Region

RAMALLAH — Former US president Jimmy Carter on Saturday urged Palestinians to hold elections to end the de facto division of the Israeli-occupied West Bank and the Islamist-run Gaza Strip.

He was speaking at a joint news conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian political capital Ramallah in the West Bank.

"We hope that sometime we'll see elections all over the Palestinian area and east Jerusalem and Gaza and also in the West Bank," said Carter, a member of the independent Elders group of global leaders.

No election has been held in the occupied territories for nearly a decade.

Abbas's presidential mandate expired in 2009, but he remains in office since there has been no election. The Palestinian parliament has also not met since 2007.

In 2006, a year after Abbas was elected, Hamas won the most recent Palestinian legislative elections. Differences between Abbas's Fateh Party and the Islamist Hamas then led to the so-called "inqissam", or division.

Despite the rivals signing a reconciliation agreement a year ago, Hamas is reluctant to hand over power in Gaza to an independent Palestinian unity government they formed.

Carter had also planned to go to Gaza, but the visit was cancelled at the last moment.

He said it would be "very important" for "full implementation of the agreement reached between Hamas and Fateh".

Carter was accompanied by Norway's former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland.

She said that despite not being able to visit the impoverished Palestinian enclave devastated by last summer's war with Israel, "we have had a chance to discuss with people who know the issues in Gaza."

Reconstruction of the territory has not begun eight months after the end of the conflict, the third in six years.

The Elders Group said ahead of the trip by Carter and Brundtland that they were visiting "in a renewed push to promote the two-state solution and to address the root causes of the conflict" in the Middle East.

Washington — US warships protecting American-flagged ships in the Strait of Hormuz may extend assistance to other countries' vessels, officials said Friday, after reports of Iranian forces harassing shipping.

The expanded US naval presence is intended to signal to Iran that Washington is ready to safeguard shipping along the vital corridor, even at a moment of delicate diplomacy with Tehran over its nuclear programme, experts said.

American warships started "accompanying" US-flagged vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday in response to two incidents in less than a week in which commercial vessels were coerced or harassed by Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Defence Secretary Ashton Carter approved the operation and "this is going to continue for an indefinite period of time," Pentagon spokesman Colonel Steven Warren said.

US Central Command, which oversees forces in the Middle East, said it was possible the assistance could be offered to other merchant ships sailing through the maritime chokepoint, a crucial route for the world's oil.

"Our current plans are for accompanying US-flagged ships, although there are discussions with other nations to include their vessels as well," Central Command spokesman Colonel Patrick Ryder told reporters.

Officials did not say what other countries might take up the offer.

The USS Farragut, a guided-missile destroyer, and three coastal patrol craft — the Thunderbolt, the Firebolt and the Typhoon — are operating in the area.

The high profile naval presence was a response to the seizure of a Marshall Islands-flagged container vessel the Maersk Tigris on Tuesday by Iran's Revolutionary Guards, who fired warning shots at the ship.

And last week, Pentagon officials said a US-flagged ship was "harassed" by Iranian patrol boats.

Iran's motives 

Iranian authorities said the Maersk Tigris was confiscated over a commercial dispute. But analysts were skeptical of the explanation and speculated it could be related to Tehran's proxy war with America's Gulf Arab allies in Yemen.

Whatever Tehran's motive, said Alireza Nader, an author and analyst at the RAND Corporation think tank "the US had to demonstrate that the waters of the strait are secure and open to international shipping — whether Iran intended to send a message or not."

The tension in the Gulf coincides with a diplomatic push by major powers for a deal to curtail Iran's nuclear activities before a June 30 deadline.

The prospect of an accord has alarmed Saudi Arabia and other pro-US allies in the Gulf.

"The rest of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia especially, is worried that if there is a nuclear deal and sanctions are eased on Iran, they [the Iranians] would act more aggressively in the Arabian Gulf and beyond," Nader told AFP.

The stepped-up naval role in the Gulf is a way to show that the United States "is serious about guaranteeing security in the region despite the nuclear deal."

