BAGHDAD: Lebanon extradited a man said to be a grandnephew of Saddam Hussein to Iraq, where he is accused of involvement in a massacre by Daesh group, a security source said Saturday.
Abdullah Sabawi, dubbed the “grandnephew” of the executed dictator by Iraqi media, was extradited on Wednesday, the security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“He is accused of having been a member of Daesh and having participated in the Speicher massacre” of 2014, in which up to 1,700 air force cadets were executed by the militant group, the source added.
A Lebanese judicial source said Sabawi, born in 1994, “was detained on June 11” following an Interpol notice calling for his arrest over his alleged involvement in the massacre.
“Iraq requested his extradition,” the Lebanese source added.
Sabawi’s family has denied the accusations, telling AFP he had been in Yemen at the time of the killings.
The Camp Speicher massacre was considered one of Daesh’s worst crimes after it took over large parts of Iraq in 2014.
Video footage released by Daesh showed an assembly-line massacre in which gunmen herded their victims toward the banks of the Tigris, shot them in the back of the head and pushed them into the river one after the other.
Dozens have been sentenced to death by Iraqi courts over their involvement in the killings, many of them having already been executed.
Lebanon extradites to Iraq ‘Saddam grandnephew’ accused of Daesh link
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Lebanon extradites to Iraq ‘Saddam grandnephew’ accused of Daesh link
- Abdullah Sabawi, dubbed the "grandnephew" of the executed dictator by Iraqi media, was extradited on Wednesday
- His family has denied the accusations, telling AFP he had been in Yemen at the time of the killings
UN rights chief warns Sudan commanders of catastrophe in Al-Fashir
- Violence escalated near Sudan’s Al-Fashir this week
“The High Commissioner (Volker Turk) warned both commanders that fighting in (al-Fashir), where more than 1.8 million residents and internally displaced people are currently encircled and at imminent risk of famine, would have a catastrophic impact on civilians, and would deepen intercommunal conflict with disastrous humanitarian consequences,” said Ravina Shamdasani, Turk’s spokesperson, at a Geneva press briefing.
Israel to top UN court: Gaza war ‘tragic’ but ‘no genocide’
- Israel lashed at South Africa’s case before the UN’s top court, describing it as “totally divorced” from reality
- Pretoria has urged the ICJ to order a stop to the Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah
THE HAGUE: A top lawyer for Israel told the highest United Nations court on Friday that the war in Gaza was tragic but denied there was a case of genocide to answer.
“There is a tragic war going on but there is no genocide,” Gilad Noam told the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Israel lashed out Friday at South Africa’s case before the UN’s top court, describing it as “totally divorced” from reality, as Pretoria urges judges to order a ceasefire in Gaza.
A top lawyer for Israel painted the South Africa case as a “mockery” of the UN Genocide Convention that it is accused of breaching.
“South Africa presents the court for the fourth time with a picture that is completely divorced from the facts and circumstances,” Gilad Noam told the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
Pretoria has urged the ICJ to order a stop to the Israeli assault on the Gaza city of Rafah, which Israel says is key to eliminating Hamas militants.
Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insisted Thursday that the ground assault on Rafah was a “critical” part of the army’s mission to destroy Hamas and prevent any repetition of the October 7 attack.
“The battle in Rafah is critical... It’s not just the rest of their battalions, it’s also like an oxygen line for them for escape and resupply,” he said.
Netanyahu ordered the Rafah offensive in defiance of US warnings that more than a million civilians sheltering there could be caught in the crossfire.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Thursday that the operation in Rafah “will continue as additional forces will enter” the area.
Friday in the Hague, Noam told the court that “Israel is acutely aware of the large number of civilians concentrated in Rafah. It is also acutely aware of Hamas efforts to use these civilians as a shield.”
Noam said there had been no “large-scale” assault on Rafah but “specific and localized operations prefaced with evacuation efforts and support for humanitarian activities.”
Israel denies South Africa’s allegations
On Thursday, judges heard a litany of allegations against Israel from lawyers representing Pretoria, including mass graves, torture and deliberate withholding of humanitarian aid.
“South Africa had hoped, when we last appeared before this court, to halt this genocidal process to preserve Palestine and its people,” said top lawyer Vusimuzi Madonsela.
“Instead, Israel’s genocide has continued apace and has just reached a new and horrific stage,” added Madonsela.
