ISIS leader believed dead after US raid | TheHill - The Hill

Officials believe ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead after a U.S. military raid in Syria, according to multiple reports.

A senior U.S. defense official told CNN that Baghdadi apparently detonated a suicide vest as Special Operations forces approached his location in northwest Syria on Saturday.

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The official added that DNA and biometric testing is being conducted, according to the network.

The White House announced late Saturday that President TrumpDonald John Trump Comey: Mueller 'didn't succeed in his mission because there was inadequate transparency' During deposition, official says he made several efforts to advocate for Marie Yovanovitch Bolton looms large as impeachment inquiry accelerates MORE would be making a “major statement” on Sunday morning at 9 a.m.

Trump tweeted Saturday night that something “very big” had just happened.

Something very big has just happened!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 27, 2019

The Associated Press noted that a Syria war monitor reported an attack including eight helicopters and a warplane from the international coalition fighting the terror organization targeted a group linked to al Qaeda, Hurras al-Deen, in Idlib Province on Saturday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added that ISIS operatives were thought to be hiding in the area, according to the AP, which reported that the group documented the deaths of 9 people in the attack.

ISIS last April released a video showing al-Baghdadi in good health, speaking with three men whose faces were blurred, according to multiple reports.

Al-Baghdadi in the video acknowledged the end of the battle of Baghouz, Syria, which marked ISIS’s territorial defeat, but vowed that the fight was not over.

The U.S. and its coalition partners declared victory against ISIS in March after the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) retook its last pocket of land in Baghouz.

The U.S. military relied on the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is led by the Kurds, as the local ground force fighting ISIS. Trump earlier this month withdrew U.S. forces from northern Syria ahead of a Turkish assault on the area, sparking criticism. Ankara considers the Syrian Kurds to terrorists who are an extension of a Kurdish insurgency within Turkey.

The SDF said Sunday that it worked with the U.S. on a "historic, successful" mission against ISIS, according to Reuters, but did not provide details.

The news service added that Iraqi state TV aired footage of the raid, with footage showing an explosion, a crater and blood-stained clothes.

An Iraqi intelligence official told Reuters that Tehran’s intelligence service discovered al-Baghdadi’s location and gave it to the U.S.-led coalition.

Al-Baghdadi announced the formation of a self-styled caliphate in a 2014 speech at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul, Iraq.

Rumors of his death have emerged periodically.

In June 2017, Russia claimed to have killed him in airstrikes on a meeting of ISIS leaders outside Raqqa, Syria. While the claim was met with much skepticism at the time, it did lead to widespread speculation about his whereabouts.

--This breaking news report was last updated at 7:46 a.m.

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https://thehill.com/policy/international/467612-isis-leader-believed-killed-in-us-raid

2019-10-27 10:06:12Z
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US Attacks ISIS Locations In Syria - NPR

A video provided by Syria's White Helmets volunteers shows a crater where the attack took place. White Helmets/Screenshot by NPR hide caption

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White Helmets/Screenshot by NPR

Updated at 6:37 a.m. ET

U.S. forces attacked ISIS targets overnight Saturday in northwest Syria, leaving at least nine people dead, war monitoring group the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

Multiple news organizations report that U.S. forces targeted ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, though NPR has not independently confirmed those reports.

An Iraqi security official tells NPR that U.S. military commanders told him they believe ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi is dead but are waiting for DNA tests for confirmation. The official asked to remain anonymous because he did not have authorization to speak publicly.

The White House says President Trump plans a major statement at 9 a.m. Sunday, and late Saturday night Trump tweeted, "Something very big has just happened!"

The White Helmets, a group of volunteer rescue workers who have operated in the Syrian civil war, provided NPR with a video of what the group says was the site of the attack, including rubble surrounding what appeared to be a large bomb crater.

A rescue worker told NPR about 10 bodies were recovered from the site.

The Observatory says eight helicopters and a warplane belonging to U.S.-led coalition forces fighting ISIS struck an area north of the Syrian city of Idlib, close to the Turkish border. Heavy strikes targeted ISIS positions for about two hours, with militants firing back at helicopters. The group says many people were wounded in the attack.

A White Helmets official told NPR a two-story building was targeted in the strike. In the video, the site appears fairly isolated, surrounded by a grove of trees, a few homes and desert mountains.

