East Libyan forces have lost at least 12 men, with 35 wounded, in fighting that raged in Benghazi despite a declaration of victory by their commander, medical and military officials said Friday.

Forces loyal to Khalifa Haftar’s Libyan National Army (LNA) are trying to sweep up the last pockets of resistance in Sabri, the final neighborhood in which rival armed groups still hold territory after a three-year battle for control of the city.

The battle for Benghazi between Haftar’s LNA and an array of Islamist militants and other fighters has been part of a broader conflict since Libya slipped into turmoil following the 2011 fall of strongman Moammar Gadhafi.

On Wednesday evening, Haftar announced the end of the campaign in a televised speech.

But two days later, clashes were continuing in a handful of streets in Sabri. LNA forces, fighting in a restricted area, said they had stopped using heavy artillery to reduce the risk of friendly fire casualties.

Milad al-Zwai, a spokesman for special forces who are at the forefront of the fighting, said they had freed 10 prisoners held by their opponents as they pushed forward in Sabri.

At least five of the LNA’s opponents were killed and 11 arrested, including six Libyans, four Egyptians and a Tunisian, LNA officials said.

Haftar launched his “Operation Dignity” campaign in May 2014, slowly gaining the upper hand against Islamist militants and former rebels who fought Gaddafi in the 2011 uprising.

Haftar is aligned with a government and parliament in eastern Libya. He has rejected a U.N.-backed government based in the capital, Tripoli, as he has gradually strengthened his position on the ground.
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Qatar on Friday dismissed as “baseless” accusations that it was financing terrorism, in its first public response to a statement from four Arab states leading a boycott against the tiny emirate.

The four — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain — said in a joint statement late Thursday that Doha’s refusal to accept their demands to end the diplomatic standoff was proof of its links to terrorist groups.

In their statement, carried by their state media, the four said their initial list of 13 demands was now void and they pledged further political, economic and legal steps against Qatar.

In its first reaction to the statement by the four, Qatar dismissed as “baseless” the renewed accusations that it was interfering in the affairs of other states and financing terrorism.

“The State of Qatar’s position on terrorism is consistent and known for its rejection and condemnation of all forms of terrorism, whatever the causes and motives,” the state news agency said, quoting a senior Foreign Ministry source.

Qatar was ready to “cooperate and review all claims that do not contradict the sovereignty of the State of Qatar,” it added.

Britain’s foreign minister, Boris Johnson, arrived in Saudi Arabia on Friday to meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in a bid to help ease tension in what has become the Gulf’s deepest rift in years.

Johnson will also travel to Qatar and Kuwait for talks with senior figures from both countries, Britain’s Foreign Office said in London. It did not give a specific date.

The four Arab states have cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar, which they also accuse of allying with their regional arch foe, Iran. Doha also denies that accusation.

Their original 13 demands presented to Qatar included shutting down the pan-Arab Al Jazeera TV channel and closing a Turkish military base in Doha.

Qatari officials have repeatedly said the 13 demands are so strict that they suspect the four countries never seriously intended to negotiate them, and were instead seeing to hobble Doha’s sovereignty.

At the same time, they have said Qatar is interested in negotiating a fair and just solution to “any legitimate issues” of concern to fellow Gulf Cooperation Council states.

In their statement, the four Arab states said any additional measures would be aimed at the Qatari government but not its people, without elaborating on when the new steps would be announced or what they would entail.

Foreign ministers from the four states convened in Cairo on Wednesday after the expiration of a 10-day deadline for their demands to be met. They condemned the tiny Gulf nation’s response as “negative” and lacking in content.
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A federal judge has extended a stay of deportation for Iraqi nationals, blocking their removal for another two weeks.

U.S. District Judge Mark Goldsmith in Detroit on Thursday halted deportations nationwide until July 24, saying he needs more time to decide whether he has jurisdiction in the case. The judge had issued an injunction against Iraqi deportations on June 22; that stay was set to expire Monday.

In his opinion, Goldsmith wrote that he found “good cause” to extend the stay.

“In light of the complexity of the issue involved and the time necessary to prepare an opinion, along with the essentially unchanged facts,” Goldsmith wrote, “the Court is faced with the same circumstances that were extant when the stays were entered.”

Besides determining whether his court has jurisdiction in the case, Goldsmith is also taking into consideration the possibility that the Iraqis would be physically harmed if they were sent back to Iraq.

Most of the Iraqis are Chaldean Christians and some are Shi’ite Muslims; both groups face persecution in their native Iraq.

The lawsuit invokes the international treaty against torture and could have far-reaching consequences for thousands of other foreign nationals.

