Middle East & North Africa

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus said Wednesday it dismantled a criminal human smuggling ring responsible for bringing boatloads of Syrian migrants from Syria, Lebanon and Turkey. The eastern Mediterranean island nation has seen almost daily migrant boat arrivals in recent days.

Cypriot police said three months of investigative work resulted in the arrest of five suspects following a raid by a combined force of 40 officers on several homes in the island’s southeast.

ANKARA, August 22. /TASS/: Substantial progress has been made at consultations on renewing the grain deal, Turkey’s Yeni Safak newspaper said citing a source in Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s office.

"Significant progress has been achieved on a grain corridor agreement. An alternative route of the grain corridor without Russia is irrational," the newspaper quoted the source as saying.

DAMASCUS, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Israel carried out a missile strike on military sites around the Syrian capital Damascus on Monday night, injuring a soldier, the Syrian army said in a statement.

The missiles were launched from the direction of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, it said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, said three military sites, including weapon depots that belong to Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, were targeted.

TRIPOLI, Aug. 22 (Xinhua) -- Libyan Interior Minister Emad al-Tarabelsi announced Monday that 486 illegal migrants have been deported to their countries of origin.

In a press conference following the announcement, the minister said that 294 of them are from Egypt, while the others from different African countries.

Al-Tarabelsi said that the deportees include those recently left stranded near the Tunisian border after being expelled by Tunisian authorities.

ISTANBUL, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- Turkish anti-narcotics police seized nearly 450 kg of methamphetamine and arrested five suspects, including a foreigner, in Istanbul, the governor's office said in a statement on Monday.

The operation comes as part of a probe into the illicit trafficking of drugs, said the statement.

Upon a tip-off, the police began tracking the suspects allegedly involved in drug trafficking and stopped a car and two trucks in the Tuzla district, where 447.5 kg of liquid narcotics were found concealed in 20 drums, it added.

KHARTOUM, Aug. 21 (Xinhua) -- The fierce clashes between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) continued on Monday around the strategic armored corps camp at Al-Shajara military area, south of the capital Khartoum.

"For the second day, the rebel militia attempted to enter the armored corps camp," Nabil Abdalla, the SAF's spokesman, said in a statement.

"Our forces repulsed the militia and inflicted heavy losses of lives and equipment on them," the statement said.

JERUSALEM (AP) — A suspected Palestinian attacker killed an Israeli woman and seriously wounded a man in the south of the occupied West Bank on Monday, Israeli authorities said, as violence flared in the restive territory two days after a shooting that killed two Israelis.

NICOSIA, Cyprus (AP) — Cyprus police on Monday rescued 18 Syrian migrants after their boat started taking on water some 3.5 miles off the Mediterranean island nation’s southeastern coast.

Police said the 11 men, three unescorted minors, one woman and her three children had set sail from Tartus, Syria and were brought ashore aboard a police patrol vessel.

State-run Cyprus News Agency reported that the woman and her children were taken to the hospital after one of the kids had fainted. The migrants’ boat reportedly sank.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest for international travel, announced Tuesday it served 41.6 million passengers in the first half of this year — exceeding figures for the same period in 2019 as travelers return to the air after the lockdowns of the coronavirus pandemic.

CAIRO, Aug. 20 (Xinhua) -- Egypt on Sunday called for calm in Cyprus after the recent attacks on United Nations peacekeepers in the east Mediterranean island.

In a statement, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry called for efforts to stop measures that would fuel tensions between the two parts of Cyprus, underlining the importance of respecting the mandate of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus (UNFICYP) and the relevant UN Security Council resolutions.