20/05/2026

WEDNESDAY | MAY 20, 2026

9

Five dead in San Diego mosque shooting

Aid flotilla down to 10 vessels

ISTANBUL: The organisers of an aid flotilla bound for Gaza said yesterday Israeli forces had intercepted 41 of their boats in the eastern Mediterranean, with 10 vessels still sailing towards the enclave. The closest vessel to Gaza, Sirius , was 145 nautical miles (269km) away, the group said. Israel’s Foreign Ministry had said on X on Monday that it “will not allow any breach of the lawful naval blockade on Gaza”. Speaking in Ankara late on Monday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan condemned the intervention against the “voyagers of hope” in the flotilla and called on the international community to act against Israel’s actions. Ships from the Global Sumud Flotilla had set sail for a third time on Thursday from southern Turkiye, after earlier attempts to deliver aid to Gaza were intercepted by Israel in international waters. The group said there were 426 people taking part in the 54-vessel flotilla from 39 countries. Israel’s Foreign Ministry has called on “all participants in this provocation to change course and turn back immediately”. Palestinians and international aid bodies, along with Turkiye and a number of other countries, say supplies reaching Gaza are still insufficient, despite a ceasefire reached in October that included guarantees of increased aid. Most of Gaza’s more than 2 million people have been displaced, many now living in bombed-out homes and makeshift tents pitched on open ground, roadsides or atop the ruins of destroyed buildings. Israel, which controls all access to the Gaza Strip, denies withholding supplies for its residents. Its Foreign Ministry said more than 1.58 million metric tonnes of humanitarian aid and thousands of tonnes of medical supplies have entered Gaza since October. – Reuters WASHINGTON: The Pentagon’s independent inspector general’s office is investigating the legality of the US military’s widely criticised operation targeting alleged drug boats that has killed at least 192 people. The US began striking vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean in September last year, insisting it is effectively at war with what it calls “narco-terrorists” operating out of Latin America. But legal experts and rights groups suggest the attacks could amount to extrajudicial killings because they have apparently targeted civilians who do not pose an immediate threat to the United States. The government has also not provided definitive evidence that the vessels it has attacked are involved in drug trafficking. The probe aims to determine whether the Pentagon followed the Joint Targeting Cycle, which provides six key steps for carrying out a military operation, when conducting the strikes, the agency said in a memorandum from May 11. – AFP ‘SOCIAL MEDIA FEEDS THREATEN DEMOCRACY’ GENEVA: The Dutch media authority warned yesterday that social media platforms are making it harder for people to form “a free and informed opinion”, raising concerns over the growing influence of algorithms on news consumption. It said more people in the Netherlands, particularly younger users, increasingly rely on platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and X for news and information. The authority said social media companies have financial incentives to spread attention grabbing content “even if it is unreliable”, while users have limited control over what appears in their feeds. The report also raised concerns about practices such as “shadowbanning”, in which posts or accounts become less visible without users being clearly informed. It warned that platform owners are influencing what users see online, describing algorithm-driven feeds as “risky for democracy”. – Bernama STRIKES ON ALLEGED DRUG BOATS UNDER PROBE

o Teenage gunmen take their own lives

SAN DIEGO: Two teenage gunmen opened fire on Monday at the Islamic Centre of San Diego, California, killing a security guard and two other men outside the mosque before the suspects were found dead, apparently from self-inflicted gunshot wounds, police said. San Diego Police Chief Scott Wahl said local law enforcement and the FBI were investigating the attack on the largest mosque in San Diego County as a hate crime. However, no precise motive or precipitating incident for the gun violence has been publicly suggested by authorities. All of the children attending a day school at the mosque complex were accounted for and safe after the shooting, officials said. At an evening news conference, Wahl disclosed that the mother of one of the two suspects had called police about two hours before the shooting to report that her son, whom she described as suicidal, had run away from home taking three guns she owned and her vehicle. According to the chief, the mother said her son was with a companion and the two were dressed in camouflage. Police initiated efforts to track down the youths and were dispatching patrols to a nearby shopping mall and the son’s high school as a precaution when calls came in reporting the shooting. The chief declined to disclose the contents of a note he said was found by the runaway’s mother. Before the shooting police were not made aware of any “specific threat” to the mosque or any religious centre, school, shopping area, or any other place, Wahl said. Police instead were confronting a case of “generalised hate rhetoric and hate speech,” which together with reports of a runaway teenager with weapons wearing camouflage “triggered a much bigger threat assessment”. “We have never experienced a tragedy like this,” Taha Hassane, the imam and director of the Islamic Center, told reporters. “It is extremely outrageous to target a place of worship.” Scores of law enforcement officers called to the scene encountered the bodies of the three men affiliated with the mosque shot dead. Officials credited the slain security guard

BR I E F S

A parent passes under yellow tape cordoning an area, as he carries his child away from the scene of the shooting in San Diego on Monday. – REUTERSPIC

the attack, shots also were fired at a landscaper a couple of blocks away, and investigators are treating the incidents as connected. The landscaper was not injured, Wahl said, adding that the man was wearing a helmet that may have deflected a bullet. Five hours after the shooting, the police chief said investigators were still piecing together details. – Reuters

as likely having helped prevent further bloodshed. A short time later, police discovered the bodies of two teenage males, aged 17 and 18, in a vehicle in the middle of a street, dead from apparently self-inflicted gunshot wounds. Police originally put the age of the older youth at 19. At about the time they were responding to

Palestinian president’s son vows to put ‘Gaza first’ RAMALLAH: The son of Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas said Fatah would prioritise Gaza and return it “to the fold of Palestinian legitimacy”, the day after being elected to the movement’s top decision-making body. Fatah has historically been the dominant force within the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), the sole representative of the Palestinian people in international forums. in support for Hamas, which won the last legislative elections held in 2006, before going on to expel Fatah from the Gaza Strip. Under US President Donald Trump’s Gaza peace plan, Hamas is to play no role in the future governance of the territory.

It groups most Palestinian factions but excludes Hamas and Islamic Jihad. “Achieving full national unity requires agreement to all the conditions for joining the Palestine Liberation Organisation in all its provisions: one law, one state, one legitimate weapon, and recognition that the organisation is the sole legitimate representative” of the Palestinian people, Yasser Abbas said.

It also demands sweeping reforms of the Palestinian Authority as a condition for it to play any meaningful role in post-war Gaza. On Monday, the Fatah congress announced the official preliminary results of the elections for its central committee and the revolutionary council, the party’s parliament. A closing statement said: “There is no state without Gaza, and no state in Gaza. “Any international administrative arrangement must preserve the ceasefire, end the occupation, ensure the flow of aid, and begin recovery and reconstruction, all clearly linked to the Palestinian government, which must be enabled to exercise all its responsibilities in Gaza.” – AFP

Fatah’s first congress in a decade came as the Palestinian movement faces existential challenges in the wake of the devastating Gaza war. Veteran leader Mahmoud Abbas, 90, was re-elected as head of the movement, with his 64-year-old son Yasser Abbas (pic) securing a place on its central committee. In his first remarks since his election, Yasser Abbas said he would focus on “Gaza first, prisoners and the families of martyrs, and the refugee camps”. “We will work to return Gaza to the fold of Palestinian legitimacy,” he told journalists in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah.

“Whoever accepts that is welcome.” In recent decades, Fatah’s popularity and influence have dwindled amid internal divisions and growing public frustration over the stagnation of the peace process. The sense of disappointment led to a surge