The Washington Post - 07.03.2020

SATURDAy, MARCH 7 , 2020. THE WASHINGTON POST eZ re A

The World

TUNISIA

Suicide bombers strike

outside U.S. Embassy

An explosion rocked an area
near the U.S. Embassy in the
Tunisian capital Friday in an
attack carried out by two suicide
bombers, according to Tunisian
authorities.
In a statement, Tunisia’s
Interior Ministry described the
blast as a terrorist attack. Two
people, it said, “targeted the U.S.
embassy” in Tunis at 11 a.m.
Friday and “blew themselves up.”
The explosion killed one police
officer and wounded four others,
the ministry said. A civilian was
also injured.
The U.S. Embassy in Tunis
tweeted a statement to American
citizens that read: “Emergency
personnel are responding to an
explosion that occurred near the
U.S. Embassy in Tunis. Please
avoid the area and monitor local
media for updates.”
Social media photos said to
show the scene of the attack
suggest that the bombers had
arrived at the embassy’s external
gate, near a tent where g uards
check for passports and other
identification documents. The
bombers then detonated their
explosives less than 100 yards
from the embassy’s main
entrance.
No group has asserted
responsibility for the blast, but
Tunisia has been targeted by
Islamist extremists several times
in recent years.
— Claire Parker and
Sudarsan Raghavan

SYRIA

Truce brings some

relief, no joy in Idlib

Idlib’s skies were completely

free of Russian and Syrian

government warplanes Friday as

a cease-fire deal took hold in

Syria’s northwestern province,

the last rebel stronghold.

The truce, brokered by Turkey

and Russia, halted a terrifying

three-month air and ground

campaign that killed hundreds

and sent 1 million people fleeing

toward the Turkish border.

But there is no joy among

residents of the province or for

the hundreds of thousands of

displaced people who say they

won’t be returning to their

homes anytime soon.

“ The truce is only a chance for

the two sides to catch their

breath,” said Omar Zaqzaq, who

lives in the rebel-held town of

Binnish, along with his wife,

5 -year-old daughter Maria and

3 -year-old son Akef. “It’s a very

fragile truce, and I don’t think it

will last long.”

The agreement announced

Thursday e ssentially froze the

conflict lines in Idlib. It does not

force Syrian President Bashar

a l-Assad’s forces to roll back

t he large gains made in a

Russian-backed offensive over

t he past three months — a key

Turkish demand before the talks

began.

That effectively rules out the

possibility of displaced people

returning to their homes, now in

areas under Assad’s control.

— Associated Press

British police arrest 2 men over

‘suspicious’ device: British

police arrested two men on

suspicion of offenses relating to

explosives after a “suspicious

device” was found in a car

n orth of London. After an

investigation by bomb disposal

experts, the device in the car in

Luton, which is about 35 miles

north of the British capital, was

deemed “not viable.” A second

car was given the all-clear. One

o f the men was arrested at the

scene, while the second was

arrested shortly afterward

nearby. Police had placed a

cordon around the area and

evacuated a number of

properties as a precaution.

Trial to begin in shooting down

of Malaysia Airlines jet: F our

fugitive suspects are to go on

trial in the Netherlands on

Monday in the shooting down of

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over

eastern Ukraine in July 2014.

T hey are charged with the

murder of all 2 98 passengers

a nd crew members o n board.

The Boeing 777 was flying from

Amsterdam to Malaysia’s capital,

Kuala Lumpur, when it was hit

by a Russian-made surface-to-air

missile, and the wreckage fell

into fields near the Ukrainian

village of Hrabove in territory

held by pro-Russian separatists

fighting Ukrainian government

forces. A rrest warrants were

issued last year by a D utch-led

investigation team, which spent

several years collecting evidence.

The four defendants — Russians

Sergey Dubinsky, Oleg Pulatov

and Igor Girkin and Ukrainian

Leonid Kharchenko — had

senior positions in the pro-

Russian militias in 2014. They

are not expected to appear for

the trial in Amsterdam, but the

judges could rule that they be

tried in absentia.

