NAIROBI, Kenya – A small commercial plane has crashed while taking off from an airport in Kenya’s capital but domestic carrier Silverstone Air says all passengers and crew have safely disembarked.
It is not immediately clear how many people were on board when the crash occurred Friday morning at Nairobi’s Wilson Airport. The cause of the crash is not yet known.
Local media have reported some injuries as passengers were being evacuated from the scene.
Silverstone Air confirmed the incident via tweet Friday, saying its Fokker 50 turboprop had "an incident" while taking off from Wilson Airport at 9 a.m. local time. The plane was headed for the coastal city of Mombasa.
The airline says in a statement it is working with the authorities to assess the situation.
An Iranian oil tanker cruising 60 miles off the coast of Saudi Arabia was rocked by a pair of missiles Friday, briefly causing an oil leak and more broadly threatening to further inflame fraught regional tensions between the two heavyweight Muslim nations.
Iranian state television reported the explosions damaged two storerooms aboard the oil tanker – which is owned by the National Iranian Oil Company – and caused an oil leak into the Red Sea near the Saudi port city of Jeddah. The leak was later plugged, IRNA reported.
“This latest incident, if confirmed to be an act of aggression, is highly likely to be part of the wider narrative of deteriorating relations between Saudi and the U.S. and Iran,” according to an assessment provided to the Associated Press by private maritime security firm Dryad Maritime. “It is likely that the region, having been stable for the last month, will face another period of increasing maritime threats, as the Iranian and Saudi geopolitical stand-off continues.”
This photo released by the official news agency of the Iranian Oil Ministry, SHANA, shows Iranian oil tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea Friday, Oct. 11, 2019. Two missiles struck the Iranian tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia on Friday, Iranian officials said, the latest incident in the region amid months of heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S. (SHANA via AP)
The stricken vessel, identified by IRNA as the Sibiti, was carrying about 1 million barrels of crude oil when it was struck, an analysis from data firm Refinitiv showed.
The news agency did not say whom Iranian officials suspect may be responsible for launching the missiles.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi described the incident as an "attack" carried out by those committing "dangerous adventurism." In a statement, Mousavi said the Sabiti was struck twice in the span of a half-hour and an investigation was underway.
This photo released by the official news agency of the Iranian Oil Ministry, SHANA, shows Iranian oil tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea Friday, Oct. 11, 2019. Two missiles struck the Iranian tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia on Friday, Iranian officials said, the latest incident in the region amid months of heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S. (SHANA via AP)
Images taken from the ship's bridge that have been released by Iran's Petroleum Ministry did not appear to show any damage to the Sabiti, though the view did not show the ship's sides. Satellite images of the area did not show any visible smoke.
There has been no word from Saudi Arabia about the reported attack. Oil prices jumped by two percent after the news broke.
According to the AP, the Sabiti turned on its tracking devices late Friday morning in the Red Sea. The last time the vessel had turned on its tracking devices was in August near the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.
This photo released by the official news agency of the Iranian Oil Ministry, SHANA, shows Iranian oil tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea Friday, Oct. 11, 2019. Two missiles struck the Iranian tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia on Friday, Iranian officials said, the latest incident in the region amid months of heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S. (SHANA via AP)
Iranian tankers routinely turn off their trackers due to U.S. sanctions that target the sale of Iran’s crude oil.
Lt. Pete Pagano, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet overseeing the Mideast, said authorities there were "aware of reports of this incident," but declined to comment further.
The reported attack comes after the U.S. has alleged that in past months Iran attacked oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, something denied by Tehran.
Fox News' Edmund DeMarche and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
An Iranian oil tanker cruising 60 miles off the coast of Saudi Arabia was rocked by a pair of missiles Friday, briefly causing an oil leak and more broadly threatening to further inflame fraught regional tensions between the two heavyweight Muslim nations.
Iranian state television reported the explosions damaged two storerooms aboard the oil tanker – which is owned by the National Iranian Oil Company – and caused an oil leak into the Red Sea near the Saudi port city of Jeddah. The leak was later plugged, IRNA reported.
“This latest incident, if confirmed to be an act of aggression, is highly likely to be part of the wider narrative of deteriorating relations between Saudi and the U.S. and Iran,” according to an assessment provided to the Associated Press by private maritime security firm Dryad Maritime. “It is likely that the region, having been stable for the last month, will face another period of increasing maritime threats, as the Iranian and Saudi geopolitical stand-off continues.”
