Region

LONDON — Two of three teenage girls who travelled from Britain to Syria sparking criticism of the police response have married Daesh fighters, the lawyer for their families said Saturday.

Kadiza Sultana, 16, and 15-year-olds Shamima Begum and Amira Abase left their homes in February and flew to Istanbul before crossing into Syria.

Two of the trio have been in touch with their families to say they have married men in ceremonies approved by Daesh and are living in and around the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group's stronghold, the Guardian reported.

The newspaper did not identify which two of the three had got married at the families' request.

Tasnime Akunjee, who represents the families, told the Guardian that the news had "caused a lot of distress”.

"It entrenches their lives in Syria, rather than in Britain. It erodes significantly hopes that they will come back," he added.

The paper reported that the two teenagers were given a "catalogue" of men to choose from and that their husbands were in their 20s.

All three of the girls attended the same school in east London, Bethnal Green Academy.
They are believed to have followed a classmate who left a few months previously. 

Four other girls from the same school have been given a court order banning them from travelling abroad over fears they too could go to Syria.

The girls' families have accused police of failing to communicate information which could have alerted them to the risk that their daughters would travel to Syria.

Scotland Yard believes around 600 Britons have travelled to Syria and Iraq since the conflict began though about half are believed to have returned to Britain.

RAMALLAH — Palestinian forces have arrested around 100 Hamas members in the West Bank, a security official said Friday, raising tension between the Islamist movement and its Ramallah-based rivals.

The people, arrested overnight, "intended to carry out attacks against the Palestinian Authority (PA)", the official said, without elaborating.

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri condemned the arrests as a "dangerous escalation which blocks efforts and reconciliation".
He also criticised the PA for its "security cooperation with the Israeli occupation".
Under 1993 peace accords, the PA coordinates on West Bank security with Israel, including by sharing intelligence.

The PA is dominated by Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas's Fateh party, which is Hamas's bitter rival. It regularly arrests members of the movement, but as many as 100 members in one swoop is rare.

In June 2014, Israel detained hundreds of Hamas members in the West Bank after blaming the group for the kidnap and murder of three Israeli settlers.

The latest arrests came amid tension between Hamas and the West Bank-based PA, more than a year after the two sides signed a unity deal that failed to end a years-long Palestinian split.

In April 2014 Fateh signed a unity deal with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip.

The two sides approved a government of independent technocrats to take over administration of the Gaza Strip, Hamas's bastion, and the West Bank.

But disputes over the payment of Hamas-appointed employees in Gaza, and control of the territory, mean Hamas remains in control of the enclave.

PARIS — UNESCO on Friday condemned the destruction by Daesh militants of antiquities in the Syrian city of Palmyra, describing it as an attempt to strip the people of their heritage in order "to enslave them".

"These new destructions of cultural goods of the site of Palmyra reflect the brutality and ignorance of extremist groups and their disregard of local communities and of the Syrian people," said Irina Bokova, UNESCO director-general. 

Among the antiquities destroyed was the Lion Statue of Athena — a unique piece of more than 3 metres high that stood outside a museum, which was smashed on Saturday, Bokova said.

The limestone statue was discovered in 1977 by a Polish archeological mission at the temple of Al Lat, a pre-Islamic Arabian goddess, and dated back to the 1st century BC.

Bokova also expressed outrage at the destruction of funerary busts of Palmyra, a renowned UNESCO World Heritage site captured by IS on May 21.

"The destruction of funerary busts of Palmyra in a public square, in front of crowds and children asked to witness the looting of their heritage is especially perverse," she said.

"These busts embody the values of human empathy, intelligence and honour the dead... Their destruction is a new attempt to break the bonds between people and their history, to deprive them of their cultural roots in order to better enslave them," she added.

She urged action against the "manipulation of religion".

TUNIS — Lawless Libya has become a magnet for radical militants who receive weapons training in jihadist camps before launching deadly attacks in other countries, like last week's beach massacre in Tunisia.

