Region

CAIRO — Gunmen on a speeding motorcycle opened fire outside the famed Giza Pyramids on the outskirts of Cairo early Wednesday, killing two police officers in a rare attack near one of the country's top tourist attractions, authorities said.

The attack comes as Egypt tries to rehabilitate its vital tourism industry, which accounted for as much as 20 per cent of foreign currency revenues before its 2011 revolt that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak and later years of turmoil.

From a high of 14.7 million tourists in 2010, Egypt has had an average of around 9 million a year since, though officials say tourists slowly are coming back. Government officials say the tourism industry saw revenues jump to $4 billion in the first half of this year, compared to $1.9 billion in the same period last year.

The gunmen opened fire on a police vehicle at the back of the Giza Pyramids plateau on a main highway that leads to southern Egypt, wounding the two tourism police officers, a security official said. They died later of their wounds in the hospital, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to brief journalists.

Egypt's state MENA news agency said the gunmen fled and that an investigation was underway. An antiquities official in the area, Kamal Wahid, was quoted by the website of the state-run Al Ahram newspaper as saying the attack was 5 kilometres away from the pyramids. The location of the attack could not be immediately reached by journalists.

Egypt sees regular attacks on its security forces as it struggles with the low-level Islamist insurgency, mostly in the lawless northern Sinai Peninsula following the 2013 military ouster of elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi. Typically though, security forces are the targets of the attacks.

But the attacks lately have inched closer to the capital, mostly targeting individual security agents but have also included near-daily small bombings in public areas. One bombing killed a police officer on a bridge in Cairo's upscale island of Zamalek.

An earlier wave of Islamist insurgency peaked in 1997 with a bloody attack against tourists in a temple south of Egypt that left more than 60 tourists killed. So far, however, tourist sites have not been targeted.

The surge in violence in the last two years was accompanied by a crackdown on the 87-year old Muslim Brotherhood, from which Morsi hails, and other Islamists. Militants say the attacks are meant to avenge the crackdown. Sinai-based Ansar Beit Al Maqdis — which has claimed most of the major attacks in Egypt — has pledged allegiance to the Daesh extremist group fighting in Iraq and Syria and has declared itself to be the group's Sinai Province.

The government blames the Brotherhood for the violence, a charge the group has denied. But increasing pressure on the group appears to have caused a schism within, between those who openly call for a direct confrontation and others who call for peaceful means. There also has been a rise in attacks against government institutions, electricity poles and recently the deadly shooting of three judges.

Reflecting an intention to keep up the crackdown, the government proposed Wednesday imposing penalties of no less than a year in prison and a fine for anyone who does not report owning explosives.

CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi travels to Berlin on Tuesday, where German leaders are ready to roll out the red carpet for the ex-general despite his government’s abysmal human rights record.

The trip, a first state visit long desired by the former army chief, will see him meet Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Joachim Gauck, who as an activist played a prominent role in ending repressive Communist rule in East Germany. Sisi will also meet corporate leaders at a business conference Thursday.

Sisi’s office said he seeks to boost economic, military and security cooperation, and highlighted 4.4 billion euros ($4.8 billion) in bilateral trade last year. Germany’s Siemens AG has made the largest single commitment so far to Egypt under Sisi’s year-long rule — a 10 billion euro agreement to build power plants.

Human rights groups on Tuesday urged Merkel to link closer ties to Egypt addressing pervasive violations.

“Germany should continue to freeze transfers of arms and security-related items that can be used for repression until Egypt investigates and brings to justice the security forces responsible for unlawful killings of hundreds of protesters,” read a joint letter by five groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.

But with much of the Middle East plunged into violent chaos in the years since the Arab Spring uprisings, Western nations have once again come to see many of the region’s autocrats as partners for stability.

“Merkel probably doesn’t have a lot of sympathy for Sisi, but she is enough into realpolitik to just go along and not stir up things too much,” said Kristian Brakel, a Middle East expert at Germany’s Council for Foreign Relations. “We have seen her deal with a lot of political leaders whom she actually harbours no sympathies at all, so I don’t see how it would be different with Sisi.”

