Libya's UN-backed government calls airport airstrike a 'war crime' - CNN

Mitiga airport, in the eastern quarter of Tripoli, was shuttered after it was attacked by Haftar's so-called Libyan National Army (LNA). Libya's United Nations-backed government, the Government of National Accord (GNA), quickly condemned the aerial bombardment, calling it a war crime.

There is also fighting around Tripoli's international airport, 15 miles south of the city center, which has not been operational for years. The GNA admitted Monday that it temporarily lost control of the site to Haftar's fighters.

"Haftar forces attacked Tripoli four days ago, mainly from the south and got as far as controlling Tripoli international airport," a GNA official told CNN Monday. "As of yesterday and today, Monday, Haftar forces have been pushed back and Tripoli secured."

The same official said militias from the coastal towns of Misrata and Zawia -- which are not under the GNA's direct control -- deployed troops to the capital as part of the counter-offensive against the LNA.

Years of fighting among various militias in the war-torn country have reached a crescendo in recent days, as Haftar pushes to take control of the capital.

The UN said that 3,400 people have been displaced in the upsurge of violence since Haftar ordered LNA forces to march on Tripoli Thursday. Twenty-one people have been killed and 27 injured in the conflict, according to Libya al Ahrar TV, quoting Libya's Ministry of Health.

The UN and France made shows of support Monday for the GNA's leader, Fayez al-Sarraj, whom Haftar is seeking to unseat.

The UN Secretary General's Special Representative, Ghassan Salame, met Sarraj in his office in Tripoli to discuss ways the UN Support Mission in Libya "can assist at this critical and difficult juncture," UNSMIL said on Twitter.

France, meanwhile, said that it wanted Sarraj to remain a "key player" in ongoing efforts to negotiate peace between the GNA and Haftar's forces.

"France would like Sarraj's government to remain a key player and to try and conclude the peace process negotiated in Abu Dhabi," a spokesperson for French President Emmanuel Macron told CNN.

The European Union pleaded for a humanitarian truce on Monday, a day after warring parties ignored a UN call for a two-hour halt to fighting.

Departing from the EU's prepared agenda to express concerns about Libya, the EU's top foreign policy official Federica Mogherini called for "full implementation of the humanitarian truce to allow the civilians and the wounded to be evacuated from the city and to avoid any further military action and any further military escalation."

Emergency services have so far been unable to reach casualties and civilians amid the violence. Refugees and migrants in detention centers are particularly at risk, according to the UN. Clashes are affecting residential areas, trapping civilians, and fighting has damaged electricity lines, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement Monday.

The flare in fighting in Libya forced the United States military to pull a contingent of its troops from the country over the weekend. On Sunday, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo issued a statement calling on Haftar to stop the offensive.

"We have made clear that we oppose the military offensive by Khalifa Haftar's forces and urge the immediate halt to these military operations against the Libyan capital," he said in a statement Sunday.

In the eight years since Moammar Gadhafi was deposed and killed in the 2011 conflict, Haftar has been one of a handful of strongmen to take advantage of the nation's descent into disarray.

Based in the city of Benghazi, Haftar wields control over much of eastern Libya, and has his sights set on Tripoli.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres was in Benghazi last week for talks with Haftar to push for an international peace deal, but left empty handed. Following their meeting, Guterres said he was leaving Libya "with a heavy heart and deeply concerned. I still hope it is possible to avoid a bloody confrontation in and around Tripoli."

The UN repeated Guterres' calls for a political solution on Monday.

CNN's Nada Bashir in London and Saskya Vandoorne in Paris contributed to this report.

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2019-04-09 08:33:00Z
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Israel votes today. Here's what you need to know - CNN

On March 31, Netanyahu marked ten uninterrupted years as Israel's Prime Minister, in addition to the three years he led the country in the 1990s, and there is little doubt that he's won a place in the A-list of world leaders; for a man leading a country of fewer than nine million people, his clout and recognition are a remarkable achievement. But at home he has become a highly polarizing figure, inspiring devotion and revulsion in equal measure.

Netanyahu has fought this election in the face of looming indictments for bribery and breach of trust offences. The Attorney General has called him for one final hearing before he decides whether or not to bring charges. Unbowed, Netanyahu has denied the charges and sought to turn these criminal investigations to his advantage, portraying them as a witch-hunt, led by a left-wing media elite.

