Region

BEIRUT — Kurdish-led forces advanced on Monday deep into territory in Syria held by the Daesh terror group showing new momentum after they unexpectedly swiftly seized a border crossing from the miltants last week.

The Kurds, aided by US-led air strikes and smaller Syrian rebel groups, have pushed to within 7km of Ain Issa, a town 50km north of Daesh’s de facto capital Raqqa city, said Redur Xelil, spokesman for the Kurdish forces.

The rapid advance into Raqqa province has defied expectations of a protracted battle between the Kurdish YPG group and Daesh fighters, who waged a four-month battle for the border town of Kobani, where the Kurds finally defeated the jihadists in January.

Raqqa is the main seat of power in Syria for Daesh, which has proclaimed a “caliphate” to rule over all Muslims from territory it controls in both Syria and Iraq.

The United States has been leading an air campaign against the group in both countries since last year. The Kurds have been the most important partner so far for the US-led campaign in Syria, where Washington has far fewer allies on the ground than in Iraq.

The Kurdish front in northern Syria has been one of the few sources of good news for the global campaign against Daesh since the jihadists made major advances last month in western Iraq and central Syria.

A spokesman for the Pentagon said last week Daesh forces had appeared to “crack” at the Turkish border town of Tel Abyad, which fell to the YPG in less than two days, cutting Islamic State’s supply route from Turkey.

The YPG-led forces were now battling Daesh on the outskirts of a military base to the southwest of Ain Issa, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict.

Daesh has held the base, “Liwa 93”, since capturing it from the Syrian military last year. If the Kurds take it, that would mean Ain Issa had effectively fallen, the observatory said. Thousands of people had fled from Ain Issa towards Raqqa city in the last two days, it added.

Some refugees from the Tel Abyad area had accused the YPG of driving Arabs and Turkmen from territory seized from Daesh. More than 23,000 people had fled northern Syria into Turkey this month, escaping the fighting.

With the fighting having moved on and a border crossing reopening, some of the refugees were returning to Tel Abyad on Monday. Hundreds of Syrians, mostly women and children carrying bags of belongings, returned across the border from the Turkish town of Akcakale.

Kurdish officials deny forcing people out and say such accusations are being made to stir up ethnic strife. The observatory says there has been no evidence of systematic abuses by the YPG, though there have been individual cases.

The Kurdish advance is alarming the Turkish government, which is worried the growing Kurdish sway in northern Syria could inflame ethnic unrest among its own Kurdish population.

Ankara has conveyed to Washington its concerns about signs of “a kind of ethnic cleansing” in areas captured by Kurds near Tel Abyad.

The Syrian Kurds say they do not want their own state, but see their example of regional autonomy as a model for how to settle the war in Syria and elsewhere in the region. Their cousins in Iraq also have self-rule in an autonomous region.

The Kurdish administration’s growing strength has led to friction with the Damascus government, which has tended to avoid direct conflict with the Kurds during the four-year war while maintaining a foothold in areas where the Kurds hold sway.

Tensions have flared in Qamishli, a northeastern city split between Kurdish and government forces. Kurdish forces seized several positions from government control there last week following clashes which Kurdish officials blamed the Syrian government for instigating to stir Arab-Kurdish conflict.

Syrian government officials did not comment specifically on the Qamishli events but have said they suspect some Kurds of harbouring separatist aims.

“In general, [the Kurds] and us are friends, but there is no state of permanent harmony,” a Syrian government official said by telephone on condition of anonymity.

DAMASCUS — The Syrian army has reopened a key oil supply route near Daesh-controlled Palmyra, as the hardline militant group has mined the city's ancient UNESCO-listed ruins.

However, the advance towards the central city from the west, reported by a pro-government newspaper and a monitoring group, and stepped-up air strikes, do not indicate an imminent offensive to retake it.

Daesh overran Palmyra on May 21, sparking fears that the terror group might repeat the sort of vandalism it has carried out in Iraq and destroy one of Syria's most famous archaeological sites.

"The infantry has made tangible progress in the area of Biyarat Al Gharbiyeh," west of Palmyra, which had previously been in Daesh hands, said Al Watan newspaper.