Sisi, who overthrew his elected Islamist predecessor, Mohamed Morsi, following mass protests in 2013, has said Egypt must focus on stability and security in order to recover from years of turmoil unleashed by the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Since Morsi’s ouster, the military-backed government has waged a sweeping crackdown on his supporters and jailed secular activists for taking part in unauthorised street protests. Those jailed include some of the leading secular and left-wing activists behind the 2011 uprising.

Just this past Sunday, Egypt’s state-sanctioned rights body criticised the practice of detaining suspects for extended periods pending the filing of formal charges and trial. It said that at least 2,600 people were killed in violence in the 18 months following Morsi’s overthrow, nearly half of them his supporters.

And only hours before Sisi’s arrival, a court said it would give its final ruling next week on a death sentence recently handed to Morsi. In a statement issued from Istanbul, the Brotherhood accused the court of delaying the decision to avoid embarrassing Sisi abroad.

Berlin police say some two dozen protests have been registered, but with fewer than 100 people at each, numbers far below the thousands of pro-Sisi demonstrators registered by Coptic Christian and other groups.

A plane carrying over 140 Sisi supporters, including celebrities, departed early Tuesday for Berlin ahead of his visit. But human rights activist Mohammed Lotfy, who was due to speak before Germany’s parliament, said he was banned from travelling at the airport and had his passport confiscated.

“What is more concerning is that the regime is scared of even one person going out to speak critically. That is a sign of how frail the state is,” Lotfy said.

Sisi makes no secret of his admiration for German efficiency and the country’s economic prowess, and proudly announced Merkel’s invitation at an investment conference in March. In an interview with Der Spiegel magazine earlier this year, he defended his government’s actions by saying there is a “civilizational gap” between Germany and Egypt. “The police and people in Germany are civilized and have a sense of responsibility,” he said.

Germany has not quite returned the same level of affection. The head of parliament, Norbert Lammert, last month called off a planned meeting with Sisi, citing Egypt’s “systematic persecution of opposition groups”, as well as “mass arrests, convictions to lengthy prison terms and an incredible number of death sentences”.

Another point of contention is Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, a non-governmental organisation linked to Merkel’s political party. Egyptian security forces shut down its Cairo office and sentenced its German director to five years in prison, and Egyptian employees to two years, all in absentia.

During a visit to Egypt in early April, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he hoped a solution could be found in the coming weeks, but no changes have been announced.

BEIRUT — Steady advances by insurgents on key fronts in Syria mean President Bashar Assad is under more military pressure than at any point in the four-year-old war.

Losses in the north, east and south to groups including Al Qaeda's Syrian arm and Daesh may test Assad's hold over western parts of the country that are the most crucial to his survival.

After his loss of Palmyra, a symbolic and militarily strategic city, and nearly all of Idlib province, he appears to be circling his wagons more closely to a western region that includes Damascus, Homs, Hama and the coast.

Sources familiar with the thinking in Damascus acknowledge that pressure is growing but say the government is confident the army can defend crucial territory with the help of its allies.

Assad still controls areas in more far-flung parts of Syria, but these are dwindling in number. His decision to maintain forces in places such as in Deir Al Zor, Hasakeh and Aleppo suggests he still wants to preserve a nationwide presence, rejecting Syria's de facto partition.

Sources familiar with the government's thinking say Assad is confident about standing his ground: extra support is expected from Iran, his strongest ally, which said on Tuesday it would continue to stand by Syria. The Lebanese group Hizbollah, which is backed by Iran, is more widely deployed in Syria than ever.

And Assad still believes the West will eventually rehabilitate him as a partner in the fight against Daesh — a shift that shows no sign of happening but which he thinks is inevitable given the risk of a full jihadist takeover.

"The summer will be tough on the ground, but red lines will not be breached," said one source familiar with the thinking in Damascus, declining to be named because he was discussing private conversations with Syrian officials.

Assad has survived such pressure before, notably at the end of 2012 when the West thought his government was near collapse. But the difference now is that the insurgents have grown in strength while government forces have been weakened after more than four years of fighting.

Assad has also lost Iraqi Shiite militiamen who had been fighting alongside Syrian forces. They went home to fight Daesh after it captured Mosul and other Iraqi cities last June. The sudden advances also added to the military pressures facing Iran both in Syria and Iraq.