The oil-rich North African country bordering Tunisia has rival governments and parliaments as well as a slew of armed groups vying for power in the aftermath of its 2011 uprising that toppled dictator Muammar Qadhafi.

The chaos in Libya has "serious security implications for the region", said Michael Nayebi-Oskoui, senior Middle East analyst at Stratfor, a global intelligence and advisory firm based in the US city of Texas.

Libya has witnessed "a small but steady return of fighters" from the conflict in Syria, he said.

Tunis says 3,000 of its citizens are fighting alongside jihadist groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya, and that 500 battle-hardened veterans have returned home where they pose a security threat.

On June 26, a student armed with an assault rifle mowed down 38 tourists at Tunisia's popular Port El Kantaoui beach resort, the second deadly attack on holiday makers in three months in Tunisia.

Authorities identified the gunman as 23-year-old Tunisian student Seifeddine Rezgui and said he had received weapons training from jihadists in Libya.

He was said to have been in Libya at the same time as the two gunmen who in March attacked the National Bardo Museum in Tunis, killing 21 tourists and a policeman.

"It is confirmed that he went to Libya illegally. He was trained in Sabratha," west of Tripoli, said Tunisia's secretary of state for security, Rafik Chelli.

He said the Bardo assailants were out of Tunisia at the same time and had trained with Ansar Al Sharia, an Al Qaeda-linked group classified as a terrorist organisation by Washington and the UN.

Radicalisation

Sabratha, where Tunisian authorities say Rezgui received weapons training before going on the killing spree on a beach, lies 60 kilometres west of Tripoli.

The coastal town is also only 100 kilometres from Ras Jdir, the main border crossing between Libya and Tunisia.

"Sabratha is on the edge of a region that straddles the Libya-Tunisian border known as 'Jefara'. The region is characterised by a network of formerly nomadic tribes which have made a living out of trafficking and smuggling," said Philip Stack of global risk analysts Verisk Maplecroft.

"The description of Sabratha as a 'training camp' does not necessarily mean it's military in nature. There is a good chance that its main focus is centred on radicalisation," said Stack, an expert on Middle East and North African affairs.

Sabratha falls under the jurisdiction of the powerful Fajr Libya militia alliance which last year seized Tripoli, setting up a government and parliament opposed to the internationally-recognised administration.

Security officials in Tripoli say hundreds of foreign fighters, including Tunisians returning from Syria and Iraq, have entered Libya in recent months, taking advantage of the breakdown in security.

'New Fallujah'

The Daesh terror group, which is among jihadist organisations that have gained a foothold in Libya, claimed both the Tunisian beach massacre and the Bardo killings.

The group now controls the coastal city of Sirte, Qadhafi's hometown some 500 kilometres from Sabratha.

"This group found fertile ground in the city after striking up an alliance with pro-Qadhafi armed groups," a local Sirte official, who declined to be named, told AFP.

"It will become a new Fallujah and a breeding ground for training extremists from various countries," he said, referring to the Iraqi city which has become synonymous with unchallenged jihadist control.

On Friday, The New York Times reported that top Tunisian jihadist Seifallah Ben Hassine, an associate of late Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, was killed in an air strike in Libya in mid-June.

Ben Hassine, also known as Abu Iyadh, is believed to have coordinated a string of assassinations, including the killing of famed Afghan anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Masood in 2011.

He has likewise been linked to the 2012 attack on the US embassy in Tunis and the murders of two prominent Tunisian politicians the following year.

Tunisian analyst Slaheddin Jourchi said the chaos in Libya posed a "real danger" for his country's "strategic security".

"Despite Tunisia's security measures, there are networks that are capable of crossing the border to bring young men into camps in Libya, train them on the kinds of weapons they want them to use in their attacks, and then bring them back into Tunisia when the time is right," he said.

GENEVA — The United Nation's Human Rights Council called overwhelmingly Friday for those responsible for war crimes during last summer's Gaza conflict to be brought to trial.