And the army had "intensified" its operations against Daesh in Palmyra and the surrounding area, the newspaper added.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which has been monitoring the conflict, said the army was now 10 kilometres away from Palmyra.

The monitor, which relies on a network of sources on the ground, said that President Bashar Assad's troops had "chased IS [Daesh] fighters from Biyarat Al Gharbiyeh on the weekend".

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said the capture of the area "allows the regime to secure a transport route for oil from the Jazal field... to other Syrian cities under its control”. 

Last week, government forces recaptured Jazal — one of the few oil fields still in government hands and about 20 kilometres northwest of Palmyra — from Daesh. 

Abdel Rahman said the government depends on gas and oil fields around Palmyra to provide electricity to cities under its control, namely Damascus.

He said the army's advances are just to protect these fields and that he doubted that an offensive on Palmyra was imminent, noting that the government has no popular support in the city.

The army's reinforcements to Biyarat Al Gharbiyeh came as Palmyra's new city was hit by heavy regime raids in the past few days that killed 11 people, said the observatory.

"The situation is very difficult for the city's civilians because of the raids and the lack of water and electricity," said a Palmyra militant who calls himself Mohammed Hassan Al Homsi.

Palmyra mined 

The jihadists have laid mines in the spectacular Greco-Roman ruins of Palmyra, both the observatory and Syria's antiquities chief, Maamoun Abdulkarim, said Sunday.

It was not immediately clear if the militants were planning on demolishing the ruins, or if they had laid the mines in order to prevent the advancing regime forces from retaking the city.

Daesh has regularly heavily mined seized territory to make any recapture more difficult.

It has released several videos documenting its destruction of heritage sites in Iraq and Syria, since declared a "caliphate" straddling the two neighbours a year ago.

In its extreme interpretation of Islam, statues, idols and shrines amount to recognising objects of worship other than God and must be destroyed.

DUBAI — A Saudi TV star has earned death threats for deploying a new weapon against the Daesh terror group: laughter.

"Selfie", a sketch comedy show which debuted last week on Saudi-owned pan-Arab satellite channel MBC, has won praise from influential voices in the Middle East for daring to mock the hardline militant group.

In one scene, a group of buffoonish holy warriors at a "girl market" picks concubines from a line of chained women abducted from the battlefield.

"Come on guys!" interjects a naive character played by the show's Saudi star, Nasser Al Qasabi. "This is forbidden by Islam, these are just children!"

"God forgives!" the ringleader snapped back.

As one fighter picks a slave "wife" of a moustachioed man in a woman's black robe, a friend points out the apparent mistake.

"No problem!" the first fighter says. "If he's an infidel, he deserves this!"

Saudi Arabia observes a strict form of Sunni Islam but is fiercely opposed to Daesh which has seized much of Syria and Iraq and declared a "caliphate" to rule over all Muslims.

Qasabi says his show's message, though presented in the form of satire, is deadly serious. He says he has been unfazed by threats he has received from the militants' supporters since the premier.

"God is my protector. I'm an artist, and the artist's essential role is to reveal society's challenges even if he pays a price," he said in an interview with Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV on Sunday.

"Warning the people about ISIS [Daesh] is the true jihad, because we're fighting them with art not war."

The militants are known for their own skilful use of media, filming beheadings and distributing well-produced war documentaries that attract footsoldiers to the field and virtual armies of backers in online social networks.

In a typical response from a supporter of the militants, a Twitter user named Jalabeeb Al Jizrawi wrote to Al Qasabi: "I swear to god you will regret what you did, you apostate."

"The holy warriors will not rest until they cut your head from your body, in just a few days hopefully," he wrote in a post that was retweeted over 3,000 times.

But other media figures in the Middle East have declared themselves fans.

"For many years, [news networks] Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya have aired ISIS filth and no one reacted against it," Shams, a Kuwaiti singer, tweeted to her almost half a million followers.

"But in twenty minutes, 'Selfie' gave the Islamic nation a wake up call," she said.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli Druze blocked an Israeli army ambulance they believed was transporting wounded Syrian rebels on Monday, local authorities said, a rare confrontation underscoring Druze concern for brethren caught up in the civil war next door.

The Druze are an Arab minority that practice an offshoot of Islam and whose adherents in Syria, long loyal to the ruling Assad family, are beset by jihadi insurgents. Israeli Druze, some of whom wield clout in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government and the military, have been urging intervention.