Insurgent groups in the north and south of Syria have emerged as the war’s most dynamic force in the past two months. They are better organised and armed than before and are believed to have received new support from Assad’s regional enemies.

“Clearly the trends right now are working against the regime, but it appears the regime’s backers — and Iran in particular — may increase their support in an attempt to reverse those trends,” said Noah Bonsey, senior analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank.

“It is too early to tell what such an escalation could achieve,” he said. “The regime is still seeking to maintain as much of its geographic reach as it can.”

Lebanon’s As Safir newspaper on Tuesday said more than 20,000 Iraqi, Iranian and Lebanese fighters had entered Idlib province in readiness for a counter attack. Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.

Where is the support?

Public concern about the war has surfaced in government-held areas where most of the population still lives. The Syrian lira has weakened.

Foreign Minister Walid Al Mouallem fielded tough questions during a televised news conference in Damascus last week, including whether Syria was now in fact partitioned.

One journalist put it to him that Iranian and Russian statements of support were failing to halt insurgent advances. People were asking why this support was not more apparent on the ground, the journalist said.

“This question is certainly asked in the popular opinion,” Mouallem said. The relationship with Russia and Iran “is deeper than some think”, he added.

A diplomat who tracks Syria said the tone reflected a new government willingness to admit vulnerability.

“It’s a change in their attitude,” the diplomat said. “The general mood is black.”

The deputy head of Israel’s armed forces said this week the Syrian military had “ceased to exist, de facto”, while Hizbollah was investing in thousands of its fighters in Syria.

Others describe the situation in less dire terms, and say the army is still able to defend government-held areas.

State TV airs videos reassuring Syrians the army is in good shape, displaying its weapons and showing bare-chested soldiers breaking concrete with their arms.

“We believe in the capacity of the army to restore security for every inch of Syria,” the headline of a recent state media report read, citing Prime Minister Wael Al Halaki.

Tactical withdrawal

Assad is still determined to hold on to energy installations needed to supply government-held areas, including gas and oil fields east of Homs. Last week he despatched Halaki on a visit to the Sha’ar gas field, which had previously fallen to Daesh but was recaptured after fierce battles.

An offensive by the army and Hizbollah against insurgents including the Nusra Front in the Qalamoun mountain range north of Damascus is also crucial.

The diplomat said: “It will be very difficult for armed groups to take [Damascus], because it will be a battle not just for land, but a fight for survival.” But Latakia on the coast and Homs could be harder to defend.

The Syrian government views the fall of Palmyra as a tactical defeat but a strategic gain, said Salem Zahran, a Lebanese pundit with close ties to Damascus.

Daesh’s capture of the city and its UNESCO World Heritage site should encourage Washington to review its Syria policy, would make US-allied Jordan take greater notice of the Daesh threat, and force Iraq to cooperate more with Syria, he said, reflecting the view in Damascus.

Damascus is also counting on Syria climbing up Iran’s list of priorities once Tehran signs a nuclear deal with world powers, Zahran said.

But previous assumptions that Assad could not be defeated due to his superior military strength underpinned by the air force were no longer valid, the diplomat said. The insurgents were building on their momentum and had more recruits.

“For every 100 soldiers lost by the regime, there are not 100 more coming in,” the diplomat said.

BEIRUT — A British actor who has had minor roles in Hollywood films has joined Kurdish fighters battling the Daesh terror group in Syria and appeared in an online video Tuesday.

Michael Enright, who played a deckhand in "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest”, appeared in a video released by the Kurdish People's Protection Units, known as the YPG. The video showed him in a trench with other fighters firing an assault rifle.

"ISIS are dangerous to every human being alive," Enright says in the video, posted on the YPG's Facebook page on Tuesday, referring to Daesh.

He called for weapons and medical aid for the Kurdish fighters, describing them as "my havals”, the Kurdish word for comrades.

The YPG has emerged as a key fighting force against Daesh in Syria. With the help of US-led coalition air strikes, they have succeeded in liberating dozens of towns and villages in northeastern Syria from Daesh.

