back against pro-Israeli talking points, El-Kurd said: “You should not care what the interviewer is asking. You have a talking point to deliver. You have a narrative to deliver, so you deliver it.”
Equally, El-Kurd recognized that his notoriety made him an exceptional case where a Palestinian is being given a mainstream platform, but that these news outlets are largely sidelining Palestinians in a conversation in which they are central.
However, he believed that large grassroots movements were still capable of tackling biased media narratives in order to evoke change.
“I think about the 2021 campaign for Sheikh Jarrah and the fact that it was mostly successful in halting the expulsion orders against our families (and it) was the fact that it was completely volunteer-led. And it was hundreds of thousands around the world that were participating in it, that were taking the time out of their day to protest, to tweet, to divest, to create work in their cities.”
According to Palestine Deep Dive, of the 2,490 opinion pieces about Palestinians published by the New York Times between 1970 and 2019, only 46 were written by Palestinians, less than 2 percent.
Like many other pro-Palestine rights activists, El-Kurd also argued that equating criticism of Israel with antisemitism has been used to silence a discussion about Palestinian suffering.
He found that even progressive media outlets in the UK or US “often engage in this qualification policy, where they can only speak about Palestine if they spend 15 minutes denouncing all kinds of bigotry and racism as if Palestine is inherently tied to a certain bigotry.”
Recent years have witnessed several people accused of antisemitism being threatened and marginalized, from German courts ruling Deutsche Welle’s firing of journalist Maram Salem was unlawful to courts in the country overturning a ban on Roger Water’s Frankfurt concert over antisemitism concerns.
Despite this, El-Kurd said he believed people must run the risk of sacrifice, noting: “Across history, any opposition to any injustice has not been met with applause initially.”
CAIRO: Sudan’s warring generals have agreed to send representatives for negotiations, potentially in Saudi Arabia, the United Nations’ top official in the country told The Associated Press on Monday, even as the two sides clashed in the capital despite another three-day extension of a fragile cease-fire.
The talks would initially focus on establishing a “stable and reliable” cease-fire monitored by “national and international” observers, Volker Perthes said. A string of temporary truces over the past week has de-escalated fighting only in some areas, while in others, fierce battles have continued to drive civilians from their homes and push the country into a humanitarian crisis.
Perthes cautioned that logistics for talks were still being worked out. So far, only the military has announced it is prepared to join negotiations, with no public word from its opponent, the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. Any talks would be the first major sign of progress since fighting erupted on April 15 between the army, led by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, led by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. Around 530 people, including civilians and combatants, have been killed since, with another 4,500 wounded, the Sudanese Health Ministry said.
The United States, meanwhile, conducted its first evacuation of American civilians from Sudan. Watched over by US military drones, a group of Americans made the perilous journey by road from the capital, Khartoum, to the Red Sea city of Port Sudan. On Monday, a US Navy fast transport ship took 308 evacuees from Port Sudan to the Saudi port of Jeddah, according to Saudi officials.
Explosions and gunfire echoed in parts of Khartoum and its neighboring city, Omdurman, on Monday, residents said. The two sides announced late Sunday they would abide by a 72-hour extension of their nominal cease-fire of the past week. The United States and Saudi Arabia have led a concerted international campaign to get the general to stop fighting, then engage in deeper negotiations to resolve the crisis.
Speaking from Port Sudan, the UN envoy Perthes said they still face daunting challenges in getting the two sides to abide by the truce.
“It’s still important to connect both sides and have both sides commit to a cease fire so that it is clear that fighting and taking action and moving forward and trying to gain ground is actually a violation of the cease-fire,” he said. One possibility was to establish a mechanism to monitor a cease-fire that includes Sudanese and foreign observers, “but that has to be negotiated,” he said.
Talks on entrenching the cease-fire could take place in either Saudi Arabia or South Sudan, he said, adding that the former may be easier logistically since it has close ties to both sides.
But even talks in Saudi Arabia has challenges, he said, since each side needs safe passage through territory of the other to reach talks. “That is very difficult in a situation where there is a lack of trust,” he said.
The battle between the generals for control has plunged Sudan into chaos.
Tens of thousands of Sudanese fled the fighting, especially in Khartoum and Omdurman. Many headed to the norther borders with Egypt or to Port Sudan. Foreign governments also evacuated their citizens from Sudan.
Many fear the fighting could spiral further, dragging in others in a country where multiple armed groups exist and have fought several civil wars over the past decade.
“There is a risk, that if this continues, that in the shadow of this war between two militaries, other forces, tribal forces, political forces are being mobilized and would take sides in an opportunistic way,” Perthes said.
AMMAN: Regional leaders met in Jordan Monday to discuss Syria’s return to the Arab fold and a Jordanian proposal to reach a “political solution” to the Syrian conflict.
The talks, attended by the top diplomats of Jordan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Egypt, kicked off with a meeting between Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad, followed by a meeting of all the ministers.
A Jordanian foreign ministry spokesman said the meeting came as a follow-up to talks with the Arab Gulf countries, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt that were held in Saudi Arabia last month. The spokesman added that those countries aimed to build on their contacts with the Syrian government and discuss a “Jordanian initiative to reach a political solution to the Syrian crisis.”
Syria was ostracized by Arab governments over President Bashar Assad’s brutal crackdown on protesters in a 2011 uprising that descended into civil war. However, in recent years, as Assad consolidated control over most of the country, Syria’s neighbors have begun to take steps toward rapprochement.
The overtures picked up pace after a deadly Feb. 6 earthquake in Turkiye and Syria, and the Chinese-brokered reestablishment of ties between Saudi Arabia and Iran, which had backed opposing sides in the conflict.
Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan visited Damascus last month for the first time since the kingdom cut ties with Syria more than a decade ago.