In the absence of such action, many Druze in Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights are angry at the admission of casualties from rival Sunni Muslim communities in Syria — anti-Assad fighters among them — for medical treatment.

An Israeli army ambulance carrying Syrian casualties was stopped before dawn on Monday on the outskirts of Hurfeish, a Druze town in northern Israel, by several residents who demanded to inspect the passengers, a police spokesman said.

The ambulance pulled away, with the Hurfeish residents throwing rocks at it as they followed in pursuit, the police spokesman said, adding that a 54-year-old local man was injured after apparently being hit by the military vehicle.

Farah Sabeq, secretary of the Hurfeish municipality, confirmed several townsmen had taken part in the incident. Speaking to Reuters, he described them as "incensed by the situation in Syria" and said that while they had tried to close the road used by the ambulance, he knew of no stone-throwing.

"We condemn this as we would any illegal activity, but especially here, as it involved the security forces — in all branches of which Hurfeish residents serve," Sabeq said.

Ayoob Kara, a Druze deputy Israeli minister, sought to reassure his kinsmen about Syrian casualties coming into Israel.

In a statement, Kara said Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon had told him Israel would not admit fighters from radical militant groups Daesh or Al Nusra Front. Israeli officials have said they did not condition treatment on casualties' affiliations.

The military declined to elaborate on the identities of the Syrians who were in the ambulance stopped outside Hurfeish.

In a statement, Sheikh Muwafaq Tarif, the head of Israel's Druze community, condemned the confrontation as "the kind of provocation that harms our interests and those of our Druze brothers over the border".

"This is our moment of truth," he said. "The Druze religion and tradition opposes any physical harm, especially against wounded people."

BERLIN — Prominent Al Jazeera journalist Ahmed Mansour walked free from a Berlin prison on Monday, drawing a line under an awkward diplomatic incident for Germany two days after he was detained at Egypt's request.

Ahmed Mansour, one of Al Jazeera's best-known journalists, was released after Egypt was unable to dispel concerns about the extradition process, the Berlin public prosecutor's office said in a statement.

Earlier, a foreign ministry spokesman told a news conference that Germany would not extradite anyone to any country where he or she might be sentenced to death.

A Cairo court sentenced Mansour — a joint British-Egyptian national — to 15 years in prison in absentia last year on a charge of torturing a lawyer in 2011 in Tahrir Square, the focus of the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak. Mansour and Al Jazeera deny the charge.

"I thank the defence team. I thank the free press. I thank all of you," Mansour, dressed smartly in black, shouted to a crowd of his supporters outside central Berlin's Moabit prison.

The crowd chanted "Allah Akbar" (God is greatest) and "Down, down with military rule" — a slogan that is chanted in pro-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations — in reference to the military rule that followed the ouster of former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi of the Brotherhood.

Egypt accuses Al Jazeera of being a mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Qatar-backed Islamist movement that President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi removed from power in 2013 when he was army chief and denounces as a terrorist group.

Mansour's case has put Germany in an awkward position as it tries to balance business interests and human rights.

Chancellor Angela Merkel was criticised by opposition parties and rights groups for hosting Sisi this month. During that visit, German industrial group Siemens signed an 8-billion-euro ($9-billion) gas and wind-power deal with Egypt.

Last year, an Egyptian court jailed three Al Jazeera journalists on charges that included aiding a terrorist group. One of them, Australian Peter Greste, was released in February after 400 days in prison.

Mohamed Fahmy, a naturalised Canadian who has given up his Egyptian citizenship, and Egyptian Baher Mohamed were released on bail in February after spending more than a year in custody and are being retried.

THE HAGUE — European police agency Europol said Monday it was launching a continent-wide cybercrime unit to combat social media accounts promoting jihadist propaganda, particularly those of the Daesh terror group.

The unit, set to start operating from Europol's Hague-based headquarters next month, will comb tens of thousands of social media accounts connected with Daesh and report them to the companies behind the websites, Europol chief Rob Wainwright said.

He declined to name Facebook and Twitter "for privacy reasons," but said: "These are the leading social media companies. There's only three or four, so that's who we are talking about."

