News of the day 24/02/2015

The Maltese bishop in Benghazi Silvestru Magro, who is currently in Malta on a short break before he leaves for Rome, could not confirm whether the church he oversees there is being used by Islamic State as an arms depot.
Mgr Magro was in Libya last some three days ago.
“I cannot confirm this information due to the fact that the area where the church stands is a no-go area since it is a war zone; it is close to the port,” he told The Malta Independent when contacted yesterday.
The Chief of staff of the Libyan Air Force, Maj al-Jaroushi, on Sunday night claimed that Isis in Libya is using Benghazi’s Catholic Church and the Commonwealth War Cemetery as an arms depot.
The claim was made on Libya Awalan TV and tweeted by Good Morning Libya last night. Mgr Magro is expected to go to Rome to brief the Pope on the current situation.
Mgr Magro – who forms part of the Order of Friars Minor – said that he intends returning to Libya unless the airports would not be functioning at the time.
“That’s the only issue which would hold me back from returning,” he said, adding that his flight ticket is a return ticket. It is understood there is a significant number of Christians in Benghazi still.
Meanwhile, Mgr Magro said that he will be off to Rome soon to meet the Pope and to attend a regional bishops’ conference of North Africa which will include countries such Algeria, Morocco, and Tunis. On his part, he will be discussing the unfolding situation in Libya and the issue of Christian families ending up separated as a result of the war.

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Islamic State militants kidnapped 90 Christians in north-east Syria as the jihadis retreated in the face of a Kurdish counter-offensive, a monitoring group has said.
The reported kidnappings are the latest blow to the Christian presence in the region, heightening insecurity after a video was released by militants claiming allegiance to Isis that purported to show the beheading of 21 Egyptian Copts in Libya.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said 90 Assyrian Christians were kidnapped by Isis near Tal Tamr. There was heavy fighting in the area between Isis and the YPG, the Kurdish militia that, backed by the US-led coalition, beat back an advance on the border town of Kobani last month.

The YPG has launched a counter-offensive to retake Isis-held villages in the north-eastern Syrian countryside.

The rights monitoring group said its sources on the ground had overheard Isis militants on wireless radios refer to the captives as “crusaders”, the same term used by militants to describe the Egyptian Copts apparently killed in Libya.

Isis militants have often singled out Christians and minorities for persecution. Thousands of Christians fled Iraq’s Mosul and Nineveh after Isis’s lightning advance last summer, fleeing their ancestral homelands amid reports of forced conversions. Many took refuge in Kurdish-held territories or in Lebanon. The Isis rampage through Iraq’s Nineveh plains cleared Chaldean Christians and other minorities from areas in which they had co-existed for more than 2,000 years

The jihadi group was especially brutal towards the ancient Yazidi minority in Iraq, attempting to starve thousands who were stranded on Mount Sinjar, north-west of Mosul. It also sold many hundreds of Yazidi women into slavery and forced others to marry.

Coalition air strikes had earlier targeted Isis fighters near the Syrian Kurdish stronghold of Qamishli on the Turkish border.

More than 1,600 people, the vast majority of them from Isis, have been killed by the US-led coalition air strikes in Syria, according to SOHR. Many of the jihadi casualties took place in the Kurdish town of Kobani, on the Turkish border, where Isis estimates its losses to be at least 1,400.

- Libya restarts production at El Sarir oil field
- Libyan exclusion of Turkish companies ‘without value’: Turkish Foreign Ministry
- Libya parliament ‘suspends’ talks
- Friend says female Libyan activist shot to death in Tripoli
- 'Everyone is afraid' - Sylvester Magro, Bishop of Benghazi describes the situation in Libya

thank you. will make sure all will be in the same way next time.

CAIRO, Feb 24 (Reuters) - Egypt on Tuesday rejected accusations of blame in the death of seven civilians killed in Libya last week when Cairo's military bombed suspected Islamist militant targets after the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians.
A report on Monday from Amnesty International in London said the Egyptian air force had "failed to take the necessary precautions" during the attack and had "joined the ranks of those placing civilians at risk in Libya".
Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi said on Sunday, before the Amnesty report was released, that the air force had hit 13 targets selected after careful study and reconnaissance to avoid civilian casualties.
The attack was launched last week after militants loyal to Islamic State released a video showing the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians from Egypt on a beach in Libya.
"The latest report issued by Amnesty International on the Egyptian air strike on the sites of the terrorist organization of (ISIL) includes false and incorrect information," the MENA news agency quoted foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty as saying on Tuesday.
He expressed Egypt's "deep surprise and resentment at the report", the agency added.
Abdelatty did not say Egypt was denying that seven civilians were killed in the strikes. The foreign ministry was not immediately available for comment.
Sisi also said the army decided not to launch air strikes on a gathering of militants in Northern Sinai during Ramadan last summer because women and children were among them.
An air force commander with the internationally recognised Libyan government told Egyptian television last week that Libyan planes that joined the attack might have hit a house and caused casualties. Abdellatty did not refer to his comments.
Events in Derna, scene of the attack, are difficult to verify as most independent human rights activists and journalists have left the city due to threats from militants.
Libya is in turmoil, with two rival governments and parliaments allied to armed groups fighting for territory and legitimacy four years after the ousting of Muammar Gaddafi.
Another rights group, New York-based Human Rights Watch, echoed what Amnesty said about the killing of at least seven civilians in the Egyptian air strikes.
Like Amnesty, it also called for a speedy and transparent investigation into the deaths.
(Reporting by Mahmoud Mourad and Ahmed Tolba; Editing by Shadi Bushra and Tom Heneghan)

Breaking news

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United Nations secretary-general says the U.N. mission in Libya should be cut substantially because of the new and more dangerous situation there.
Ban Ki-moon's report circulated Tuesday says the mission should be limited to 15 to 20 people inside the north African country while keeping a temporary base in Tunisia.
He stresses this "does not mean that the United Nations is disengaging from Libya."
Libya's neighbors are calling for more U.N. action amid chaos that includes two separate governments, multiple armed groups and the growing presence of the Islamic State group.
The mission evacuated from Libya last year and has been trying to find compromise between a Western-backed government and another backed by Islamist militias.
Ban says the mission's first goal must be ending the conflict.

Sisi meets with Mali defense minister
Egypt Independent 16:16

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