Iraqi warplanes kill 7 Islamic State members in Anbar

Anbar (IraqiNews.com) Iraqi army warplanes killed seven Islamic State militants after bombarding their locations in Anbar province, a paramilitary leader was quoted saying on Friday.

Qatari al-Obaidi, a local mobilization troops commander in Anbar, told Almaalomah website that army aviation targeted an underground tunnel belonging to the group in Wadi Jaal in Hit, west of the province, leaving more than seven militants dead.

Iraq declared victory over Islamic State militants in December, ending three years of operations to retake territories occupied by the militants to declare a self-styled “caliphate”.

Anbar’s town of Rarwa, close to borders with Syria, was the last IS bastion recaptured by the Iraqi forces. The government had said its forces regained full control over the borders with Syria, but militants have staged occasional attacks from there, prompting the government to carry out military raids on the group’s locations inside Syria.

 

Source :  Iraqi News

Mastermind of several IS-linked terrorist attacks on security bodies arrested in Diyala

Diyala (Iraqinews.com) – Iraqi troops arrested on Friday a man who is standing behind several Islamic State-linked terrorist attacks against security men in Diyala province, a security committee was quoted as saying.

Speaking to SNG news agency, Sadeq al-Husseini, the head of the security committee of Diyala provincial council, said, “Troops of the interior ministry’s antiterrorism and intelligence departments managed to arrest a senior IS leader in al-Nada area, 45 km east of Baqubah, the capital city of Diyala.”

The arrestee is believed to be the mastermind of several IS-linked terrorist attacks against security bodies in the province, al-Husseini said.

The troops found an explosive belt, bombs and documents on supposed terrorist plans in his possession, he added.

The Islamic State group appeared on the international scene in 2014 when it seized large swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, declaring the establishment of an Islamic “caliphate” from Mosul city.

Later on, the group has become notorious for its brutality, including mass killings, abductions and beheadings, prompting the U.S. to lead an international coalition to destroy it.

In January 2015, Iraqi forces announced liberation of Diyala province from Islamic State extremist militants who proclaimed an “Islamic Caliphate” in Iraq and Syria in 2014.

 

Source :  Iraqi News

Three Islamic State members killed in military operation, southwestern Kirkuk

Kirkuk (IraqiNews.com) Three Islamic State members were killed in a military operation carried out by joint troops, southwest of Kirkuk, a security source said on Friday.

“Joint troops of the Tribal Mobilization Forces and the Federal Police carried out an operation, today, in Tal Eid region in al-Riyad town, southwest of Kirkuk,” the source told Baghdad Today website.

The operation, according to the source, who preferred anonymity, “left three militants killed.”

Earlier today, Brig. Gen. Yahia Rasool, spokesperson for the Security Media Center, was quoted saying that eleven Islamic State militants were killed while trying to storm Gharib and Hanaf villages in southwestern Kirkuk. The clashes also left an Iraqi policeman and a member of the Tribal Mobilization Forces killed.

Islamic State continues to launch sporadic attacks across Iraq against troops. Security reports indicate that the militant group still poses threat against stability in the country.

Thousands of Islamic State militants as well as Iraqi civilians were killed since the government campaign, backed by paramilitary troops and the coalition was launched in October 2016 to fight the militant group, which declared a self-styled “caliphate” from Mosul in June 2014.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced, in December, full liberation of Iraqi lands, declaring end of war against IS members.

 

Source :  Iraqi News

Iraqi military foils terrorist scheme against troops in Anbar’s desert

Baghdad (IraqiNews.com) The Iraqi military intelligence department has announced foiling a terrorist scheme against troops in the desert of Anbar province.

In a statement on Friday, the department said “the troops of the 10th division carried out an operation that managed to thwart a scheme planned by terrorists who were going to target the security forces.”

Moreover, the department said “an operation was launched that raided two rest houses of Islamic State, north of al-Thirthar desert in Anbar.” Huge amounts of weapons were seized inside them.

Earlier today, a paramilitary leader was quoted saying that Iraqi army warplanes killed seven Islamic State militants after bombarding their locations in Wadi Jaal in Hit, west of Anbar.

Islamic State continues to launch sporadic attacks across Iraq against troops. Security reports indicate that the militant group still poses threat against stability in the country.

