BEIRUT: Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group has handed over a man suspected of killing an Irish United Nations peacekeeper earlier this month, a security official told AFP on Sunday.
Private Sean Rooney, 23, was killed and three others injured on December 14 when their UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) vehicle was attacked near the village of Al-Aqbiya in the country’s south, a stronghold of the Iran-backed group.
UNIFIL acts as a buffer between Lebanon and Israel and operates near the border.

TUNIS: A Tunisian rights group has condemned a “repressive and inhumane” government decision to deport a group of migrants who had been evacuated from a defunct refugee camp.

The 25 men from Egypt, Niger, Nigeria and Sudan had sought asylum in Tunisia after fleeing violence in Libya in 2011, but their requests were denied, said Romdhane Ben Amor of the Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights.

He said their repatriation would “put their lives at risk.”

CAIRO: Egyptian customs officers have foiled attempts to smuggle bladed weapons, narcotics and foreign currency though Cairo International Airport.

Cairo International Airport customs authorities detained two passengers in possession of undisclosed foreign currency, drugs and bladed weapons.

Officials said that a suspected smuggler was arrested recently while trying to exit via the Green Line gate.

When his bags were passed through an X-ray machine, authorities discovered bladed weapons hidden among clothing.

AL-MUKALLA: Yemeni social media activists in Houthi-controlled Sanaa said that the Iran-backed militia has kidnapped a prominent YouTuber off a Sanaa street days after he sharply attacked them on social media.

Ahmed Hajar, a well-known Yemeni comedian, actor and YouTuber was strolling last week along Al-Zubairi street in Sanaa when he was kidnapped by armed men in civilian clothing driving a bus and taken to an unknown destination.

The news of his disappearance spread over the weekend after his relatives reported him missing.

RAMALLAH: In a surprise move, Israel has offered Palestinian inmates with Jordanian citizenship the option of being transferred to prisons in Jordan to continue serving out their sentences there.

The National Committee for Jordanian Prisoners and Missing Persons in Israeli Detention Centers has revealed an agreement presented by the Israeli Prisons Administration to Palestinian prisoners of Jordanian nationality.

Four out of 18 Jordanian prisoners have so far accepted the offer of the prison administration, most of whom had been served with long sentences.