BY FARAI MUTSAKA Supporters of Zimbabwe's main opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa, at a rally on the outskirts of Harare on Sunday. Photograph: Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi/AP HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — This week’s deadly attack on a Zimbabwean opposition supporter was the work of ruling party followers, witnesses said Friday, underlining fears of a violent buildup to this month’s general election. The opposition Citizens Coalition for Change, or CCC, party had publicized the death Thursday of Tinshe Chitsunge in an attack while on his way to a rally in the capital, Harare, and blamed it on supporters of the ruling ZANU-PF party. On Friday, witnesses told The Associated Press that Chitsunge was beaten and stoned to death as he tried to flee from dozens of men wearing ZANU-PF party T-shirts in the Glen View township. At least 15 other people were injured in the attack, the witnesses said. Police said they have arrested 10 people in connection with Chitsunge’s death but gave no details about their identities or a possible motive, including any links to ZANU-PF. The killing of CCC supporter Chitsunge came in the same week that party leader Nelson Chamisa said in an interview with the AP that many of his party’s supporters were facing violence and intimidation at the hands of ruling party activists. The intimidation, Chamisa said, meant many people faced the choice of either supporting the ruling party or being killed. “It is not an election of political choices, but it’s an election of death or ZANU-PF,” Chamisa said. On Twitter on Friday, he condemned the killing of Chitsunge and called it a cold-blooded murder. Chamisa is the principal challenger to President Emmerson Mnangagwa in an election on Aug. 23. International rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have already warned that there has been a brutal crackdown on opposition to Mnangagwa and ZANU-PF. “We deplore violence against any Zimbabwean,” ZANU-PF spokesman Christopher Mutsvangwa said in response to Chitsunge’s killing. “They are not our members. A person who kills somebody is not a party member but a murderer, so the police must deal with the case.” Zimbabwe has a history of violent elections and Chitsunge’s death was the first election-related killing reported ahead of this month’s vote. A family spokesman said the 44-year-old had a wife and two children. He was beaten and hit with stones while on the way to a CCC rally at a soccer field, witnesses said. He tried to escape and get back on a truck that was carrying the CCC supporters but didn’t make it, said Musekiwa Kuziwa, another CCC supporter. “They were in their dozens and we were outnumbered,” Kuziwa said. He said he hid in an alley while Chitsunge was being attacked. Images of Chitsunge’s body were shared after the attack, showing him lying on the ground with his yellow CCC T-shirt stained with blood and his head covered with a yellow garment. Police eventually took his body away in a metal coffin, Kuziwa said. Grantmore Hakata, the CCC candidate for Glen View South constituency, said he helped take 15 other injured people to a medical facility. Juliet Muchena, 52, said she was beaten and hit with stones, and her attackers also ripped her clothes off. She had a white bandage on a gash on the top of her head. “It’s only 19 days before the election,” Muchena said. “We have to stay strong because election violence is not new in Zimbabwe. Change will not come without a struggle.” ZANU-PF has been in power in Zimbabwe for 43 years since independence from white-minority rule, firstly through long-ruling autocrat Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa replaced Mugabe in a coup in 2017 and then beat Chamisa in a disputed election in 2018. © 2023 The Associated Press

Gukurahundi Memorial. credit: https://gukurahundi.com/what-is-genocide/ OPERATION GUKURAHUNDI: A POLICY OF GENOCIDAL RAPE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN ZIMBABWE 1983–1984 By Hazel Cameron The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’s historic judgment in the Akayesu Judgment established that rape and other forms of sexual violence can be an actus reus of genocide as defined by the United Nations Convention on Genocide Article II. The Akayesu Judgment therefore provides a logical framework to analyze a hidden episode of extreme post-colonial state violence in the newly independent Zimbabwe, namely a state policy of mass atrocities in Matabeleland and parts of the Midlands, targeting the minority Ndebele ethnic group during Operation Gukurahundi. The specific foci of this study are the patterns of mass rape and sexual violence in the military operation between 1983 and 1984 in Matabeleland. Drawing on 36 in-depth interviews with survivors from throughout Matabeleland, this study provides a critical new lens on Operation Gukurahundi through its identification of uniform systematic patterns of rape and other forms of sexual violence across Matabeleland. The article concludes that the patterns of rape and other forms of sexual violence identified in this study are indicative of a state policy of systematic genocidal rape between 1983 and 1984, deployed with the intent and effect to destroy, in part, a specific ethnic group, namely the minority Ndebele of Zimbabwe, thereby constituting acts of genocide as defined by the Genocide Convention. To read the article please click on the PDF below: https://www.scienceopen.com/hosted-document?doi=10.13169/statecrime.12.2.0001 [Genocide Watch comment: The current President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, planned and led the Gukurahundi genocide in Zimbabwe under President Robert Mugabe.]

Mali War 2023 : Areas of dominance. Source: Wikipedia Mali Country Report January 2023 Genocide Watch’s Genocide Emergency for Mali continues. By the end of 2022, Islamist militants had advanced into Mali’s east, killing hundreds of civilians and forcing thousands to flee. French troops have withdrawn from Mali and the brutal Russian Wagner group has become the main mercenary force supporting the government. Wagner commits widespread crimes against humanity with impunity. Prior to the French withdrawal, there was heavy fighting between Tuareg separatists and the Islamic State in Greater Sahara (ISGS). Since the Wagner group's intervention in support of the Malian army, Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have actually gotten stronger. Since December of 2021, over 2,000 civilians have been killed in Mali. At least one third of the killings were committed by the Wagner Group. In March of 2022, Human Rights Watch reported that Malian government troops in collaboration with Wagner mercenaries rounded up and killed an estimated 300 men in the Malian town of Moura. Most were civilians without any connections to terrorists. The Wagner group's intervention in Mali has brought a significant increase in killings of ethnic Fulani, just as it has in the Central African Republic. Wagner mercenaries have committed widespread arrests, beatings, torture, and killings of ethnic Fulani cattle herders. First hand accounts from Fulani herders show that Wagner forces have tortured Fulani civilians in their own homes on suspicion of being Islamic terrorists. ACLED data reveals that Wagner perpetrates more killings of civilians (Fulani in particular) than the Malian army. In March 2022 the Malian army in collaboration with Wagner killed an estimated 450 civilians. The Wagner group has also pressured the Malian military junta to impede MINUSMA operations in Mali. Expert analysts predict that Islamist terrorist groups will grow stronger in Mali. Al-Qaeda’s branch for the Sahel (JNIM) is active. Its push to move closer to the capital city of Bamako, has left 27 dead and many others wounded. With the new dominance of Wagner Russian mercenaries in Mali and the growth of Islamist terrorism, Genocide Watch recognizes the current situation as Stage 8: Persecution and Stage 9: Extermination. Genocide Watch recommends: ● The government must gain control over the Malian military and expel the Wagner group from the country. ● The government should make the safety of Malian civilians its priority and stop its collaboration with the Russian government. ● The government should create community-based forums where citizens can air public grievances to prevent the recruitment of youth and disenfranchised people into extremist groups. ● The Military Junta must be replaced with democratically elected officials in a peaceful transition of power. ● MUNISMA should resist intimidation by the Wagner group and should fulfill its mandate to keep the peace and protect civilians.