Thousands of Islamic State militants as well as Iraqi civilians were killed since the government campaign, backed by paramilitary troops and the coalition was launched in October 2016 to fight the militant group, which declared a self-styled “caliphate” from Mosul in June 2014.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced, in December, full liberation of Iraqi lands, declaring end of war against IS members.

 

Source :  Iraq News

Islamic State member arrested, sum of money confiscated, west of Mosul

Nineveh (IraqiNews.com) An Islamic State member was arrested, while huge some of money was confiscated, west of Mosul, the Nineveh Police Command said on Friday.

In a statement, Brig. Gen. Hamad Names al-Jabouri, the commander, said information indicated presence of “huge amount of money for Islamic State members inside a house of one of the militants.”

“The militant called Jasim Ali Ghazal was arrested in his house in al-Gamasa village in Badush region, west of Mosul,” the statement said. “A sum of 43 million Iraqi dinars were found inside his house.”

On Thursday, a source from Nineveh police said Iraqi troops arrested Islamic State’s security minister and the member in charge of the security detachments in two operations in Mosul.

The Iraqi police arrested, on Wednesday, Taha Mohamed Salama, an Islamic State member who was in charge of the group’s mortar launchers. Nineveh police command announced, on Tuesday, 13 IS members were arrested in southeast of Mosul.

Thousands of Islamic State militants as well as Iraqi civilians were killed since the government campaign, backed by paramilitary troops and the coalition was launched in October 2016 to fight the militant group, which declared a self-styled “caliphate” from Mosul in June 2014.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar al-Abadi announced, in December, full liberation of Iraqi lands, declaring end of war against IS members.

 

Source :  Iraqi News

Dubai Police delivers 4,000 meals to workers

Amira Agarib /Dubai

Filed on May 25, 2018

The human rights department of the Dubai Police carried out a campaign to distribute Iftar meals at the workers’ accommodations in Al Muhaisnah area.

The Dubai Police have distributed 4,000 Iftar meals to blue-collared workers as part of an initiative “to provide Iftar to the fasting people”.

The human rights department of the Dubai Police carried out a campaign to distribute Iftar meals at the workers’ accommodations in Al Muhaisnah area.

Fatima Al Baloushi, head of awareness and education section at the human rights department, said the Iftar initiative is in line with the Year of Zayed announced by the President, His Highness Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, and also as per the directives of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

Al Baloushi said the Iftar initiative aims to provide 30,000 Iftar meals during the holy month of Ramadan, stressing that this noble humanitarian initiative is being implemented in cooperation with the family of the late Obeid Helou.

amira@khaleejtimes.com

 

Source :  The Khaleej Times

Nipah scare affects residents’ travel plans

Saman Haziq/Dubai

Filed on May 25, 2018 | Last updated on May 25, 2018 at 09.54 pm

Nipah virus is said to induce flu-like symptoms that often lead to encephalitis and coma.

Many UAE residents from the south Indian state of Kerala cancelled their travel plans to their hometowns in the wake of the Nipah virus (NiV) outbreak that has claimed 11 lives and left at least 40 quarantined.

Nipah virus is said to induce flu-like symptoms that often lead to encephalitis and coma. Fruit bats are considered the main carrier of the virus for which there is no vaccination, according to the World Health Organisation.

Layana, a school teacher in Sharjah, said that although she had booked tickets to Thiruvananthapuram for July, she has cancelled it tickets now. “I was initially thinking that this must be a seasonal disease. But with the death toll rising, I do not want to take any chances. From what I have heard and read in news, the virus kills in just a couple of days.

Although my place in southern Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram, has not been affected, almost everyday I am hearing of someone dying due to this virus. That’s why I have cancelled the plan to go this summer vacations and now may go in December.”

Dubai resident Minosh Salam, who runs an IT software solutions firm, said: “I go to Thiruvananthapuram every two or three months to spend a few days with my aging parents. But as the news about the death toll rising and the government issuing travel advisory started coming in, my parents advised me to postpone my trip. I have cancelled my tickets though it was not fully refundable. I think I took the right decision because it’s better safe than sorry.”

“My place is quite far (8 or 9 hours away) from where the virus has struck but still my parents and I do not want to take a chance, especially when there is no emergency to go. The Indian government as well as the UAE health ministry have issued directives for the people advising them to avoid gatherings and unnecessary trips in order to prevent spread of this virus. The WHO has issued a high alert about NiV, and hence we need to abide by the warning. I will wait till this issue subsides and hopefully find a safer window to fly down later,” Salam added.

