Mexico’s security minister says beheaded mayor asked for no protection
The Mexican government has revealed new details in the grisly murder of a mayor, Alejandro Arcos, who was found decapitated over the weekend. Arcos’s murder came nearly a week after President Claudia Sheinbaum took office, ramping up pressure on her administration to tamp down on cartel-related violence in the country. On Tuesday, Security Minister Omar Garcia Harfuch told reporters that Arcos, a prominent opposition figure, had not requested any security escorts on the day of his killing. “The mayor was going to Petaquillas for a meeting alone,” Garcia Harfuch said, referring to a town in the coastal state of Guerrero. “We know that he was going to a specific meeting, he was not accompanied, communication was lost in the community, and the discovery [of his body] was made hours later.” When pressed by journalists, the minister emphasised that Arcos had approached neither the Ministry of Security nor the National Guard for assistance, despite reports that the mayor had told local media he wanted extra protection. Garcia Harfuch also underscored that the investigation into Arcos’s death was ongoing. “There is a lot of information on this subject that we must guard for the sake of the investigation,” he said. Mourners pay their respects during the funeral service for Alejandro Arcos on October 7 [Oscar Ramirez/Reuters] A week into office Arcos’s death comes less than a week after he took office on September 30 as mayor of Chilpancingo, Guerrero’s capital city. With its isolated mountains and temperate Pacific climate, Guerrero has long been a hub for the production of opium poppies, the key ingredient in heroin. As many as 16 drug-trafficking gangs operate in the state, vying for control over the lucrative region. The armed gangs have openly challenged the local government too, most prominently in 2023. When two alleged members of the Los Ardillos gang were arrested, thousands of protesters took to the streets on the gang’s behalf to push for their release. They clashed with National Guard members and police in Chilpancingo, even using an armoured vehicle to smash through the gates of the state legislature. Multiple officials were taken hostage during the unrest. Arcos was headed to meet members of the Los Ardillos gang on Sunday, the day of his death, according to Reforma, a Mexican news outlet. But images soon emerged on social media showing Arcos’s severed head perched atop what appeared to be his pick-up truck. It was the second time in less than a week that a member of the municipal government had been found dead. Just three days prior, Francisco Tapia, another newly minted member of the city government, was shot to death. Elections marred by violence On Tuesday, Garcia Harfuch revealed that four other mayors — from Guerrero and another state, Guanajuato — had appealed for protection following Arcos’s death. Mexico has long grappled with political violence, as cartels and other gangs seek to exert influence over government affairs. This year, the country held its largest election in history, with nearly 20,000 public offices up for grabs, including local, state and federal positions. But the proceedings were marred by violence: An estimated 37 candidates were killed in the lead-up to the vote, many of them seeking local office. In other cases, the relatives of candidates were killed, in apparent intimidation attempts. The violence forced some candidates from the race. Others were assigned National Guard members for protection. In the wake of Arcos’s death, public officials voiced frustration and anger at the ongoing violence. “I strongly condemn the murder of the Municipal President of Chilpancingo, Alejandro Arcos Catalán,” Guerrero Governor Evelyn Salgado Pineda wrote on social media. “His loss grieves the entire Guerrero society and fills us with indignation.” Alejandro Moreno, the head of Arcos’s conservative-leaning party, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), said on Monday, “We will not allow his death to go unpunished.” Secretary of Security and Citizen Protection Omar Garcia Harfuch speaks alongside President Claudia Sheinbaum at the unveiling of her security strategy on October 8 [Henry Romero/Reuters] Sheinbaum’s security strategy As government officials grappled with the fallout from Arcos’s death on Tuesday, President Sheinbaum — herself inaugurated on September 30 — revealed her proposals to bolster Mexico’s