syria – LSD News

US approves plan to strike Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Fri, 02 Feb 2024 03:21:39 +0000

The US has approved plans for a series of strikes on Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq, officials have told the BBC s US partner CBS News. MORE..

U.S. Seeks to Repatriate Family of 10 Americans From Camps in Syria

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Tue, 12 Sep 2023 10:52:52 +0000

The State Department is working to repatriate a family of 10 American citizens stranded in Syria, where they are among the tens of thousands of people effectively imprisoned in desert camps and detention centers from the war against the Islamic State, according to officials.

The transfer would make them the largest group brought back to the United States from northeastern Syria, where they are being held by a Kurdish-led militia. The American government has repatriated 40 such citizens since 2016 — 25 children and 15 adults, according to the State Department.

The group consists of Brandy Salman, 49, and nine of her children, who range in age from about 6 to about 25, and all appear to have been born in the United States. Ms. Salman’s husband, who was from Turkey, seems to have taken her and their children into Islamic State territory around 2016 and was apparently later killed.

The detention centers in northeastern Syria typically hold the families of suspected Islamic State militants. Much remains unclear about the family’s interactions with the group before the collapse of the so-called caliphate.

That ambiguity, and the apparent delay in identifying them as Americans, reflects a broader, festering and complicated problem: Many countries have left their own citizens stranded in these camps, out of fear and uncertainty. One result is that tens of thousands of children are growing up there under brutal circumstances and are vulnerable to radicalization.

According to the account of one of the Salman children, a son who is now about 17, the family was taken into custody at Baghuz, where the Islamic State’s last major enclave fell in early 2019. Camp guards separated him from his mother several years ago under a disputed policy of removing adolescent boys.

It is not clear what the authorities intend to do with Ms. Salman, or where and how her family will be resettled. Some adults who traveled to Syria to join ISIS and were later brought back to the United States have faced prosecution on charges like conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism, while others have not.

Her sister, Rebecca Jean Harris, of Murfreesboro, Tenn., said in an interview that about four years ago, F.B.I. agents came to her house to ask about her sister. Ms. Harris added that Ms. Salman, informed about that visit by text, cut off communications.

Public records show that Ms. Salman has lived in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York City and Michigan. Ms. Salman’s father, Stephen R. Caravalho, of Hot Springs, Ark., said in an interview that the family has had only sporadic contact with her for years, and that he last saw her in person during a visit to New York around 2006.

The Kurdish-led militia, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or S.D.F., has been the United States’ main ally in the region battling the Islamic State. It has been stuck holding about 60,000 people — most from Iraq and Syria, but about 10,000 from about 60 other countries — even though it is not a sovereign government.

The situation is messy for many reasons. The S.D.F. does not have comprehensive and accurate records about all the people it is holding. Many nations, particularly in Europe, have been reluctant to allow their citizens to return, especially men suspected of being militants. Among other concerns, some fear that under their legal systems, any incarceration would last only a few years.

Even children who were brought to the Islamic State by their parents are frequently stigmatized. About 50,000 displaced people, mainly women and children, live in the largest camp, Al Hol, where by some estimates half its population is under 12.

The United States has campaigned for other nations to ease the problem by taking back their citizens, as it says it does, and has offered to help. Last month, for example, it flew 95 women and children to Kyrgyzstan.

Given the United States’ stance, it is unclear why the Salman family was not taken out of Syria long ago, said Letta Tayler, a researcher for Human Rights Watch who interviewed one of the Salman children, the son who is now about 17, in May 2022 at Houry, a center for teenage boys. Ms. Tayler said she told the State Department about him in November.

“It’s great that the U.S. is acting to take back this family, but why did it take so long given the horrific conditions that these U.S. citizens were subjected to?” she said. “That’s a question that deserves an answer from the U.S. government.”

Asked about the apparent delay, Ian Moss, a deputy coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, demurred but noted that it can be difficult to definitively identify who is in Syria and where they come from.

“Whenever we find Americans, we work as fast as we can to get them out,” he said.

In meeting with Ms. Salman and five of her children at one of the camps in July, Mr. Moss said, she expressed her desire to return to the United States with her entire family, and his office has been working on repatriating them.

Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the United Nations special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, interviewed the same teenage boy in July. Both shared notes from their conversations with him on the condition that The New York Times not print his name. The Times was unable to independently verify all the details in his account.

