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World 28 FRIDAY, JUNE 12, 2020
MOSUL, IRAQ (AP) — The Islamic State (IS) group
will never again overrun Iraqi territory, Iraq’s Prime
Minister vowed on Wednesday in an of€icial visit to
northern Iraq.
The visit by Mustafa al-Kadhimi came amid a
recent increase in militant attacks and the with-
drawal of United States (US)-led coalition forces in a
planned drawdown.
In Baghdad, a rocket struck a few hundred me-
tres from the US Embassy inside the capital’s forti-
€ied Green Zone, according to a military statement,
hours before the US and Iraq are to hold highly an-
ticipated talks focussing on the presence of Ameri-
can troops in Iraq. No casualties were reported.
One month into of€ice, al-Kadhimi visited the
gamut of lives touched by IS rule — from tribal lead-
ers to the internally displaced — to mark the sixth
anniversary of the group’s onslaught against Iraq. IS
controlled a third of the country at the height of its
power in 2014.
Al-Kadhimi was accompanied by the ministers
of housing, migration and displacement, commerce
and culture, as well as military of€icials.
“Our visit to Mosul is to send a message to IS: What
happened will not be repeated,” he told reporters.
Al-Kadhimi inspected the iconic al-Nuri Mosque,
from where IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi €irst an-
nounced the IS caliphate. He was also present to re-
open the city’s Al-Hurriya Bridge and a museum.
A military campaign dislodged IS’s territorial hold
in Iraq by 2017, but reconstruction efforts have been
slow and often upended by local political dynamics.
Al-Kadhimi was inaugurated as premier last
month amid a severe economic crisis brought on by
low oil prices. Recently, his administration has been
dealing with a €lare-up in coronavirus cases.
HARARE, ZIMBABWE (AP) — Zimbabwe police on
Wednesday arrested three opposition activists on
accusations that they lied in saying that they had
been abducted and tortured, their lawyers said.
The arrests came as a group of United Nations
(UN) experts spoke against a “reported pattern of
disappearances and torture” by government agents
in the country.
The three opposition women alleged that they
were tortured and sexually abused by their abduc-
tors, whom they said took them from a police station
in May, after they had been arrested for organising
an anti-government protest. Their abductors were
unidenti€ied, but because they took the women
from police custody, it appears they were some kind
of state agents.
The young women were missing for near-
ly 48 hours before being released by their ab-
ductors. While they were being treated in a
hospital for injuries in€licted during their cap-
tivity, prosecutors charged them with contra-
vening lockdown regulations for participating in
the protest.
On Wednesday, police re-arrested the women at
Harare Central Police Station where they had gone
to surrender their passports as part of their bail con-
ditions in the case linked to the protest march, said
Kumbirai Mafunda, spokesman for Zimbabwe Law-
yers for Human Rights, which is providing lawyers
for the trio.
The arrests came as a group of UN human rights
experts said the Zimbabwe government should “im-
mediately end” the practice of disappearances and
torture “that appear aimed at suppressing protests
and dissent”. The UN experts also said the govern-
ment should “ensure the effective protection of
women from sexual violence, and to bring those re-
sponsible to account”.
ISTANBUL (AFP) - A local United States (US) consulate
employee was sentenced to nearly nine years in prison
in Turkey yesterday for “aiding an armed terror group”
that Ankara blames for a failed 2016 coup.
Metin Topuz, who worked as a liaison of€icer for
the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Is-
tanbul, was arrested in 2017 and was jailed for eight
years and nine months, the of€icial Anadolu news
agency reported.
He was accused of making contact with police
and a prosecutor suspected of ties to US-based Mus-
lim preacher Fethullah Gulen, who Ankara said mas-
terminded the attempted coup in 2016. Gulen rejects
the accusations.
In court, Topuz - a Turkish citizen - denied all the
allegations, the private DHA news agency reported.
In previous hearings, Topuz told the judge that all
his contacts with senior police of€icials or prosecu-
tors were entirely “part of my work as a translator and
assistant liaison of€icer at the DEA”.
Iraq PM vows IS will never
again overrun territory
The streets of Mosul were empty and shops shut-
tered due to a curfew aimed at curbing the spread of
the virus.
The World Bank recently offered to restructure
loans earmarked for reconstruction to help the
country combat the viral pandemic.
A study released on Wednesday by the Harvard
Humanitarian Initiative found that the two most
pressing concerns of Mosul residents were employ-
ment and the need to improve security. IS is still ca-
pable of launching attacks across a band of territory
across northern Iraq.
A recent increase in attacks coincided with the
withdrawal of coalition forces in a planned draw-
down to consolidate troop presence in Baghdad and
Ain al-Asad airbase in Anbar province.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kahdimi arrives in
Mosul, Iraq on Wednesday. PHOTO: AP
Zimbabwe re-arrests three women who
charge torture, sexual abuse
Turkey jails US consul staffer for aiding ‘terror group’