Region

BAGHDAD — An influential Shiite cleric threatened Wednesday to attack US interests in Iraq and abroad over a congressional provision to send arms directly to Sunni and Kurdish fighters.

The proposed measure in the House Republicans' defence authorisation bill for next year would distribute a quarter of the $715 million authorised to train and equip the Iraqi army outside the government's control. It's unclear if the provision will survive the months-long legislative process.

"In the event of approving this bill by the US Congress, we will find ourselves obliged to unfreeze the military wing and start targeting the American interests in Iraq — even abroad, which is doable," said the statement on Muqtada Al Sadr's website.

In a rare turn of events, both Sadr and President Barack Obama signaled their opposition to the provision by House Republicans. Proposing to give 25 per cent of the funds directly to the Kurdish peshmerga and Sunni forces is one of several provisions in the military policy measure that the White House said on Tuesday that the president opposes.

The statement from Al Sadr underscored how closely the Shiite cleric is following the lengthy, often arcane legislative process. The release of the House GOP version of the bill on Monday was just the first step, and it got barely any notice outside of the Pentagon and Congress.

But it clearly registered in Baghdad.

Sadr's militia, the Mahdi Army, was one of the most determined opponents of the US military between 2003 and 2011, but it went dormant after the pullout.

The Iraqi government has also rejected the provision.

"Any weapons supplying will be done only through the Iraqi government," it said. "The draft law proposed by the foreign affairs committee in the US Congress is rejected and it will lead to more division in the region and we urge it be stopped."

The United States has already spent billions arming and training the Iraqi military, but it performed poorly last year when Daesh militants swept across western and northern Iraq, routing four divisions.

Some of the most effective fighters against Daesh have been the Kurdish peshmerga, but they say the government has not given them enough arms.

COPENHAGEN/LONDON/NEW YORK — Iran's foreign minister told an audience in New York City on Wednesday that Tehran respects freedom of navigation in the Gulf, a day after Iranian patrol boats seized a Danish container ship in one of the world's busiest oil shipping lanes.

"The Persian Gulf is our lifeline ... We will respect international navigation," Foreign Minister Javad Zarif said during a discussion hosted by the New York University Centre on International Cooperation and the think tank New America. "For us, freedom of navigation in the Persian Gulf is a must."

Danish shipping company Maersk said the crew of the Maersk Tigris was safe and "in good spirits." Iranian authorities seized the vessel in the Straight of Hormuz on Tuesday, spurring the United States to send military vessels to monitor the situation.

Ship tracking data on Reuters showed the vessel was anchored at 1658 GMT on Wednesday not far off Iran's mainland and close to the major Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

Maersk said in a statement on Wednesday that it was in communication with the Danish foreign ministry and trying ascertain why the Maersk Tigris had been diverted.

Iran's Ports and Maritime Organisation said a court had ordered the ship seized after ruling against Maersk Line in a case about debts brought by Pars Talaie, an Iranian company.

Zarif told the audience on Wednesday Maersk was required to pay damages on the basis of a court order. He said the legal proceedings had been going on for some 14 years.

Tasnim, an Iranian news agency, quoted a Pars Talaie lawyer as saying the debt involved a cargo that Pars Talaie had hired Maersk to take from the Iranian port of Abadan to Dubai more than a decade ago but which never arrived.

The 65,000-tonne, Marshall Islands-flagged ship is managed and crewed by Rickmers Shipmanagement but on hire to Maersk Line, the shipping unit of Maersk, the world's largest container shipping concern.

Maersk said it did not own the ship and that it was trying to establish the facts of any legal case. Rickmers said the Maersk Tigris was owned by "various private investors".

Maersk said the vessel was confronted in international waters while Rickmers said the incident occurred in a widely recognised international shipping lane.

International shipping lane

"The information we had from the [ship's] master at the time of the approach by the Iranian navy ... was that he was at that particular time ... in an international shipping lane," Rickmers spokesman Cor Radings said.