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk, speaks during a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq, Wednesday, Aug. 9, 2023. (AP Photo / Hadi Mizban) BY QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA BAGHDAD (AP) — The United Nations’ human rights chief on Wednesday warned that Iraq’s water crisis could affect other countries in the region. Severe water shortages in Iraq because of climate change and government mismanagement have destroyed wheat and fruit harvests, and killed off fish and livestock. Humanitarian organizations have warned for years that drought and mismanagement could deprive millions of people of water from the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, which also run through neighboring war-torn Syria. U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk made the comments at a news conference in Baghdad following a four-day visit to the Iraqi capital, the oil-rich southern city of Basra and Irbil in the northern semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Basra, where the mouth of the two rivers meet, has been hit hardest by the water crisis, turning areas once fertile into desert and forcing water purification systems to shut down because of rising salinity. “Just yesterday (Tuesday), the minister of water resources announced that water levels in Iraq are the lowest they have ever been,” Türk said. ”What is happening here is a window into a future that is now coming for other parts of the world.” Türk said the country’s climate crisis derives from a “toxic mix” of global warming and drought, poor water management, violence and “oil industry excesses.” He spoke about decades of draining marshlands in the country’s south, saying restoration could be complicated, especially at a time of surging temperatures. He fears that this will worsen climate displacement and migration. “Civil society actors spoke to me about the chronic pollution in Basra and the resulting health problems in the community, including high rates of cancer and other serious ailments,” the U.N. human rights chief said. He slammed ongoing lawsuits against journalists and activists talking about the matter, saying it has impacted freedom of expression, and reports of violence and threats against environmental activists. Türk held meetings with Iraqi government and judicial officials, most notably Prime Minister Mohammed Al-Sudani, and Speaker Mohammed Al-Halbousi. They discussed a handful of human rights issues, including the death penalty, overcrowding in prisons, and the need for strengthening human rights institutions in the country. “I have also called on the authorities to declare an official moratorium on the use of the death penalty in Iraq — where more than 11,000 people remain on death row,” he said. © 2023 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

FILE – This file frame grab from video posted online March 18, 2019, by the Amaq News Agency, a media arm of the Islamic State group, shows an IS fighter firing his weaopn during clashes with the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) fighters, in Baghouz, Syria. Gunmen ambushed a bus carrying Syrian soldiers early Friday, Aug. 11, 2023 in the country's east, killing at least 20 and wounding others, opposition activists said. The attack was believed to be carried out by members of the Islamic State group whose sleeper cells in parts of Syria still carry deadly attacks despite their defeat in 2019. (Amaq News Agency via AP, File). BY BASSEM MROUE BEIRUT (AP) — Gunmen have ambushed a bus carrying Syrian soldiers in the country’s east, killing at least 20 and wounding others, opposition activists said Friday. The Thursday night attack was believed to be carried out by members of the Islamic State group whose sleeper cells in parts of Syria still carry deadly attacks despite their defeat in 2019. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 23 Syrian soldiers were killed and 10 were wounded in the attack on a desert road near the eastern town of Mayadeen in Deir el-Zour province that borders Iraq. Another activist collective that covers news in eastern Syria said 20 soldiers were killed and others were wounded. Syrian state news agency SANA quoted an unnamed military official as saying that the attack occurred Thursday night, “killing and wounding a number of soldiers.” It gave no further details, nor a breakdown in the casualty numbers. IS controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq where they declared a caliphate in June 2014. Over the years they lost of the land and were defeated in Iraq in 2017 and two years later in Syria. In one of their deadliest in a year, IS sleeper cells attacked workers collecting truffles near the central town of Sukhna in February, killing at least 53 people — mostly workers but also some Syrian government security forces. Experts who follow Jihadi groups say it is too early to say if the new spate of attacks marks a new resurgence by the extremists that ruled millions of people in Syria and Iraq with terror. Last week, IS announced the death in Syria of its little-known leader, Abu al-Hussein al-Husseini al-Qurayshi — who headed the extremist organization since November — and named his successor. He was the fourth to be killed since its founder Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was killed in 2019 by U.S. troops in northwest Syria. © 2023 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

Indigenous people in northeast Nicaragua say armed settlers are pushing them off their land A man waves a Nicaraguan flag during a demonstration to commemorate Nicaragua's national Day of Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica on April 16, 2023.(JOSE CORDERO/AFP via Getty Images) By Gabriela Selser MEXICO CITY (AP) — Indigenous communities in northeast Nicaragua are under growing pressure from armed assailants who use kidnappings and killings to push people off their land, according to community leaders, advocates and a regional human rights court. A leader of the Mayangna people, who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals from the government of President Daniel Ortega, said his people suffer “a continuous colonization” from the land invaders. The attackers, referred to locally as “colonos,” occupy their land to engage in commercial agriculture, ranching and timber harvesting. The Mayangna, along with the Miskito, occupy Nicaragua’s northeast region along the Caribbean Sea, living primarily in the vast tropical forest of the Bosawas Biosphere Reserve. The Mayangna leader accused Ortega’s government of protecting the settlers. “The colonos come and forcibly settle in our territories, where our way of life is: the hunting, fishing and rotational agriculture, meaning for subsistence, not commercial ends,” the leader said. He said the settlers have violently attacked their communities in the Sauni As territory, including on the Alal community in 2020 and the destruction of Wilu in March, which left five dead and 16 homes burned. “Everything is part of a strategy of removing us from our land,” he said. The attacks make violence unnecessary in other remote communities where residents simply flee for their lives when the settlers arrive, he said. This week, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered the Nicaraguan government to protect the Mayangna living in Wilu and Musawas, which is the capital of the Sauni As territory. The regional court said that it had confirmed a “worsening of the violent events in 2023.” The court’s action