Great Barrier Reef enters

critical stress period: T he Great

Barrier Reef is facing a critical

period of heat stress over the

coming weeks after the most

widespread coral bleaching the

natural wonder has ever

endured, scientists said. David

Wachenfeld, chief scientist at the

Great Barrier Reef Marine Park

Authority, the government

agency that manages the coral

expanse off northeast Australia,

said ocean temperatures over the

next month will be crucial to

how the reef recovers from the

heat-induced bleaching. The

authority h as received 250

reports of sightings of bleached

coral due to elevated ocean

temperatures during an

unusually hot February.

— From news services

DIGEST

COsTAs BAlTAs/reUTers

A migrant who crossed the Aegean from Turkey on a dinghy this week sits on the Greek island of Lesbos.

Turkey’s coast guard rescued about 120 migrants from the sea early Friday. Meanwhile, Greek riot police

again clashed with migrants trying to enter the European Union at the Greek-Turkish land border.

BY JOANNA SLATER

AND NIHA MASIH

new delhi — Hours before
Anwar Kassar was shot and
burned to death, he was having
tea with a neighbor.
It was time to leave, the neigh-
bor suggested to him. Violence
had broken out between Hindus
and Muslims nearby, and rumors
flew about mobs targeting Mus-
lims. But Anwar said he wasn’t
going anywhere, his neighbor
recalled: Even though he and his
brother were the only Muslim
family on the block, this was his
home of more than 30 years, and
whatever would happen was his
fate.
Later that day, dozens of men
pulled Anwar, 58, out of his
home, shot him and threw him
into a fire in broad daylight, said
two witnesses, one of whom was
his younger brother Saleem Kas-
sar, 52. Hidden by a Hindu
neighbor, he watched it happen
from a third-floor window.
More than 10 days have passed
since Delhi descended into vio-
lence on a scale not seen in
decades, and the full measure of
the bloodshed is still emerging.
What happened was far worse
than anyone knew at first: At
least 53 people were killed or
suffered deadly injuries in vio-
lence that persisted for two days.
The death toll continues to rise.
The majority of those killed
were Muslims, many shot,
hacked or burned to death. A
police officer and an intelligence
officer were also killed. So too
were more than a dozen Hindus,
most of them shot or assaulted.
The police force — which is
directly overseen by the central
government — has come under
criticism for failing to stop the
violence. Witnesses say some
officers joined the attacks on
Muslims.
It was the deadliest Hindu-
Muslim violence in the Indian
capital since at least 1950 , when
reliable figures became avail-
able. It comes amid growing
tensions around the agenda of
Prime Minister Narendra Modi,
who has sought to emphasize
Hindu primacy in India through
measures that include a contro-
versial citizenship law passed in
December.
The brutality unfolded just as
President Trump was making his
first official trip to India, a
36-hour visit that involved a day
of meetings in central Delhi. As
Trump lunched with Modi on
Feb. 25 in a cream-and-sand-
stone palace originally built for a
prince, liv es were forever altered
10 miles away.
A widower, Anwar lived alone
in a one-room brick shed in the
narrow, congested alleys of a
neighborhood called Shiv Vihar.
When he was y ounger, he worked
ironing clothes. In later years, he
rented carts to vendors and
reared goats on a small vacant
plot. His brother Saleem, an

auto-rickshaw driver, lived on

the adjacent street with his wife

and children.

When trouble arrived, it came

swiftly. On Feb. 24, large-scale

violence had broken out nearby

between Hindus and Muslims

after a provocative speech by a

member of Modi’s ruling

Bharatiya Janata Party, in which

he threatened opponents of the

citizenship law.

The next morning, Saleem

said, he stepped outside his

cramped two-room home and

saw his car had been vandalized.

Several young men were pushing

it away, a prelude to setting it on

fire. He rushed back inside and

shouted at his wife, Nasreen, and

his five children, the youngest

7 and the eldest 20, to run out-

side. They left so quickly they

didn’t have time to put on shoes.

Two doors down, the maroon

iron gate to his neighbor’s house

was open. Saleem’s whole family

ran inside. “A mob is coming,” he

told his neighbors in despera-

tion. They locked the gate and

told the family to get upstairs.

On the third floor, Saleem locked

his family into a room and ran

toward a window with a view of

his brother’s home.

