Russia is in talks with breakaway Somali region, Somaliland, to set up a naval base of at least 1500 men outside Zeila, a city near the border with Djibouti to offer support to warships and submarines patrolling the strategic stretch of coastline. Reported by Somaliland and other international news outlets, the base is expected to be home to two destroyer sized ships, four frigate class ships, two large submarine pens, two airstrips that can host up to six heavy aircraft and fifteen fighter jets, and other facilities. However, local media Qaran News said on April 2 that in return, Russia will assist Somaliland in gaining international recognition as a sovereign state through a resolution. It also reported that Russia will ensure security in the breakaway country by training the Somaliland military. If this happens, then Russia will join the list of powerful countries with bases in the Horn of Africa region which is strategic for so many reasons including proximity to the Middle East and influence over the Gulf of Aden. The United States, France, Japan and China have military facilities in neighbouring Djibouti while Turkey recently established a facility in Somalia which has strained relations with Somaliland. Russia has bases in only nine countries including Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Syria, Tajikistan and Vietnam. Somaliland’s president Muse Bihi Abdi said in March that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will train Somaliland security forces as part of a deal to establish a military base in the Somaliland port city of Berbera. Somaliland declared its independence from Somalia on May 18, 1991. The territory had been under pressure to hold talks with Somalia which have so far been futile. 27 years of diplomatic isolation has made it difficult for Somaliland to have access to loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. © 2018 Face 2 Face Africa

April 15, 2018 A young female poet from Somaliland has been jailed for three years over a poem that advocates the reunification of the country with Somalia. A court in the country charged Naema Ahmed Ibrahim of bringing the country into contempt over this poem, reports the BBC. Ibrahim was arrested in January at the Hargeisa Egal International Airport upon her arrival from Mogadishu, where she performed the poem. Rights group have said that the country has violated Ibrahim’s rights. “Freedom of expression is enshrined and protected by the constitution of Somaliland. We urge the government of Somaliland to respect its own constitution,” Human Rights Centre director Guleid Ahmed Jama, told the BBC. Somaliland is a self-declared independent state that broke off from Somalia since 1991, following the ousting of President Siad Barre. © 2018 Face2Face Africa