Dozens of other Westerners now fight with the Kurds, both in Syria and Iraq.

In an interview with Dubai-based Al Aan TV from the Kurdish city of Hasakeh, Enright said he became aware of Daesh when the extremist group "cut off an American journalist's head”. Enright said he is willing to die for the cause.

CAIRO — Egypt arrested two senior Muslim Brotherhood leaders, officials said Tuesday, increasing pressure on the Islamist group at a time when its ranks are divided over whether to pursue a course of direct violent confrontation with the government in response to a nearly 2-year-old heavy crackdown.

The arrests came as a judge said Tuesday he would announce his final decision on June 16 concerning a death sentence against former president Mohamed Morsi and more than 100 others found guilty on charges of carrying out a 2011 prison break. Once the decision is finalised, Morsi and others can still appeal the verdict.

The judge handed down a tentative death sentence against Morsi and the others last month. But under Egyptian law, the country's top Muslim cleric, the mufti, must issue a non-binding opinion on any death sentence before it can be officially issued. The judge said he had received the mufti's opinion Tuesday morning and would issue his final ruling on the sentence in two weeks.

The verdict against Morsi is part of a series of mass trials in the crackdown that has largely crushed the 87-year-old Brotherhood, once the country's most powerful political organisation. The crackdown was launched after the military ousted Morsi — a Brotherhood figure who became Egypt's first freely elected president — in July 2013 in the wake of mass protests against his rule. Since then, security forces largely quelled pro-Morsi protests, killing hundreds of Islamists and arresting thousands, including almost all the group's top and middle leadership.

The tight security grip and a series of harsh sentences against Brotherhood leaders appear to be causing cracks within the group, long known for its tight discipline. Last week, two factions came into the open: a younger generation of Islamists advocating a more violent confrontation and the Brotherhood's older generation, which in its official statements insists on peaceful means of resistance.

The government of President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi — the former army chief who led the ouster of Morsi — accuses the Brotherhood of resorting to violence from the start and has declared it a terrorist organisation, a claim the group denies. But the signs of divisions within the group suggest a growing distance between young Brotherhood members who have borne the brunt of street clashes with police and the older Brotherhood leadership, which is largely in prison or in exile abroad and in the past has been willing to strike deals with those in power in Egypt, as means for survival.

The new arrests targeted members of the older generation advocating peaceful resistance: Abdel-Rahman El Bar, the Brotherhood's top religious cleric, and Mahmoud Ghozlan, its former spokesman and a member of its top decision-making body. The two were arrested late Monday while hiding in the Gaza district of the capital, according to a security official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to talk to reporters.

Bar and Ghozlan were wanted by authorities because they had both been convicted in absentia in trials on violence-related charges. They were both sentenced to death, since those convicted in absentia automatically receive the harshest possible sentence for their charges. Egyptian law requires they be given a retrial after their capture.

Several days before his arrest, Ghozlan had posted an online statement underlining that "peaceful means and shunning violence are our basic principles, which we don't diverge from and don't give up on. This is the hardest choice but it is the best”.

He made the statement in reply to a volley by the younger generation, coming from Brotherhood spokesman Mohammed Montassir. In a statement, Montassir voiced support for a recent joint document by a group of Brotherhood-connected or hardline Muslim clerics around the region that denounced Sisi's government as a "murderous criminal regime" and advocated retribution against officials, judges, policemen, media figures and politicians involved in the crackdown.

Montassir said he was speaking in the name of the group's new leadership, which he said was created in secret elections held among members last year. He said those elections only left in place the Brotherhood's top leader, Mohammed Badie, who is among those in prison and has had a death sentence issued against him. The group elected a crisis-management team, Montassir said, apparently sidelining the main decision-making body known as General Guidance Bureau filled with older generation figures.

The support for the clerics' document appeared to mark a major shift in the Brotherhood's policy.

The crisis in the Brotherhood "reflects a deep schism between two generations”, said Khalil Al Anani, an academic expert on Islamic movements in his commentary on Al Jazeera TV's website. "Clearly the youth of the Brotherhood have lost hope," he added.

