US confirms Idlib air raid but denies targeting mosque
Centcom conducted strike on "al-Qaeda in Syria meeting" in Idlib" after reports that over 40 civilians died in village.
The US military says it carried out a deadly air strike on an al-Qaeda meeting in northern Syria and will investigate reports that more than 40 civilians were killed when a mosque was struck in the raid.
The jets reportedly struck the village at the time of evening prayer so the mosque was full of worshippers, with local activists saying up to 300 people were inside at the time of the air raids.
The village - Al Jineh - is located in one of the main rebel-held parts of Syria, encompassing Idlib province and the western parts of Aleppo province. Its population has been swollen by refugees, according to UN agencies.
GCHQ denies White House claim that UK spy agency helped wiretap Trump
A spokesperson said allegations – repeated by press secretary Sean Spicer – that it helped Barack Obama spy on Trump were ‘utterly ridiculous’
In a highly unusual move, GCHQ has denied an allegation repeated by the White House press secretary on Thursday that the British spy agency had helped former president Barack Obama “wiretap” Donald Trump during the 2016 election.
“Recent allegations made by media commentator judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense,” a GCHQ spokesperson said in a statement. “They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”
This week, Napolitano, Fox News judicial analyst, claimed during an interview on the network that three intelligence sources confirmed to him that the Obama administration used GCHQ to spy on Trump so that there would be “no American fingerprints on this”.Iran's 'exemplary' refugee resettlement efforts praised by UN
Iran has sheltered approximately three million Afghans for almost four decades, a success story international officials say is ‘not told enough’
Iran, one of the states targeted by Donald Trump’s Muslim ban, is a country from which the US could learn a lot on the resettlement of refugees, the UN has said.
The Soviet War in Afghanistan displaced six million people to neighbouring Iran and Pakistan in 1979. Almost four decades later, the Tehran government still shelters around one million registered Afghans, and up to two million are thought to also be living in the country - making Iran home to the world’s fourth largest refugee population.
“The leadership demonstrated by the Iranian government has been exemplary in hosting refugees and keeping borders open,” Sivanka Dhanapala, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Tehran, said on Wednesday.
Photos 'document brutal Turkish takeover of Kurdish village'
A small Kurdish village in southeastern Turkey was allegedly occupied by the Turkish army for 19 days, ending on March 2. In the days since, shocking photos have been circulating on social media apparently showing the brutality that occurred. The photos reportedly show destroyed homes and walls pockmarked by bullets, as well as the carcasses of animals that starved to death while their owners were on lockdown. Further images show people who appear to have been tortured. However, the emerging reports have not been officially confirmed and the Observers are unable to independently verify the information.
From February 11 to March 2, people living in the village of Koruköy (called Xerabê Bava in Kurdish) claim they were forbidden from leaving their homes by the Turkish army. Among the allegations that have emerged include: soldiers arresting village residents, including the 71-year-old village chief, and the bulldozing of several homes. Being unable to care for their animals, the villagers lost much of their livestock, which starved to death.
The local Kurdish press published numerous accounts of locals who said soldiers had assassinated several residents and tortured others.
China pledges firm response if Japan interferes in South China Sea
MAR. 17, 2017 - 06:55AM JST
China on Thursday pledged a firm response if Japan stirs up trouble in the South China Sea, after Reuters reported on a Japanese plan to send its largest warship to the disputed waters.
The Izumo helicopter carrier, commissioned only two years ago, will make stops in Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka before joining the Malabar joint naval exercise with Indian and U.S. naval vessels in the Indian Ocean in July, sources told Reuters.
The trip would be Japan’s biggest show of naval force in the region since World War Two.
“If Japan persists in taking wrong actions, and even considers military interventions that threaten China’s sovereignty and security… then China will inevitably take firm responsive measures,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said at a regular press briefing.PROSECUTORS ALLEGE DUBIOUS ISIS-NAZI CONNECTION IN TERROR STING CASE
FEDERAL PROSECUTORS WHO brought terror charges last year against a Virginia man — for buying gift cards for an FBI informant — argued in court last week that Nazi memorabilia found in the man’s apartment was relevant to the case because ISIS and the Nazis share “a similarity in ideology”.
According to a transcript of the hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg said that the defendant, Nicholas Young, was interested in ISIS and Nazism simultaneously. And as an example of historical Muslim-Nazi cooperation, Kromberg noted that Young, on Facebook, had “liked” Mufti Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, a Palestinian nationalist who supported Adolf Hitler. Last year Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu caused an uproar by claiming that al-Husayni inspired the Nazi Holocaust, an allegation that was widely denounced as untrue by historians.
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