Region

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia is pursuing its own nuclear projects and building alliances to counter Iran, which is days away from a potential atomic deal Riyadh fears could further destabilise the region.

The United States and other major powers will hold weekend talks with Iran in Vienna, aiming to finalise by Tuesday an agreement to prevent Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon.

Sunni-dominated Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia, the world's top oil exporter, have concerns that Shiite Iran, Riyadh's regional rival, could still be able to develop a weapon under the emerging deal to end 12 years of nuclear tensions.

They also worry Washington is not taking their concerns about Iran's "destabilising acts" in the Middle East seriously enough.

On Wednesday, France and Saudi Arabia announced a feasibility study for building two nuclear reactors in the kingdom.

Like its neighbour the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia wants to diversify its energy sources and has plans for 16 reactors.

The Paris pact is the third nuclear accord Riyadh has signed this year.

Last week, it reached a deal with Russia on economic, technical and scientific ties for the peaceful use of atomic energy. In March, the kingdom signed a preliminary deal for nuclear cooperation with South Korea.

"Saudi Arabia is going big with its nuclear project," said Jamal Khashoggi, a veteran journalist and an analyst who is linked to the royal family.

"Of course officially it is a peaceful project," but the nuclear know-how could also be used to develop weapons, he said.

In March, Prince Turki Al Faisal, the kingdom's former intelligence chief, told the BBC that whatever Iran is given under a deal with world powers, Saudi Arabia and others will want as well, potentially sparking a regional nuclear race.

Under a framework pact agreed in April, Iran will reduce the number of its nuclear centrifuges for enriching uranium, in return for a lifting of international economic sanctions.

Iran says its nuclear programme is peaceful but if Saudi Arabia feels the Iranians are continuing their quest for a nuclear weapon, Riyadh will have "no option" but to pursue its own deterrent policy, Khashoggi said.

'Posturing' 

Riyadh has both "the will and the ability" to produce nuclear weapons, Saudi analyst Nawaf Obaid, a visiting fellow at Harvard University's Belfer Centre, wrote on CNN.com last week.

But a Saudi official told AFP the kingdom "won't take the risk" of seeking an atomic bomb.

He said Iran's policy of "interfering" in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon poses danger, regardless of the weapons it possesses.

"I believe much of the talk about Saudi interest in nuclear weapons is posturing," said Mark Fitzpatrick, the director of the non-proliferation and disarmament programme at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

He said their capability is still "rather low" and a better way to enhance Saudi security options is to partner with various Western nations.

"The French reactor deal provides another means of reassurance from Western partners of attention to Saudi interests," Fitzpatrick said.

The nuclear agreement was among investments totalling about $12 billion finalised during the Paris visit by Deputy Crown Prince and Defence Minister Prince Mohammad Bin Salman.

Improved links with France highlight a deepening of ties between the Gulf and major powers beyond the region's traditional ally the US.

Fitzpatrick said there is still huge distrust between Washington and Tehran but they will now have channels of communication, "which is of legitimate concern to Saudi Arabia". 

Prince Mohammad’s Paris mission came a week after his trip to Russia where a military pact and several other agreements were reached alongside the nuclear deal.

Russia and Iran support Syria's President Bashar Assad while Riyadh backs Sunni-led rebels in that country's civil war.

But an editorial in the Saudi Gazette said cooperation between Russia and Riyadh will ensure "national unity and security" for both of them.

The kingdom "has to pursue its own security independently", and cannot take American guarantees for granted, Khashoggi said.

"We are very worried about the Iranian expansionism... The Middle East is falling apart and no one is helping to put it back in order. Saudi Arabia somehow is dancing alone there." 

CAIRO — Egypt faced treacherous weather conditions Saturday as a sandstorm blanketed the north of the country and a magnitude-5.2 earthquake centred in the Sinai peninsula shook buildings more than 322 kilometres away in the capital, Cairo.

The epicentre of the quake was 4 kilometers southeast of the beachside town of Nuweiba in the Sinai, and about 75 kilometers south of Egypt's border with Israel, according to the US Geological Survey.