security. A member of the left-leaning Morena Party, she ruled out a return to hardline tactics. “The war on drugs will not return,” she said, citing a controversial United States-led initiative. Sheinbaum echoed her predecessor, the popular Morena leader Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, in calling for measures that address the root causes of crime, like poverty. She also asserted that her government would not resort to excessive force to tackle crime. Mexico’s military and law enforcement have long been accused of committing extrajudicial killings — and even collaborating with the cartels. “We are not looking for extrajudicial executions, which is what was happening before,” Sheinbaum said. “What are we going to use? Prevention, attention to the causes, intelligence and [law enforcement] presence.” Lopez Obrador, Sheinbaum’s political mentor, had been criticised for his “hugs, not bullets” approach to tackling crime — something Sheinbaum herself was accused of embracing on the campaign trail. 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Party opposed to India’s stripping of Kashmir’s autonomy wins election
National Conference-led alliance wins 48 seats in 90-seat assembly in first state legislative elections in a decade. India-administered Kashmir’s biggest political party opposed to India’s stripping of the region’s semi-autonomy has won the most seats in the first legislative elections since the move by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government five years ago. The Jammu and Kashmir National Conference, or NC, won 42 seats in the 90-seat Legislative Assembly, the Election Commission announced on Tuesday. The BJP secured 29 seats while the country’s main opposition Indian National Congress party, which fought the election in alliance with the NC, succeeded in six constituencies. Polling took place over three phases starting on September 18. “People have supported us more than our expectations. Now our efforts will be to prove that we are worth these votes,” Omar Abdullah, the NC leader and the region’s former chief minister, told reporters in the main city of Srinagar. His father and president of the party, Farooq Abdullah, said its mandate was to run the region without “police raj” rule and try freeing people from jails. “Media will be free,” he said. Supporters of the Jammu and Kashmir National Conference party celebrate outside the vote-counting centre in Srinagar [Sharafat Ali/Reuters] Hundreds of NC workers gathered outside counting centres and at the homes of the winning candidates to celebrate the party’s victory. Kashmir has been at the centre of a dispute with neighbouring Pakistan since 1947. India and Pakistan both claim the region in full but rule it in part after having fought two of their three wars over the region. Restoration of ‘political rights’? Some saw the vote as a de facto referendum on the federal government’s decision to repeal the territory’s special status. The move downgraded and divided the former state into two centrally governed union territories, Ladakh and Jammu-Kashmir. “The people have given their judgement against what New Delhi did,” social activist Iqbal Ahmad Bhat told the AFP news agency. Resident Jahangir Ahmad told AFP that he hoped “political rights will be restored” in the state after the NC-led alliance’s victory. Nevertheless, critics said the assembly has only nominal powers over education and culture. New Delhi also has the power to override legislation and will continue to appoint the governor. The BJP won all its seats in the southern Hindu-majority region of Jammu. Modi said he was “proud” of the BJP’s performance, saying that enthusiasm for the election was reflective of “the people’s belief in democracy”. BJP victory expected in Haryana In legislative elections held on Tuesday in the state of Haryana, the BJP appeared to be heading for victory, according to preliminary results shared by the Election Commission. The BJP was leading in 50 constituencies and the Congress in 35 out of 90. So far in the vote counting, the BJP has won 18 seats and is leading in 32 constituencies while the Congress has won 15 seats and is leading in 20, according to the commission. A victory would give the BJP a record third win in the state, which it is set to govern for the next five years. The results in Haryana state are a surprise because most exit polls had predicted an easy victory for the Congress party. Adblock test (Why?)