But Noam said that South Africa’s accusations made a “mockery of the heinous charge of genocide.”
“Calling something a genocide again and again does not make it genocide. Repeating a lie does not make it true,” he said.
Court hearings
In a ruling that made headlines around the world, the ICJ in January ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent genocidal acts and enable humanitarian aid to Gaza.
But the court stopped short of ordering a ceasefire and South Africa’s argument is that the situation on the ground — notably the operation in the crowded city of Rafah — requires fresh ICJ action.
The orders of the ICJ, which rules in disputes between states, are legally binding but it has little means to enforce them.
It has ordered Russia to halt its invasion of Ukraine, to no avail.
South Africa wants the ICJ to issue three emergency orders — “provisional measures” in court jargon — while it rules on the wider accusation that Israel is breaking the 1948 UN Genocide Convention.
It wants the court to order Israel to “immediately” cease all military operations in Gaza, including in Rafah, enable humanitarian access and report back on its progress on achieving these orders.
The arrival of occasional aid convoys has slowed to a trickle since Israeli forces took control last week of the Gaza side of the Rafah crossing.
Israel’s military operations in Gaza were launched in retaliation for Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
Militants also seized about 250 hostages, 128 of whom Israel estimates remain in Gaza, including 36 the military says are dead.
Israel’s military has conducted a relentless bombardment from the air and a ground offensive inside Gaza that has killed at least 35,303 people, mostly civilians, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.
Houthis say they downed US MQ-9 drone over Yemen’s Maareb
DUBAI: Yemen’s Houthi rebels on Friday claimed to have shot down an American drone, hours after footage circulated online of what appeared to be the wreckage of an MQ-9 Predator drone. The US military did not immediately acknowledge the incident.
If confirmed, this would be yet another Predator downed by the Houthis as they press their campaign over the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip.
Houthi military spokesman Brig. Gen. Yahya Saree claimed that rebels shot down the Predator on Thursday with a surface-to-air missile, promising to later release footage of the attack. He described the drone as “carrying out hostile actions” in Yemen’s Marib province, which remains held by allies of Yemen’s exiled, internationally recognized government.
Online video showed wreckage resembling the pieces of the Predator, as well as footage of that wreckage on fire.
The US military did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press over the Houthi claim. While the rebels have made claims about attacks that turned out later not to be true, they have a history of shooting down US drones and have been armed by their main benefactor, Iran, with weapons capable of high-altitude attack.
Since the Houthis seized the country’s north and its capital of Sanaa in 2014, the US military has previously lost at least five drones to the rebels.
Reapers, which cost around $30 million apiece, can fly at altitudes up to 50,000 feet and have an endurance of up to 24 hours before needing to land.
The drone shootdown comes as the Houthis launch attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, demanding Israel ends the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 34,000 Palestinians there. The war began after Hamas-led militants attacked Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people and taking some 250 others hostage.
The Houthis have launched more than 50 attacks on shipping, seized one vessel and sunk another since November, according to the US Maritime Administration.
Houthi attacks have dropped in recent weeks as the rebels have been targeted by a US-led airstrike campaign in Yemen. Shipping through the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden still remains low because of the threat, however.
2 killed in drug-smuggling attempt in Jordan
- Other suspected smugglers were injured during the security operation and fled back into Syria
- Jordan’s King Abdullah called on regional states to be vigilant
AMMAN: Two people were killed on Friday as Jordan’s security forces cracked down on an attempt to smuggle “large quantities” of drugs into its territory from Syria, state news agency PETRA reported.
Other suspected smugglers were injured during the security operation and fled back into Syria, while several firearms were seized, according to the report.
Jordan has recently intensified its patrols because of an alarming rise in attempts to smuggle drugs and weapons into the country.
Jordan’s King Abdullah called on regional states to be vigilant at the Arab League Summit in Manama on Thursday.
“We should confront armed militant groups who commit crimes above the law, especially smuggling drugs and arms which is what Jordan has been thwarting for years now,” he said.
Aid trucks begin moving ashore via Gaza pier, US says
- Trucks carrying badly needed aid for the Gaza Strip have rolled across a newly built US floating pier to Rafah
WASHINGTON: Trucks carrying badly needed aid for the Gaza Strip rolled across a newly built US floating pier into the besieged enclave for the first time Friday as Israeli restrictions on border crossings and heavy fighting hinder food and other supplies reaching people there.