Airports near Alexandria and Marsa Matrouh, along the Mediterranean coast, closed and diverted flights to Cairo due to poor visibility from the day's sandstorm, Civil Aviation Minister Hossam Kamel said in a statement. Visibility reached as low as 500 meters at the Burg Al Arab Airport near Alexandria, he said.

Fierce winds whipped through the capital as many residents took cover from the sand by staying indoors. Others were seen braving the storm wearing surgical masks or covering their faces with clothing, as the wind sent rubbish and dust swirling.

At its peak, the sandstorm covered the capital in a thick orange cloud, dramatically reducing visibility.

In the Red Sea town of Dahab, 68 kilometres south of the epicenter of the quake in the Sinai peninsula, the tremor shook loose clouds of dust that enveloped nearby mountains, according to a witness. The quake appeared to startle local residents and tourists. It also shook the nearby Gaza strip. No serious damage was immediately reported from the earthquake in Egypt or in Gaza.

The Egyptian ministry of health said in a statement that there were no reports of deaths or injuries anywhere in Egypt due to the quake.

Israeli media reported that very mild aftershocks of the earthquake were felt in some places in the south of the country, but that no damage or injuries were caused.

The extreme weather conditions provided fodder for social media humor. Some wondered which of the 10 Biblical plagues would come next, while the popular Zamalek football club tweeted that it wasn't actually an earthquake--just preparation for their match tonight.

VATICAN CITY — The Vatican signed its first treaty with Palestine on Friday, calling for "courageous decisions" to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and backing a two-state solution.

The treaty, which made official the Vatican's de facto recognition of Palestine since 2012, angered Israel, which called it "a hasty step [that] damages the prospects for advancing a peace agreement".

Israel also said it could have implications on its future diplomatic relations with the Vatican.

The accord, which concerns the Catholic Church's activities in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority, also confirmed the Vatican's increasingly proactive role in foreign policy under Pope Francis. Last year, it brokered the historic resumption of ties between the United States and Cuba.

Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Vatican's foreign minister, said at the signing that he hoped it could be a "stimulus to bringing a definitive end to the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which continues to cause suffering for both parties".

He called for peace negotiations held directly between Israelis and Palestinians to resume and lead to a two-state solution. "This certainly requires courageous decisions, but it will also offer a major contribution to peace and stability in the region," he said.

Palestinian Foreign Minister Riad Al Malki said he hoped it would help "recognition of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, freedom and dignity in an independent state of their own, free from the shackles of occupation".

The Vatican is particularly keen to have a greater diplomatic role in the Middle East, from where many Christians have fled because of conflicts in Syria, Iraq and other countries.

There are about 100,000 Catholics of the Roman and Greek Melkite rites in Israel and the Palestinian territories, most of them Palestinians.

Gallagher said the agreement "may serve as a model for other Arab and Muslim majority countries" with regard to freedom of religion and conscience.

The UN General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2012 recognising Palestine as an observer non-member state. This was welcomed at the time by the Vatican, which has the same observer non-member status at the United Nations.

Since then the Vatican has de facto recognised a "State of Palestine" and the Pope referred to it by that name when he visited the Holy Land last year.

Some 135 members of the United Nations recognise Palestine, nearly 70 per cent of the total. By comparison, 160 of the UN's 193 members recognise Israel.

Last October, Sweden became the first major European country to acknowledge Palestine, a decision that drew condemnation from Israel and has since led to tense relations between the two.

The European Union as a whole does not recognise Palestine, taking the same view as the United States that an independent country can emerge only via negotiations with Israel, not through a process of unilateral recognition.

KUWAIT — As a body passed, shrouded in Kuwait's flag, dozens of hands were raised from the crowd to support the bier and help carry it towards the Shiite Muslim cemetery where most victims of Friday's Daesh mosque attack were buried on Saturday.