In Washington, Republican lawmakers said Iran's actions underline the need to closely review the terms of any nuclear deal.

The Strait of Hormuz is often described as the world's most important oil export route. About 30 per cent of all oil traded by sea moves through the narrow channel, or about 17 million barrels a day.

At its most narrow point, the strait is 33 kilometres wide, but the width of the navigable shipping lane in each direction is only 3.2km — separated by a 3.2km buffer zone.

In such a crowded channel, US military strategists have long feared a miscalculation could trigger a conflict that both governments would prefer to avoid. And this time, a potential diplomatic breakthrough is at stake.

Over the past two decades, Iran has invested heavily in a fleet of speed boats and anti-ship mines that could counter America's powerful naval forces in the Gulf.

In 2011, Iran issued threats that it might close the strait in retaliation for tougher international sanctions, prompting a warning from Washington that US forces would be ready to take action to keep shipping lanes open.

In the current case, Iran's rhetoric has been more restrained, and US officials say American warships are not poised to enter Iranian territorial waters.

"I don't think we are necessarily on the verge of confrontation," Nader said.

BEIRUT — The death toll from an air strike by US-led forces on the northern Syrian province of Aleppo has risen to 52 including seven children, a group monitoring the conflict said on Saturday.

Rami Abdulrahman, who runs the British-based Observatory for Human Rights, said the death toll from Friday's strike was the highest civilian loss in a single attack by US and Arab forces since they started air raids against hardline Islamist militant groups in Syria such as Daesh.

US-led forces are also targeting the group in Iraq.

The Britain-based Observatory said the raid had mistakenly struck civilians in a village on the eastern banks of the Euphrates River in Aleppo province, killing members of at least six families.

US-led strikes had killed at least 66 civilians in Syria from the start of the raids on September 23 until Friday's strike, which brought the total to at least 118. The campaign has also killed nearly 2,000 Daesh fighters, the Observatory said.

The group said at least 13 people were still missing from Friday's raid.

The US military did not confirm the civilian deaths but said it takes all such reports seriously and would look into the matter further.

"We currently have no information to corroborate allegations that coalition air strikes resulted in civilian casualties," Major Curt Kellogg, spokesman for US Central Command, said in an e-mail.

The US-led air strikes have had little impact on Daesh terror group, slowing its advances but failing to weaken it in areas it controls. The group has built its own government in Syria's city of Raqqa, where it is most powerful.

Washington and its allies say their aim is to support what they call moderate rebels fighting against both Syrian President Bashar Assad and Daesh.

But four years into Syria's civil war, no side is close to victory. A third of the population has been made homeless and more than 220,000 people have been killed.

Government forces have seen a series of setbacks on the battlefield recently and Islamist fighters have edged closer to Assad's stronghold in the coastal areas.

Fighting continued on Saturday between government forces and Islamist fighters in government-held Latakia, heartland of Assad's minority Alawite community.

The violence follows advances in neighbouring Idlib province by the hardline Ahrar Al Sham group and Syria's Al Qaeda wing Al Nusra Front, as well as other allied fighters.

Syria's state news agency said the army carried out overnight strikes on Nusra positions in Idlib.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia's King Salman announced a new heir and made his son second in line to rule Wednesday, concentrating power in his inner circle as the kingdom faces enormous regional challenges.

The major shake-up in the line of succession and Cabinet comes with oil giant Saudi Arabia increasingly assertive in the fight against extremists and in its rivalry with fellow regional power Iran.

Since acceding to the throne following the death of King Abdullah in January, King Salman, 79, has been steadily bringing loyalists into the deeply conservative kingdom's upper reaches of power.

King Salman on Wednesday named his 55-year-old nephew Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef as the new crown prince.

The powerful interior minister who once led a crackdown on Al Qaeda replaced Prince Moqren Bin Abdul Aziz Bin Saud, 69.

It was the first time a Saudi crown prince was relieved of duty and Prince Moqren was the last son of the kingdom’s founder Abdul Aziz Bin Saud in line for the throne.

