Month: August 2022

BAGHDAD: Fighting between rival Iraqi forces raged for a second day Tuesday with rocket fire echoing from Baghdad’s Green Zone where 23 supporters of powerful leader Moqtada Sadr have been shot dead, medics said.

Tensions have soared in Iraq amid a political crisis that has left the country without a new government, prime minister or president for months, and escalated sharply after Sadr’s supporters on Monday afternoon stormed the government palace following their leader’s announcement that he was quitting politics.

Overnight, shelling targeted the high-security Green Zone that houses government buildings and diplomatic missions, a security source said, amid angry protests after Sadr’s surprise announcement.

At least seven shells fell in the high-security Green Zone, the security source said on condition of anonymity, but it was not immediately clear who was responsible.

The security source said Sadr’s supporters opened fire at the Green Zone from the outside, adding security forces inside “were not responding”.

After a lull in violence, fresh clashes between Sadr’s supporters and the army and men of the Hashed al-Shaabi, former Tehran-backed paramilitaries integrated into the Iraqi forces, erupted again on Tuesday morning.

The rattle of automatic gunfire and heavier explosions of rocket-propelled grenades could be heard from the Green Zone, AFP correspondents reported.

‘Dangerous escalation’

The United Nations mission in Iraq warned of “an extremely dangerous escalation” and called on all sides to “refrain from acts that could lead to an unstoppable chain of events”.

“The very survival of the state is at stake,” it warned.

But amid an army-imposed nationwide curfew that continued Tuesday, Baghdad was otherwise quiet, with shops shuttered and few cars venturing out on the streets.

On Tuesday morning, medics updated the toll of Sadr supporters killed to 23, with some 380 others injured — some with bullet wounds and others suffering tear gas inhalation.

Witnesses said earlier that Sadr loyalists and supporters of a rival bloc, the pro-Iran Coordination Framework, had exchanged fire.

The Framework condemned an “attack on state institutions”, urging the Sadrists to engage in “dialogue”.

Caretaker Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi said “security or military forces, or armed men” were prohibited from opening fire on protesters.

The United States also urged calm amid the “disturbing” reports, while France called on “the parties to exercise the utmost restraint”.

‘Definitive retirement’

Shortly after he made his announcement, Sadr’s followers burst into the Republican Palace in Baghdad — where cabinet meetings are usually held — and initially celebrated including by cooling off in a swimming pool in the garden.

Sadr — a grey-bearded preacher with millions of devoted followers, who once led a militia against American and Iraqi government forces — announced earlier on Twitter he was stepping back from politics.

“I’ve decided not to meddle in political affairs. I therefore announce now my definitive retirement,” said Sadr, a longtime player in the war-torn country’s political scene, though he himself has never directly been in government.

His latest statement came two days after he said “all parties” including his own should give up government positions in order to help resolve the political crisis.

His bloc emerged from last year’s election as the biggest in the legislature, with 73 seats, but short of a majority.

In June, his lawmakers quit in a bid to break the logjam, which led to the Coordination Framework becoming the largest bloc.

Hamzeh Hadad, from the European Council on Foreign Relations, said it was “not clear” what Sadr’s strategy was.

“Whatever it does mean, in typical Sadrist fashion, there is always backtracking expected,” Hadad said.

“The second, and more terrifying thought on this is that he is giving his followers the green light to do whatever they like.”

Iraq has been mired in political deadlock since legislative elections in October last year due to disagreement between different factions over forming a coalition.

Sadr’s supporters have for weeks been staging a sit-in outside Iraq’s parliament, after storming the legislature’s interior on July 30 to press their demands.

The Coordination Framework wants a new head of government to be appointed before any new polls are held.

KABUL: The damage inflicted by a United States drone that killed 10 members of Aimal Ahmadi’s family in the Afghan capital can still be seen in the courtyard of his home a year after the strike.

The 32-year-old, whose daughter was among those killed, left Afghanistan with some of his family members, moving to a refugee camp in Qatar from where they now expect to be evacuated to the US for a future far from home.

“I don’t wish that any human being would go through what we went through, it’s terrible, unimaginable”, Ahmadi told AFP from Qatar.

On August 29, 2021, Ahmadi’s three-year-old daughter Malika, his brother Ezmarai, who had worked for an American charity, and several of his nephews and nieces were killed in the strike.

The 10 family members, including seven children, were near a family car when they were mistakenly targeted by a US drone.

The family were the last civilian deaths linked to US forces recorded in the chaotic days before American troops left Afghanistan on August 30 last year, allowing the Taliban to fully take control of the country.

A few days after the drone strike the Pentagon acknowledged that it had made a “mistake” in wrongly identifying the family’s white Toyota as a Daesh target.

The Pentagon did not punish the service members involved in the incident.

“There was not a strong enough case to be made for personal accountability,” said Pentagon spokesman at that time, John Kirby.

The US administration is currently helping relocate members of the family, Ahmadi said.