Among the thousands of Shiite mourners at the Jaafari cemetery in the Sulaibkhat district of Kuwait City, shock and grief were tempered by a grim sense of resignation that a long-feared attack on their community had finally taken place.

Relations between Islam's main sects have traditionally been less fraught in Kuwait than in other Gulf Arab states. But they have been undermined by a rise in Salafist Sunni Islam, which brands Shiites heretical and the sectarian hatred unleashed by wars in Iraq and Syria, mourners said.

Friday's attack, which killed 27 and injured more than 200 at the Imam Sadeq Mosque in central Kuwait City, was claimed by Daesh's Wilayat of Najd division, which last month bombed two Shiite mosques in Saudi Arabia, killing 25.

"I was expecting this to happen. What makes us different that we should not be a target? It's clear no country here is immune," said Manaf Behbehani, a marine biology professor at Kuwait University, standing among the mourners as the bodies processed towards the graveyard.

"We had sectarianism before Syria. There were examples, even in parliament, of language that was very strong. We had tensions, but there was no violence. No attacks. No bombing," he added.

Among the Kuwait flags and traditional banners of mourning, in red, black or green, and bearing the names of early Shiite Imams some placards were carried by Saudis or Bahraini members of the sect who had come in solidarity.

Three young men from Saudi Arabia's Qatif district arrived on Saturday morning and stood, dressed in black, watching the funeral procession pass by.

"We're not scared. We're going to be strong. It doesn't matter if we're martyred," said one of the three, who declined to give his full name, referring to the risks that Gulf Arab Shiites now face after three deadly bombings in a month.

Prayers and sobbing

The crowd, thousands strong, was packed tightly along a narrow tree-lined boulevard leading from the Haj Ibrahim Al Haji Hussein Al Maraafi Mosque towards the graves. Some raised their hands in the air or clapped their chests with open palms as they responded to the chants.

"No Sunni, no Shia, one, one Islam", men along the funeral route chanted at one point, and then later: "Down with Daesh! Down with Daesh!" using the Arabic acronym for Islamic State.

In the distance the sound of women ululating rose above the deeper chants of the men. The next bier that passed along the route carried a small body, and some of the men carrying it were sobbing uncontrollably.

The mid afternoon heat was intense and, it being Ramadan, most had fasted since dawn. To one side, a man slouched unconscious in a plastic chair, overcome by heat and emotion, as a medic attempted to revive him.

The bodies were carried across a dusty field, flags and banners blowing stiff in the strong breeze, to the southwest extremity of the graveyard, the point closest to Mecca, where they were lowered and prayers were performed.

Next to a long row of open graves, diggers dressed in yellow overalls lounged in the shade against the piles of earth, the handles of their shovels sticking out like needles from a pin cushion.

Cars had parked two deep along the access road that divided the Shiite cemetery, on the western side, from the Sunni cemetery on the eastern.

"The dead are separated only by the walls above the ground. Under the ground, there's no such wall," said Behbehani, referring to this sectarian divide.

As the bodies arrived at the graveside, the sound of chanting rose from a murmur to fill the air.

Port el Kantaoui, Tunisia — Planeloads of shocked foreign tourists flew home from Tunisia Saturday after a beachside massacre claimed by the Daesh terror group killed 38 people and prompted a major security clampdown.

The North African nation, which relies heavily on tourism revenues, announced plans to deploy troops at vulnerable sites and shut dozens of mosques accused of inciting extremism.

Britain said that at least 15 of its citizens were killed in Friday's gun assault in the popular resort of Port El Kantaoui and that the number "may well rise".

Tunisia's health ministry said it had identified the bodies of 17 people from Britain, Germany, Ireland, Belgium and Portugal, as it tried to establish the identities of victims mown down in their beachwear. 

The assailant pulled a gun hidden inside a parasol and opened fire on tourists on the sand and by a pool, in the deadliest attack in Tunisia's recent history.

Prime Minister David Cameron warned that his country needed to prepare "for the fact that many of those killed in the attack were British".

He added: "These were innocent holidaymakers, relaxing and enjoying time with their friends and families."