MI5 chief says Russia and Iran behind rise in assassination plots in UK
Ken McCallum said the number of state-threat investigations undertaken by MI5 has risen by 48 percent in the past year. The United Kingdom is facing a “staggering rise” in assassination attempts on its soil by Russia and Iran as the hostile states recruit criminals to “do their dirty work” for them, the head of the UK’s domestic intelligence agency has said. In a rare public speech on Tuesday setting out the major threats to the UK from both hostile states and terror groups, MI5 director Ken McCallum said the number of state-threat investigations undertaken by MI5 has risen by 48 percent in the past year, with Iran, Russia and, China the main perpetrators. “The first 20 years of my career here were crammed full of terrorist threats,” McCallum said. “We now face those alongside state-backed assassination and sabotage plots, against the backdrop of a major European land war.” “It will be clear to you that MI5 has one hell of a job on its hands,” McCallum told journalists at the UK’s counterterrorism command centre in London. Charting out threats from Iran, he said that his agents and police have tackled 20 Tehran-backed plots since 2022 and warned that Iran could expand its targets in the UK if Israel attacks in response to Iran’s missile barrage. The spy chief also noted that the widening conflicts in the Middle East raise the risk “of an increase in – or broadening of – Iranian state aggression in the UK.” With respect to threats from Russia, McCallum said that despite the expulsion of more than 750 Russian diplomats from Europe since Moscow invaded Ukraine and the ejection of the last Russian military intelligence officer from the UK earlier this year, it was “eye-catching” how Russian state actors were turning to proxies to do their work. “The GRU in particular is on a sustained mission to generate mayhem on British and European streets: we’ve seen arson, sabotage and more. Dangerous actions conducted with increasing recklessness,” he said, declining to give further details. Both Russia and Iran often turn to criminals, “from international drug traffickers to low-level crooks,” to carry out attacks, he added. The UK’s official “terror” threat level stands at “substantial,” the middle of a five-point scale, meaning an attack is likely, and since 2017 MI5 and the police have disrupted 43 late-stage “terror” plots. McCallum also said there was worrying signs that the ISIL group is back, despite the collapse of its self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria. He said the internet was the “biggest factor” driving the rise, describing how easily youngsters can access “inspirational and instructional material” from their bedrooms. He said the intelligence service was seeing “far too many cases where very young people are being drawn into poisonous online extremism” and singled out “canny” internet memes. “Extreme right-wing terrorism in particular skews heavily towards young people, driven by propaganda that shows a canny understanding of online culture,” he added. Adblock test (Why?)
Kosovo to start trial for Banjska attack by Serb group: Why it matters
A year after an attack by a Serbian armed group in northern Kosovo’s Banjska killed a police officer, the trial is expected to begin on Wednesday at the Pristina Basic Court. In all, 45 suspects have been indicted for the attack in September 2023, which Kosovo Serb businessman and politician Milan Radoicic later said he led and organised after he was identified in drone footage by Kosovo security officials. The attack aggravated tensions between Kosovo and Serbia, and experts fear the trial could be complicated by the difficult nature of the relationship between the two. Here’s what happened in Banjska and why the trial matters: What happened in Banjska? A group of Serbs, armed and masked, killed Kosovo police Sergeant Afrim Bunjaku and wounded two others when they ambushed a Kosovar police patrol in the village of Banjska near the Serbia-Kosovo border on September 24, 2023. The group then fled to a nearby Orthodox monastery, and its members barricaded themselves in. A gun battle ensued with Kosovo police that lasted for hours. Three of the Serb assailants were killed, and dozens of the attackers fled to Serbia. The police confiscated more than 1,000 of their weapons and pieces of equipment valued at more than 5 million euros (more than $5.5m). Kosovar officials said the confiscated weapons were produced in Serbia and cannot be found on the open market. Based in part on the alleged origins of the weapons, Kosovo Prime Minister Albin Kurti and other Kosovar authorities have accused Serbia of masterminding the attack. Who are the suspects and what are the charges against them? The 45 defendants have been charged with “terrorism” and crimes against Kosovo’s constitutional order and security. The central accusation against them is that they were aiming to take over the northern part of Kosovo with the intent of annexing it to Serbia, according to the indictment filed in September. Prosecutor Naim Abazi called the gunmen a “well-structured group” and said