Human Rights

WASHINGTON, Sept 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — US President Donald Trump said he wanted to assassinate Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad in 2017, but that his then-secretary of defense Jim Mattis opposed the operation.

“I would have rather taken him out. I had him all set,” Trump told the morning show Fox & Friends.

“Mattis didn’t want to do it. Mattis was a highly overrated general, and I let him go.”

16 Sep 2020; MEMO: The Palestinian Islamic Resistance Movement Hamas said yesterday that Israel is exploiting normalisation with Arab countries to escalate violations against Al-Aqsa Mosque and demolish more Palestinian homes in Jerusalem.

“Storming Al-Aqsa Mosque by dozens of Israeli settlers early this morning and the plans of some extremist Jewish groups to carry out mass raids in the Muslim compound on Thursday are the outcomes of normalisation deals with the Israeli occupation,” Hamas said.

Thiruvananthapuram, Sep 15 (PTI) Continuing to defend his cabinet colleague, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Tuesday said Minister K T Jaleel, who had appeared before the Enforcement Directorate in an alleged FCRA violation case, had committed no wrong and the Congress, the Muslim League and BJP were targeting him due to his "political stand."

Bhadohi (UP), Sep 15 (PTI) A woman and her three-year-old daughter died here in a suspected case of dowry death, police said on Tuesday.

Four people, including the woman's husband Vinod Chauhan, have been arrested in this connection, they said.

According to police, Sulekha (26) and her daughter Sonali were found dead in a pond on Monday night. The bodies were fished out by the villagers.

Ballia (UP) Sept 15 (PTI) A 17-year-old girl was allegedly abducted, beaten up and raped by two youths in a village under Phephna police station area here in the district, police said on Tuesday.

An FIR was lodged in the case on the victim's mother complaint and two people were arrested on Tuesday, said SHO Rajiv Mishra of Phephna.

The incident took place on September 9 but came to light on Monday when Lucknow Deputy Inspector General of Police Amitabh Thakur took note of a Facebook post of a social activist, Rajat Singh, on the gangrape, said police.

Delhi, Sep 15, 2020: As many as 138 Kashmiris and separatists have been killed by Indian security forces between March and August this year in the Indian Administered Kashmir, the Indian Minister of State for Home G Kishan Reddy  informed Parliament on Tuesday.

50 Indian security force personnel too lost their lives during this period.

15 Sep 2020; MEMO: Hamas refused US presidential adviser Jared Kushner’s proposal that the movement hold talks with the American administration, the group’s chief, Ismail Haniyeh, told Al Jazeera in an interview.

15 Sep 2020; MEMO: Ten pro-Iran militants, most of them Iraqi, were killed in Israeli air strikes on eastern Syria yesterday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.

The rights group said the strikes had taken place south of the the town of Boukamal near the Iraqi border, adding that the raids were the “third in a month in eastern Syria’s Deir El-Zour city.”

15 Sep 2020; MEMO: An Israeli occupation court yesterday ordered that Al-Qa’qa’ Mosque in Jerusalem’s Silwan neighbourhood be demolished because it was built without planning permission, Anadolu reported.

The court gave Palestinians 21 days to challenge the order or the Islamic site will be demolished.

Anadolu said the mosque is 110 square metres over two floors and was built in 2012. An order had previously been given for it to be demolished in 2015.

15 Sep 2020; MEMO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said yesterday that peace deals with the UAE and Bahrain would pump millions of dollars into Israel’s treasury, local media reported.

Prior to leaving for Washington to sign and celebrate the two peace deals with the two Gulf states, Netanyahu addressed Israelis saying that it is a “historic” trip.

“Two peace deals in one month,” the Times of Israel reported him saying.