followed the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights last year calling on the government to protect the Mayangna communities. According to the Prilaka Community Foundation, a nongovernmental conservation organization operating in the region, 10 Mayangna were killed by settlers between January and July, nine of whom were forest rangers. The court on Tuesday ordered Nicaragua to adopt “the measures sufficient and necessary to protect the lives and well-being” of the inhabitants of Musawas and Wilu, as well as the displaced people and the property and harvests they were forced to abandon. The government must implement security measures that would allow them to return, the court said. The government of Nicaragua, which accepted the Costa Rica-based court’s jurisdiction over human rights issues in 1991, has not responded to the court’s order. The court had ordered the government to act in a similar case involving nine Miskito communities in 2016. “These communities have been subjected to systematic attacks of armed colonos for nearly 10 years,” said María Luisa Acosta, a lawyer and coordinator of the Center for Legal Assistance to Indigenous Peoples. Acosta said the court has held Ortega’s administration responsible for not complying with its duty to protect these people. Indigenous leaders say the police and military in the area do not intervene when the settlers attack. She said the court’s action “helps to make more visible a tragic situation, of dispossession of territory and genocide” in indigenous territories, historically marginalized and forgotten by Nicaraguan administrations. © Copyright 2023 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.

By: Erin Summerville August 12th, 2023 Gedeon Shikiro still recalls with stinging clarity cradling his neighbours and friends as they took their final breaths. It has been 19 years, but time has not dulled the pain or memories. "They are saying their last words and dying in my hands," Mr Shikiro said in his native Kinyamulenge language. "That will not come out of my heart." On the night of August 13, 2004, he watched from his tent as just metres away people he knew were shot to death and burnt alive in the United Nations' Gatumba refugee camp in Burundi, east Africa, where he was living at the time. His local priest told everyone to pray and prepare for death as the National Forces of Liberation (FNL), a Hutu rebel movement, moved through the camp targeting mostly Banyamulenge refugees. The Banyamulenge, a Tutsi tribe, had lived in the country's east for more than a century and were not recognised by the Congolese government. More than 160 were killed that night, and more than 100 wounded. Mr Shikiro is a strikingly tall and gently spoken Congolese-Banyamulenge man, who after more than a decade living in refugee camps now calls Albury in regional New South Wales home. He escaped the massacre with his life, and was among the first Banyamulenge refugees who had fled to return to the scene. But the aftermath is still too painful to relive. He cannot look at photos or videos of the camp, and the trauma has made it too difficult to share his testimony at a local commemoration service in NSW on Saturday. "To see people flee from the war and then get killed again by the gunshots, when they were thinking that we are in the hands of United Nations, we are safe now, then see those people die, it's terrible. "They were killed like animals." The Australian Congolese-Banyamulenge community gathers in a different place across the country each year to remember those who were killed that night. This year, it is in Mr Shikiro's home community of Albury-Wodonga. The 19th annual Gatumba commemoration event on the NSW-Victorian border has been marked with a soccer match, church service, and a memorial event. But it is a difficult day for the community. For Mr Shikiro, his Christian faith and prayer help comfort him, but it is the battle for justice that propels him on from the horror of the past. "For me I don't take it as [just] a commemoration or pay tribute to those people who died. I take it as crying out to seek for justice to be done, because it's not done," he said. The Burundian government opened a criminal case into the massacre in 2013, but it has been indefinitely suspended since 2014. "We are still pushing to see how we can get justice for our people who have been [victims of] genocide," said the president of the Banyamulenge community in Australia, Moise Nzovu Riukundo. "We can't forget this. "I can ask everyone who can help, everyone who can be able to raise their voice to seek justice for the Banyamulenge community who have been killed in Gatumba." He said Banyamulenge people were still facing death and persecution in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Genocide Watch released a report in August, 2022, labelling the actions against the Banyamulenge people a "genocide emergency", and highlighting that they have been targeted by Mai-Mai militias in South Kivu in a separate crisis since 2017. © 2023 ABC

Five American detainees will eventually be allowed to leave Iran in exchange for Tehran gaining access to $6 billion for humanitarian purposes and the United States freeing several jailed Iranians. President Biden has made bringing home detained Americans a priority. © Desiree Rios for The New York Times. By Farnaz Fassihi and Michael D. Shear The United States and Iran have reached an agreement to win the freedom of five imprisoned Americans in exchange for several jailed Iranians and eventual access to about $6 billion in Iranian oil revenue, according to several people familiar with the deal. As a first step in the agreement, which comes after more than two years of quiet negotiations, Iran has released five Iranian American dual citizens into house arrest, according to officials at the State Department and the National Security Council. “This is just the beginning of a process that I hope and expect will lead to their return home to the United States,” Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said on Thursday. “There’s more work to be done to actually bring them home. My belief is that this is the beginning of the end of their nightmare.” The prisoners are Siamak Namazi, Emad Sharghi and Morad Tahbaz, who had all been jailed on unsubstantiated charges of spying, as well as two others whose families withheld their names. One of the unnamed Americans is a scientist, and the other is a businessman, according to two people briefed on the arrangements of the release. The three named prisoners and one other person were transferred on Thursday from Evin Prison, one of the most notorious detention centers in Iran, to a hotel in Tehran, the capital, where they will be held for several weeks until they are allowed to board an airplane, Jared Genser, the lawyer for Mr. Namazi said. One other prisoner, an American woman, had been released into house arrest earlier, according to several people familiar with the arrangements who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the final deal. “While I hope this will be the first step to their ultimate release, this is at best the beginning of the end and nothing more,” Mr. Genser said in a statement. “But there are simply no guarantees about what happens from here.” He said the Americans were told they would be held at the hotel under guard by Iranian officials. Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s deputy foreign minister and chief nuclear negotiator, said the United States and Iran had reached a deal for a prisoner exchange and the release of Iran’s billions of dollars of assets. He said Iran had received the “commitments necessary” from the United States that it would honor the deal. Iran’s state news agency, IRNA, reported that five Iranians would be released from American prisons in exchange for the five Americans released by Iran. Iranian media presented the deal as a victory for the conservative administration of President Ebrahim Raisi and called it “honorable diplomacy.” Biden administration officials declined to comment or to confirm details about what Iran will get in return. But the people familiar with the agreement said that when the Americans are allowed to return to the United States, the Biden administration will release a handful of Iranian nationals serving prison sentences for violating sanctions on Iran. The United States will also transfer nearly $6 billion of Iran’s existing assets in South Korea, putting the funds into an account in the central bank of Qatar, according to the people familiar with the deal. The account will be controlled by the government of Qatar and regulated so Iran can gain access to the money only to pay vendors for humanitarian purchases such as medicine and food, they said. The deal with Iran — a bitter adversary of the United States — is the latest in a series of high-profile prisoner swaps engineered in secret by the Biden administration in an effort to bring home Americans whom the State Department deems wrongfully detained in foreign countries. Mr. Namazi, 51, was given a 10-year sentence and has been held in Evin Prison since 2015 on charges of “collaborating with a hostile state.” Mr. Sharghi, a businessman, was sentenced in 2020 to 10 years in prison on charges of spying. Mr. Tahbaz, a conservationist who was arrested in 2018, was sentenced to 10 years on charges of having “contacts with the U.S. government.” All have denied the charges, and the United States has said the three were wrongfully detained. In a statement, Babak Namazi, Siamak’s brother, said, “We have suffered tremendously and indescribably for eight horrific years and wish only to be reunited again as a family.” Neda Sharghi, Emad’s sister, said in a statement shared by their lawyer that “my family has faith in the work that President Biden and government officials have undertaken to bring our families home and hope to receive that news soon.” Biden administration officials do not believe that there are other Americans being held in Iran. In 2020, officials in President Donald J. Trump’s administration concluded that Robert A. Levinson, the retired F.B.I. agent who disappeared in Iran in 2007 on an unauthorized mission for the C.I.A., died while in Iranian custody, according to a statement from his family at the time. Thursday’s prisoner exchange deal was nearly completed in March but stalled when Iran detained one of the unnamed U.S. dual citizens, according to two Iranians close to the government who were familiar with the agreement. The United States demanded that the prisoner also be included, but Iran initially refused, the two Iranians said. People familiar with the negotiations between the United States and Iran, which were mediated by Oman, Qatar and Switzerland, said the final deal took shape in recent months and that all sides had been working on the logistics for weeks. Unlike previous prison swap deals when detainees immediately boarded a plane out of Iran, this exchange will take place in a series of coordinated steps, according to Ali Vaez, the Iran director for the International Crisis Group, a conflict prevention organization, who is familiar with the terms of the deal. The Americans will be allowed to leave Iran once the money arrives in the Qatari bank account, a process expected to take four to six weeks because of the complexity of licensing and sanctions exemptions paperwork required for moving a large sum belonging to Iran, Mr. Vaez said. The detainees are expected to be taken to Doha, the Qatari capital, on a government airplane because of the central role Qatar played in brokering the deal, he said. The Iranians detained in the United States can also leave for Doha for the exchange. But it is unclear whether they would want to because many live in the United States with their families, Mr. Vaez said. A key part of the agreement has been the Biden administration’s willingness to transfer the billions in oil revenue held in South Korea. The planned release of the Iranian funds quickly generated controversy on Thursday. Republicans have condemned the idea of allowing Iran to have direct access to its frozen financial assets, which could end up in the hands of its elite military force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, and be used to fund and arm militants across the Middle East. In 2016, President Barack Obama settled a dispute with Tehran over a $400 million arms deal as part of an agreement to release four American citizens detained in Iran. Republicans assailed the conclusion of negotiations to limit the country’s nuclear ambitions as well as the settlement, calling it a ransom payment — an accusation Mr. Obama denied. Former Vice President Mike Pence, who is running for the Republican presidential nomination, on Thursday lashed out at the new arrangement with Iran as “the largest ransom payment in American history to the Mullahs in Tehran.” “China and Russia, who are also holding Americans hostages, now know the price has just gone up,” Mr. Pence wrote in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. The people familiar with the financial arrangement insisted that the transfer to allow Iran access to its own funds for humanitarian purposes is not a ransom payment and is not unprecedented. Iran has opened similar accounts in more than a half-dozen other countries to accept payments for oil purchases from those governments despite U.S. sanctions that blocked the country from gaining access to the money for most purposes. Over the years, Iran has managed to spend funds held in India, Turkey and elsewhere as a result of exceptions to the sanctions for humanitarian needs. Mr. Vaez said the Treasury Department had spent many months ensuring that the funds could be used only for humanitarian purposes. “All Iran can do under this deal is submit orders to a bank in Doha for food and medicine and a limited number of medical equipment that do not have dual military use,” Mr. Vaez said. “The bank in Doha would pay for the goods, and Qatari companies would deliver them to Iran. Iran has no direct access to the funds at all.” “The Biden administration has a strong argument,” Mr. Vaez added. “If you are against this deal, you are against Americans coming back home, and you are against Iranian people having access to food and medicine.” The Tasnim news agency, which is affiliated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, said that the process to transfer $6 billion from South Korea had already started. People familiar with the discussions said Brett H. McGurk, the coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa at the White House, met with officials in Oman in early May to discuss a prisoner swap with Iran. The breakthrough comes as Washington and Tehran remain unable — despite extensive efforts — to reach an agreement to address tensions around Iran’s advancing nuclear program and heavy U.S. sanctions. More than a year of talks to restore the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, which President Donald J. Trump unilaterally abandoned in 2018, collapsed last