PARIS: The Kurds are a non-Arab ethnic group of between 25 and 35 million people whose dreams of an independent homeland were brutally quashed throughout the 20th century.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has blamed Kurdish militants for a deadly bombing in Istanbul earlier this month, an accusation they have strongly rejected.

In retaliation, Turkiye has hit nearly 500 Kurdish targets across Iraq and Syria as part of a campaign of air strikes in recent days, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said Wednesday.

CHIBAYISH, Iraq: Abbas Hashem fixed his worried gaze on the horizon — the day was almost gone and still, there was no sign of the last of his water buffaloes. He knows that when his animals don’t come back from roaming the marshes of this part of Iraq, they must be dead.

The dry earth is cracked beneath his feet and thick layers of salt coat shriveled reeds in the Chibayish wetlands amid this year’s dire shortages in freshwater flows from the Tigris River.

LONDON: On Sept. 13, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, was arrested in Tehran for violating the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women. In the custody of the Gasht-e Ershad — the “Guidance Patrol,” or morality police — she suffered a catastrophic head injury and, after three days in a coma, died in hospital.

BEIRUT: Two attempted bank holdups and a sit-in protest on Wednesday highlighted the growing desperation of Lebanese people grappling with the country’s worsening economic crisis.
Bank raids by depositors demanding their money have been relatively infrequent during the past two months, but a string of incidents in recent days has again raised fears of growing unrest.

NEW YORK: The UN special envoy for Yemen on Tuesday told Arab News that any attempt to settle the country’s conflict through violence is “unhelpful,” and that a long-term settlement can only be achieved through direct negotiations.

Hans Grundberg was commenting on the Houthi militia’s several drone attacks in the past two months that targeted Yemeni government ports, including one that hit a Greek oil tanker near Al-Dubba oil terminal in Hadramawt governorate.