the investigations into the case were “one of the most complex that the prosecution has ever worked on”, according to the Balkan Insight news website. Only three of the suspects remain in custody in Kosovo. The rest, including Radoicic, remain in Serbia. On October 3, 2023, Serbian authorities arrested Radoicic for questioning. He denied guilt in his testimony to the Serbian prosecutor’s office. But previously in a letter read by his lawyer, he had admitted to personally organising the attack and denied the involvement of the Serbian government. Why was the attack so significant? The Banjska attack is one of the most violent incidents to occur in Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia in 2008, a decade after a war between Serbian forces and ethnic Albanian secessionists that saw an Albanian Kosovar uprising against Belgrade’s rule. The majority Serb population that lives in northern Kosovo does not recognise the country as a sovereign nation and views Belgrade as its capital. Over the years, there have been numerous clashes between Serbs on the one hand and Kosovo police and NATO-led peacekeepers on the other. Since 2012, Belgrade and Pristina have been holding normalisation talks mediated by the European Union with the goal of joining the bloc, but the talks have broken down mostly over a deal to create an association of Serb-majority municipalities in northern Kosovo as some fear it would only create another mini-state. Kosovo political leaders have accused Serbia of being behind the Banjska attack politically, materially and logistically. Kurti said Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic planned and ordered the attack “to destabilise” Kosovo with the goal of starting a war for more territorial gain. Speaking to the media at a commemoration ceremony last month at the scene of the attack, Kurti maintained that Radoicic – who was at the time vice president of the Serb List, a Belgrade-supported political party in Kosovo – “was trained in Serbia and financed by Belgrade”. Experts said the attack suggests a possible hardening in Serbia’s approach towards resolving differences with Kosovo. The attack showed that “Serbia and its proxy groups have abandoned peaceful dialogue and have chosen hybrid warfare to achieve their political goals”, Gezim Visoka, associate professor of peace and conflict studies at Dublin City University, told Al Jazeera. Those goals, Visoka said, are to “force Kosovo and the international community to make further concessions in the EU-led talks for normalisation of relations, which have reached a stalemate due to fundamental disagreements”. What has Serbia said? Serbia has denied any role in the attack, and Radoicic has insisted that the Serbian government was not involved. Vucic has instead accused Kurti of wanting to expel Serbs from Kosovo. After the attack, he said Kurti’s refusal to form an Association of Serb Municipalities – as part of a 2013 agreement between Belgrade and Pristina that would allocate Kosovo Serbs more autonomy – is what fuelled tensions leading to the violence in Banjska. Journalist Branislav Krstic, a Serb from northern Kosovo, described the Banjska attack to Al Jazeera as “a gift for Pristina” — in that it helps strengthen Kosovo’s argument for keeping control over the Serb-majority north. The case, he said, adds to the “loss of sovereignty of Serbs in northern Kosovo”. What’s expected during the trial? Prosecution lawyers told the Kosovo daily Koha last month that they feared the trial would be prolonged, in part because most of the suspects are in Serbia. Lawyer Kadri Osaj told Koha that their extradition from Serbia was unlikely due to a lack of legal cooperation between the two governments. “The authorities of Serbia were directly and indirectly involved in the case, so I do not expect that these persons will be extradited to Kosovo,” Koha quoted Osaj as saying. Visoka also said the fact that most suspects won’t physically be brought to trial complicates the process. Without Serbia’s cooperation and pressure from the West, it’s unlikely that Kosovo will be able to bring to justice the perpetrators of the attack, Visoka said. “The trial is likely to reveal more about the
‘They tried to murder everyone’: Haiti reels after deadly gang attack
More than 6,200 people are staying with relatives or in makeshift shelters after massacre in central Haiti town. Survivors of a deadly gang attack in central Haiti last week have described waking up to gunfire and walking for hours in search of safety, as the country continues to grapple in the aftermath of the assault that killed at least 70 people. Dozens of Gran Grif gang members armed with knives and assault rifles killed infants, women, the elderly and entire families in their attack last Thursday on Pont-Sonde, about 100km (62 miles) northwest of Port-au-Prince in the Artibonite region. “They tried to murder everyone,” Jina Joseph, a survivor, told The Associated Press news agency. Jameson Fermilus, who had crouched in a corridor next to his house as smoke and gunfire filled the air, was among thousands of survivors who walked for hours, looking for safety. “We