"It is the Strait of Hormuz, which is literally in Iranian waters. But there is an internationally acknowledged shipping corridor in international waters which is used by commercial shipping."

Radings said there were 24 crew members on the vessel, mostly from eastern Europe and Asia although there was also a British national among them. The crew was "in relatively good condition and safe" onboard the vessel, which was not damaged.

"We have now been able to communicate with the vessel which we were unable to do for quite a long period after she was taken deeper into Iranian waters. We have no official contact with the Iranians so far or any official documentation or notification."

Ship tracking data on Reuters showed the vessel was anchored at 0930 GMT on Wednesday not far off Iran's mainland and close to the major Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.

The incident occurred at a critical juncture in US-Iranian relations, which could thaw should a tentative nuclear deal between Tehran and six world powers including Washington be clinched. It also coincides with heightened tension between regional arch-rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia over the escalating civil war in Yemen in which they support opposing sides.

The Danish Foreign Ministry said it was monitoring the situation closely and in contact with Maersk.

Maersk said in a statement, "We are continuing our efforts to obtain more information about [Iran's] seizure, in international waters, of Maersk Tigris. We are not able at this point to establish or confirm the reason behind the seizure."

MADRID — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi vowed that parliamentary polls, originally set for last month, will be held before the end of the year, in an interview published Wednesday.

"I give my word: they will be held before the end of the year," he told El Mundo newspaper in an interview published on the eve of his official visit to Spain.

Egypt's parliamentary polls were set to start on March 21 and run until May 7 but were postponed after the constitutional court ruled that parts of the electoral law were unconstitutional.

The election would be the first for a new parliament since former army chief Sisi overthrew Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in 2013.

Critics accuse Sisi, who was elected president in May 2014, of establishing an authoritarian regime by eliminated all opposition, but he told El Mundo he has prevented Egypt from descending into civil war.

"I faced a difficult equation: my role is to guarantee life and security of 90 million Egyptians who faced the risk of chaos. If I let anything be done, is it Europe that would pay the salaries of Egyptians?" he said.

"Don't judge me without taking into account the reality on the ground," he added.

"If the state collapses, that would cause terrible harm to Europe and the region would face a disaster. Egypt is not Iraq, or Syria or Yemen, nations that each have over 20 million residents. We are 90 million.”

“I do what I can to protect Egyptians. I try not to arrive at situations that I could regret," he added.

"Egyptians can break with Al Sisi if they wish. If I had not intervened, there would have been a civil war."

Sisi refused to answer a question about Egypt's first freely elected leader, Mohamed Morsi, who was sentenced last week by an Egyptian court to 20 years in prison for abuses against protesters.

Morsi, an Islamist, came to power following the 2011 ouster of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising.

But after just a year in power, Morsi was himself toppled by then-army chief Sisi following mass street protests.

At least 1,400 Morsi sympathisers were killed by Egyptian authorities after he was ousted from power. Over 15,000 Morsi sympathisers were jailed and hundreds were sentenced to death.

RIYADH –– Saudi Arabia's King Salman on Wednesday named his powerful interior minister as heir in a major shakeup that also saw the world's longest-serving foreign minister replaced.

A royal decree removed Crown Prince Moqren bin Abdul Aziz bin Saud as next in line to the throne and replaced him with Prince Mohammed bin Nayef, who headed a crackdown on Al Qaeda in the oil-rich kingdom a decade ago.

"We have decided to respond to his highness and what he had expressed about his desire to be relieved from the position of crown prince," said a statement from the royal court, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency.

It added that Moqren, 69, was also relieved of his position as deputy prime minister in the world's largest oil exporter, but insisted "he will always remain in high regard".

The decree named "Prince Mohammed bin Nayef as crown prince" as well as deputy prime minister and said he will continue in his position of interior minister and head of the political and security council, a coordinating body.

