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AMMAN: Jordanian Public Security Department, or PSD, said on Sunday that three men wanted on terrorism charges were killed in an exchange of fire with police on the kingdom’s southeastern borders.
PSD said that two of the three men killed in a police shootout on Saturday were inmates who had recently escaped from a rehabilitation center.
The third man was a member of the “Al-Husseiniya cell” and a “most wanted” fugitive who was involved in the killing of Col. Abdul Razzaq Al-Dalabeeh on Dec. 16 last year in the southern city of Maan, which was rocked by demonstrations against increasing fuel prices.
Amer Sartawi, PSD spokesperson, said that police had identified the hideout of the escaped inmates in a remote area with rough topography on the Kingdom’s southeastern borders with Saudi Arabia and Iraq.
After being surrounded by trained security forces, the escaped prisoners fired automatic guns at police, who then returned fire and killed them all, Sartawi said.
The identities of the wanted men were revealed through DNA tests and family members, Sartawi said, adding that an investigation was underway into the inmates’ prison escape.
Al-Dalabeeh, deputy police chief of Maan, was shot in the head while officers responded to rioters in Al-Husseiniya.
Three days later, on Dec. 19, three more officers — Cap. Ghaith Rahahleh, 2nd Lt. Mutaz Najada, and Cpl. Ibrahim Shaqarin — were killed during a raid on the hideout of suspects believed to be responsible for Dalabeeh’s death.
PSD said at the time that one of the suspects, a “militant who embraced the takfiri radical ideology,” was killed during the operation and nine others were arrested.
Visiting the condolence house of Al-Dalabeeh’s tribe, Jordanian King Abdullah vowed to bring the perpetrators to justice, affirming that violence against the state, vandalism of public property and violating Jordanians’ rights would be dealt with firmly.
He said that assaults and acts of vandalism were “dangerous threats to national security,” adding: “We will not tolerate violence against our security personnel, who work day and night to protect Jordan and Jordanians.”
The nine suspects arrested in the operation in December recently stood trial at the State Security Court.
One of them was tried in absentia and believed to among those killed in the manhunt operation, PSD announced on Sunday.
The suspects are facing a long list of charges, including the orchestration of terrorist acts, being members of an organization with the objective of committing terrorist acts against Jordan’s citizens, possessing weapons with the intention to carry out terrorist activities, and being part of terrorist, armed factions.
They are also accused of conspiring to undertake acts of terror and propagating the philosophies of a terrorist organization.
The eight suspects who appeared in court entered pleas of not guilty, and defense lawyers submitted their arguments.
The southern cities of Maan, Tafileh and Karak have seen sporadic strikes and sit-ins by truck drivers protesting about increased fuel prices.
Police said that some of the strikes turned violent with protesters attacking public buildings and security forces.
WASHINGTON: The US assistant secretary of State for African affairs, Molly Phee, will travel to Addis Ababa on Monday and Tuesday to meet with African leaders and Sudanese civilian parties on how to end the conflict in Sudan, the State Department said on Sunday.
Diplomatic efforts to halt fighting between Sudan’s army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) have so far proved ineffective, with competing initiatives creating confusion over how the warring parties might be brought to negotiate.
Egypt said on Sunday it would also host a summit of Sudan’s neighbors on July 13 to discuss ways to end the conflict.
Talks hosted in Jeddah and sponsored by the United States and Saudi Arabia were suspended last month, while a mediation attempt by East African countries was criticized by the army as it accused Kenya of bias.
Fighting persisted on Sunday between the army and the RSF in El Obeid, southwest of Khartoum, as well as in the south of the capital, residents said.
Khartoum International Airport said Sudan’s civil aviation authority has extended the closure of the troubled country’s airspace until July 31, with the exception of humanitarian aid and evacuation flights with permission from authorities.
In a statement, the US State Department said: “We call on the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) to immediately end the fighting and return to the barracks; adhere to their obligations under international humanitarian law and international human rights law; and allow unhindered humanitarian access to meet the emergency needs of civilians.”
During her travel, Phee will meet with Sudanese civilians and with senior representatives of governments in the region, the East African bloc Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the African Union Commission, according to the State Department.
Egypt’s presidency said the summit in Cairo on Thursday aims to “develop effective mechanisms” with neighboring states to settle the conflict peacefully, in coordination with other regional or international efforts.
Neither Egypt, seen as the Sudanese army’s most important foreign ally, nor the United Arab Emirates, which has had close ties to the RSF, have played a prominent public role in efforts to resolve the conflict in Sudan.
The two countries were also not involved in talks in Jeddah led by the US and Saudi Arabia that adjourned last month after failing to secure a lasting cease-fire.
Sudan’s two largest neighbors, Egypt and Ethiopia, have been at odds in recent years over the construction of a huge hydroelectric dam on Ethiopia’s Blue Nile, close to the border with Sudan.