The team "will focus on publicly available material and combine what we see on social media with more traditional intelligence sources", Wainwright told AFP in a telephone interview.

Initially consisting of some 15 to 20 members, the cyber squad will focus on key figures who put out thousands of tweets and run accounts used to lure would-be jihadists to Iraq and Syria, as well as to recruit jihadists' brides.

A recent US study identified at least 46,000 Twitter accounts linked to supporters of the IS group, three-quarters of them tweeting in Arabic.

Since the Daesh called on Muslims to come to the “caliphate” it declared a year ago, foreign fighter numbers have jumped, with the United Nations reporting a 71 per cent spike in the nine months to April. 

The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation in London said the number of foreigners fighting in Syria and Iraq topped 20,000 by January — with nearly a fifth of them from western Europe.

"The IS [Daesh] is the most well-connected terrorist organisation that we've seen online," Wainwright pointed out.

"They are manipulating the Internet and social media, which has become a cornerstone in the lives of many young people," he said.

Europol will draw on a decade of experience in monitoring extremist websites and well as "deep knowledge of extremist content and good linguistic capabilities including our knowledge of Arabic", to combat the problem.

Wainwright said once an extremist account had been detected, the companies would be informed and it would be taken down in "a matter of a few hours". 

ISMAILIA, Egypt — Egyptian security forces killed 22 suspected militants who were planning to target security forces in the restive North Sinai province on Monday, security sources said.

Egypt is facing a Sinai-based insurgency that has killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the army toppled Islamist President Mohamed Morsi after mass protests against his rule in 2013.

The sources said security forces struck a group of people meeting outside a mosque south of the Sheikh Zuwayed town who were planning an attack on security points. They also targeted a vehicle with four militants and two more riding a motorcycle.

Earlier on Monday at least eight policemen and civilians were wounded when explosions hit two houses in El Arish, the provincial capital of North Sinai, security and medical sources said.

Militants planted two bombs in two adjacent houses, both inhabited by police, the sources said. The force of the explosions led to the collapse of large parts of the homes, injuring three policemen and five civilians.

The extent of their injuries was not immediately clear.

The most active militant group in North Sinai is Sinai Province, which has pledged allegiance to Daesh terror group that controls large parts of Iraq and Syria.

Egypt executed six members of Sinai Province for carrying out an attack on soldiers near Cairo last year, their lawyer said in May.

LUXEMBOURG — Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Monday he saw a good chance of reaching a final agreement with six world powers on Iran's nuclear programme by a June 30 deadline or a few days later, provided there was political will.

Iran and the six powers — Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the United States — are trying to clinch a deal to restrict Iran's nuclear programme for at least a decade in exchange for relief from sanctions.

Such a deal would end a 12-year nuclear standoff between Iran and the West, which suspects Iran is trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability. Iran denies that, saying its programme is for peaceful uses only.

"I believe... that if there is political will to accept the realities and move forward based on what we agreed in Lausanne, then there is a good possibility we can finish this by the deadline, or a few days after the deadline," Zarif said after talks with EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini and the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain.

He was referring to a framework agreement reached in Lausanne, Switzerland, in April.

Zarif held separate talks in Luxembourg with the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany and then they all met together with Mogherini.

"We discussed how we can expedite the discussions in Vienna for the next few difficult days," he said.

Iranian news agencies quoted Zarif earlier as saying it was worth missing the June 30 deadline by a few days to get a good deal.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said talks at official level were making progress but there were "a number of different areas where we have not reached full agreement".

"We need to see some flexibility on the Iranian side but... we cannot compromise on the absolute red lines we have. If we do a deal it has to be verifiable," he said.

"We are all agreed that we need to work towards the June 30 deadline next week and we are going to pull all the stops out," he said.

"At some point — later on this week, over the weekend, early next week — ministers will need to gather and get involved... We will carry on making progress at official level as far as we can before we involve ministers," Hammond said.

Earlier, Hammond had said he had always expected the talks to go "right to the line and maybe beyond the line".

After the talks the White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the deadline is now "firm" but may be pushed back if needed.

One of the most sensitive points is the powers' demand that any agreement contain a strong verification mechanism to ensure Iran complies with the accord, including at military sites.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said: "France wants an agreement, but a strong agreement, not a bad agreement."