King Salman also named one of his sons, Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, to be deputy crown prince — ensuring power will pass to a new generation after his death.

Mohammed Bin Salman, whose exact age is not known but who is in his early 30s, will also remain as defence minister, overseeing the Saudi-led air war against Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen.

“It’s a historical shift really. It’s real generational change,” a Western diplomatic source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

‘A dangerous phase’ 

Saudi Arabia’s longtime envoy to the United States, Adel Al Jubeir, 53, was also appointed foreign minister, replacing Prince Saud Al Faisal who held the post for four decades.

Prince Faisal, who had been the world’s longest-serving top diplomat, stepped down for health reasons.

Prince Moqren had been one of the few remaining high-level officials from the era of King Abdullah, who died on January 23 aged about 90.

A statement from the royal court, carried by the Saudi Press Agency, said Prince Moqren’s removal was a response to “what he had expressed about his desire to be relieved from the position of crown prince.”

Prince Moqren had no ministerial portfolio and his replacement is not much of a surprise, the diplomatic source said.

The new appointments further solidify the hold on power of King Salman’s Sudayri branch of the royal family, whose influence had waned under King Abdullah.

“These changes are aimed at fostering agreement at the head of the state as it faces a dangerous phase... in its stand-off with Iran,” said Abdelwahab Badarkhan, a London-based analyst.

“The two new crown princes get along well with the United States” at a time when the kingdom is “engaged in an unconventional military policy,” he said.

Under King Salman, Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia has adopted a more forceful foreign policy, most clearly shown in its leadership of the Arab coalition targeting the Yemen rebels.

The Shiite rebels have seized control of large parts of Yemen, prompting President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee to Riyadh.

Test for new foreign minister 

The Saudi-led strikes were launched last month as Riyadh feared a Tehran-friendly regime seizing control of its neighbour to the south.

Saudi Arabia is also a member of the US-led coalition carrying out air strikes against Daesh jihadists in Syria and Iraq and has faced unrest at home.

Authorities said this week that they had arrested 93 jihadists since the end of 2014, most of them linked to Daesh, and foiled several plots to carry out attacks across the kingdom.

Jubeir’s first test as the new foreign minister will come on Thursday when Gulf foreign ministers meet in Riyadh to discuss the campaign in Yemen ahead of a summit of their heads of state next week.

Jubeir — a rare member of the Saudi ruling elite not from the royal family — has been Riyadh’s ambassador to Washington for eight years and at the forefront of the kingdom’s public relations efforts.

The shake-up also saw Salman name Khalid Al Falih, the head of oil giant Saudi Aramco, as health minister.

Ali Al Naimi retained his position as the OPEC kingpin’s oil minister, a position he has held for 20 years.

Labour Minister Adel Fakieh was moved to the post of economy and planning, as the kingdom seeks to diversify its oil-based economy.

But the country’s highest-ranking female official, Nora Bint Abdullah Al Fayez, was let go from her post as deputy minister of education for girls.

ADEN/DOHA — Saudi-led air strikes hit five Yemeni provinces as fighting raged in the southern city of Aden on Wednesday, and sources in the region said the kingdom was training armed tribesmen to fight the Iran-allied Houthi group.

Houthi rebels' tanks and snipers killed at least 12 civilians overnight in Yemen's Aden as they advanced towards the centre of the city, residents said, and a Saudi-led coalition airdropped arms to anti-Houthi fighters in the city of Taiz.

The Houthis took the capital Sanaa in September, demanding a more inclusive government, and swept south, rattling top world oil exporter Saudi Arabia and its allies, who fear what they see as expanding Iranian influence in the region. Arab coalition air strikes have, over the last month, backed local fighters in Aden and nationwide battling Shiite Houthis.

Heavy clashes shook the Khor Maksar district in Aden, seen as the main bulwark against the Houthis, and dozens of families fled the district on Wednesday.

"The world, the coalition and the United Nations need to step in urgently to save our neighbourhood, which has truly become a disaster area after this indiscriminate shelling," resident Ali Mohammed Yahya said.