A separate decree Wednesday said King Salman's son, Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is in his early 30s, will be deputy crown prince.

He retains his position of defence minister, in which he has recently played a key role in a Saudi-led coalition conducting air strikes on Yemeni rebels.

The dismissal of Moqren removes one of the few remaining high-level officials from the era of King Abdullah, who died on January 23 and was replaced by Salman, 79.

Moqren would have been the last son of the kingdom's founder, Abdul Aziz bin Saud, to rule.

He was a confidant of the late Abdullah, who appointed him deputy crown prince behind then-crown prince Salman in March 2014, an unprecedented move.

Moqren's removal leaves bin Nayef as the first of the second generation, or grandsons of Abdul Aziz, in line to lead the conservative Islamic kingdom.

New foreign minister       

Under Salman, Saudi Arabia has adopted a more assertive foreign policy, leading the Arab-dominated coalition targeting Iran-backed rebels in neighbouring Yemen since late March.

In another major change, Saudi Arabia's envoy to the United States, Adel Al Jubeir, was appointed foreign minister, a royal decree said.

He replaces Prince Saud Al Faisal who "asked to be relieved from his duties due to his health condition," said the decree carried by the SPA.

Prince Saud had held the post since 1975, making him the world's longest-serving foreign minister.

Born in 1940, he was in the United States for back surgery when Salman acceded to the throne.

The decree said Prince Saud has been appointed as an adviser and a special envoy of the king, as well as a supervisor on foreign affairs.

Jubeir came to attention answering reporters' questions in the United States in defence of his country's decision to participate in an aerial campaign in Yemen.

His appointment is a rarity as the position of foreign minister is usually held by a member of the ruling family.

Salman also named a new health minister in Wednesday's reshuffle, the second major government shakeup since he took office.

BEIRUT — Daesh militants have killed at least 2,154 people off the battlefield in Syria since the end of June when the group declared a “caliphate” in territory it controls, a Syrian human rights monitor said on Tuesday.

The killings of mostly Syrians included deaths by beheading, stoning or gunshots in non-combat situations, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, urging the United Nations Security Council to act.

"We continue in our calls to the UN Security Council for urgent action to stop the ongoing murder against the sons of the Syrian people despite the deafness of members to the screams of pain of the Syrian people," it said in a statement.

Daesh, which also holds tracts of land in neighbouring Iraq, is an offshoot of Al Qaeda and has set up its own courts in towns and villages to administer what it describes as Islamic law before carrying out the killings.

The observatory, which tracks the conflict using sources on the ground, said its figure included combatants, civilians and also 126 Daesh fighters who had tried to flee the group or were accused of being spies.

It did not include several beheaded foreign journalists and a Jordanian pilot who was burnt to death by the group, so the probable figure is even higher, the observatory’s Rami Abdulrahman said. Hundreds of people believed captured by the Sunni Islamist group remain missing, he added.

One of the worst massacres was against the Sunni Muslim Sheitaat tribe which had been battling Daesh in eastern Syria. Daesh has killed at least 930 Sheitaat tribespeople, the observatory said.

ADEN — Fighting between Shiite rebels and loyalists killed dozens of people across Yemen Tuesday as Iran accused Saudi Arabia of using Cold War-era tactics by air dropping leaflets warning of "Persian expansion".

A Saudi-led coalition carried out air strikes for a seventh straight day since announcing a halt to its aerial campaign, hitting Sanaa airport among other targets, an AFP correspondent and witnesses said.

The conflict has exposed deteriorating relations between the Middle East's foremost powers, Saudi Arabia and Iran, which are increasingly seen as vying for supremacy in the region beset by bloody turmoil.

On Tuesday, at least 70 people were killed in fighting between the Iran-backed rebels and pro-government forces in several parts of the country, sources said.

Stepping up a war of words, a security chief in Shiite Iran hit out at the Saudi-led coalition of Sunni Arab states for dropping the leaflets.

