Supporters of Jabhat Al Nusra - Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate - hold placards denouncing President Bashar Al Assad and Arab states that have joined anti-ISIL campaign, as they demonstrate in the northern city of Alepppo on September 24, 2014. Zein Al Rifai/AFP Photo
Supporters of Jabhat Al Nusra - Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate - hold placards denouncing President Bashar Al Assad and Arab states that have joined anti-ISIL campaign, as they demonstrate in the northernShow more

Al Nusra threatens retaliation against anti-ISIL coalition



DAMASCUS // Jabhat Al Nusra, Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, has threatened reprisals against nations participating in airstrikes against ISIL.

Group spokesman Abu Firas Al Suri said in a video posted online on Saturday the states involved had “committed a horrible act that is going to put them on the list of jihadist targets throughout the world”.

The warning came as the US-led coalition widened its airstrikes against ISIL in Syria, as British warplanes flew their first combat missions against the militants over Iraq.

Washington has been supported in its Syria campaign by Arab allies the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Jordan and Qatar.

Seven targets were hit in Syria, the Pentagon said, including at the border crossing into Turkey of the besieged Kurdish town of Ain Al Arab, also known as Kobani.

Muhsin Al Fadhli, a long-standing Al Qaeda operative and alleged leader of Khorasan, was killed in the strikes, according to a militant who fought with the group.

The SITE monitoring group said a series of tweets from the extremist, identified as a member of Al Qaeda, expressed condolences for the deaths of Fadhli and another Khorasan leader, Abu Yusuf Al Turki.

The United States and its coalition partners aim to destroy ISIL, which controls a swathe of territory in Iraq and Syria and is locked in a brutal war with Iraqi and Kurdish authorities.

The recent fighting between ISIL and Kurdish forces near Kobani has driven more than 160,000 refugees alone into Turkey.

Royal Air Force Tornado GR4 jets took off from Britain’s RAF Akrotiri on Cyprus for Iraq but returned to base without dropping their laser-guided bombs.

“On this occasion no targets were identified as requiring immediate air attack by our aircraft,” said a defence ministry spokesman in London.

Belgium and Denmark have also approved plans to join France and the Netherlands in targeting ISIL in Iraq, allowing Washington to focus on the more complex operation against its Syria base.

Washington warned that the militants could not be defeated in Syria by air power alone, saying that up to 15,000 “moderate” rebels would need to be trained.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkey could take a military role in the coalition.

He said the government would go to parliament with a motion on October 2, after which “all the necessary steps” would be taken.

Ankara had previously insisted its hands were tied over dozens of Turkish hostages abducted by ISIL in Iraq, but the hostages have since been released.

Hundreds of Syrian Kurdish refugees, clutching their belongings, crossed the border Saturday to safety.

Turkey’s NTV television reported that shells fired from Syria hit Suruc, about 10 kilometres north of the border, wounding two women.

Senior Syrian Kurdish official Newaf Khalil said that airstrikes hit the ISIL-held town of Ali Shar east of Kobani, destroying several ISIL tanks.

Coalition aircraft also pounded the city of Raqqa, an ISIL stronghold.

“At least 31 explosions were heard in Raqqa city and its surroundings,” said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Washington has been careful not to let Syrian president Bashar Al Assad exploit the anti-ISIL campaign to make gains in the more than three-year-old civil war.

The US and Arab allies began airstrikes against ISIL in Syria on Tuesday, more than a month after Washington launched its air campaign against the militants in Iraq.

Washington had been reluctant to intervene in Syria, but acted after the militants captured more territory and committed widespread atrocities, including beheading three Western hostages.

A US defence official said on Friday the Syrian mission is now similar to Iraq’s, with “near continuous” sorties.

Washington also plans to train and arm 5,000 Syrian rebels, although top US military officer General Martin Dempsey said 12,000 to 15,000 men would be required to recapture “lost territory” in Syria.

Gen Dempsey said defeating ISIL would take more than airstrikes and that “a ground component” was an important aspect of the campaign.

At the UN General Assembly, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov accused Washington of declaring its "right to unilateral use of force anywhere to uphold its own interests" in a veiled reference to the Syrian campaign.

