Region

BEIRUT — Several hard-line Syrian rebel groups pushed a new offensive against government forces in northwestern Syria on Thursday, less than a month after seizing control of the provincial capital there.

The conservative Islamic factions, including Al Qaeda-affiliated Al Nusra Front, are coordinating a multi-pronged campaign whose main target appears to be the town of Jisr Al Shughour in Idlib province. Opposition fighters are also attacking government checkpoints in a sprawling agricultural plain south of the town as well as nearby military facilities.

The operation keeps the pressure on beleaguered government forces in the area just weeks after the rebels captured Idlib city, the provincial capital. Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad maintain control of Jisr Al Shughour as well as towns and military facilities in the province, but their hold looks increasingly shaky.

The opposition groups taking part in the new operation posted a statement online late Wednesday announcing the start of the offensive, which they call "Battle of Victory." They appealed to residents to stay inside "until God grants us and you victory and liberation."

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday the rebels have taken five checkpoints since the offensive began, including two near Jisr Al Shugour, in fighting that has killed at least eight rebels and an unknown number of government troops. Observatory director Rami Abdurrahman said heavy fighting raged outside of the town as well as in the Sahel Al Ghab plain to the south, and that government warplanes are bombing suspected rebel positions.

A Twitter account tied to Al Nusra Front in the area carried videos showing what it said were fighters firing heavy machine guns at government forces during the clashes. It also posted photos of tanks and artillery purportedly shelling Syrian military positions.

The material could not be immediately verified, but it appeared genuine and corresponded to other Associated Press reporting.

Syria's state news agency said Thursday that the army prevented "terrorist groups" from sneaking into military camps in Idlib, and killed "scores of terrorists" in the countryside around Jisr Al Shughour. The government refers to those fighting to topple Assad as terrorists.

Also Thursday, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, expressed concerns about the health situation in the Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmouk in the capital Damascus, which has been the scene of clashes between local fighters and the Islamic State group since the beginning of April.

"Over the last days, UNRWA has found high incidents of skin infections, diarrhoea and hepatitis amongst the civilians displaced from Yarmouk, illustrating the wretched living conditions endured by civilians in Yarmouk, and the sustained risk posed by rampant infectious diseases in the area," said UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness.

He added that incidents of chronic illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma and cancer are high, making up almost 30 per cent of medical cases seen.

Daesh fighters overran much of Yarmouk earlier this month, establishing a foothold in the Syrian capital for the first time. The incursion is the latest trial for Yarmouk's residents, who have already suffered through a devastating two-year government siege, starvation and disease.

About 18,000 people are still in the camp, a built-up area once home to some 160,000 Palestinians and Syrians.

On Monday, the UN Security Council called for $30 million in emergency aid to help Palestinian refugees in Yarmouk. The council called for unhindered humanitarian access and the protection of civilians inside the camp.

BAGHDAD — Iraq will at long last be getting the first batch of F-16 fighter jets it ordered four years ago, its air force commander said Thursday, a shipment that is expected to boost Iraq's capabilities in battling Daesh terror group.

Lt. Gen. Anwar Hama Amin said the fighters would arrive on July 12 along with the US-trained Iraqi pilots and spare parts and would immediately begin carrying out operations, according to a statement posted late Wednesday on the defense ministry's website.

The US embassy in Baghdad did not confirm the date, and only said the planes were expected by the summer.

Iraq first ordered the 18 jets for $3 billion in 2011 to supplement its almost nonexistent air force. A year later, then-prime minister Nouri Al Maliki complained over the delays in delivering the planes.

The pilots have been training with three of the planes in Arizona and plans to send them last year to Balad air force base in Iraq were scrapped after Daesh militants threatened the area, according to an article on the Pentagon website.

US personnel and contractors were evacuated from the base last summer after a Daesh blitz overran large swaths of the country, along with significant stretch of territory in neighboring Syria.

Iraq's air force has been at its lowest point and currently relies on US planes to carry out air strikes in the battle to dislodge Daesh militants from the north and west of the country.

By July, Iraq had also received a total of 13 second hand Russian Su-25 jets.

In other developments, Iraqi police and officials said Thursday that a suicide car bomb went off overnight next to a crowd of Shiite pilgrims near Balad as they were returning from a Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra, killing eight and wounding 16.

Samarra is the burial site for two revered 9th century Shiite imams and on Wednesday, there was a ceremony marking the death of one of them. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media.

South of the Baghdad, a bomb exploded in a market in the town of Madain on Thursday, killing three people and wounding 10 others, according to police.

RIYADH — Shopping malls in Saudi Arabia have tightened security after the interior ministry issued a warning over possible attacks.

At the upscale Kingdom Centre Mall in central Riyadh, security guards inspected bags and scanned visitors with metal detectors before they entered, an AFP reporter witnessed.

Inside the older Akaria Mall and office complex in the city centre, guards also stopped visitors and searched their belongings.

At a suburban mall this week, a witness said they saw police cars deployed and officers inspecting the vehicles of arriving shoppers.

The new measures follow an interior ministry warning on Monday over a possible attack against a shopping centre or oil facilities.

