Region

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced ousted President Mohamed Morsi to death over his part in a mass prison break that took place during the 2011 uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.

As is customary in passing capital punishment, Judge Shaaban El Shami referred his death sentence on Morsi and others to the nation's top Muslim theologian, or mufti, for his non-binding opinion. He set June 2 for the next hearing.

Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president, was ousted by the military in July 2013 following days of mass street protests by Egyptians demanding that he be removed because of his divisive policies. Morsi's successor, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, was the military chief at the time and led the ouster. Sisi ran for president last year and won the vote in a landslide.

Also sentenced to death with Morsi in the prison break case were a total of 105 defendants, most of them were tried and convicted in absentia. They include some 70 Palestinians. Those tried in absentia in Egypt receive automatic retrials once detained.

Supporters of Morsi and his now-outlawed Muslim Brotherhood chanted "down, down with military rule" as the verdict was announced in the courtroom, a converted lecture hall in the national police academy in an eastern Cairo suburb.

Prosecutors have alleged in the case that armed members of the Palestinian Hamas group entered Egypt during the 18-day uprising through illegal tunnels running under Gaza's border with Egypt's Sinai Peninsula.

Taking advantage of the uprising's turmoil, the militants fought their way into several prisons, releasing Morsi, more than 30 other Brotherhood leaders and some 20,000 inmates, prosecutors say. Several prison guards were killed and parts of the stormed prisons were damaged.

Morsi already is serving a 20-year sentence following his conviction on April 21 on charges linked to the killing of protesters outside a Cairo presidential palace in December 2012.

Even if confirmed by the mufti, Saturday's death sentences still can be appealed.

SANAA — The United Nations Thursday appealed to all sides in the Yemen conflict to respect a fragile five-day truce in the country in a bid to boost the delivery of sorely-needed aid.

The plea made by the UN envoy to Yemen, Ismail Ould Sheikh Ahmed, came as Saudi-led forces accused Shiite rebels of violating the truce on Thursday, two days after it took effect.

But the Saudi-led coalition said it would abide by the ceasefire, and stick to its decision to temporarily halt weeks of air strikes on Iran-backed Houthi rebels.

The UN envoy said in a statement he was "very worried about violations of the truce", urging all sides to "strictly respect a cessation of military operations... to allow the flow of aid".

Wrapping up his first visit to Yemen, he urged all sides involved in the conflict to spare airports, ports and any other infrastructure necessary for the smooth delivery of aid to the embattled population.

The humanitarian pause that began late Tuesday is the first break in the air war the coalition launched on March 26 in support of exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, and has backing from Washington.

A coalition statement said Houthi rebels had violated the truce 12 times, including with artillery and rocket attacks in several towns in southern Yemen.

Despite the alleged violations, the coalition pledged “its full commitment to the humanitarian truce and restraint”.

Residents said calm prevailed across most of the country except in the cities of Taez, Daleh and oil-rich Marib, where they reported intermittent exchanges of fire between rebel and pro-Hadi forces.

The Houthis and their allies have pledged to abide by the ceasefire while Saudi Arabia has warned it will punish any attempt to exploit the truce.

Washington backs the truce and a US State Department spokesman has said it was largely holding, noting however reports of some clashes.

The Saudi-led campaign was launched to reinstate the rule of Hadi after the Houthis, backed by army units loyal to ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, overran much of Yemen.

More than 1,500 people have been killed since March in air strikes and fighting between rebel forces and Hadi loyalists, according to the United Nations.

Sanaa airport operational 

An aviation official said operations at Sanaa airport, which was targeted in air raids, were “gradually returning” to normal after a plane arrived from Jordan on Wednesday with 150 passengers on board. Another airport official said that two flights, from Doctors Without Borders and the United Nations, landed Thursday in Sanaa.

Warnings of a dire humanitarian crisis have mounted since the air war started, with aid agencies saying fuel, water and medicine were running out.

Nadia Sakkaf, Yemen’s information minister now based in Riyadh, said seven vessels carrying food supplies, medical aid and fuel had docked in Yemeni ports.

She said daily flights linking Yemen to Jordan and Egypt would continue until May 18 — when the truce is due to end.

Qatar and Kuwait said they will offer Yemen 120 and 40 tonnes of medical aid, respectively.