Forty-five countries, including France, Germany and Britain supported the resolution, with only the United States voting against.

Israel's representative Eviatar Manor lambasted the decision, accusing the council of being an "agent provocateur", while his Palestinian opposite number Ibrahim Khraishi was jubilant.

The vote comes in the wake of a scathing UN report detailing "possible war crimes" during the 51 days of fighting.

The head of the UN's inquiry Mary McGowan Davis said investigators had found "serious violations of international humanitarian and human rights law by Israel and Palestinian armed groups, in some cases amounting to war crimes”.

The resolution did not point the finger at those responsible but said they should face justice in either national or international courts.

Although the council does not have the power to order that suspects be brought before the International Criminal Court (ICC), it urged both Israel and Palestinian authorities to "cooperate fully" with any criminal inquiries that may be opened.

Human Rights Watch welcomed the resolution saying it "sends a strong message that the perpetrators of serious violations should be held to account. Israel and Palestine, as well as Hamas, should respect the resolution's call to cooperate with the International Criminal Court".
Palestinians have been trying to bring criminal proceedings against Israel at the ICC as part of an increased focus on diplomatic manoeuvring and appeals to international bodies.

More than 2,140 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed during the conflict in July and August 2014. Of the 73 deaths on the Israeli side, most were soldiers.

The UN report criticised the "huge firepower" Israel used in Gaza, particularly against residential buildings and UN schools, and questioned whether a policy of civilian attacks had been "approved at least tacitly by decision-makers at the highest levels of the government of Israel".
It also condemned the "indiscriminate" firing of thousands of rockets and mortars by Palestinian forces at Israel, which it said appeared to have been intended to "spread terror" among Israeli civilians.

Five countries including India and Kenya abstained from Friday's vote.

TUNIS — Tunisian President Beji Caid Essebsi declared a state of emergency on Saturday, saying the Islamist militant attack on a beach hotel that killed 38 foreigners had left the country "in a state of war".

Last week's attack, three months after the deadly Islamist assault on the Bardo museum in Tunis, has shocked the North African country emerging into a democracy following its 2011 "Arab Spring" uprising.

Tunisia's emergency laws temporarily give the government more executive flexibility, hand the army and police more authority, and restrict certain rights such as those dealing with public assembly and detention.

"Due to the terrorism risk, and the regional context, and spread of terrorism, we have declared a state of emergency," Essebsi said in a televised address.

"The continued threat we face leaves the country in a state of war, where we have to use all measures necessary."
A Tunisian gunman, said to have been trained in a jihadist camp across the border in Libya, opened fire killing foreign tourists, mostly Britons, in the resort of Sousse on June 26.

The beach massacre struck a huge blow to Tunisia's tourism industry, prompting thousands of holidaymakers to leave and causing an estimated $500 million in losses for a sector that makes up 7 per cent of the economy.

Authorities have moved to close down 80 mosques they said were operating illegally or spreading extremism which officials say helps recruit young Tunisians to Islamist militancy.

Tunisia last had a state of emergency during the 2011 uprising against autocrat Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali. That revolt followed years of upheaval between secular and Islamist parties in one of the Arab world's most secular countries.

Tunisia has since been hailed as a model of peaceful democratic transition in the region. But it has also struggled with the rise of Islamist movements, some opposed to democracy and bent on violence.

Libya connection

More than 3,000 Tunisians have left to fight overseas in Iraq, Syria and Libya for Daesh or other militant groups. Some have threatened to return home to carry out attacks in Tunisia.

Tunisian authorities believe militant group Ansar Al Sharia is responsible for orchestrating the attack on the Imperial Marhaba hotel. The gunman, Saif Rezgui, a young student, gave little clues to his radicalisation before he attacked.

"For the moment, this was Ansar Al Sharia who were behind this," said the Tunisian security source.

Daesh militants have claimed responsibility for the hotel massacre. Daesh also claimed the Bardo attack, but authorities linked that attack to the local Okba Ibn Nafaa brigade.

