Suspected Houthi fighters snatch head of country’s internal security from home in the capital Sanaa

Yemen’s second highest ranking intelligence official has been abducted in Sanaa by suspected Houthi fighters who have been in control of the capital since a September offensive, security sources said.

“General Yahia al-Marrani was kidnapped this morning by armed Houthis from his home in Sanaa,” a source told the AFP news agency.

Another source said that about 20 fighters had stormed Marrani’s residence and taken him to an unknown location on Thursday.

The kidnapping was confirmed to AFP by a relative of the officer, who had served for five years as head of the police intelligence unit in Saada province, a Houthi stronghold in north Yemen.

He was named as a director in Yemen’s intelligence services and head of internal security by President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who took power following a 2012 uprising that unseated longtime ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The Associated Press news agency said that when the Houthi members came to Marrani’s residence, he had reportedly told his guards to put down their guns to avoid clashes.

Yemen has been rocked by instability since the Shia fighters, who are also known as Ansarullah, seized control of Sanaa on September 21.

The Houthis have since expanded their presence in central and western Yemen, but have been met by fierce resistance from Sunni tribes and al-Qaeda fighters.

Source:  aljazeera

Libya’s official government conducted several tactical airstrikes in the vicinity of the town of Misrata Sunday, another episode in the ongoing war between the internationally recognized government of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni and the coalition of his political opponents known as Libyan Dawn.

According to the official reports, the Libyan air force, controlled by Thinni, hit several targets in the Libyan Dawn controlled city of Misrata, including a sea port, an air force academy near the airfield and a steel mill, the largest in the country, in an attempt to disrupt the town’s economic viability. Representatives for Libyan Dawn confirmed the airstrikes, claiming no immediate victims or damage.

“The airport at Misrata is still working normally. A flight has just taken off,” a representative for Libya Dawn said as quoted by Reuters.

Libyan Dawn took control of Libya’s capital, Tripoli, in August, but they are not recognized as the nation’s legitimate government. The country’s prime minister has been leading a war against Libyan Dawn from the eastern part of the country. The situation is further complicated by the activities of Islamic militants, attacking the nation’s oil infrastructure.

Since Colonel Muammar Gaddafi was ousted and killed after ruling for 42 years, the nation has fallen apart. At this point, Libya is divided by the historical boundaries of its two parts, namely Tripolitania (in the west) and Cyrenaica (in the east). The opposing forces are either Islamist or utterly anti-Islamic and are engaged in a sectarian war, exacerbated by still-existent tribalism and radical jihadi terrorist activity.

It is no secret that Al Jazeera is the media arm of Qatari foreign policy, which has suffered a successive series of setbacks, particularly in Syria. But some time ago, signs that changes had taken place in the editorial line of Al Jazeera began to emerge, as evident in the terminology the Qatari satellite channel started using. For example, Al Jazeera no longer refers to opposition fighters as “rebels.” Moreover, Al Jazeera has been giving airtime for discussions about the mistakes of the Free Syrian Army.

Soon enough, coverage of Syria in Al Jazeera news bulletins started decreasing. A few weeks ago, the Qatari channel decided to cancel the dedicated Syria bulletin and the Syrian desk, transferring the journalists there to other departments. This and the fact that coverage of the Syrian conflict has also slipped down the headlines on its website has left many with the impression that Al Jazeera is indeed in the process of making an about-face on Syria.

So what is really happening behind closed doors at the station? Is it a step towards fully altering its discourse on Syria, or is it mere administrative arrangements unrelated to the broader political context of regional developments especially in Syria?

The majority of those we queried at Al Jazeera preferred not to answer but others, who requested anonymity, said that the issue is strictly “administrative and organizational.” They said that the Syrian bulletin was not the only one to be stopped, citing the cancellation of the Arab Maghreb and Egyptian bulletins.
In the past, there were dedicated bulletins for certain countries and regions tackling specific events and developments, according to these sources, who pointed out that when a major Egyptian story was unfolding, Syrian stories would be deferred to the Syrian bulletin and vice versa. But now, they added, Al Jazeera decided that all stories should have their fair share of coverage in all bulletins.

