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UPDATED Perpetrators of 2nd attack south of Barcelona killed in shootout

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Shootout in town of Cambrils leaves 5 suspects dead; 6 civilians and 1 police officer hurt

The latest:

  • 13 dead, 100 injured in Barcelona van attack; victims inlcude 24 nationalities 
  • 2 suspects arrested in towns of Ripoll and Alcanar, neither believed to be the driver
  • 2nd attack in Cambrils; 5 attackers killed in shootout with police
  • House explosion in Alcanar Wednesday linked to Cambrils and Barcelona attacks

The police force for Spain’s Catalonia region said its troopers shot dead five suspected perpetrators in a “terrorist attack” in the town of Cambrils, a resort town about 120 kilometres southwest of Barcelona on the coast of the Mediterranean in northeastern Spain.

Police said the Cambrils attack was linked to Thursday’s Barcelona van attack that left 13 people dead and more than 100 injured.

They said the attackers were carrying bomb belts that were detonated by a police bomb squad.

Police have not provided any details on how the Cambrils attack was carried out, but media reports said a car crashed into a police vehicle and nearby civilians and police shot the attackers, one of whom was brandishing a knife. A police officer and five civilians were injured, and two of those injured were in serious condition.

The Catalan regional government said citizens from 24 countries were among the people killed or injured in the Barcelona van attack. Global Affairs Canada said no Canadians were among the dead or injured.

Spanish authorities said one Belgian citizen is among the dead.

The injured include a female citizen of Greece, three Australian citizens, two Taiwanese and one Chinese citizen from Hong Kong.

Police are working on the theory that the Cambrils and Barcelona attacks are connected, as well as a Wednesday night explosion in the town of Alcanar, 90 km southwest of Cambrils, that killed one person.

ISIS claims responsibility for Barcelona attack

Earlier Thursday, a van veered onto a sidewalk and barrelled down a busy pedestrian zone in Barcelona’s picturesque Las Ramblas district, swerving from side to side as it mowed down tourists and residents and turned the popular European vacation promenade into a bloody killing zone.

Victims were left sprawled in the street, spattered with blood or crippled by broken limbs. Others fled in panic, screaming or carrying young children in their arms.

“It was clearly a terror attack, intended to kill as many people as possible,” Josep Lluis Trapero, a senior police official, told a news conference late Thursday. The number of casualties was expected to rise.

Trapero, head of the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalonian police force, said two people were in custody in connection with the van attack — a Moroccan and a Spanish national from Melilla, a Spanish enclave in North Africa — but that neither of them was believed to be the driver of the van.

Syrian journalist killed near Homs

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New York, July 31, 2017–The death of Khaled al-Khateb, a Syrian freelance correspondent for the Russian government-funded broadcaster RT’s Arabic-language service, in Homs province yesterday is a tragic reminder of the risks journalists face covering Syria’s conflict, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today.
RT Arabic reported that al-Khateb, 25, was traveling with a Syrian Army convoy through the village of Sukhna, in eastern Homs province, when he was killed by a rocket the broadcaster said was fired by fighters from the Islamic State group. An employee of RT Arabic, who asked that CPJ not use his name because he was not authorized to speak on behalf of the station, told CPJ that “several” Syrian soldiers were also killed in the attack, and that RT cameraman Muutaz Yaqoub was injured.
“The death of Syrian journalist Khaled al-Khateb and the injury of Muutaz Yaqoub are grim reminders of the dangers journalists face covering the conflict there,” CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour said. “We call on all parties to the conflict to take all possible steps to protect the lives of all civilians, including journalists.”
Al-Khateb began freelance work for RT Arabic in April, the broadcaster reported. The Russian-government-funded website Sputnik also reported that he had previously worked for its Arabic-language service and for the Syrian-government-funded broadcaster Al-Ikhbaria before beginning work with RT. His last piece for RT focused on civilian casualties from the U.S.-led coalition’s bombing campaign in support of a rebel offensive to retake Raqqa from the Islamic State group.
RT head Margarita Simonyan said in a statement that al-Khateb’s death was the first time that one of the network’s journalists had been killed in a conflict zone.
At least 109 journalists have been killed in Syria since fighting began there in 2011, according CPJ research.

 

Over 100 Iraqi journalists killed, injured while covering Mosul battle: FAJ

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Mosul Journalist killedThe Federation of Arab Journalists (FAJ)  has announced that more than Iraqi journalists have lost their lives and sustained injuries while covering fierce battles between Iraqi government forces and Takfiri Daesh terrorists in the run-up to the liberation of the country’s second largest city from the extremists.

The Cairo-based FAJ, in a statement released on Thursday, announced that forty-seven journalists were killed, while fifty-five others were wounded while accompanying security troops during battles in Mosul and reporting on the skirmishes.