“Dropping these leaflets, as untrue as they are, has the goal of frightening the Yemeni people,” said Ali Shamkhani, secretary of the Supreme National Security Council.

The leaflets were dropped for two weeks during Operation Decisive Storm — the air campaign which officially ended on April 21.

They said in Arabic: “My brother of Yemen. The real goal of the coalition is to support the people of Yemen against the Persian expansion,” in reference to Iran’s language and ancient name.

But Shamkhani, a close adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, countered by saying Tehran was helping in Yemen by opposing the air strikes and providing aid.

He described the leaflets as “simplistic” and accused the Saudis of backward thinking.

“This is a technique that Western governments used to frighten people in the Cold War era,” he said.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards chief General Mohammad Ali Jafari said on Monday that Saudi Arabia was verging on collapse and accused it of following “in the footsteps of Israel and the Zionists” by bombing Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest state.

‘New stage’ of campaign 

On Tuesday, air raids hit the airport in the rebel-held capital Sanaa, according to witnesses.

They also reported strikes on the rebels and their allies in oil-rich Marib province, east of the capital, around third city Taez, and in the Red Sea Port of Hodeida.

A spokesman for the armed forces who have sided with the rebels said the anti-government fighters had lost 200 combatants — 112 soldiers, 43 policemen and 45 Houthis — in five weeks of coalition air strikes.

In a statement carried by the rebel-controlled Saba news agency late Monday, Brigadier General Sharaf Luqman accused Riyadh of “moving into a new stage” of its air war, not halting it as promised.

The Houthi rebels and their allies meanwhile advanced in the heart of Yemen’s second city Aden in heavy fighting that killed at least 20 people, medical and security sources said.

Forces loyal to exiled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi were pushed back in the city’s central district of Khor Maksar as the rebels overran Hadi’s family home and the German and Russian consulates, an official said.

Nine rebels were killed, a source close to them said.

Eleven dead were brought into government-run hospitals, the city’s health chief Al Khader Lasswar said, without specifying whether they were pro-Hadi militiamen or civilians.

In the adjacent province of Lahj, 14 rebels and 11 Hadi loyalists were killed in battles to control the coastal road linking Aden to the strategic Bab Al Mandab strait, military sources said.

Farther northeast in Marib, 17 rebels and two pro-Hadi fighters were killed, said tribal and medical sources.

In Abyan, another northern province, six rebels were killed in two attacks on their positions, an official said.

The Houthis have received crucial support from army units still loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was forced from power in 2012 after a bloody year-long uprising.

The rebels have said they will not return to UN-brokered peace talks until the air strikes end.

The United Nations says more than 1,000 people have been killed in fighting in Yemen since late March, when Riyadh assembled the coalition in support of Hadi.

KUWAIT — Gulf Arab leaders will meet in Saudi Arabia next week to prepare for a May summit with US President Barack Obama, Kuwait's foreign minister was quoted as saying, with the summit expected to touch on Iran's nuclear programme and developments in Yemen.

The White House said earlier this month that Obama will meet leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) group of countries at the White House on May 13 and at the presidential retreat at Camp David, Maryland, the following day.

Kuwait's state news agency KUNA said Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al Khaled Al Sabah told journalists there that GCC heads of state would meet in the Saudi capital Riyadh on May 5.

"It [the summit] will be preceded by a meeting on Thursday [April 30] at the level of foreign ministers to agree and coordinate what will be put forth at the Camp David summit that will bring together the GCC leaders and President Barack Obama," KUNA quoted Sheikh Sabah as saying.

The US summit will be an opportunity for Obama to discuss concerns about the deal reached with Iran on its nuclear programme, as well as the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen.

Oil-rich Gulf Arab countries are close allies of the United States but have had differences with Washington over Iran's nuclear programme, US policy in Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Sheikh Sabah said the Middle East had been rattled by the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme before a framework agreement was reached last month.