As CNN discovered when it visited a stronghold of his party Likud, in the desert town of Beersheva several weeks ago, that message resonates strongly with many blue-collar Israelis. The local Likud organizer in the town compared Netanyahu to Moses, saying, "The more they go after him, the stronger he becomes."

Another key component of Netanyahu's campaign has been exploiting his status as a world statesman, with close ties to both the President of the United States and the President of Russia, both of whom have been quite ready to do him favors in recent weeks. On a visit to Washington, Donald Trump signed a proclamation recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, in defiance of overwhelming international consensus. This on top of earlier Trump decisions to switch the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and withdraw the United States from the Iran nuclear deal.

Just days before the election, on a visit to Moscow, Netanyahu was able to personally thank Vladimir Putin for Russia's key role in locating the body of an Israeli soldier who had been missing in Lebanon for nearly 37 years. Even Netanyahu's critics have been forced to acknowledge that the Israeli leader's relationship with Putin has been remarkably fruitful, allowing the Israeli military considerable freedom to operate against Iranian targets in Syria, which Netanyahu always cites as Israel's number one security consideration.

The election was called in December, ostensibly after the government gave up on efforts to get a new military draft law through Parliament. It seems clear that Netanyahu believed the timing was right—sending voters to polls before any indictments were brought against him, and with a message he could sell to the electorate. Speaking to his Likud lawmakers on the day the election was called he said the outgoing government had "outstanding achievements" on which to campaign.

At first facing a diverse array of opponents, Netanyahu saw his challenge crystalize after a dramatic announcement in February, which saw three former army chiefs come together with a former TV news anchor-turned-politician to create the Blue and White party.

The name was simple but significant. Blue and White are the colors of the Israeli flag. The message was equally simple: Blue and White had been created to reclaim the state of Israel from Prime Minister Netanyahu. The man who would lead that campaign and present himself as the anti-Netanyahu candidate was Benny Gantz, a former head of the army, who had held that position under Netanyahu, fighting two wars in Gaza during his tenure.

Gantz's entry into the political arena had been widely anticipated, and, indeed, hoped for in many quarters. Blue and White's polling numbers quickly surged, turning it into a two-horse race. The campaign was hard and personal. After it emerged that Iran had allegedly hacked Gantz's phone, Netanyahu questioned whether he could be trusted to keep the country safe if he couldn't look after his phone.

Netanyahu loyalists also suggested Gantz had abandoned a dying soldier after an attack many years ago in the West Bank town of Nablus. Blue and White rejected the slur, Gantz was also cleared by an IDF inquiry. For his part, the Prime Minister announced he intended to sue Gantz and his key ally, Moshe Ya'alon, after the latter suggested Netanyahu could be guilty of treason in connection with an investigation into military procurement.

As the election entered its final days, most polls showed Gantz with a slim lead over his rival. But the same polls suggested that Netanyahu's route to building a successful coalition would be more straightforward, due to the large number of other right-wing parties projected to win seats. Indeed, the projected success of several hard-right parties could be a key outcome of this election.

Netanyahu's final campaign move involved a series of major TV interviews in which he chose to push the issue of annexation of the West Bank.

If re-elected, Netanyahu told one interviewer, "I am going to apply Israeli sovereignty to the settlements. And I don't differentiate between the settlement blocs and the isolated settlements," a reference to three areas of the West Bank where most Israeli settlements are located, known as the blocs, and other, smaller settlements scattered across the territory.

Any such move would be highly controversial. The international community regards the West Bank as occupied Palestinian land and remains committed to the eventual establishment there of a Palestinian state. Gantz called Netanyahu's remarks 'irresponsible' electioneering and said that as Prime Minister he would not make any unilateral moves in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

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https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/09/middleeast/israel-elections-explainer-intl/index.html

2019-04-09 04:40:00Z
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Brexit: Significant obstacles for cross-party talks - BBC News

"Are they serious?"

Labour and the Conservatives are separately pondering that same question tonight - wondering whether their political rivals really are genuine about finding common cause.

Guess what, just for a change, the leaderships of both of the main Westminster parties are dealing with boiling tensions on their front and back benches.

And they both have reasons to tiptoe towards each other in these cross-party talks, but both sides too have reasons to tread carefully.

In truth, both sides are serious that they could possibly get serious about a deal, but the obstacles are significant.

The Tories have still not, and may never feel able to offer a clear promise of pursuing a customs union.

What sources familiar with the talks say the focus is right now, is trying to point out to Labour that the existing deal contains the possibility of shaping that kind of arrangement in the future.