In about 2016, when he was around 9 and in Turkey, according to the boy’s account to Ms. Tayler, his father told the family that they were going camping. After several days of travel, his father revealed that they were in Syria.

There, his mother largely kept the children inside because she was afraid, according to notes of the boy’s account.

When the Kurdish-led militia took the family into custody at Baghuz, it sent his older brother, then about 17, to a prison for adult men, the notes say, separating him from his family. That brother, now about 21, is still alive, according to an official.

The younger teenager, who is now himself about 17, lived with his mother and other siblings at the Al Hol camp until early 2020. One day, at a marketplace area in Al Hol, guards seized the boy and several other teenagers without notifying their families or letting them collect their belongings, according to notes of his account.

He was held in what was apparently a latrine for about a month before being moved to the Houry center, which is sometimes described as a rehabilitation or deradicalization center for youths.

Human Rights Watch featured the boy — obscuring his face and using a pseudonym — in a video about children stranded in Syria after their parents took them there to join ISIS. In it, he said: “It’s not only me. We a lot of kids, you know. No one wants to stay, just like growing up here doing nothing. That’s what we all feeling.”

Ms. Ni Aolain, who is also a law professor, published a United Nations report after her visit to Syria that portrays the policy of “the forced arbitrary separation of hundreds of adolescent boys” from their mothers as a systematic violation of human rights. (Human Rights Watch has also criticized that policy.)

“Every woman she spoke with identified the snatching and disappearance of their juvenile and adolescent boys as their main concern,” the report said, adding that other boys she interviewed described their sudden removals as “violent and causing them extreme anxiety, as well as mental and psychological suffering.”

Officials with the militia have defended the practice on several grounds, saying that it reduces the risk of pregnancies in the camps and that young men will be indoctrinated by women who are still members of the Islamic State.

Over 3,000 people were repatriated from the S.D.F.’s custody in 2022, more than in the previous three years combined, and 2,500 more have been taken back by their home countries so far this year, the State Department said.

Still, about 9,000 adult male detainees remain imprisoned, about 2,000 of whom come from countries other than Iraq or Syria. Of the 50,000 residents of Al Hol, about 7,500 are from third countries, the department said. A smaller camp, Roj, has about 2,400 people in all, it said, and there are a few hundred teenage boys in the youth centers.

Since he was taken to the Houry center, the teenager told Ms. Tayler in May 2022 that an older sister had twice visited him, and that he had occasionally exchanged letters with his mother through the Red Cross.

In her interview with the boy, Ms. Ni Aolain said he expressed “great distress and worry” about his inability to meaningfully communicate with his mother and showed paintings and drawings that depicted them together. He also talked about hamburgers and missing rap music, she said.

“He seemed like a teenaged boy, except he happened to be a teenaged boy in this extraordinarily coercive and structurally abusive situation,” she said.

Kitty Bennett contributed research.

Why Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to Saudi Arabia means so much for the Gulf monarchy’s sporting ambitions | CNN

LSD News Szerkesztőség — Tue, 18 Jul 2023 06:36:29 +0000

Editor’s Note: A version of this story appears in today’s Meanwhile in the Middle East newsletter, CNN’s three-times-a-week look inside the region’s biggest stories. Sign up here.

Abu Dhabi, UAE
CNN
—

It’s a partnership that’s been hailed as “history in the making.”

One of the world’s most famous soccer stars landed in the Saudi capital Riyadh on Tuesday, where Cristiano Ronaldo was received in an extravagant ceremony, with excited children sporting his new club’s yellow and blue jerseys.

Oil-rich Saudi Arabia’s success in luring the five-time Ballon d’Or winner on a two-year contract with the kingdom’s Al Nassr FC is the Gulf monarchy’s latest step in realizing its sporting ambitions – seemingly at any cost.

According to Saudi state-owned media, Ronaldo will earn an estimated $200 million a year with Al Nassr, making him the world’s highest-paid soccer player.

Shortly after the 37-year-old’s signing with Al Nassr, the club’s Instagram page gained over 5.3 million new followers. Its official website was inaccessible after exceeding its bandwidth limit due to the sudden surge in traffic, and the hashtag #HalaRonaldo – Hello, Ronaldo in Arabic – was trending for days across the Middle East on Twitter.

Analysts say that his recruitment in Saudi Arabia is part of a wider effort by the kingdom to diversify its sources of revenue and become a serious player in the international sporting scene.