summer. While in Oman, Mr. McGurk led indirect talks with Iranian officials, with a goal of reaching an informal agreement under which Iran would cap its enrichment of uranium material to a level below what was needed to fashion a nuclear weapon and to limit its military aid to Russia, among other objectives. In return, the United States would agree not to tighten sanctions or pursue certain other punitive measures against Iran in international forums. U.S. officials have long insisted that their diplomacy to free imprisoned Americans is not directly connected to talks related to Iran’s nuclear program. Analysts say additional progress by Iran toward a nuclear weapon could prompt military action by Israel, the United States or both countries. Iran maintains that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes and denies it is pursuing a bomb. In late May, the sultan of Oman went to Iran to meet with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader. They discussed a swap, according to people familiar with the discussions. Mr. Biden has made bringing home detainees a priority during his first years in office. In March, the United States secured the release of Paul Rusesabagina, a human rights activist detained in Rwanda. In December, Russia agreed to release Brittney Griner, an American basketball star, in exchange for Viktor Bout, a convicted Russian arms dealer known as the Merchant of Death. But others remain in detention. In March, Russia accused the Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage and detained him. Mr. Biden has said his administration is working on the release of Mr. Gershkovich. The Biden administration’s recent Iran diplomacy has been complicated by the absence of its Iran envoy, Robert Malley, who was placed on unpaid leave in late June amid a review of his security clearance. The State Department has not explained the reason for the review. © 2023 The New York Times Company

A keyboard is placed in front of a displayed Telegram logo in this illustration taken February 21, 2023. © REUTERS / Dado Ruvic / Illustration / File Photo BAGHDAD, Aug 6 (Reuters) - Iraq's telecoms ministry said it has blocked the Telegram messaging app over national security concerns and in order to preserve the integrity of users' personal data, which it said the app had mishandled. The app is widely used in Iraq for messaging but also as a source of news and for sharing content. Some channels contain large amounts of personal data including the names, addresses and family ties of Iraqis. The ministry said in a statement it had asked the app to close down "platforms that leak the data of the official state institutions and the personal data of citizens... but the company did not respond and did not interact with any of these requests." "The Ministry of Communications affirms its respect for citizens' rights to freedom of expression and communication, without prejudice to the security of the state and its institutions," the statement said. Telegram did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment. © 2023 Reuters. All rights reserved

Ashura, which mourns the killing of the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson and celebrates Shiite identity, has long symbolized the fight against oppression. This year, its chants have been turned against the government. Last month in Tehran a group of men commemorated Ashura, Shiite Islam’s most sacred ritual, showcased annually with great fanfare. © Arash Khamooshi. By Farnaz Fassihi The large crowd of men congregated at the center of a mosque in the central city of Yazd, clad in black and beating their chests rhythmically in unison. They were commemorating Ashura, Shiite Islam’s most sacred ritual, showcased annually with great fanfare in Iran as a testament to the Shiite theocracy’s power and strength. But this year Ashura looked different. The mourners who gathered in Yazd last month and in many other cities across Iran diverged unexpectedly from the script to target the clerical rulers of Iran, turning religious ballads into protest songs about the suffering of Iranians. “For a city in ruins, for all of us held hostage, for the grieving mothers, for the tears of the marginalized,” the men sang, according to videos. “We are mourning thousands of innocent lives, we are ashamed of this raging fire. Oh rain, oh storm, come. They have set fire to our tent.” In Kermanshah, a Kurdish city in western Iran, a religious vocalist known as a maddah stood on the street, microphone in hand, singing about officials “stealing and devouring” resources away from desolate people. And in Dezful, a small conservative city in the southwest, a similar vocalist delivered a scathing sermon against the government as the crowd marched in a ritual procession. “Oh, my country, do you know why I’m grieving? Their only concern is hijab. They don’t see the blood, the poverty. They are stealing the public’s money,” serenaded the vocalist, Ibrahim Nassrollahi. “Fathers are ashamed, mothers are suffering. I wish they would see our poverty.” Instead of the traditional chant that describes an ancient tale of grief, the crowd shouted back: “Iran, Iran, Iran!” It was a surprising tone for the period of religious mourning known as Muharram, which lasts for a little over a month in Iran. This year it will end on Sept. 6, with another big public ritual called Arbaeen that is expected to also become a platform for protest. Ashura, which marks the 10th day of the mourning period, grieves for Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, who was beheaded in the year 680 in the battle of Karbala. Imam Hussein led an uprising against the succession of Islam’s new caliph, Yazid, on the basis that his rule was corruption and unjust, and in Karbala his small force was confronted by Yazid’s massive army and slaughtered. For centuries Ashura has been more than just a religious ritual. From Iran, to Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and beyond, it has served as a celebration of Shiite Muslim identity. Even some secular people participate in its stylized rituals, ranging from street processions to theatrical re-enactments and food handouts organized by neighborhood committees. Social and political movements in the Muslim world have long been fueled and inspired by the narrative of Ashura, of the oppressed rising up against an oppressor. In Iran during the 1979 revolution that toppled the monarchy, a huge protest on Ashura became a turning point against the Shah. During the country’s Green Movement in 2009, protesters, mostly young and upper middle class, took to the streets on Ashura to contest presidential election results. Under Saddam Hussein’s rule, Iraqi Shiites were banned from publicly commemorating their mourning holidays. The Taliban government in Afghanistan recently announced a similar ban. In previous years, maddahs in Iran occasionally delivered sermons with mild and indirect criticism of the government. This year, some of the ceremonies were the traditional grand spectacles and religious processions. But the widespread and remarkable politicization of Ashura directly targeting the leaders of the Islamic Republic rattled the authorities, who warned that the protest tone was “making our enemies happy.” There were reports on social media of the brief detention of some of the leading vocalists and demands from the government that they tone down their rhetoric. “The enemy had unpleasant dreams for Muharram this year,” Mohammad Mehdi Esmaili, Iran’s minister of Islamic guidance and culture, said on Monday. “They wanted to turn Muharram into the latest battlefield, but our people did not listen at all.” But analysts said that instead of issuing fanciful denials, the government must reckon with the stark reality that opposition to it has now spread to some devoutly religious Iranians, who were once considered a loyal power base. The rebellion on display presents yet another challenge to the legitimacy of a theocracy that views itself as the global spiritual leader of Shiite Muslims. Mohamad Ali Ahangaran, a conservative analyst of religion and the son of a prominent maddah who performs at government events, said in an interview from Tehran that many Iranians were using every opportunity, including Ashura, to voice their opposition to the status quo. “This year we saw the religious sermons and songs become more protest-driven than previous years, targeting the way the leaders are governing Iran, the widespread corruption in the Islamic Republic, the political obstacles we face,” Mr. Ahangaran said. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has repeatedly encouraged Muharram ceremonies to be more political and take sides, but he never envisioned that in doing so it would one day turn “against the entire leadership” of Iran, including himself, said Mr. Ahangaran. Nearly a year ago, Iranians took to the streets in nationwide protests demanding an end to the clerical government. The uprising was set off by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police, who had detained her on allegations of violating the mandatory hijab law. The government responded with violence, killing over 500 people, including children, arresting tens of thousands and executing seven protesters. “We saw the story of Ashura unfold in the streets with our own eyes as they slaughtered our youth last year,” said Maryam, 55, a mother of two in Tehran, who asked that her last name not be used, fearing retribution. “As a religious person, I want to completely separate myself from any ceremony connected to the regime.” Maryam said her mother hosted a mourning ceremony at home early this month for nearly 200 guests. She adorned the salon with black Ashura flags with Imam Hussein’s name and placed a picture of a killed protester next to each flag. “They are our new martyrs,” she said. The 33-year-old son of a senior cleric in the religious city of Qom said that he was boycotting the Muharram ceremonies because of his opposition to the government and its violence. His relatives, he said, searched for ceremonies that either were not political or took on the regime. He also requested anonymity, fearing for his safety. Some Iranians wore white, in defiance of the customary black attire, and trekked to cemeteries to pay homage to killed protesters. In the northern city of Amol, a religious marching band dressed in white went to the home of Ghazalleh Chelavi, 33, a female athlete shot in the head during protests last September, videos showed. Her mother wailed by the door. In Yazd, the maddah led the crowd in singing a famous poem that honors protesters killed by governments: “From the blood of our country’s youth, tulips grow.” Then, comparing the authorities in power to wheels, they continued, “Oh, wheel, how you have derailed, how you misbehave, how you take revenge. Oh, wheel, you have no religion and no principles.” Ms. Amini’s mother posted a video on Instagram of her daughter’s grave illuminated by candlelight at night on Ashura. A woman’s voice could be heard singing the same poem. © 2023 The New York Times Company

By Doruntina Baftiu Already longtime victims of discrimination, the Romany community is even more vulnerable after the COVID-19 pandemic. PRIZREN, Kosovo -- The smell of sizzling meat wafts through the air of the cobblestoned streets of Prizren, as locals and tourists alike soak up the atmosphere of one of Kosovo's more picturesque towns at the foothills of the Sharr Mountains, many lounging in the outdoor seating of restaurants and cafes. As they enjoy the local delicacies in the sweltering summer heat, small children, dressed in tattered clothes, dart in and out of the tables, palms extended, asking for handouts. Children begging, especially Roma children, is not a new phenomenon in Kosovo or elsewhere in Europe. However, activists as well as police there say the problem is getting worse in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. They say Kosovo's communities of Roma -- mostly Serbian-speaking -- as well as Askhali and Balkan Egyptian -- Albanian-language speakers who claim origins in ancient Egypt -- not only struggled with the virus but received, on average, a fraction of the aid doled out by Pristina to soften the economic blow. Two young boys beg for money in return for playing music on the streets of Prizren, Kosovo. Already longtime victims of discrimination, these communities are reportedly even more vulnerable now, activists say, and children may be paying the price amid reports of increased begging and trafficking of such children, sometimes by their parents or relatives. Osman Osmani, who is Romany himself and has worked with kids from that community for 22 years to improve their lives, says what he's seeing now is unprecedented. "In the 1980s or 1990s, the situation was not like this. There was poverty even then, but there were rarely families whose children were pushed to do these things," Osmani told RFE/RL's Balkan Service. According to official data from Kosovar police, 41 children were stopped and officially registered by police for begging over the first six months of 2023, a figure that is on track to set a new annual record. (Being minors, they can't be charged with a crime.) A young boy begs for money in return for cleaning car windows in the streets of Pristina. Most of the begging is reported in the biggest towns and cities, including Kosovo's capital, Pristina, Prizren, as well as Peja and Gjakova. That number is likely higher as many Romany kids lack proper documents, leaving police unable to process them. Petrit Collaku, a spokesperson for the People's Advocate Institution, Kosovo's ombudsman office, acknowledges much of the community is "invisible," as far as the authorities are concerned. "Many of them are on the move (internal or cross-border migration), and some are not registered in the birth registers or have no form of personal identification," Collaku said. Children from Kosovo, Albania, and other neighboring countries are "forced to beg within the country," the U.S. State Department said in its latest annual report on Kosovo. Kosovo is one of Europe's poorest countries, with 23 percent of its 1.8 million people living in poverty, according to UN data. Those figures are believed to be much higher for Kosovo's Roma, Ashkali, and Balkan Egyptians, who have historically suffered the worst poverty and have been the most economically, politically, and socially marginalized minorities. At a day center for street children in Pristina, run by Terre des Hommes, a network of organizations that campaigns for children's rights, some 250 children are given food every day. About 90 percent of those receiving the free meals are Roma, Askhali, and Balkan Egyptian. With many Roma plunging into deeper poverty during the COVID-19 pandemic, Terre des Hommes says that every day it is giving out more free food. With many not registered with the authorities, only 12.7 percent of Roma, Askhali, and Balkan Egyptians received local or national financial relief during the pandemic, according to findings from Foleja, a