The federation also extended its deep felicitations to the Iraqi journalists, who covered the details of the battles in Mosul, praising government troops’ victory over Daesh there.

On June 24, French journalist Véronique Robert died from wounds she had sustained earlier in a mine explosion in the western part of Mosul as she was covering Iraqi government forces’ advances against Daesh Takfiri terrorists.

Sophie Pommier, a spokeswoman for the French Embassy in Baghdad, said Robert lost her life at a hospital in the French capital Paris.

The late journalist had been repatriated and transferred to the hospital on Friday after being operated in Baghdad.

State-owned France Television said Robert had covered numerous conflicts and expressed its “sincere condolences.”

French video journalist Stephan Villeneuve and Iraqi Kurdish journalist Bakhtiyar Haddad, who were working with Robert, were killed in the June 19 explosion in Mosul. Haddad died moments after the blast and Villeneuve died hours later from his wounds.

They were reporting for investigative news program Envoye Special broadcast by France 2 national television channel.

Reporter Samuel Forey, who worked for a number of French media organizations, including French daily Le Figaro, also suffered light injuries in the act of terror.

The Metro Center for Journalists’ Rights and Advocacy said Haddad had been injured three times before as he covered the war in Mosul.

In February, Iraqi Kurdish correspondent Shifa Gardi, 30, was killed in a roadside bomb blast while covering clashes between Iraqi government forces and Daesh terrorists just south of Mosul for the Kurdish-language Rudaw television network. Her colleague, Younis Mustafa was wounded.

 

Syrian Observatory says has ‘confirmed information’ that Islamic State chief al-Baghdadi killed

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Reuters Report citing The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Reuters on Tuesday that it had “confirmed information” that Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has been killed.Russia’s Defence Ministry said in June that it might have killed Baghdadi when one of its air strikes hit a gathering of Islamic State commanders on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, but Washington said it could not corroborate the death and Western and Iraqi officials have been skeptical.

Reuters could not independently verify Baghdadi’s death.

“(We have) confirmed information from leaders, including one of the first rank, in the Islamic State in the eastern countryside of Deir al-Zor,” the director of the British-based war monitoring group Rami Abdulrahman told Reuters.

Baghdadi’s death had been announced many times before but the Observatory has a track record of credible reporting on Syria’s civil war.

Abdulrahman said Observatory sources in Syria’s eastern town of Deir al-Zor had been told by Islamic State sources that Baghdadi had died “but they did not specify when”.

Iraqi and Kurdish officials did not confirm his death. The U.S. Department of Defence said it had no immediate information corroborate Baghdadi’s death.

Islamic State-affiliated websites and social media feeds have not carried any news regarding the leader’s possible death.

The death of Baghdadi, who declared a caliphate from a mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul in 2014, would be one of the biggest blows yet to the jihadist group, which is trying to defend shrinking territory in Syria and Iraq.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Cairo and Ellen Francis in Beirut; Additional reporting by Omar Fahmy in Cairo and Phillip Stewart in Washington; Writing by Ahmed Aboulenein; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-baghdadi-idUSKBN19W1AW?il=0&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social

Iraqi Kurdish and French journalists killed in Mosul

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raqi Kurdish Bakhtiyar Haddad (L) and French journalist Stephan Villeneuve killed by Islamic State mine in Mosul June 19, 2017. Photo: Ekurd.net/FB/Linkenin

MOSUL,— An Iraqi Kurdish journalist and a French journalist were killed and two other French reporters were wounded after a mine exploded in Mosul, where they were covering an advance by Iraqi forces against Islamic State militants, French media reported on Monday.

The television network said Iraqi Kurdish journalist Bakhtiyar Haddad was killed and three reporters, Veronique Robert and Stephane Villeneuve, were wounded and taken to a U.S. military hospital in northern Iraq.

Stephan Villeneuve later succumbed to his injuries,  public broadcaster France Televisions said Tuesday.

Local Kurdish media had earlier reported the incident saying the French journalists were being treated at the U.S. base in the Iraqi town of Qayyara.

Islamic State fighters have been defending their remaining stronghold in the Old City of Mosul, moving stealthily along narrow back alleys as U.S.-backed Iraqi forces slowly advance.

The historic district, and a tiny area to its north, are the only parts of the city still under the militants’ control. Mosul used to be the Iraqi capital of the group, also known as ISIS.

On February 25, journalist and presenter for Kurdish Rudaw TV Shifa Gerdi was also killed as she was covering the Mosul operation.

(With files from Reuters | AFP | NRT)

Air strikes on Isis-held Mosul ‘leave 230 civilians dead’, reports local media

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Iraqis displaced by fighting flee to the Al-Sumoud neighbourhood of Mosul on March 22, 2017 AFP/Getty Images

US Central Command says it is researching reports of extensive loss of civilian life in third such alleged incident in fight against Isis in recent weeks 

Bethan McKernan Beirut

Approximately 230 people are reported to have been killed in what is thought to have been a US-led coalition air strike on an Isis-held neighbourhood of Mosul.  