"We must look at this agreement, which was reached [in negotiations] by the 5+1, as being in the interest of the security of the region and its stability", KUNA quoted Sheikh Sabah as saying, using a phrase to refer to the nations in talks with Tehran.

Saudi Arabia sees Iran as its main rival in the region and fears an atomic deal would leave the door open to Tehran developing a nuclear weapon, or would ease political pressure on it, giving it more space to back Arab proxies opposed by Riyadh.

Iran denies it seeks a nuclear weapon, and says its atomic programme is aimed only at civilian purposes.

RIYADH — At least 10 construction workers from Pakistan and one from India were killed in the collapse of a convention centre being built in Saudi Arabia, an Asian diplomatic source said Tuesday.

The building, at a university in Qassim northwest of the capital Riyadh, collapsed on Monday.

The bodies of six Pakistanis had been pulled from the rubble and rescuers were trying to free the bodies of two more, the diplomatic source told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The diplomat said three other people wounded in the collapse had also died, including two more Pakistanis and an Indian.

Mohammed Abdullah Abdul Aziz, a spokesman for the Saudi Red Crescent Authority, gave a different toll, saying seven people had died.

He did not give the nationalities of the victims.

Police sniffer dogs and fire department cameras were assisting in the search for two other workers believed still trapped under the concrete.

Abdul Aziz said ambulances transported a total of 10 injured to hospitals, while 20 others were less seriously hurt.

The diplomatic source said he understood that steel mesh had been laid and foundation columns were in place.

"When they started pouring concrete, that was when the load was too much for the columns”, he said.

Pictures from the scene showed a sprawling but low-level construction site, where many steel support rods had collapsed along with other parts of the structure inside a wide circular area.

Millions of foreign workers from impoverished countries in Asia are employed at a variety of jobs in Saudi Arabia, including construction work.

The diplomatic source said Egyptians and Bangladeshis also worked on the site.

TEL AVIV — Some 2,000 Arab Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv Tuesday against a wave of house demolitions, capping a day in which Arab shops, schools and businesses observed a general strike.

The protesters gathered at Rabin Square in the centre of Israel's commercial capital, waving Palestinian flags and wearing headscarves as police officers stood by in case of disturbances.

Arab Israelis — the descendents of Palestinians who stayed in Israel after the Jewish state's establishment — had been striking across the country since the morning in protest at demolitions of Arab homes, especially in Jerusalem.

"This is one of the most painful issues for the Arab public," said prominent Arab Israeli lawmaker Ayman Odeh in a statement shortly before attending the rally.

"For a family that loses its home that was built on private land, its whole world is destroyed."

The Higher Arab Monitoring Committee (HAMC), which represents Arab communities in Israel, slammed "the ongoing harsh policy of incitement to hatred against Arabs which was launched by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during the elections".

It was referring to an election day statement by Netanyahu on March 17 when he urged his rightwing supporters to turn out because Arab Israelis were going to the polls "in droves".

The remarks from Netanyahu — who won a surprise victory in the polls — drew a rebuke from US President Barack Obama and were widely criticised in Israel and abroad.

The decision to hold a rally in Tel Aviv rather than in one of the Arab cities was aimed at bringing the crisis to the attention of Jewish Israelis, and also to highlight what is perceived as growing anti-Arab racism.

At the rally, a small number of Jewish Israelis could be seen holding up Israeli flags, jeering at the Arab protesters, but there was no confrontation.

'War on Arabs' 

Both the strike and the rally were backed by the Joint List, headed by Odeh, which groups the main Arab political parties and came third in the election.

Arab Israelis are Palestinians who remained on their land when the state of Israel was created in 1948. Today, along with their descendents, they number about 1.4 million, nearly one fifth of Israel's population.

"The government is waging a war on Arabs," Jeryes Matar, the HAMC's secretary-general, said at the demonstration.

"The battle to save these houses is the battle to save our existence!"