Kosovar NGO advocating for those communities' rights. An opinion poll by Foleja found 44 percent of those surveyed from those communities said their economic situation was difficult or worse after COVID-19. A further 3 percent said things had gotten "much worse." Activist Osman Osmani says there is plenty of blame to go around but singles out parents for "the lack of conscience that children should be in school, to socialize and play with their peers and not on the street begging." Osmani, who heads Nevo Koncepti, a Kosovar NGO advocating for Roma rights, said that he is "really worried" about their current plight. The "severe economic and social conditions" at home are leading to more begging by Romany kids on the streets of Kosovo, said Riza Murati, from the Trafficking in Human Beings Directorate (THBD) of the Kosovar police. "These are the main reasons why [the children] are on the streets. They are mainly children who do not have proper care from their family but also from the district [government]. They drop out of school and their only option is to go out on the streets," Murati told RFE/RL. To get a better picture of the backgrounds of the children forced into begging, the Kosovo office of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) has launched a program to gather data on Kosovo's street kids. Echoing others, Murati said it is the parents who push their children to beg on the streets, adding that has been confirmed in 90 percent of such cases that have been investigated by police in Kosovo. Kosovo's Criminal Code may also be part of the problem, the U.S. State Department, among others, has noted. Under the current law, forcing their children to beg is classified as parental neglect rather than trafficking, meaning more lenient penalties in cases of conviction, the U.S. State Department said in its report, adding that police should do more to convict what it said were officials involved in the trafficking. Osmani said there was plenty of blame to go around but singled out parents for "the lack of conscience that children should be in school, to socialize and play with their peers and not on the street begging." Murati said police in Kosovo are doing all they can to tackle the problem of children being forced to beg, "but the problem cannot be solved by the police alone." He emphasized that many of the children registered for begging return to the streets, saying that the police know some of them by name. A young girl begs for money in the streets of Prizren, Kosovo. Given that the local law defines forced begging of children by their parents as parental abuse rather than trafficking, judges in Kosovo "continued to issue lenient sentences for the majority of convicted traffickers, which were below the minimum penalty prescribed under the trafficking law," the State Department noted in its report. Longer term, education is the key to pulling Kosovo's poor out of poverty, Osmani said. "We must have a stronger response from the social services, so that those families [in need] are in social care -- and then also from the schools so that those children are getting an education," said Osmani, who added that he and his NGO have made getting kids into school a top priority. "We have visited families and their children in difficult conditions and engaged [the children] with various activities. We wanted them [to do this so they could] see and hear what's happening, to teach them that this is the way they should grow up and live," Osmani said. The latest official data shows only about 25 percent of Roma finish high school, while the U.S. State Department noted vocational training was also lacking. Osmani said change is possible if children from hardscrabble communities are given "positive examples" of those who resemble them and have "achieved success." "With a positive example, you can influence young people, children, but also parents to make a change," said Osmani. As for tackling the current problem of forced begging, Osmani had one bit of advice. "Poor people should be helped, but I'm trying not to give them money," he said. "Because when you give them money, tomorrow you will see them again in the same place, and then the day after tomorrow you will see them again in the same place." Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty © 2023 RFE/RL, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

ISIS-linked ADF inflicts genocidal massacres in DR Congo Washington Post By Katharine Houreld August 12, 2023 Mwenda, a small town at the foot of the Ruwenzori mountains in the Democratic Republic of Congo, has been attacked multiple times by the Allied Democratic Forces, an affiliate of the Islamic State. The militant group has killed many civilians and abducted a number of people, including children. (Brent Stirton/Getty Images) BENI, Democratic Republic of Congo — Deep in Congo’s forested ravines, a local affiliate of the Islamic State has been growing increasingly deadly — seizing children to swell its ranks, honing its bombmaking skills, and launching ferocious attacks on villages, churches and clinics — without attracting much international attention. The Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) has also widened its recruitment from elsewhere in Africa and the Middle East and has plugged itself into foreign financing networks that help fund its campaign of bombings, according to investigators from the United Nations and the U.S.-based Bridgeway Foundation. This year has been the group’s bloodiest yet. The ADF was founded decades ago in neighboring Uganda with the aim of overthrowing that country’s government, which eventually pushed the group’s fighters over the border into the forested mountains of the Democratic Republic of Congo. The group’s ambitions broadened after its founder was arrested in 2015 and a new leader, former religious judge Musa Baluku, took over. Desperate for funds, Baluku vowed allegiance to the Islamic State. The resulting influx of money began at a time when the group had almost stopped conducting attacks. Since then, the ADF has carried out a wave of bombings and attacks, killing thousands of civilians. In June, the ADF targeted a school near the Uganda-Congo border, leaving 41 dead. Most were children. They were burned alive. One Congolese boy who recently escaped from the ADF recounted its brutality. He was only 12 when fighters raided his town, Bulongo, hacked his mother and father to death in front of him, and then seized him and his brother. The boy, whose name is being withheld to prevent reprisals, said they were marched into the jungle, where commanders gave them military training. Children point to a mass grave containing 14 bodies in Boga, Congo. It lies next to a hostel that was attacked in 2021, one of several attacks by militants on the town and nearby areas that included massacres of civilians and burning of villages. (Alexis Huguet/AFP/Getty Images) “Their job was killing people,” he said flatly. The boy was among 11 escapees interviewed for this article, along with victims of the attacks, Congolese military officers, security officials and religious leaders, among others. Some of the escapees said that boys as young as 10 are trained as fighters and that girls mostly become sex slaves, either gang-raped or forcibly “married” to a commander. The boy said he had been forced to participate in an attack on another village and recalled watching as a Tanzanian bombmaker instructed other recruits on explosives. The Tanzanian, Ahmed Mohamood, also piloted drones used to surveil targets