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NABLUS, Palestinian Territories — Israeli forces shot dead on Thursday a Palestinian near a Jewish shrine in the occupied West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian officials said, as the army claimed troops had come under attack.

"A citizen was killed by the occupation [Israeli] bullets in Nablus," the Palestinian ministry said in a statement, adding three others were wounded and taken to hospital.

The statement did not elaborate on the identity of the deceased.

The Israeli forces said their forces had "operated to secure the coordinated entrance of Israeli civilians to Joseph's Tomb in the city of Nablus".

The Israeli forces regularly escort Jewish pilgrims to the holy site, while Palestinians claim the visits are a provocation.

The army added that "armed Palestinians burned tyres, hurled explosive devices and rocks, and fired towards the security forces".

"The forces responded with live fire and riot dispersal means," the Israeli statement said.

There was no immediate word on any casualties on the Israeli side.

The incident came amid rising tensions in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied since the 1967 Six-Day War.

The territory has seen recently a string of Palestinian attacks targeting Israeli forces or settlers, and violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.

Witnesses in Nablus told AFP dozens of Palestinians set fire to tires and threw explosive devices and stones at soldiers escorting a group of Israelis to the religious site on the city's outskirts.

The pilgrims were headed to the revered tomb — a site of frequent violence — believed to be the final resting place of the biblical Patriarch Joseph.

Violence linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this year has killed at least 196 Palestinians, 27 Israelis, one Ukrainian and one Italian, according to an AFP tally compiled from official sources from both sides.

They include, on the Palestinian side, combatants and civilians, and on the Israeli side, mostly civilians and three members of the Arab minority.

The West Bank is home to nearly 3 million Palestinians, as well as around 490,000 Israelis who live in settlements considered illegal under international law.

BAGHDAD — Iraq on Thursday expelled Sweden's ambassador after a man stomped on a copy of the Koran at a Stockholm demonstration just hours after the Swedish embassy in Baghdad was torched over the planned protest.

Sweden-based Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, 37, stomped and kicked the Koran but left the protest without burning it, just weeks after he set fire to pages of the book outside Stockholm's main mosque.

Sweden and other European countries have previously seen protests where far-right and other activists, citing free speech protections, damage or destroy religious symbols or books, commonly sparking protests and heightening diplomatic tensions.

Around the time of Thursday's protest in Stockholm, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shia Al Sudani "instructed the Swedish ambassador in Baghdad to leave Iraqi territory", according to a statement by his office.

It said the decision was "prompted by the Swedish government's repeated permission for the burning of the holy Koran, insulting Islamic sanctities and the burning of the Iraqi flag".

Overnight protesters had breached and set fires within the compound of the Swedish embassy in Baghdad and clashed with riot police, prompting an emergency meeting with the prime minister.

The Iraqi government strongly condemned the embassy attack but also issued a warning to Sweden if it allowed the second Koran burning protest to go forward.

Baghdad had informed Stockholm “that any recurrence of the incident involving the burning of the Holy Koran on Swedish soil would necessitate severing diplomatic relations”, according to a statement from Sudani’s office.

Swedish police had granted a permit for the protest in line with Swedish legislation on the rights to freedom of assembly and speech.

“The constitution states that a lot is needed to deny a person a permit for a public gathering so the day before yesterday we granted a permit for a private individual to protest,” Ola Osterling with the Stockholm police told AFP.

On June 28, Salwan Momika also burnt pages of the Koran, outside a Stockholm mosque, sparking a wave of indignation and anger across the Muslim world.

Hundreds massed at the Baghdad embassy, as they had done in response to the previous Stockholm protest, scaled the walls and torched parts of it.

Rock-throwing protesters then clashed with Iraqi riot police who used electric batons and water cannon to disperse them.

One protester, Hassan Ahmed, told AFP that “we mobilised today to denounce the burning of the Koran, which is all about love and faith”.

Some raised the Koran in the air, others held up portraits of Sadr and of his late father, Mohamed Al Sadr, a revered cleric in the majority Shiite country.

Calm has returned by morning, when police blocked the road leading to the embassy, and the full extent of the fire damage was not yet clear.

Sweden’s foreign ministry told AFP that all of its employees in Baghdad were “safe” during the unrest.

Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billstrom later said Iraq’s charge d’affaires would be summoned.