don’t know what we are going to do,” said another resident who joined them, 60-year-old Sonise Morino. “We have nowhere to go.” The massacre has underscored the deadly violence and instability gripping Haiti, where powerful armed groups have carried out attacks and kidnappings across the capital of Port-au-Prince and in other parts of the country. The International Organization for Migration (IOM) said at least 6,270 people were displaced in the attack on Pont-Sonde. The vast majority have sought refuge with relatives and friends in nearby communities. Others with nowhere to go have crowded into a church, a school and a public plaza shaded by trees in the coastal city of Saint-Marc. “These deaths are unimaginable,” Mayor Myriam Fievre said as she met with survivors. The attack – retribution for self-defence groups trying to stop the gang from erecting a toll on a nearby road – was the largest massacre in central Haiti in recent years. It came just days after the United Nations reported that at least 3,661 people had been killed in Haiti in the first half of 2024 amid the “senseless” gang violence that has engulfed the country. “To those who sow terror, I say this: You will not break our will,” Haiti’s interim Prime Minister Garry Conille said in a statement following the Pont-Sonde attack. “You will not subjugate this people who have always fought for their dignity and freedom. We will never abandon our right to live in peace, security and justice.” More than 6,000 people have been displaced following armed attacks in Pont-Sondé, a locality in Haiti situated in the commune of Saint-Marc, in the Artibonite department. The majority have taken shelter with relatives in nearby localities. 👉 https://t.co/oBLDDVMoWI pic.twitter.com/AhA3d8iW0H — IOM Haiti (@IOMHaiti) October 5, 2024 Yet, despite the defiant rhetoric, Conille late last month acknowledged that Haiti was “nowhere near winning” the battle against the gangs. The UN Security Council recently extended the mandate of a Kenya-led policing mission meant to help restore security in the Caribbean nation, but the force has struggled to wrest control from the gangs. Funding for the deployment – formally known as the Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) – has lagged, and a UN expert said last month that the force remains under-resourced. Conille has travelled to Kenya and the United Arab Emirates this week to push for additional help. Adblock test (Why?)
Russian court jails US citizen for nearly seven years on ‘mercenary’ charge
Stephen Hubbard, 72, was detained in eastern Ukraine in April 2022 and accused of fighting for Ukraine. A Russian court has jailed a United States citizen for six years and 10 months after convicting him in a closed-door trial of fighting for Ukraine as a mercenary. Investigators said Stephen Hubbard, who is originally from the US state of Michigan, was paid $1,000 a month to serve in a Ukrainian territorial defence unit in the eastern city of Izyum, where he had been living since 2014. They alleged the 72-year-old signed up in February 2022, just before Russia launched its full-scale invasion, and was provided with training, weapons and ammunition. Hubbard was detained by Russian soldiers two months later. Hubbard’s case first became public late last month when his trial began and he entered a guilty plea. At a hearing last week, the court granted the prosecutors’ request for the proceedings to be held in secret without the media. Hubbard, who was handcuffed, shuffled slowly into the Moscow City Court and stood with difficulty as Judge Alexandra Kovalevskaya read out the sentence, according to journalists from the Reuters and AFP news agencies who were in the court. Russia’s state news agency RIA reported that Hubbard’s lawyer planned to lodge an appeal. US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that Washington had limited information about the case because Russia had refused to grant consular access to Hubbard. He confirmed that Hubbard had been arrested two years ago in Ukraine. “We’re disappointed, as we often are, when they refuse to grant consular access,” Miller told reporters in Washington. “They have an obligation to provide it and we’re going to continue to press for it. We’re looking at the case very closely and considering our next steps.” Hubbard’s sister Patricia Hubbard Fox and another relative have cast doubt on his reported confession, telling Reuters he held pro-Russian views and was unlikely to have taken up arms given his age. In interviews, Fox and the other relative portrayed Hubbard as an isolated figure who had grown estranged from some family members during decades abroad teaching English, including in Japan and Cyprus. Fox said Hubbard moved to Ukraine in 2014 and lived there for a time with a Ukrainian woman, surviving off a small pension of about $300 a month. He never learned Russian or Ukrainian, she said. Hubbard is one of at least 10 Americans behind bars in Russia, nearly two months after a prisoner swap between Moscow and the West freed three Americans, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and dozens of others. Adblock test (Why?)
