Mattis warns of Syria’s chemical stash
TEL AVIV, Israel — Syria still possesses chemical weapons, U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis said Friday in Israel, warning against the banned munitions being used again.
At a news conference in Tel Aviv, Mattis also said that in recent days the Syrian air force has dispersed its combat aircraft. The implication is that Syria may be concerned about additional U.S. strikes after the cruise missile attack earlier this month in retaliation for alleged Syrian use of sarin gas.
Mattis spoke alongside Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman.
“There can be no doubt in the international community’s mind that Syria has retained chemical weapons in violation of its agreement and its statement that it had removed them all,” Mattis said. He said he didn’t want to elaborate on the amounts Syria has in order to avoid revealing sources of intelligence.
Israeli defense officials said this week that Syria still has up to 3 tons of chemical weapons in its possession. It was the first specific intelligence assessment of President Bashar Assad’s weapons capabilities since a deadly chemical attack earlier this month.
Assad has denied he was behind the attack in the opposition-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria’s northern Idlib province, and has accused the opposition of trying to frame his government. Top Assad ally, Russia, has asserted that a Syrian government airstrike hit a rebel chemical-weapons factory, causing the disaster.
March slayings in Mexico top 2,000
MEXICO CITY — Mexico has surpassed 2,000 killings in a month for the first time since the summer of 2011, and it had more slayings in the first quarter of 2017 than in the start of any year in at least two decades.
Unlike in 2011, when a bloody cartel clash in Ciudad Juarez was driving the national toll to new heights, the slayings driving the 2017 total are spread across a number of states.
The federal government released the state-by-state totals for March on Friday. There were 2,020 killings in March, up about 11 percent from February.
For January through March, the total was 5,775 killings, up 29 percent from the same three months last year. Guerrero, Baja California and Baja California Sur were among states that saw jumps in March.
Fiery S. Africa crash fatal to 20 pupils
JOHANNESBURG — A minibus carrying students collided with a truck Friday and burst into flames in South Africa, killing about 20 children.
The victims were between 5 and 10 years old, said Russel Meiring, a spokesman for paramedic company ER24. He said several children survived after being pulled from the wreckage near Bronkhorstspruit, east of the capital, Pretoria.
Authorities were investigating the cause of the crash.
“We are trying to find out exactly what happened,” Meiring said.
Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi expressed condolences to the families of the dead. In an interview with the eNCA news outlet, he said many accidents occur because of reckless driving and that increasing road patrols would have limited results.
26 captives in Iraq free after 16 months
BAGHDAD — Qatar on Friday secured the release of 26 people, including members of its ruling family, from 16 months of captivity in Iraq in what had become one of the region’s most complex hostage negotiations.
Several people with knowledge of the talks and a person involved in the negotiations said the hostage deal was linked to one of the largest population transfers in Syria’s six-year civil war and was delayed for several days after an explosion a week ago that killed at least 130 people waiting to be transferred.
The Qatari group was kidnapped Dec. 16, 2015, from a desert camp for falcon hunters in southern Iraq. They had legally entered Iraq to hunt inside Muthanna province. Shiite militias are active in that area and work closely with neighboring Shiite power Iran.
A person involved in the negotiations said Qatar paid tens of millions of dollars to Shiite groups and to the al-Qaida-linked Levant Liberation Committee and Ahrar al-Sham, which are involved in the population transfers underway in Syria. Both groups were part of an armed opposition alliance that laid siege to two pro-government villages in Syria now being evacuated.
A Section on 04/22/2017