About 200km to the north, Arab aircraft dropped weapons for tribal and Islamist militiamen fighting the Houthis in the city of Taiz.

Talks between the Houthis and exiled, Riyadh-based President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi collapsed in early April and he fled. Chaos then set in as the Iran-allied Houthis fought their way south, battling loyalist army units, regional tribes and Al Qaeda militants.

Training tribesmen

Sources in the region told Reuters Saudi Arabia had trained Yemeni armed tribesmen to fight the Houthis, in a sign of its growing involvement in the country’s ground war after a month of air operations.

Three hundred tribal fighters trained across Yemen’s border with the kingdom were deployed this week back to their home area in the Sirwah district of central Marib province and made gains against the Houthis, a Yemeni official source told Reuters.

“You cannot win a war against the Houthis from the air — you need to send ground forces in, but now there’s a programme to train tribal fighters on the border,” said a Doha-based military source familiar with the matter.

Despite weeks of bombing, the Houthis have retained their dominant position on battle fronts across Yemen, and no visible progress has been made towards peace talks.

GCC membership

Yemen’s government in exile said it would request membership in the Gulf Cooperation Council, a powerful grouping of Sunni Arab Gulf monarchies, the country’s spokesman Rajeh Badi said by telephone from Qatar.

Officials from the Saudi-backed government live mostly in Riyadh and have little influence on the ground in Yemen.

The Arabian peninsula’s only republic, Yemen has for decades been at the sidelines of decision making in the region, but the move may bind its future more closely to its richer neighbours.

Impoverished and strife-torn even before the war, Yemen is now mired in a humanitarian catastrophe, as 300,000 people have been displaced by the conflict and 12 million are short of food.

The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday 1,244 people were reported killed and 5,044 wounded in Yemen in the month up to Wednesday.

BEIRUT — Air strikes by Syrian government forces killed at least 21 people, including six children, and wounded 50 on Wednesday in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib, a monitor said.

In the south of Aleppo city, a small girl was among four civilians killed in the rebel-held neighbourhood of Ferdus, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Another seven civilians died in Deir Hafer and Bab, two areas located in the east and north of Aleppo under the control of Daesh terror group, said the observatory.

Explosives-filled barrels and missiles were used in the wave of bombing, which left 50 people wounded.

In Idlib, air strikes killed 10 people, five of them children, said the Britain-based monitor, which relies on a network of sources on the ground for its reports.

A newly formed rebel alliance calling itself the Army of Conquest has seized key positions in Idlib province in recent weeks, including the provincial capital of the same name, the town of Jisr Al Shughur and a military headquarters.

In fighting between rival factions within the anti-regime camp, the Observatory and opposition sources said, 36 people have been killed since Monday on the edge of the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan Heights.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said 31 of the deaths came in fighting in Qahtaniya pitting Jaish Al Jihad, which has pledged allegiance to Daesh, against Islamists backed by Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front and other rebel forces.

In nearby Saham Jolan, five Al Nusra fighters were killed, including a chief, in clashes with Al Yarmuk Martyrs Brigade, another group close to Daesh, opposition sources said.

ANKARA — Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces on Wednesday left the key Syrian town of Kobani near the Turkish border after a half-year deployment to fight jihadists, a Turkish official told AFP.

The peshmerga, who had first deployed to Kobani in late October last year, successfully helped defeat Daesh jihadists in the over two-month battle for the strategic town.

They crossed the border into Turkey and were then being flown back to northern Iraq, the official said.

"Peshmerga forces left Turkey today [Wednesday] via air," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Local media reported that a convoy of seven buses of Iraqi peshmerga escorted by Turkish security forces reached the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa after travelling through the Mursitpinar border crossing.

The groups left for the Iraqi Kurdish capital of Erbil by plane.

"The mission is over. No more peshmerga forces will arrive," the Turkish official said.

In October, peshmerga fighters carrying heavy weaponry crossed the Turkish border to join the fight for the mainly-Kurdish Syrian town of Kobani against Daesh extremists.