Aside from the Addis Ababa talks, which will include Sudanese delegations as well as civilian parties that shared power with the army and RSF after the overthrow of former president Omar Al-Bashir four years ago, talks are expected in Chad between the leaders of former rebel groups from Darfur that signed a partial peace deal in 2020.
Air strike
The fighting that erupted on April 15 in Sudan’s capital Khartoum has driven more than 2.9 million people from their homes, including almost 700,000 who have fled to neighboring countries, many of which are struggling with poverty and the impact of internal conflict.
Over 255,000 have crossed into Egypt, according to latest figures from the International Organization for Migration.
On Saturday, Sudan’s health ministry said a strike by fighter jets in Omdurman, part of Sudan’s wider capital, left 22 people dead, an incident that drew condemnation from UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.
On Sunday, the army denied responsibility for the strike, saying its air force had not hit targets in Omdurman the previous day and that the RSF had bombarded residential areas from the ground at times when fighter jets were in the sky before falsely accusing the army of causing civilian casualties.
The army has depended largely on air strikes and heavy artillery to try to push back RSF troops spread across Khartoum, Omdurman and Bahri, the three cities that make up the capital around the confluence of the Nile.
Violence has also flared in other parts of Sudan including the western region of Darfur, where residents say militias from Arab tribes along with the RSF have targeted civilians on the basis of their ethnicity, raising fears of a repeat of the mass atrocities seen in the region after 2003.
BEIRUT: Car bombs killed at least eight people including three children in two separate incidents Sunday in northern Syria, a war monitor said.
One blast hit a car repair shop in Shawa, a village near the Turkish border held by pro-Ankara fighters, residents told AFP.
Five civilians including three children were killed and 10 others injured, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Areas held by Turkiye and its Syrian proxies in northern Syria are the scene of regular targeted killings, bombings and clashes between armed groups.
In the second incident, an explosive device planted in a vehicle killed three fighters affiliated with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the city of Manbij, according to the Observatory.
Manbij is a former stronghold of the Daesh group that is now held by a military council affiliated with the US-backed SDF.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the bombings.
Syria’s war broke out in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
It has since evolved into a complex conflict involving jihadists and foreign powers, and has killed more than half a million people and displaced millions.
AL-MUKALLA: Two Yemeni demining workers have been killed while attempting to disarm stacked landmines laid by the Iran-backed Houthis in the northern province of Saada.
Casualties monitoring group, the Yemeni Landmine Records, said the workers were operating as part of a team in the government-controlled Al-Bouqa area when two anti-tank mines placed on top of each other exploded as they tried to defuse them.
The group claimed the Houthis intentionally sought to kill deminers by clustering landmines in one location, planting devices that could not be detected by conventional means, and laying explosives fitted with motion detectors.
Yemeni authorities and the Saudi-funded Masam demining program estimate that the Houthis have planted more than 1 million landmines and improvised explosive devices in the country over the past decade, making Yemen the most mined region of the world since World War II.
At least eight civilians have been killed by landmine explosions in Taiz and Hodeidah this month, according to the monitoring group.
Hamza Ahmed, 14, was killed while tampering with an IED disguised as a drinks can in the Al-Jahmelia neighborhood of Taiz, close to his home.
And in a separate incident, 13-year-old Arfat Abdu Ghalebm died after a mortar shell he was playing with exploded while he was tending sheep in the Taiz countryside.
A monitoring group spokesperson said: “We urge parents to educate their children and warn them against touching suspicious objects in order to save their children’s lives.”
Ousama Al-Gosaibi, managing director of the Masam project, accused the international community and UN groups of not doing enough to tackle the Houthis over the issue.
He told Yemen Shabab TV that 33 Masam deminers had been killed and 52 injured in landmine blasts since 2018 and that project teams had defused 405,818 landlines, unexploded ordnances, and IEDs spread over 47,485,089 square meters of Yemeni soil in the last five years.
“Unfortunately, there is a disgraceful and irresponsible silence on the part of the international community regarding the crimes against humanity committed by the Houthi militia, which violates the rights of civilians by using mines indiscriminately,” Al-Gosaibi said.
Although hostilities in Yemen have significantly decreased since a UN-brokered truce took effect in April last year, the Houthis have continued to plant more sophisticated landmines, including in areas cleared by the Saudi project.
“Unfortunately, mine placement persists. In fact, there are numerous areas that Masam’s teams had previously cleared, but which have since been re-mined in greater numbers and with more hazardous techniques.
“Tricks and techniques used by the Houthis in the production of mines and explosive devices are constantly evolving, and the Houthis are constantly striving to improve their mines and explosive devices and equip them with new technologies,” he added.
Al-Gosaibi said that 18 of Taiz province’s 23 districts contained Houthi landmines, making Taiz the most extensively mined province in Yemen after Hodeidah in the west.