The shooting followed a March attack claimed Daesal Bardo Museum that killed 21 foreign tourists and a policeman.

"It's very painful," said Alya, who lives in nearby Sousse. "The wounds were still healing from the Bardo attack, and now we've been dealt an even bigger blow."

Another 39 people including 25 Britons, seven Tunisians and three Belgians were wounded in the attack, the health ministry said.

Prime Minister Habib Essid said from next month armed guards would be deployed all along the coast and inside hotels.

Fears for future 

But Tunisians who rely on tourism fear it will come too late.

"If I were in their shoes, I wouldn't set foot in Tunisia right now," said Imed Triki, a shopkeeper in Sousse.

"After this catastrophe, it's normal that they leave the country so quickly. Do they come here on holiday or to die?"

On Saturday, an armed plainclothes policeman guarded the beach where the carnage unfolded.

Tourists' personal belongings, abandoned in the panic, were still strewn across the sand.

The attack came on the same day that 26 people were killed at a Shiite mosque in Kuwait and a suspected Islamist attacked a factory in France.

Daesh claimed both the Kuwait bombing and the Tunisia attack, days ahead of the first anniversary of the group declaring its territory in Iraq and Syria a "caliphate".

Tunisian Secretary of State for Security Rafik Chelly told Mosaique FM the gunman was a student previously unknown to the authorities.

"He entered by the beach, dressed like someone who was going to swim, and he had a beach umbrella with his gun in it," Chelly said.

Lucky escape 

Witnesses described scenes of panic after the shooting at the hotel on the outskirts of Sousse, about 140 kilometres south of Tunis.

"All I saw was a gun and an umbrella being dropped," British tourist Ellie Makin told ITV television.

"Then he started firing to the right-hand side of us. If he had fired to the left I don't know what would have happened, but we were very lucky."

One young Tunisian told police that the gunman fired only at tourists.

"The terrorist told us: 'Stay away, I didn't come for you'," he said.

"He did not fire at us — he fired at the tourists."

Pastry cook Slim Brahim told AFP that after mowing down tourists on the beach the gunman then turned on guests by the hotel pool.

"I saw someone fire on elderly tourists. They were killed," said Brahim, who works at the Riu Imperial Marhaba Hotel that was hit. "Then he threw a grenade by the pool."

As many questioned the ease with which the gunman entered the resort, hotel owner Zohra Driss told a news conference its guards were unarmed and unable to confront "someone with a Kalashnikov".

Tightened security 

Essid said a raft of new anti-terrorism measures would take effect from July 1, including the deployment of reserve troops to reinforce security at "sensitive sites... and places that could be targets of terrorist attacks".

The government would also close 80 mosques suspected of fanning extremism, he added, echoing his predecessor's calls to shut down "illegal" mosques.

But tour operators scrambled to fly thousands of fearful holidaymakers home.

Overnight, 13 airliners took off from Enfidha airport north of Sousse.

Travel companies Thomson and First Choice said 10 Thomson Airways flights were repatriating about 2,500 Thomson and First Choice customers on Saturday

They said some of their clients had been caught up in the massacre.

Belgian airline Jetair also announced it was repatriating 2,000 people.

Tourism accounts for seven percent of Tunisia's GDP and almost 400,000 direct and indirect jobs.

BEIRUT — Daesh militants have launched simultaneous attacks against Syrian government and Kurdish militia forces, moving back onto the offensive after losing ground in recent days to Kurdish-led forces near the capital of their "caliphate".

Daesh sought to retake the initiative with incursions into the Kurdish-held town of Kobani at the Turkish border and government-held areas of Hasaka city in the northeast.

In a separate offensive in the multi-sided Syrian civil war, an alliance of rebels in the south of the country also launched an attack with the aim of driving government forces from the city of Daraa.

The attacks by Daesh follow a rapid advance by Kurdish-led forces deep into the hardline group's territory, to within 50km of its de facto capital Raqqa.