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 956
As the war enters its 956th day, these are the main developments. Here is the situation on Tuesday, October 8, 2024. Fighting At least one person was killed and six injured in Russian shelling in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk. Vadym Filashkin, the governor of the Donetsk region, said six multistorey apartment blocks were among the buildings damaged and that two children were among the injured. One Ukrainian port worker was killed and five other people injured, including foreign nationals, after a Russian missile struck a Palau-flagged ship in Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa, in the second such attack in as many days. Ukrainian Minister for Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha condemned the attacks on the two ships. Ukraine’s Ministry for Restoration said the ship attacked on Sunday was the Saint Kitts and Nevis-flagged Paresa, which had a cargo of 6,000 tonnes of corn. Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed its forces captured the village of Hrodivka, close to the strategically important city of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine said its forces struck an oil terminal on the Crimean Peninsula, which was seized and illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Russian-installed authorities in Crimea said there had been a fire at an oil depot in the Black Sea port town of Feodosia and there were no casualties. The GRU, Ukraine’s military spy agency, said it “seriously damaged” the Alexander Obukhov, an Alexandrit-class Russian minesweeping vessel, in Russia’s Kaliningrad region in a sabotage operation. There was no immediate comment from Russia. Ukraine said a Russian hypersonic missile struck the “area” of Ukraine’s major Starokostiantyniv airbase on Monday morning. The air force did not say whether the attack caused any damage. Local governor, Serhii Tyurin, said there were no civilian casualties or damage to critical infrastructure. Two Russian Kinzhal missiles were also shot down in the Kyiv region, the Ukrainian air force said. Debris came down in three districts of the capital, but no major damage or casualties were reported. Ukrainian air defences shot down 32 Russian drones and a further 37 were lost on military radars, suggesting they had been disabled by electronic warfare systems, the air force said. Politics and diplomacy Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the war had entered “a very important phase” and that Ukraine needed to “put pressure on Russia in the way that’s necessary for Russia to realise that the war will gain them nothing”. Speaking in a video statement, Zelenskyy added: “Only through strength can we bring peace closer”. The United States criticised Russia for withholding consular access for detained US citizen Stephen Hubbard after a court jailed the 72-year-old for six years and 10 months. Russia detained Hubbard in April 2022 and accused of being a “mercenary” for Ukraine. A court in Russia’s Kursk region ordered the arrest in absentia of two Italian journalists for reporting from the Ukrainian-occupied part of Kursk. The court demanded Simone Traini and Stefania Battistini, journalists from Italy’s RAI public broadcaster, be extradited for “illegally crossing” the border from Ukraine. A Ukrainian government source told the Reuters news agency that Ukrainian hackers were behind a large-scale cyberattack on Russian state media company VGTRK on Monday. Adblock test (Why?)
Paul Pogba drug ban reduced to 18 months, can play football from March
Pogba’s four-year doping ban is slashed on appeal, opening the door to the French star signing with a new club. Paul Pogba’s doping suspension has been cut from four years to 18 months after experts supported the French football player’s insistence that he had unintentionally ingested a banned substance, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) says. The France international was provisionally suspended by Italy’s anti-doping organisation, NADO Italia, in September 2023 after testing positive for DHEA, a banned substance that raises levels of testosterone. CAS reduced the sentence last week with Pogba saying his “nightmare is over”. The 31-year-old, who has a contract with Italy’s Juventus until June 2026, will be eligible to return to football in March. In a statement released on Monday, CAS said Pogba had argued that his ingestion of DHEA was not intentional and had occurred after he consumed a supplement prescribed to him by a doctor in Florida. “Mr Pogba had been given assurances that the medical doctor, who had claimed to treat several high level U.S. and international athletes, was knowledgeable and would be mindful of Mr Pogba’s anti-doping obligations under the World Anti-Doping Code,” CAS added. “Mr Pogba’s case was supported by several experts. Much of the evidence provided by Mr Pogba was unopposed. “The CAS Panel determined, however, that Mr Pogba was not without fault and that, as a professional football player, he should have paid a greater care in the circumstances.” Pogba last played for Juventus in a 2-0 win at Empoli more than a year ago. The midfielder had a disappointing second spell with Juve due to injuries since he returned to the Turin-based club after his departure from Manchester United on a free transfer in 2022. Pogba and Juventus are open to the prospect of the Frenchman restarting his career elsewhere, according to ESPN. Pogba’s last competitive match for Juventus was on September 3, 2023, in Empoli, Italy, in the Serie A match against Empoli FC at Stadio Carlo Castellani [Gabriele Maltinti/Getty Images] Adblock test (Why?)
