| U.S. sends Yemeni Guantanamo inmate to Italy, 78 detainees left Posted: 10 Jul 2016 02:11 PM PDT  The United States said on Sunday it had transferred a Yemeni inmate from the Guantanamo Bay prison to Italy, bringing the number of detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba to 78. Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman was approved for transfer nearly six years ago by six U.S. agencies - the Departments of Defense, State, Justice and Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
|
| Bahamas warns citizens visiting US to exercise 'extreme caution' with police Posted: 10 Jul 2016 01:31 PM PDT On Friday, the Bahamas's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration issued a travel advisory for citizens traveling to the United States to "not be confrontational and cooperate" with police, joining several other countries that warn about violence in America. The advisory was in response to "recent tensions in some American cities over shootings of young black males by police officers." The Bahamas, whose population is 85 percent black, will be celebrating its Independence Day on Sunday. Many Bahamians will spend their vacation in the United States. |
| Turkish military strikes Islamic State, PKK targets Posted: 10 Jul 2016 12:46 PM PDT ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkish jets and artillery struck 10 Islamic State targets as they were preparing to fire on Turkey, the country's General Staff said Sunday. |
| Syria army foils rebel bid to reopen Aleppo supply line Posted: 10 Jul 2016 12:35 PM PDT  Syrian regime forces have repelled a fierce assault by opposition fighters seeking to reopen their only supply route into Aleppo city, killing at least 29 rebels, a monitor said Sunday. The offensive sought to push regime forces back from the Castello Road that leads into the opposition-held eastern half of Aleppo city, which is now effectively besieged by government troops. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 29 fighters from the Islamist Faylaq al-Sham rebel group and Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front were killed in fighting or by mines laid by government troops.
|
| UNESCO meets on heritage under shadow of extremism Posted: 10 Jul 2016 11:19 AM PDT  The UN's cultural agency met on Sunday in Istanbul to consider adding over two dozen new sites to its prestigious global heritage list, and called for a strong global response to the threats posed by extremism. The meeting of the World Heritage Committee of UNESCO comes less than two weeks after the main airport in Istanbul was hit by a triple suicide attack that left 47 people dead. The strike was blamed on Islamic State (IS) jihadists who have already destroyed irreplaceable heritage in Turkey's neighbours Syria and Iraq.
|
| The Latest: Obama says people of goodwill will prevail Posted: 10 Jul 2016 10:47 AM PDT  MADRID (AP) — The Latest on U.S. President Barack Obama's visit to Spain: (all times local):
|
| Three countries urge caution traveling to U.S. amid protests, violence Posted: 10 Jul 2016 10:36 AM PDT  Three countries have warned their citizens to stay on guard when visiting U.S. cities rocked by sometimes violent protests that erupted after a string of police shootings of black Americans. The United States regularly issues travel warnings urging Americans to either avoid or exercise caution in countries marred by violence or political instability. Now America is the focus of concern by foreign governments in the Middle East and Caribbean as protesters marched in U.S. cities throughout the weekend after police killed black men in Louisiana and Minnesota.
|
| German MPs say troops must return if Turkey refuses Incirlik visit Posted: 10 Jul 2016 10:10 AM PDT  Several German lawmakers said on Sunday the country's soldiers working at Turkey's Incirlik airbase should be brought home if Ankara continued to prevent parliamentarians from visiting the station. Turkey, angered by a resolution passed by the German parliament last month that branded the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces a genocide, has denied German lawmakers access to the base. Chancellor Angela Merkel said the parliamentarians must be allowed to visit the 250 soldiers at the base who are taking part in NATO operations against Islamic State militants in Iraq but she stopped short of threatening to withdraw the soldiers.
|
| Islamic State's Afghan foothold shrinks but attacks persist Posted: 10 Jul 2016 09:25 AM PDT  By Phil Stewart FORWARD OPERATING BASE FENTY, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An Afghan general leading the country's battle against Islamic State has noticed something peculiar about the militant group's fighters: They don't loot ammunition after raids against his forces. For Lieutenant General Mohammad Waziri, it is a clear sign that the militants are well financed. The financing, the persistence of Islamic State attacks and the ease with which its forces are slipping back and forth across the Afghan-Pakistan border, are some of the reasons Waziri is not boasting too much about territorial inroads against the group this year.
|
| Iran criticizes Saudi prince for joining opposition rally Posted: 10 Jul 2016 08:37 AM PDT TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran Sunday criticized the participation of a Saudi prince and former intelligence chief in an Iranian opposition rally in Paris. |
| Seven killed in two PKK attacks in Turkey Posted: 10 Jul 2016 08:35 AM PDT  Militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) killed six Turkish soldiers and a village guardsman in two separate attacks on Sunday, the army said. Five Turkish soldiers were killed in an attack on their military vehicle in Hakkari province on the road between the towns of Beyyurdu and Aktutun close to the border with northern Iraq. Turkish security forces had been engaged in a large-scale military operation in Hakkari to target Kurdish militants in the area, Dogan news agency said.
|
| Kurdish militant bomb attacks kill seven in southeast Turkey Posted: 10 Jul 2016 08:30 AM PDT By Seyhmus Cakan DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - Two Kurdish militant bomb attacks ripped through a military outpost and an army vehicle on Sunday, killing seven members of the armed forces, the military said, as a conflict which flared a year ago continued to rage in southeast Turkey. It was the third such attack in the last 24 hours in the mainly Kurdish region, where a two-year-old ceasefire between the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group and the state collapsed last July. Since then, thousands of PKK fighters, security force members and civilians have died in fighting across the region. |
| IS territory 'shrinks 12 percent since start of 2016' Posted: 10 Jul 2016 08:07 AM PDT  The Islamic State group lost 12 percent of the territory it holds in Iraq and Syria in the first half of 2016, according to an analysis by research group IHS. The analysis published Sunday says the jihadist group, which proclaimed its self-styled "caliphate" in the two countries in 2014, is continuing to lose ground after a string of setbacks last year. "In 2015, the Islamic State's caliphate shrunk by 12,800 square kilometres to 78,000 square kilometres, a net loss of 14 percent," IHS said.