New repatriation agreement

The Iraqis, who have all been accused of or convicted of various crimes, are not appealing their deportation orders per se, but are asking for the right to contest those orders in court on the grounds that returning to Iraq would place them in mortal danger.

Up until very recently, Iraq would not accept citizens who were deported by the U.S. That changed after the administration of President Donald Trump issued its first order restricting travel in January. The order banned travel from seven countries, including Iraq.

Rather than be included in the travel order, Iraq negotiated a repatriation agreement with the U.S. government and when the revised order was issued, Iraq was no longer on the list.

Since then, immigration agents have been rounding up Iraqi foreign nationals, who have committed crimes and consequently are under deportation orders.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official said in an email to VOA that the Iraqis who have been detained are part of “an effort to process the backlog of these individuals.”

According to immigration officials, an estimated 14,000 Iraqi immigrants have final orders of removal.

Goldsmith is set to decide if he has jurisdiction in the case by July 24.
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The United States, Russia and Jordan have reached a ceasefire and “de-escalation agreement” in southwestern Syria, one of the combat zones in a six-year-old civil war, Washington and Moscow said on Friday.

The ceasefire will go into effect at noon Damascus time (0900 GMT) on Sunday, U.S. and Russian officials said.

The deal was announced after a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the G-20 summit of major economies in the German city of Hamburg.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the area covered by the ceasefire affects Jordan’s security and is a “very complicated part of the Syrian battlefield.” Russia and Iran are the main international backers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad while Washington supports some of the rebel groups fighting to topple him.

“I think this is our first indication of the U.S. and Russia being able to work together in Syria, and as a result of that we had a very lengthy discussion regarding other areas in Syria that we can continue to work together on to de-escalate the areas,” Tillerson said.

The conflict has killed nearly half a million people, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, turned cities into ruins and forced millions to flee Syria.

Previous similar ceasefires have failed to hold for long.

Trump ordered missile strikes against a Syrian air base in April to punish Assad after a chemical weapons attack but this is the first time his administration has been so directly involved in a peace-making attempt there.

Backed by Russian air power, Assad has regained ground in the last year or so lost to the mostly Sunni Muslim rebels.

The Syria deal appeared to be the main point of agreement at the first meeting between Trump and Putin, who also discussed Moscow’s alleged interference in the U.S. 2016 presidential election and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.

Goals in Syria

Lavrov said the accord includes “securing humanitarian access and setting up contacts between the opposition in the region and a monitoring center that is being established in Jordan’s capital.”

Tillerson said that by and large the objectives of the United States and Russia in Syria “are exactly the same.”

But Washington and Moscow have long been at odds over Syria.

The United States has often called for the removal of Assad, who it blames for shootings of protesters at the start of the conflict and, more recently, chemical weapons attacks on civilians.

Russia and Iran strongly back the Syrian leader, who gives both countries a strategic foothold in the Mediterranean Sea.

Despite the ceasefire deal, Tillerson said the United States still sees “no long-term role for the Assad family or the Assad regime. And we have made this clear to everyone. We certainly made it clear in our discussions with Russia.”

Robert Ford, who resigned in 2014 as U.S. ambassador to Syria over policy disagreements, said the Trump administration, like that of former President Barack Obama, has “no national objective for the future of Syria nor any strategy for how to secure an objective were one identified.”

By contrast, Russia’s overall aim is clearer, said Ford, now a fellow at the Middle East Institute think tank in Washington.

“The Russian objective is to insulate Damascus and the Syrian national government from outside pressure trying to pressure it into major concessions,” he said.

A group of Syrian rebels that took part in the latest peace talks in Kazakhstan this month said in a statement it had “great concern over the secret meetings between Russia and Jordan and America to conclude an individual deal for southern Syria in isolation from the north,” which it described as an unprecedented event that “divides Syria and the opposition.”

The Syrian government and the Southern Front, the main grouping of Western-backed rebel groups in southwest Syria, did not immediately react to the ceasefire deal.

It was not immediately clear exactly which areas of southwestern Syria would be covered by the ceasefire but earlier talks between the United States and Russia about a “de-escalation zone” covered Deraa province, on the border with Jordan, and Quneitra, which borders the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

British Defense Secretary Michael Fallon welcomed any ceasefire in Syria but wanted to see results on the ground.

“The recent history of the Syrian civil war is littered with ceasefires and it would be nice … one day to have a ceasefire,” Fallon said at an event in Washington.
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The U.N.’s migration agency said Friday it has suspended operations in two camps near the embattled Iraqi city of Mosul that host nearly 80,000 displaced Iraqis due to security concerns.