Still, others are sceptical. Researcher Ahmed Bani, a former Brotherhood member, said he believed the dispute was over leadership, not between hawks and doves within the group. Speaking to The Associated Press, he said the older generation used peaceful rhetoric to cover up violent policies, while the younger just wants to get rid of the cover. "The future is to the violent current, alas," he said.

Egypt has been rocked by a surge in blasts, assassinations and suicide bombings, mainly against police and the military, by militant groups from which the Muslim Brotherhood group is believed to have kept a distance. Sinai-based Ansar Beit Al Maqdis — the most dangerous militant group— has pledged allegiance to the Daesh group, declaring itself to be the group's Sinai Province.

TUNIS — Tunisia, birthplace of the Arab Spring, faces a dilemma as it struggles to reconcile national security and media freedom in a country facing a rise in jihadist unrest.

The debate has been raging for weeks in Tunisia, where parliament in January 2014 ratified a new constitution guaranteeing freedom of expression after decades of authoritarian and oppressive rule.

"Terrorism and freedom of the press are new to Tunisia," said Mohamed Fehri Chelbi, a professor at IPSI, a university that trains journalists.

As a result, he said, when violence breaks out the media and the government frequently issue conflicting and confusing reports.

The latest example was on May 25 when gunfire was heard from Bouchoucha army barracks in Tunis, near parliament and the Bardo National Museum where jihadist gunmen killed 21 foreign tourists and a policeman in March.

The media broke the news, with reports of a "terrorist attack".

Some said the shooting was the result of clashes between troops inside the barracks and armed men in an adjacent neighbourhood, while others claimed that women were among the assailants.

Officials quickly put an end to the cacophony of information saying that a soldier who "had family and psychological problems" seized a gun and killed eight comrades before being shot dead.

The interior ministry insisted the rampage was not linked to "terrorism".

The multitude of conflicting reports from the media sparked anger among social network users, with one tweeting: "URGENT: journalists are terrorising the population".

'Hasty reports'

Defence ministry spokesman Belhassen Oueslati criticised the media for its "haste" in publishing "erroneous information and contradictory reports... that triggered public concern".

Media outlets hit back, saying they were only doing their job.

They also criticised the authorities for having issued conflicting casualty tolls and contradictory information about the March 18 museum attack.

"Why are we being insulted and discredited," wrote the news website Business News, which had claimed that women were among assailants on Bouchoucha barracks before correcting its report.

"We are only doing our job by reporting the news and quoting official or reliable sources," it said in an opinion piece.

Tunisia's media has been under scrutiny ever since the end of the 2011 revolution that toppled autocratic president Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali, whose regime muzzled the press.

Authorities have repeatedly accused the media of "blunders" while journalists have charged that the administration lacks transparency.

In 2013, the media came under heavy criticism after they published pictures of the bodies of soldiers killed in an ambush by jihadists.

Propaganda

During a seminar organised by the interior ministry to discuss "the media and terrorism", officials cautioned journalists against badgering the families of victims.

"Press freedom should not become a pretext" to hound families of soldiers and the police, interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui said at the seminar.

Aroui also said a newspaper which had "suggested that terrorists are winning" against the security forces could serve as "propaganda for terrorism".

Some security officials, as well as police unions, have also urged journalists ensure they place "the national interest before any scoop".

But the Tunis Centre for Press Freedom, a non-governmental organisation, warned that such calls can be dangerous because journalists are not supposed to reflect government views.

"A journalist has the right to promote values such as the battle against terrorism... but it is not his job to wage war by proxy... or to be an instrument of government institutions," said Walid Mejri, a journalist with the weekly Akher Khabar.

Fahem Boukaddous, a member of the National Syndicate of Tunisian Journalists, said the media should work to be more reliable to avoid pressure from authorities.

"The authorities could exploit mistakes committed by journalists to put pressure on the media and justify the need to implement legislation that could prove dangerous for the press," he said.

The government submitted to parliament this year a draft anti-terrorism law and a security bill which have sparked concern that they could undermine freedom of information.

UNITED NATIONS — Israel on Monday accused a UN committee that oversees non-governmental organisations of granting UN accreditation to an association that it said promotes "anti-Israel propaganda in Europe" and is linked to the militant Palestinian group Hamas.