Mazloum Abdi, the Kurdish commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces, said in a tweet that there was a "Successful& historical operation due to a joint intelligence work with the United States of America." The SDF had been an important ally to U.S. forces fighting ISIS.

Successful& historical operation due to a joint intelligence work with the United States of America.

— Mazloum Abdî مظلوم عبدي (@MazloumAbdi) October 27, 2019

Baghdadi has been reported killed several times before, including in announcements by Iraq and Russia. He was believed to be hiding out in the desert near the Syria-Iraq border.

His last apparent video appearance was in April, a month after U.S.-backed forces declared the end of the ISIS "caliphate" and the defeat of the last remaining territory the group held in the Syrian city of Baghouz.

Baghdadi's actual powers of command and control have been greatly diminished since the U.S. and coalition forces routed ISIS from its hold on large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, though he has remained symbolically powerful.

At the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp in northeastern Syria a few months ago, some of the Iraqi and Syrian wives of ISIS fighters told NPR they were waiting for Baghdadi to reappear and were confident he would revive the caliphate.

Declaring an "Islamic State"

Baghdadi's most notable public appearance came five years ago, near the height of ISIS' power in Iraq and Syria. He spoke at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in Mosul in July 2014, declaring himself caliph of the new Islamic State.

At its height, ISIS ruled over 8 million people in territory the size of Great Britain, with its capital in Raqqa, Syria.

The group rose to prominence for its gruesome violence, releasing videos of beheadings and burning people alive. It publicly beheaded, crucified and threw people off of buildings. The group forced thousands of women and children from Iraq's Yazidi minority into slavery amid an ISIS campaign of genocide against the group. Yazidi women and girls were kept as sex slaves for years.

It attracted tens of thousands of foreigners, many from the West, and inspired terror groups around the globe. The group even established a quasi-government, with administrative functions, courts and police.

U.S. forces declared an end to ISIS' self-declared caliphate in March. But experts fear the group's resurgence now that Trump has announced a pullout of U.S. forces from Syria, with dozens of ISIS fighters escaping from Kurdish custody in the last month.

NPR's Daniel Estrin, Jane Arraf and Lama al-Arian contributed reporting.

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https://www.npr.org/2019/10/27/773791704/u-s-targets-isis-locations-in-syria-attack

2019-10-27 08:42:00Z
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Hundreds continue protests in Baghdad as death toll tops 60 - Al Jazeera English

Hundreds of Iraqi protesters have remained in Baghdad's central Tahrir Square on Sunday, defying a bloody crackdown that killed at least 60 people over the weekend and an overnight raid by security forces seeking to disperse them. 

Demonstrators continued to gather in the capital despite a rapidly rising death toll, with 63 killed according to a tally by the semi-official Iraq High Commission for Human Rights. 

"We're here to bring down the whole government, to weed them all out!" one protester, with the Iraqi tricolour wrapped around his head, was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

"We don't want a single one of them. Not [parliamentary speaker Mohammed] Halbousi, not [Prime Minister Adel] Abdul Mahdi. We want to bring down the regime," he added.

Students could also be seen joining demonstrations in Baghdad, with activists saying a dozen schools and universities had decided to shut their doors and take part in the protests en masse. 

Young girls in school uniform and rucksacks were seen trekking through streets littered with tear gas canisters. 

Iraq's elite counterterrorism service was deployed in Baghdad on Sunday to protect important state buildings.

The forces said in a statement the move was to "protect state buildings from undisciplined elements taking advances of security forces being busy with protecting protests and protesters".

On Saturday, security forces fired tear gas and opened live fire on thousands of protesters who tried to reach Baghdad's Green Zone, home to government offices and embassies.

Three protesters were killed when they were struck with tear gas canisters in Baghdad while another three were shot dead in the southern city of Nasiriyah after attacking a local official's home.

The protests are a continuation of the economically driven demonstrations that began in early October and turned deadly as security forces began cracking down and using live ammunition. At least 190 people have since been killed.

The ongoing turmoil has broken nearly two years of relative stability in Iraq, which in recent years has endured an invasion by the United States and protracted fighting, including against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) group.

The demonstrations have posed the biggest challenge yet to the year-old government of Prime Minister Abdul Mahdi, who has pledged to address demonstrators' grievances by reshuffling his cabinet and delivering a package of reforms.