But what about the reduced coverage of the events in Syria in all bulletins? All the sources in Al Jazeera who agreed to speak to us claimed that these were all “lies and fabrications,” citing a statistic showing that at least 80 reports on Syria are aired by Al Jazeera each month, excluding guest appearance and live reports. They also said that the number of Al Jazeera reporters on the Syrian territory with the exception of the provinces of Raqqa and Deir al-Zour – where Al Jazeera reduced its footprint because of ISIS – has increased.

A dedicated bureau had been established for Syria. In effect, Al Jazeera is the only channel that still has a bureau in Syria and a team of correspondents filing live reports from the ground. This is a source of pride for Yasser Abu Hilala, the news channel’s new director.

It is worth noting that outside the areas controlled by the regime, Al Jazeera collaborates with opposition activists, some of whom it retains as correspondents, even though many of them were never journalists before and no one has any idea about their qualifications.

The assertion of Al Jazeera’s personnel then is that what is happening is merely administrative. Everyone is aware of this, including Broadcaster Majid Abdul Hadi who relayed this information to Syrian journalists in Gaziantep, where the station opened an office recently. The office is run by Ahmed Abda, one of those overseeing the Syrian file in the channel, and brother of opposition figure Anas Abda, who is affiliated to the Muslim Brotherhood.

However, a documentary filmmaker who declined to be named contradicts this claim. He said, “All the answers I got about this issue from Al Jazeera personnel claim the matter is an administrative plan but I doubt it. I see a change in Doha’s policy towards Damascus that will unfold gradually, and have an impact on the coverage of Al Jazeera, which follows precise instructions.” The filmmaker added, “What makes it likely that the station’s policy is changing is that they have turned down dozens of pitches for Syrian documentaries, even though they are of a humanitarian focus rather than about armament and fighting. It seems there is a desire to marginalize the Syrian story on more than one level.”

Source:  al-akhbar

Al Arabiya, the Saudi-owned TV said on Sunday that today can be described as a black day for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria “ISIS” organization after losing more than 250 of its components in fighting south of Tikrit as a result of air strikes on Hawija, Mosul and al-Anbar .

The Iraqi security source in Salahuddin province, revealed that 123 element of ISIS were killed in the liberation of a number of regions in Yathrib battles. The source said that the security forces and members of the popular crowd liberated areas , Al-Mahmoud village and center of Yathrib sub-district. .

A source in the leadership of the Joint operations said that more than 50 terrorists from ISIS were killed and dozens of them wounded in a bombing was carried out by fighter jets in Hawija northwest of Kirkuk province.

He added that “warplanes carried out several sorties targeted ISIS gatherings in Hawija mill , the ice plant and fertilizer stores in the district.”

Bringing death toll for Sunday and Saturday to nearly 400 ISIS component killed.

Source: shafaaq

The Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for a car bombing in the Libya’s capital Tripoli on Saturday.

A car bomb exploded in Tripoli in front of the headquarters of the General Directorate for the Protection of Diplomatic Missions, with no casualty, according to a security official.

Col. Mubarak Abu Dhaheer, an official of the Directorate of Al-Hassi’s government in Tripoli, said that unidentified men put a BMW car in front of the building and detonated it by remote control, causing damages to the building.

Dhaheer described the explosion as a “criminal act that aims to destabilize the security and stability in the capital Tripoli, and to target police who protect diplomatic missions.”

After claiming responsibility for the explosion, the IS in Libya announced its intention to carry out similar attacks later on.

The website Manaber, the media outlet of the IS in Libya, published an image of what it described as “the state of Tripoli.”

The image was titled “targeting diplomatic security directorate headquarters with a car bomb, and the next is worse.”

Due to security concerns, most foreign diplomatic missions left the capital Tripoli since the forces of Libya Dawn took control of the capital in August.

Source:

Libya’s Western-backed Tobruk-based government warned that rival Islamist militias are seeking to seize complete control of the country’s oil industry, calling on the UN Security Council and the International Criminal Court (ICC) to take all necessary measures to protect Libyan state oil infrastructure.

In a statement issued on Friday, one day after Islamist fighters launched a failed attack on Libya’s largest oil terminal, the Abdullah Al-Thani government called on international law enforcement agencies to issue arrest warrants against the leaders, financiers and political and military backers of Islamist insurgents in the country.

The Tobruk-based government called on the UN Security Council to implement resolution 2174 which calls for the immediate implementation of a ceasefire in Libya and the holding of inclusive national dialogue between rival political parties.

