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AMMAN: The Jordanian army said on Friday that units on the country’s eastern border shot down a drone carrying weapon parts from Syria.
Border guards, in coordination with other security agencies, spotted the drone and downed it on Jordan’s side of the border, an army statement said.
The drone was found to be carrying weapons parts, the army said, adding that it will continue to deal with “any threat to our borders, and any attempt to destabilize the security of the country and terrorize its people.”
It was the second drone to be shot down by the Jordan army in a week.
On June 14, it downed a drone carrying highly addictive crystal methamphetamine drugs from Syria into Jordan’s northern region.
• The Jordanian Army said that 361 smuggling attempts from Syria were foiled and about 15.5 million narcotic pills seized in 2021.
• In the previous year, more than 130 smuggling attempts from Syria in 2020 were foiled and about 132 million amphetamine pills and 15,000 sheets of hashish seized.
A security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that drug smugglers from Syria are resorting to drones, because “they know that all their large-scale smuggling operations will be foiled by the army.”
The source added: “They know that helicopters and other heavy weaponry will be chasing them, even deep inside Syria. They know of the change in the rules of engagement. No more warning shots but killing.”
Asked where smugglers obtain drones and other advanced technologies, the source stopped short of identifying any party, but said smugglers are mostly “simple farmers. We even know them by name. States or highly organized groups are probably the sources of such sophisticated technology.”
Jordan has always blamed Iran and its proxies in Syria for smuggling drugs across its borders toward lucrative markets in the Gulf.
It has stepped up its fight against illicit drug trafficking from Syria, with the army announcing a change in the rules of engagement along its northeastern border with Syria, which stretches to about 400 km.
In January last year, the army said it killed 27 infiltrators trying to smuggle “large amounts” of narcotics from Syria into Jordan.
The operation followed a directive by the army chief to change the rules of engagement.
Jordan is believed to have carried out rare airstrikes on Syria’s southern Daraa province in May that the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said hit an abandoned drug facility linked to the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah.
A few days after the attacks, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah denied his Shiite group’s involvement in any illicit drug activity in Syria, but admitted it smuggles weapons.
According to a report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Hezbollah has expanded its drug trafficking operations, which now generate more money than its other funding streams.
The think tank said that the group’s global narcotics trade began in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley in the 1970s, using well-established smuggling routes across the Israel-Lebanon border.
Syria is said to have become the world’s leading narco-state and the center of a multibillion-dollar drug trade.
It has agreed to halt drug trafficking across its borders with Jordan and Iraq, and identify those who produce and transport narcotics.
The pledge came at a landmark meeting in Amman on May 1 of foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Jordan that was also attended by Syrian Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad.
A final statement after the meeting said Damascus agreed to “take the necessary steps to end smuggling on the borders with Jordan and Iraq,” and identify those producing and transporting narcotics into the two countries.
Syrian news outlets reported raids by the Syrian army on drug dealers in Daraa in May following the airstrikes on the southern province but added that no one was arrested as “all dealers were in hiding following the killing of the Captagon kingpin Merhi Al-Ramthan.”
Al-Ramthan, a reputed Syrian drug lord, was killed by Jordanian airstrikes on his house in the village of Shuab in the Sweida governorate.
Jordanian and Syria news websites have published reports of the Jordanian army sending SMS messages to Syrian drug kingpins warning them to surrender or face the same fate as Al-Ramthan.
The Jordanian army said that 361 smuggling attempts from Syria were foiled and about 15.5 million narcotic pills seized in 2021.
In the previous year, more than 130 smuggling attempts from Syria in 2020 were foiled and about 132 million amphetamine pills and 15,000 sheets of hashish seized.
TEL AVIV, Israel: Israel’s anti-government protest movement gained new momentum on Saturday night as tens of thousands of people spilled into the streets of cities across the country to oppose Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s contentious plan to overhaul the judicial system.
The grassroots movement has staged protests for over six months since Netanyahu’s government unveiled the overhaul plan. But in recent weeks, the protests had shown signs of weakening.