Tunisian officials say all three gunmen in the two attacks were trained at the same time in jihadist camps over the border in Libya, where factional turmoil has allowed Islamist militant groups to gain ground.

Ansar Al Sharia and Okba Ibn Nafaa are tied to the Al Qaeda franchise. But experts say that, as in other regions, younger fighters and recruits may be breaking away from those groups, inspired more by the recent victories and propaganda of Daesh.

ADEN — At least 22 people were killed Thursday in Yemen as fighting raged in the southern port of Aden and Saudi-led warplanes bombed Shiite rebels in Sanaa, military officials and medics said.

The violence came a day after the UN declared its highest level of humanitarian emergency in the country, where it says some 3,000 people, half of them civilians, have been killed since March.

And the UN cultural agency UNESCO said Thursday that two ancient Yemeni cities on its World Heritage sites list are in danger because of the violence.

The clashes in Aden erupted at dawn in northern part of the port city, killing seven rebels and five pro-government fighters, a military officials said.

Two civilians were also killed in rebel shelling of a western district early Thursday, that also damaged several homes, residents said.

The bloodshed comes a day after rebel rocket fire hit a residential district of Aden, killing 31 civilians and wounding more than 100.

Meanwhile, a port near the Aden oil refinery came under rebel artillery fire for a fifth consecutive day Thursday, as a fire continued in the area, said Aden Refinery Co. spokesman Naser Al Shayef. 

In Sanaa, warplanes pounded several positions of the Houthi rebels around midday Thursday, residents reported.

Medical sources said eight rebels were killed and at least 10 wounded in the strikes, which they described as the most violent since the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan began two weeks ago.

The coalition has been bombing the Iran-backed Houthis and their allies since March 26 in support of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled to Saudi Arabia.

Amnesty International warned of “the high price civilians continue to pay amid the... air strikes all over the country” and accused the coalition of failing to “abide by the requirements of international humanitarian law”.

That requires belligerents to “take all possible steps to prevent or minimise civilian casualties”, said Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response advisor at Amnesty.

But there is “no indication” the coalition has done “anything to prevent and redress such violations”, said Rovera, who is currently in Yemen.

‘Humanitarian catastrophe’ 

On Wednesday, the United Nations declared Yemen a level-three emergency, the highest on its scale, as aid chief Stephen O’Brien held talks to discuss the crisis there.

UN chief Ban Ki-moon also called anew for an “immediate end to the fighting in Yemen to help stem the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in the country”, a spokesman said.

Wednesday’s statement said that, in addition to some 3,000 Yemenis killed since March, the war has also left 14,000 wounded and displaced more than a million people.

It said “21 million [over 80 per cent of Yemen’s population] need immediate help” and that “close to 13 million people are unable to meet their food needs”, while “15 million people have no health care”.

“Outbreaks of dengue and malaria are raging unchecked,” it added.

UNESCO, meanwhile, placed Sanaa and the southeastern city of Shibam on its list of endangered World Heritage sites due to the violence.

Sanaa, known for its many Islamic sites and ancient multi-storeyed mud brick buildings, has sustained damage in the conflict, said UNESCO.

Shibam, nicknamed the “Manhattan of the Desert” for its high-rise mud brick buildings, is also “under potential threat from the armed conflict”, it added.

TUNIS — Tunisia has arrested eight people in connection with last week's jihadist massacre at a seaside resort, as the remains of more slain Britons were set to be flown home Thursday.

Friday's attack saw 23-year-old student Seifeddine Rezgui gun down 38 foreign tourists, including 30 Britons, after pulling a Kalashnikov assault rifle from a beach umbrella at the resort of Port El Kantaoui, near Sousse.

It was the worst ever massacre in Tunisia and saw Britain's worst loss of life in such an attack since the July 2005 London bombings.

"Eight people with direct links to the carrying out of the operation, including a woman, have been arrested," said Kamel Jendoubi, the minister who heads a crisis group set up after the attack.