and monitor attacks. The boy strained to decipher a babel of tongues as foreign recruits crowded into the camp, named Medina for one of Islam’s most holy cities. While the commanders were mostly Ugandan, there were also several Somalis, Rwandans and Tanzanians, he said. Once, the boy said, Mohamood motioned him over and said softly: “Your mother is dead. If you try to run, you will also be killed.” But finally, abandoning his brother, he did. In recent years, the Islamic State’s international operations have become more fragmented. Its loss of its so-called caliphate in Syria and Iraq coincided with the strengthening of local affiliates in Afghanistan, the Sahel region of Africa and — far less publicly — central Africa. In 2017, the first documented cash transfers from the Islamic State to the ADF took place. Two years later, the Islamic State announced the debut of the Islamic State Central Africa Province affiliate, which included the ADF. The U.S. government imposed sanctions in 2021 on the ADF, calling it an Islamic State affiliate. The ADF’s decision to affiliate with the Islamic State initially faced internal dissent. A 16-year-old girl who had spent eight years with the ADF before escaping said Mohamood had arrived in Congo with a black flag and a demand: Swear allegiance or be attacked. The ADF’s founder, Jamil Mukulu, had always opposed the Islamic State, and his son, Moses, now spoke out against joining the group. Moses was beheaded by other ADF fighters, she said, and two other senior commanders who also opposed the Islamic State were beaten to death. Other interviewees confirmed her account. Error! Filename not specified. A woman shows scars from a machete attack by the Allied Democratic Forces in the village of Mbao, Congo, near Beni, in 2019. Eleven people were killed in the attack on the village and several young children kidnapped; she was left for dead. Her name has been withheld to avoid retaliation. (Katharine Houreld/The Washington Post) A U.N. panel of experts, for the first time, detailed links between the ADF and the Islamic State in June. Both the United Nations and Bridgeway mapped out how the ADF received funds from a South African cell that worked with a Sudanese Islamic State operative. That operative, known as Bilal al-Sudani, was killed in a U.S. military raid on a Somali cave complex earlier this year. Although its initial explosive devices were crude and ineffective, the ADF’s bombmaking capacity has been increasing. Last year, the group carried out its first suicide attacks, including an attack by a woman that killed eight people in a military bar. In January, the group bombed a church in Kasindi, a small town on the Congo-Uganda border, killing 16 people and wounding 62. The ADF’s influence has also been felt elsewhere in Africa. Dino Mahtani, a former U.N. sanctions monitor, has documented links between the ADF and the Islamist insurgency in Mozambique, which has shut down a multibillion-dollar gas project, killed thousands of civilians and displaced more than 800,000 people. Foreign fighters are still a small proportion of the group’s overall members, estimated by defectors to be in the hundreds. Bridgeway, which has interviewed 171 former ADF members who escaped or were captured, said 141 were Congolese or Ugandan. Most of the others were from six other African countries, but there were also fighters from Britain, Egypt and Jordan. In Bulongo, southeast of the regional capital of Beni, parents routinely split up their children in the evening and have them sleep in different homes to prevent entire families from being killed in ADF raids. The group has attacked Bulongo 17 times in the past 2½ years, killing more than 70 people and kidnapping 40, said a local activist. “Before, they were abducting everyone. But since 2021, if you are older than 15, they will kill you automatically,” he said. In the town of Mukondi, the ADF killed 38 people in March, including a 2-month-old baby. A month later, militants killed at least 21 civilians in Musandaba, on the outskirts of Beni. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for both attacks. When ADF militants first moved into Congo more than two decades ago, they often cultivated relations with villagers and fought alongside non-Muslim fighters. A 15-year-old, who escaped this year after eight years, said fighters previously stole crops but left some food for local people, occasionally even payment. But now, commanders order raiders to destroy gardens, slaughter animals and kill any villagers who do not join them, he said. “They said the infidels had to be erased; they’d say we had to behead the whole village,” said another escapee. Some parents have deliberately turned their children over to the group. A 16-year-old girl said she was delivered to the ADF by her father, who was loyal to the group, when she was 8, along with three siblings. One of the first sights she saw was a group of men beheaded for trying to escape. Her older brother became a fighter and was fatally shot during an attack, the girl recounted. Her younger sister was killed carrying out a food raid. And her little brother, only 2, became sick and died. The girl herself was married off to a fighter at age 13. “There was a lot of suffering. I thought of committing suicide,” she recounted, saying she stole a rope to hang herself. “I felt like I was dead already.” When the 12-year-old boy from Bulongo escaped, his grandmother welcomed him home. She’s crippled and caring for his seven younger siblings. No one goes to school, and often there’s no food. A local teacher keeps an eye on him. Occasionally he’ll take a machete and attack the banana grove. It’s the only time he cries. The boy said he feels lucky. The ADF often shows abductees social media videos of captured fighters being lynched. And escapees are sometimes rejected by their relatives and communities. Girls and women often come home pregnant or with babies fathered by their rapists to find that their husbands or families won’t take them in. An 18-year-old who was kidnapped last year and raped by ADF fighters holds the child she was pregnant with when she escaped. Many women who escape with children face rejection from their families. (Katharine Houreld/The Washington Post) A 23-year-old woman, who had been abducted, said that she was forcibly married to a Tanzanian fighter and that ADF commanders told her she was free to go — as long as she left her head. She escaped with a 1-year-old baby. Another young woman, 18, escaped while pregnant. Both were initially rejected when they returned home, they recalled. Bridgeway has brokered a deal for Uganda to take back its citizens as part of a long-running government amnesty program. Bridgeway has also set up committees composed of civil-society activists and religious and local leaders to receive escapees and help them reintegrate into their communities. The committees take them to the military for questioning, but those who were kidnapped or tricked into joining the ADF are eventually released; Bridgeway said only about 15 of those they interviewed had joined voluntarily. The teacher from Bulongo keeping an eye on the boy is part of her village’s committee. She has lost three children from her school to ADF raids. She said only one has returned home, a 10-year-old girl, who had been repeatedly gang-raped. The girl shivers and stares during the day and screams every time she falls asleep, her teacher said. Her two younger brothers are still ADF captives. washingtonpost.com © 1996-2023 The Washington Post