In 2014, one of the major challenges Algeria has to cope with is security concerns, especially when terrorism is ravaging the region.

The collapse of the Libya’s government and chaos in northern Mali have turned the region into a safe heaven for terrorist groups.

Thus, Algeria has been deploying thousands of troops along its border with Libya, Niger, Mali, Tunisia and Mauritania to curb the infiltration of al-Qaeda linked militants in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and other armed groups such as the Islamic state (IS).

To deal with the security challenges, defense spending next year will rise to about some 20 billion U.S. dollars, which tops all other sectors.

Political analyst Professor Hicham Touati told Xinhua that “the defense and security budget in Algeria kept increasing over the last decade, amid the political and security crisis which swept the north African nation and was visible in a decade-long fierce, bloody civil war.”

Touati added that “even in the country’s bleakest economic conditions and the lack of income, military and security spending remained uppermost as a government priority.”

“Today this sector is even more significant, amid the developments taking place beyond our borders, notably the chaos affecting Libya and Mali, in addition to a politically unstable Tunisia, along with serious threats posed by armed groups which managed to thrive with this entire regional security and political volatility,” he said.

The north African nation’s counterterrorism strategy relies as well on its efforts targeting the freezing of financial resources for terror groups, as it developed a proposal banning ransom payment to terror organizations.

“It is through financial resources acquired through drug trafficking and ransom payments for hostages that terrorist groups are growing in strength and expanding their sphere of influence,” Algerian foreign minister Ramtane Lamamra said recently.

Algeria was one of the first countries worldwide to call for the censure of ransom payment, particularly when it concerned the abduction of foreign nationals.

It has been lobbying the international community to support its proposal in a bid to issue a UN resolution to effect it.

The North African nation contends that ransom bolsters terrorist groups and encourages them to do more of such horrible things.

Kamel Rezzag-Bara, adviser to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, said last year that terrorist groups seized 150 million euros in ransoms between 2003 to 2012, adding that his country is “tough and unyielding when it comes to fighting terrorism and ransom payment.”

Source:  xinhuanet

Captured Yazidi girls in Iraq are killing themselves to escape rape and torture at the hands of Isis militants holding them prisoner.

Hundreds of women and children were captured during the group’s bloody sweep through northern Iraq earlier this year and have since been trafficked as sex slaves , forced into marriage and imprisoned.
Victims who managed to escape told Amnesty International that many Yazidi girls killed themselves after losing hope of being saved.

A 20-year-old survivor, called Luna, said she was held with 20 girls as young as 10 in the Isis-controlled city of Mosul when they were told to dress up.
“One day we were given clothes that looked like dance costumes and were told to bathe and wear those clothes,” she added. “Jilan killed herself in the bathroom. She cut her wrists and hanged herself. She was very beautiful.

“I think she knew that she was going to be taken away by a man and that is why she killed herself.”
Another woman, 27-year-old Wafa, said she and her sister attempted suicide while imprisoned in Mosul after the man holding them gave them the choice of marrying him and his brother or being sold as slaves.
“At night we tried to strangle ourselves with our scarves,” she told Amnesty. “Two girls who were held with us woke up and stopped us and then stayed awake to watch over us.

“When they fell asleep at 5am we tried again, and again they woke up and stopped us. I could not speak for several days after that.”
Relatives of girls who managed to escape fear that the trauma will never leave them, reporting panic attacks and depression.

The grandfather of a 16-year-old girl who was raped in Isis captivity said: “She is very sad and quiet all the time. She does not smile anymore and seems not to care about anything. I worry that she may try to kill herself, I don’t let her out of my sight.”

Amnesty interviewed 42 women and girls for its report, “Escape from Hell”, which is being released today.
It chronicles the torture, rape and sexual violence suffered by women from the Yazidi minority. Women who converted to Islam were forced to marry Isis militants and those maintaining their faith have been trafficked as sex slaves, abused and imprisoned.

Videos have emerged online of horrifying “slave auctions” of girls in Mosul and Isis members have boasted of the abductions, justifying them by calling Yazidis “apostates”.
Thousands of people from the religious minority, who are viciously targeted by the Sunni extremist group because they are considered heretics, were driven from their homes in Sinjar by the Isis advance in August.
Hundreds were killed in raids on towns and more died of thirst or starvation after fleeing up the remote Mount Sinjar.

Randa, a 16-year-old girl from a village near the mountain, was abducted with scores of her family members including her heavily-pregnant mother and given to a man twice her age who raped her.
“Da’esh [Islamic State] has ruined our lives … What will happen to my family? I don’t know if I will ever see them again.”

One woman called Alba, 19, was visibly pregnant with her second child when she was kidnapped with her son but Isis showed no mercy.

