Panoramica dei mezzi d'informazione islamici
Yemeni sources were quoted in the Asharq Alaswat newspaper as saying that Hezbollah operatives are fighting alongside Shiite rebels in south Yemen.
The sources added that advisors from the Revolutionary Guards have been sent to battle zones in order to help plan and coordinate communication with the Shiite rebels.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said that a final nuclear accord with Iran will demand Tehran disclose its past military-related nuclear activities, according to ToI.com.
As a part of its review of Iran’s nuclear program, the International Atomic Energy Agency has been looking into whether the Islamic Republic has attempted build atomic weapons in the past. Although Tehran denies any military ambitions — past and present — the IAEA and several other countries believe it may have secretly worked to develop nuclear arms.
Iran has repeatedly stonewalled the United Nations’ nuclear monitoring agency from fully investigating the scope of the country’s nuclear ambitions. However, according to Kerry, that will change under the terms of any June agreement, which would include “a very robust inspection system.”
Also Wednesday, the Iranian defense minister made clear that international inspectors would not be granted access to the state’s military sites under the framework agreement with the world powers on the country’s nuclear program.
During the interview, Kerry also discussed the mounting US domestic opposition the nuclear talks face. He said Congress had a role in moving the framework agreement forward provided it was “constructive.”
He cautioned that the proposed legislation in Congress that would temporarily suspend US President Barack Obama’s authority to lift sanctions as part of final deal, undermined the president’s authority.
“The president is absolutely correct in making sure that what Congress does, does not assault presidential authority and the Constitution, and doesn’t destroy his ability to be able to negotiate this final deal,” he said.
Referencing recent reports of Iranian ships in the Gulf of Aden, Kerry warned Tehran over its involvement in nearby Yemen, saying that the US would not tolerate Iranian military aggression.
“Iran needs to recognize that the United States is not going to stand by while the region is destabilized or while people engage in overt warfare across lines — international boundaries — in other countries,”
The secretary of state said that Washington was “well aware” of the support Iran has been giving to the Houthi rebels who drove Yemeni President Abdrabbuh Mansour Hadi out of the country.
“There are obviously supplies that have been coming from Iran. There are a number of flights every single week that have been flying in,” Kerry said.
Fighting between Houthi rebels and forces loyal to the ousted president southern Yemeni city of Aden have intensified in recent weeks as a Saudi-led coalition backed by the US has been targeting rebel positions in Yemen since the end of March.
The US secretary also maintained that dealing with the regional unrest fueled by Iran must be separated from international efforts to scale back its nuclear program. Israel has insisted that any nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic hinge on commitments to end its involvement in sponsoring Hezbollah, Hamas, and Houthi rebels.
Kerry said “we’ve made clear to our friends and allies is, we can do two things at the same time.”
“We have an ability to understand that an Iran with a nuclear weapon is a greater threat than an Iran without one, and at the same time, we have an ability to be able to stand up to interference that is inappropriate or against international law, or contrary to the region’s stability and interest, and those of our friends. And we’re not looking for confrontation, obviously, but we’re not going to step away from our alliances, and our friendships, and the need to stand with those who feel threatened as the consequence of the choices that Iran might be making.”
The framework agreement reached last Thursday by US-led negotiators with Iran aims to cut significantly into Tehran’s bomb-making technology while giving the Shiite country relief from international sanctions. The commitments, if implemented, would substantially pare down Iranian nuclear assets for a decade and restrict others for an additional five years. Iran would also be subject to intrusive international inspections. The world powers have until June 30 to hammer out a final accord.
The Kenyan air force has destroyed two Al Shebaab camps in Somalia, it said on Monday, in the first major military response since the extremist group massacred students at a Kenyan university last week, wrote timesofoman.
Al Shebaab denied the camps were hit, saying the air force bombs fell on farmland.
Gunmen from the Al Qaeda-aligned group killed 148 people on Thursday when they stormed the Garissa University College campus, some 200 km (120 miles) from the Somali border.
Jets pounded the camps in the Gedo region on the other side of the frontier on Sunday, Kenya Defence Forces spokesman David Obonyo said.
The mission was part of efforts to stop fighters from those camps carrying out cross-border raids into Kenya.
“Our aerial images show that the camps were completely destroyed,” he said, though cloud cover made it difficult to estimate the death toll.
