We begin the presentation of British newspapers with the Financial Times, and an article under the headline: "Hidden militants in Iraq complicate US efforts to ease tensions."
The newspaper began its article by recalling that "few people inside or outside Iraq had heard of the Guardians of Blood" before the militants claimed responsibility for firing a missile barrage at the northern city of Irbil, targeting an Iraqi base hosting US forces.
It is the attack that prompted the new US President, Joe Biden, to launch his first military action since taking office, as he ordered US fighter jets last week to launch strikes in Syria against Iranian-backed Iraqi militias.
The newspaper considered that the matter "was an early test of how the Biden administration might respond to provocative actions by hardliners, while highlighting the challenges Washington faces in its endeavor to re-engage with Iran over its nuclear agreement and calm tensions that have escalated during the presidency of Donald Trump."
One of the legacies of hostilities between the Trump administration and Iran is the emergence in Iraq of more than a dozen obscure "resistance" groups, such as the Guardians of Blood, which have stepped up their attacks against American personnel and assets over the past year.
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It quoted analysts as saying that "it is a trend that gained momentum after the Trump administration assassinated Qassem Soleimani, the most powerful military commander in Iran, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces, in an American drone strike near Baghdad airport in January." 2020".
She indicated that "the stated goal of many of these groups is to avenge the killing of Soleimani and the engineer - the hero of the Shiite militias."
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The newspaper considered that these groups "have added a new layer of militancy, creating an unpredictable environment in a fragile country that hosts 2,500 American soldiers and where American and Iranian rivalries flare up."
She also indicated that these groups "threaten to be a factor seeking to complicate, while Biden seeks to move away from Trump's maximum pressure campaign against Iran, reduce regional tensions, and rejoin the 2015 nuclear deal with Tehran."
The reason for the existence of these [Iraqi] groups is to drag the United States into a conflict,” Sajjad Jiyad, who works with the Century Foundation in Baghdad, said in an interview with the Financial Times.
The newspaper added that analysts suspect that the Erbil attack was the result of Tehran using its proxies, with the aim of increasing pressure on Washington before starting any new diplomatic efforts, although the Pentagon said it had found no evidence that Iran directed the attack.
Rinad Mansour, an Iraqi analyst at Chatham House, told the newspaper that the emergence of mysterious groups with non-transparent leaders makes it difficult for the Biden administration to know who it should deal with, and complicates the Iraqi government's hopes of pursuing meaningful security reform.
He also noted that the picture is blurred by the fact that these "resistance" groups are fronts for Iranian-backed paramilitary forces that are more entrenched in the country and deeply embedded in Iraqi security and political structures, including the Badr Organization, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, and Kataib Hezbollah.
The newspaper said that the strength of the main groups has grown since they were mobilized with other militias in 2014 to counter the advance of ISIS. It took advantage of its role in the regional defeat of the jihadists to boost its popular support and expand its political ambitions.
According to the newspaper, there are more than a dozen armed groups under the umbrella of the Popular Mobilization Forces, a paramilitary force with more than 100,000 personnel that received a budget of $2.6 billion from the government last year.
In addition to attacks on US interests, armed groups have been accused of killing and intimidating peaceful protesters, activists, and critics.
The creation of "fronts" is a strategy developed by Soleimani, who headed Iran's Quds Force, the external arm of the Revolutionary Guards, said Michael Knights of The Washington Institute.
It's a very logical part of the strategy to undermine the Iraqi state while building these groups up politically," Knights said. He added, "They want to get salaries from the popular crowd... but at the same time they want to disobey the Iraqi chain of command and carry out terrorist attacks inside and outside Iraq."
Mansur said that the irony is that the "engineer" was working to impose greater control and centralization on the militias before the Trump administration killed him.
"The killing of the engineer shook the unstable centralization process in Iraq," he said.
While many have argued that he was a key player in the Iraqi government's crackdown on protesters in 2019 and should therefore be removed, the strike, like previous military actions in the country, has failed to secure greater protection for protesters...or advance Washington's interests in limiting Iranian influence.
He said he had spoken to fighters in "vanguard" groups such as Kata'ib Hezbollah, which have no popular support base, who claimed not to know who their leaders were.
Mansour added to the newspaper that the challenge facing Washington is that "this revenge will take years."
For "these men will not forget the assassination of al-Muhandis."
"Eliminate the next generation in Yemen"
And to the Guardian newspaper, which published an article by its correspondent in the Middle East, Bethan McKiernan, entitled: "War and famine may destroy the next generation of Yemenis."