Saudi Arabia has offered its impoverished neighbour $540 million in aid and humanitarian operations.

Tehran envoy recalled 

Iran, which Saudi Arabia accuses of arming the rebels, has also said it is sending an aid ship to Yemen, prompting warnings from the government-in-exile.

Yemen’s Foreign Minister Riyadh Yassin said from Saudi Arabia “all measures will be taken against the Iranian ship if it enters Yemeni territorial waters without permission” from the coalition.

On Thursday the government-in-exile announced the recall of the head of its embassy in Iran, accusing Tehran of “interference” in Yemen and “support for the Houthis”.

The move came after Iran, which has dismissed as “utter lies” accusations that it armed the rebels, said it had coordinated with the United Nations for the docking of an aid ship in Yemen.

The Pentagon has called on Iran to change course and head instead for a UN aid hub in Djibouti.

But Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian insisted that Tehran had taken measures for the ship to travel to Yemen.

“The required coordination has been done with relevant authorities in the UN for the docking of the ship carrying Iran’s humanitarian aid for Yemen,” he said.

BEIRUT — Daesh fighters advanced to the gates of ancient Palmyra Thursday, raising fears the Syrian world heritage site could face destruction of the kind the jihadists have already wreaked in Iraq.

As it overran nearby villages, Daesh executed 26 civilians — 10 of whom were beheaded — for "collaborating with the regime", the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. 

Irina Bokova, head of the UN's cultural body UNESCO, called on Syrian troops and extremists to spare Palmyra, saying it "represents an irreplaceable treasure for the Syrian people, and the world”.

"Palmyra must be saved," Bokova said at a two-day conference in Cairo on protecting the region's archaeological sites. 

Syria's head of antiquities made an appeal for international action earlier Thursday, saying Daesh was less than two kilometres from the remains of one of the most important cultural centres of the ancient world. 

The world "must mobilise before, not after, the destruction of the artefacts" at Palmyra, Mamoun Abdulkarim said in a telephone call.

"Daesh has not entered the city yet, and we hope these barbarians will never enter," he said. "But if Daesh enters Palmyra, it will be destroyed and it will be an international catastrophe."

UNESCO describes Palmyra as a heritage site of "outstanding universal value". 

The ancient city stood on a caravan route at the crossroads of several civilisations and its 1st and 2nd century temples and colonnaded streets mark a unique blend of Graeco-Roman and Persian influences.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said the city was "under threat" as fierce fighting and shelling continued on its eastern edges amid a regime counter-offensive. 

The jihadist advance on the well-preserved remains came as an international conference was under way in Cairo to address destruction already wreaked by Daesh on the ancient sites of Nimrud and Hatra in Iraq.

'Barbarism and savagery' 

Foreign affairs and antiquities officials from 11 Arab countries gathered in Egypt to condemn the jihadists' demolition of Iraq's heritage with sledgehammers, bulldozers and high explosives.

Abdulkarim said Syria's antiquities officials would try to ensure the safety of artefacts found in Palmyra's archaeological digs over the years and now housed in an adjacent museum.

"We can protect the statues and artefacts, but we cannot protect the architecture, the temples," he said. 

“Daesh will just destroy it from the outside.” 

Abdulkarim said he had no doubt that if Palmyra fell to the jihadists, it would suffer a similar fate to ancient Nimrud, which they blew up earlier this year.

“If Daesh enters Palmyra, it will spell its destruction... It will be a repetition of the barbarism and savagery which we saw in Nimrud, Hatra and Mosul.”

It would not be the first time that government troops have lost control of Palmyra. Rebels held the site from February to September 2013 before the regime recaptured it.

One of the ancient city’s masterpieces, the Temple of Baal, suffered some damage during the accompanying artillery exchanges.

But those rebels did not share the fanatical devotion of Daesh to demolishing all of the region’s pre-Islamic heritage.

There was ferocious fighting as the jihadists overran the town of Al Sukhnah on Wednesday in their drive across the desert towards Palmyra.

Syria’s official news agency reported that military aircraft had destroyed Daesh vehicles near Al Sukhnah and that army units “killed Daesh terrorists” in the area. 

Provincial Governor Talal Barazi said that 1,800 families who had fled the advancing jihadists were being sheltered in reception centres in the nearby modern town of Tadmur.

Both sides suffered heavy losses in the battle for Al Sukhnah, including senior commanders, the observatory said.