The dual assaults on government forces in Hasaka and Daraa, both provincial capitals, are a test of Assad's resolve to hold out in remote outposts beyond the western part of the country that is seen as the top priority for his survival.

The United States and European and Arab allies have been bombing Daesh since last year to try to defeat a group that a year ago proclaimed a caliphate to rule over all Muslims from territory in Syria and Iraq.

Daesh advanced rapidly last month, seizing cities in Syria and Iraq. The latest Kurdish advance in Syria has shifted the momentum again, but Daesh fighters have often adopted a tactic of advancing elsewhere when they lose ground.

The group said it had seized Al Nashwa district and neighbouring areas in the southwest of Hasaka, a city divided into zones of government and Kurdish control. Government forces had withdrawn towards the city centre, it said in a statement.

Syrian state TV said Daesh was expelling residents from their homes in Al Nashwa, executing people and detaining them. Many Daesh fighters had been killed, it said, included a commander identified as a Tunisian.

It also said a car bomb had exploded in the southeast of Hasaka.

Last government footholds

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks the war, said Daesh had seized two districts from government control.

Government-held parts of Hasaka are one of President Bashar Assad’s last footholds in the northeast region bordering Iraq and Turkey, territory mainly run by Kurds since Syria’s conflict erupted in 2011.

The Daesh attack on Kobani, also known as Ayn Al Arab, began with at least one car bomb in an area near the border crossing with Turkey, Kurdish officials and the observatory said. Daesh fighters were battling Kurdish forces in the town itself.

Kobani was the site of one of the biggest battles against Daesh last year. The Kurdish forces, known as the YPG, drove the Daesh militants back from Kobani with the help of US air strikes, after four months of fighting and siege.

YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said Thursday’s attackers had entered the town from the west in five cars, flying the flag of the Western-backed Free Syrian Army movement, which has fought alongside the YPG against Daesh.

“They opened fire randomly on everyone they found,” he told Reuters. The observatory said the attackers also wore YPG uniforms. Pictures posted on social media showed at least one dead man in uniform who was said to be an Daesh fighter.

The observatory said least 35 people, most of them civilians, were killed in the attacks, as well as 20 or more Kurdish civilians in a village south of Kobani. A YPG Facebook page said at least 15 Daesh fighters had been killed.

A doctor in the town, Welat Omer, said 15 people had been killed and 70 wounded, many of them seriously. Some had lost limbs and some of the wounded had been taken to Turkey.

Around 50 people fled to the Mursitpinar border gate after the attack, seeking to enter Turkey, local witnesses said. Syrian state TV said the attackers had entered Kobani from Turkey — a claim denied by the Turkish government.

Air strikes

US-led forces carried out air strikes on Thursday against Daesh in Hasaka and near the town of Tel Abyad, further west along the border with Turkey.

A Syrian official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said Daesh appeared to be trying to divert enemy forces putting pressure on Raqqa: “I believe this is why they moved to Hasaka because they felt great danger from the situation in Raqqa.”

The Kurdish forces say they currently have no plan to march on Raqqa city.

In Syria’s south, rebels launched an assault to capture Daraa, which, if it falls, would be the third provincial capital lost by Assad in the four-year-long war, after Raqqa and Idlib, which is held by another rebel alliance.

The Syrian government has lost ground since March in the northwest, the south and the centre, where Palmyra fell to Daeshlast month.

Assad’s control is now mainly confined to the major population centres of western Syria, where he has sought to tighten his grip with the help of Lebanon’s Hezbollah Shiite militia, his main allies.

An alliance of rebel groups known as the “Southern Front”, which profess a secular vision for Syria, said its Daraa offensive had begun at dawn. Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front also has a presence in the south.

“If the battle takes time, we are prepared. We have begun the preparatory shelling but we cannot assess the situation right now,” said Issam Al Rayyes, spokesman for the Southern Front.

Khaled Al Hanous, governor of Daraa province, told state TV the insurgents had launched “a real war with intensified shelling with various weapons or artillery on citizens in the neighbourhoods of the city and on hospitals, schools and infrastructure”.

