Page 10 - ARUBA TODAY

A10 WORLD NEWS
Friday 6 OctOber 2017
Syria: Tunisia:

Red Cross warns hospitals hit as fighting escalates No sign Marseille
knife attacker had
By BASSEM MROUE any extremist link
NATALIYA VASILYEVA By BOUAZZA BEN BOUAZZA
Associated Press Associated Press
BEIRUT (AP) — Intensified TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tu-
fighting in Syria in recent nisia’s prime minister said
weeks has damaged more Thursday his government
hospitals, with at least 10 has no evidence that the
medical facilities hit over Tunisian who stabbed two
the past 10 days and hun- women to death in Mar-
dreds of thousands of seille had links to any ex-
people cut off from health tremist group.
care, the International Meeting Thursday with his
Committee of the Red French counterpart in Tu-
Cross said on Thursday. nis, Tunisian Prime Minis-
The escalation in fighting ter Youssef Chahed con-
has also forced hundreds demned Sunday’s attack,
of schools across the coun- saying “there is no justifi-
try to suspend classes over cation for such barbaric
the past two weeks, with acts.”
teachers sending children This photo, shows Abu Mohammed al-Golani, second right, then leader of Fatah al-Sham Front, French Prime Minister Ed-
home in terror as bombs in pictures posted by the group, discussing battlefield details in Aleppo, Syria. Russia’s military ouard Philippe said the two
and shells fall nearby, Save announced Wednesday, Oct. 4, 2017, that it carried out airstrikes in Syria this week that critically countries agreed to work
wounded al-Golani. Writing in Arabic banner reads, “Sheik Abu Mohammed al-Golani inspects
the Children said. military development and discusses them with military commanders as part of the battle for lifting more closely together on
The violence has been the the siege off Aleppo.” security and responding to
worst the war-torn coun- (Militant UGC via AP) terror attacks and radical-
try has seen since govern- ment forces and rival insur- mittee, in the northwestern around the northern prov- ization.
ment forces captured the gent groups. The violence province of Idlib for two ince of Raqqa and in the Chahed said they would
rebel-held eastern part is also taking place in de- days and on Wednesday eastern region of Deir el- notably focus on “prevent-
of the city of Aleppo last escalation zones that are killed seven militant com- Zour are receiving over ing the risks inherent in the
December. ICRC said it’s part of a deal reached in manders and dozens of 1,000 women, children and return of terrorists from hot
alarmed by reports of hun- the Kazakh capital of As- fighters at a militant-con- men every day, the state- spots.”
dreds of civilian casualties tana between Iran, Turkey trolled air base, the Rus- ment said. French authorities have
and the destruction of hos- and Russia. sian Defense Ministry said Syrian troops and the U.S.- identified the Marseille at-
pitals and schools. Russia’s military also said Thursday. At the time, the backed Syrian Democratic tacker as Ahmed Hanachi,
“We have seen an increas- the leader of an al-Qaida- ministry quoted military in- Forces have been gaining a 29-year-old Tunisian.
ingly worrying spike in mili- linked group in Syria who telligence as saying that ground from the Islamic He was killed by soldiers
tary operations that cor- was reportedly wounded in al-Golani had been criti- State group in both prov- soon after the stabbings
relates with high levels of a Russian airstrike this week cally wounded.However, inces over the past months. at Marseille’s Saint Charles
civilian casualties,” said had fallen into a coma. the al-Qaida-linked group Their separate but simul- station, which left two
Marianne Gasser, head of The military offered no evi- denied its leader had been taneous attacks have led young cousins dead after
ICRC’s delegation in Syria. dence on the purported wounded, saying he was in thousands of people to a weekend birthday cel-
Fighting has been espe- condition of Abu Moham- excellent health and carry- flee IS-held areas that have ebration.
cially heavy in recent med al-Golani. ing on his tasks as usual. come under intense air- The so-called Islamic State
weeks in central, northern Russian jets bombed posi- With swelling numbers of strikes by Russian warplanes group claimed responsibil-
and eastern Syria between tions of the militant group, civilians fleeing military and those of the U.S.-led ity, saying he responded to
Russian-backed govern- the Levant Liberation Com- operations, some camps coalition.q their calls to mete out ven-
geance for international
Iraq says it has retaken one of IS’s last strongholds military operations against

By PHILIP ISSA country. Kurdish state anytime soon, about the escalating dis- the group in Syria and Iraq.
authorities
say
French
ANGELA CHARLTON Al-Abadi made the dec- was rejected as illegal by pute. He said France sup- Hanachi watched videos
Associated Press laration at a news confer- the Baghdad government ports the territorial integrity of Islamic chants on You-
BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi ence in Paris with French as well as neighboring Tur- of Iraq and called for “na- Tube but they have not
Prime Minister Haider al- President Emmanuel Ma- key and Iran. tional reconciliation and in- found firm links between
Abadi announced Thurs- cron, who has offered to Iraq’s central government clusive governance,” not- Hanachi and IS or signs that
day that Iraqi forces have help mediate between has imposed a flight ban ing France’s close ties to he was radicalized. Five
driven the Islamic State Iraq’s government and the on the Kurdish region, while the Kurds. people suspected of help-
group from one of the ex- autonomous Kurdish re- Turkey and Iran have sent He said dialogue “is the ing Hanachi have been
tremists’ last strongholds in gion, which voted for inde- troops to the land-locked only path” out of the crisis, arrested.While French au-
the country, the northern pendence last week. region’s borders to signal and said France is ready thorities describe Hanachi
town of Hawija. “I want to announce the their opposition to any re- “to contribute actively to as a mysterious illegal mi-
The victory came as Bagh- liberation of the city of drawing of the map. mediation.” grant and IS calls him one
dad and Iraq’s Kurdish re- Hawija today,” al-Abadi Turkish President Recep Despite the political wran- of its “soldiers,” neighbors
gion remain in a political said, calling it a “victory Tayyip Erdogan on Thurs- gling, the Kurdish forces, in the working class Tuni-
deadlock following a con- not just for Iraq but for the day appeared to threaten known as the Peshmerga, sian neighborhood where
troversial Kurdish indepen- whole world.” a blockade of the Kurdish and the Iraqi army have Hanachi grew up paint a
dence referendum. But on Still, Abadi’s government region, saying: “All airspace kept up coordination in different picture.They de-
the battlefield Iraqi and is struggling to contain the will be closed, flights have the Hawija area as the scribe a fisherman with a
Kurdish forces continue fallout from the indepen- already been banned. ... last pockets of IS territory history of drug problems,
to collaborate, squeezing dence vote, which, while Soon the borders will be are retaken, U.S. coalition abandoned by his wife
the jihadis who once con- not binding or expected to closed too.” spokesman Ryan Dillon told and with no outward signs
trolled nearly a third of the lead to the formation of a Macron expressed concern The Associated Press.q of radicalization. q