The army lost 70 men, including six officers. Daesh lost 55 men, including two commanders, one of them the leader of the offensive.

Jihadist websites named him as Abu Malik Anas Nashwan, who appeared in a Daesh video showing the beheadings of 28 Ethiopian and Eritrean Christians in Libya earlier this year.

WASHINGTON — The White House said on Thursday that it was open to the idea of granting its Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) partners major non-NATO ally status.

But talks at the Camp David summit have been focused more on public assurances about help the US can provide with security, Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said.

Obama has invited six Gulf leaders to his Camp David presidential retreat Thursday, for a fence-mending summit bedeviled by disagreements, royal no-shows and raging crises in the Middle East.

Obama and the GCC leaders were also to discuss countering Daesh terror group, including the additional counterterrorism capabilities needed.

White House said the issue of Syria was on the agenda.

DAMASCUS — Iran's military and financial support to Syria's regime is unwavering, a high-ranking Iranian official said in Damascus Thursday, calling a US programme to train Syrian rebels "a strategic mistake". 

"We came to Syria to announce that our support for the Syrian regime is firm and eternal," said Alaedin Boroujerdi, head of the Iranian parliament's national security and foreign policy, at a press conference concluding his two-day visit. 

He said Syria and Iran "have close and strategic ties... and there is ongoing communication between the two countries' defence ministers".

Iran is the closest regional ally of Syria's embattled regime and supports it financially and militarily. It has dispatched military advisers to Damascus to help Syria's army cope with the four-year conflict. 

Syrian defence minister General Fahd Al Freij visited Tehran in April, saying economic and military cooperation was "necessary and important... because of the sensitivity of the period that the region is going through".

Boroujerdi congratulated Syria's army and the Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbollah, which has intervened in Syria on behalf of the regime, on recent victories in the Qalamun region, which lies north of Damascus and borders Lebanon. 

Regime and Hizbollah fighters took control Wednesday of the highest hilltop in Qalamun, which overlooks the Lebanese-Syrian border. 

Boroujerdi's trip included meetings with Syrian President Bashar Assad, Prime Minister Wael Al Halqi, and Foreign Minister Walid Muallem, as well as other officials. 

When asked about Washington's plan to train moderate rebels to take on Daesh in Syria, Boroujerdi said the US "was blinded" by its strategy in the country.

"There is no good terrorist and bad terrorist — terrorism is terrorism, wherever it is," he said. 

Boroujerdi said nuclear talks between Iran and six world powers, including the US, were "completely separate" from any discussions on conflicts in the Middle East. 

He said Iran still had "serious and essential differences with the United States on regional issues”. 

Syria's conflict began with anti-government protests in March 2011, but has since spiralled into a complex civil war that has left more than 220,000 people dead.

GENEVA — Syria’s main political opposition told UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura on Thursday he was harming the Syrian people by holding wide-ranging consultations on Syria’s future, and especially by involving Iran.

In a letter seen by Reuters, the National Coalition for Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces said his plan to hear the views of more than 40 groups “would not lead to the desired objectives and may have a negative impact on your mission and the role and credibility of the United Nations”.

“This would also reflect negatively on the Syrian people and exacerbate their suffering,” said the letter, delivered to De Mistura in Geneva by Haitham Al Maleh, a veteran human rights campaigner who heads the coalition’s legal committee.

Despite its reservations, the coalition said it was willing to work with De Mistura and invited him to meet in Istanbul next month.

De Mistura has adopted a cautious approach to the talks, avoiding raising expectations that this latest initiative can end a conflict which has so far defied all diplomatic efforts to resolve it.

He has said he wants to talk to diplomats, activists and political and military leaders to see if there is any new common ground since the Geneva Communiqué, a roadmap for ending the war, was agreed in 2012.

Despite having only tenuous links with fighters on the ground and being seen as out of touch with the general population, the National Coalition remains one of the main parties in international discussions to end the four-year-old civil war that has killed 220,000 and displaced millions.

The decision of the National Coalition’s President Khaled Khoja to decline the personal invitation to Geneva is the second snub this week for the UN process.

In a separate letter, 30 armed groups opposed to President Bashar Assad rejected de Mistura’s process, accusing him of being biased and not offering a clear solution.