Zimbabwe’s elections scheduled to take place this year will be the most important in a generation and critical to restoring democracy and economic growth in the southern African nation that has been dominated by one party since independence in 1980, opposition politician Tendai Biti said. Zimbabwe has been an international pariah since a violent election and land-reform program in 2000 resulted in the imposition of sanctions by Western nations, caused an economic collapse and prompted the emigration of millions of citizens. A change in leadership in November that was engineered by the military is deterring some investors from returning. “It is the most important election of our lifetime because it has to answer the question of legitimacy,” Biti said in an interview in Bloomberg’s Johannesburg office on Wednesday as Zimbabwe celebrated its national independence day. “The quality of this election, the substantive content and outcome of the election are going to be key.” Zimbabwe is required by its constitution to hold general and presidential elections by Aug. 22. The vote will be the first without Robert Mugabe since 1980. Mugabe, 94, stepped down as president in November after the military temporarily took control of the country. President Emmerson Mnangagwa, 75-year-old former intelligence chief who replaced Mugabe, has been nominated by the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front as its presidential candidate. Opposition Alliance Six opposition parties have formed an alliance with the biggest group, the Movement for Democratic Change. Zimbabwe’s main opposition figure and MDC founder, Morgan Tsvangirai, died of cancer in February. Nelson Chamisa, a 39-year-old lawyer, will run as the coalition candidate. Biti said the opposition’s prospects for the elections are good, partly because 60 percent of the 5.3 million registered voters are between 18 and 40 and have little memory of the liberation war that shaped the ruling party’s generation. Chamisa’s youth will help, he said. “Demographics are going to play a key role in this election,” he said. Still, the influence of the military on Zimbabwe’s leadership bodes ill for genuine democratic reform, Biti said. “We may have removed a dictator but we did not remove the dictatorship,” he said. Five elections between 2000 and 2013 were marred by allegations of rigging, violence and intimidation, with Western nations accusing Mugabe of human-rights abuses and manipulating the vote. Diaspora Vote While Mugabe refused to allow Zimbabweans living abroad to cast their ballots, Foreign Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo said this week that the government is working on the logistics of the diaspora vote because it’s guaranteed in a constitution that was rewritten and enacted in 2013. An estimated 4 million Zimbabweans, about a quarter of the population, live in foreign countries, with the majority in South Africa. To ensure credible elections, the opposition alliance is seeking as many as 10 electoral reforms that include scaling down the role of military or ex-military officials in the electoral commission, an audit of the voter’s roll, transparency in the procurement of ballot papers and voting materials, and the presence of international observers during the elections, Biti said. The government has asked the European Union and the U.S. to send observers, the first such invitation since 2000. “One of the things we are demanding is that the military must publicly declare that they will respect the constitution of Zimbabwe and they will respect the electoral outcome that is pursuant to the election,” he said. In 2002, Zimbabwe’s military chief and current vice president, Constantino Chiwenga, said the armed forces would never salute a president who hadn’t fought in the 1970s liberation war against the white-minority regime of Rhodesia, a reference to Tsvangirai who did not play a role in the armed struggle. That has never been withdrawn, Biti said. Potential Compromise A constitutional lawyer, Biti, 51, served as finance minister from 2009 to 2013 in a unity government with Tsvangirai as prime minister and Mugabe as president. He was expelled from the MDC after falling out with Tsvangirai in 2014 amid disagreement over the party’s defeat in disputed 2013 elections. A year later, he was elected to head a breakaway opposition organization, the People’s Democratic Party. His party has joined the opposition alliance and is currently in talks with the MDC for re-integration, he said. Given the short amount of time left until the elections, which may be held in July or August, the MDC alliance would accept a compromise allowing the people in the diaspora to cast their votes for the presidential candidate at embassies but not vote for individual lawmakers, according to Biti. The presidential election is a national vote, while lawmakers compete for constituencies. Still, a delay of the elections by the ruling party can’t be ruled out, Biti said. “The danger and the possibility of them finding a legal way of postponing the election is there,” he said. “Remember, the judiciary is not quite independent in our country.” — With assistance by Pauline Bax, Antony Sguazzin, Godfrey Marawanyika, and Gordon Bell © 2018 Bloomberg News