A correspondent for Rudaw, a Kurdish news agency operating in northern Iraq, said that 137 people – most believed to be civilians – died when a bomb hit a single building in al-Jadida, in the western side of the city. Another 100 were killed nearby. 

“Some of the dead were taking shelter inside the homes,” Hevidar Ahmed said from the scene.

A daily assessment report from Central Command, which coordinates US military action in Iraq, stated that five strikes near Mosul on Thursday had destroyed five Isis units and a sniper team, as well as 11 fighting positions, vehicles and artillery equipment. 

A spokesperson for CentCom told The Independent they were aware of the loss of civilian life as reported by Rudaw and were “researching” the situation.

No other fighting force in the country has the capability to launch an aerial attack of such a scale.

Iraqi coalition ground forces, backed by a US-led coalition bombing campaign, began the gruelling Operation Inherent Resolve to remove Isis from Mosul in October 2016. 

The jihadist fighters now hold onto approximately a quarter of the city on the western bank of the River Tigris that cuts through Mosul from north to south.

An estimated 400,000 Iraqis are trapped in the remaining Isis-held parts of the city, the UN’s refugee agency said on Thursday. Those caught up in the fighting face growing food shortages or being hit by crossfire if they try to leave. 

Isis has used civilian homes to shelter fighters and weapons throughout the battle for the city, rigging buildings and streets with explosives to impede Iraqi troops’ progress. 

The fighting has come at a heavy price for both Mosul’s residents and Iraqi soldiers: thousands of Iraqi civilians have died in the fighting, and a cumulative total of more than 200,000 displaced from their homes. 

At least 6,878 civilians were killed in violence mainly inflicted by Isis around the country last year, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Iraq (UNAMI) has said.

Many Mosul residents report their loved ones have died as a result of friendly fire rather than Isis’s warfare tactics.

AirWars, a UK-based non-profit monitoring the effect of anti-Isis air strikes on civilians, said last week that they believed 370 civilians died in US-led coalition bombing in just the first week of March alone. 

Over the border in Syria in the last week, the US has been accused of killing civilians in two separate bombing incidents: 33 died in a strike near Raqqa which was supposed to target Isis positions, and more than 50 after a strike hit a mosque in Aleppo province rather than an al-Qaeda meeting point.

Removing Isis from Mosul, which is Iraq’s second largest city, will effectively spell the end of Isis as a land-holding force in the country, driving the remnants of the group back to their de facto capital of Raqqa. 

While losing the city will be a decisive blow, the jihadi organisation is expected to pose a renewed threat in the form of an insurgency war against Iraqi forces.

Source: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/us-air-strikes-mosul-230-civilians-killed-dead-isis-held-iraq-battle-islamic-state-a7646011.html

UNICEF: Over 650 children were killed in Syria last year

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At least 652 children were killed in Syria in 2016, making it the worst year yet for the country’s rising generation, the United Nations’ child relief agency (UNICEFF) said on Monday, according to CBC News.

According to the source, there was no letup to attacks on schools, hospitals, playgrounds, parks and homes last year as the Syrian government, its opponents and the allies of both sides showed callous disregard for the laws of war.

UNICEF said at least 255 children were killed in or near schools last year and 1.7 million youngsters are out of school. One of every three schools in Syria is unusable, some because armed groups occupy them. An additional 2.3 million Syrian children are refugees elsewhere in the Middle East.

The figures come in a UNICEF report released two days before the sixth anniversary of the popular uprising that escalated into civil war.

The report warns that coping mechanisms and medical care are eroding quickly in Syria, driving children into child labour, early marriage and combat. Dozens are dying from preventable diseases.

One Armenian serviceman killed, another wounded in Azeri firing

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Contract serviceman of the NKR Defense Army Gegham Manukyan (born in 1979) has been killed as a result of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side in the northern direction of the Defense Army at about 11:00 today, the NKR Defense Ministry said in a statement.

Investigation into the details of the incident is under way.

“The NKR Defense Ministry shares the sorrow of the heavy loss and expresses support to the serviceman’s family and friends,” the Ministry said.

The Ministry said another soldier, private of the NKR Defense Army Koryun Kirakosyan (born in 1988) was heavily wounded in Azeri firing in the Martakert direction at about 12:00 today.

Armenian soldier killed in Terrorist State of Azerbaijan firing

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Private of the NKR Defense Army Gor Gareginyan (born in 1997) was fatally wounded as a result of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side at about 11:00 this morning, the NKR Defense Ministry reports.

Probe into the details of the case is under way.

The NKR Defense Ministry shares the sorrow of the heavy loss and expresses support to the soldier’s family and friends.