Archive for month: October, 2014

A senior Iranian official has singled out the Israeli regime as the main threat to the world, urging Muslim countries to band together to counter this growing peril.

“The Islamic Republic of Iran regards full support for the Islamic resistance against the Zionist regime [of Israel] as a religious and human duty,” Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) Ali Shamkhani said in a meeting with leaders of the Palestinian groups in Damascus on Tuesday.

He touched upon efforts by certain countries to promote Shiaphobia and said, “While many Sunni states are pursuing the policy of silence vis-à-vis the anti-human crimes by the Zionist regime, Shia Iran has provided the most amount of support for the oppressed Palestinian people.” 

The top official emphasized that Iran would press ahead with supporting the Islamic resistance.

Shamkhani wrapped up a day-long visit to Lebanon and arrived in the Syrian capital, Damascus, at the head of a political delegation on Tuesday. In his talks with senior Syrian and Lebanese officials, he reaffirmed Iran’s support for the two countries.

Syria has been gripped by deadly conflict since 2011. The Western powers and their regional allies — especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey — are reportedly backing the militants operating inside Syria.

More than 191,000 people have so far been killed during more than three years of Takfiri violence in the war-ravaged country.

Lebanon has been rocked by the spillover of the conflict in Syria.

SF/NN/HRB

British warplanes have conducted their first aerial strikes against ISIL Takfiri terrorists in northwestern Iraq, the UK’s Defense Ministry states.

“In the course of an armed reconnaissance mission from RAF Akrotiri, two Tornados were tasked to assist Kurdish troops in northwest Iraq who were under attack from ISIL terrorists,” said the ministry’s statement on Tuesday.

The official statement further added that the bombings by the British Royal Air Force (RAF) were “part of the international coalition’s operations” to purportedly support the Iraqi government in its battle against the terrorists.

The development comes as British authorities have repeatedly warned that UK nationals belonging to the ISIL terrorist group in Iraq and Syria are a major threat to the nation’s security.

At least 500 Britons are believed to have joined the Takfiri terrorists in Syria and Iraq over the past two years in a bid to help destabilize or overthrow the central governments there.

Reports indicate that two Tornado GR4 aircraft, based in Cyprus, were used in the British bombing attack. 

An ISIL’s heavy weapons position that was engaged in attacking Kurdish forces in the area was targeted in the aerial raid, the Defense Ministry statement further elaborated.

Meanwhile, UK Defense Secretary Michael Fallon has emphasized that British warplanes may take part in bombing campaigns against the terrorists in Iraq and Syria for years to come.

This is while Britain has been among the western countries that have actively backed the militants, including ISIL operatives, fighting the Syrian government since 2011.

MFB/NN/HRB

The United States has confirmed its first case of Ebola virus disease in the city of Dallas, which is also the first case outside of Africa.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that a male patient tested positive for the disease on Tuesday.

“An individual travelling from Liberia has been diagnosed with Ebola in the United States,” CDC Director Thomas Frieden told reporters.

The man fell ill in Liberia and traveled to the state of Texas. Upon arrival, he was hospitalized and quarantined after showing Ebola-like symptoms.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon announced that it will deploy 1,400 US troops to Liberia. And the newly appointed head of the United Nations Ebola response team has pledged to take action in West Africa to prevent the outbreak from spreading to other parts of the world.

Ebola has already claimed more than 3,000 lives in West Africa and a small number of US aid workers have recovered after being treated in the United States.

There is currently no known cure for Ebola, which is a form of hemorrhagic fever with diarrhea, vomiting and bleeding as its symptoms.

The Ebola virus spreads through direct contact with infected blood, feces or sweat. It can also be spread through sexual contact or the unprotected handling of contaminated corpses.

GJH/GJH

The Palestinian Authority chief negotiator has likened Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the notorious leader of the ISIL Takfiri terrorist group.

Speaking on Tuesday, Saeb Erekat said “Netanyahu is trying to disseminate fear of” the ISIL led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, “but Netanyahu forgets that he himself leads the Jewish state.”

“He wants us to call Israel the Jewish state, and supports terrorist settlers who kill, destroy and burn mosques and churches… like Baghdadi’s men kill and terrorize,” Erekat said.

Erekat’s comments came after the Israeli prime minister compared the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas to the ISIL.

Addressing the United Nations General Assembly on Monday, Netanyahu compared Israel’s battle against Hamas to that of the US-led campaign against the ISIL militants in Iraq and Syria.

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Executive Committee, has also released a statement, calling Netanyahu’s address misleading.

She said that the Israeli premier manipulated facts when he compared Hamas with the ISIL terrorist group.

“Netanyahu’s speech at the UN was a blatant manipulation of facts and attempted at misleading the audience through a combination of hate language, slander and argument of obfuscation,” Ashrawi said.

HN/MHB/AS

A group of Yemeni rights activists and media crew have uncovered underground tunnels and illegal prison cells in the capital Sana’a, Press TV reports.

Those were found inside a military base that used to be commanded by fugitive Major General Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar, half brother of deposed Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Aburahman Abd al-Wahid of the Yemen Center for Civil Rights said, “This is the fortress of corruption, which is a number of underground prison cells in horrific conditions and to some degree demolished. We also found chains, which were used for torturing.”

Yemeni Ansarullah fighters took control of the military base after fierce clashes in Sana’a with forces loyal to Ahmar.

President Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi had in the past issued a presidential decree to transform the base into an amusement park for the public. However, the once-powerful army general refused.

Journalist Abed al-Mudhari said, “A week ago, this base used to be a military base for Ali Mohsen al-Ahmar. It is now an amusement park for children thanks to the revolutionaries, who liberated it from the armed groups, who used to dictate authority over the system, the country and the authority.”

Now that the military base has been cleared from the grip of Ahmar, who according to reports has fled the country to Saudi Arabia, fighters of the Ansarullah movement say they will begin to withdraw their forces from Sana’a in the days to come.

Yemeni rights activists say that many war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed for many years inside Ahmar’s military base, which has now been exposed to the public after it fell under the control of the Houthis last week.

Earlier in the month, Ansarullah revolutionaries signed a security agreement that called for them to disarm and pull out of the areas they had seized over the past months.

The activists, also known as Houthis, signed the accord as part of a UN-mediated comprehensive agreement with pro-government Salafist Islah party and other parties.

HN/MHB/AS