Both letters objected to the involvement of Iran, which has not signed the Geneva Communique and has not been included in two previous UN attempts to stop the Syrian war.

Inviting Iran, which was “occupying Syria and inflicting suffering on its people” was deeply damaging, the National Coalition’s letter said.

“Iran, further, continues to provide the regime with the means of killing and destruction and fuels cross-border terrorism through militias deployed in Syria.”

SANAA, Yemen — A helicopter gunship belonging to the Saudi-led coalition targeting Yemen’s Shiite rebels hit a truck in the country’s north early Thursday, killing nine people travelling in the vehicle, Yemeni security and military officials said.

The attack came on the second of a five-day humanitarian ceasefire that began nearly seven weeks after the coalition began air strikes against the rebels, known as Houthis, and their allies.

The officials said the attack took place in the northern Saada province, which is a stronghold of the Iran-backed rebels and the birthplace of their political movement, Ansar Allah.

The officials say the truck was suspected of carrying rebel weapons. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to speak to the media.

The Houthis last year captured Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, and much of the country’s north before they began marching on the south of the country.

Also on Thursday, coalition warplanes flew over Sanaa, Saada and the port cities of Aden and Hodeida in what appeared to be reconnaissance flights, said the officials.

Saudi Arabia and its mostly Sunni Arab partners began the air campaign on March 26 to try to roll back the Houthis and allied military units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

The coalition hopes to restore President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Yemen’s internationally recognised leader, who fled the country in March in the face of the Houthi advance.

The conflict has killed more than 1,400 people — many of them civilians — since March 19, according to the UN. The country of some 25 million people has endured shortages of food, water, medicine and electricity as a result of a Saudi-led blockade.

The ceasefire is meant to help ease the suffering of civilians in Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country.

The new UN envoy, Ismail Ould Cheikh Ahmed, left Yemen on Thursday, one day after meeting with leaders of Saleh’s one-time ruling party. Ahmed has said he intends to meet separately with other political leaders.

“I will do everything I can to bring all Yemenis to the negotiating table at the earliest time possible,” he told reporters before boarding a UN aircraft at Sanaa Airport. His destination was not immediately known.

In a statement late Wednesday, Ahmed welcomed the humanitarian truce but noted “with concern” the continued violence in some areas.

“Further violence could hinder the provision of humanitarian aid and relief of the Yemeni people and undermine prospects for a permanent ceasefire and a return to the political process,” Ahmed warned.

GAZA — Daesh sympathisers in the Gaza Strip are making their presence felt on social media, but the enclave’s Hamas rulers said on Thursday the group has no real foothold in the Palestinian territory.

Statements signed “Supporters of Daesh” have appeared recently on Twitter and several websites, accusing the Islamist group Hamas of arresting dozens of jihadists and threatening attacks in Gaza unless they are released.

Hamas said it had detained what it described as “lawbreakers” after an explosion earlier this month near a Hamas security headquarters and another blast outside the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

A senior security official loyal to Hamas described the explosions, for which no group has claimed responsibility, as no more than “noise bombs”, saying Daesh existed “only on the Internet” in Gaza.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said “there is nothing called the Daesh in the Gaza Strip”, adding that the group only had “some supporters” in the territory.

“We do not fight people because of what they think, but at the same time, we do not allow any violations of security, whether by groups or individuals,” Abu Zuhri said.

Gaza-based political analyst Hani Habib said some activists identifying with ultra-conservative Salafi Islam were using social media to try to draw the attention of Daesh and seek its recognition.

“They were inspired by the presence of Daesh in Iraq and Syria and moreover in the Egyptian Sinai peninsula,” said Habib, dismissing any notion that Salafis in Gaza had formally joined Daesh.

Daesh, an ultra-hardline offshoot of Al Qaeda, has declared a caliphate in captured territory in Iraq and Syria and has gained global notoriety for posting gruesome videos of its members killing captives. It is sometimes referred to as ISIS.

Salafi groups began to surface in Gaza in 2006 and have had a tense relationship with Hamas, which seized the territory from forces loyal to the Western-backed Fatah group in 2007.

A senior Israeli security official said it was hard to assess whether there was a serious Daesh presence in Gaza.

“There are lots of these hardline, ‘right-of-Hamas’ Islamist groups operating in Gaza. That’s been the case for years. So if one decides to change its name to something Daesh-related, that’s not in itself so significant,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The fact is that Hamas is trying to curb them, mainly because they are a threat to its rule.”

