Region

BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya's eastern authorities said Sunday they had postponed a reconstruction conference for the flood-hit city of Derna that had been planned for October 10 but was met with international scepticism.

The event was put off until November 1-2 to "offer time for the submission of effective studies and projects" for the reconstruction effort, the committee charged with planning the meeting said in a statement.

The divided country's eastern administration last month invited the "international community" to attend the conference in Derna, the coastal city where a September 10-11 flash flood devastated large areas and killed thousands.

The authorities later said the conference would draw in international companies. On Sunday, the committee said the postponed event would be held in both Derna and the eastern city of Benghazi.

According to Saqr Al Jibani, head of the organising committee, the decision to hold off on the event followed requests by mayors of affected communities as well as business representatives who had expressed interest in attending.

The North African country has been wracked by years of fighting and chaos since a NATO-backed uprising toppled and killed veteran leader Muammar Qadhafi in 2011.

Libya is now split between an internationally recognised Tripoli-based administration in the west, and the one in the disaster-stricken east backed by military strongman Khalifa Haftar.

‘Predictable setback’ 

The United States on Friday called on Libyans to set aside their political differences and agree on a framework to channel aid to eastern towns.

“We urge Libyan authorities now to form such unified structures — rather than launching separate efforts — that represent the Libyan people without delay,” US special envoy Richard Norland said in a statement. 

Despite a wave of nationwide solidarity since the flood, there has been no show of support for the proposed conference from the Tripoli-based government of interim Prime Minister Abdulhamid Dbeibah.

Jalel Harchaoui, a Libya specialist at the Royal United Services Institute, on Sunday said the eastern authorities were facing a “largely predictable setback”, adding that “they will have no choice but to somehow work with the Tripoli authorities”.

The speaker of the eastern-based parliament, Aguila Salah, welcomed on Saturday officials from Libya’s west and south and reiterated a call for a unified government and nationwide presidential elections, according to a video published by his spokesman Abdallah Bliheg.

On Wednesday, the eastern authorities had announced the creation of a fund for the reconstruction of Derna and other areas affected by the flooding.

They did not indicate how the new fund would be financed, but the parliament has already allocated 10 billion dinars ($2 billion) for reconstruction.

Dbeibah’s government announced on Sunday it had allocated 92 million dinars for the maintenance of 117 schools and educational institutions damaged by the flood.

The Tripoli-based government said classes had resumed in 15 affected municipalities in the east.

According to the latest toll announced by the eastern authorities on Tuesday, at least 3,893 people died in the disaster. 

International aid groups have said 10,000 or more people may be missing.

ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday that "terrorists" will never achieve their aims, hours after a blast near the parliament in Ankara injured two police officers.

The powerful explosion outside the interior ministry, which was followed by large flames, was heard several kilometres from the site of the attack.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), listed as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies that has been waging a deadly insurgency against Ankara for four decades, claimed responsibility for the blast.

The targeted district is home to several other ministries and the Turkish parliament, which reopened as planned in the afternoon with an address from Erdogan.

"The villains who threaten the peace and security of citizens have not achieved their objectives and will never achieve them," Erdogan told the parliament.

The interior ministry said two attackers arrived in a commercial vehicle around 9:30am (06:30 GMT) in front of "the entrance gate of the General Directorate of Security of our ministry of the interior, and carried out a bomb attack".

"One of the terrorists blew himself up. The other was killed by a bullet to the head before he had a chance to blow himself up," Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said in a press statement outside the ministry.

"Two of our police officers were lightly injured" in the exchange of fire, but their lives were not in danger, he added.

In a statement to the ANF news agency, which is close to the Kurdish movement, the PKK said that "a sacrificial action was carried out against the Turkish interior ministry".

The Ankara police headquarters said on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that it was carrying out “controlled explosions” of “suspicious packages” to prevent other explosions.

The Ankara prosecutor’s office said it was opening an investigation and banned access to the area. Local media was asked to stop broadcasting images from the scene of the attack.

Erdogan later opened the parliamentary session by slamming his country’s long wait for accession to the EU, stating that Turkey “no longer expects anything from the European Union, which has kept us waiting at its door for 40 years”.

“We have kept all the promises we have made to the EU but they have kept almost none of theirs,” he said, adding that he would not “tolerate any new demands or conditions” for his country to join the bloc.

This session of Turkey’s parliament must also validate Sweden’s entry into the NATO alliance.

Hungary and Turkey in July lifted their vetoes against Sweden’s entry into the Atlantic alliance, but have been slow to ratify its membership.

Erdogan indicated in July that ratification by the Turkish parliament would not take place before October, but it is expected to be approved during this parliamentary year.

For months, Erdogan has been putting pressure on Sweden to take action against Koran desecrations that have strained relations between the two countries.

Sweden’s Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson was quick to pledge in a statement that his country “once again confirms its commitment to long-term cooperation with Turkey in the fight against terrorism”.