The rebels had not made “one metre of progress”, he said.

THE HAGUE — The Palestinian Authority made its first submission of evidence of alleged Israeli war crimes to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Thursday, trying to speed up an ICC inquiry into abuses committed during last year's Gaza conflict.

The move may leave Israel in a quandary since it must decide whether to cooperate with the ICC investigation or find itself isolated as one of a very few countries that have declined to work with its prosecutors.

Israel denies allegations of war crimes by its forces during the 2014 Gaza war and accuses Islamists who control the Gaza Strip of atrocities in firing thousands of rockets at Israeli population centres.

Standing outside the ICC after meeting the court's chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad Al Maliki said he had submitted dossiers on the Gaza conflict, Israeli settlements on occupied land where Palestinians seek a state, and treatment of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

"Palestine is a test for the credibility of international mechanisms ... a test the world cannot afford to fail. Palestine has decided to seek justice, not vengeance," Maliki said.

An Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said: “The Palestinian move is nothing more than an attempt to manipulate the ICC and we hope that the prosecutor will not fall into the trap.”

A ceasefire in August ended 50 days of fighting between Gaza fighters and Israel in which health officials said more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed. Israel put the number of its dead at 67 soldiers and six civilians.

UN investigators said on Monday that Israel and Palestinian groups committed grave abuses of international humanitarian law during the conflict that may amount to war crimes.

The Hague-based ICC, with no police force or enforcement powers of its own, is looking into alleged crimes by both sides of the conflict but cannot compel Israel to give it information.

Preliminary ICC inquiry under way

The Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in parts of the West Bank, joined the court in April and Bensouda has opened a preliminary investigation related to Gaza.

But Israel has substantial leverage over the course of ICC inquiries, since court investigators can access sites in Gaza generally only via Israel since Gaza’s one border crossing with Egypt is largely closed for security reasons. Israel also controls all crossings into the West Bank.

Maliki said he had agreed with prosecutors on a date for them to visit Palestinian territories, but did not say when. “It depends on their ability to enter Palestinian territory without problems,” he said. ICC prosecutors told Reuters earlier they aimed to make field trips to both the Palestinian and Israeli sides but had not yet sought formal Israeli permission.

Israel disputed the UN report on possible war crimes, saying its forces had upheld the “highest international standards”. Gaza’s dominant Hamas group ignored the accusations against it and called for prosecutions of Israeli leaders.

As a non-member of the ICC, Israel is under no obligation to cooperate, regardless of international pressure to do so. But a boycott of prosecutors could put Israel in awkward company.

Even Russia, a foe of the ICC, has met court prosecutors related to their inquiry into alleged crimes in Russia’s 2008 war with Georgia and over the events leading up to the 2014 overthrow of Ukraine’s pro-Russian president.

Israel has been an outspoken critic of the ICC, saying the Palestinian Authority is not a state and should never have been admitted as an ICC member.

Israel also argues that the ICC inquiry will make it harder to reach a peace settlement with the Palestinians. Talks on a Palestinian state in territory Israel occupied in a 1967 war collapsed last year and there is no prospect of reviving them. 

UNITED NATIONS — The UN Security Council urged all parties in conflict-wracked Yemen on Thursday to attend future peace talks and facilitate the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid to the impoverished nation where the risk of famine is growing.

A press statement approved by all 15 council members endorsed Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's call for a humanitarian pause in the fighting. The UN special envoy on Yemen, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, warned the council on Wednesday that the country is "one step" from famine.

UN humanitarian chief Stephen O'Brien said Thursday that the collapse of basic services and extreme shortages of food and fuel have had a "devastating impact" across the country.

"More than 21 million people — that's 80 per cent of the population — now need humanitarian assistance," he told reporters by videoconference from Germany. "Health facilities report that over 2,800 people have been killed and 13,000 injured since the violence escalated in March. At least 1,400 civilians have lost their lives, and these numbers are likely to be significant underestimates."