Although no official statement was given out from the Indian missions in the UAE, a source from the ministry said: “We have not issued any advisory so far. We generally do it once we get some direction from the headquarters. I personally feel that there is not such a requirement now.”

Another Dubai resident said: “My folks stay in Kozhikode, which is affected by this virus and I am quite worried for them. I spoke to my sister yesterday and she said that after the reports of the outbreak, the streets wear a deserted look, malls are empty and there is hardly any traffic on the roads. All this points to the fact that people are quite scared in the city. We were planning to travel this month to Kozhikode but after I met a few of my hometown people at an Iftar in Dubai, everyone advised us not to travel at least for the next few months. So we have cancelled our traveling plans for now. We have to attend a few weddings in August in Kozhikode. Hopefully by then it would come under control.”

The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (Mohap) on Thursday said that it was closely monitoring the situation and advised people to put off unnecessary travel to Kerala, India for the time being.

 

Source :  The Khaleej Times

Three men, woman jailed for trafficking 17-year-old girl in Dubai

Marie Nammour /Dubai

Filed on May 26, 2018 | Last updated on May 26, 2018 at 06.29 am

The court ordered the deportation of all of them after completing their jail terms.

Three Pakistani men and a woman, who brought a 17-year-old girl from their home country to exploit her in prostitution in Dubai, have all been sentenced to three years in jail on a human trafficking charge.

The Court of First Instance cleared, however, the four defendants of the charge of running a flat as a prostitution den where the teenage victim and another woman worked as prostitutes. The court ordered each of them to pay a Dh100,000 fine.

A fifth Pakistani, 24, has been sentenced to six months in jail for having illicit consensual sex with the victim. One of the main accused, a 24-year-old Pakistani woman (not one of the prostitutes), stood trial in absentia as she is still on the loose.

The court ordered the deportation of all of them after completing their jail terms. It also ruled that the flat they ran should remain closed unless an order from the public prosecution said otherwise. The Dubai Police raided the flat in Al Baraha on January 14, after a tip-off.

“We were tipped- off that an underage girl was being exploited in prostitution. We set up a task force from the anti-human trafficking section to follow-up on that information and keep the flat under watch,” said a police lieutenant.

An undercover police officer carried Dh100, belonging to the Dubai police, while the informant and other police officers waited at a distance outside. “It was around 7.30pm when we went to the flat. The undercover cop requested inside the flat to have sex with the teenage victim. When the main accused led him into a room, he gave the signal to us for raid,” the lieutenant added.

The victim said the woman accomplice contacted her in Pakistan in December, last year. “She offered me a job in prostitution and I took her offer. But I told my mother I would travel to Dubai to work as a saleswoman. I had previously worked as a prostitute back home because of our bad financial conditions.”

The woman accomplice received her at the Dubai International Airport and took her to a flat in Al Baraha where she was told she would receive customers with another woman. “She told me I had to give one of the accused 50 per cent of the revenues of my work because he paid for my visa and travel ticket,” the victim said.

She recounted that an average of 10 men would come daily for sex, mostly Asians. She told the prosecutor: “I had a mobile phone and I was in daily contact with my parents back home.”

mary@khaleejtimes.com

 

Source :  The Khaleej Times

Woman claims she was raped, held for prostitution in Dubai

She lodged a complaint to implicate several men who didn’t pay her.

A prostitute was caught by the Dubai Police after she complained at the police station that she got raped by 12 unknown men.

The 29-year-old Pakistani woman on a visit visa is facing a prostitution charge at the Court of First Instance.

A police sergeant Al Rashidiya police station said the woman came to the station to complain that she had been raped by 12 unknown men in International City on April 21.

“She claimed 12 men raped her at a flat. As we interrogated her, she eventually confessed that she made up the story to avoid being held legally accountable for working in prostitution.”

The sergeant added: “She further confessed her Pakistani boss, who exploited her in prostitution, dropped her at a flat on the morning she filed the complaint. She had sex with one Pakistani man and then with his two friends. But after none of them paid her the money, she lodged a complaint of rape to implicate them.”

The police followed up on the case. “A reliable source later tipped us off about one of the men who had sex with that woman. We traced him to his flat in the Italian cluster,” the police officer said.