European governments have so far ruled out strikes in Syria, although Britain “reserved the right” to intervene there if there was an imminent “humanitarian catastrophe”.

Iran’s ground forces commander General Ahmad Reza Pourdestanahas warned that it too would attack ISIL in Iraq if it approached the border, state media reported.

* Agence France-Presse

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
The specs

Engine: 1.5-litre turbo

Power: 181hp

Torque: 230Nm

Transmission: 6-speed automatic

Starting price: Dh79,000

On sale: Now

EMERGENCY PHONE NUMBERS

Estijaba – 8001717 –  number to call to request coronavirus testing

Ministry of Health and Prevention – 80011111

Dubai Health Authority – 800342 – The number to book a free video or voice consultation with a doctor or connect to a local health centre

Emirates airline – 600555555

Etihad Airways – 600555666

Ambulance – 998

Knowledge and Human Development Authority – 8005432 ext. 4 for Covid-19 queries

Squads

Sri Lanka Tharanga (c), Mathews, Dickwella (wk), Gunathilaka, Mendis, Kapugedera, Siriwardana, Pushpakumara, Dananjaya, Sandakan, Perera, Hasaranga, Malinga, Chameera, Fernando.

India Kohli (c), Dhawan, Rohit, Rahul, Pandey, Rahane, Jadhav, Dhoni (wk), Pandya, Axar, Kuldeep, Chahal, Bumrah, Bhuvneshwar, Thakur.

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

Electoral College Victory

Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate. 

 

Popular Vote Tally

The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.

Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENamara%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EJune%202022%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMohammed%20Alnamara%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMicrofinance%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E16%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeries%20A%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFamily%20offices%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Biography

Favourite drink: Must have karak chai and Chinese tea every day

Favourite non-Chinese food: Arabic sweets and Indian puri, small round bread of wheat flour

Favourite Chinese dish: Spicy boiled fish or anything cooked by her mother because of its flavour

Best vacation: Returning home to China

Music interests: Enjoys playing the zheng, a string musical instrument

Enjoys reading: Chinese novels, romantic comedies, reading up on business trends, government policy changes

Favourite book: Chairman Mao Zedong’s poems

Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Hoopla%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EDate%20started%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMarch%202023%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Jacqueline%20Perrottet%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2010%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EPre-seed%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20required%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%24500%2C000%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Gertrude Bell's life in focus

A feature film

At one point, two feature films were in the works, but only German director Werner Herzog’s project starring Nicole Kidman would be made. While there were high hopes he would do a worthy job of directing the biopic, when Queen of the Desert arrived in 2015 it was a disappointment. Critics panned the film, in which Herzog largely glossed over Bell’s political work in favour of her ill-fated romances.

A documentary

A project that did do justice to Bell arrived the next year: Sabine Krayenbuhl and Zeva Oelbaum’s Letters from Baghdad: The Extraordinary Life and Times of Gertrude Bell. Drawing on more than 1,000 pieces of archival footage, 1,700 documents and 1,600 letters, the filmmakers painstakingly pieced together a compelling narrative that managed to convey both the depth of Bell’s experience and her tortured love life.

Books, letters and archives

Two biographies have been written about Bell, and both are worth reading: Georgina Howell’s 2006 book Queen of the Desert and Janet Wallach’s 1996 effort Desert Queen. Bell published several books documenting her travels and there are also several volumes of her letters, although they are hard to find in print. Original documents are housed at the Gertrude Bell Archive at the University of Newcastle, which has an online catalogue.
 

Company%20profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Fasset%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2019%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Mohammad%20Raafi%20Hossain%2C%20Daniel%20Ahmed%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFinTech%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInitial%20investment%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%242.45%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2086%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Pre-series%20B%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Investcorp%2C%20Liberty%20City%20Ventures%2C%20Fatima%20Gobi%20Ventures%2C%20Primal%20Capital%2C%20Wealthwell%20Ventures%2C%20FHS%20Capital%2C%20VN2%20Capital%2C%20local%20family%20offices%3C%2Fp%3E%0A