Kurdish fighters, backed by US-led air strikes, drove the jihadists from Kobani in January — a key symbolic and strategic blow against Daesh.

Months of fighting has prompted a mass exodus of local residents, with some 200,000 fleeing across the border into Turkey.

Turkey, a vocal critic of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has refused to play a greater role in a US-led coalition against Daesh radicals, and instead called for a broader strategy with the ultimate goal of bringing down the Damascus regime.

Kurdish politicians in Syria and Turkey had long urged Turkish authorities to allow for the passage of fighters and weapons into Kobani.

After resisting all such demands, NATO member Turkey, a NATO member, eventually allowed the transit of Iraqi peshmerga forces through its soil to fight in Kobani as well as helping their training.

RIYADH — The world's longest-serving foreign minister, Saudi Arabia's Prince Saud Al Faisal steered the oil giant's diplomacy for four decades before stepping down.

The aged minister, born in 1940, asked to be relieved of his duties due to health problems and was replaced Wednesday by envoy to Washington Adel Al Jubeir as part of a major shake-up in the Saudi royal family and cabinet.

His departure comes amid serious regional tensions, with Saudi Arabia leading a coalition of Arab states bombing Iran-backed rebels in Yemen and taking part in the US-led campaign against Daesh terro group in Syria and Iraq.

Prince Saud served under four monarchs, most recently taking a new oath of office after King Salman took over following the death of King Abdullah in January.

Prince Saud was named at the foreign ministry's helm in October 1975, seven months after his father, King Faisal, was assassinated by a nephew.

He oversaw Saudi Arabia's emergence as a major diplomatic player, facing successive regional crises and maintaining a focus on relations with the West.

Prince Saud was closely involved in efforts to end the 1975-1990 civil war in Lebanon, playing a prominent role in pulling off the Saudi-sponsored Taef accord between Lebanese warring factions which silenced the guns.

The seasoned diplomat was in charge during the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war, Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf War in which US-led forces used Saudi Arabia as a launchpad.

But relations with Washington could get testy, and during the unrest that followed the intervention in Iraq, Prince Saud openly criticised US policy in the neighbouring country.

Ties were also strained by the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, in which 15 of 19 plane hijackers were Saudi.

Tensions eased after Riyadh began waging its own war on suspected Al Qaeda militants who launched a spate of bombings and shootings in the kingdom in 2003.

While Prince Saud frequently visited Washington or received US officials in Saudi Arabia, he was believed to be closer to European diplomats.

The prince, who often swapped the traditional Gulf robe and checkered headdress for elegant suits when on missions in Western capitals, suffered spine problems.

Born in the mountain resort of Taef, Prince Saud graduated with an economics degree from Princeton University in New Jersey in 1964.

He came to the foreign ministry after stints at state oil company Petromin and the ministry of oil and mineral resources.

The married Prince Saud has three sons and three daughters.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia's new foreign minister, a US-educated connoisseur of Washington's diplomatic scene and longtime adviser to the kingdom's rulers, is an articulate spokesman for his country's new assertive approach to the Middle East's growing conflicts.

A well-known figure in Washington government circles and on US television, Adel Al Jubeir becomes the first non-royal in the job, succeeding Prince Saud Al Faisal, who served for four decades and has been appointed a special envoy of King Salman.

Jubeir, 53, is not only a prominent public face of Saudi diplomacy, but also an insider in Riyadh.

As ambassador to Washington, he translated for former King Abdullah in meetings with US President Barack Obama and shuttled back and forth to the kingdom regularly to brief the king in person.

So important are Jubeir's presentational skills to a conservative dynasty not always at ease with public messaging, that it was he who announced the launch of an air campaign by a Saudi-led coalition against Iranian-allied Houthi militia forces in Yemen last month.

He couched the initiative in terms of checking Iranian influence in a country that Riyadh considers its backyard.

"We see ... Iran playing a large role in supporting the Houthis," Jubeir told reporters at an embassy briefing.

Iran denies giving military backing to the Houthis, but Riyadh's unprecedented action in assembling a coalition to bomb them shows how seriously it takes what it sees the threat from Iran, and how much more assertive its foreign policy has grown.