WASHINGTON/LONDON — Iranian naval vessels fired shots at a Singapore-flagged tanker in the Gulf on Thursday in what appeared to be the country's latest attempt to settle a legal dispute by force with a passing commercial vessel, US officials said.

Around noon (0800 GMT) in the Gulf, five Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy ships approached the Alpine Eternity, prompting the oil products tanker to flee to safety in the United Arab Emirates waters, the officials said.

One US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Iran had attempted to intercept the vessel in international waters because Tehran says it is liable for damage to an Iranian-owned oil platform it hit on March 22.

The incident signaled further escalation in tensions two weeks after Iranian patrol ships diverted a Marshall Islands-flagged container vessel from the Strait of Hormuz to settle a years-old debt case.

The Pentagon declined to say whether it would again order US warships to accompany commercial vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, as it did after the last incident.

Shipping industry officials said they were bracing for the likelihood of more tensions at sea, which could lead to a spike in shipping costs.

"The pattern looks like the Revolutionary Guards are using a commercial pretext to intervene in the incidents to date," said a leading shipping underwriter. "This could start to impact upon [insurance] rates."

The news came as President Barack Obama opened a summit with Gulf allies on Thursday, seeking to convince them of Washington's commitment to their security despite deep concern about US efforts to broker a nuclear deal with Tehran.

Sunni Arab leaders are concerned that lifting Western sanctions as part of a nuclear deal with Shiite Iran would empower Tehran to act in further destabilising the region, especially in volatile countries such as Syria, Yemen and Iraq.

The latest incidents at sea add weight to such concerns.

The tanker's owner, South Maritime Pte Ltd., said in a statement that the ships, which it believed to be Iranian, first fired warning shots but then directly fired on the vessel after it ignored an order to stop.

"No serious damage was sustained by the vessel and none of the 23 crew members were injured," the statement said.

The owner said the vessel safely reached the Port of Jebel Ali.

Millions of barrels of oil pass through the Bab Al Mandeb and Strait of Hormuz every day to Europe, the United States and Asia, waterways which pass along the coasts of Yemen and Iran respectively.

CAIRO/DUBAI — A vigilante group linked to Al Qaeda in the eastern port city of Mukalla has decreed a ban on trading the mild narcotic leaf qat chewed as a cherished Yemeni pastime, in a sign of the group’s growing territorial hold amid the country’s civil war.

A security vacuum in Yemen’s east is giving Al Qaeda freer rein to enforce social rules and make arrests, residents say.

A newly-formed body of armed tribesmen and Sunni Muslim clerics assumed control over much of eastern Yemen’s oil-producing province of Hadramawt after army units abandoned it last month.

The so-called “security directorate” — which officials say is made up of Al Qaeda members — in the province’s seaside capital Mukalla issued its qat ban on Wednesday and Yemeni social media users shared pictures of militants standing beside flaming bales of the crop in the city’s streets.

Hadramawt’s new authorities have given Al Qaeda fighters unprecedented leeway to hold rallies and carry arms in public, residents say.

“They have an Islamic court, people go to them to present complaints and they have patrol cars, but up till now they did not interfere in people’s private affairs,” Mukalla resident Salem Abdullah said by telephone.

A Saudi-led coalition is bombing Iranian-backed Houthis who now control much of the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest country and have made gains toward Hadramawt, Yemen’s largest province.

Hadramawt’s ruling body, the Council of Islamic Scholars, wrapped Al Qaeda into local administration in order to avoid infighting, a local official told Reuters on condition of anonymity, but the alliance is tense.

“We had no option but to reach an understanding with those elements, otherwise there would have been a confrontation that would have led to war, destruction and civilian casualties.”

Tensions on the heightened role of the militants fester in Mukalla. A video was posted online last week of hundreds chanting at a rally: “No to Al Qaeda, no to the Houthis!”

Yemen’s branch of the militant network, known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), has for years carried out bomb and gun attacks on Yemeni state facilities, plotted to blow up US-bound airliners and claimed responsibility for the attack on the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in January that killed 12.

The United States is concerned that the Arab-led war on the Houthis will give AQAP more space to plot attacks but it has kept pressure on the group. A suspected drone strike on a car in downtown Mukalla killed four of the group’s leaders.