There has been a string of demolitions of Arab homes in northern and central Israel, as well as in the southern Negev desert. Campaigners say tens of thousands more have demolition orders against them.

Arab Israelis complain that discrimination by the state makes it impossible for them to obtain planning permission to expand their communities.

The result is that many families resort to building homes without permission, leaving them liable to demolition.

Although Arab Israelis make up some 17 per cent of the population, only 4.6 per cent of new homes are built in Arab areas, according to Arab rights group Adalah.

In a February report, Adalah blamed the housing crisis on a "deliberate, consistent, and systematic government policy" that gives preference to development in Jewish areas over Arab ones.

In 2014, the Israel Land Authority published tenders for construction of 38,261 housing units in Jewish communities compared with only 1,844 in Arab communities, the report said.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A UN report on last year's 50-day July-August war in Gaza has shed light on some of the most controversial incidents, including Israel's deadly bombardment of UN-run schools.

Investigators, who released a summary of the report late Monday, say that seven "incidents" killed dozens of people sheltering in UN installations.

It holds Israel's army responsible for all of them, but also condemns Palestinian fighters for storing weapons in and even launching attacks from the vicinity of some UN buildings.

Below are the report's verdicts on two of the deadliest incidents.

July 24: Beit Hanoun primary school

The area surrounding the school in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza was the scene of fierce fighting and the school had been turned into a shelter for displaced Gazans.

In the days before the incident, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) received "multiple calls" from Israel saying rockets were being fired from the school and its immediate vicinity, and that it should be evacuated ahead of an Israeli military response.

Witnesses said there was no militant activity in the area.

UNRWA tried to obtain from Israel a "window of opportunity" to evacuate the school's occupants, but none was granted.

The 450 people in the school on that day refused to evacuate, and at 3:00pm two mortar rounds hit, one in the courtyard and another in front of the entrance, killing "between 12 and 14" people and injuring 93.

July 30: Jabaliya girls' primary school

The UNRWA school in Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza was one of dozens of schools used as a shelter, and housed 3,000 people.

In the days before the incident, fighting raged in eastern Jabaliya and the army asked residents to evacuate the area.

Witnesses said there was no militant activity in the school or its immediate vicinity, and that weapons were strictly prohibited inside the facility.

"This rule was strictly observed," the report said, citing witnesses.

At around 4:45am, four artillery shells hit the school, killing 17 or 18 people, the report said. Some 99 people were wounded.

"No prior warning had been given" by Israel, it said.

Israel is investigating both this and the July 24 incidents.

In a separate incident, a drone strike killed 15 people at a UN school in Rafah in southern Gaza on August 3.

Israel says it was targeting three militants riding a motorbike, but had been unable to call off the strike when it became apparent it would land next to the school.

Did fighters hide arms in UN schools?

In three cases examined by UN investigators, Palestinian fighters used vacant UN schools to hide weapons such as mortar tubes and ammunition, and in two or three cases fired at soldiers from the sites.

What about reaction to the report?

The Islamist movement Hamas, which was fighting Israel, said it proves that the Israeli military "committed war crimes against Palestinian civilians", and denied knowing anything about weapons stored at UN schools.

Israel said the report confirms militants used UN installations for their activity. It says it also showed Israel has cooperated with the investigation and is conducting its own probes.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has slammed both sides.

"I deplore the fact that at least 44 Palestinians were killed as a result of Israeli actions and at least 227 injured at UN premises being used as emergency shelters," he said on Monday.

"The fact that they [schools] were used by those involved in the fighting to store their weaponry and, in two cases, probably to fire from, is unacceptable."

What happens next?

The report will not lead directly to legal action by either side, but the Palestinians are threatening to sue Israel for alleged war crimes through the International Criminal Court.

The investigation serves mainly to illuminate some of the most controversial events during the war, which killed about 2,200 Palestinians and 73 on the Israeli side.