It is also seen as a move by the kingdom to shore up its image after it was tarnished by the 2018 dismemberment and killing of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the hands of Saudi agents, and a devastating war it started in Yemen in 2015.

Critics have decried the kingdom for “sportswashing,” an attempt to burnish one’s reputation through sport.

“I think Saudi Arabia has recognized a couple of years ago that to be a powerful nation internationally, you cannot just rely on hard power,” Danyel Reiche, a visiting research fellow and associate professor at Georgetown University Qatar, told CNN.

“You also need to invest in soft power, and the case of Qatar shows that this can work pretty well,” he said, adding that Saudi Arabia is following in the Qatari approach with sport, but with a delay of around 25 years.

Neighboring Qatar has also faced immense criticism since it won the bid to hosting last year’s FIFA World Cup in 2010.

Despite the smaller Gulf state facing similar accusations of “sportswashing,” the tournament has largely been viewed as a success, not least in exposing the world to a different view of the Middle East, thanks in part to Morocco’s success in reaching the semifinals and Saudi Arabia beating eventual World Cup champion Argentina in their opening group game.

Gulf nations engage in fierce competition to become the region’s premier entertainment and sporting hubs. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bahrain, in close proximity to each other, each have their own Formula One racing event. But their competition hasn’t been confined to the region. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have also bought trophy European soccer teams.

Riyadh is playing catchup with neighbors who have long realized the importance of investing in sports, said Simon Chadwick, professor of sport and geopolitical economy at SKEMA Business School in Lille, France, especially as its main source of income – oil – is being gradually shunned.

“This is part of an ongoing attempt to create more resilient economies that are more broadly based upon industries other than those that are derived from oil and gas,” Chadwick told CNN.

Ronaldo’s new club Al Nassr is backed by Qiddiya Investment Company (QIC), a subsidiary of the kingdom’s wealth fund, the Public Investment Fund (PIF), which has played a pivotal role in Saudi Arabia’s diversification plans.

“It is also a sign of interconnectedness, of globalization and of opening up to the rest of the world,” said Georgetown University’s Reiche.

The move is part of “several recent high profile moves in the sports world, including hosting the Andy Ruiz Jr. and Anthony Joshua world heavywight boxing championship bout in 2019, and launching the LIV Golf championship,” said Omar Al-Ubaydli, director of research at the Bahrain-based Derasat think tank. “It is a significant piece of a large puzzle that represents their economic restructuring.”

The kingdom has been on a path to not only diversify its economy, but also shift its image amid a barrage of criticism over its human rights record and treatment of women. Saudi Arabia is today hosting everything from desert raves to teaming up with renowned soccer players. Argentina’s Lionel Messi last year signed a lucrative promotional deal with the kingdom.

Hailed as the world’s greatest player, 35-year-old Messi ended this year’s World Cup tournament in Qatar with his team’s win over France, making his ambassadorship of even greater value to the kingdom.

The acquisition of such key global figures will also help combat the monarchy’s decades-long reputation of being “secretive” and “ultra-conservative,” James Dorsey, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore and an expert on soccer in the Middle East, told CNN’s Eleni Giokos on Wednesday.

Al-Ubaydli said that the kingdom wants to use high profile international sports “as a vehicle for advertising to the world its openness.”

Saudi Arabia bought the English Premier league club Newcastle United in 2021 through a three-party consortium, with PIF being the largest stakeholder. The move proved controversial, as Amnesty International and other human rights defenders worried it would overshadow the kingdom’s human rights violations.

Ronaldo’s work with Saudi Arabia is already being criticized by rights groups who are urging the soccer player to “draw attention to human rights issues” in Saudi Arabia.

“Saudi Arabia has an image problem,” especially since Khashoggi’s killing, says Reiche. But the kingdom’s recent investments in sports and entertainment are “not about sportswashing but about developing the country, social change and opening up to the world.”

Saudi Arabia is reportedly weighing a 2030 World Cup bid with Egypt and Greece, but the kingdom’s tourism ministry noted in November that it has not yet submitted an official bid. Chadwick believes that Ronaldo’s deal with Al Nassr, however, may help boost the kingdom’s bid should it choose it pursue it.

Another way Saudi Arabia may benefit from Ronaldo’s acquisition is that it will be able to improve commercial performance, says Chadwick, especially if this collaboration attracts further international talent.