A ministry spokesman said there was "an alert" involving a mall or oil installations but did not provide further details.

State-owned Saudi Aramco, the world's largest oil company in terms of crude production and exports based in the east of the kingdom, told AFP it had a policy of not commenting on matters concerning security.

Fears about possible revenge attacks by jihadists in the world's largest oil exporter have been raised since September when Saudi Arabia began taking part in US-led air strikes against the Daesh group in Syria.

In March, Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef ordered that security be tightened nationwide after the kingdom launched air strikes against Iran-backed Shiite rebels in neighbouring Yemen.

On April 8, two Saudi policemen were killed when their patrol came under fire from unknown assailants in Riyadh less than two weeks after two others were wounded in a similar attack.

Between 2003 and 2007 Al Qaeda waged a campaign of bombings and shootings that killed expatriate workers along with Saudi security officers.

In a fresh spate of attacks, Westerners have been targeted in Saudi Arabia four times since October.

Authorities arrested three Saudis, suspected of shooting a Danish national, who were said to have acted "in support of" Daesh.

Another incident saw a Canadian stabbed and wounded at a shopping mall in Dhahran, where Saudi Aramco is based.

The United States closed its Riyadh embassy for several days in early March because of unspecified security concerns.

KUWAIT — Kuwait has deported a prominent activist to Saudi Arabia after withdrawing his Kuwaiti citizenship last year, local media reported, a move he and other opposition figures said was politically motivated.

The Kuwaiti government last year ordered a crackdown on people suspected of trying to "undermine the stability" of the oil exporter. The move was part of an "iron fist" policy adopted by the government following protests after the arrest of prominent opposition politician Musallam Al Barrak.

The Arabic-language Al Rai newspaper reported on Wednesday that Saad Al Ajmi, spokesman for the Popular Action Movement (PAM) and a former correspondent for the Saudi-owned Al Arabiya news channel, was detained on Tuesday and deported.

PAM politicians dominated parliament before 2012, but the group was among several political associations that boycotted national elections three years ago to protest against changes to election laws seen as favouring candidates from other parties.

A Kuwaiti security source said Ajmi was sent to Saudi Arabia after his documents showed he was a native Saudi national.

Saudi officials declined to comment on the deportation.

The Kuwait Democratic Forum, a group of leftist and nationalist activists, which like Ajmi's movement wants political and economic reforms, said his deportation showed a "constitutionally unacceptable approach" by the government in targeting political activists.

"The latest [of these measures] was related to activist Saad Al Ajmi, who, and others, were not accorded the legal guarantees which shows a major disorder of the authority's management of the state," it said in a statement.

Barrak called for a meeting on Thursday to discuss Ajmi's deportation, local news website alaa.cc said.

Born in Kuwait, Ajmi, was one of 18 people to have their citizenship withdrawn by authorities last year.

Some of them had obtained Kuwaiti citizenship unlawfully, the state news agency said at the time, but in Ajmi's case and that of six others, the reasons were unclear.

Ajmi said then that stripping him of his citizenship was part of a government crackdown on political activists deemed by the state to be endangering its stability.

Kuwait allows more political freedom than other Gulf Arab states, with relatively free media and an elected parliament, but local laws ban public gatherings of more than 20 people without a permit.

VALLETTA — The group controlling Libya's coastal capital Tripoli said it would "confront" any unilateral European Union moves to attack sites used by people-traffickers, urging the bloc to consult it over plans to deal with a migration crisis.

Muhammed Al Ghirani, foreign minister of the group that is a rival to Libya's internationally-recognised government, said it had repeatedly offered to help deal with migrants leaving its shores, but its proposals had been rebuffed.

His comments, made in an interview with the Times of Malta published on Thursday, underlined the challenges facing EU ministers meeting in Brussels to find ways to stem the numbers risking their lives travelling from Libya, a country mired in political chaos.

At a summit hastily convened after nearly 2,000 migrants at sea, EU ministers are expected to discuss one proposal to launch military and civilian missions to capture and destroy the traffickers' boats, diplomats said.

"You cannot just decide to hit. Let's say you strike a particular site. How will you know that you did not hit an innocent person, a fisherman? Does Europe have pinpoint accuracy? So we are saying, 'Let's do this together,'" Ghirani told the Maltese newspaper.

"We have been doing our best to get Europe to cooperate with us to deal with illegal immigration but they keep telling us we're not the internationally recognised government. Now they cannot just decide to take this action. They have to speak to us," he added.

He said any unilateral attacks would be confronted, the newspaper reported, without going into further details.

Two rival governments, each backed by loose coalitions of ex-rebels who once fought together to oust Libyan strongman Muammar Qadhafi more than three years ago, are battling for control of the North African OPEC producer.

World powers only recognise premier Abdullah Al Thinni who has been based with his cabinet in the east since losing control of the capital last summer.

Public outrage peaked this week after up to 900 migrants, many fleeing poverty and political turmoil, died last Sunday when their boat sank on its way to Europe from Libya.

Security forces loyal to the Tripoli administration detained 45 Bangladeshis waiting for smugglers to pick them up, a security official told Reuters.