Plans by the government to push forward with the overhaul next week in parliament, coupled with the firing of Tel Aviv’s police chief, who was accused of being too sympathetic to the protesters, appeared to breathe new life into Saturday’s demonstrations.
Some 150,000 people thronged central Tel Aviv, with large rallies in Jerusalem and other major cities. Late Saturday, dozens of people attempted to block Tel Aviv’s main highway, but they were quickly cleared away by police. Scuffles broke out, and police sprayed a water cannon at the crowd.
Netanyahu’s allies have proposed a series of changes to the Israeli legal system aimed at weakening what they say are the excessive powers of unelected judges. The proposed changes include giving Netanyahu’s allies control over the appointment of judges and the power to overturn court decisions they do not support.
His opponents say the plan will destroy the country’s fragile system of checks and balances and concentrate power in the hands of Netanyahu and his allies. They also say that Netanyahu has a conflict of interest because he is on trial for corruption charges. Wide swaths of Israeli society, including reserve military officers, business leaders, LGBT and other minority groups, have joined the protests.
A legislative committee chaired by a Netanyahu ally last week approved a bill that would prevent Israel’s courts from scrutinizing the “reasonableness” of decisions made by elected officials. The legislature could hold a preliminary vote on the bill as early as Monday.
The “reasonability standard” was used by the Supreme Court earlier this year to strike down the appointment of a Netanyahu ally as interior minister because of a past conviction for bribery and a 2021 plea deal for tax evasion. Critics say removing that standard would allow the government to pass arbitrary decisions and grant it too much power.
Protesters also condemned the ouster of Tel Aviv’s police chief, Ami Eshed, who said this week he was forced to resign because of political pressure to act violently toward protesters. Eshed regularly clashed with the hard-line national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has demanded that police take a tougher stance against months of anti-government protests.
Saturday’s protest is the latest in a series of demonstrations which, since January, have seen thousands of Israelis take to the streets.
Netanyahu put the overhaul on hold in March after mass protests erupted in opposition, but announced last month that the plan would move forward. The protests have blocked roads, disrupted the country’s main airport and thronged major cities.
CAIRO: A court in the Libyan capital sentenced three people to harsh prison terms on charges of human trafficking, in a first such ruling in a North African nation where migrants are routinely mistreated.
The Criminal Court of Tripoli convicted the three of human trafficking, detaining, and torturing migrants, and extorting their families to pay ransom to release their relatives, according to a statement by the office of Libya’s chief processor.
The court sentenced one of the convicted to life in prison, while the other two received a 20-year term each, the statement said.
The statement did not reveal further details including their identities or nationalities.
General Prosecutor Al-Sediq Al-Sourr was not immediately available for comment on Saturday.
Libya has emerged as the dominant transit point for migrants seeking a better life in Europe.
Human traffickers have benefited from the instability in Libya and smuggled migrants through the country’s lengthy border with six nations.
They then pack desperate people into ill-equipped rubber boats and other vessels in risky voyages on the Central Mediterranean Sea route.
For years, the UN and rights groups have decried horrible conditions faced by migrants who were trafficked and smuggled across the Mediterranean.
UN-backed human rights experts said in March there was evidence that crimes against humanity have been committed against Libyans and migrants in in Libya, including women being forced into sexual slavery.
LONDON: UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed held a phone call with the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Albin Kurti, state news agency WAM reported on Saturday.
During the phone call, the two sides discussed bilateral relations and ways to enhance them across various domains in order to achieve the mutual interests of the two countries.
Sheikh Abdullah informed Kurti of the directives of President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed to contribute 25 million euros ($27.4 million) to establish a new hospital for children in Kosovo.
Kurti expressed his gratitude and appreciation to the UAE for the generous initiative that enhances the quality of life for the children of Kosovo, WAM said.
The top officials reviewed the outcomes of Shiekh Abdullah’s working visit to Kosovo last April and its role in enhancing cooperation between the two countries to serve their development goals.