Al Shebaab has killed more than 400 people on Kenyan soil in the last two years, including 67 during a siege at Nairobi’s Westgate mall in 2013, piling political pressure on President Uhuru Kenyatta that intensified with last week’s killings.
Kenya has struggled to stop the flow of militants and weapons across its porous 700-km border with Somalia, and the violence has also damaged the country’s economy by scaring away tourists and investors.
Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab, Al Shebaab’s military operations spokesman, told Reuters that none of its camps were damaged in Sunday’s raid, and that the fighter jets bombs had instead struck farmland.
“Kenya has not targeted any of our bases,” he said.
The rural Gedo region of Somalia is difficult to reach and reports about the raid could not be verified independently.
Message very clear
A government source on Monday said governors, members of parliament and security officials from regions bordering Somalia would compile a list of people suspected to have joined Al Shebaab or been radicalised.
“The message is very clear: we have to deal with this problem once and for all,” said the official, adding that regional governors discussed the idea with President Kenyatta on Monday.
Garissa was the most deadly attack on Kenyan soil since Al Qaeda bombed the American embassy in Nairobi in 1998, killing more than 200 people and wounding thousands more.
In the capital Nairobi, where local media have become increasingly critical of what they call a bungled security response to the Garissa attack, dozens of grieving families are still trying to identify bodies at the mortuary.
The works of the tripartite meeting devoted to the situation in Libya, bringing together Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs Paolo Gentiloni, Egyptian FM Saleh Shoukry and Minister for Maghreb and African Affairs Abdelkader Messahel, started Wednesday in Rome, wrote aps.dz .
The political consultations between the three parties will also focus on the situation in the region and the fight against terrorism.
Messahel had consultation meetings on March 8th in Cairo with Shoukry, and with Gentiloni on the 18th of the same month in Rome.
These meetings are part of the efforts, notably Algeria’s, aimed at promoting a political solution to the crisis in Libya, through an inclusive inter-Libyan dialogue, with the exception of terrorist groups recognized as such.
Algeria’s efforts also focus on the search of a solution guaranteeing the Libyan people’s sovereignty and cohesion to allow a more effective fight against terrorism.
The Italian Foreign Minister, Paolo Gentiloni, has said his country may consider contributing to tackling the Boko Haram insurgents in Nigeria, according to Thisdaylive .
Speaking in Rome yesterday, Gentiloni said Italy would also help to tackle extremist groups in Libya.
He said military action response to extremism was inevitable and implied military consequences.
“I won’t use the word ‘combat’ to avoid being painted as a crusader,” he said.
Gentiloni, according to an online news medium, TheCable, said more should also be done to tackle religious persecution.
“The fact that these groups are targeting Christians brings the need to help even closer to home, because it concerns our identity and our roots,” he said.
He said it was important for Italy, which is home to the Vatican, to protect Christian sites and minority religious communities, such as Jews, which could become targets.
He also challenged Europe to wake up to the fight, saying Europe had long ignored dangers faced by people in other parts of the world.
Gentiloni said Italian forces were committed to training local armed forces in Somalia to fight the al Qaeda-linked al-Shabaab militants who singled out Christians in a shooting on spree Thursday at a Kenyan university.
“Islamic State’s incursion into North Africa has alarmed Italy, whose southernmost island is separated from Tunisia by a 70-mile stretch of the Mediterranean,’’ he said.
Gentiloni said the rate of violence in Libya had swelled the number of illegal migrants coming to Italy by boat.
Saudi Ambassador to Lebanon, Ali bin Awadh Asiri, has said that he has received a telephone call from the Lebanese Minister Of Information Ramzi Grieg, according Wam.ae.
According to Saudi Press Agency, the Lebanese Minister expressed an apology to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on an offense towards the Kingdom uttered by the Secretary-General of Hezbollah during a televised encounter transmitted on official Lebanese TV, saying that these stances don’t reflect the official Lebanese media stance.
The Minister reaffirmed to the ambassador that the Lebanese official media outlets are keen on appreciating the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, promising to open an internal investigation to hold those behind the issue accountable and to prohibit a repeat of such matters.
Asiri also received a number of calls from political and media entities alike, who disapprove of the “misstep of the Lebanese official TV”, emphasising that the Lebanese media highly values the noble stances of the Kingdom towards Lebanon and its people and they still reject any outrage directed towards the Kingdom.
