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US Secretary of State Marco Rubio pledged strong support for  Qatar’s security on a lightning visit on Tuesday, as anger boils in the Gulf ally over last week’s Israeli attack on Hamas negotiators.On a hastily arranged stop in Doha after a visit to Israel, Rubio shook hands with Qatar’s emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, in his office before entering closed door talks that lasted just under an hour. He flew out straight after the meeting.In Israel, he had pledged “unwavering support” even after it angered US allies in the Gulf by targeting Hamas negotiators in Doha.”Secretary Rubio reaffirmed the strong bilateral relationship between the United States and Qatar, and thanked Qatar for its efforts to end the war in Gaza and bring all hostages home,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.Rubio “reiterated America’s strong support for Qatar’s security and sovereignty,” he added.Rubio had earlier said the United States would work with Qatar to finalise a defence agreement soon despite the Israeli military action.Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesman, Majed al-Ansari said his country appreciated US support for its meditation efforts, adding that “this attack, of course, expedited the need for renewed strategic defence agreements between us and the US”.Rubio had earlier said he would “ask Qatar to continue to do what they’ve done” adding that “if there’s any country in the world that could help end this through a negotiation, it’s Qatar”.But Israel’s launch of its long anticipated ground assault on Gaza City early Tuesday left little scope for any new mediation bid.Rubio’s visit also sought to reassure Qatar after the Israeli strikes undermined security pledges to the Gulf emirate from its key ally.Rubio landed in Qatar a day after an Arab-Islamic summit in Doha condemned Israel for the strikes, with the head of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council urging Washington to “use its leverage and influence” to rein in Israel.President Donald Trump told reporters in Washington that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “won’t be hitting” Qatar again.Rubio made no such comments in Israel.Netanyahu said his government assumes “full responsibility” for the attack on Doha “because we believe that terrorists should not be given a haven”.- Duelling US relationships -Qatar is home to the largest US air base in the Middle East and is the forward base of Central Command, the US military command responsible for the region.The tiny gas-rich emirate is classified by Washington as a major non-NATO ally, and has assiduously courted Trump, gifting him a luxury plane.But few countries are closer to the United States than Israel, which has enjoyed robust support from Washington despite international opprobrium over its military campaign in Gaza.Before the October 2023 attack, Israel and the United States had reportedly quietly encouraged Doha’s role, including its transfer of millions of dollars to Hamas in hopes of maintaining stability in Gaza.In 2012, Qatar agreed to host the Hamas political bureau with US blessing.Both the United States and Israel viewed Qatar, with its close relationship with Washington, as a better place to keep an eye on Hamas.

France on Tuesday repatriated three women and 10 children from Syrian prisons for alleged jihadists, anti-terror prosecutors said, in the first such operation in two years.Repatriation is a deeply sensitive issue in France, which has been a target of Islamists over the last decade, notably in 2015, when jihadist gunmen and suicide bombers staged the worst attack on Paris since World War II, killing 130 people.More than five years after the Islamic State group’s territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria, tens of thousands of people are still held in Kurdish-run camps and prisons in northeastern Syria, many with alleged or perceived links to IS.The women repatriated early Tuesday morning are aged between 18 and 34.Two of them have been taken into police custody, while the third faces possible indictment, according to France’s anti-terror unit PNAT.The 10 children were handed over to child care services and will be monitored by the anti-terror unit and local prosecutors, it added.France’s foreign ministry thanked “the Syrian transitional authorities and the local administration in northeastern Syria for making the operation possible”.Since 2019, France has repatriated 179 children and 60 women, according to a diplomatic source.The country halted such operations two years ago.