The International Organization for Migration announced the temporary suspensions at the Qayara air strip emergency site and the Haj Ali camp amid sporadic violence and gunfire.

IOM spokesman Joel Millman said local staffers were instructed to stay home and not enter the camps following a curfew and restrictions on movement imposed by Iraqi authorities.

He said six water-tanker trucks commissioned by the Ministry of Displacement and Migration were prevented from entering the Haj Ali camp, where temperatures have reached the low 50s Celsius (122 Fahrenheit) in recent days.

Humanitarian groups have repeatedly suspended operations in and around Mosul since the fight to retake the city from IS began last October.

In April, the United Nations suspended operations in the same area due to security threats along the road south of Mosul’s western half.

In February the U.N. suspended operations in eastern Mosul weeks after the area was declared fully liberated as IS attacks continued to inflict heavy civilian casualties.

In both instances the U.N. resumed operations within a matter of days.

Iraqi security forces have retaken almost all of Mosul – Iraq’s second largest city – from IS militants who overran it in 2014. While IS-held territory has shrunk significantly, the group remains capable of launching counterattacks against Iraqi forces and insurgent attacks deep inside government-held territory.
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As Indian television broadcast images of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi arriving to a red carpet welcome in Tel Aviv, wading barefoot in the Mediterranean sea with his Israeli counterpart, Benjamin Netanyahu and of warm hugs as they set the stage for wider strategic and economic partnerships, commentators noted that New Delhi had shed much historical baggage.

An Indian Prime Minister’s first-ever visit to the Jewish state this week was not just a public acknowledgment of a relationship that grew largely behind closed doors for 25 years, it represents “a normalization of Israel within the Middle East,” says professor P.R. Kumaraswamy at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Kumaraswamy, who was in Israel at the time of the visit, says the most important message of Modi’s high profile visit was that “India is going to deal with Israel like it deals with any other country in the region, like UAE, like Saudi Arabia without worrying about the third party.”

That was underscored by the fact that unlike most world leaders, Modi chose not to travel to Ramallah or even mention Palestine during the 49 hours he spent in Israel. A brief mention in the joint statement issued by the two countries spoke only about a “just and durable peace in the region.”

The message underlined was that India, long a supporter of the Palestinian cause, was delinking the two relationships and moving ahead to openly consolidate a partnership that has much to offer New Delhi in areas spanning from defense and counterterrorism to water and agriculture technology. 

“Modi decided to do away with even lip service. He is responding to a ground reality that the Palestinian cause is marginalized,” said Kumaraswamy.

Modi’s stand was widely endorsed at home, where in the past fears of upsetting Arab countries and its own Muslim population had prompted it to keep quiet the relationship with Israel.

“Given what Israel can and does contribute in the way of solutions to India’s many problems, New Delhi is right to no longer hold the bilateral relationship hostage to idealistic concerns,” said an editorial in the leading newspaper Hindustan Times.

At the same time, analysts stressed that India is not abandoning its support for the Palestinian cause – they point out that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas visited India ahead of Modi’s Israeli visit in May when New Delhi assured him of its support for a two-state solution. 

While the foundations of a relationship with Israel have already been in place, Modi’s visit has set the stage for a quantum leap in ties, say analysts. 

“The fact that India and Israel are finally normal friends is an important point to underscore,” said Harsh Pant, head of the Strategic Studies Program at New Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation. “I think India sees the relationship with Israel in its own right.”

And that will not be restricted to a relationship based on their growing defense ties, although that has grabbed the most attention given that Israel is now India’s third largest weapons supplier, selling arms worth roughly $1 billion annually.

In fact, dominating the conversation were more mundane areas, such as water and agriculture technology, where India could desperately use Israeli expertise.

Among Modi’s stops in Israel were a flower farm and a desalination plant. The two sides signed seven pacts covering areas like water conservation, agriculture and space. India and Israel also agreed to set up a $40 million fund for industrial Research and Development.

Modi’s meeting with a 10-year-old Israeli boy, Moshe Holtzberg, who was saved by his Indian nanny in Mumbai during a 2008 terror attack, also got wide attention in New Delhi and was seen as symbolically underscoring a partnership that also gets momentum from shared concerns over Islamic terrorism. Moshe’s parents were killed when a Jewish Center in the city became one of the several targets attacked by heavily armed gunmen. The two-year-old baby who escaped was one of the positive stories to emerge from the terror trail. 

The Indian-Israeli bonhomie could get another boost later this year when the Prime Minister Netanyahu is tentatively scheduled to travel to New Delhi.

“There is a sense in which the political class have developed a consensus. Past hesitation in terms of acknowledging Israel has gone, and that paves the way for more substantial outcomes,” said Pant.
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