“What has happened is completely unacceptable and the government condemns these attacks in the strongest terms,” he said in a statement.

“Iraqi authorities have an unequivocal obligation to protect diplomatic missions and personnel under the Vienna Convention.”

Sudani “strongly condemned burning the Swedish embassy in Baghdad, viewing it as a serious security breach requiring immediate action”, the Iraqi government statement said.

“Those accountable for security must be held responsible,” it added, as an Iraqi security source told AFP about 20 protesters had been taken into custody.

Iraq also said it “reaffirms its commitment to ensuring the security and protection of all diplomatic missions, vowing to confront any attacks targeted at them”.

Momika staged his previous Koran burning in front of Stockholm’s largest mosque during Eid Al Adha, a holiday celebrated by Muslims around the world.

That incident prompted followers of Sadr to briefly storm the Swedish embassy in Baghdad the following day.

The powerful cleric has repeatedly mobilised thousands of demonstrators.

WAD MADANI, Sudan — Air strikes, street battles and artillery fire shook Sudan's capital Khartoum and the major southern city of El Obeid on Thursday, witnesses told AFP.

"Artillery fire targeted paramilitary bases of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)," said a resident of El Obeid, 350 kilometres  southwest of Khartoum.

Fighting between the RSF and the regular army, led by feuding generals, has killed at least 3,000 people and displaced more than 3.3 million since April 15.

Army jets on Thursday were striking paramilitaries, who were responding with anti-aircraft fire, said another El Obeid resident, who asked not to be named for security reasons.

In Khartoum's south, witnesses reported three air raids in the early morning.

"The blasts were terrifying," one of them told AFP.

The army on Wednesday accused the RSF of targeting a residential area of the capital in a drone strike that left "14 civilians dead and 15 injured".

Residents told AFP at least 13 civilians were killed.

The conflict pits army chief Abdel Fattah Al Burhan against his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

'Victory or martyrdom' 

Burhan on Tuesday appeared in rare video footage shortly after an audio recording of Daglo was released.

In the video clip of less than one minute, Burhan, carrying a pistol and an automatic rifle, and donning a T-shirt and cargo pants, is seen in the army headquarters as he greets the army top brass.

The massive complex in central Khartoum has been the site of frequent clashes between the warring sides.

Daglo was last seen in a short video clip the paramilitaries shot in the early days of the conflict that is now in its fourth month.

But he has released several audio recordings since, the latest on Monday evening in which he told Sudanese he was willing to "choose peace" but remained "ready for war".

The combatants loyal to him would fight until "victory or martyrdom", Daglo said.

The RSF chief also mentioned the vast western region of Darfur, which in the early 2000s saw a bloody war and which has been hit by some of the worst violence in the new conflict.

The paramilitaries have labelled the Darfur bloodshed “tribal conflicts”, while rights campaigners blame the RSF and allied Arab militias for reported atrocities including rape, looting and the mass killings of ethnic minorities.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened a new probe into alleged war crimes in Darfur, its Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan said last week.

He warned against “allowing history to repeat itself” in Darfur, where 300,000 people were killed in a conflict from 2003 that led the ICC to charge former leader Omar al-Bashir with genocide.

ALGIERS — A road crash in Algeria killed 34 people when a passenger bus collided head-on with a pickup truck carrying fuel cans and burst into flames Wednesday, deep in the southern Sahara region, officials said.

The North African country's deadliest road crash in years also left 12 others injured, many with severe burns, Algeria's civil defence agency said.

President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, on a state visit to China, expressed "his deep distress and sadness" and offered "his sincere condolences" to the victims' families.

Pictures showed the bus engulfed in a massive ball of flames that lit up the pre-dawn sky after the crash around 4:00am (03:00 GMT) in a small town near Tamanrasset, a 2,000-kilometre drive south from the capital Algiers.

Later, rescue workers were seen recovering bodies from the mangled and charred hull of the bus in Outoul, 20 kilometres west of Tamanrasset, the accident scene surrounded by fire engines.

Local residents told AFP by phone that the bus had dropped off passengers and was about to resume its journey when a Toyota pickup truck smashed into it.

National gendarmerie official Samir Bouchehit said the truck was carrying cans of gasoline and driving on the wrong side of the road.