BEIRUT: Maronite Patriarch Bechara Al-Rahi has accused Lebanese officials of “causing problems and then seeking to solve them in a way that violates the constitution,” in a sermon on Sunday
In his address, Al-Rahi expessed regret over “what the majority of officials are doing by destroying the political work without any conscientious deterrent or consideration for the internal and external public opinion.”
His remarks came as concerns grew that the Lebanese central bank might be left leaderless amid a deep financial crisis.
The fate of the Banque Du Liban’s governance is unclear, as the term of Riad Salameh, the current governor, ends later this month.
Many Lebanese hold central bank gov. Riad Salameh responsible for the financial collapse, alongside the ruling elite.
The Cabinet cannot appoint a successor amid the country’s current presidential vacuum, which has been ongoing for nine months.
The central bank’s vice governors have threatened to quit if no successor is appointed, despite Lebanon’s code of money and credit stipulating that the first deputy governor should assume the main role in the event that a governor cannot be appointed by the president.
In the past few days, many ideas on how to resolve the issue have been proposed, including the Cabinet being allowed to appoint a new governor.
Christian parties, however, have rejected such a solution, saying it could prompt a new political-sectarian conflict by showing that the country can be managed without a president, with practical management left to the speaker and prime minister.
One political analyst told Arab News that a void in the central bank’s governance would lead to chaos.
“The political forces don’t have the luxury to pull strings amid the expiration of the governor’s term at the end of July,” said the analyst.
“Manipulating this critical position will lead to dramatic impacts that will directly affect the life of the Lebanese, their institutions and banks, and might steer foreign countries and banks away from dealing with Lebanon financially.
“This will raise questions regarding Lebanon’s position in the global financial system,” the analyst added.
MP Ghassan Hasbani — a member of the parliamentary finance and budget committee — said that the vice governors’ threat to resign and not carry out their duties was a dereliction of duty.
“They are obliged to follow up their work and they have a personal responsibility that’s subject to legal prosecution, which might lead to imprisonment,” he said.
Hasbani, who is a Lebanese Forces deputy, said that “amid the absence of a president, the caretaker Cabinet should not violate the constitution by appointing a new successor to Salameh.”
He said his party was looking into the possibility of filing an appeal before the Shura Council in case the Cabinet sought to appoint a new governor.
Hezbollah avoided discussing the matter of the central bank’s governance publicly, but central council member Sheikh Nabil Kaouk warned: “Lebanon is going through a critical and exceptional situation that requires responsible and courageous decisions to rescue the country, stop the collapse and alleviate the suffering of the people.”
Kaouk added: “This can only be achieved through dialogue, agreement and convergence of ideas.
“However, refusing to hold a dialogue means that they are insisting on disrupting the country, aggravating the situation, and wasting time and opportunities. This is what led the country to a state of stagnation.”
Al-Rahi’s remarks on Sunday pre-empted any attempts by the Cabinet to appoint a new governor.
He accused it of turning “the non-legislative parliament into a legislative body — although it has been a mere electoral body since the beginning of the presidential vacuum,” adding that the Cabinet had granted itself “presidential powers to carry out presidential appointments.”
He added: “You are creating a constitutional conflict that is adding to the ongoing political division … The one and only necessity, and the key to solving all your problems, is to elect a president.
“If you don’t do it, you are committing the crime of treason against the state and the people, knowing that treason is the mother of all crimes.”
In remarks directed at MPs, Al-Rahi said: “You have two respectful Maronite candidates. So go to the parliament and elect one of them in conformity with the constitution. If none of the two were elected … you can then discuss with each other and find a third candidate.”
He urged MPs to “stop wasting time while the institutions are collapsing one by one pending outside inspiration.”
Parliament has already held 12 sessions that failed to elect a new president amid the political rift between Hezbollah’s bloc — the majority of which is represented by the Shiite MPs — and the opposition, which includes MPs from the Christian bloc, reformists and independents.
During the last electoral session held in June, the competition was between Hezbollah’s candidate Sleiman Frangieh — head of the Marada Movement — and former Minister Jihad Azour, the opposition’s candidate.
DUBAI: The UAE took part in the 2023 edition of Tan Tan Moussem in southwest Morocco, an annual festival of nomadic peoples of the Sahara that gathers a number of tribes from around the country, Emirates News Agency reported.
The festival includes a range of cultural mediums such as musical performances, popular chanting, games and poetry contests.
A pavilion organized by the Abu Dhabi Cultural Programmes and Heritage Festivals Committee will represent the UAE during the six-day festival.
UAE Ambassador to Morocco Al-Asri Saeed Ahmed Al-Dhaheri told WAM that the pavillion promotes cultural bonds between the two countries.
The ambassador said that UAE-Morocco ties are longstanding, growing, and backed by the countries’ leaderships and their desire to continue boosting cooperation in all fields.
He also noted that the UAE’s ongoing interest in participating in the annual festival stems from its pride in its national identity and the richness of the desert culture which expresses folklore in numerous forms.