The Iranian Army displayed a series of new homegrown equipment in a military parade marking the Army Day.
The vehicle parade, held to mark the Army and the Ground Force Day, saw various units of the Iranian Army showcasing its achievements on Sunday morning.
Informed Iraqi sources said that the Sadrist movement has begun to prepare for the upcoming Iraqi elections and that it will present itself to the US as a “moderate” movement and the best option in the Iraqi Shia community.
The sources told The Arab Weekly that the Shia political spectrum is now divided between the pro-Iranian Popular Mobilisation Forces, accused by the US of responsibility for attacks targeting its forces in Iraq; the Dawa Party, which is internally splintered and the remnants of smaller formations, such as the Al-Hikma groups.
A recent op-ed piece in the Washington Post (13 March 2021), written jointly by the Quad leaders, President Joe Biden of the US, Prime Ministers Narendra Modi, Scott Morrison and Yashihide Suga of India, Australia and Japan respectively, morphs the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD or the Quad) to a “Quad Framework” hailed by Modi as a “force for global good”.
Libya’s transitional government on Saturday welcomed a U.N. Security Council decision to deploy international monitors to watch over a nearly six-month-old cease-fire in the conflict-stricken country.
The Government of National Unity also urged the council to help get mercenaries out of the oil-rich country, as it heads toward December elections after a decade of fighting and upheaval.
The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ recent proposal for up to 60 monitors to join an existing political mission in Libya.
The monitors would arrive in an “incremental deployment … once conditions allow,” according to the council’s British-drafted resolution. The council also urges all foreign forces and mercenaries to get out of the country, as was supposed to happen months ago.
The vote, announced on Friday, was conducted by email, due to the coronavirus pandemic; the results were announced at a brief virtual meeting.
The interim government, which took power last month, expressed its willingness to facilitate the work of the U.N. monitors.
It also said it would would provide “all financial and logistic” capabilities to the country’s elections authority to hold a “fair and transparent” vote on Dec. 24.
Libya has been plagued by corruption and turmoil since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Moammar Gadhafi in 2011. In recent years, the country was split between a U.N.-supported government in the capital, Tripoli, and rival authorities based in the country’s east.
Each side was backed by armed groups and foreign governments. The U.N. estimated in December there were at least 20,000 foreign fighters and mercenaries in Libya, including Syrians, Russians, Sudanese and Chadians.
In April 2019, east-based military commander Khalifa Hifter and his forces, backed by Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, launched an offensive to try and capture Tripoli. His 14-month-long campaign collapsed after Turkey and Qatar stepped up their military support of the U.N.-backed government with hundreds of troops and thousands of Syrian mercenaries.
The cease-fire agreement, reached in October, called for the foreign fighters and mercenaries to leave within three months. No progress was made in that regard.
The cease-fire deal has dramatically reduced civilian casualties, but the U.N. has continued to document killings, forced disappearances, sexual violence, arbitrary arrests, hate crimes and attacks against activists and human rights defenders in Libya, U.N. special envoy Jan Kubis told the council last month.
Navy divers recovered another body on Saturday from a migrant boat that floundered and sunk off the coast of eastern Tunisia, bringing to 22 the number of known dead, including nine women and a baby, as police searched for the smuggler.
An estimated 40 people were aboard the boat which sank Friday off the coast of Sfax in the Mediterranean Sea and the search for the missing continued, according to Ali Ayari, spokesman for the port city’s National Guard.
Also sought is a Tunisian said to have been the main smuggler and two others from sub-Saharan Africa, Ayari told The Associated Press. A Tunisian middleman has been arrested, he added.
“The boat took on water shortly after leaving the Sidi Monsour beach, near Sfax, which leads one to think the migrants were (victims) of a scam,” Ayari said.
The craft was allegedly headed to Italy, a main destination for migrants taking to the Mediterranean from this North African country and looking for a foothold in Europe to escape poverty or conflict.
On March 9, two boats ran aground in the same area, killing 39 people with 165 others rescued. Most people aboard were from sub-Saharan Africa.
New clashes have erupted in the town of Palma, Mozambique, three weeks after a jihadist attack left dozens of people dead and forced thousands to flee their homes.
MAPUTO – New clashes have erupted in the town of Palma, Mozambique, three weeks after a jihadist attack left dozens of people dead and forced thousands to flee their homes, military and security sources said.
Clashes between sedentary farmers and semi-nomadic herders in southeastern Chad have left many dead in recent days, humanitarian and human rights sources said Sunday.
The two groups have a long and troubled history in the region, where weapons abound and violence often flares after cattle destroy crops.
An Iranian Kurdish political refugee, Afshin Sohrabzadeh, 31, who suffers from cancer and lives in Turkey, has been held in administrative detention for deportation — for allegedly “threatening Turkey’s security”. He is currently being held in a removal center, and, if returned to Iran, he may well face the death penalty.
On April 5, he visited the Eskisehir Immigration Office to get permission to visit a friend in Ankara. Instead, he was held in administrative detention and a decision was made by the authorities to deport him back to Iran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has verified that Iran has started enriching uranium up to 60-percent purity level, a measure the Islamic Republic had promised to take following an Israeli act of nuclear terrorism against it.
The United Nations nuclear watchdog verified the development on Saturday, and Director-General Rafael Grossi relayed the confirmation in a notification addressed to the agency’s Board of Governors.
Russia will exit the International Space Station (ISS) initiative in 2025 and will inform its international partners about that decision, Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov told broadcaster Rossiya 1 on Sunday.
According to the TV channel, the decision to withdraw was made during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on 12 April.