|
| Gunmen in western Iran kill 2, injure lawmaker Posted: 10 Jul 2016 07:42 AM PDT TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Unknown gunmen killed two people and injured a lawmaker and a local governor in western Iran after opening fire on their car, an Iranian semi-official news agency reported. |
| Challenger accuses UK opposition leader of 'hiding' Posted: 10 Jul 2016 06:29 AM PDT  Jeremy Corbyn, the embattled head of Britain's main opposition Labour Party, is "hiding" and refusing to accept that his support among colleagues has vanished, leadership challenger Angela Eagle said Sunday. Eagle, who will on Monday formally launch her bid to take over the left-of-centre party, said Corbyn was "not a leader" and she wanted to "heal" Labour's divisions. Both Labour and Prime Minister David Cameron's ruling Conservative party have been plunged into turmoil by Britain's shock referendum vote to leave the EU last month.
|
| Islamic State lost quarter of its Iraq, Syria territory in 18 months: IHS Posted: 10 Jul 2016 05:45 AM PDT  Islamic State lost an area the size of Ireland - a quarter of its territory - to hostile forces in the last 18 months in Iraq and Syria and is likely to further step up attacks on civilians in coming months, IHS said in a report on Sunday. The territory controlled by the ultra-hardline Sunni group shrank from 90,800 sq km (35,000 square miles) in January 2015, six months after it declared a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, to 68,300 sq km (26,370 square miles), the research firm said. "As the Islamic State's caliphate shrinks and it becomes increasingly clear that its governance project is failing, the group is re-prioritizing insurgency," said Columb Strack, senior analyst at IHS and lead analyst for the IHS Conflict Monitor.
|
| Former UK deputy PM Prescott says now considers Iraq invasion illegal Posted: 10 Jul 2016 05:39 AM PDT  Britain broke international law when it invaded Iraq in 2003, its deputy prime minister at the time, John Prescott, said on Sunday in the wake of a critical report on the decision to go to war. A seven-year inquiry concluded on Wednesday that former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's justification, planning and handling of the Iraq War involved a catalog of failures, but did not rule whether the war was legal. Eight months before the 2003 invasion, Blair told former U.S. President George W. Bush "I will be with you, whatever", eventually sending 45,000 British troops into battle when peace options had not been exhausted, the long-awaited British public inquiry said.
|
| Four Turkish soldiers killed in southeast bomb blast: sources Posted: 10 Jul 2016 04:18 AM PDT DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (Reuters) - A roadside bomb planted by Kurdish militants ripped through a military vehicle in southeast Turkey on Sunday, killing four soldiers, security sources said, the third bomb attack in the region in 24 hours. The explosion occurred on the road between Semdinli and Aktutun in Hakkari province, along the border with Iraq, the sources said. Army border units were put on alert and an air-backed operation was launched to find those responsible. (Reporting by Seyhmus Cakan; Writing by Daren Butler, editing by Adrian Croft) |
| Iran says Saudis back terrorism after senior prince attends rebel rally Posted: 10 Jul 2016 03:59 AM PDT  Iran on Sunday accused Saudi Arabia of backing terrorism after a senior Saudi prince, a former intelligence chief, addressed a Paris rally held by exiled Iranian rebels and told them he wanted the Iranian government to fall. Shi'ite Muslim power Iran and Saudi Arabia, bastion of Sunni Islam, are longstanding religious and political arch rivals. Relations are fraught as they back each other's foes in regional wars such as in Yemen, Iraq and Syria.
|
| Child labor doubles in Iraq as violence, displacement hit incomes Posted: 10 Jul 2016 03:30 AM PDT  By Maher Nazeh and Saif Hameed BAGHDAD (Reuters) - More than half a million Iraqi children are estimated to be at work rather than at school as violence and displacement hurt the income of millions of families, according to the United Nations childrens' agency UNICEF. The number of children currently working, more than 575,000, has doubled since 1990, the year when Iraq attacked Kuwait, setting off a chain of events that led to the 2003 U.S.-led invasion and the sectarian strife that continues to this day. "I used to go to school and work here for half a day with a low salary,'' 12 year-old Ali Hussien Khudhair, who works the angle grinder in a blacksmith's shop in Baghdad, said.
|
| Portraits of loss: Victims of the Baghdad bombing Posted: 10 Jul 2016 02:23 AM PDT  BAGHDAD (AP) — Taha Abbas recites the names of the dead-- Hassan, Ali, Issa, Mustafa -- and flips through pictures on his phone of smartly dressed young men with coiffed hair striking poses. Nearly a dozen of his friends were killed last Sunday when the Islamic State group carried out the worst single bombing Iraq has seen in 13 years of war.
|
| Bin Laden's son threatens revenge for father's assassination: monitor Posted: 10 Jul 2016 02:20 AM PDT  The son of slain al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has threatened revenge against the United States for assassinating his father, according to an audio message posted online. Hamza bin Laden promised to continue the global militant group's fight against the United States and its allies in the 21-minute speech entitled "We Are All Osama," according to the SITE Intelligence Group. "We will continue striking you and targeting you in your country and abroad in response to your oppression of the people of Palestine, Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Somalia and the rest of the Muslim lands that did not survive your oppression," Hamza said.
|
