In brief: Iraqi leader gives ultimatum ahead of attack on Tikrit
BAGHDAD – Iraq’s prime minister called on Sunni tribal fighters to abandon the Islamic State group Sunday, ahead of a promised offensive to retake Saddam Hussein’s hometown from the extremists.
Haider al-Abadi offered no timeline for an attack on Tikrit, the hometown of the late Iraqi dictator some 80 miles north of Baghdad that fell into the hands of the Islamic State group last summer. However, Shiite militias and Iraqi security forces have stationed themselves around Tikrit as state-run media has warned that the city “will soon return to its people.”
Al-Abadi offered what he called “the last chance” for Sunni tribal fighters, promising them a pardon during a news conference in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. His office said he arrived in Samarra to “supervise the operation to liberate Tikrit from the terrorist gangs.”
“I call upon those who have been misled or committed a mistake to lay down arms and join their people and security forces in order to liberate their cities,” al-Abadi said.
Activists say IS released 19 Syrian Christians
BEIRUT – The Islamic State group released at least 19 Christians on Sunday who were among the more than 220 people the militants took captive in northeastern Syria last week, activists and a local leader said.
The news provided a modicum of relief to a Christian Assyrian community that has been devastated by the abductions, which saw Islamic State fighters haul off entire families from a string of villages along the Khabur River in Hassakeh province. But fears remain over the fate of the hundreds still held captive.
Bashir Saedi, a senior official in the Assyrian Democratic Organization, said the 16 men and three women arrived safely Sunday at the Church of the Virgin Mary in the city of Hassakeh.
The Assyrian Human Rights Network also reported the release, and published photographs on its Facebook page that it said were from Hassakeh showing a crowd greeting the returnees.
It was not immediately clear why the Islamic State group freed these captives.
Saedi said all those released were around 50 years of age or older, which suggests age might have been a factor. The Assyrian Human Rights Network, meanwhile, said the captives had been ordered released by a Shariah court after paying an unspecified amount of money levied as a tax on non-Muslims.
Vice president puts self in quarantine for Ebola
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone – Sierra Leone’s vice president has put himself in quarantine following the death from Ebola of one of his security guards.
Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana is the highest ranking African official to be in quarantine in this Ebola outbreak in West Africa, which is fast approaching a death toll of 10,000. The news highlights the rise of new cases in Sierra Leone, which has experienced a setback in curbing the spread of Ebola.
Sam-Sumana voluntarily decided to quarantine himself for 21 days following the death from Ebola last Tuesday of one of his security personnel.
Sam-Sumana’s dramatic quarantine comes as President Ernest Bai Koroma reinstated restrictions on public movement on Saturday, in response the rise in new cases.
Prince William takes on diplomatic role in China
BEIJING – Prince William presented China’s president with a large envelope today containing an invitation from the queen to visit Britain this year, as he began the first official visit to mainland China by a senior British royal in a generation.
President Xi Jinping told the prince that he thanked Queen Elizabeth II for the invitation. “I look forward to meeting her majesty and other British leaders during the visit and to jointly plan out the future of Sino-British relations,” Xi said during the meeting in the Great Hall of the People, the seat of China’s legislature. “The British royal family has great influence, not just in Britain but across the world.”
India’s ruling party forms government in Kashmir
SRINAGAR, India – India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party formed a coalition government in Kashmir on Sunday, marking the first time it will hold a leadership position in the disputed Muslim-majority region.
Leaders from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Peoples Democratic Party were sworn into office in the state’s winter capital of Jammu amid tight security in a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
No single party managed to win a clear majority needed to form a government in Jammu and Kashmir state during the elections, which took place in several phases in November and December.
The two parties hold diametrically opposite views on several issues, such as laws that exclude Indian military personnel from criminal prosecution the violence-wracked Himalayan region.
Pro-Western reform party winner in Estonia election
TALLINN, Estonia – Estonia’s ruling Reform Party has emerged as the overall winner in the Baltic country’s general election dominated by economic issues and security concerns over Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
With all votes counted, Prime Minister Taavi Roivas declared victory early today. Polls had predicted a close race between the governing center-right coalition and the opposition Center Party, favored by ethnic Russians.
Roivas’ pro-Western, liberal party won 28 percent of the votes to take 30 seats, three seats less than in the previous election but five more than the main opposition centrists.