“The first elements of the investigation suggest that the responsibility lies with the driver of the pickup, which was loaded with cans of gasoline that caught fire in the collision,” he said, speaking on the private Ennahar TV channel.

The number of passengers in the pickup was not clear but they — and the driver — were killed, Bouchehit added.

Residents said the bus driver also perished.

Health Minister Abdelhak Saihi travelled to the accident site, promising “all the necessary measures for the care of the injured”, a ministry statement said.

The civil defence agency said the bus was travelling between Tamanrasset, a town of 150,000 people, and Adrar to the northwest, with about 65,000 residents.

Mohamed Boudraa, the governor of Tamanrasset, visited the local hospital where the 12 injured were being treated, the official APS news agency reported.

Three of them were later released from the hospital, its Director Abdelkader Bika told APS.

Officials in Algeria, an oil producer, regularly announce seizures in the Tamanrasset area of large amounts of contraband fuel destined for neighbouring countries.

Algeria recorded nearly 23,000 road accidents in 2022, leaving 3,409 people dead and more than 30,000 injured, according to the country’s road safety chief Nacef Abdelhakim.

Speed was the main cause, according to the state road safety agency.

Tamanrasset is a transport hub in the remote desert region for the movement of people and goods from Algeria’s far south to the coastal north.

The region, near the borders of Mali and Niger, is also a transit point for migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa hoping to reach Europe via Algeria.

In December 2020, a vehicle crash near Tamanrasset killed 20 people and injured 11 others, most of them African migrants.

Other countries in the region also see thousands of road deaths annually.

About 7,000 people lost their lives on the roads of Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, in 2020, according to official figures.

Sudan recorded around 10,000 annual traffic fatalities between 2016 and 2019, according to the World Health Organisation and the World Bank.

TEHRAN — Iran, largely shunned by western tourists, is making a push to attract visitors from wealthy Gulf Arab states and other nearby countries to boost its sanctions-hit economy.

The Islamic republic is also drawing more visitors from Russia and China to its ancient sites that date back to the Persian empire and the fabled Silk Road, industry figures say.

Iran’s Beijing-brokered diplomatic thaw this year with Saudi Arabia paved the way for direct flights, and Tehran is also seeking closer ties with other countries from Egypt to Morocco.

The slow but steady change is noticable at major tourist sights where more visitors can now be heard speaking not English, French or German, but Arabic, Chinese and Russian.

“In the past, we were receiving many tourists from Europe but now those numbers have seen a sharp decline,” said one Tehran travel agency owner, 46-year-old Hamid Shateri.

Europeans are “afraid of visiting Iran”, he said, after years of tensions over the country’s contested nuclear programme and after Western government warnings against travelling there.

“These days, mostly Chinese and Russian people visit Iran’s historical sites and spectacular scenery and Arab tourists, especially from Iraq, come to attend religious ceremonies.”

Years of isolation 

Iran has long attracted foreign visitors with its ancient splendours including the cities of Shiraz, Isfahan and Mashhad and its 2,500-year-old Persepolis complex.

It has deserts and snow-capped mountains as well as Gulf and Caspian Sea coastlines, and prides itself on its cuisine and tradition of hospitality.

A steady stream of mainly European visitors long kept coming despite the strict dress code for women and bans on alcohol and nightlife after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

As the largest Shiite Muslim power, Iran also hosts a steady stream of religious pilgrims, many from neighbouring Iraq, to its ancient shrine cities of Mashhad and Qom.

There were high hopes for a lucrative boost to tourism after Iran and major powers struck a landmark deal in 2015 to restrict its nuclear programme in return for sanctions relief.

But those hopes were dashed three years later when the then US president Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the agreement.

Bad news has spiralled since, including the COVID pandemic that hit Iran early and hard.

Last year, mass protests rocked the country, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini after her arrest for allegedly flouting the dress rules, before authorities put down the women-led “riots”, which they blamed on hostile forces abroad.

Iran has also jailed several Europeans, prompting multiple Western countries to advise their citizens against all travel there, many citing the risk of “arbitrary detention”.

Last year Iran attracted 4.1 million foreigners — less than half the figure for 2019 and accounting for just 0.4 per cent of tourist trips worldwide, says the UN World Tourism Organisation.