Sheikh Abdullah underscored the UAE-Kosovo distinguished bilateral relations and the two countries’ keenness to enhance joint cooperation in all sectors.
Had an important & pleasant phone call w/ the UAE MFA Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed @ABZayed who informed me that will donate 25m USD for a new children’s hospital in Kosova. We are incredibly grateful for this contribution,as it’ll directly impact the lives of many children in .
CAIRO: An airstrike in a Sudanese city on Saturday killed at least 22 people, health authorities said, in one of the deadliest air attacks yet in the three months of fighting between the country’s rival generals.
The assault took place in the Dar es Salaam neighborhood in Omdurman, the neighboring city of the capital, Khartoum, according to a brief statement by the health ministry. The attack wounded an unspecified number of people, it said.
The ministry posted video footage that showed dead bodies on the ground with sheets covering them and people trying to pull the dead from the rubble. Others attempted to help the wounded. People could be heard crying.
The attack was one of the deadliest in the fighting in urban areas of the capital and elsewhere in Sudan. The conflict pits the military against a powerful paramilitary group known as the Rapid Support Forces. Last month, an airstrike killed at least 17 people including 5 children in Khartoum.
While the RSF quickly dominated the capital Khartoum and its sister cities Omdurman and Bahri after fighting broke out on April 15, the army has launched air and artillery strikes.
The RSF blamed the military for Saturday’s attack and other strikes on residential areas in Omdurman, where fighting has raged between the warring factions, according to residents. The military has reportedly attempted to cut off a crucial supply line for the paramilitary force there.
A spokesman for the military was not immediately available for comment Saturday.
Two Omdurman residents said it was difficult to determine which side was responsible for the attack. They said the military’s aircraft have repeatedly targeted RSF troops in the area and the paramilitary force has used drones and anti-aircraft weapons against the military.
At the time of the attack early Saturday, the military was hitting the RSF, which took people’s houses as shields, and the RSF fired anti-aircraft rounds at the attacking warplanes, said Abdel-Rahman, one of the residents who asked to use only his first name out of concern for his safety.
“The area is like a hell … fighting around the clock and people are not able to leave,” he said.
The conflict broke out in mid-April, capping months of increasing tensions between the military, chaired by Gen. Abdel Fattah Burhan, and the RSF, commanded by Gen. Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo. The fighting came 18 months after the two generals led a military coup in October 2021 that toppled a Western-backed civilian transitional government.
The fighting, for which no mediation efforts have succeeded thus far, threatens to drag the country into a wider civil war, drawing in other internal and external actors in the East African nation that lies between the Horn of Africa, Sahel, and Red Sea.
Health Minister Haitham Mohammed Ibrahim said in televised comments last month that the clashes have killed over 3,000 people and wounded over 6,000 others. More than 2.9 million people have fled their homes to safer areas inside Sudan or crossed into neighboring countries, according to UN figures.
“It’s a place of great terror,” Martin Griffiths, the UN humanitarian chief, said of Sudan on Friday. He decried “the appalling crimes” taking place across the country and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people.
The conflict has plunged the African country into chaos and turned Khartoum and other urban areas into battlefields. Members of the paramilitary force have occupied people’s houses and other civilian properties since the onset of the conflict, according to residents and activists. There were also reports of widespread destruction and looting across Khartoum and Omdurman.
Sexual violence, including the rape of women and girls, has been reported in Khartoum and the western Darfur region, which have seen some of the worst fighting in the conflict. Almost all reported cases of sexual attacks were blamed on the RSF, which hasn’t responded to repeated requests for comment.
On Wednesday, top UN officials including Volker Türk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, called for a “prompt, thorough, impartial and independent investigation” into the increasing reports of sexual violence against women and girls.
The Sudanese Unit for Combating Violence against Women, a government organization that tracks sex attacks against women, said it documented 88 cases of rape related to the ongoing conflict, including 42 in Khartoum and 46 in Darfur.
The unit, however, said the figure likely represented only 2 percent of the truce number of cases, which means there were a possible 4,400 cases of sexual violence since the fighting began on April 15, according to the Save the Children charity.