Israeli mission to the UN issued a statement condemning the decision, by the 19-member UN Committee on Non-Governmental Organisations, to approve the application of the Palestinian Return Centre (PRC), an organisation based in Britain. The PRC denied having ties to Hamas and accused Israel of trying to "distort and mislead the committee member states”.

The Israeli statement said it banned the PRC in 2010 because of its ties to Hamas, labeling it "an organisational and a coordinating wing of Hamas in Europe" with members that include senior Hamas officials.

"Until today, the UN has given Hamas discounts and let it strengthen its activities," Israel's UN ambassador, Ron Prosor, said in the statement. "Now, the UN went one step further and gave Hamas a welcoming celebration at its main entrance, allowing it to be a full participant."

Some 12 countries voted in favor, including Iran, Pakistan, Sudan, Turkey, Venezuela, China and Cuba, while three voted against — the United States, Uruguay and Israel. India, Russia and Greece abstained, and Burundi was absent.

PRC described Israel's allegations as baseless.

"PRC will hand a letter of protest to the United Nations... against the false allegations circulated by Israel," the group said on its website, adding that it was "not affiliated to any Palestinian party including Hamas”.

It added that PRC was "independent and dedicated to serve the cause of Palestinian refugees and their right of return”.

Official UN status as an NGO gives groups access to UN premises and opportunities to attend or observe many events and conferences at UN sites around the world.

Neither the British nor US missions to the UN had an immediate response to Reuters requests for comment on the vote or the Israeli announcement. A UN spokesman said it would be up to member states to comment since it was their decision.

The United States and European Union have designated Hamas a terrorist organisation.

Since Hamas, and not the Western-backed Palestinian Authority, is the de facto governing authority in the Gaza Strip, the United Nations maintains limited contact with it in terms of aid delivery, education and other activities.

The UN’s principal Palestinian interlocutor is the Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia on Tuesday beheaded a man convicted of murdering his wife, along with a Syrian drug smuggler, adding to a toll that activists called a "stain" on the kingdom's rights record.

Authorities executed Saudi national Awad Al Rasheedi following his conviction for stabbing his wife to death, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

"Because he had previous drug-related arrests and because he attacked the closest person to him, his wife, because taking a life is the biggest type of corruption on Earth and because he was drunk and under the influence of hashish at the time, he was sentenced to death," the ministry said.

He was executed in the Gulf coast city of Dammam.

Syrian national Mohammed Abdul Hadi Ahmed, who had been convicted of trying to smuggle amphetamines into the kingdom, was also executed in the northern Jawf region, the interior ministry said.

The two beheadings bring the number of executions in Saudi Arabia this year to 92, despite fierce criticism from rights groups.

According to an AFP tally, 87 Saudis and foreigners were put to death in all of 2014.

"Any execution is appalling, but executions for crimes such as drug smuggling that result in no loss of life are particularly egregious," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. 

"The current surge in executions in Saudi Arabia is yet another stain on the kingdom's human rights record," Whitson said in a statement on Monday, calling for a halt to the "cruel punishment".

Rights experts say that according to international law if capital punishment is imposed at all it should only be for murder.

Under the conservative kingdom's strict Islamic Sharia legal code, drug trafficking, rape, murder, armed robbery and apostasy are all punishable by death.

The interior ministry has cited deterrence as the reason for carrying out the punishment.

WASHINGTON — Relatives of four Americans held in Iran called on the Obama administration Tuesday to do more to press for their release during negotiations with Tehran on a deal to roll back its nuclear programme.

Lawmakers from both parties said that if Tehran doesn't release them immediately, they would not trust the Iranian government to honour terms of any deal international negotiators are rushing to finalise before the end of the month.

"Call me a sceptic," said Republican Rep. Ed Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, which held a hearing on the issue.

Daniel Levinson — son of former FBI agent Robert Levinson, who has been gone for more than 3,000 days — said his father has missed the births of three grandchildren, two weddings and numerous high school and college graduations.

"There is not a day that goes by when we don't think of him, how much he must be suffering and what we can do next to bring him home," he said.