- ‘Immense relief’ – Matthieu Bagard, the head of the Syria unit at Lawyers Without Borders, said that Tuesday’s repatriation showed France “has the capacity to organise such operations”.Marie Dose, a lawyer who represents the repatriated women, hailed the move.”For families who have waited more than six years for the return of their grandchildren, nephews and nieces, this is an immense and indescribable relief,” Dose said in a statement to AFP.But she added that 110 French children remained detained in the Roj camp controlled by Kurdish forces, describing France’s repatriation policy as “arbitrary”.Dose accused France of seeking “to make these children pay for their parents’ choices”.As of June, some 120 children “guilty of nothing” and 50 French women remained in the camps, according to the United Families Collective, which represents their families.In February, the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Syria said that in coordination with the United Nations, it aimed to empty camps by the end of the year.- International pressure -Several European countries, such as Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, have recovered many of their citizens from the Syrian camps.International organisations have for years called on France to take back the wives and children of suspected IS fighters held in the camps since the group was ousted from its self-declared “caliphate” in 2019.France has refused blanket repatriation, saying the return of potentially radicalised IS family members would pose security risks in France.In 2022, Europe’s top human rights court condemned France’s refusal to repatriate two French women who were being held in Syria after joining their Islamist partners.The following year, the United Nations Committee Against Torture said that in refusing to repatriate women and minors, France was violating the UN Convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.On Monday, three French women went on trial in Paris, accused of travelling to the Middle East to join IS and taking their eight children with them.One of the women is a niece of Jean-Michel and Fabien Clain, who claimed responsibility on behalf of the IS group for the 2015 attacks in Paris.

Nepal is assessing the multi-million dollar damage from last week’s violent protests, when parliament, government offices and a newly opened Hilton Hotel were set ablaze.At least 72 people were killed in two days of anti-corruption protests, with scores more badly injured, according to official figures.”So much has been destroyed,” police spokesman Binod Ghimire told AFP, …

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A shipowner wanted over a 2020 blast at Beirut port that killed more than 220 people has been arrested in Bulgaria, officials said Tuesday.The August 4, 2020 disaster was one of the world’s largest non-nuclear explosions, ravaging swathes of the Lebanese capital and injuring more than 6,500 people.Authorities have said the blast was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where tonnes of ammonium nitrate fertiliser had been stored haphazardly for years after arriving by ship, despite repeated warnings to senior officials.Beirut authorities identified Igor Grechushkin, a 48-year-old Russian-Cypriot citizen, as the owner of the Rhosus, the ship that transported the ammonium nitrate.Interpol issued red notices for him and two others in 2021.Grechushkin “has been placed in detention for a maximum duration of 40 days by a court decision on September 7, confirmed on appeal,” a Sofia city court spokeswoman told AFP.The authorities requesting extradition have 40 days to send the necessary documents to effect such a move, according to Bulgarian law.- Held at airport -Grechushkin was held on an Interpol red notice at Sofia airport on September 5 upon his arrival from Paphos in Cyprus, a Bulgarian judicial source confirmed to AFP.Wanted by the Lebanese judicial authorities, he is being sought for allegedly “introducing explosives into Lebanon, a terrorist act that resulted in the death of a large number of people, disabling machinery with the intent of sinking a ship”, the Bulgarian prosecutor’s office said in a statement.Grechushkin was arrested during a routine check of passengers arriving from Paphos, according to border police.”He offered no resistance. He repeatedly insisted on speaking to a lawyer and, after consulting one, he fully cooperated,” Zdravko Samuilov, head of the border police at Sofia Airport, told reporters Tuesday.He informed the officers that he came to Bulgaria “for tourism”, Samuilov added.- Long-stalled investigation -The Rhosus, a Moldovan-flagged cargo ship sailing from Georgia and bound for Mozambique, is widely understood to have brought the fertiliser to Beirut in 2013.After it arrived in Lebanon, the Rhosus faced “technical problems”, and security officials said it was impounded after a Lebanese company filed a lawsuit against its owner.Port authorities unloaded the ammonium nitrate and stored it in a run-down port warehouse with cracks in its walls, according to officials.The ship later sank in Beirut port in 2018.An investigation into the blast has been mired in legal and political wrangling.Judge Tarek Bitar resumed his investigation into the blast this year as Lebanon’s balance of power shifted.This followed a war between Israel and Hezbollah that weakened the Iran-backed militant group, which had spearheaded a campaign for Bitar’s resignation.Those questioned in the investigation include former Lebanese Prime Minister Hassan Diab, as well as military and security officials.

