Clashes around a prison housing ISIS terrorists in northern Syria

An armed group believed to be affiliated with the terrorist organization ISIS attacked the vicinity of Al-Sina'a prison in Al-Hasakah and detonated a car bomb, after which they clashed with prison guards from the terrorist "PKK/PYD" organization.

Explosion and clashes took place in the vicinity of "Al-Sina'a" prison, where members of the terrorist organization "ISIS" are located, in the city of Hasaka, northeastern Syria.

And local sources told Anadolu Agency that "an armed group believed to be affiliated with the terrorist organization ISIS attacked the vicinity of the prison and detonated a car bomb, and then clashed with the prison guards from the terrorist organization PKK/PYD."

The sources pointed out that the attack "coincided with a disobedience by ISIS terrorist elements inside the prison," noting that "at least 25 of them escaped during the clashes."

And she explained that "the terrorist "DP" organization sent reinforcements to the vicinity of the prison, while coalition helicopters circled over it and dropped flare bombs to chase after the escapees from the prison."

The sources pointed out that "the bombing and clashes resulted in the wounding of at least 3 members of the terrorist DP, and also led to a fire at the Sadkob gas station located near the prison."

The terrorist "DP" controls most of Al-Hasakah province, while the regime's presence is limited to a number of villages in the province's countryside and some security and military points, in addition to Qamishli Airport, where Russian forces and groups affiliated with Iran are stationed.

The Guardian: The British government’s complicity in the killing of civilians in Yemen is more dangerous than drinking parties

London - The Guardian newspaper published an opinion piece by writer Owen Jones in which he questioned the reason for the British government’s escape from complicity in the Yemen war. The writer said that there is a scandal bigger than the scandal of parties in Downing Street and in a fair world that could have topped the Prime Minister.

This week, the Saudi-led coalition carried out raids that killed a number of Yemenis , including civilians. Last month, some 32 civilians died as a result of the ongoing conflict. The country has been mired in a civil war since 2014.

The Saudi-led coalition has been bombing this poor country for seven years with bombs, many of them made in Britain. Through the military alliance with the Saudi regime, the government is directly complicit in these crimes. And perhaps you would be excused if you did not know anything about this: Yemen, as you can see, does not matter. His people have been placed at the bottom of the death pyramid, and the British media doesn't care much or try to scrutinize the slaughter in which the government is directly complicit.

Saudi raids in Yemen have increased, since October, after the Human Rights Council voted to prevent the investigation of war crimes after intense pressure from Riyadh. He added that Yemen is no longer the worst crisis in the world, not because the Yemeni tragedy has ended, but rather because the West's siege on Afghanistan has become the main preoccupation.

In September, the United Nations warned that millions of Yemenis were “a step away from starvation” at a time when “the country’s economy has reached a new level of collapse,” while aid rations for eight million starving Yemenis have been cut. But the government maintained its alliance with the Saudi regime, which pursues opponents, intimidates women, and provides, in the words of former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, “secret financial support and logistical assistance” to terrorism. This is the system of cutting a journalist to pieces in an embassy abroad and burning children who were traveling by bus in Yemen, in what amounts to a “war crime,” according to Human Rights Watch.

This does not mean that the Saudi-led forces are solely responsible for the criminal acts. The Courageous Citizenship Organization in the capital, Sanaa, scrutinizes and scrutinizes all kinds of violations committed by participants in the war, including the Houthi movement, which controls most of the country. What matters here is that "our government directly arms and supports one party, and is directly responsible for its actions."

If there had been no such action as the stubborn and meticulous effort of the British campaign, the Campaign Against the Arms Trade , no one would practically examine the role of the British government. Based on campaign research, BEE Systems has sold $17.6 billion in weapons and military services to Saudi Arabia, and since 2015. It has 6,700 personnel working in Saudi Arabia.

As a result of the campaign’s efforts in 2019, the Court of Appeal issued a decision confirming that the government’s continued granting of licenses to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia was illegal. But the government resumed sales after finding that there had been “isolated incidents” of violations of international humanitarian law.

And the battle of the campaign against the arms trade continues, as director of research Sam Pirlo-Freeman said, “There are no efforts to ease the blockade,” and “the Saudis maintain it without suffering from repercussions or diplomatic efforts... and the attention given by world powers to end the war or at least the humanitarian crisis.” In Yemen, it is unfortunately unsuitable or non-existent.”

