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Kurds Doggedly Defend Town from IS Ex-Bourguiba Minister Elected

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Kurds Doggedly Defend Town from IS Ex-Bourguiba Minister Elected International FRIDAY, DECEMBER 5, 2014 Kurds doggedly defend town from IS Once a town of 50,000 now virtually deserted except fighters KOBANIE: The men and women of Kobani call In a surprising display of resilience, the one another “heval” - Kurdish for ‘comrade’ - and Kurdish fighters in the frontier town have held fight with revolutionary conviction, vowing to lib- out against the more experienced jihadis more erate what they regard as Kurdish land from than two months into the militants’ offensive, Islamic State group militants. Amid the wasteland hanging on to their territory against all expecta- and destroyed buildings, a sense of camaraderie tions. “We are fighting for freedom,” said a has developed among the town’s defenders who Kurdish sniper who goes under the nickname have for more than two months doggedly fought Zinar, Kurdish for “The Rock.” “Freedom isn’t off the advances by the extremists. Often, mem- something you can easily get or something that bers of the same family can be found on the front someone just gives to you,” he said. “Freedom is lines. Nineteen-year-old Shida’s father was a only achieved when you go out and get it your- fighter before her. After he was killed, she gave self.” up hopes of becoming an artist and decided she The militants’ advance was part of the Islamic must follow in his footsteps to honor his exam- State group’s blitz this year that overran large ple. She says her mother supports her decision. parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq. Kobani, once One of her six brothers is also fighting, the rest of a town of about 50,000 people but now virtually her siblings are living in Turkey. deserted except for the fighters, has seen some “I will not allow the enemy to take away my of the fiercest urban warfare in the Syrian civil land and its soil,” she said. “I will not leave my war, now in its fourth year. Abu Layla, command- land.” An exclusive report shot by videojournalist er of a Free Syrian Army-linked group in Kobani Jake Simkin who spent a week inside Kobani late called Shams al-Shamal (Sun of the North) last month offered a rare, in-depth glimpse of the Brigade, said he is proud of what the FSA and the men and women fighting to expel the IS extrem- Kurdish fighters have achieved together in ists from Kobani, a predominantly Kurdish town Kobani so far. in northern Syria by the Turkish border. Backed Their alliance is called “Burkhan al Furat,” by small numbers of Iraqi peshmerga forces and which translates as Volcano of the Euphrates. Free Syrian Army rebels, the Kurdish fighters, Abu Layla’s group has over a hundred fighters, whose political founders espouse a firm left-wing mostly ethnic Arabs and Turkmens from Abu ideology, are locked in fierce battles to push back Layla’s hometown of Minbej. He said he is not the Islamic State group, which swept into the fighting for the Kurds, Arabs or Turkmens, or for KOBANI: A Kurdish fighter peers at an Islamic State group position in Kobanie, Syria. — AP town in mid-September. Christians or Muslims.— AP Britain to review 25 Lebanon holding IS chief’s daughter, ‘Fake Sheikh’ convictions ex-wife: Minister LONDON: Twenty-five convictions secured through evidence “We are now considering past cases which resulted in a con- given by British reporter Mazher Mahmood-nicknamed the viction in criminal courts in England and Wales based on evi- BEIRUT: Lebanese authorities are holding a daughter and an ex- Fake Sheikh will be reviewed due to doubts over his reliability dence provided by Mr Mahmood, and have identified 25 cases,” wife of the head of the Islamic State jihadist group, Abu Bakr Al- as a witness, prosecutors said yesterday. Infamous for often the CPS said in a statement. In the Contostavlos case, Baghdadi, the interior minister said. It was initially reported that a reporting undercover posing as a wealthy Arab dressed in Mahmood had posed as a wealthy film producer offering the wife and son of the self-proclaimed “caliph” had been arrested robes and a keffiyeh, his evidence has helped secure convic- former talent show judge a major role in a Bollywood film. last month. The woman, who has been named as Saja Al-Dulaimi, tions in several high-profile cases including on drug charges Mahmood was suspended from The Sun on Sunday news- was travelling with two sons and a daughter, Interior Minister involving celebrities and sporting figures. His methods, though, paper, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News