McKiernan visited Sana'a Hospital and interviewed an 11-year-old malnourished girl, Sadia Ibrahim Mahmoud, who died a few days after the interview.
The girl was "so weak that she could not lift the quilt covering her small body by herself," the Guardian correspondent notes.
Sadia said to the reporter in a low voice: "I want to get better, and I want to go to school."
She indicated that the girl's mother then took her aside and explained to her that her daughter had not gone to school before because there was no school in their village. The girl's mother added, "But I swear to God, if she lives, I will build one myself."
The opportunity to fulfill the little girl's dream was not realized, because she died a few days later, according to what the newspaper confirmed.
The newspaper indicated that "16 million people in Yemen - or half of the country's population - suffer from hunger."
The correspondent asserts that while the United Nations is struggling to raise funds for its humanitarian programs for the year 2021 - "even from countries such as the United Kingdom and the Gulf states, which play an active role in the conflict - the situation will only get worse."
Aid agencies warn that 400,000 children under the age of five are at risk of dying from malnutrition.
In Shabwa governorate, according to the correspondent, "the number of serious cases of malnutrition increased by 10% in 2020."
For the children who have managed to survive malnutrition and the devastating outbreak of cholera and dengue fever in Yemen, the future still holds many risks," the reporter says.
A doctor in Shabwa was quoted as saying that he was "concerned that the country is losing an entire generation because of the war."
The average age of marriage for girls in some rural areas was 14 before the war broke out, and has only decreased since then, while boys "under the age of 11 are recruited to fight by all parties to the complex conflict."
And she adds: "Death also comes from above, in the form of airstrikes by the Saudi-Emirati-led coalition."
In a strong criticism of the United Kingdom's policies related to the conflict in Yemen, the newspaper says that "70% of Yemenis who live in areas controlled by the Houthis are well aware that it is countries like the United Kingdom that enable their opponents to launch raids on weddings, hospitals and schoolchildren." ".
She notes that "technical information and serial numbers from missile parts can easily be traced back to Western arms manufacturers, and many families cling to such evidence in the hope that one day justice will be served for their loved ones."
The newspaper says that although Joe Biden said that ending the war in Yemen is a priority for his administration, "it is unlikely that the renewed diplomatic push will slow the sharp escalation in the fighting since the beginning of the year in the Ma'rib governorate in the center of the country."
Beirut is still waiting for justice 7 months after the port explosion
To the Times newspaper, we present an investigation on Lebanon entitled "Will justice be served in the Beirut port explosion case after seven months have passed?"
The newspaper said that the ongoing investigation into the causes and responsibility for the explosion that killed more than 200 people and destroyed a large part of the Lebanese capital on August 4, "has only resulted in the arrest of junior employees, without any charges being filed." for them".
She stated that the investigation "did not result in the conviction of any of the politicians, including those who knew about the existence of the ammonium nitrate shipment."
She added that among those arrested was the officer who warned the President and the Prime Minister of the presence of a shipment of nitrates in the port two weeks before it exploded.
The newspaper interviewed one of the detainees' lawyers and members of their families, and quoted Aida Al-Awf, the daughter of the safety official at the port, Muhammad Al-Awf, as saying that her father "has been arrested for six months under investigation," asking, "How long will he be detained?"
As for Akram Maalouf, the lawyer for the only woman arrested in the case, Nayla Al-Hajj, who is 42 years old and was working in a private technical inspection company in the port, said: "Everyone knows that these detainees were not involved in what happened, they were not actually involved ".
The investigation restored the story of the arrival of a shipment of ammonium nitrate to the port of Beirut since 2014, and attempts to warn of its presence and failure to dispose of it.
An investigation conducted by a local television indicated that the shipment was originally on its way from Georgia to a Mozambican company, which did not demand its return. And that the deal was carried out by a mysterious company whose ownership is unknown, but it is registered in London with a joint address with a second company owned by a businessman close to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
One of the hypotheses being circulated indicates that the nitrate shipments "were destined for al-Assad's explosive barrels."
The newspaper indicated that the government had appointed Judge Fadi Sawan to lead the investigation into the explosion. However, he faced criticism from some of the families of the victims of the explosion, who accused him of being close to the political authority in Lebanon, according to the Times.
However, the government requested his removal after it considered him "one of those personally affected by the explosion, because his house was damaged." This was after some former ministers and Prime Minister Hassan Diab called for a hearing on the case.
Maalouf considered the judge's removal as "political interference."
Commenting on the judge's removal, Aya Majzoub, a researcher at Human Rights Watch in Beirut, said, "We are back to square one." "We need answers, and Lebanon has shown that it is unable to provide them," she added.Main News
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