Middle East & North Africa

DAMASCUS, Sept 14 (NNN-SANA) – At least 25 people were killed and wounded, when a car bomb went off in Syria’s rebel-held Afrin city, in northern Syria on Friday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, a violent explosion rocked Afrin, which is controlled by Turkey-backed rebels, in the northern countryside of Aleppo province, when a car bomb went off near the rebels’ headquarters.

It said that at least one person was killed while the rest are wounded, some in critical conditions.

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Latest on the explosion and fire an oil facility in Saudi Arabia (all times local):

9:10 a.m.

Saudi Arabia says drones attacked two major oil facilities in the kingdom, sparking fires.

The kingdom did not say who was behind the attacks Saturday. Yemen’s Houthi rebels have launched similar attacks, but did not immediately claim the latest assaults.

The ministry said investigations were ongoing.

13 Sep 2019; MEMO: The US State Department has decided to sell anti-tank missile systems, worth $776 million, to Morocco.

This came in a statement published on the website of the Defence Security Cooperation Agency of the US Department of Defence yesterday.

13 Sep 2019; MEMO: A detainee being held at a police station in Giza governorate was beaten to death on Tuesday, reports Masrawy.

The Interior Ministry has denied Karim Al-Khawaja, 45, died at the hands of police and instead say he had a heart attack.

Sources told Masrawy that Al-Khawaja was serving a one-year prison sentence for drug charges but was appealing his sentence.

13 Sep 2019; MEMO: A senior Arab official has been spying for Israel, newly released secret Israeli military documents have revealed.

Yedioth Ahronoth reported that senior Israeli security and intelligence sources saying that a senior official in an Arab country has been “turned into a spy for Israel without his knowledge”.

13 Sep 2019; MEMO: Kuwait’s 90-year-old ruler has left a hospital in the United States after successfully completing medical tests, state news agency KUNA reported today.

AMMAN, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Jordan on Thursday urged the permanent members of the UN Security Council to take "immediate and effective" actions against Israeli

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pledge to annex Jordan Valley and adjacent northern Dead Sea in the occupied West Bank.

At a meeting in Amman with ambassadors of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council to Jordan, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi called on the international community to take a clear stand and denounce Netanyahu's pledge by rejecting the announcement.

ALGIERS, Sept. 12 (Xinhua) -- Algerian People's National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament, on Thursday adopted two bills on the creation of the Independent National Electoral Authority in charge of elections, the official APS news agency reported.

According to the adopted bills, the Independent National Electoral Authority is responsible for the preparation, organization, management, supervision and monitoring of elections.

12 Sep 2019; MEMO: US President Donald Trump’s sacking of his National Security Advisor John Bolton is recognition of his failures, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s Chief of Staff Mahmoud Vaezi said yesterday.

According to Quds Press, the official Iranian News Agency (IRNA) reported Vaezi saying: “The firing of Bolton after a short period shows that even the hawkish US government has come to the conclusion that the age of warmongering and intimidation is over.”

12 Sep 2019; MEMO: Just a few days after Israeli occupation forces expelled a Palestinian family from land in the southern occupied West Bank, an unauthorised settler outpost was established there, reported Haaretz.