Such an accord would include a time limit on Iran's nuclear research and production capabilities and an advanced regime to verify Iran's compliance with the agreement, including "if necessary" at military sites, he said.

It should also include the automatic return of sanctions if Iran violates its commitments, Fabius said.

"All that is important both for regional security and for action against nuclear proliferation," he said.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said the talks were entering a "very decisive period".

"We must hope that the Iranians move on decisive points and that we come to a close," he said.

CAIRO — One of the pan-Arab television network Al Jazeera's best known journalists, Ahmed Mansour, was remanded in custody by a German judge after being detained at Egypt's request, the public prosecutor's office said on Sunday.

Mansour was arrested in Berlin at Egypt's request, in a case that puts Germany in an awkward position as it wrestles with balancing business interests and human rights, and also renews questions about Cairo's crackdown on dissent.

Egypt accuses Al Jazeera of being a mouthpiece of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Qatar-backed Islamist movement that President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi removed from power in 2013 when he was army chief and calls a terrorist group.

Both the television channel and the Brotherhood reject the allegations made by Egyptian authorities.

Mansour, a leading talk show host on the Qatari channel's Arabic service, was arrested at a Berlin airport on Saturday, the latest Al Jazeera journalist to be pursued by the Egyptian authorities.

"The temporary detention investigative judge has concluded his investigation with Ahmed Mansour and he has been transferred to Moabit prison in Berlin," Al Jazeera said on its website on Sunday.

A Cairo court sentenced Mansour, who has dual Egyptian and British citizenship, to 15 years in prison in absentia last year on a charge of torturing a lawyer in 2011 in Tahrir Square, the focus of the uprising that toppled veteran autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Jazeera said at the time the charge was false and an attempt to silence Mansour, known to viewers across the Arab world.

Mansour told Al Jazeera by telephone earlier: "The German authorities told me that we are dealing with an international criminal case" and a judge would decide whether he should be extradited to Egypt.

"He is accused of a crime and was sentenced, so of course we have called for him to be returned," Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman, Badr Abdelatty, told Reuters.

German dilemma

Critics accuse the West of turning a blind eye towards what they say is Egypt's crackdown on dissent and freedom of speech in favour of improved economic ties and security cooperation.

Mansour's arrest may bring to a head Germany's divisions over how to deal with Egypt, a valuable political ally and business partner accused of widespread human rights abuses.

Sisi visited Germany this month at Chancellor Angela Merkel's invitation, but the speaker of Germany's parliament cancelled a meeting with him, citing rights violations in Egypt.

During the visit, German company Siemens signed an 8-billion-euro deal ($9 billion) with Egypt to supply gas and wind power plants.

"Germany must not be a henchman of Egypt's politically controlled justice system," Niels Annen, foreign policy spokesman for the Social Democrats, told Spiegel Online.

Egypt released Australian Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste in February this year after 400 days in prison on charges that included aiding a terrorist group.

Mohamed Fahmy, a naturalised Canadian who has given up his Egyptian citizenship, and Egyptian Baher Mohamed were released on bail in February after spending more than a year in custody.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The flamboyant wife of Israeli Interior Minister Silvan Shalom published an "inappropriate joke" Sunday about US President Barack Obama on her Twitter account, only to later delete it and apologise.

"Do u know what Obama Coffee is? Black and weak," Judy Shalom Nir-Mozes wrote to her 74,400 followers.

Online shock, condemnation and accusations of racism later led her to delete the incriminating tweet.

"I apologise, that was a stupid joke somebody told me," she wrote on her @JudyMozes Twitter account in English.

"President Obama I shouldnt have written the inappropriate joke I heard," she also wrote, addressing the US leader directly. "I like people no matter about their race and religion."

"Sorry if I caused any offence to anyone. I hope I will stay married when my husband will land and hear what I did," she added.

Her husband, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, is also the minister charged with strategic ties with the United States.

The outspoken Nir-Mozes is a scion of the Mozes family that owns the top-selling Yediot Aharonot daily. She hosts a weekly radio programme as well as participating in a number of television shows.

She publishes blunt tweets and Facebook posts about a wide range of social and political issues, including criticising members of Israel's political left for what she perceives as their lack of patriotism.

Netanyahu is also a regular target for her criticism.