“I had my little boy with me and my pregnancy was very visible already but one of the guards chose me to be his wife,” she told Amnesty, adding that the man threatened to send her to Syria if she resisted.
Some Yazidi girls forced into marriage have reported being taken to the homes of Isis fighters’ families and even meeting their wives and children. Some received further abuse, while others made friends with their captor’s wives.

Several girls held by foreign fighters told Amnesty International their families helped them escape and one 13-year-old girl, who was held with her toddler sister, said her captor did not abuse them but instead sent them straight home to their family.

But even those escaping have a bleak prospect to return to, with the loss of dozens of killed or captured relatives, and home towns and villages overrun by Isis.
The trauma of survivors of sexual violence is further exacerbated by the stigma surrounding rape. Survivors feel that their “honour” and that of their families has been tarnished and fear that their standing in society will be diminished as a result.

Donatella Rovera, who spoke to more than 40 former captives in northern Iraq for Amnesty International, said Isis were using rape as a weapon in attacks “amounting to crimes against humanity”.
“The physical and psychological toll of the horrifying sexual violence these women have endured is catastrophic,” she added. “Many of them have been tortured and treated as chattel. Even those who have managed to escape remain deeply traumatised.”

She called on Kurdistan Regional Government, UN and humanitarian organizations to ensure they were reaching everyone who needed support.

Source:  shafaaq.com

Iraqi army, police and tribal forces have succeeded in liberating a town in Iraq’s western Anbar province from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), where the group has a strong presence, on Sunday.

In a statement, a government spokesman said “dozens” of fighters from the extremist organization had been killed in the operation to take back the town of Al-Wafa, which lies some 20 miles (32 kilometers) west of the provincial capital Ramadi.

ISIS seized the town on December 13, also taking control of a major highway connected to it. An official from Al-Wafa said this highway had also been retaken as part of the operation.

Speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat, Faris Ibrahim, a senior member of an Anbar tribal coalition fighting the extremist group, said the town had been seized by the group due to “its strategic location lying on a major highway.”

ISIS was also determined to capture the town because of a previous defeat, he added, despite its strength in Anbar, which has allowed it to keep control for two of the largest cities in the province, Fallaujah and Ramadi, since January.

He said that compared to ISIS, local tribal fighters had been poorly equipped, and that it would be necessary for the Iraqi government to arm them if pro-government forces were to keep control of the town.
ISIS fighters stationed in the district were “fiercer than those fighting for the group in other areas, which has helped them have a presence in the province for such a long time,” Ibrahim added.

The province of Anbar is also home to the Ain Al-Assad airbase, where a number of US military advisors are currently stationed.

Ibrahim, however, ruled out the possibility ISIS would attempt to attack the base itself, but said fighting around the base had been “fierce” and that anti-ISIS coalition airstrikes had been few and far between.
“Things are not totally awful here, but they are not rosy, either,” he added.

Meanwhile, fighters from ISIS attacked the city of Haditha 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Baghdad, and the nearby town of Al-Baghdadi—both in Anbar province—at dawn on Sunday but were blocked by government and local tribal forces stationed in the area.

Mallallah Barzan Al-Obaidi, head of a coalition of tribesmen fighting the group in Al-Baghdadi, told Asharq Al-Awsat that ISIS had used tanks and Humvees captured from the Iraqi army during the attack but had been successfully repelled by the tribal forces, along with help from coalition airstrikes, members of Anbar’s Albunimr tribe, and members of the Hit police force.

Despite being fought off, ISIS fighters have dug in on the outskirts of Haditha, Obaidi added, thanks to their control of the nearby town of Hit.

Source:  aawsat.net

Rifaat Nasrallah peers through his night-vision goggles and into the mist that shrouds Lebanon’s mountainous border.

They are hiding up there, he says as he points into the darkness towards what he claims are 5,000 Islamist militants waiting to pounce. “We are living on a volcano.”

In Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, close to the Syrian border, a cluster of Christian villages are living under the threat of attack from militants belonging to ISIL and the Al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat Al Nusra. While the villages have been decorated with Christmas lights and inflatable Santa Claus figures, the festive spirit has been overwhelmed by fear.

The residents have formed armed units to defend their towns.

In this outpost in Ras Al Baalbek, a small stove wards off the cold that grips the valley at this time of the year. The same chill is forcing more Islamist militants hiding in caves higher up the mountain to descend to lower altitudes.

“It’s a harsh land, it’s winter, there is snow; it’s a problem. They are getting increasingly desperate,” says Mr Nasrallah, the leader of a group of Christians who have taken up arms to protect Ras Baalbek.