Upon his arrest the next day, the accused admitted he had consensual sex with that woman. “He said his two friends also had sex with her and then led us to their flat in the same area.”

The police arrested the other two men on the same day. One of the defendants confessed that he rented a flat from a cleaner to meet the prostitute there.

The woman was brought to him to have sex with her for Dh600. However, he and his friends didn’t pay the money and hailed a cab for her. The woman identified them during a police line-up of suspects. The men admitted during investigation they had consensual sex with the woman for money.

The court will give out a verdict on June 21.

mary@khaleejtimes.com

Source :  The Khaleej Times

Disruption is the future

Dhanusha Gokulan (Reporter )/Dubai

dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com Filed on May 25, 2018 | Last updated on May 25, 2018 at 10.11 pm

Dubai propels itself into the future with the adoption of innovative technology to power the what next.

On April 29 this year, three Indian students in Dubai embraced the future. Eyes filled with hope, two highly capable athletes and one tech genius from the Indian High School signed up for the first-ever Dubai 10X initiative – Rahhal.

Dubai’s Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) announced the pilot phase of ‘Rahhal’ – a part-time learning concept, as part of the Dubai 10X initiative, which is overseen by the Dubai Future Foundation (DFF). The highly- ambitious programme enables students to study different subjects in different schools, across different curriculums. However, Rahhal is only the beginning.

When the DFF was launched two years ago, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, said that shaping the future and making it is no longer a theoretical concept but a key factor for countries to achieve competitiveness in the global arena. Sheikh Mohammed said: “The future is not built on possibilities and numbers but on clarity of vision, planning, action and implementation.”

The foundation gave birth to ‘Office of the Future’ – a concept that focuses on 3D printing strategy – and ‘Dubai’s Autonomous Transportation Strategy’- a strategy that aims to transform 25 per cent of the total transportation to autonomous mode by 2030.

The foundation also gave rise to Dubai 10X – a concept of disruptive innovation that catapults the emirate 10 years into the future. Khaleej Times takes a closer look into top four 10X ideas that will disrupt innovation and break barriers in Dubai.

Rahhal

Speaking about Rahhal, Abdulla Al Karam, director-general of the Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA), said: “The whole world will be a classroom. Rahhal (means traveller in Arabic) will provide a learning experience that prepares students for life’s test, not a life full of academic tests.”

Al Karam noted that questions of learning in one school by one teacher were raised during the brainstorming process. “Why do children have to start school at four, go to college at 18, then work at 21? Learning is endless and each person has to move at their own pace and be provided with the learning style that suits them,” he said.

Next-Generation Departure

Major-General Mohammed Ahmed Al Marri, director-general of the General Directorate of Residency and Foreigners Affairs – Dubai (GDRFA-D), said that by 2030, the smart gates at Dubai airports will replace passport officials’ platforms with a view to reducing the human involvement factor in application of Dubai’s 10X initiative.

Al Marri said: “We have created smart gates projects in an exclusive and modern way, and this amounts now to about 122 smart gates. We have created a number of smart projects at Dubai international airports, the latest of which is “Next-Generation Departure” project, which will enable passengers complete their travel procedures in the least time possible.”

10X: ‘C3 Court’

Dubai will soon implement the world’s first judicial system in which all three courts – first instance, appeals and supreme court – will hear cases concurrently rather than consecutively. The unique initiative reduces the total time frame for the three proceedings for each case from 305 days to 30 days.

Tarash Eid Al Mansoori, director-general of the Dubai Courts, said: “The C3 courts’ project will merge the three levels of litigation into a single court consisting of three judges, each representing a level of litigation (first instance, appeal and cessation). All court proceedings will use modern technologies, including electronic file and remote communication.”

Dubai 3i

Dubai 3i, by the Dubai Economic Department, seeks to create an innovative industry sector outside the traditional framework by providing live data on industrial opportunities, enabling industries to harness the latest technologies including artificial intelligence (AI), big data and 3D printing, and transforming the industry to be less labour-intensive and more technology-intensive. ‘3i’ will seek to establish Dubai as an incubator for all modern industries, small and medium enterprises (SMEs), entrepreneurs and exporters. Sami Al Qamzi, director-general of the DED, said: “Dubai 3i will focus on creating a suitable future government environment for new industries based on artificial intelligence and smart industry.”

dhanusha@khaleejtimes.com

 

Source :  The Khaleej Times