International attempts to end the brutal violence in Sudan appear less likely more than a year after the U.S. lifted sanctions on the East African nation, following new reports of government violence against the general public that has triggered alarm from the top levels of the United Nations and human rights organizations. Despite these concerns, engagement is proceeding to normalize American relations with Sudan, which remains on the U.S. list of countries supporting terrorism. Earlier this week, the U.N. secretary-general said that while security has improved in Darfur – a region in western Sudan the size of France – sexual assaults and other acts of violence remain common. "While the rate of [newly displaced people] was lower in 2017 than in previous years, and humanitarian access had improved, sexual violence remained prevalent, owing to a volatile security environment awash with small arms and light weapons, criminality and sporadic clashes," António Guterres told the U.N. Security Council on Monday. The U.S. and other Western governments increasingly are working with Sudan's government led by President Omar al-Bashir, who is sought by the International Criminal Court, or ICC, for alleged acts of genocide and war crimes committed in Darfur. The U.S. has since the 1990s imposed economic sanctions on Sudan for its support of terrorists. But over time U.S. thinking of the sanctions' effectiveness has changed. Meanwhile, Western governments have increasingly eased into seeking al-Bashir's help to battle extremism in East Africa and to help reverse the flow of refugees streaming northward with the hope of reaching Europe. U.S. negotiators will next focus on improving human rights and religious freedom in the East African country, according to the Sudan Tribune. Sudan's current government came to power by an Islamist-backed military coup in 1989, waging a jihadi war on South Sudan, which became its own country in 2011. The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for al-Bashir, whom it accuses of being "criminally responsible, as an indirect co-perpetrator" for alleged acts of genocide and war crimes committed in Darfur. An insurgency erupted in Darfur in 2003 against Sudan's government in Khartoum for political and economic marginalization. International rights observers say the social climate in Sudan remains oppressive. "There has been no fundamental change. The government still stands at the ready to fight rebels or suspected rebels and civilians they believe support them, often purely on the basis of their location and ethnicity," says Jehanne Henry of the African team at Human Rights Watch. "We continue to see very high levels of sexual violence especially against displaced women and girls, often by security forces who operate with total impunity. Darfur continues to be a lawless, violent place where government forces can do what they want." In October 1997 then-President Bill Clinton's administration imposed on Sudan a wide range of sanctions at a time when the African nation still sheltered terrorists, including Osama bin Laden and other members of al-Qaida. The sanctions included a trade embargo, a freeze on government assets and tight restrictions placed on international financial institutions dealing with Sudan. The sanctions were prolonged in 2007 by President George W. Bush in response to the genocide taking place in Darfur. In 2016, however, then-President Barack Obama's administration became convinced that the sanctions had achieved very little. Just before leaving office in January 2017, Obama signed a temporary removal of the sanctions with a review set for six months later. The U.S. would permanently repeal the sanctions if Sudan sustained progress in the subsequent six months over five tracks, according to Obama's order. "For more than two decades there has been a policy dominated by pressure and sanctions, and for two decades that policy has largely failed," Obama administration official Zach Vertin told the Washington Post in January 2017. The five tracks the U.S. monitored included counter-terrorism cooperation; addressing the threat of the Lord's Resistance Army – a rebel group and Christian cult operating in northern Uganda, South Sudan, Congo and Central Africa Republic; ending interference in South Sudan; improving humanitarian access; and ending hostilities in two areas, including Darfur. Last October, President Donald Trump ended all U.S. economic sanctions. Sudan remains on the U.S. list of countries supporting terrorism, a designation that imposes sanctions. Other countries on the list include Iran, North Korea and Syria. Human rights organizations, however, say they still track incidents of sexual assault and other violence in Darfur, and say the Sudanese government attacked civilians in March and April. Those attacks killed 23 people and displaced 15,000. Twelve villages were set on fire in the Jebel Marra area in Darfur, according to a report from the African Center for Justice and Peace Studies. "For many months we saw a reduction of government attacks on civilians, but as recent clashes and attacks on civilians in Jebel Mara shows, that's only temporary and only at the whim of the government,"Henry of Human Rights Watch says. Negotiations to restore normal relations between the U.S. and Sudan should have been started in January this year – a year after Obama partially lifted sanctions in the first phase. Those talks were set to consider removing Sudan from the U.S. government's list of states supporting terrorism. © 2018 US News A nd World Report

Some 145 officers from Sierra Leone’s Formed Police Units (FPU) have been deployed in Somalia’s port city of Kismayo, Garowe Online reported yesterday. The new batch of officers will join an elite team of 15 which are already in the country as part of the African Union Mission (AMISOM) in Somalia. “Their coming is going to be a boost to the Jubbaland State Police Force. In 2016, we trained 600 police officers in Jubbaland and the Sierra Leone FPU will help them build and empower their policing operations,” Christine Alalo, AMISOM police commissioner, said. The additional officers are part of a United Nation Security Council resolution passed in 2017 which pledged to increase police officers serving under the AMISOM to 1,040. The FPU will focus on protecting government facilities, public order management and support of Somalia’s local police force. Somalia has seen some ferocious attacks on civilians in the past; including drive-by shootings at security checkpoints. Last year, a truck bomb attack killed and injured 500. The assailant, though, was not from the insurgency group Al-Shabaab, according to an investigation by the Guardian, but was a former Somali soldier grieved by a US and Somali counter-terror raid on his home village. Al-Shabaab pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda in 2012, which led to an increase in counter-terror measures levied by the US. Somalia’s security forces executed an operation last month in northern Mogadishu arresting over 100 criminal suspects. The operation was conducted after a Somali soldier was killed at a security checkpoint. Last week, five people were killed after a bomb exploded during an afternoon local football match in south-western town of Barawe. Allegations were put against Al-Shabaab, but the group has not claimed responsibility. Somali nationals have also been found to be involved in piracy in international waters. Last month some 120 Somalis were freed after serving up to seven years in jail for piracy related offences. It is unclear if the beefed-up security presence will contribute to mitigating security threats at the port city of Kismayo. © 2018 Middle East Monitor