"The security services have been able to... uncover and destroy the network that was behind this operation," Jendoubi told a news conference, without elaborating on their alleged role.

Jendoubi said British authorities were assisting with the investigation.

"As part of the security cooperation between Tunisia and Britain, 10 British investigators are working on the probe," he said.

Tunisia fears the attack — which also claimed the lives of three people from Ireland, two from Germany and one each from Belgium, Portugal and Russia — will damage its tourism industry.

Fears for tourism 

The sector accounts for about 7 per cent of gross domestic product in a country already suffering from the upheaval that followed the 2011 overthrow of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

After the attack — which was claimed by the Daesh terror group — Tunisia’s government pledged to boost security around hotels, beaches and attractions.

Jendoubi said 1,377 extra armed security officers had been deployed to reinforce police already on the ground.

But in some tourist areas around Tunis and in the resort of Hammamet south of the capital reinforcements were late to deploy, triggering the ire of Interior Minister Najem Gharsalli.

“We had agreed to protect the beaches. Where are the agents tasked with security the beaches,” Gharsalli was heard saying to a security official during an inspection of Hammamet.

“Where are they? Are they having a coffee,” he added, according to a video posted on the website of private Cap FM radio Wednesday night.

An AFP correspondent who toured the beach resort of Gammarth northeast of Tunisia on Thursday morning said there were still no security reinforcements around. 

Minute of remembrance 

Britain’s Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond confirmed Tunisia’s formal identification of 30 of those slain as Britons.

The bodies of eight Britons were flown Wednesday to a Royal Air Force station north of London, in a solemn ceremony reminiscent of the repatriation of fallen soldiers.

“We will be repatriating another nine bodies today, and there will be two further repatriation flights tomorrow and Saturday,” Hammond said. 

“Tomorrow is also a week from the date of the attack, and we will be holding a minute’s remembrance at noon across the UK as well as in British embassies and posts around the world.”

Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to back a full investigation into the attack, calling for “a response at home and abroad” to violent Islamic fundamentalism.

Several witnesses said the shooting rampage lasted more than 30 minutes before the gunman was shot dead, but officials say police were on the scene much sooner.

President Beji Caid Essebsi admitted this week that security forces had not taken measures to protect beaches despite jihadist threats against tourists.

Friday’s attack was the second on tourists in Tunisia claimed by Daesh in just three months, after the extremist group said it was behind a March attack on the National Bardo Museum in Tunis that killed 22 people.

Tunisian authorities have said Rezgui received weapons training from jihadists in neighbouring Libya, travelling to the chaos-wracked country at the same time as the two young Tunisians behind the Bardo attack.

In the past four years, dozens of police and soldiers have been killed in Tunisia in clashes and ambushes attributed to jihadists — mainly in the western Chaambi Mountains.

Disillusionment and social exclusion have fuelled radicalism among young Tunisians, with the country exporting some 3,000 jihadist fighters to Iraq, Syria and Libya.

BEIRUT — Four hospitals in the southern Syrian province of Daraa have been forced to close in recent days after intensive government air strikes, a monitor said on Thursday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 18 people were killed in government strikes across Daraa on Wednesday, including in a raid that hit a rebel checkpoint near a field hospital in the town of Saida.

"A member of the hospital's staff was killed along with three fighters," the Britain-based monitor said.

"The strike damaged the Saida field hospital, which is the fourth hospital to stop work within a week in Daraa province because of intensive government strikes," observatory director, Rami Abdel Rahman, said.

The observatory said a hospital run by a charity in the town of Eastern Ghariyah had also closed its doors because of "continuous regime targeting and the need to protect the safety of our staff".

On June 16, at least 16 people, most of them children, were killed in Syrian government air strikes in Eastern Ghariyah, according to the observatory.

The monitor said two other hospitals — in the towns of Naama and Tafas — had also closed their doors in recent days because of damage caused by aerial strikes or fear of further raids.

The observatory said Wednesday’s government strikes in Daraa included raids in and around the town of Saida that left 13 dead.