Numerous foreign leaders also voiced support for Turkey after the attack, with messages of support coming from Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States embassy in Ankara.

The Turkish capital has been the scene of several attacks, particularly during the years 2015 and 2016, many claimed by the PKK or the Daesh group.

The PKK has waged an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed tens of thousands of lives.

In October 2015 an attack in front of a central station in Ankara claimed by the Daesh group killed 109 people.

The most recent bomb attack in Turkey was in a shopping street in Istanbul in November 2022, where six were killed and 81 were injured.

SANAA — Yemen’s national carrier has suspended international flights from the country’s capital, officials have said, citing a dispute with the Iran-backed Houthi rebels over access to funds.

Yemenia operates near-daily commercial flights to the Jordanian capital Amman — its only direct international destination from Sanaa’s Houthi-controlled airport which reopened last year following a six-year hiatus.

On Saturday, an official with the Houthi transport ministry told the rebel’s Saba news agency that “Yemenia flights have been suspended from Sanaa airport”.

In a statement, the airline blamed the rebels for the move, accusing them of restricting access to company accounts in Sanaa banks since March, a charge the Houthis have denied.

Yemenia said it was barred from accessing more than $80 million in deposits, causing “severe damage to the company’s activity”.

It said its six flights per week from Sanaa to Amman would stop after the end of September “in light of the company not being allowed to withdraw from its accounts”.

The airline will continue, however, to operate flights from Aden — the current seat of the internationally-recognised government. 

Yemen erupted into conflict in 2014 when Iran-backed Houthi rebels seized Sanaa, prompting a Saudi-led military coalition to intervene the following year to prop up the internationally-recognised government. 

The Saudi-led military coalition shut down Sanaa’s airport in 2016 as part of an air and sea blockade on Houthi-held areas.

Before the blockade, the Sanaa airport had an estimated 6,000 passengers a day, according to the Norwegian Refugee Council, an international charity with operations in Yemen.

Since the airport resumed commercial flights to Jordan last year, those flying out of Sanaa have included Yemenis seeking emergency medical treatment abroad.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A member of the Palestinian Islamist Hamas movement was killed on Friday evening during a clash with Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank, according to multiple sources.

"Mohammad Jibril Roummaneh died as a result of serious injuries caused by bullets fired by the occupying forces in El Bireh" northeast of Ramallah, wrote the Palestinian ministry of health in a statement.

It reported that a second Palestinian had been injured but gave no details.

Hamas issued a statement describing Roummaneh as one of its members who fell as a "heroic martyr" while "defending the freedom of [his] people" near the Israeli settlement of Psagot.

The statement was accompanied by an image of a very young man.

"Assailants hurled Molotov cocktails at a military post adjacent to the [settlement] of Psagot", next to El-Bireh, the Israeli army said.

"Soldiers... identified the suspects and responded with live fire," the statement added. "Two assailants were neutralised and transferred to receive medical treatment."

When questioned by AFP, an army spokeswoman would not confirm that one of the two had died, as announced by the Palestinian Authority and Hamas.

At least 242 Palestinians, 32 Israelis, a Ukrainian and an Italian have been killed since the beginning of the year in violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

MOGADISHU — Five people died and six others were wounded on Friday when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a restaurant near the presidential palace in central Somalia, police and witnesses said.

The attacker detonated a device inside a tea shop in Bar Bulsho in the capital Mogadishu, Somali police spokesman Sadik Dudishe said.

“All the casualties were people spending time to drink tea,” Dudishe said.

The cafe is frequented by members of the Somali security forces as well as civilians.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Witnesses said the police had cordoned off the area after the blast.

Adan Qorey, a resident of the Bar Bulsho area, said the tea shop was often crowded in the afternoon and evening with patrons drinking tea and chewing khat, a mildly narcotic native shrub also known as miraa.

Friday’s attack came barely a day after five civilians were killed and 13 others wounded in a car bombing near a market in central Somalia.

A truck bombing on Saturday in the central town of Beledweyne killed 21 people, razing buildings and injuring dozens.

The spate of attacks comes as Somalia’s beleaguered government has admitted that it has suffered “several significant setbacks” in its fight against the Al Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab militants.

Somalia’s President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud took office in May last year vowing “all-out war” against the militants.

His government launched a major offensive against the Islamists in August last year, joining forces with local clan militias in an operation backed by AU troops and US air strikes.

On Thursday, Somali security forces foiled two car bomb attacks targeting Dhusamareeb town in central Somalia where Mohamud has been based in recent weeks.

UN resolutions call for the African Union (AU) Transition in Somalia (ATMIS) force to be reduced to zero by the end of next year, handing over security to the Somali army and police.

But this has proved challenging, with the government now seeking to delay a planned reduction of ATMIS troops.

Al Shabaab, which is fighting to overthrow the internationally-backed government in Mogadishu, regularly attacks government and civilian targets in Mogadishu.

The group controlled the capital until 2011 when it was pushed out by the African Union troops, but still holds territory in the countryside.