Arab world

    More than a 100 people have been killed in a series of avalanches triggered by days of heavy snowfall around Afghanistan, including 50 in one village, officials said Sunday, warning the death toll could rise still further. The avalanches struck after three days of heavy snow, which has destroyed scores of homes and blocked roads mainly in central and northeastern provinces, making it difficult for rescue workers to reach the stricken villages. The bulk of the deaths however occurred in remote Nuristan province, where at least 50 people were killed in a single village, Mohammad Omar Mohammadi a spokesman for the ministry of natural disaster told AFP. Avalanches have buried two entire villages in Bargmatal district, 50 bodies were recovered from one village while rescuers ar...

    A Revolutionary Guards commander said Iran would use its missiles if its security is under threat, as the elite force defied new U.S. sanctions on its missile programme by holding a military exercise on Saturday. Tensions between Tehran and Washington have risen since a recent Iranian ballistic missile test which prompted U.S. President Donald Trump's administration to impose sanctions on individuals and entities linked to the Revolutionary Guards. Trump's national security adviser Michael Flynn said the Washington was putting Iran on notice over its destabilising activity, and Trump tweeted Tehran was "playing with fire". We are working day and night to protect Iran’s security, head of Revolutionary Guards' aerospace unit, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh was quoted a...

    A British chef killed in Syria while fighting against ISIS may have turned his gun on himself to avoid being captured, it has been reported. Ryan Lock, 20, told his family he was going on holiday before revealing in a Facebook post he was heading to the war-torn country. He had no military experience but joined the Kurdish armed forces, the YPG, on a voluntary basis. Ryan was killed last December during an operation by anti-Islamic State forces in Raqqa. Now sources have told the BBC, a post-mortem exam indicates Ryan suffered a gunshot wound under the chin suggesting a possible suicide. Kurdish rights activist Mark Campbell from KurdishQuestion.com told BBC South: Ryan Lock may very well have turned his own gun upon himself rather than be taken prisoner by ISIS. There are...

    An SAS sniper killed three ISIS terrorists with a single bullet, it has been claimed. The expert shooter slaughtered the militants after his bullet passed through two of them before it ricocheted and hitting another in the neck. His bullet hit the first terrorist in the head killing him instantly and travelled through to hit another in the chest. It then bounced off a wall and hit the third in the neck, reports the Daily Star Sunday. The incident apparently happened in November during a mission in a remote village near to Mosul, Iraq. When prisoners tried to flee the ISIS gunmen, they reportedly opened fire with machine guns. SAS troops stepped in to control them, as the crack sniper set about taking them out with an L115A sniper rifle loaded with .338 Lapua Magnum bullets...

    Saudi Arabia will cooperate with the opposition in Syria to prevent the entry of militants as pilgrims during upcoming Hajj, a daily reported on Wednesday. Saudi Arabia allocated a quota of 15,000 pilgrims for the upcoming season and it will be ensured that all of them are civilians who will come for the religious rituals. Abdul Ilah Fahad, General Secretary of the National Coalition for Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, told that the names of Syrian pilgrims were checked carefully and their fingerprints were taken before sending the pre-final list to Saudi Arabia for approval. Throughout the Hajj season, Saudi Arabia implements tight security to ensure the safety of pilgrims. The last Hajj season attracted more than 1.8 million pilgrims while the number is expected...

    A British woman jailed in Bahrain after being accused of adultery has been released amid a fundraising appeal by her mother to bring her home. Hannah James, said to originally be from Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire, moved to the country with husband Jassim Alhaddar and their young son, but her mother, Shelley James, claims she was a victim of domestic abuse and wanted to leave Bahrain. Mrs James claimed her daughter's passport was burnt and that her husband accused her of having an affair. Writing on a JustGiving page set up to raise funds to bring her daughter home, Mrs James said: Things became very difficult for her as she was suffering from domestic violence. She added: "This became worse day by day . "Hannah James finally made the decision to leave him and Bahrain with he...

    A British soldier has died in Iraq following an "incident" that is being investigated, the Ministry of Defence has confirmed. The soldier had been serving with the 2nd Battalion the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, the MoD said in a statement. They added that the death followed "an incident" that is "currently under investigation, but we can confirm that it was not as a result of enemy activity". Sky News Defence Correspondent Alistair Bunkall said there were few details about the death, which occurred in the town of Taji, about 100 miles northwest of Baghdad. He added that the British military has had a training and advisory operation in the area "for about the past year or so". "From that we can surmise that this soldier was there in a training capacity, as opposed to fight...

    When I shot the rafidi it was easy. He was kneeling in front of me, sobbing. He was a big man: his body was shaking. I thought why are you crying, you are a killer yourself, you are going to have a quick death. I just pulled the trigger, and it was over. I didn’t feel any pity. I didn’t feel any pride. I was just doing my job. The shooting in the town of Manbij was the first execution of a prisoner that Abu Mutassim, an experienced fighter for Isis, had carried out. He tried to justify the murder by saying that the man whose life he took was not just an enemy but a member of the Shabiha, a brutal Bashar al-Assad regime militia. The final punishment was justified against these types of rafidis – a pejorative Sunni term for Shias and Syria’s ruling Alawites – who committed a...

    A female journalist shot dead in Bahrain in front of her young son was allegedly murdered by a member of the Gulf State's royal family, according to activists. The killing of 28-year-old Eman Salehi, a Shia woman, shocked the island kingdom but new allegations threaten to elevate the case into realm of politics and potentially spark fresh protests against the Sunni monarchy. Ms Salehi was shot in the street on December 23 as her six-year-old son watched through the window of the car. Her killer shot Ms Salehi, a popular sports journalist, once in the head and immediately turned himself into police in the city of Riffa, which is popular with both military officers and members of the royal family. The interior ministry would say only that there had been a murder of a female ...

    The 30-year-old was decapitated and stabbed to death on Monday evening in Lati in the Sar-e-Pul province of northern Afghanistan. The Middle East Press claims a government spokesman told them Taliban militants killed her for the infidelity act of going shopping without a male guardian. The Taliban, which occupies Lati, imposes fierce policies of discrimination against women which includes banning them speaking loudly in public and appearing in media. Punishments have included public lashings and executions in football stadiums. National broadcaster Tolo News reports that the provincial governor spokesman Zabiullah Amani said the woman’s husband is in Iran, and that they do not have children. It also claims Sar-e-Pul women’s affairs head Nasima Arezo has confirmed the incid...