This photo released by the official news agency of the Iranian Oil Ministry, SHANA, shows Iranian oil tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea Friday, Oct. 11, 2019. Two missiles struck the Iranian tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia on Friday, Iranian officials said, the latest incident in the region amid months of heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S. (SHANA via AP)
The stricken vessel, identified by IRNA as the Sibiti, was carrying about 1 million barrels of crude oil when it was struck, an analysis from data firm Refinitiv showed.
The news agency did not say whom Iranian officials suspect may be responsible for launching the missiles.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi described the incident as an "attack" carried out by those committing "dangerous adventurism." In a statement, Mousavi said the Sabiti was struck twice in the span of a half-hour and an investigation was underway.
This photo released by the official news agency of the Iranian Oil Ministry, SHANA, shows Iranian oil tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea Friday, Oct. 11, 2019. Two missiles struck the Iranian tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia on Friday, Iranian officials said, the latest incident in the region amid months of heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S. (SHANA via AP)
Images taken from the ship's bridge that have been released by Iran's Petroleum Ministry did not appear to show any damage to the Sabiti, though the view did not show the ship's sides. Satellite images of the area did not show any visible smoke.
There has been no word from Saudi Arabia about the reported attack. Oil prices jumped by two percent after the news broke.
According to the AP, the Sabiti turned on its tracking devices late Friday morning in the Red Sea. The last time the vessel had turned on its tracking devices was in August near the Iranian port city of Bandar Abbas.
This photo released by the official news agency of the Iranian Oil Ministry, SHANA, shows Iranian oil tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea Friday, Oct. 11, 2019. Two missiles struck the Iranian tanker Sabiti traveling through the Red Sea off the coast of Saudi Arabia on Friday, Iranian officials said, the latest incident in the region amid months of heightened tensions between Tehran and the U.S. (SHANA via AP)
Iranian tankers routinely turn off their trackers due to U.S. sanctions that target the sale of Iran’s crude oil.
Lt. Pete Pagano, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet overseeing the Mideast, said authorities there were "aware of reports of this incident," but declined to comment further.
The reported attack comes after the U.S. has alleged that in past months Iran attacked oil tankers near the Strait of Hormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, something denied by Tehran.
Fox News' Edmund DeMarche and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
Ahmed (center) with Eritrea's President Isaias Afwerki. EDUARDO SOTERAS/AFP/Getty Images
The Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Abiy Ahmed, the Ethiopian Prime Minister who helped end his country's 20-year war with Eritrea.
Awol Allo, a fellow Ethiopian and an associate professor of law at Keele University in Britain, said Abiy deserved the prize for his role in ending the 20-year war between Ethiopia and Eritrea -- a largely pointless war over disputed border territory that came at a huge financial and human cost to both countries.
"I think what Abiy did with the Eritrea issue was very courageous and remarkable. I think a lot of people have considered that what he has done is worthy of such a recognition.
"The two countries are no longer in the state of war. Families have been reunited because flights are now running between the two countries. Relations that have been severed for 20 years have been rekindled," Allo said.
The 43-year-old Abiy also recently won plaudits for his role in helping to broker a power-sharing deal in neighboring Sudan, after a political crisis that led to the arrest of Omar al-Bashir, the country's ruler for almost three decades.
"That also speaks to someone who takes peace and stability in the Horn of Africa seriously," Allo said.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes and artillery hit Kurdish militia targets in northeast Syria on the third day of an offensive that has killed hundreds of people, forced tens of thousands to flee and turned Washington’s establishment against President Donald Trump.
The incursion, launched after Trump withdrew U.S. troops who had been fighting alongside Kurdish forces against Islamic State militants, has opened a new front in the eight-year-old Syrian civil war and drawn fierce international criticism.
In Washington, Trump suggested that the United States could mediate in the conflict. He also raised the possibility of imposing tough sanctions on Turkey.
On Friday morning, Turkish warplanes and artillery struck around Syria’s Ras al Ain, one of two border towns that have been the focus of the offensive.
Gunfire could also be heard inside the town, said a Reuters journalist in Ceylanpinar, on the Turkish side of the border.
