Iraq PM Mustafa Al Kadhimi reshuffles top security posts
Iraqi Prime Minister Mustafa Al Kadhimi has appointed Major General Abdul Ghani Al Asadi as head of the National Security Agency, government sources confirmed to The National on Saturday.
Gen Al Asadi will replace Faleh Al Fayadh, head of the Popular Mobilisation Units paramilitary grouping, the sources said.
The move marks another step by Mr Al Kadhimi towards fulfilling his promise to reassert state sovereignty after taking office in early May.
Gen Al Asadi served in Iraq’s Special Operations Forces until his retirement was ordered by former prime minister Adel Abdul Mahdi in 2018. He was a key commander in the government forces’ US-backed campaign against ISIS in Iraq.
Protester hit by car on closed Seattle highway dies
A 24-year-old woman died on Saturday after she and another woman were hit by a car on a closed highway in Seattle while protesting against police brutality, authorities said.
Summer Taylor, who was from the city, died in the evening at Harborview Medical Centre, hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg said.
Taylor and Diaz Love, 32, of Portland, Oregon, were hit when the vehicle barrelled through a panicking crowd of protesters on Interstate 5 early on Saturday morning, officials said.
Ms Love is in a serious condition in the intensive care unit at Harborview, Ms Gregg said.
Dozens killed in ISIS and regime clashes in Syria, monitor says
Clashes between Russia-backed Syrian regime forces and the Islamic State group have killed more than 50 fighters on both sides in two days, a Britain-based war monitor said on Saturday.
Fighting and Russian air strikes in the central desert province of Homs since late Thursday have claimed the lives of 20 pro-government fighters and 31 militants, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
"The fighting started in the night of Thursday to Friday with a jihadist assault on regime positions" near the town of Al-Sukhna, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.
Algeria expects France to apologise for colonial past, president says
Algeria is waiting for an apology for France's colonial occupation of the North African country, the president said, expressing hope that his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron would build on recent conciliatory overtures.
A global reexamination of the legacy of colonialism has been unleashed by the May killing of unarmed African American George Floyd by a white police officer, which sparked mass protests around the world.
"We have already had half-apologies. The next step is needed... we await it," President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said on Saturday in an interview with news channel France 24.
"I believe that with President Macron, we can go further in the appeasement process... he is a very honest man, who wants to improve the situation."
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