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Qatar to build 1,000 homes for Gaza displaced

Gulf state to make good on its pledge of $1 billion to help repair damage from 2014 summer conflict

BY AFP March 10, 2015, 8:27 pm

A Palestinian young man carries bricks amid the rubble of destroyed buildings in Beit Hanun in the northern Gaza Strip on March 4 2015. (photo credit: AFP/MOHAMMED ABED)

The Gulf state, which hosts the exiled leadership of Gaza’s Islamist rulers, was the largest single donor at an October conference in Cairo to raise funds to help rebuild the blockaded territory.

“Qatar made a pledge at the donors conference. Today we are putting that into effect, by beginning construction of 1,000 housing units,” the head of the Qatari project, Mohammed al-Emadim, said at a news conference in Gaza City.

He did not specify where in the densely populated coastal enclave the homes would be built.

Qatar pledged $1 billion at the conference, almost a fifth of the total $5.4 billion promised in international aid.

More than 2,000 Palestinians were killed during last year’s conflict in July and August, according to Gaza-based sources, with the United Nations saying most of them were civilians. Israel said some 1,000 of the fatalities were Hamas operatives and other gunmen, and blamed Hamas for all civilian casualties, arguing that the group attacked Israel from within residential areas.

Hamas and other terror groups fired over 4,500 rockets and explosive projectiles at Israel, and staged several deadly attacks against IDF soldiers through cross-border tunnels. Seventy-three people on the Israeli side, most of them soldiers, were killed during the conflict, known as Operation Protective Edge.

The UN last month slammed the international community for failing to make good on its promises of aid, warning of another conflict unless Gaza was rehabilitated quickly.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

Read more: Qatar to build 1,000 homes for Gaza displaced | The Times of Israel http://www.timesofisrael.com/qatar-to-build-1000-homes-for-gaza-displaced/#ixzz3U1imp3cX

34 killed in explosion at market in northeastern Nigeria

By HARUNA UMAR5 hours ago

Iraq seizes town on outskirts of Islamic State-held Tikrit

By QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA and VIVIAN SALAMA6 hours ago

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi soldiers and Shiite militiamen captured a town Tuesday on the outskirts of the Islamic State-held city of Tikrit, sealing off Saddam Hussein's hometown in preparation to confront the extremists in one of their biggest strongholds, officials said.

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Seizing Alam puts the offensive on course to attempt to liberate Tikrit in the coming days, the ultimate battle-readiness test for Iraqi forces now advancing there without the support of U.S.-led airstrikes. Their operation likely will set the stage for how Iraq attempts to retake the more-densely populated cities of Mosul and Fallujah from the militants.

Iraqi forces entered Alam early Tuesday morning, their armored convoys roaring past the empty arid fields and occasional palm tree before gaining full control hours later, two Iraqi officials said. By nightfall, the military sealed off Tikrit on all sides, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to journalists.

Tikrit, the capital of Salahuddin province, lies about 130 kilometers (80 miles) north of Baghdad. Sniper fire and roadside bombs initially hampered the advance into Alam, said Ahmed al-Karim, the Salahuddin provincial council chief. Extremists also blew up the Alam bridge to slow the Iraqi force, military officials said.

After seizing Alam, Shiite militiamen held assault rifles over their heads, chanting that the Islamic State group was "unable to conquer us." Their involvement has been key in the Iraqi offensive, as have the involvement of Iranian military advisers guiding them.

Among those directing operations is Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani, commander of the powerful Revolutionary Guard's Quds Force. The overt Iranian role and the prominence of Shiite militias in the campaign have raised fears of possible sectarian cleansing should Tikrit, an overwhelmingly Sunni city, fall to the government troops.

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Members of an Iraqi Shiite militant group called Badr Brigades carry the coffin of Shiite fighter, M …

Most battlefield successes in Iraq have been coordinated efforts, with Iraqi and Kurdish forces and Shiite militias fighting on the ground and the U.S.-led coalition providing air power. The siege of the village of Amirli just north of Baghdad, when many feared the capital itself might fall, was broken last year with the help of U.S.-led airstrikes and a fighting force of mainly Shiite militias. Shiite militiamen backed by a coalition air campaign also retook the town of Jurf al-Sukhr, on Baghdad's outskirts, from the militants in October.

Soleimani was a key player in both of those campaigns. But Iraqi and Kurdish officials and Shiite militia fighters all acknowledge the crucial role the coalition airstrikes played in their modest victories. And so far, the U.S. has said it isn't coordinating with Iran on its strikes and hasn't been asked to provide aerial support in the Tikrit offensive.

The Islamic State group holds a third of Iraq and neighboring Syria in its self-declared caliphate. In Syria, activists said Tuesday that more than 70 prisoners escaped from an Islamic State jail in the northern town of Al-Bab, with militants searching for those who fled.