Indian club Mohun Bagan out of AFC competition after missing match in Iran
The club did not travel to Tabriz for a group stage match on October 2, the day after Iran launched missiles on Israel. Indian football club Mohun Bagan Super Giant are out of the second-tier regional club competition for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) after not travelling to Iran for a group stage match. The Kolkata-based Indian Super League (ISL) club, placed in Group A of the AFC Champions League Two, were scheduled to play Iranian club Tractor SC in Tabriz on October 2, the day after Iran launched ballistic missiles towards Israel amid soaring violence in the region. However, several Mohun Bagan players wrote to the club’s management voicing concerns over security if they travelled to the Persian Gulf Pro League team’s home city in northwestern Iran, which was one of the sites from which the missiles were launched, according to reports in Indian media. The match was cancelled after Mohun Bagan did not travel to Tabriz. “Mohun Bagan Super Giant are considered to have withdrawn from the AFC Champions League Two”, the AFC said in a statement on Monday. “All matches played by Mohun Bagan Super Giant are cancelled and considered null and void. For the avoidance of doubt, no points and goals in the club’s matches shall be taken into consideration when determining the final rankings in Group A.” The regional football body said it would refer Mohun Bagan’s matter to the continental body’s relevant committees for further decisions. 🇮🇳 Mohun Bagan Super Giant considered to have withdrawn from #ACLTwo after failure to report to Tabriz for Group A fixture against Tractor FC on October 2.https://t.co/gPXaeOmmgE — #ACLElite | #ACLTwo (@TheAFCCL) October 7, 2024 Mohun Bagan Super Giant have not responded to their ouster from the regional club competition. However, fans of the Indian club have criticised the decision and have called on officials to appeal it in the Court of Arbitration for Sport. “Player and staff safety is paramount,” football agent Baljit Singh Rihal wrote on X. “Punishing teams for refusing to travel to a war-torn country by removing them from the competition is absurd,” he added. Absolutely ridiculous! Player and staff safety is paramount. Punishing teams for refusing to travel to a war-torn country by removing them from the competition is absurd. This decision must be overturned immediately, as it defies all common sense. ⚽️ #MohunBagan https://t.co/osbElHQcvE — Baljit Singh Rihal (@BaljitRihal) October 7, 2024 Mohun Bagan are one of the oldest football clubs in Asia and the current champion of the ISL. They are currently coached by former Spanish football player and coach Jose Francisco Molina. Adblock test (Why?)