Another five people were killed in a barrel bomb attack in Tafas, the monitor said.

Syria’s official SANA news agency reported that “at least 15 terrorists were killed and a bombmaking factory was destroyed in an army operation against terrorist positions in the town of Saida”.

Rights organisations and medical groups have regularly warned about declining medical conditions in Syria, where hospitals and medical staff have frequently come under attack during the more than four-year conflict.

VIENNA — Iran took a hard line Thursday on two of the biggest demands of world powers in a final nuclear accord, rejecting any extraordinary inspection rules and threatening to ramp up enrichment of bomb making material if the United States and other countries re-impose sanctions after the deal is in place.

Speaking to reporters in Vienna, where diplomats are trying to clinch a comprehensive nuclear pact, a senior Iranian negotiator said the UN nuclear agency's standard rules governing access to government information, sites of interest and scientists should be sufficient to ensure that Iran's programme is solely for peaceful purposes. Anything beyond that, he said, would be unfair.

The US and other negotiating countries want Iran to go further.

"We should be realistic," said the Iranian official, who briefed members of the news media on condition he not be quoted by name. He also questioned the legitimacy of countries that don't accept the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) jurisdiction demanding that Iran be subject to tougher requirements than any other nation.

The official was making a clear reference to Israel, a state widely presumed to maintain an undeclared nuclear arsenal.

But the marker will be a cause of concern for the Obama administration and its negotiating partners, who are hoping to forge an agreement that would curb Iran's atomic programme for a decade in exchange for relief from crippling sanctions.

Iran has committed to implementing the IAEA's "additional protocol" for inspections and monitoring as part of an accord. The protocol would give the IAEA expanded access to declared and undeclared nuclear sites, and to the sensitive information of the more than 120 governments that accept its provisions.

But the rules don't guarantee monitors can enter any site they want to and offer no specific guidance about sensitive military sites — an issue of particular interest with Iran, given the long-standing allegations of secret nuclear weapons work at its Parchin base near Tehran.

Instead, the IAEA’s regulations allow governments to challenge such requests and offer alternative proposals for resolving concerns, such as providing additional documents or access to nearby locations.

And for that reason, US officials have regularly stressed that rules for inspections in an agreement with Iran would have to go beyond those laid out by the IAEA, including even a “dispute resolution process” to force Iran to open up facilities, if necessary.

Even as Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has defiantly rejected such access, US official have sought to differentiate between what Iranian officials were saying for domestic consumption and what they were promising in the negotiating room.

Tehran says its programme is solely for peaceful energy, medical and research purposes, but wants a deal to level the mountain of sanctions that have crippled its economy.

President Barack Obama, hoping to calm those who oppose the deal because they don’t trust Iran to hold up its end, has said the US would maintain the ability to snap sanctions back into place if Iran cheats.

But the Iranian official said that ability goes two ways.

If Iran is facing the re-imposition of penalties, and the US and its partners don’t uphold their commitments to provide economic relief, he said “Iran has the right to go back to its programme as it wishes.”

The official didn’t spell out what that meant, but Iran would have several options, such as installing new centrifuges, enriching uranium at levels closer to weapons-grade or restarting activity with material that can be used in warheads where it has pledged to do no such thing.

If the deal is good, however, the official said the Islamic Republic would have no need to revert back to its previous capacities.

There were few public signs of progress as the high-level negotiations entered a sixth day Thursday after diplomats blew through a June 30 deadline and extended an interim accord by a week. Work was progressing, albeit slowly, officials said.

“Not at breakthrough moment yet,” British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond tweeted.

Hammond had a morning meeting with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who also consulted top diplomats from China, France, Germany and the European Union. Kerry met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif late Thursday.

Speaking at the Vienna-based Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said all participants had “the serious intention to finalise a deal”, but cited numerous unresolved issues.

“The last steps are the most difficult ones,” he told reporters.

Negotiators have given themselves until at least July 7 to reach agreement.