A convoy of 20 armored vehicles carrying Turkish-allied Syrian rebels entered Syria from Ceylanpinar on Friday, he said. Some made victory signs, shouted “Allahu akbar” (God is greatest) and waved Syrian rebel flags as they advanced towards Ras al Ain.
Some 120 km (75 miles) west, Turkish howitzers resumed shelling near the Syrian town of Tel Abyad, a witness said.
“In these moments, Tel Abyad is seeing the most intense battles in three days,” Marvan Qamishlo, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said.
SDF forces had recovered a hamlet early in the morning, he said.
The International Rescue Committee aid group said 64,000 people in Syria have fled since the campaign began. Ras al Ain and Darbasiya, some 60 km (37 miles) to the east, were largely deserted.
Turkey’s Defence Ministry said that in overnight operations the Turkish military and its Syrian rebel allies killed 49 Kurdish militants. It says it has killed 277 militants in total.
The ministry said one Turkish soldier was killed in a clash on Thursday during the offensive, which is targeting the SDF, which is led by the Kurdish YPG militia.
Overnight, clashes erupted at different points along the border from Ain Diwar at the Iraqi frontier to Kobani, more than 400 km to the west. Turkish and SDF forces exchanged shelling in Qamishli among other places, the SDF’s Qamishlo said.
“The whole border was on fire,” he said.
At least 29 fighters with the SDF and 17 fighters with a Turkish-backed Syrian rebel group had been killed, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war.
In Syria’s al Bab, some 150 km west of the offensive, some 500 Syrian rebels were set to head to Turkey to join the operation, CNN Turk reported. It broadcast video of the rebels performing Muslim prayers in military fatigues, their rifles laid down in front of them, before departing for Turkey.
The SDF said Turkish air strikes and shelling had killed nine civilians. In apparent retaliation by Kurdish-led forces, six people including a 9-month-old baby were killed by mortar fire into Turkish towns, Turkish officials said.
The Observatory said Turkish forces seized two villages near Ras al Ain and five near Tel Abyad. A Syrian rebel forces spokesman said the towns were surrounded after fighters seized the villages around them.
NATO member Turkey says the operation is necessary for border security against the YPG militia, which it designates a terrorist group because of ties to militants who have waged a decades-old insurgency in southeast Turkey in which more than 40,000 people have been killed.
Ankara has also said it intends to create a “safe zone” for the return of millions of refugees to Syria.
Members of Syrian National Army, known as Free Syrian Army, drive in an armored vehicle in the Turkish border town of Ceylanpinar in Sanliurfa province, Turkey, October 11, 2019. REUTERS/Murad Sezer
ISLAMIC STATE CAPTIVES
The SDF have been the main allies of U.S. forces on the ground in the battle against Islamic State since 2014. They have been holding thousands of captured IS fighters in prisons and tens of thousands of their relatives in detention.
Trump said in a Twitter post on Thursday: “We have one of three choices: Send in thousands of troops and win Militarily, hit Turkey very hard Financially and with Sanctions, or mediate a deal between Turkey and the Kurds!”.
“I hope we can mediate,” Trump said when asked about the options by reporters at the White House.
Without elaborating, he said the United States was “going to possibly do something very, very tough with respect to sanctions and other financial things” against Turkey.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has called for an emergency meeting of the coalition of more than 30 countries created to fight Islamic State. France’s European affairs minister said next week’s European Union summit will discuss sanctions on Turkey over its action in Syria.
SDF forces were still in control of all prisons with Islamic State captives, a senior U.S. State Department official said.
The United States has received a high-level commitment from Turkey on taking responsibility for Islamic State captives but had not yet had detailed discussions, the official said.
U.S. lawmakers have said Trump gave Erdogan the green light to go into Syria but the official disputed that. “We gave them a very clear red light, I’ve been involved in those red lights and I know the president did that on Sunday,” the official said.
Trump has faced rare criticism from senior figures in his Republican Party who accuse him of deserting U.S. allies.
U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican who usually backs Trump, has been one of the most outspoken critics of the U.S. troop withdrawal. He announced a framework for sanctions on Turkey with Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen.
Slideshow (11 Images)
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Turkey would retaliate against any measure taken against it.
Reporting by Daren Butler and Tom Perry; Additional reporting by John Irish in Paris and Reuters correspondents in the region; Editing by Daniel Wallis and Angus MacSwan
An explosion was reported on an Iranian oil tanker on Friday about 60 miles off the coast of Saudi Arabia in what is being eyed as a “terrorist attack.”