April 18, 2018 Somalia National Army (SNA) said Tuesday its forces killed 30 al-Shabab militants in a security operation in Hiiraan region of central Somalia. Army Spokesperson in Hiiraan region, Mohamed Noor Agajof said the SNA forces also recovered military equipment from the insurgents following a fierce gunfight with the terrorist group. "We killed about 30 al-Shabab fighters and our forces captured areas from al-Shabab." Agajof said, "the fighting occurred in areas along the road linking Beledweyne town to Mataban and Mahas." "We also recovered weapons and liberated other key locations from the terrorists," he added without stating there a number of casualties on the SNA or civilians during the military operations in the central region. The Somali security forces backed by African Union peacekeeping forces have ramped up security operations to flush out al-Shabab fighters from the Horn of Africa nation. There was no immediate comment from the terrorist group on the latest military onslaught in Hiiraan region. The latest developments come after Somali National Army has teamed up with local security forces for joint security operations against the militant group blamed for staging near-daily attacks on government installations and AU mission bases including other public places. © 2018 Shabelle Media Network

LONDON — South Africa’s new president, Cyril Ramaphosa, who had traveled to London this week to assure global investors of his determination to tackle corruption in his country and restore faith in its public institutions, cut short his trip on Thursday to deal with unrest at home — a vivid indication of the challenges he faces. The protests in the North West Province, in which demonstrators seeking better jobs and housing, and improved roads and hospitals, clashed with the police, were the biggest in the two months since Mr. Ramaphosa took office. His predecessor, Jacob Zuma, was tarnished by scandal and deeply unpopular during much of his nearly nine-year tenure, and he was eventually forced out in a struggle within the leadership of the African National Congress, the party that has governed South Africa since the end of apartheid in 1994. In a statement announcing his return from London to Pretoria, one of South Africa’s capitals, Mr. Ramaphosa’s office said he had “called for calm and adherence to the rule of law” in the province, and urged demonstrators “to express their grievances through peaceful means and engagement rather than violence and anarchy.” The president also urged law enforcement agencies “to exercise maximum restraint in execution of their duties to return calm and normality to the province,” the statement said. Mr. Ramaphosa had been in London to attend a meeting of leaders of the Commonwealth nations, which South Africa rejoined in 1994 when a democratic government was elected after the fall of white-minority rule. The trip, which included meetings with Queen Elizabeth II and Prime Minister Theresa May of Britain, was something of a road show for the new president to present himself to the financial markets. Mr. Ramaphosa announced plans to raise $100 billion in foreign investment over the next five years. In a speech at the summit meeting, Mr. Ramaphosa said his country had entered “a new era of confidence and hope,” and he named four envoys, including two well-respected former Finance Ministry officials, to campaign for investments. “The pitch is going to be, ‘We’re open for business, we’re embarking on reforms,’” he told Bloomberg TV in an interview this week. While in London, Mr. Ramaphosa addressed investors’ anxiety about possible land reform in South Africa while acknowledging some constituents’ demand for radical change. He tried to allay fears of a violent land grab as had happened in Zimbabwe. When apartheid fell in the 1990s, the new A.N.C. government alleviated fears of white South Africans by largely upholding existing economic arrangements. But the country’s high level of inequality — and resentment at members of a black elite who have benefited from graft — has prompted major demonstrations against economic injustice in recent years. When the A.N.C. took power, it wanted to address the issue of land ownership in South Africa, but “it has not quite worked as we had intended it to work,” Mr. Ramaphosa said in the television interview. Another gargantuan task Mr. Ramaphosa faces is to deliver on his promise of a “new dawn” following public outrage over corruption and of an Indian business family’s influence on the previous administration. Endemic corruption has engulfed South Africa and eroded virtually every institution in the country, including state enterprises. While the police and prosecutors are investigating multiple cases of corruption and plan to recover more than $4 billion lost from state coffers, they have done little to prosecute political leaders who enabled malfeasance across many sectors of the economy. The president’s recent appointments to his cabinet have also cast doubt on his promises of reform. After he became party leader by a razor-thin margin, Mr. Ramaphosa appointed several officials who had been accused of corruption in the past. Earlier this week, South Africa’s public ombudsman announced an investigation into two high-ranking members of the A.N.C. after $21 million of public funds, meant to help struggling black farmers, went to politically connected companies and individuals. © 2018 The New York Times