Irony upon irony, the backstop which the government has been protesting about for so long provides the ingredients for exactly that kind of relationship with the EU in the long term.

That is precisely why Brexiteers hated it so much - because they feared (correctly perhaps) it might be used as the basis on which to build the kind of tight trading deal with the EU they seek to avoid.

• What are the Brexit sticking points?
• Sturgeon warns about 'bad Brexit compromise'

For the prime minister to overtly pursue such a deal is already provoking fury in parts of her party - although it's also striking now how frustrated some middle of the road Tory MPs are - fed up of what they see as both "extremes", hogging the oxygen and holding everything up.

But unless and until Theresa May is ready to give a firmer commitment on customs, it is hard to see how Labour would be ready to sign on the dotted line.

Although the two sides will meet again in the next 24 hours, Jeremy Corbyn again has expressed his view that the government hasn't shifted any of those red lines.

And even if that were to happen, there are (at least!) two other big blocks to success.

There is deep anxiety in the Labour Party about being able to trust anything that is agreed.

The government's already promised that they could change the law to give guarantees in the Brexit implementation bill.

But both sides admit privately even if they came up with some kind of "lock", it's just not feasible to rule out any future prime minister ever unpicking the deal.

In a different era this might not be such a problem.

But the prime minister has already said that she will quit, and quit once the deal is done.

So of course, Labour MPs are very nervous about how the promises made in these talks could last.

That's whether the next leader were to be Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab , Jeremy Hunt or frankly, the Queen of Sheba - it's about the permanence of any promise.

And, as I understand it, the two groups, even with serious intention, have not as things stand been able to come up with a formula that guards against this.

Second of all, officials and politicians in the discussions have talked about the possibility of another referendum on the EU - whether you call it a "confirmatory vote", a "ratificatory referendum", or a "people's vote" - another chance for all of us to have a say.

This has not though yet been a big focus of the talks - it seems like an issue that has been danced around the edges.

• Will Labour push for a public vote?
• Labour chair offered to quit over Brexit

Here's the thing: a hefty chunk of the Labour Party is adamant that they will only back a deal if it comes with a promise of another referendum.

And that opinion among Labour backbenchers has been hardening, not softening in recent weeks.

So even if the talks can find away find a way around the customs conundrum, and then find a "lock" to make Labour comfortable with any promises that are made, there is a third profound dilemma.

Number 10 has always made it abundantly clear that the prime minister believes that's a nightmare not worth contemplating.

The problem for these talks is that for a big chunk of the parliamentary Labour Party that's the dream they are pursuing.

There are others who disagree, and disagree profoundly.

But in terms of making this process work, the Labour Party's votes can't be delivered in one big chunk.

With huge political imagination, invention, (whose mother after all they say is a necessity, and there's certainly a necessity right now), it is of course possible that this process could get there.

In this long tangled process a lot of things that have seemed impossible can in the end come to pass.

But just as both sides in these talks are serious, the problems are serious too.

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https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47862084

2019-04-08 21:26:37Z
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Why Iran just listed US military personnel as terrorists - Washington Examiner

Responding to the Trump administration's decision to list the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist group, Iran on Tuesday officially listed U.S. military personnel in the Middle East as terrorists.

Iran's hardliner faction intends for that response to deter the U.S. from continuing its pressure campaign against Iran. It wants the U.S. to fear attacks on its forces in the Middle East. But while it is likely that the IRGC will lash out in some fashion, their fury is really a function of fear, not confidence.

The Iranian hardliners know that Trump's action will hamper the IRGC's ability to earn foreign capital. That's because foreign companies, and European ones in particular, will fear doing business in Iran lest they face new U.S. sanctions. Considering that the IRGC controls critical industries in the Iranian economy, such as the telecommunications and energy sectors, Trump's listing is a big problem for the organization.

IRGC commanding officer Mohammad Ali Jafari proved as much Sunday when he warned that “If (the Americans) make such a stupid move, the U.S. Army and American security forces stationed in West Asia will lose their current status of ease and serenity." Trying to placate the hardliners, the more-moderate foreign minister Javad Zarif called for the U.S. military's Central Command to be listed as a terrorist organization. Pro-hardliner media have also hinted at Iranian terrorist reprisals, warning that Trump's action will mean more chaos in the Middle East.

Nevertheless, it's clear the hardliners feel increasingly encircled. This situation is unstable.

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2019-04-08 18:25:00Z
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How far will Israel shift to the right? - BBC News

Israelis go to the polls on Tuesday to choose a new government.