The US military’s Central Command acknowledged the aid movement in a statement Friday, saying the first aid crossed into Gaza at 9 a.m. It said no American troops went ashore in the operation.
“This is an ongoing, multinational effort to deliver additional aid to Palestinian civilians in Gaza via a maritime corridor that is entirely humanitarian in nature, and will involve aid commodities donated by a number of countries and humanitarian organizations,” the command said.
The shipment is the first in an operation that American military officials anticipate could scale up to 150 truckloads a day entering the Gaza Strip as Israel presses in on the southern city of Rafah as its 7-month offensive against Gaza.
But the US and aid groups also warn that the pier project is not considered a substitute for land deliveries that could bring in all the food, water and fuel needed in Gaza. Before the war, more than 500 truckloads entered Gaza on an average day.
The operation’s success also remains tenuous due to the risk of militant attack, logistical hurdles and a growing shortage of fuel for the trucks to run due to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7. Israel’s offensive since then has killed more than 35,000 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, local health officials say, while hundreds more have been killed in the West Bank.
Troops finished installing the floating pier on Thursday. Hours later, the Pentagon said that humanitarian aid would soon begin flowing and that no backups were expected in the distribution process, which is being coordinated by the United Nations.
The UN, however, said fuel deliveries brought through land routes have all but stopped and this will make it extremely difficult to bring the aid to Gaza’s people.
“We desperately need fuel,” UN deputy spokesperson Farhan Haq said. “It doesn’t matter how the aid comes, whether it’s by sea or whether by land, without fuel, aid won’t get to the people.”
Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh said the issue of fuel deliveries comes up in all US conversations with the Israelis. She also said the plan is to begin slowly with the sea route and ramp up the truck deliveries over time as they work the kinks out of the system.
Aid agencies say they are running out of food in southern Gaza and fuel is dwindling, while the US Agency for International Development and the World Food Program say famine has taken hold in Gaza’s north.
Israel asserts it places no limits on the entry of humanitarian aid and blames the UN for delays in distributing goods entering Gaza. The UN says fighting, Israeli fire and chaotic security conditions have hindered delivery.
Under pressure from the US, Israel has in recent weeks opened a pair of crossings to deliver aid into hard-hit northern Gaza and said that a series of Hamas attacks on the main crossing, Kerem Shalom, have disrupted the flow of goods. There’s also been violent protests by Israelis disrupting aid shipments.
US President Joe Biden ordered the pier project, expected to cost $320 million. The boatloads of aid will be deposited at a port facility built by the Israelis just southwest of Gaza City and then distributed by aid groups.
US officials said the initial shipment totaled as much as 500 tons of aid. The US has closely coordinated with Israel on how to protect the ships and personnel working on the beach.
But there are still questions on how aid groups will safely operate in Gaza to distribute food, said Sonali Korde, assistant to the administrator of USAID’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance, which is helping with logistics.
“There is a very insecure operating environment” and aid groups are still struggling to get clearance for their planned movements in Gaza, Korde said.
The fear follows an Israeli strike last month that killed seven relief workers from World Central Kitchen whose trip had been coordinated with Israeli officials and the deaths of other aid personnel during the war.
Pentagon officials have made it clear that security conditions will be monitored closely and could prompt a shutdown of the maritime route, even just temporarily. Navy Vice Adm. Brad Cooper, a deputy commander at the US military’s Central Command, told reporters Thursday that “we are confident in the ability of this security arrangement to protect those involved.”
Already, the site has been targeted by mortar fire during its construction, and Hamas has threatened to target any foreign forces who “occupy” the Gaza Strip.
Biden has made it clear that there will be no US forces on the ground in Gaza, so third-country contractors will drive the trucks onto the shore. Cooper said “the United Nations will receive the aid and coordinate its distribution into Gaza.”
The World Food Program will be the UN agency handling the aid, officials said.
Israeli forces are in charge of security on shore, but there are also two US Navy warships nearby that can protect US troops and others.
The aid for the sea route is collected and inspected in Cyprus, then loaded onto ships and taken about 200 miles (320 kilometers) to a large floating pier built by the US off the Gaza coast. There, the pallets are transferred onto the trucks that then drive onto the Army boats. Once the trucks drop off the aid on shore, they immediately turn around the return to the boats.