The prisoners took the opportunity to escape when clashes erupted between rival militant groups, said Bari Abdelatif, an activist from al-Bab who is now based in Turkey.

"There are checkpoints everywhere," Abdelatif said of the town. He also said militants drove through the town's streets, calling on people over loudspeakers to hand over any hiding prisoners.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Abdelatif said those who fled included Kurdish fighters captured by the Islamic State group in recent months. The Observatory said the extremists were able to recapture some of those who fled but did not provide details or numbers.

In recent months, the Islamic State group has been defeated in some areas, including the Syrian border town of Kobani and several surrounding villages.

U.S. military officials have that said a coordinated military mission to retake Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, likely will begin in April or May and involve up to 25,000 Iraqi troops. But the Americans have cautioned that if the Iraqis are not ready, the offensive could be delayed.

Tikrit is one of the largest cities held by Islamic State militants and lies on the road connecting Baghdad to Mosul. Retaking it will help Iraqi forces have a major supply link for any future operation to retake Mosul.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, has emphasized on the importance of sustaining the anti-Islamic State coalition for the longer term. Shiite dominance in Baghdad has upset predominantly Sunni countries like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, as well as Iraq's own Sunni heartland, leading some to support the extremists. Former members of Iraq's outlawed Baath party, loyalists to Saddam, also joined the Islamic State group during its offensive.

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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue in Beirut contributed to this report.

IS claims execution of Arab Israeli accused of spying: video

2 hours ago

Beirut (AFP) - The Islamic State released a video Tuesday purporting to show a young boy executing an Arab Israeli who it claimed infiltrated the group in Syria to spy for the Jewish state.

In the video, a youth identifying himself as 19-year-old Mohammed Said Ismail Musallam recounts how he was recruited by Israeli intelligence.

Dressed in an orange jumpsuit that is standard in videos of IS executions, he is shown kneeling in front of the boy, who appears to be no more than 12 years old, and a man standing at his side.

The man, speaking in French, issues threats against Jews in France, before the boy walks around in front of the hostage and then shoots him in the forehead using a pistol.

The boy, who shouts "Allahu Akbar" ("God is greatest" in Arabic), then shoots the man four more times as he lies on the ground.

In February, Musallam's father denied in comments to AFP the IS claim that his son was an Israeli agent.

"My son is innocent; IS accused him of working for Mossad because he tried to run away," Said Musallam said, claiming that his son had travelled to Syria to join the jihadists.

Following release of the video Tuesday, Musallam said he did "not know anything".

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The parents of Mohammed Musallam (portrait) react at the family's home in the East Jerusalem Jew …

"People are calling us; they told us IS sent a video in which Mohammed says he works for the Israeli Shin Bet. That's not true; my son doesn't work for the Shin Bet. IS did this to scare the world.

"He's dead, he's a martyr. Mohammed is just a child, like a baby, only 19 years old."

- 'Absolutely not religious' -

"He is absolutely not religious," Musallam said earlier, adding that perhaps his son had been recruited through the Internet.

Dabiq, the IS online English-language magazine, said Mohammed had been tasked by Israel with gathering information on IS bases and weapons and on Palestinians volunteering to fight for the group in Syria.

A spokesman for Israel's Shin Bet security service told AFP Mohammed had left home on October 24 "on his own initiative", implying that he had not been sent by Israel.

Official Israeli policy is not to comment on such allegations.

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Pro-Iraqi government forces fire Howitzer Cannons towards positions of the Islamic State group on th …

The Shin Bet spokesman said Mohammed travelled from Israel to Turkey and "from there crossed to Syria and joined IS to fight for the organisation".

Said Musallam said his son, an Israeli citizen, abandoned his national service in the fire department to join IS.

He said the last time they spoke by phone Mohammed was in Raqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the jihadist "caliphate" in northern Syria.

He said his son wanted to return home after having completing basic training.

He said he was very worried about his son's fate at the hands of IS, which has brutally executed many prisoners in recent months.

Asked if he could raise a ransom in exchange for his son, the father said he was a mere bus driver with no property or assets to his name.

The family lives in the Jewish settlement neighbourhood of Neve Yaakov in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem.

Said Musallam was born in the occupied West Bank but said his four children have Israeli passports.

According to Dabiq, Mohammed was recruited in Neve Yaakov by a Jewish neighbour working for the security services and was given away by his behaviour and his refusal to obey a commander.

The execution video released Tuesday was one of several produced by IS, starting with the beheading last August of American journalist James Foley and more recently including the burning to death of a captured Jordanian pilot and the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians.

Dalia Ghanem-Yazbeck, an analyst at the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said the videos tend to coincide with jihadist military setbacks.

"With each military reverse... IS comes out with a shock video so that people will talk about them. This is a way to compensate for the military defeat with propaganda," she said.

Since early this month, Iraq forces have besieged Tikrit, a city captured by IS in a lightning sweep across the country's north last summer.