Spanish police arrested nine people in the Catalonia region on Wednesday suspected of links to the Islamic State group, authorities said, the latest such raids as European nations seek to stop jihadist recruitment, wrote Albawaba.
The operation included raids in the Barcelona and Tarragona areas and those arrested are suspected of crimes “linked to jihadist terrorism, particularly to the Islamic State group,” police said in a statement.
Authorities in Europe have sought to stop young people seeking to travel to Iraq and Syria to fight with the Islamic State.
A number of alleged recruitment cells have been targeted by authorities in Spain, including in the country’s North African territories of Ceuta and Melilla.
On April 1, a Moroccan living in Catalonia was remanded in custody after allegedly seeking to send her 16-year-old twins to fight with jihadists in Syria, a year after another son died in the country.
Last month, Spanish authorities arrested eight suspected members of a jihadist network who allegedly called for attacks in Spain and tried to recruit for the Islamic State.
About 60 people charged in Islamist terrorist cases were being held in Spain at the start of 2015, a law enforcement source has said.
Spanish authorities say about 100 people from Spain are suspected of having joined jihadist fighters in Iraq and Syria, and fear they may return to launch attacks.
Hundreds more such radicals from France, Britain and Germany are also thought to have travelled to those countries to fight.
The US and French military are assisting in the search for a Romanian mineworker kidnapped in Burkina Faso and believed to have been taken into Mali, Burkina Faso’s security minister has said to AUNews.
Both the France and US have drones based in Niger, which neighbours Burkina Faso, as part of efforts to combat Islamist extremists in the region.
“Investigations are continuing… with our strategic partners, the French and the Americans, who have in-depth surveillance capabilities,” security minister Auguste Denise Barry told reporters on Tuesday.
Barry also spoke of being in regular contact with the authorities in Mali and Niger on the search.
He said while there had been speculation that the kidnappers had taken the security officer from the mine into Mali before moving into Niger, the site of the abduction was “much closer to the Niger border”.
The security officer was taken on Saturday when five armed men attacked a manganese mine in Tambao, 350 kilometres (220 miles) northeast of the capital, Ouagadougou.
The unidentified gunmen took off in the direction of the nearby border with Mali, according to security officials in both countries.
Kidnappings of foreigners, often for ransom, occasionally occur in Mali and Niger but not usually in Burkina Faso, a landlocked Sahel country.
A Dutch hostage freed by a French raid after being held by Al-Qaeda’s north African arm in Mali for more than three years arrived in the Malian capital Bamako on Tuesday before a planned return to the Netherlands.
Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry headed to Rome Wednesday for tripartite talks with diplomats of countries affected by the Libyan crisis, wrote Thecairopost.
During the visit, Shoukry is scheduled to meet with Italian Foreign Minister Paolo Gentiloni and Algerian Minister for Maghreb and African Affairs Abdelkader Messahel, said foreign ministry spokesperson Badr Abdel Atty.
They will discuss the latest developments of the conflict in Libya, the spread of terrorism and how to establish peace and stability in the country, said Atty.
After a Libyan branch of the Islamic State (IS) group beheaded 20 Egyptian Copts in February, Egypt and the Tobruk-based Libyan government are coordinating their efforts to obtain international support for combating terrorist in the oil-rich country.
Gentiloni has previously pledged that Italy would fight in Libya as part of an international mission, according to the state-run Al-Ahram.
Following the ouster of Muammar Gadhafi in 2011, Libya has descended into factional fighting, with different militias and group controlling various parts of the country. A government based in the eastern city of Tobruk is the most widely recognized internationally.
In February, Libya and Egypt asked the United Nations Security Council to lift an arms embargo on Libya, and impose a naval blockade on areas not controlled by the country’s internationally recognized government and help build the country’s army to tackle IS and other militants.
The United States and Saudi Arabia sanctioned a Pakistani charity for allegedly financing violent extremist groups in Afghanistan and Pakistan under the guise of humanitarian work, wrote Reuters.
The sanctions target the Al-Furqan Foundation Welfare Trust, which the U.S. Treasury said had changed its name to avoid prior U.S. sanctions.
“We are committed to exposing terrorist financiers, especially those who masquerade as charities,” Adam Szubin, Treasury’s acting undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in a statement.
The Treasury said its sanctions would shut Al-Furqan out of the U.S. financial sector and prohibit and Americans from doing business with the organization. Saudi Arabia also designated Al-Furqan under an anti-terrorism law, the Treasury said.