Abdullah Al-Thani’s government fled to the eastern city of Tobruk in August after Islamist militias, known as Libya Dawn, seized control of the capital Tripoli and its airport. The Thani government subsequently allied with Libyan National Army commander Gen. Khalifa Haftar who is continuing to besiege Islamists in Benghazi and Tripoli.

Islamists, with links to Libya’s outgoing parliament, the General National Council (GNC), have rejected Thani’s government which was elected in June, installing their own rival prime minister and government in Tripoli.

The statement issued by the Thani government also called on the Ministry of Defense to speed up the approval of the purchase of weapons and military equipment needed by the Libyan army to eradicate “terrorism” in the country.

Dozens of soldiers were killed on Thursday after Libya Dawn militias mounted a failed attempt to seize control of Libya’s largest oil terminal.

Islamist fighters launched an attack on Al-Sidra and Ras Lanuf ports, firing rockets from speedboats. The attackers failed to seize any of the terminals but managed to set one oil terminal south of Al-Sidra, on fire.

“The attack by the so-called Libya Dawn militias represents a serious development in the nature of the conflict in Libya, threatening national unity and leading the country to civil war,” the Libyan government statement warned.

In comments to Asharq Al-Awsat Libyan Information Minister Omar Al-Quairi described the attack as a “systematic operation planned by militias affiliated with the outgoing GNC.”

“The General Authority for Information and Culture strongly condemns this heinous and chilling crime which it regards as a disgrace to the outgoing GNC and its government,” he said.

The incident has confirmed the UN’s inability to protect Libyan civilians, the minister said, calling for the restructuring and rebuilding of the Libyan state military.

Source: aawsat.net

In a few days, the world will enter a new year. At such a time, people usually hope for the best. But one is puzzled confronting the question: What does the coming year hold for us? Going by the events in the previous year, one is not optimistic. Most likely, the wars in our region will continue — in Syria, Yemen, Libya, Sudan and Iraq. To a lesser degree, there will be conflict in a places like Lebanon and Egypt, as those countries are not stable yet.

Peshmerga forces have regained ground in northwestern Iraq, while Kurdish fighters also battle ISIL in Syria.
An offensive by Kurdish Peshmerga forces to retake territory from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group in northwestern Iraq is gaining momentum.

Troops have retaken a series of villages from ISIL this week and opened a corridor for thousands of minority Yazidis to escape Mount Sinjar.

Peshmerga commander Hashim Sitaie told Al Jazeera that strategic territory has been retaken.

“We have also seized major roads, particularly one that runs along the Iraqi-Syrian border. Whoever controls these areas has the upper hand,” he said.

He said US-led air strikes had helped the offensive.

“We’ve been guiding the coalition jets on where to target and that really helped in increasing their accuracy,” he said.

The international coalition battling ISIL has continued air strikes in the vincinity of the Sinjar Mountains in recent days, claiming to have destroyed vehicles and other infrastructure used by the group.

The Peshmerga managed to break an ISIL siege of Mount Sinjar on December 18, enabling thousands of Yazidi fighters and civilians trapped on top of the mountain for months to leave.

The Yazidis, who ISIL consider heratics, sought sanctuary on the mountain after ISIL attacked their villages in August, kidnapping or killing thousands of them.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Adow, reporting from the area on Thursday, said a road that just days ago was under the control of ISIL is now being used as an escape route for Yazidis.

“The stream of vehicles carrying Yazidis fleeing the Sinjar Mountains is endless,” he said.

Syria battles
In neighbouring Syria, where ISIL controls large swathes of land, Kurdish forces are also battling the group.
At least 44 ISIL fighters were killed in clashes with members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) on Thursday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based monitoring group that gathers information on the conflict from local sources.

Thirty of them were killed when YPG regained control of the village of Qassiab in Hasakeh province, the Observatory said.

Another 14 ISIL fighters were killed in the town of Kobane on the Turkish border, the group said.

Fighting over Kobane began in mid-September, when the ISIL launched a bid to take it over, prompting tens of thousands of Kurds to cross the Turkish border.

Coalition air strikes and Iraqi Peshmerga have since backed YPG in the fight.

Source:  aljazeera

Many analysts say Western powers and even staunch regional Syrian regime opponents such as Saudi Arabia now see the war’s dominant factions as groups they cannot support, limiting their options.