The fighting in Yemen pits Houthi rebels and allied troops loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh against southern separatists, local and tribal militias, Sunni militants and loyalists of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who is now based in Saudi Arabia. The rebels seized the capital, Sanaa, in September.

Ahmed, who mediated talks between the parties in Geneva last week, said that despite the deep divisions and failure to reach any agreement, “there is an emerging common ground” which he believes can lead to an eventual cease-fire.

The Security Council urged all parties to consider Ahmed’s proposals for a humanitarian pause as a first step toward a sustainable cease-fire that would be monitored by “an international, impartial mechanism”.

It urged the parties to engage in future talks without preconditions and reject violence to achieve their political goals.

The council said donors have provided only about 10 per cent of the UN’s humanitarian appeal for $1.6 billion to help those in need.

O’Brien released $25 million from the UN emergency response fund Wednesday to help needy Yemenis.

Despite three months of Saudi-led airstrikes targeting the Houthis, the rebels are still capable of launching deadly attacks along the kingdom’s border. The Saudi Press Agency carried a military statement Thursday saying the Houthis launched two separate attacks there Wednesday night, killing three Saudi soldiers.

UNITED NATIONS — A UN panel is calling for Internet and social media companies to respond to the exploitation of their services by Al Qaeda and other extremist groups who use the web to recruit fighters and spout "increasingly horrific propaganda".

The panel recommended in a report circulated Wednesday that these companies brief the Security Council committee monitoring sanctions against Al Qaeda, its affiliates and the Daesh terror group on measures they are taking to prevent such exploitation.

"A worrisome trend over the past year has been the growth of high-definition digital terror: the use of propaganda, primarily by [Daesh] and its sympathisers, to spread fear and promote their distorted ideology," the panel of experts monitoring sanctions against extremist groups and individuals said in the report to the Security Council.

It said the scale of digital activity linked to Daesh, and to a lesser extent some Al Qaeda affiliates, has strategic implications for how the threat from extremists will evolve in the coming years, "not least among the diverse, dispersed and not necessarily demobilised diaspora of foreign terrorist fighters".

In recommending that Internet and social media companies brief the sanctions committee, the panel said: "The scale of the digital threat linked to radicalisation, together with the need for concerted action on countering violent extremism, calls for further action by the Security Council."

The Internet's impact on extremist groups is one facet highlighted in the report which covers the global threats posed by Al Qaeda, its affiliates, and Daesh.

The panel notes that while these groups pose a threat to international peace and security, "they still kill and injure far fewer people than wars, disasters or road traffic accidents".

Nonetheless, it said Al Qaeda, its associates and Daesh still kill thousands, and in recent months the human cost of attacks by these extremist groups "has been enormous". They have carried out major bombings, assassinations and exploited several million people in Iraq, Syria and to a lesser but no less significant extent in parts of Afghanistan, Libya, Nigeria, Somalia and Yemen, the report said.

The panel said Al Qaeda remains overshadowed by the attention paid to its splinter, Daesh, which controls large swaths of Syria and Iraq. The grip of Al Qaeda  leader Ayman Al Zawahiri on affiliates appears to be weakening, it said, and Al Qaeda's financial position remains precarious compared with that of the Daesh group.

The panel said Daesh"can claim to have achieved what Al Qaeda never did: the building of a territorial entity through terrorist violence".

But it said Al Qaeda and its affiliates still pose a serious threat in many parts of the world.

They have become more visible and active in Afghanistan over the past six months, groups associated with Al Qaeda have grown in number in South and Central Asia, and Al Shabab, Al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, remains a major security threat in the Horn of Africa.

Southern Libya remains "a safe haven" for extremists planning attacks in the Maghreb and Sahel regions and the experts said they have been told of anti-aircraft guns and portable air defence systems in the hands of extremist groups.

Boko Haram has expanded deadly incursions into Cameroon, Chad and Niger but the panel said its ability to maintain long-term control over 20,000 square kilometres of northeastern Nigeria "will require heavier weaponry, access to natural resources and some ability to sustain a local population".