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The moves have done little to quell the demonstrators, however, whose ire is focused not just on Mahdi's administration but also Iraq's wider political establishment, which they say has failed to improve the lives of the country's citizens.

Many view the political elite as subservient to one or other of Iraq's two main allies, the US and Iran - powers they believe are more concerned with wielding regional influence than ordinary Iraqis' needs.

Nearly three-fifths of Iraq's 40 million people live on less than six dollars a day, World Bank figures show, despite the country housing the world's fifth-largest proven reserves of oil.

SOURCE: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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2019-10-27 09:35:00Z
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Hong Kong Police Clash with Protesters in Shopping District - The New York Times

HONG KONG — Police officers in Hong Kong fired tear gas and fought in the streets on Sunday with antigovernment demonstrators who had rallied to express support for the city’s ethnic minorities, a fresh sign of tensions in a financial hub roiled by nearly five months of protests.

The protesters were gathered in the same shopping district where a week earlier the police used water cannons to clear a peaceful demonstration outside a mosque. Riot police officers fired tear gas on demonstrators less than an hour after the rally began on Sunday — within steps of a luxury hotel.

The rally was unauthorized and came a day after a local court issued a temporary order banning the public from harassing police officers. Here’s the latest on the Hong Kong protests.

Rally for Ethnic Minorities Descends Into Clashes

• The protest on Sunday unfolded in the Tsim Sha Tsui neighborhood, a few blocks from The Peninsula, one of the city’s oldest and most expensive luxury hotels. Demonstrators carried signs saying “justice will prevail” and “oppose the Communist Party, fight against totalitarianism.”

• There was a heavy police presence from the start, and officers eventually began tussling with protesters and firing tear gas and pepper spray. Some people were seen choking on tear gas inside the hotel’s lobby.

• As of 4 p.m., groups of officers in full riot gear were patrolling the area. The police force said on Twitter that protesters had attacked some officers with umbrellas and “hard objects.”

• The rally last weekend outside a Tsim Sha Tsui mosque had also been billed as a show of solidarity with the city’s ethnic minorities. It came days after a local civil rights organizer was attacked with hammers by men that local news reports had described as South Asian.

• When the police dispersed the crowds outside the mosque last weekend, they used water cannons that fired a stinging blue dye, hitting protesters, journalists and the building’s entrance. The police later said that the spraying of the mosque had been an accident.

Government Wins Court Fight Against ‘Doxxing’

• The rally on Sunday came a day after a Hong Kong court issued a temporary order banning the public from harassing or posting personal details of police officers online.

• The Justice Department had requested the ban as a way of preventing protesters from releasing information about officers and their families — a tactic known as “doxxing.” The police force says it has received reports of hundreds of officers or their family members being harassed after they were doxxed.

• The temporary order, in effect until Nov. 8, has prompted criticism for its broad language and potential chilling effect on free speech. Legal experts note that it applies only to Hong Kong police officers and not to the broader public.

• The doxxing ban is only the latest restriction on the protest movement. In early October, Hong Kong’s leader, Carrie Lam, invoked emergency powers to ban face masks at protests, making it punishable by fines and up to a year in prison.

• It was unclear how the government planned to enforce the new doxxing ban.

Doctors and Nurses Criticize the Police

• Hundreds of medical professionals rallied in a central Hong Kong park Saturday night to express opposition to what they described as police violence against protesters. They also condemned recent arrests of medical professionals working on the protests’ front lines.

• Police officers in riot gear have suppressed demonstrations for months using tear gas, pepper spray, water cannons and occasionally live rounds. Early this month, an officer shot in the chest, but did not kill, a teenage protester who had been charging him.

• Saturday’s rally ended peacefully, but there were late-night standoffs between protesters and the police in Yuen Long, a district near the border with mainland China.

• Yuen Long has been a flash point in the protests since July 22, when a mob of men in white T-shirts with sticks and metal bars assaulted dozens of people, including journalists and a pro-democracy lawmaker, at the Yuen Long train station.

Protesters Patronize Sympathetic Shops

• Protesters have encouraged residents to shop and eat at businesses that support their pro-democracy movement, some of which now display “authentication” stickers. The calls come as a growing number of Hong Kong businesses and storefronts have been vandalized in recent weeks — mostly by protesters, but also by government supporters.

• On Thursday, Lung Mun Cafe, a traditional Hong Kong eatery that supports the protest movement, was vandalized by men wielding steel rods who appeared to be government supporters. Customers turned up to the cafe in droves this weekend, although its windows and cash register were still broken.