At first glance, the small outpost hugging the anti-Lebanon mountains is a regular dwelling, sparsely decorated with a few sofas. However, leaning against the wall is a tripod mounted AK-47 with an extra 75 round magazine attached.

Last week an outpost like this but just outside the town was engaged in a firefight with militants from ISIL. They were just 300 metres away, the closest they have come this year.

The militants fled into the mountains after a Lebanese army offensive drove them out of the nearby border town of Arsal in August.

Fighters belonging to ISIL and Jabhat Al Nusra took almost 30 Lebanese security personnel with them. Four have been executed and the rest have yet to be released.

The militants have been trying to negotiate a way out, so far without success. Skirmishes with the Lebanese army and nearby villages are increasingly frequent.

“If they focus all their troops on one village, it will be a disaster,” says Mr Nasrallah.

The band of fighters started out with about 60 men around the time of the battle of Qusayr in May 2013, when Hizbollah and the Syrian army drove Syrian rebels from the town just across the border in Syria.

Hundreds of hardline Islamist militants fled into the mountains towards Lebanon and the Christian villages with the Syrian army shells chasing them. The villagers could tell how close they were by the noise of the explosions and that the Islamists would even steal clothes from their washing lines, Mr Nasrallah said.

The militia leader was injured when a mortar hit next to a church being built in the village of 18,000.
“We all had guns anyway, how can we not protect our village?” Mr Nasrallah says matter-of-factly.

In the months that followed ISIL became more prominent in Syria and their atrocities against minority religious communities more common.

The group’s seizing of territory in Iraq earlier this year only increased their concerns.

“Look at the facts on the ground; they kill Christians,” says Mr Nasrallah bluntly.

He would not reveal how many men he now has under his command but said it was many more than 60.
There is a training programme for young men who, unlike himself, have no experience of Lebanon’s own civil war that ended in 1990.

The choice to take up arms is natural for Mr Nasrallah.

“I’m a fanatic Christian,” he says, sitting in his house surrounded by a statue of the Virgin Mary, a crucifix and bottles of holy water. “How can I not defend my house and my family?”

Source:  thenational.ae

The Libyan army and forces loyal to General Khalifa Haftar sent military reinforcements to the oil crescent region to fight Libya Dawn militias, officials said Sunday.

A military official told that a total of 16 new armoured vehicles were sent to the oil-rich region.

General Saqr Al-Jroshi, Haftar’s air force commander, announced that two Su-24M fighter jets have joined the air force fleet and had landed in the Ras Lanuf Oil Airport.

Libya Dawn militias launched an operation earlier last week named “Sunrise operation to liberate oil fields and ports.” It claimed that the operation was ordered by the outgoing General National Congress.

The oil crescent region in Libya is an area which includes a number of cities between Benghazi and Sirte (500 km east of capital Tripoli). It contains the largest oil reserves in the country, in addition to the biggest oil ports in Libya — Al-Sidra, Ras Lanuf and Brega.

Fighting in the oil crescent region caused a decline in Libyan oil production to around 250 thousand barrels per day, compared with 800 thousand barrels per day before the fighting began.

Source:  newindianexpress

Backed by US-led coalition airstrikes, Kurdish fighters pushed into the contested northern Iraqi town of Sinjar on Sunday, touching off heavy clashes with Islamic State militants who have controlled the area for months.

On Sunday, loud explosions and intense gunbattles were heard from inside the town as coalition aircraft bombed Islamic State militants.

The president of the self-ruled northern Kurdish region, Masoud Barzani, toured Kurdish positions on Mount Sinjar, where he vowed to defeat the Islamic State group.

“Most of the districts are under our control,” Barzani told peshmerga troops. “We will crush the Islamic State.”

Meanwhile, Iraqi counter-terrorism forces launched an offensive Saturday to retake the military airport near the town of Tal Afar from the IS group, said a Baghdad official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to media.

In Syria, meanwhile, the US-led coalition carried out at least a dozen airstrikes against IS-controlled towns in the northern Syrian province of Aleppo, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Source:  arabnews

Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi said Saturday that he does not rule out the possibility of military intervention in Libya under an international framework in case of failure of the ongoing diplomatic efforts.

Renzi, in a press statement, said that his country is not far from ongoing tensions in Libya due to the two countries close geographical distance, noting that his government will do whatever necessary for Italy’s security.

He also mentioned the increasing number of illegal Libyan immigrants to his country, 150,000 so far, pose a threat to its security, affirming his government’s pledge to deal with the situation if diplomatic efforts fail in Libya.

Italy cannot ignore developments of the situations in Libya, Renzi said, noting his country’s responsibility in taking part in the peace process in Libya in accordance with UN resolutions.

Source: kuna.net.kw