Officials said on Wednesday that several al-Shabab militants were killed and others injured after heavy fighting between the Somali National Army (SNA), backed by African Union forces, and the militants in Qoqani location in Lower Jubba region southern Somalia. Hassan Mohamed, an army officer in the area told reporters that the militants' claims to have captured the area and killed soldiers' are baseless, saying they are in full control of the area at moment. "Al-Shabab fighters attacked our bases in Qoqani location in this region on Tuesday, then we resisted and fought with the terrorists, killing several of their fighters and injured others during the battle that lasted more than an hour. "There are no casualties on either SNA or AMISOM," Mohamed said. Al-Shabab militants claimed victory in the latest fighting in Qoqani location near Afmadow town in Lower Jubba region, saying they captured the SNA bases in the area and killed some soldiers. The militants carried out attacks against SNA and Kenya Defence Forces (KDF) under AU mission in Somalia despite frequent airstrikes in the region by U. S. military. © 2018 Shabelle Media Network

April 4, 2018 The Russian authorities have abjectly failed to take effective action in response to the violent persecution of gay men in Chechnya, Amnesty International said one year after a series of homophobic crimes in the southern republic were exposed. A report by the Novaya Gazeta newspaper revealed a horrifying “gay purge” in Chechnya in which dozens of men were abducted, tortured and killed. However, to date, not one person has to be held to account for these crimes. “A year ago, this shocking news from Chechnya was ridiculed and dismissed by the Russian government. Since then we have witnessed a shocking display of denial, evasion and inaction by the authorities, who have repeatedly refused to launch an official investigation into the reported heinous crimes and ignored credible evidence provided by Novaya Gazeta and others,” said Denis Krivosheev, Deputy Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia at Amnesty International. We have witnessed a shocking display of denial, evasion and inaction by the authorities, who have repeatedly refused to launch an official investigation into the reported heinous crimes Victims of such crimes have generally had to rely on Russia’s human rights community, who have provided support and safety to individuals hunted down in Chechnya and ignored by the authorities elsewhere in Russia. The tireless work of human rights defenders, including from the Russian LGBT Network, has resulted in 116 people being safely relocated from Chechnya, 98 of whom have left Russia. Igor Kochetkov, the founder and council member of the Russian LGBT Network, said: “Over the past year, the Russian LGBT Network and Novaya Gazeta have undertaken the work the state was supposed to do. We have ensured the safety of victims and collected and publicized their testimonies. But one thing we could not do is launch an investigation and ensure criminal prosecution of the perpetrators. The Russian authorities, apparently, do not want to do this.” Amnesty International reiterates its call on the Russian authorities to promptly and effectively investigate the reports of abduction, secret detention, torture and killing of men believed to be gay in the Chechen Republic. They must take immediate action to ensure the safety of LGBTI people in the region and elsewhere in Russia. © 2018 Amnesty International

Supporters of Ali Abdullah Saleh fight first battle with Houthis since former president died at Houthi hands in Sanaa last year. Houthi fighters chant slogans during a gathering in the capital Sanaa (AFP) Forces loyal to the late Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh battled their former Houthi allies on Thursday over control of a key outpost, marking the first such battle between the two sides since the Houthis killed Saleh last year. The fighting was concentrated east of the Red Sea port of al-Mokha, at an intersection on the main road leading east into Taiz, Yemen's third largest city, and the road north to the port of Hodeidah, where most of the country's food imports enter. Sources said on Thursday that thousands of soldiers comprising former members of the elite Republican Guards, the paramilitary Central Security Forces and other elite troops, backed by Saudi-led coalition forces, were involved in the fighting. Pro-Saleh forces said there were casualties on both sides in the fighting. The forces included a new unit set up by Saleh's nephew, Brigadier-General Tareq Mohammed Saleh. He had led a brigade of a Yemeni army unit before his uncle was forced to step down in 2012 following mass protests against his rule. The fighting followed a major switch in allegiances in the war. Saleh initially sided with the Iranian-allied Houthis who swept across most of northern Yemen in a series of military offensives that began in 2014. And it betrayed the growing complexity of a conflict that has already killed more than 10,000 people forced three million people from their homes. The switch in allegiances came when Houthis fighters killed Saleh in December after he called on the Saudi-led coalition to end the war, a move interpreted by the Houthis as betrayal. The new force led by Saleh's nephew is now expected to bolster Hadi's supporters. Internal clashes and a Saudi-led blockade, which has eased after international criticism, has led to a stalemate in the country and a humanitarian catastrophe. (c) 2018 Middle East Eye http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/forces-loyal-former-yemeni-president-battle-houthi-forces-1286651293

