BEIRUT: Lebanon’s General Directorate of Internal Security Forces announced on Monday that they had arrested two Syrian nationals, aged 48 and 52, on suspicion of people smuggling.

The suspects had been accused of smuggling people of various nationalities from Libya to Europe via boats. Their names were not disclosed.

The suspects were operating in coordination with people of Lebanese nationality in the Wadi Khaled region in northern Lebanon, on the border with Syria.

CAIRO: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi confirmed on Monday that he will stand for a third term in office in a presidential election scheduled for December.
El-Sisi, a former army chief who has been president since 2014, had been widely expected to run again and secure a third term after constitutional amendments four years ago that would allow him to stay in office until 2030.
In recent weeks supporters have mounted a campaign using billboards and public messages urging El-Sisi to stand.

ANKARA, Turkiye: Turkish warplanes carried out airstrikes on suspected Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq on Sunday following a suicide attack on a government building in the Turkish capital, Turkiye’s defense ministry announced.
Some 20 targets of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, were “destroyed” in the latest aerial operation, including caves, shelters and depots, the ministry said, adding that a large number of PKK operatives were “neutralized” in the strikes.

BAGHDAD: A fire that swept through a crowded wedding hall in a northern Iraqi town killing more than 100 people was blamed on “gross negligence” and lack of safety measures, the results of a government investigation into the disaster said.
The investigation results, announced at a news conference on Sunday by interior minister Abdul Amir Al-Shammari, said the owner of the hall and three other staff members had allowed 900 people into the venue when it was designed for a maximum of 400.

CAIRO: Egypt has spent millions of dollars on new urban communities over the past nine years, its housing minister said on Sunday.

Speaking at the “Story of a Homeland” conference in the New Administrative Capital, Housing and Urban Communities Minister Assem El-Gazzar said: “In the past nine years we have built 1.5 million housing units.

“We have worked to eliminate 357 unsafe areas by building more than 300,000 housing units at a construction cost exceeding 300 billion (Egyptian) pounds.”