“It is important to see Ronaldo not just as a geopolitical instrument,” said Chadwick, “There is still a commercial component to him and to the purpose he is expected to serve in Saudi Arabia.”

What Ronaldo’s move to Saudi Arabia shows is that the kingdom aspires “to be seen as being the best” and that it wants to be perceived as a “contender and a legitimate member of the international football community,” said Chadwick.

UAE FM meets Syria’s Assad in Damascus in further sign of thawing ties

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad received the United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed in Damascus on Wednesday in the latest sign of thawing relations between Assad and the Gulf state. The meeting addressed developments in Syria and the wider Middle East, according to UAE state news agency WAM.

Background: It was Abdullah bin Zayed’s first visit since a November 2021 meeting with Assad that led to the resumption of relations. Months later, in March 2022, Assad visited the UAE, his first visit to an Arab state since the start of Syria’s civil war.
Why it matters: A number of Assad’s former foes have been trying to mend fences with his regime. Last week, talks between the Syrian and Turkish defense ministers were held in Moscow in the highest-level encounter reported between the estranged sides since the war in Syria began. The regional rapprochement is yet to improve the lives of average Syrians. Syria is still under Western sanctions.

Turkish President Erdogan says he could meet with Assad

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech on Thursday that he could meet the Syrian leader “to establish peace.”

Background: Erdogan’s comments came after the Moscow talks between the two nations’ defense ministers and intelligence chiefs. “Following this meeting… we will bring our foreign ministers together. And after that, as leaders, we will come together,” Erdogan said on Thursday.
Why it matters: The meeting would mark a dramatic shift in Turkey’s decade-long stance on Syria, where Ankara was the prime supporter of political and armed factions fighting to topple Assad. The Turkish military maintains a presence across the Syrian border and within northern Syria, where it backs Syrian opposition forces. Erdogan has also pledged to launch yet another incursion into northern Syria, aiming at creating a 30-km (20-mile) deep “safe zone” that would be emptied of Kurdish fighters.

Iran shuts down French cultural center over Charlie Hebdo’s Khamenei cartoons

Iran announced on Thursday it had ended the activities of a Tehran-based French research institute, in reaction to cartoons mocking Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and fellow Shia Muslim clerics published by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo this week.

Background: Iran summoned the French ambassador to Tehran on Wednesday to protest cartoons published by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. More than 30 cartoons poking fun at Iran’s supreme leader were published by the magazine on Wednesday, in a show of support for the Iranian people who have been protesting the Islamic Republic’s government and its policies.
Why it matters: French-Iranian relations have deteriorated significantly since protests broke out in Iran late last year. Paris has publicly supported the protests and spoken out against Iran’s response to them. French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna criticized Iran’s freedom of press and judicial independence on Thursday, saying “press freedom exists, contrary to what is going on in Iran and… it is exercised under the supervision of a judge in an independent judiciary – and there too it’s something that Iran knows little of.”

The prized legacy of iconic Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum re-emerged this year when Rolling Stone magazine featured her in its “200 Greatest Singers of All Time.”

Ranking 61st, Umm Kulthum was the only Arab artist to make it to the list, with the magazine saying that she “has no real equivalent among singers in the West.”

Born in a small village northeast of the Egyptian capital Cairo, Umm Kulthum rose to unmatched fame as she came to represent “the soul of the pan-Arab world,” the music magazine said.

“Her potent contralto, which could blur gender in its lower register, conveyed breathtaking emotional range in complex songs that, across theme and wildly-ornamented variations, could easily last an hour, as she worked crowds like a fiery preacher,” it wrote.

Nicknamed “the lady of Arab singing,” her music featured both classical Arabic poetry as well as colloquial songs still adored by younger generations. Her most famous pieces include “Inta Uumri” (you are my life), “Alf Leila Weileila” (a thousand and one nights), “Amal Hayati” (hope of my life) and “Daret al-Ayyam” (the days have come around). Some of her songs have been remixed to modern beats that have made their way to Middle Eastern nightclubs.

The singer remains an unmatched voice across the Arab World and her music can still be heard in many traditional coffee shops in Old Cairo’s neighborhoods and other parts of the Arab world.

Umm Kulthum’s death in 1975 brought millions of mourners to the streets of Cairo.

By Nadeen Ebrahim