"We need American officials to ramp up this engagement as they meet in the next few weeks over Iran's nuclear programne," Levinson said. "We need — in fact, we implore — negotiators to take a more aggressive approach than merely asking for Iran's help in locating him. ... We believe that, if the Iranian government had the will and motivation to locate my father and send him home, they most certainly would."

Ali Rezaian, brother of Jason Rezaian, a reporter from The Washington Post who has been held for more than 300 days for alleged spying, also testified.

Jason Rezaian is being tried in a revolutionary court on allegations of "espionage for the hostile government of the United States" and propaganda against the Islamic republic. The charges could send him to jail for up to six years. Rezaian, his wife Yeganeh Salehi and two photojournalists were detained on July 22 in Tehran. All were later released except Rezaian, who was born and spent most of his life in the United States and holds both American and Iranian citizenship.

His brother, Ali, said: "Let me be very clear: The charges against Jason are false."

Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the committee, said he is "infuriated" and outraged that Iran, while sitting at the negotiation table, could "spit in our faces" by putting Rezaian on trial. He said he would wait to see the details of any nuclear deal, but thinks it's "ludicrous" for the United States to sign a deal and act as if it's business as usual with Iran when the four continue to be held.

Naghmeh Abedini, wife of Saeed Abedini, a pastor arrested in September 2012 and later sentenced for holding a Bible study session, said she is faced with the choice of staying with their two children or leaving them to travel and advocate for his release. Abedini has been in Iranian custody since September 2012 and was sentenced to eight years in prison for what was termed undermining state security.

"Every day I wake up with excruciating pain... I wake up to the reality of our life," said Naghmeh Abedini, who claimed her husband has been tortured and suffers internal bleeding.

Also testifying was Sarah Hekmati, sister of Amiri Hekmati, a former US Marine who was sentenced to death for alleged espionage. His sentence was later reduced to 10 years.

She broke down in tears as she testified how their father is suffering from terminal brain cancer and has recently suffered several strokes.

"As the eldest son, Amir is needed at home, not only for the care of our father, but for the care of our mother too," she said.

The committee was expected to pass a resolution later in the day calling on Iran to release all Americans held in Iran.

SANAA — Armed tribesmen killed 18 Houthi fighters in an ambush in Yemen's central province of Ibb on Tuesday, residents said, in one of the deadliest ground attacks in over two months of war.

The attack hit a convoy of militiamen and allied army troops in the town of Qaeda while they were en route to the city of Taiz, a flashpoint of clashes between Yemen's dominant Houthis and armed backers of exiled president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Farther south in Dhalea province, around 15 Houthi fighters were killed in heavy clashes with pro-Hadi fighters on Monday night.

A coalition of Arab countries led by Saudi Arabia, seeking to restore Hadi to power, has carried out over nine weeks of air strikes on Houthi fighters who have seized large parts of Yemen.

The Houthis, members of a Shiite sect hailing from a Yemen's far north, seized the capital in September and fanned out southward, triggering the Arab military intervention.

They describe their spread as a revolution and a victory against corruption, but Sunni Muslim Gulf Arab states worry that they are a proxy for the influence of their regional Shiite rival Iran.

Saudi-led air strikes hit Houthi positions along Yemen's far northern border with the kingdom and struck military bases aligned with the group in the capital Sanaa on Tuesday.

Residents of Yemen's far northern province of Al Jawf said five suspected Al Qaeda members were killed in a suspected American drone strike on two cars in a front-line battle area between the Houthis and Sunni tribesmen.

The United States fears that the political chaos in Yemen could strengthen Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the deadliest branch of the global militant group. It has kept up its aerial bombings on the group's operatives.

As the Houthis and their army allies have spread into some majority Sunni areas in Yemen, local tribesmen have in some cases joined forces with Al Qaeda militants, bolstering the group's influence in local affairs.

Neighbouring Oman, a neutral power, is mediating talks between Houthi and American officials in the capital Muscat aimed at ending Yemen's conflict.

The dialogue also led Yemeni authorities to release to Oman on Monday a detained American freelance journalist.

Yemeni politicians say the discussions are narrowing ground between Yemen's exiled government and the Houthis and may soon pave the way for more formal United Nations-backed negotiations.