Why Palestinians won’t leave their land
Over the past year, Israel’s genocidal violence has officially killed nearly 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza. Estimates put the real death toll at more than 180,000. Simultaneously, the Israeli occupation forces have repeatedly carried out bloody assaults on the West Bank, massacring more than 740 Palestinians. Last month, the colonial regime expanded its violence into Lebanon, where on September 23, more than 500 people were killed. In two weeks, Israel has murdered more than 2,000 Lebanese people. The Israeli army has flattened whole neighbourhoods in Gaza, digging out roads with bulldozers, bombing infrastructure and utility installations, and pulverising residential buildings. Health and educational facilities have been obliterated – water stations, electricity plants and solar panels destroyed. In short, Israel has tried to wipe out all that sustains life in Gaza. Palestinians have been ordered to “evacuate” the vast majority of the strip and are being crowded into 16 percent of its territory. This same strategy to empty the land has been applied to some areas of the West Bank and now in Lebanon. People are told they can return once Israel’s “military operations” are done. But we all know that the slaughter is meant to clear the land for colonisation. It happened before – during the Nakba of 1948 – and the Palestinians were never allowed to return to their homes despite a United Nations resolution demanding it. That is why Palestinians will not leave. To some outsiders, the enduring Palestinian attachment to their land may seem difficult to understand. It is especially incomprehensible to the Zionists who expelled so many of us, hoping we would just move elsewhere in the Arab world and assimilate. But the Palestinian people have not given up their rightful claim to their land for more than seven decades now. The question of why Palestinians refuse to leave their homes and ancestral lands, even in the face of relentless bombardment, raids, settler encroachment and economic dispossession, is one that is deeply personal and fundamental to Palestinian identity. It is not simply a matter of geography or property ownership but a profound connection to the land that is woven into the fabric of Palestinian history, culture and collective memory. There is a stubbornness to this decision, yes, but also a deep understanding that to leave would be to sever a connection that has been in place for generations. As an agrarian society, the Palestinians have a special place for land in their culture and collective consciousness. The olive tree is the perfect symbol of it. Olive trees are ancient, resilient and deeply rooted – just like the Palestinian people. Families tend to these trees the way they tend to their heritage. The act of harvesting olives, pressing them into oil and sharing that oil with loved ones is an act of cultural preservation. That is why the Israeli army and settlers love to attack Palestinian olive groves. Destroying an olive tree is more than an attack on Palestinian livelihood. It is an attack on Palestinian identity. Israel’s attempt to wipe it out is reflected in its relentless war on Palestinian olive trees. From 1967 to 2013, it uprooted about 800,000 of them. The attachment to the homeland is there even among us, the diaspora Palestinians. I myself was born in Nablus in the occupied West Bank but grew up outside Palestine. Even when far away, I never stopped feeling a connection to the Palestinian land. My family was forced to flee during the second Intifada. My father had watched the Israeli army steal his father’s land and turn it into a military checkpoint, and my mother was being shot at by settlers on her way to work. Theirs was not a decision to voluntarily emigrate; it was an act of survival. Over the past two decades, I have gone back to Palestine regularly, watching settlers steadily encroach on Palestinian land, trying to displace more Palestinians from their homes. What I remembered as a child as clusters of illegally built houses grew to become whole cities – besieging Palestinian towns and villages from all sides. But as I saw Palestinian olive trees burned, Palestinian water rerouted and stolen, and Palestinian homes demolished, I also witnessed resistance and defiance. Palestinians were setting up water tanks to make it through periods of water cut-offs by the Israelis. They were rebuilding their homes at night after a demolition, and they were rushing to help communities like Huwara when a settler raid would take place. In the past year, Israeli violence has become genocidal, but Palestinian “sumud” – steadfastness – has not been diminished. From Jenin to Gaza, Palestinians – under relentless Israeli attacks and bombardment – have not stopped resisting the colonial onslaught through the simple act of living and surviving. The more the occupier tries to make Palestinian life impossible, the more Palestinians come up with makeshift solutions to make it possible – whether it is a washing machine powered by a bicycle, a clay oven made from mud and straw to bake bread or an electricity generator assembled from random machine parts. These are just a few acts of stubborn perseverance, of sumud, crystallised. Meanwhile, in the diaspora, our hearts and minds have never left Palestine. We have watched in pain and in terror as the genocide has unfolded and as the leaders of the countries where we have sought refuge have turned a blind eye. Many in the West do not believe Palestinian life has value. They do not see us as human beings. This relentless dehumanisation of Palestinians has spread despair and hopelessness among our communities. But we have no right to give up when the people of Gaza carry on amid the horrors of genocide. We have to awaken Palestinian sumud within us and mobilise to tell other societies that we are here, we exist and we will persevere in a world bent on erasing us. The metaphor of “we are the land” is not just poetic. It is a lived reality for the Palestinian people. When Palestinians are asked, “Why don’t