Middle East & North Africa

ADEN, Sept 7 (NNN-SABA) – The Saudi-led coalition intervened, in the imminent round of military conflict, as tension between local Yemeni rivals continued rising, over the control of the country’s oil-rich province of Shabwa, some government officials said yesterday.

Tension escalated between forces loyal to the Southern Transitional Council (STC) and other Yemeni military units, over the control of the country’s strategic seaport of Balhaf, a liquefied natural gas plant on the Gulf of Aden, an official said on condition of anonymity.

DOHA, Sept 8 (NNN-QNA) – The United States and Qatar, yesterday urged the Afghan Taliban, to live up to its commitment to facilitate the evacuations from Afghanistan.

The appeal came at a joint press conference, by U.S. Secretary of State, Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, with Qatari Foreign Minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani and Minister of State for Defence Affairs, Khalid Al-Attiyah.

SANAA, Sept 8 (NNN-YPA) – Altogether 33 bodies of Yemen’s Houthi rebel fighters were pulled from a frontline, in the country’s Marib province yesterday, according to a medic from neighbouring province of al-Bayda.

“The bodies were pulled from Marib’s south-western district of Rahabah and brought to a health facility in al-Bayda’s district of Rada’a,” the medic said, on condition of anonymity.

“They would be sent to their villages in the northern provinces of Amran, Saada and Hajjah for burial,” he said.

BAGHDAD, Sept 8 (NNN-NINA) – Iraqi security forces, yesterday, killed four militants of the extremist Daesh group in an operation in Iraq’s northern province of Kirkuk an official said.

A joint force from the Iraqi army and Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), killed the militants near the town of Altun Kupri, some 40 km north of the namesake provincial capital, Kirkuk, said Ali al-Fraiji, commander of Kirkuk Operations Command, in a statement.

07 Sep 2021; MEMO: The ambassadors of the Group of Seven (the G7) countries yesterday called on Tunisian President Kais Saied to "appoint a new prime minister as soon as possible, and return to the constitutional path in which Parliament has a prominent role".

This came in a statement signed by the ambassadors of the United States, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, Italy, and Canada, and which was published on the official page of the British Embassy in Tunisia.

08 Sep 2021; MEMO: Islamic Jihad in Palestine warned Israel yesterday not to harm the six Palestinian escapees or those prisoners still held in its jails, local media have reported.

"Harming the prisoners is a red line, and the occupation must consider carefully what we say and understand that we are ready and able to protect our prisoners by all means," a spokesman for the group's military wing, Al-Quds Brigades, told journalists in Jenin.

08 Sep 2021; MEMO: Turkey can give the mission of protecting Afghanistan's Kabul Hamid Karzai International Airport to a private security company, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said yesterday.

Speaking to Turkish broadcaster NTV, Cavusoglu said the Taliban or Afghan forces can ensure security outside the airport and the international community needs a structure it can trust for the airport to operate.

08 Sep 2021; MEMO: The Secretary-General of Morocco's largest opposition party said on Tuesday that he expects it to win the parliamentary and municipal elections being held today, Anadolu has reported. Abdellatif Wahbi of the Authenticity and Modernity Party (PAM) made his comment during a visit to the city of Asilah in the north of Morocco.

08 Sep 2021; MEMO: For the third day running, Israeli security and intelligence services are continuing their massive manhunt for the six Palestinian prisoners who escaped from the high-security Gilboa Prison overnight on Sunday. Thus far, their efforts have been unsuccessful.

An Israel Prison Service official described the escape of the six Palestinian prisoners as a "major security and intelligence failure." Palestinian resistance groups hailed it as "heroic act."

06 Sep 2021; MEMO: The Houthi-led Yemeni government's Ambassador to Tehran, Ibrahim Mohamed Al-Dailami, has confirmed previously made claims about Israel's alleged presence on Yemeni territory, specifically on its strategically located islands.

In an interview published yesterday with Tehran Times, Dailami said there is an Israeli presence on Hanish Island, Mayun Island, and Socotra Island in the Arabian Sea.