He recalled seeing a mob of a

few hundred people, most of

them wearing helmets, armed

with sticks, swords and small

pistols. He heard shouts of “Jai

Shri Ram,” or “Victory to Lord

Ram,” a rallying cry of Hindu

nationalists and the ruling party.

Then he watched, helpless

with terror, as Anwar was killed.

Saleem and Jitendra Kumar, a

painter who lives in the area,

gave similar but independent

accounts of Anwar’s death. Other

witnesses provided details that

matched Saleem’s and Kumar’s

descriptions of the events.

First, the mob vandalized An-

war’s home, throwing his clothes

and supplies out the door and

setting them on fire, S aleem s aid.

Anwar cursed at the rioters de-

stroying his home, Kumar said.

Some men held Anwar’s arms

while another shot him twice,

and then the mob hurled him

into the fire. Anwar staggered to

his feet and was shot a third

time. The assailants heaved a

nearby b icycle r ickshaw o n top o f

him, trapping him in the flames.

The mob was not finished. Its

next stop was Saleem’s house,

where rioters rampaged through

the tiny home, breaking every-

thing in sight, according to sev-

eral of his neighbors. Then they

set it on fire. Neighbors said they

yelled down and pleaded with

the mob to stop out of fear that

their own homes — H indu homes

— would be set ablaze.

As night fell, Saleem said, he

asked his neighbors to help his

family flee the area. The neigh-

bors disguised them as Hindus,

applying a stripe of saffron paste

to their foreheads and placing a

saffron-colored scarf around Sal-

eem’s neck.

“They told us, ‘Don’t stop and

look at your house,’ ” Saleem

recalled. “Don’t try and pick up

any things. Just run.”

Days after the violence, the

lanes were once again quiet.

More than a dozen residents said

they had seen nothing of what

happened to Anwar as they cow-

ered in their own homes. An

unusual number claimed they

had been out of town that day.

One group of neighbors sat on a

cot they had taken from the

wreckage of Saleem’s house and

professed ignorance as to why

only his and his brother’s homes

were targeted.

“We don’t know why, so how

can we say?” said Pawan Kumar,

38, an auto-rickshaw driver.

Some expressed sorrow.

“I felt terrible,” said Jitendra

Kumar, the painter who said he

witnessed the killing. “Political

leaders divide people with their

agenda, and it is the common

man who dies.”

On a recent afternoon, Saleem

returned to the spot where his

brother was killed. He bent d own

in the midday sun and sifted

through a pile of black and gray

ash with his hands, searching for

bones.

He lifted charred fragments

that looked like joints from the

ground and placed them in a

battered bowl.

“Many people were watching

from their rooftops,” he said,

looking up at the surrounding

houses. “But nobody saved my

brother.”

Two police officers said the

authorities had recovered half of

a charred leg from the area and

have sent it for DNA testing

using samples from Saleem and

his niece, Anwar’s daughter.

Rajesh Deo, a senior official with

the Delhi Police in charge of

investigating last week’s vio-

lence, said Thursday he was not

yet aware of the case.

The men who killed his broth-

er were mostly strangers from

outside the neighborhood, Sal-

eem said. But he recognized

three local men, one of them by

name. “I don’t think I can return

there after what I witnessed,” he

said. “A ll we have left are the

clothes on our backs.”

These days, Saleem, a stout

man with a bristle of short black

hair, finds it difficult to sleep:

When he closes his eyes, he

returns to that third-floor win-

dow.

He thinks of his home and all

he owned, ruined. He thinks of

his brother, a man who preferred

to go barefoot and was good to

his nieces and nephews. He has

the bones that he gathered, brit-

tle and blackened. One day soon,

he plans to bury them at a

cemetery down the road.

[email protected]

[email protected]

Tania Dutta contributed to this

report.

Muslim man saw his brother burned to death in Delhi riots

PHOTOs By NIHA MAsIH/THe WAsHINgTON POsT

A photo of Anwar Kassar, a 58-year-old resident of Delhi’s Shiv

Vihar neighborhood who was shot and burned by a mob on Feb. 2 5.

A child looks at photographs of Saleem Kassar’s family salvaged

from their home in Delhi, which was burned by a Hindu mob.