For the kingdom's Al Saud dynasty, locked for the past decade in a regional tussle with Iran's revolutionary theocratic rulers, the prospect of Tehran gaining a nuclear bomb is a nightmare scenario and Iran's negotiations for an end to its long-running nuclear dispute with world powers are a major concern.

Tehran denies Western accusations it is seeking a nuclear weapon and the world powers negotiating an agreement with it say such a deal would ensure it could not develop one.

Adviser to royals

In a March 26 interview with CNN, Jubeir said: "Everybody wants a peaceful solution to Iran's nuclear programme but it has to be a serious and solid agreement that is verifiable."

"We're also just as concerned about the interference by Iran in the affairs of other countries in the region, whether it's Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, and other parts."

Iran says its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes such as power generation and denies meddling in the affairs of countries of the region.

An earlier moment of prominence for Jubeir came in 2011 when the United States accused two Iranians of plotting to hire a hit man to kill him with a bomb planted in a restaurant. Iran denied any part in the alleged plot.

The then Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the reported plot was fabricated by Washington to cause a rift between Tehran and Saudi Arabia.

But in 2013 an Iranian-born used car salesman from Texas was sentenced to 25 years in prison after admitting participating in a plot with an Iranian military unit to murder Jubeir.

Jubeir was appointed an adviser to the royal court in 2005 and named ambassador to Washington in 2007, when he succeeded Prince Turki Al Faisal, a former Saudi intelligence chief.

A few years earlier, Jubeir was designated by the kingdom to lead a public effort to dissociate the royal family from the Islamist militancy of Al Qaeda after the September 11 attacks in the United States.

Fifteen of the 19 militants who carried out attacks in 2001 were Saudis.

Fluent in Arabic, English and German, Jubeir gained a bachelor's degree in political science and economics from the University of North Texas in 1982 and a master's in international relations from Georgetown in 1984.

GAZA — A Palestinian unity rally attended by hundreds in Gaza on Wednesday ended in scuffles that showed the depth of divisions delaying reconciliation and recovery from a devastating war.

Hamas Islamists, in control of Gaza since seizing the territory from the Western-backed Fatah movement in 2007, had given the green light for the gathering organised by university student groups with rival political affiliations.

Waving Palestinian flags, the students called on Hamas and Fateh, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, to resolve differences plaguing the national unity government they formed last year.

The two rival factions have failed to agree on control of Gaza's border crossings. That dispute has delayed the flow of vital reconstruction aid after last summer's 50-day war with Israel as well as the allocation of government ministries and salary payments for Hamas-hired civil servants.

After violence broke out at Wednesday's rally, in a Gaza neighbourhood badly damaged during battles in July and August, demonstrators and Hamas gave conflicting accounts of the fracas.

A Fateh loyalist accused Hamas of sending club-wielding men in civilian clothes into the crowd to attack rival student groups as uniformed police stood by. Several local journalists said they had also been assaulted by plain-clothed security men.

"We were chanting slogans calling for an end to the division, urging reconstruction, but Hamas accused us of trying to politicise the rally," the Fatah demonstrator said.

Eyad Al Bozom, spokesman of the Hamas-led interior ministry, said demonstrators had been fighting among themselves and police stepped in to separate them.

"As participants were leaving ... scuffles took place between them which forced the police to intervene in order to prevent an escalation and to preserve the lives of participants and public order. Calm has prevailed," Bozom said.

A pro-Hamas demonstrator said students supporting Fatah and other political factions had left the event angry over slogans demanding Abbas end security cooperation with Israel in the occupied West Bank.

In Paris, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke to university students about the importance of Palestinian unity.

"I sincerely hope the Palestinians will re-engage themselves and promote the national reconciliation and [that] will contribute a lot to their negotiation with the Israelis to establish a two-state solution," he said.

Citing Abbas's unity deal with Hamas, Israel last April broke off talks with him already deadlocked over issues that included Israeli settlement-building on occupied land Palestinian seek for a state.