While it continues to support the Saudi war effort, the government has cut its humanitarian support to Yemen in half in 2021, at a time when the World Food Program has warned that it cannot feed Yemenis due to lack of funding. The campaign against the arms trade and human rights organizations must not bear the brunt alone. The lives of Yemenis are also important, despite the silence that indicates otherwise. The government must be held accountable for its complicity in this horror. “Yes we should feel anger over our rulers' parties and drinking at a time when ordinary citizens were not able to touch the hands of their dying relatives. But the complicity of our government in the massacres of civilians by a hateful dictatorship is the most heinous crime. It was our failure to speak that allowed the killing to continue.”

Recruitment of women in the army a religious and social controversy escalates in the Gulf countries

In light of the rising voices demanding, from various currents and active components in society, the enactment of legislation that helps to enhance the status of women and their participation on an equal basis with men, in various institutions and fields, some Gulf governments have approved a set of laws and decisions, pledging to achieve this, within the framework of what She called it reform policies and development trends.

The decision to open the door for women to enlist in the army and the various security agencies, some of which were announced, was one of these new laws, which met with objection and criticism, based on several justifications, some of which are social and the other religious.

Despite the controversy raised by these decisions, a number of Gulf governments have decided to actually go ahead with this, and have ignored the various criticisms.

The Gulf allows the recruitment of women

Allowing women to join the military or security services is not a general trend in Gulf countries. Some of them authorized voluntary conscription for women and then approved its compulsion, and some of them specified the positions and jobs that women could occupy in this sector, while others are still reluctant to take this step, which is fraught with criticism and pressures from various currents and parties.

The United Arab Emirates is among the pioneering Gulf countries in this direction. As it used to allow voluntary conscription of women into the army, and since 1990, Emirati women can assume any leadership position in the army.

By 2014, the UAE had introduced compulsory conscription for males and females between the ages of 18 and 30, and females were required to obtain approval and permission from their guardians. They are then subjected to training in separate camps for males and under the supervision of an all-female staff. At that time, the UAE employed many propaganda methods to encourage women to enlist, and indeed many of them responded.

In the same year 2014, Bahrain also allowed its women to enter various military sectors, participate in various trainings, and attain the highest military ranks.

In April 2018, the Qatari authorities issued a law allowing women, for the first time in the country's history, to voluntarily enroll in military service.

The surprise in 2019, in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which, while it was known for its strict laws on women and restricts them from going to work, today opens the door to conscription in the army by choice, within the framework of what it called a reform policy aimed at strengthening the status and role of women in Saudi society.

At the time, the Saudi Ministry of Defense set a set of conditions that female candidates must first meet before submitting an application to join. The ministry explained that, under the new law, Saudi women can join the land, sea and air forces, and allowed them to apply for higher military ranks.

As for Kuwait, after it had allowed women to join the police force since 2007, it recently approved, last October, allowing women to join the military forces.

After that, the General Staff opened the registration door for women wishing to join the army as non-commissioned officers and individuals, on December 19, and registration closed after that on January 2.

Wide criticism

Reactions to the decisions to allow women to be recruited in military institutions varied between cheering and welcoming the decision as "empowering" Gulf women and promoting their effective participation on equal terms with men, and rejecting and criticizing the decision based on several justifications.

The Kuwaiti Ministry of Defense recently suspended the implementation of the decision, pending a fatwa on whether or not women are allowed to enter the army from a legal point of view. Whereas, the Minister of Defense, in light of the wide campaign of criticism and parliamentary accountability he was subjected to, met with a group of clerics, to consult them on the matter. The consultations concluded with a ministerial order awaiting the final word from the Fatwa Authority.

While activists and parliamentarians criticized the decision as a threat to Kuwaiti women, according to their opinion, women are often subjected to sexual assault and harassment in these spaces, and therefore the rejection of the decision is imperative to protect women.

The minister replied that he "did not bring anything new", as women joining the army "will be limited to working in the medical and support services, which are the specializations in which women are currently working in the Ministry of Defense", and the minister emphasized that he "never said that women will bear arms."

The minister pointed out that: "34 Islamic countries allowed women to join military service, including countries in which women worked in field work, including the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, and we limited their work to specific areas," citing Saudi Arabia's allowing women to work in military service as evidence that this matter does not conflict with Religious controls.

The discussion of this file in terms of moral and religious controls was not limited only to Kuwait, as the same controversy was raised before in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Countries.

Some of the other opinions rejecting the decision argued that women's "weak physical structure" prevents them from performing many jobs within the military institutions.

Despite the intensification of controversy over this, governments seem determined to implement the decision and take it further, as it will, according to experts and analysts, send “positive” messages abroad about the development of the role of Gulf women in their societies.