The drone hit came three days after a Daesh suicide bomb attack at Kabul airport killed more than 150 people — including 13 US troops — significantly raising tensions in the last days of US withdrawal.

An estimated 188 civilians have been killed by US forces by mistake in Afghanistan since 2018, according to the American military.

Compensation

A year after the strike, the modest two-storey house on a narrow street in the Khwaja Bughra neighbourhood in the north of Kabul is now inhabited by only a dozen distant relatives.

Several other relatives of the victims fled the scene of the tragedy, which still bears the scars of the attack.

Blown out by the explosion, the windows have now been repaired, the walls of the courtyard rebuilt and others repainted.

But on the floor, tiles are still missing where the drone strike hit.

The family’s second vehicle — almost completely burned by the blast — still lies in the middle of the yard under a tarp.

“We didn’t want to get rid of it in memory of the victims and because it saved lives by protecting the women inside the house from the shrapnel,” said Ahmadi’s 20-year-old nephew, Nasratullah Malikzada, who is now in charge of maintaining the house.

As he passed a gate where portraits of the 10 victims have been hung, the young Afghan said the situation is “very sad”.

“It is God’s will, what has happened has happened, we can’t go back. God will punish those responsible in the afterlife,” he said.

Washington’s announcement that it would pay the family compensation sparked interest in the family and among relatives, given the economic distress felt across the country.

Following the drone strike, Ahmadi lost his job working with foreign companies and one of his two other brothers was threatened by strangers who had heard about the expected compensation.

But to this day, the family has not received any money from the US and they have hired a lawyer to defend their interests, Ahmadi said.

The lawyer was not reachable for comment.

In an exhausted tone, Ahmadi said he is confident that the US government will compensate his family.

As soon as he completes the paperwork for his evacuation, he hopes to join his two brothers who are already in the US.

His ailing sister, who remains in Afghanistan and is also hoping to be evacuated, has left home for a safe place in Kabul.

“I hope that a better future awaits me,” said Ahmadi.

India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday offered heartfelt condolences to the families suffering from the extreme rain-induced flooding in Pakistan, hoping for the situation to get back to normal.

 

 

Taking to Twitter, the Indian prime minister wrote: “Saddened to see the devastation caused by the floods in Pakistan.”

“We extend our heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims, the injured and all those affected by this natural calamity and hope for an early restoration of normalcy,” said Modi.

So far, about 1,061 people have died while millions have been directly affected by the abnormally heavy rains in the country.

Tens of millions battle floods as death toll rises

Tens of millions of people across swathes of Pakistan are battling the worst monsoon floods in a decade, with countless homes washed away, vital farmland destroyed, and the country´s main river threatening to burst its banks.

Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman said a third of the country was under water, creating a “crisis of unimaginable proportions”.

Officials say 1,136 people have died since June when the seasonal rains began, but the final toll could be higher as hundreds of villages in the mountainous north have been cut off after flood-swollen rivers washed away roads and bridges.

The annual monsoon is essential for irrigating crops and replenishing lakes and dams across the Indian subcontinent, but it can also bring destruction.

This year’s flooding has affected more than 33 million people — one in seven Pakistanis — said the National Disaster Management Authority.

This year’s floods are comparable to those of 2010 — the worst on record — when more than 2,000 people died.

Flood victims have taken refuge in makeshift camps that have sprung up across the country, where desperation is setting in.

Millions of acres of rich farmland have been flooded by weeks of non-stop rain, but now the Indus is threatening to burst its banks as torrents of water course downstream from tributaries in the north.

ISLAMABAD: The coalition government Monday approved the establishment of the National Flood Response and Coordination Center to provide an institutional response to the flood calamity.

A third of Pakistan is under water as a result of flooding caused by record monsoon rains.

 

 

Officials say at least 33 million people — one in every seven Pakistanis — have been affected by the floods, which have killed 1,136 people since the monsoon began in June.

In order to review the situation, a meeting was held today under the chair of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, after which it was decided that the flood response centre will comprise of federal ministers, representatives of armed forces, chief ministers, and other experts.

“The centre will serve as a bridge between disaster management authorities, donors and government institutions,” PM Shehbaz announced on his Twitter handle.

He further added that the centre will collect and analyse the latest information and pass it on to the relevant government agencies. It will also oversee rescue and relief work including restoration of infrastructure.

Pakistan monsoon flooding death toll rises to 1,061

Tens of millions of people across swathes of Pakistan are battling the worst monsoon floods in a decade, with countless homes washed away, vital farmland destroyed, and the country´s main river threatening to burst its banks.

The death toll from monsoon flooding in Pakistan since June has reached 1,061, according to figures released Monday by the country’s National Disaster Management Authority.

It said 28 people had died in the previous 24 hours, but authorities were still trying to reach cut-off villages in the mountainous north.

The NDMA said more than two million acres of cultivated crops have been wiped out, 3,457 kilometres (about 2,200 miles) of roads destroyed, and 157 bridges washed away.