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24 Apr 2017 - NPWJ News Digest on Middle East and North Africa Democracy
Articles
Libya's warring sides reach diplomatic breakthrough in Rome
By The Guardian, 24 Apr 2017
Rome has brokered a diplomatic breakthrough in Libya that has the potential to bring the two main warring sides together in a new political agreement after years of division, fighting and economic misery. The scale of the breakthrough will be tested later this week, but Italy is hailing a compromise brokered between the presidents of the house of representatives, Ageela Saleh, and the state council, Abdulrahman Sewehli. The meeting was overseen by the Italian foreign minister, Angelino Alfano, and the Italian ambassador to Libya. According to a statement from the state council, “there was an atmosphere of friendliness and openness” at the meeting in Rome. The statement also said there would have to be further consultations between the two sides this week in order to bring about reconciliation “and stop the bleeding as well as [ensure] the return of displaced persons”. The house of representatives led by Saleh has refused to approve a government of national accord based in Tripoli for more than a year until changes are made to the Libyan Political Agreement (LPA), which can only be effected by a joint team from the house and the state council. The impasse has led to political deadlock and a military standoff between forces in the west and east of the country. The state council said in a note: “We agreed to reach peaceful and fair solutions to outstanding issues,” a reference to one of the fundamental dilemmas in the Libyan crisis: the military and political role in any unity government of the military commander of forces in the east, Field Marshall Khalifa Haftar.
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Iraq struggling to fight Daesh in vast Anbar deserts
By Middle East Monitor, 24 Apr 2017
A day after an ambush by Daesh militants killed tens of Iraqi government soldiers and officers and wounded many more others, an Iraqi force has launched a counterattack against the “cells…and camps of the Daesh organisation” in the vast deserts of Iraq’s western Anbar province. Khalid Al-Anzi, the mayor of Haditha, one of Anbar’s major cities in its western reaches, was cited by Al-Araby Al-Jadeed as saying that the Iraqi desert was too vast and posed geographic challenges to ever be placed fully under Baghdad’s control. Haditha’s mayor also indicated that several towns in Anbar were still under Daesh control, despite the ongoing operation in Mosul in northern Iraq. Al-Anzi said that Hasiba, Ana and Rawa, all major towns in Anbar, were still held by the militant group that swept across Iraq in 2014, capturing nearly a third of the war-ravaged country. Al-Anzi also spoke of a joint taskforce of Iraqi government forces backed by local tribal auxiliaries. Daesh successfully managed to launch an ambush in the Anbar desert on an Iraqi military convoy over the weekend, killing and wounding around 50 troops loyal to the government. Iraqi forces were backed by US-led coalition airpower as they advanced on Daesh positions operating in the deserts around Anbar’s towns and villages. “Coalition and Iraqi aircraft executed continuous strikes targeting [Daesh] groups inside Rawa, Hasiba and Ana,” Al-Anzi told Al-Araby Al-Jadeed. “These strikes were successfully carried out against large objectives, and caused heavy casualties within Daesh’s ranks,” the official said.
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Suspected US drone strike kills three al-Qaida operatives in Yemen – report
By The Guardian, 23 Apr 2017
Tribal and security officials said on Sunday a suspected US airstrike had killed three al-Qaida operatives on Yemen’s southern coast. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media, said the operatives killed in Shabwa province on Sunday were driving a car when an unmanned aircraft targeted their vehicle. Their bodies were not immediately identified. Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (Aqap), long seen by Washington as among the most dangerous branches of the global terror network, has exploited the chaos of the Yemen civil war, seizing territory in the south and east. US drone strikes against Aqap targets have been frequent. In January, a botched raid by Navy Seals resulted in the death of one American commando and 25 civilians, including a young girl who was an American citizen. Pro-government forces are fighting Iran-backed Houthi rebels and their allies, renegade troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh. A Saudi-led coalition including the United Arab Emirates intervened in Yemen in March 2015, to help the government retake the capital, Sana’a, and swaths of the country’s north and west. The United Nations says the fighting has killed more than 7,700 people over the past two years. According to the International Federation of Journalists, at least eight journalists were killed in Yemen in 2016.
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Government forces advance against rebels north of Hama
by Al Jazeera, 23 Apr 2017
The Syrian army and allied forces have advanced against rebels in western Syria near Hama city, building on recent strategic gains in the area, a military source and a monitoring group said. Government forces on Sunday captured the town of Halfaya and nearby villages, taking back territory that rebels seized last year from forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. "We gained control of Halfaya and several hills in the area," a Syrian military source told Reuters news agency. Boosted by Russian air strikes and Iranian-backed militias, the Syrian army has pushed into rebel areas north of Hama, expanding its control this week along the western highway that links Damascus and Aleppo. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitoring group, said the army began advancing into areas near Halfaya when rebels withdrew on Sunday, following intense battles and air strikes. Sources on the rebel side could not immediately be reached for comment. Warplanes have pounded Halfaya and swaths of territory near the highway in a region vitally important to Assad's government, which has shored up its rule in the populated west of the country.
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Lebanese Prime Minister calls for permanent ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah
By The Independent, 23 Apr 2017
Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri has urged the United Nations to help negotiate a permanent ceasefire between Hezbollah and Israel. Following a month-long war between Israeli forces and the Shia militant group Hezbollah in 2006, the two sides agreed to stop fighting but never signed a formal peace deal. Now Mr Hariri has called the UN to intervene to end what he described as Israel’s “continous violations” of Lebanese territory. "I urge the UN Secretary-General to support efforts to secure, as soon as possible, a state of permanent ceasefire. This is long overdue and my government is committed to move this agenda forward," he said. He was speaking during a visit to south Lebanon a day after Hezbollah officials staged a media tour of what they called recent Israeli fortifications on the border and warned they were prepared to go to war again. Mr Hariri said tensions between the group and Israel were not something Beirut was involved in, nor something they would accept in their territory. Since the war, the Lebanese have remained deeply split over Hezbollah's role. The powerful Shia group has an arsenal that rivals that of the Lebanese army and has sent thousands of its fighters to shore up Syrian President Bashar Assad's forces against predominantly Sunni rebels during the neighbouring country's six-year civil war.
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‘Children Were Dying Everywhere': A Syrian Videographer Recounts the Al Rashideen Explosion That Killed Over 100
by Global Voices, 17 Apr 2017
On April 15 at approximately 15:30 local time, a huge blast hit a convoy of coaches in Syria's rebel-held Al Rashideen that were carrying evacuees from the besieged regime-held towns of Fua and Kefraya. A suicide bomber driving a (reportedly blue) van supposedly carrying aid supplies blew himself up near the convoy, according to a number of reports. Over 100 people were killed in the massacre, according to the White Helmets, the civil defense group operating in rebel-held areas. Most of the victims were from Fua and Kefraya, including 68 children, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Among the victims were also between six and nine people from the city of Zabadani and one person from the city of Madaya who came to welcome their relatives on the buses. A number of rebels guarding the convoy were also reportedly killed. Among the many people who tried to take the injured to safety was Abd Alkader Habak. Habak is a 23-year-old videographer from Idlib who spent four years in Eastern Aleppo and witnessed the brutal siege by the Assad regime that finally lead to the fall of Aleppo in December 2016. He told Global Voices he had gone to Al Rashideen to document the evacuation. He and his colleagues, other media activists and journalists, had been waiting in Al Rashideen for two days before the convoy arrived.
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