UK British newspaper Nouhad Mashnuq told the Lebanese MTV channel late have been criticized and several of his targets have complained arm, in July following the trial’s collapse. He had previously Wednesday. of entrapment. worked for Murdoch’s News of the World newspaper before it He said DNA tests showed that the girl was Baghdadi’s child. In July, a case against pop star Tulisa Contostavlos, who was was shut down in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. The “Dulaimi is not Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi’s wife currently. She has accused of offering to procure cocaine for Mahmood, collapsed Sun on Sunday and parent company News UK were not imme- been married three times: first to a man from the former Iraqi after the judge said he had “strong grounds to believe” diately available to comment. Mahmood’s story on cricket spot- regime, with whom she had two sons,” he said. “Six years ago Mahmood had lied at a hearing before the trial started. A fixing in 2011 led to the convictions of three Pakistan players she married Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi for three months, and she had Crown Prosecution Service spokesman said this had prompted for their involvement in the betting scam. His investigative a daughter with him. Now, she is married to a Palestinian and she the body to look again at convictions secured through evi- work earned him a Reporter of the Year award at the 1998 is pregnant with his child,” Mashnuq added. dence supplied by Mahmood. British Press Awards. — AFP “We conducted DNA tests on her and the daughter, which showed she was the mother of the girl, and that the girl is his (Baghdadi’s) daughter, based on DNA from Baghdadi from Iraq,” the minister said. He gave no details on Dulaimi’s nationality, but a security Ex-Bourguiba minister source said she was believed to be Iraqi. Mashnuq offered no fur- ther information about her current husband, although he said investigations showed the woman had ties to extremists in Lebanon. Dulaimi’s children were at a children’s care centre while elected Tunisia speaker she was being interrogated, he said. Mashnuq also confirmed the arrest of the wife of Anas Sharkas, a leader in Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front. TUNIS: Tunisia’s first parliament since the 2011 revolution in a presidential election runoff due to be contested by the Dulaimi was among a group of female prisoners released from yesterday elected veteran politician Mohamed Ennaceur, end of this month. Syrian jails in March, in exchange for 13 nuns from the ancient 80, of anti-Islamist party Nidaa Tounes as house speaker. Ennaceur served as social affairs minister under Habib town of Maalula held by Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Al-Nusra Front. Ennaceur, the sole candidate, won 174 votes from the Bourguiba, Tunisia’s “father of independence”, during the The Islamic State (IS) group has yet to comment publicly on 214 MPs in attendance, announced Ali Ben Salem who as 1970s and 1980s. Nidaa Tounes won 86 seats in the Dulaimi’s detention, but Al-Nusra, despite a feud with Baghdadi’s doyen of the house chaired the session. The vote had ini- October parliamentary polls, beating moderate Islamist group, issued a statement of condemnation. It described her as tially been expected on Tuesday during the newly elected movement Ennahda into second place with 69 seats. “sister Saja al-Dulaimi” and said the arrest of women and children parliament’s inaugural session but was delayed for consul- Under the North African country’s electoral system, the was evidence of the “weakness” of the Lebanese state. tations on a consensus candidate. Ennaceur is deputy party with the most votes has a mandate to form a coali- Sources said the detention of Dulaimi and Sharkas’s wife leader of Nidaa Tounes, which won a landmark legislative tion government. Nidaa Tounes has said it will not form a could help the Lebanese as they struggle to negotiate the release election in October-the first since the overthrow of long- government before the presidential runoff, in which of 27 members of the security forces held by jihadists from IS and time strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali nearly four years Essebsi faces incumbent Moncef Marzouki after neither Al-Nusra. The soldiers and police were abducted when militants ago. candidate secured an absolute majority in a November 23 from the two groups briefly overran the Lebanese border town of Nidaa Tounes head Beji Caid Essebsi, 88, is frontrunner first round. —AFP Arsal in August. —AFP.
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