On the evening of 7 April 2018, the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Douma was subjected to an apparent chemical weapons attack. Military strikes by the U.S. and its Western allies seem imminent, now that Russia and the P3 – the U.S., the United Kingdom, and France – have failed to agree on a mechanism at the UN Security Council, and given U.S. President Donald Trump's explicit warning. Any military action in Syria inevitably will present significant risks of unintended escalation, especially given deepened involvement by several foreign actors. As such, Crisis Group is raising the threat level of the Trigger List's Syria flashpoints – in the Golan Heights, al-Tanf, and the Middle Euphrates River Valley – from Severe to Critical. Given the risk of the spillover of tensions, we are also raising the threat level in Lebanon from Moderate to Substantial. Critical is the highest level on our threat assessment scale, indicating a direct or indirect military confrontation between Iran and the U.S. and/or their respective allies is expected imminently. An attack by the U.S. and its allies risks hitting Russian and Iranian personnel commingled with their Syrian partners, triggering a broader confrontation. Russia has suggested it would respond. Even a strike that avoided doing so could be misread by Moscow or Tehran as designed to achieve more substantial goals, particularly given the Trump administration's hostile rhetoric against Iran and its increasingly likely withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action on 12 May. The U.S. and its allies are unlikely to be the only or even main targets of retaliation by the Syrian government and its backers. Military action could provoke intensified bombing by the Syrian government and Russia against opposition-held areas. It could also jeopardise local ceasefire arrangements, including the tenuous “de-escalation” in south-western Syria jointly negotiated by the U.S., Russia, and Jordan. An escalation in Syria may also provoke escalations elsewhere in the region, either against the U.S. or its allies. U.S.-led strikes are necessarily risky, but those risks could potentially be mitigated through effective messaging and the careful definition of narrow deterrent purposes. Limited strikes, advance warning and communication of U.S. aims to Moscow and via Moscow to Tehran are unlikely to have the desired deterrent effect, but may avoid retaliation by Russia and Iran and a broader, unchecked military escalation. Browse Iran-US Trigger List: https://www.crisisgroup.org/trigger-list/iran-us-trigger-list?utm_source=Sign+Up+to+Crisis+Group%27s+Email+Updates&utm_campaign=772fd901e1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_04_11&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1dab8c11ea-772fd901e1-359534617 (c) 2018 International Crisis Group

Iraqi PM's office says F-16 fighter jets carried out air raids near the border in coordination with Syrian army. Iraq says it has carried out "deadly air strikes" against fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, situated in pockets inside neighbouring Syria. The announcement comes days after Haider al-Abadi, Iraq's prime minister, said his country would take action against ISIL if the fighters threatened Iraq's security. Iraqi F-16 fighter jets crossed into Syria on Thursday in coordination with the Syrian army, al-Abadi's office said in a statement. "Based on orders from the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Haider al-Abadi, our heroic air force carried out deadly air strikes against ISIL sites in Syria on Thursday near the border with Iraq," it said. According to the statement, the attacks countered dangers posed by ISIL and reflected the Iraqi armed forces' "military capabilities in fighting terror". According to an Iraqi military spokesperson, the operation was fully coordinated with the Syrian army. Al-Abadi formally declared victory over ISIL last year with the help of a coalition made up of Kurdish Peshmerga forces and Shia-dominated paramilitary units. Iraq's army also received key air and ground support from an international coalition. But ISIL still poses a threat from pockets along the border with Syria and has continued to carry out ambushes and bombings across Iraq. Also on Thursday, ISIL fighters were given 48 hours to leave a pocket they control in the south of the Syrian capital, Damascus, pro-government Al-Watan daily reported. The fighters have been in control of an area around the Palestinian Yarmouk refugee camp and its surrounding neighbourhoods south of Damascus for nearly three years. (c) 2018 Al Jazeera https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/04/iraq-fighter-jets-strike-isil-targets-syria-180419125454310.html