Tehran has now launched a push to rebuild tourism, including by drawing people from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar to the Gulf islands of Kish and Qeshm, which boast beaches, luxury hotels and cheap shopping.

Renewed push Iran has also sought to attract more visitors from neighbouring Armenia and Azerbaijan, despite recent tensions between Baku and Tehran.

“Setting up tourism exhibitions in other countries, advertising through their media and hosting international events are among the programmes to promote tourism,” said Majid Kiani, the CEO of northwest Iran’s Aras Free Zone.

UNESCO last month added the region’s colourful Aras rock formations to its Global Geoparks network.

The area around the geological park, also hailed for its diverse ecosystem, hosted “more than 1.2 million tourists” during this year’s Nowruz new year season, Kiani said.

Armenians are now visiting the 9th-century monastery of Saint Stepanos, a UNESCO World Heritage site with vivid murals of biblical scenes and ornate facades.

“Many Armenian tourists come to visit the historic church,” said local Archbishop Krikor Chiftjian, prelate of the Diocese of the Iranian provinces of East and West Azerbaijan.

Tourism analyst Babak Babali said there was much potential, given that in the 2010s Azerbaijanis routinely visited the region for healthcare, creating “a sizeable medical tourism industry”.

More broadly, some observers see signs of easing tensions, pointing to Iran’s recent release of several European prisoners, although others remain in detention.

Babali said that, while “these steps signal Tehran’s intention to deescalate tensions, it will take a while before this gets reflected in the number of tourists from Europe”.

Shateri, the Tehran tour guide, also said Iran has some way to go before western visitors return in great numbers.

“Iran needs to improve its international relations and show the world that it has a peace-seeking nature if it wants to attract more tourists,” he said.

DOHA — Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida visited gas-rich Qatar on Tuesday to wrap up a Gulf tour centred on energy security and cooperation with Tokyo's main suppliers.

He was making the first visit to Doha by a Japanese premier in 10 years.

Kishida arrived in Qatar from the United Arab Emirates after starting his tour in Saudi Arabia where he met the de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman.

During his tour, Kishida and Gulf leaders discussed "how to deal with energy challenges" in the face of unstable supply due to Russia's Ukraine invasion, the prime minister told a Doha press conference. 

Japan relies almost entirely on imports for its crude oil, with Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar accounting for the bulk of its supplies.

But as the oil-producing Gulf states move towards cleaner energy sources, Japan said it is hoping to offer its greener and renewable energy technologies to assist their decarbonisation efforts.

"By combining respective strengths of Gulf states and Japan, oil producers in the Middle East will be transformed to global green energy hubs, exporting decarbonised energy and critical minerals," Kishida told reporters.

"Cooperation will be enhanced in respect to the production of hydrogen, ammonium," and decarbonisation technology, said the prime minister, the first from Japan to make a Gulf tour since Shinzo Abe in 2020.

'Energy security' 

Earlier on Tuesday, Kishida and Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani discussed "developments related to energy security and supplies," the Qatari leader said in a statement.

The Doha visit comes with Japanese companies negotiating new long-term LNG supply contracts with Qatar, according to Bloomberg.

It said Japan's LNG importers have not signed a contract with Qatar since 2014, and that Qatari LNG deliveries to Tokyo dropped by more than 60 per cent last year.

Japan’s top LNG importer, Jera, did not renew contracts that expired in 2021 for gas supply of 5.5 million tonnes per year, Bloomberg said.

Since Russia’s Ukraine invasion Japan has faced “potential LNG disruption”, said Takafumi Yanagisawa, a researcher with Japan’s Institute of Energy Economics.

“Japan needs to secure more LNG from Qatar,” he told AFP, arguing that a deal would provide Tokyo with “stable and reliable LNG supply”.

China has inked some of the industry’s longest-running contracts with Qatar. Last month, Doha announced a 27-year deal to supply 4 million tonnes annually to the China National Petroleum Corporation.

It matches the terms of a November deal with China’s Sinopec as the longest ever seen in the industry.

China, Japan, South Korea and other Asian countries are the main market for Qatari gas, which has been increasingly sought by European countries too since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine early last year.

By expanding activities at North Field, which has the world’s biggest natural gas reserves and extends under the Gulf into Iranian territory, Qatar expects to raise its LNG production by at least 60 per cent, taking it to 126 million tonnes a year by 2027.