It said the Indonesia-based extremist network Jemaah Islamiyah appears to be reviving and is recruiting professionals, including engineers and information specialists, which could pose "a significant long-term threat" to southeast Asia.

GAZA CITY — Gaza reconstruction is moving at a "snail's pace" and at this rate, it would likely take 30 years to rebuild the extensive damage from last summer's Israel-Hamas war, a senior UN official said.

Roberto Valent, the incoming area chief of a UN agency involved in reconstruction, blamed the delays on the slow flow of promised foreign aid and continued Israeli curbs on the entry of building material to Gaza.

Speaking in the Gaza City office of the UN Development Programme, he said his tour of destroyed neighbourhoods this week was "very, very disheartening."

Israel and Egypt have severely restricted access to Gaza since the Islamist group Hamas seized the territory in 2007.

After last year's 50-day war, Israel allowed the import of some cement and steel under UN supervision to ensure the materials would not be diverted by Hamas for military use.

Valent told The Associated Press on Wednesday that the system is too slow and Israel must open Gaza's borders to allow for the speedy rebuilding or repair of 141,000 homes he said suffered minor to severe damage or were destroyed.

"The housing stock is being reconstructed at such a snail's pace," he said. Easing access is not enough and "the real solution is the lifting of restrictions".

At the current pace, "you will have to wait 30 years to rehabilitate and to reconstruct what has been damaged", said Valent, the new area chief of the UNDP's Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People.

Israel says the system is working, but that construction materials must be closely monitored, arguing that Hamas is again digging military tunnels for which it needs cement and steel.

During the 2014 war, Israeli troops discovered more than 30 tunnels under or near the Israel-Gaza border, including some used by militants to infiltrate into Israel.

In New York, UN political chief Jeffrey Feltman told the Security Council on Wednesday that the pace of reconstruction "remains far too slow", but that the UN-supervised system has been vital for getting building materials into Gaza. He said close to 90,000 homeowners have received construction materials for repairs and that 135 construction projects were approved by Israel, out of 202 submitted.

Critics of the reconstruction efforts note that not a single home has been rebuilt. Feltman said the construction of 16,000 homes is expected to begin shortly.

He appealed to donors to send promised aid. Otherwise, money will run out by September, he said.

Donor countries have pledged $5.4 billion in aid, including for Gaza reconstruction, but Palestinian officials say they've received only a fraction so far.

The Israeli group Gisha, which advocates for Gaza civilians, said about 5 million tonnes of construction materials are needed to rebuild the 2014 war damage.

Israeli officials say they've permitted about 1.3 million tonnes to enter Gaza since September, but Gisha says the bulk of that was for Qatari-funded development projects, not post-war reconstruction.

Last year's war was the deadliest and most destructive of three rounds of fighting between Israel and Hamas since 2008.

According to the UN, more than 2,200 Palestinians, including 1,462 civilians, were killed during the fighting, which started on July 8 after a chain of events stemming from the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli settlers in the West Bank by Hamas fighters and the kidnapping of a Palestinian teenager who was burned to death by Jewish extremists in a revenge attack. Seventy-three people, including six civilians, died on the Israeli side.

Israel has said the military campaign was meant to halt persistent Hamas rocket fire at Israeli towns and destroy attack tunnels. Hamas says it acts in self-defence against Israeli occupation.

Valent said that his agency is overseeing the repair or rebuilding of more than 31,000 homes and shelters of non-refugees in Gaza; the remaining 110,000 housing units are the responsibility of the local UN aid agency for refugees.

Of the homes under Valent's purview, some 26,000 suffered minor damage, more than 1,500 were severely damaged and more than 3,400 were destroyed.

The agency needs to pay two years' worth of rental subsidies for more than 3,700 displaced families, for a total of $31 million, but is $20 million short, he said.

Meanwhile, work has begun on repairing 840 of the severely damaged homes. This, he said, "is a drop in the ocean”.