Ezra Cheung contributed reporting.

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https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/27/world/asia/hong-kong-protests.html

2019-10-27 07:53:00Z
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Video appears to show al-Baghdadi raid underway - CNN

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Video appears to show al-Baghdadi raid underway  CNNView full coverage on Google News
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2019/10/27/us-military-strike-syria-isis-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-vpx.cnn

2019-10-27 07:26:35Z
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Brexit: 'Fears confirmed' over rights at work, says Labour - BBC News

Labour has said leaked government papers "confirm its worst fears" about plans to dilute workers' rights after Brexit.

The documents, revealed by the Financial Times, say that the drafting of commitments on workers' rights and the environment in the Brexit deal "leaves room for interpretation".

Labour said it is a "blueprint" for ending "vital rights and protections".

But Business Minister Kwesi Kwarteng said the claims are "way exaggerated".

The leaked paper suggests that the government believes there is considerable scope to diverge from the EU on employment rights and other regulations after Brexit, despite its pledge to maintain a "level playing field" in Boris Johnson's latest deal.

In Mr Johnson's Brexit deal, references to a level playing field - the idea that the UK and EU countries keep their rules and standards close to prevent one trying to gain a competitive advantage - were removed from the legally binding withdrawal agreement.

Instead, they were put into the non-binding "political declaration", which describes the potential future relationship between the UK and EU.

According to the FT, the leaked document says the UK's and EU's interpretation of the "level playing field" pledge will be "very different", and the text represents a "much more open starting point" for negotiations over a future trade deal.

Purportedly drafted by the Brexit department, the paper appears to contradict promises by the prime minister on Wednesday that the UK is committed to the "highest possible standards" for the environment and rights at work.

It comes as EU leaders consider their decision on a new deadline for Brexit, having agreed to an extension in principle after the UK government admitted it could not meet its 31 October deadline.

The document will fuel fears among some in the EU that Boris Johnson is planning to shape Britain into a Singapore-style economy, with low taxes and light regulation, which could compete against Europe by potentially downgrading rights.

'Better than our word'

Suggestions that workers' rights could be diluted will also raise concerns among Labour MPs, 19 of whom voted for the Withdrawal Agreement Bill to progress in the House of Commons.

Labour shadow Brexit minister Jenny Chapman said the documents "confirm our worst fears".

She said: "Boris Johnson's Brexit is a blueprint for a deregulated economy, which will see vital rights and protections torn up."

The Brexit department said it did not recognise the document, however.

And Business Minister Kwesi Kwarteng told the BBC the claims were "completely mad" after the government had worked to win the support of Labour MPs.

"It wouldn't make any sense at all to dilute workers' rights in building that coalition to land the bill," he said.

"We have said we will be better than our word. We have said our ambition on securing workers' rights will be stronger than the provision of the bill."

A Brexit department spokesman said the government "has no intention of lowering the standards of workers' rights or environmental protection after we leave the EU".

He said the UK already exceeds the minimum standards in areas such as maternity leave, shared parental leave and greenhouse gas emissions targets.

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2019-10-26 14:02:49Z
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Rebel British Parliament members plot to force new Brexit referendum: report - New York Post

Rebellious members of the British Parliament are plotting to find a way to force a second Brexit referendum, to give citizens the chance to vote again on whether or not to leave the European Union.

Several MPs are working on a plan that could seize control of the Brexit agenda from Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the Guardian reported.

Parliament voted Tuesday to support the deal Johnson reached with the EU, but they declined to fast-track the plan in time to leave the 28-nation political and economic union by the old deadline of Oct. 31. The EU in turn agreed Friday to extend the deadline, but didn’t set a new date, Reuters reported.

Johnson, a Conservative, has called for a snap election, which Parliament is slated to vote on Monday. Opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn of the Labour Party said he will support an election only if Johnson pledges the UK will not exit the EU with no deal, a possibility that could significantly damage the economy. The EU did not set new deadline in part because of the call for a new election.

Support for a second referendum “ebbs and flows,” Labour MP Peter Kyle told the Guardian, but that presently “the tide is coming back on it” among MPs.

Last Saturday, hundreds of thousands marched in the streets of London calling for a second referendum.

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2019-10-26 13:06:00Z
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