Kurdish-led security forces have quelled a riot at a prison for suspected ISIS fighters in the north-east Syrian city of Hasaka on Monday.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK based war monitor, said four detainees believed to have broken out of Ghourian prison had been tracked down within the jail holding some 5,000 inmates.
The spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, Mustafa Bali, described the situation inside the jail as “tense”.
The SDF said inmates partially seized control of the jail on Sunday and that they were in pursuit of those who were believed to have fled.
The Syrian regime maintains a significant security presence in the rural city of Hasaka and several of its official departments function normally.
SANA, the regime’s official news agency, said that overnight the US-led coalition had illuminated the prison area from the air to help trace the fugitives. The prison, SANA said, has 3,000 ISIS members as well incarcerated civilians.
SANA said 12 prisoners escaped, while the SDF initially said only that there were several.
The SDF is dominated by the Kurdish People Protection Units (YPG), which is closely linked to the Turkish Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Washington regards the PKK as a terrorist organisation but it is backing the YPG militia.
With tacit Syrian regime cooperation, the YPG seized control of large parts of north-east Syria after the outbreak of the Syrian revolt against five decades of Assad family rule in 2011.
The takeover contributed a violent Arab backlash, with many joining militant groups that marketed themselves as a bulwark against Kurdish militia expansion.
The Kurdish groups fought back ISIS who largely overran the region of Syria and in the process became the main ground component of the US-led war against the terror group in Syria.
The war resulted in ISIS losing virtually all of its territory in Syria in March 2019. But the group still mounts hit-and-run attacks against the Kurdish militia.
Human Rights Watch says the SDF has in detention 12,000 men and boys suspected of belonging to ISIS. Among them are 2,000 to 4,000 foreigners from almost 50 countries.
The inmates are often held in inhumane conditions, Human Rights Watch says. The Kurdish militia also oversees camps that house thousands of Syrian and foreign women and children who are family members of suspected militants.
Rights groups and Kurdish forces have called on the international community to do more to repatriate their nationals who joined ISIS and support the camps holding prisoners. Many nations have refused to repatriate men, women or children although some have been returned.
Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
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MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, semi-final result:
Liverpool 4-0 Barcelona
Liverpool win 4-3 on aggregate
Champions Legaue final: June 1, Madrid
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- Lower Bowl Plus - Dh695
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Closing the loophole on sugary drinks
As The National reported last year, non-fizzy sugared drinks were not covered when the original tax was introduced in 2017. Sports drinks sold in supermarkets were found to contain, on average, 20 grams of sugar per 500ml bottle.
The non-fizzy drink AriZona Iced Tea contains 65 grams of sugar – about 16 teaspoons – per 680ml can. The average can costs about Dh6, which would rise to Dh9.
Drinks such as Starbucks Bottled Mocha Frappuccino contain 31g of sugar in 270ml, while Nescafe Mocha in a can contains 15.6g of sugar in a 240ml can.
Flavoured water, long-life fruit juice concentrates, pre-packaged sweetened coffee drinks fall under the ‘sweetened drink’ category
Not taxed:
Freshly squeezed fruit juices, ground coffee beans, tea leaves and pre-prepared flavoured milkshakes do not come under the ‘sweetened drink’ band.
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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The years Ramadan fell in May
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Key findings
- Over a period of seven years, a team of scientists analysed dietary data from 50,000 North American adults.
- Eating one or two meals a day was associated with a relative decrease in BMI, compared with three meals. Snacks count as a meal. Likewise, participants who ate more than three meals a day experienced an increase in BMI: the more meals a day, the greater the increase.
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- Those who turned the eating day on its head to make breakfast the biggest meal of the day, did even better.
- But scrapping dinner altogether gave the best results. The study found that the BMI of subjects who had a long overnight fast (of 18 hours or more) decreased when compared even with those who had a medium overnight fast, of between 12 and 17 hours.
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Florence and the Machine – High as Hope
Three stars
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
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UAE's final round of matches
- Sep 1, 2016 Beat Japan 2-1 (away)
- Sep 6, 2016 Lost to Australia 1-0 (home)
- Oct 6, 2016 Beat Thailand 3-1 (home)
- Oct 11, 2016 Lost to Saudi Arabia 3-0 (away)
- Nov 15, 2016 Beat Iraq 2-0 (home)
- Mar 23, 2017 Lost to Japan 2-0 (home)
- Mar 28, 2017 Lost to Australia 2-0 (away)
- June 13, 2017 Drew 1-1 with Thailand (away)
- Aug 29, 2017 v Saudi Arabia (home)
- Sep 5, 2017 v Iraq (away)
What is the definition of an SME?
SMEs in the UAE are defined by the number of employees, annual turnover and sector. For example, a “small company” in the services industry has six to 50 employees with a turnover of more than Dh2 million up to Dh20m, while in the manufacturing industry the requirements are 10 to 100 employees with a turnover of more than Dh3m up to Dh50m, according to Dubai SME, an agency of the Department of Economic Development.
A “medium-sized company” can either have staff of 51 to 200 employees or 101 to 250 employees, and a turnover less than or equal to Dh200m or Dh250m, again depending on whether the business is in the trading, manufacturing or services sectors.
BMW M5 specs
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
SEMI-FINAL
Monterrey 1
Funes Mori (14)
Liverpool 2
Keita (11), Firmino (90 1)
