BAGHDAD: Iraq’s interior ministry said Sunday an Daesh group member had been arrested in a Baghdad hotel, accusing him of carrying out intelligence-gathering missions for the terrorist organization.
The man, whose name was not given, was detained by “intelligence units charged with the security of tourist infrastructure,” a ministry press release said.
It said he was accused of supplying the terrorists with “personal information about members of the security forces in Nineveh province” in northern Iraq.
The man had confessed to being an Daesh member, it added.

GAZA: Gaza’s students began their new school term on Sunday, but it is unclear if they will be able to complete the year uninterrupted due to a funding crisis at the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East or UNRWA runs 288 schools in the Palestinian territory, among 700 across parts of the Middle East region that it funds alongside 140 medical clinics.

But it is short of nearly $200 million needed to pay for staff salaries and keep the services running until the end of 2023.

BEIRUT: Insurgents in northwest Syria attacked an army position Saturday killing and wounding more than 30 troops, opposition activists said.
The attack came days after Russian and Syrian warplanes carried out several airstrikes on the last major rebel stronghold in the northwestern province of Idlib and parts of Aleppo killing several insurgents.

MOSCOW: Russia’s military cooperation with Iran will not succumb to geopolitical pressure, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said, following a report that Washington has asked Tehran to stop selling drones to Moscow.
“There are no changes, and cooperation with Iran will continue,” Ryabkov said, according to a report on Saturday from Russian state news agency RIA.
“We are independent states and do not succumb to the dictates of the US and its satellites.”

MARSEILLE, France: Rescue ship Ocean Viking has saved 438 migrants in distress in the Mediterranean over the last two days, the organization that runs it, SOS Mediterranee, said on Friday.
The rescues took place in international waters off the coasts of Libya and Tunisia, the France-based NGO said.
Earlier in the day, the NGO said that on Thursday it had “rescued 272 people” of 23 different nationalities from three boats in the central Mediterranean, the most perilous maritime crossing in the world for the migrants.