It has come down to a race between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Benny Gantz, a former military chief of staff.

Mr Netanyahu has faced accusations that he fostered racism in the campaign, after he oversaw the creation of an electoral alliance involving a party that calls for the expulsion of most Arabs from Israel.

Our Middle East Correspondent Tom Bateman reports, starting in the divided city of Hebron, in the occupied West Bank.

Within the city of about 200,000 Palestinians, a few hundred Jews live in settlements that are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.

Israel's election: Five things to know

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2019-04-08 18:06:20Z
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Tripoli's only functional airport hit by air raid as clashes rage - Aljazeera.com

Forces under the command of Libya's renegade General Khalifa Haftar have launched an air raid against the only functioning airport in Tripoli as heavy fighting rages for control of the capital.

Al Jazeera's Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from Tripoli, said services at the Mitiga airport in the east of the city were temporarily suspended after the attack on Monday.

"Passengers have been asked to evacuate the Mitiga airport after Haftar's aircraft raided the runway," he said, citing sources at the facility.

"In the area around the airport, civilians were terrified immediately after this air strike."

No casualties were reported in the airport strike.

The empty Mitiga International Airport after services were temporarily suspended [Mahmud Turkia/AFP]

In a statement, Ghassan Salame, the United Nations' envoy to Libya, condemned the LNA's air raid which targeted the only airport in Tripoli that is available for civilian use.

"As such, this attack constitutes a serious violation of international humanitarian law which prohibits attacks against civilian infrastructure," he said.

SRSG @GhassanSalame condemns the aerial attack today by LNA aircraft against Meitiga airport. Full statement: https://t.co/TQmRuva70p pic.twitter.com/tE7WgTMEer

— UNSMIL (@UNSMILibya) April 8, 2019

Death toll rises

Haftar last week ordered his self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), which is allied to a parallel administration in the east, to march on Tripoli, the seat of the internationally recognised Government of National Accord (GNA) which is protected by an array of militias.

The showdown threatens to further destabilise war-wracked Libya, which splintered into a patchwork of rival power bases following the overthrow of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

It also risks torpedoing a UN-led national reconciliation conference scheduled for April 14-16 aimed at hammering out a peace deal and set a roadmap for long-delayed elections.

Haftar, who was a general in Gaddafi's army before defecting and spending years living in the United States, casts himself as an enemy of "extremism". His opponents, however, view him as a new authoritarian leader in the mould of Gaddafi.

The heavy fighting has so far displaced 2,800 people, according to the UN.

The GNA's health ministry said at least 27 people, including civilians, have been killed since the start of the offensive, with at least 27 wounded.

According to the LNA's media office, 22 of their troops have been killed.

The World Health Organization also said two doctors were killed trying to "evacuate wounded patients from conflict areas".

Fighting was under way on Monday at Tripoli's old airport [Mahmud Turkia/AFP]

Humanitarian concerns

Maria do Valle Ribeiro, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Libya, said the clashes around Tripoli have prevented emergency services from reaching casualties and civilians, and have damaged electricity lines.

The increased violence is also worsening the situation for people held in migrants detention centres in the Libyan capital, she warned.

Detained refugees and migrants told Al Jazeera they are "terrified" about what will happen to them, with some saying they have been left without food or water and others saying they had been taken from their cells and forced to move weapons.

Meanwhile, fighting was under way on Monday at Tripoli's former international airport on the southern edge of Tripoli.

The disused facility has been abandoned since 2014, after suffering heavy damage during fierce clashes between armed groups.

Activists accuse Haftar's forces of committing human rights violations, with Human Rights Watch saying in a statement on Saturday that LNA fighters "have a well-documented record of indiscriminate attacks on civilians, summary executions of captured fighters, and arbitrary detention".

But the right group's statement also noted that militias affiliated with the GNA and based in western Libya "also have a record of abuses against civilians".

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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2019-04-08 17:45:00Z
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Trump Designates Iran’s Revolutionary Guard a Foreign Terrorist Group - The New York Times

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Monday that he was designating a powerful arm of the Iranian military as a foreign terrorist organization, the first time that the United States had named a part of another nation’s government as such a threat and raising the risk of retaliation against American troops and intelligence officers.

The move, which has been debated at the highest levels within the administration, was imposed on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The military unit has carried out operations across the Middle East, trained Arab Shiite militias and taken part in a wide range of businesses in Iran.