Iranian officials said two rockets struck the tanker.
The tanker, which is owned by the National Iranian Oil Company, suffered serious damage, the semi-official ISNA news agency, reported, according to Reuters. The tanker is located on the Red Sea near the port in Jeddah.
There was no immediate acknowledgment from the kingdom of this amid heightened tensions across the Middle East.
The state-run IRNA news agency and other Iranian media relied on an online report, while the semi-official ISNA news agency quoted an anonymous source with direct knowledge.
Lt. Pete Pagano, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet overseeing the Mideast, said authorities there were "aware of reports of this incident," but declined to comment further.
ISTANBUL — Turkish forces advanced deeper into northeast Syria as part of a campaign to oust Kurdish fighters from the area, Turkey’s Defense Ministry said Thursday, expanding an offensive that has drawn a sharp rebuke from the international community.
The operation, including air and ground forces, targeted villages along the border with Syria and “continued successfully” early Thursday, the second day of the offensive, the ministry said in a statement. Turkey says it aims to create a “safe zone” in northeast Syria, where Kurdish-led forces are in control, but critics fear it could plunge the region into a fresh crisis.
Kurdish officials pushed back against claims of a Turkish advance, saying their fighters had repelled a ground incursion near the town of Tel Abyad overnight.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which partnered with U.S. troops to battle the Islamic State in Syria, said Thursday that Turkish shelling had targeted a prison holding some of the jihadist group’s fighters in the northeastern city of Qamishli. Thousands of Islamic State prisoners and their families are being held in camps and jails administered by Syrian Kurdish authorities.
In a separate statement on Twitter, SDF spokesman Mustafa Bali said that Turkey’s military hit a civilian convoy also near Tel Abyad, about a quarter-mile from the Turkish frontier, killing three.
Turkey views the Syrian Kurdish fighters as terrorists because of their links to Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a decade-long battle in southeastern Turkey for greater autonomy. It launched its long-expected offensive targeting the SDF in northeastern Syria Wednesday, with airstrikes and shelling targeting its outposts along the border.
Mortar fire from Syria landed in at least two Turkish towns, Turkish media reported.
The Turkish foray threatens to further fracture a war-shattered Syria, which has been devastated by a years-long conflict.
Mikael Mohammad, a shop owner from Tel Abyad, fled the town with his family Wednesday and slept in the open air in the countryside, he said.
“I had to leave with only the clothes I had on me,” he said in a telephone interview. “I immediately got in the car, picked up my family and drove. . . away from the border.”
“Everything I rebuilt in the last few years, I may have just lost again,” Mohammad said. “The shelling is barbaric and indiscriminate.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitoring group, said that 16 SDF fighters had been killed since the operation began Wednesday, including in Ras al-Ayn, which is 75 miles east of Tel Abyad.
Nawras, a resident of Ras al-Ayn, described a night of intense shelling. Air strikes resumed in the morning, he said, prompting him and his family to flee.
“People are still leaving Ras al-Ayn as we speak,” said Nawras, an electrician. “I’m being told that the city is still being targeted and that we should not consider going back for now.”
The past weeks have seen a buildup of Turkish forces on the border, belligerent speeches by Turkish officials and dire warnings from Turkey’s NATO allies and others.
President Trump called the Turkish offensive “a bad idea,” but also stood by his decision to pull back U.S. forces to effectively clear the way for Turkey.
“Turkey has committed to protecting civilians, protecting religious minorities, including Christians, and ensuring no humanitarian crisis takes place,” he added. “We will hold them to this commitment.”
The offensive has presented the Trump administration with a dilemma as it has sought to balance Washington’s partnership with Turkey and its links to the Syrian Kurdish forces that helped beat back the Islamic State.
Erdogan’s government has watched nervously for years as Syria’s Kurds have built an autonomous enclave along Turkey’s border. It railed against the United States for relying on the Kurds as a military partner and bristled as its enemies accumulated weapons and territory.
For years, the United States and Turkey have been engaged in negotiations aimed at soothing Ankara’s security concerns.
There was also the risk that American troops still positioned in Syria could get caught in the crossfire.
A U.S. official said the Trump administration had provided Turkey with a list of no-strike locations where U.S. personnel were stationed.