“Sexual violence continues to be used as a tool to terrorize women and children in Sudan,” said Arif Noor, director of Save the Children in Sudan. “Children as young as 12 are being targeted for their gender, for their ethnicity, for their vulnerability.”
(With AP and Reuters)
LONDON: A European envoy blasted Israel Saturday over the “proportionality” of the force it uses, as international envoys toured Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank following this week’s deadly raid.
His remarks echoed UN chief Antonio Guterres who on Thursday told reporters “there was an excessive force used by Israeli forces” in its 48-hour operation, the largest Israel has staged in the Palestinian territory for years.
It included air strikes and armored bulldozers ripping up streets.
Jenin is a center for multiple armed Palestinian groups, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the refugee camp a “terrorist nest.”
EU representative to the Palestinian territories Sven Kuehn von Burgsdorff made his comments as he led a delegation of UN officials and diplomats from 25 countries to the camp in the northern West Bank.
“We are concerned about the deployment of weaponry and weapons systems which question the proportionality of the military during the operation,” Kuehn von Burgsdorff said of the operation in which 12 Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed.
“This cycle of violence has to end, it cannot continue. If there is no political solution to the conflict, we are going to stand here in a week’s time, in a month’s time, in a year’s time, with nothing changed,” he added.
As the delegation toured the camp, residents peered out of holes left in the walls by Israeli rockets, and local authorities tested a new camp-wide alarm system to warn of future raids.
Meanwhile, Israel’s UN ambassador called on Guterres to retract his condemnation of the country for its excessive use of force.
UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said the secretary-general conveyed his views on Thursday “and he stands by those views.”
Guterres, angered by the impact of the Israeli airstrikes and attack on the Jenin refugee camp, said the operation left over 100 civilians injured, uprooted thousands of residents, damaged schools and hospitals, and disrupted water and electricity networks. He also criticized Israel for preventing the injured from getting medical care and humanitarian workers from reaching everyone in need.
“I strongly condemn all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror,” Guterres told reporters.
Asked whether this condemnation applied to Israel, he replied: “It applies to all use of excessive force, and obviously in this situation, there was an excessive force used by Israeli forces.”
Haq said Guterres “clearly condemns all of the violence that has been affecting the civilians in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories, regardless of who is the perpetrator.”
The UN Security Council discussed Israel’s military operation in Jenin behind closed doors Friday at the request of the UAE and received a briefing from Assistant Secretary-General Khaled Khiari.
Erdan sent a letter to the 15 council members and Guterres before the council meeting saying that over the past year, 52 Israelis were killed by Palestinians, and many attacks were carried out from Jenin or from the area.
“The international community and the Security Council must unconditionally condemn the latest Palestinian terror attacks and hold Palestinian leadership accountable,” he said.
The Security Council took no action.
Jenin camp has been the site of several large-scale raids by the Israeli military this year, but this week’s was the biggest such operation in the West Bank since the second Palestinian “intifada” or uprising of the early 2000s.
The camp’s infrastructure was severely damaged during the raid, which Israel said was targeting militants.
Eight kilometers (five miles) of water pipes and three kilometers of sewage pipes were destroyed, the UN said. More than 100 houses were damaged and a number of schools were also lightly damaged.
The refugee camp in one of the poorest and most densely populated in the West Bank, with some 18,000 people living in just 0.43 square kilometers (0.16 of a square mile).
UN officials on Saturday made a plea for funds to help rebuild the camp.
“To restore services and scale up support to the children, we need cash … our appeal is desperately underfunded,” Leni Stenseth, deputy commissioner-general of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), said.
“I would urge you to consider announcing your support for the work we are going to do here in Jenin camp in the coming weeks and months as soon as possible,” she added.
On Thursday Algeria announced $30 million to “help rebuild the Palestinian city of Jenin after the barbaric and criminal attack” by Israel, and the United Arab Emirates, which normalized ties with Israel in 2020, said Wednesday it “will provide $15 million.”
(With AFP and AP)