Israel launched its long anticipated ground assault on Gaza City before dawn on Tuesday, shortly after visiting US Secretary of State Marco Rubio backed its goal of eradicating Hamas in Gaza.A United Nations probe, meanwhile, charged Israel with committing “genocide” in the Palestinian territory and accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top officials of incitement.During the night, the military unleashed a massive bombardment of Gaza City as Israeli troops moved deeper into the territory’s largest urban hub.”Last night, we transitioned into the next phase, the main phase of the plan for Gaza City… Forces have expanded ground activity into Hamas’s main stronghold in Gaza, which is Gaza City,” a military official told journalists.”We are moving towards the centre” of Gaza City, he said. When asked whether troops had moved deeper into central Gaza City he replied: “Yes.”The military estimated there were “2,000-3,000 Hamas” militants operating in the area, he added.Defence Minister Israel Katz said Gaza City was “on fire”.”The IDF (Israeli military) is striking terrorist infrastructure with an iron fist, and IDF soldiers are fighting bravely to create the necessary conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas,” he said.Witnesses told AFP of relentless bombing of Gaza City, much of which is already in ruins after nearly two years of Israeli strikes since the Hamas attacks of October 2023 that triggered the war.”We can hear their screams,” said 25-year-old resident Ahmed Ghazal.Rubio offered robust backing for the offensive on Monday as he met Netanyahu, who has ordered the Israeli military to seize Gaza City.Rubio told reporters as he left Israel: “We think we have a very short window of time in which a deal can happen. We don’t have months anymore, and we probably have days and maybe a few weeks to go.”Rubio said a diplomatic solution in which Hamas demilitarises remained the US preference, although he added: “Sometimes when you’re dealing with a group of savages like Hamas, that’s not possible, but we hope it can happen.”Rubio, who met Monday in Jerusalem with families of hostages in Gaza, acknowledged that Hamas had leverage by holding them.”If there were no hostages and no civilians in the way, this war would have ended a year and a half ago,” he said at Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport.A group representing hostages’ families said they were “terrified” for their loved ones after Netanyahu ordered the strikes.”He is doing everything to ensure there is no deal and not to bring them back,” they said in a statement.- ‘Genocide’ -The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry (COI), which does not speak for the world body and has faced harsh Israeli criticism, found that “genocide is occurring in Gaza and is continuing to occur”, commission chief Navi Pillay told AFP.”The responsibility lies with the State of Israel.”The investigators said explicit statements by Israeli civilian and military authorities along with the pattern of Israeli forces’ conduct “indicated that the genocidal acts were committed with intent to destroy… Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as a group”.The report concluded that Netanyahu, President Isaac Herzog and former defence minister Yoav Gallant have “incited the commission of genocide”. Israel said it “categorically rejects this distorted and false report” and called for the “immediate abolition” of the COI.Before flying out to Qatar, Rubio said he hoped the US ally would keep up its Gaza mediation efforts, despite Israel carrying out air strikes against Hamas leaders gathered in the Gulf emirate last week to consider a US truce proposal.”We want them to know that if there’s any country in the world that could help end this through a negotiation, it’s Qatar,” Rubio said.Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 27 people had been killed by Israeli fire on Tuesday.Media restrictions in the territory and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify the details provided by the civil defence agency or the Israeli military.- Ahead of statehood push -Rubio’s visit came a week before France will lead a UN summit in which a number of Western governments, angered by what they see as Israeli intransigence, plan to recognise a Palestinian state.Rubio called statehood recognition “largely symbolic”, while Netanyahu — whose government is fervently opposed to such a move — said his country may take unspecified “unilateral steps” in response.The October 2023 attack by Hamas resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally of official figures.Israel’s retaliatory campaign in Gaza has killed at least 64,905 people, also mostly civilians, according to figures from the territory’s health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.