US-backed forces open major new front against ISIL in north Syria

BEIRUT // Thousands of US-backed Kurdish and Arab fighters have opened a major new front in Syria’s war, launching an offensive to drive ISIL out of a swathe of northern Syria it uses as a logistics base.

The operation, which began on Tuesday after weeks of quiet preparations, aims to choke off the group’s access to Syrian land along the Turkish border that the militants have long used to move foreign fighters back and forth to Europe.

On Wednesday the fighters were reported to be making swift progress.

“It’s significant in that it’s [ISIL’s] last remaining funnel” to Europe, said a US military official.

Driving ISIL from its last remaining foothold at the Turkish border has been a top priority of the US-led coalition against the group. The group controls around 80 kilometres of the frontier stretching west from Jarablus.

A small number of US special operations forces will support the push on the ground to capture the “Manbij pocket” of territory, acting as advisers and staying back from the front lines, the official said.

“They’ll be as close as they need to be for the [Syrian fighters] to complete the operation. But they will not engage in direct combat,” the source added.

The operation is also counting on air power from the US-led coalition, which said it carried out 18 strikes near Manbij on Wednesday.

An opposition monitoring group said at least 42 civilians – including five children – were killed on Wednesday in regime, Russian and US-led coalition air strikes on northern Syria.

That toll included six civilians killed in coalition air strikes on Manbij, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. It added that a further 10 civilians were killed by coalition raids on the ISIL stronghold of Raqqa city.

The Observatory said regime air strikes also killed 15 civilians in Idlib province, while Russian and regime air strikes killed at least 11 civilians in neighbouring Aleppo province,

Elsewhere, a humanitarian aid convoy entered the rebel-held town of Daraya on Wednesday, the Red Cross said, in the first such delivery since a regime siege began in 2012.

But the opposition said only medical supplies were in the delivery and British charity Save the Children said it was “shocking and completely unacceptable” that desperately needed food had been excluded.

Earlier on Wednesday, Russia announced that a local truce would be observed for 48 hours in Daraya, which lies south-west of Damascus, to ensure that aid could be delivered safely.

Temporary freezes on fighting have been introduced in Daraya and elsewhere as a way to reinforce a broader ceasefire brokered by Russia and the United States for swathes of Syrian territory.

Last month the United Nations warned that if it did not see improvement on aid access to besieged areas of Syria by June 1, it would task the World Food Programme to carry out air drops of assistance.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said both United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent staff were involved in Wednesday’s delivery.

Daraya, which has an estimated population of 8,000, was one of the first towns in Syria to erupt in demonstrations against the government in 2012, and one of the first to be placed under a strict regime siege in late 2012.

* Reuters, Agence France-Presse

Terror attacks in Paris, November 13, 2015

- At 9.16pm, three suicide attackers killed one person outside the Atade de France during a foootball match between France and Germany- At 9.25pm, three attackers opened fire on restaurants and cafes over 20 minutes, killing 39 people- Shortly after 9.40pm, three other attackers launched a three-hour raid on the Bataclan, in which 1,500 people had gathered to watch a rock concert. In total, 90 people were killed- Salah Abdeslam, the only survivor of the terrorists, did not directly participate in the attacks, thought to be due to a technical glitch in his suicide vest- He fled to Belgium and was involved in attacks on Brussels in March 2016. He is serving a life sentence in France

THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick

Hometown: Cologne, Germany

Family: Wife Hanan Ahmed and their three children, Marrah (23), Tibijan (19), Amon (13)

Favourite dessert: Umm Ali with dark camel milk chocolate flakes

Favourite hobby: Football

Breakfast routine: a tall glass of camel milk

How the bonus system works

The two riders are among several riders in the UAE to receive the top payment of £10,000 under the Thank You Fund of £16 million (Dh80m), which was announced in conjunction with Deliveroo's £8 billion (Dh40bn) stock market listing earlier this year.

The £10,000 (Dh50,000) payment is made to those riders who have completed the highest number of orders in each market.

There are also riders who will receive payments of £1,000 (Dh5,000) and £500 (Dh2,500).

All riders who have worked with Deliveroo for at least one year and completed 2,000 orders will receive £200 (Dh1,000), the company said when it announced the scheme.

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets

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%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EQureos%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EUAE%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ELaunch%20year%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2021%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E33%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESoftware%20and%20technology%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E%243%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

India squad

Virat Kohli (captain), Rohit Sharma, Mayank Agarwal, K.L. Rahul, Shreyas Iyer, Manish Pandey, Rishabh Pant, Shivam Dube, Kedar Jadhav, Ravindra Jadeja, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Deepak Chahar, Mohammed Shami, Shardul Thakur.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”