The designation “underscores the fact that Iran’s actions are fundamentally different from those of other governments,” Mr. Trump said in a statement. “This action will significantly expand the scope and scale of our maximum pressure on the Iranian regime. It makes crystal clear the risks of conducting business with, or providing support to, the I.R.G.C.”

The action takes effect on April 15 and imposes wide-ranging economic and travel sanctions on the military unit as well as the organizations, companies or individuals that have ties to it — including officials in Iraq, an American ally. Some American officials said the broad terrorist designation potentially covers 11 million members of the Iranian group and affiliated organizations, including the large Basij volunteer militia. In a statement on Monday, the State Department singled out the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Revolutionary Guard that is led by Qassim Suleimani, as an especially nefarious element.

Top Pentagon and C.I.A. officials oppose the designation, which they argue would allow hard-line Iranian officials to justify deadly operations against Americans overseas, especially Special Operations units and paramilitary units working under the C.I.A.

An interagency lawyers group concluded the designation was too broad, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and John R. Bolton, the national security adviser, pushed for it, said a Trump administration official. The fighting among the senior administration officials intensified after The New York Times disclosed the pending designation last month.

After Mr. Trump’s announcement, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council said it was designating the United States Central Command, the part of the military that oversees operations in the Middle East, as a terrorist organization.

At the height of the Iraq War in the mid-2000s, Iranian military officials and partners helped train Iraqi Shiite militias to fight American troops. When the Islamic State, a radical Sunni group, took over large parts of Iraq and Syria in 2014, the Quds Force and other Iranian groups helped train Iraqi Shiite militias to work with the Iraqi Army in retaking the territory. The American military also took part in the campaign, meaning the Americans and Iranians were on the same side of the fight against the Islamic State.

Senior Iraqi officials are opposed to the new designation, as it could impose travel limits and economic sanctions on some lawmakers in the Shiite-led government who have ties to Iranian officials. The additional pressure on Iranian groups also could fuel a popular proposal among Iraqi parliamentarians to limit the movements and actions of 5,000 American troops based in Iraq.

Video

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the U.S. would designate Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization. This is the first time that the United States has labeled a part of another nation’s government as a foreign terrorist group.CreditCreditSaul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Generally, Iraqi leaders say they oppose any sanctions because ordinary Iraqis suffered under broad United Nations economic penalties that were imposed after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990.

Monday’s announcement came one day before the Israeli general elections, and the move on the Iranian group could give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a boost in the final hours of his re-election campaign. Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly raised the specter of the Iranian threat to Israel and tried to reinforce the notion that his close ties to Mr. Trump strengthen Israeli security.

After Mr. Trump’s morning announcement, Mr. Netanyahu thanked him on Twitter. “Once again you are keeping the world safe from Iran aggression and terrorism,” Mr. Nentayahu wrote.

Last month, in an explicit effort to bolster Mr. Netanyahu, Mr. Trump recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights, which Israel seized from Syria in the 1967 war and annexed in 1981; the United Nations considers it occupied territory.

Mr. Netanyahu has stressed the dangers posed by Hezbollah, which was designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States in 1997 and has close ties to the Revolutionary Guard. He had asserted recently that Hezbollah was trying to set up a base in the Golan Heights. Last month, after visiting with Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem, Mr. Pompeo flew to Lebanon and berated officials for tolerating Hezbollah, even though it is a part of the government in Beirut.

“There is a reason that successive administrations have held off designating the I.R.G.C. as a terrorist organization, and why many of Trump’s own military and intelligence officials are said to be highly opposed to the move: The potential blowback vastly outweighs the benefits,” said Jeffrey Prescott, who worked as a senior Middle East director at the White House National Security Council during the Obama administration.

“This isn’t about taking a tough approach to Iran’s support for terrorism,” Mr. Prescott said Monday. “Rather, it will put our service members in Iraq and throughout the region at additional risk with nothing to show in return.”

The Obama administration considered a series of actions against the Revolutionary Guard before entering into a nuclear deal with Tehran and world powers in 2015. Mr. Trump withdrew the United States from that agreement last year in the start of a series of crackdowns against Iran.

The Revolutionary Guard oversaw the previous Iranian nuclear program, and some of its top officers were sanctioned by the United States and the United Nations for their efforts.

The New Yorker reported in 2017 that the Trump Organization had been involved recently in a hotel project in Azerbaijan whose wealthy backers have ties to Iranians linked to the Revolutionary Guard.

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2019-04-08 16:41:15Z
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