ANKARA: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan says his government’s plan for a new military offensive in northern Syria will be on the table as long as Kurdish militants continue to pose a security threat to his country.

Erdogan also called on the US to pull troops from east of the Euphrates River, accusing the NATO ally, once again, of training and helping Syrian Kurdish militia that Ankara considers to be terrorists.

BAGHDAD: In the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, surrounded by buildings that were reduced to rubble years ago, the ruins of the Al-Nuri Mosque are starting to come to life again. The iconic structure — and many like it in Mosul’s famed Old City — was damaged by Daesh during the battle that raged here in December 2017.

The “Revive the Spirit of Mosul” project, a UNESCO-led project to rebuild the city’s damaged heritage sites, is bringing hope to Iraqis and foreigners alike that the city’s rich past will once again have the chance to shine.

LONDON: The Iran-backed Houthi militia in Yemen have unjustly sieged Khubzah village in Al-Bayda province, south of Sanaa, and are indiscriminately bombing citizens with tanks and artillery, the country’s information minister said on Wednesday.
Moammer Al-Eryani described their actions as “a fully-fledged war crime” and that they were injuring women and children in those areas and destroying several houses.

BEIRUT: A senior Lebanese Maronite cleric’s detention and military court summons following a visit to his parish in Israel sparked indignation among Christian leaders on Wednesday.

Bishop Musa Al-Hajj, archbishop of Haifa and the holy land, was detained for 11 hours and faced an eight-hour interrogation after returning to Lebanon. His passport was seized and a travel ban imposed by military court judge Fadi Akiki.

Al-Hajj was accused of bringing large sums of money in US dollars into Lebanon.

TUNIS: Tunisia’s Islamist movement leader Rached Ghannouchi was allowed to return home after a court hearing on Tuesday in a money laundering investigation that his Ennahda party rejects as a political ploy.
The preliminary hearing before an investigative judge lasted nearly 10 hours and followed warnings from activists that the authorities were contemplating arresting the 81-year-old Ghannouchi to hold in pre-trial detention.
However, a lawyer for Ghannouchi and an Ennahda party official said the judge had released him pending further investigation.