WASHINGTON — Washington is working with Iraqi leaders to hone military operations against Islamist militants and is mulling whether to train Iraqis to directly call in US air strikes, a US official said Thursday.

During a visit to Washington last week, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi last week urged the Obama administration to speed up bombing missions against the jihadists saying there was a significant time lag between Iraqi forces identifying a target and a subsequent US air strike.

"The one thing they want is to cut down the time from a request for a strike to a strike," a senior State Department official told reporters.

"Though it's fairly fast, it's not immediate," he acknowledged.

The US-led coalition has carried out about 3,000 air strikes over Iraq since September in the fight against extremist Daesh militants who seized a swath of Iraqi and Syrian territory in a lightning move last June.

While deferring to the Pentagon, the senior State Department official said the administration was looking at how to strengthen coordination with the Iraqis such as training joint terminal attack controllers (JTACs) who designate targets in air operations.

"That might include things ... like training Iraqi JTACs from the Iraqi special forces. We've worked with those guys for many years," the official said.

In its biggest victory to date, Iraqi security forces recaptured the town of Tikrit from Daesh last month. But it also revealed the complexity of trying to recapture urban areas, where the jihadists have laid booby traps, including huge truck bombs.

Iraqi forces are gearing for an operation to retake Iraq's second city of Mosul, but it "will be incredibly complicated", the US official said.

Between 4,000-6,000 Iraqis, many who fled during the capture of Mosul and now known as the Mosul fighting force, are currently being trained in the Kurdish peshmerga areas of Iraqi Kurdistan for the upcoming battle to retake the city.

Mosul is a major hub for the Daesh militants and holds special significance as the place where Daesh leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi proclaimed his "caliphate" straddling Iraq and Syria.

Reports emerged this week that Baghdadi may have been wounded in an air strike.

The State Department official could not confirm the reports, but said: "All I would say is that when we put someone on our sights we're eventually going to get him. It's a matter of time."

BEIRUT — At least 2,000 people, mostly Daesh group militants, have been killed in Syria by a US-led air campaign in the past seven months, a monitoring group said Thursday.

"At least 1,922 fighters from IS [Daesh], mostly foreigners, have been killed since September 23, 2014 in raids and aerial attacks by the international coalition on Daesh positions and oil refineries" throughout Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The strikes targeted Daesh positions in the central province of Homs, as well as Aleppo in the north, Hasakeh in the northeast and Deir Ezzor to the east.

They also struck the northern province of Raqqa, where the provincial capital of the same name has become the centre of Daesh’s self-styled "caliphate".

The toll also included 90 fighters from Daesh’s jihadist rival and Al Qaeda Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front, most of whom were killed in coalition strikes on their strongholds in northern Syria. It also included one Islamist rebel who was being held by Daesh.

At least 66 civilians, including 10 children, have been killed in the campaign, the Britain-based observatory said.

The coalition air strikes have provided significant support to Kurdish forces, helping them to expel Daesh jihadists from the flashpoint town of Kobane on the Syrian-Turkish border in January.

Syria's conflict began with peaceful protests in March 2011, but devolved into a civil war after a bloody crackdown by the government.

The war became even more complex in 2014 with the rise of jihadists, particularly Daesh, which controls swathes of territory in northern and eastern Syria.

More than 220,000 people have been killed and at least 11.2 million displaced since the beginning of the war.

CAIRO/ADEN — Saudi-led coalition warplanes bombed Yemen on Wednesday despite an announcement by Riyadh that it was ending its campaign of air strikes, while renewed fighting erupted on the ground between rebels and forces loyal to the exiled president.

The hostilities illustrated how tough it will be to find a political solution to a war stirring animosities between rival Gulf powers Saudi Arabia and Iran.

Tuesday's announcement by Riyadh that it would end almost a month of air strikes against the Iranian-allied Houthis drew positive responses from both the White House and Tehran.

But hours later, air strikes and ground fighting resumed and the International Red Cross described the humanitarian situation as “catastrophic”. The rebel Houthi movement said it wanted a return to United Nations peace talks, but only after a complete halt to air strikes.

Houthi fighters meanwhile captured an army base loyal to President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in the city of Taiz. A Saudi air strike hit the headquarters shortly afterwards, residents said. Coalition planes later hit rebel positions in southern Yemen with 12 more air strikes, residents said.

Also in southern Yemen, pro-Hadi militiamen fought against the Houthis and their army allies loyal to powerful ex-president Ali Abdullah Saleh, and residents in the port of Aden reported tank shelling and automatic gunfire.

Yemen’s south has been a bulwark of resistance against the Houthi advance and locals expressed dismay at the end to Saudi strikes, which had supported their forces.

“The decision was strange and totally unexpected. Our fighters had made gains but needed more Saudi air support, now we hear the Houthis and Saleh’s people are advancing in many places,” said Aden resident Saleh Salem Ba Aqeel.

Dialogue

Saudi Arabia’s military intervention in Yemen shows that the Sunni monarchy will stand up to Iran and that Arab states can protect their interests without US leadership, the kingdom’s ambassador to Britain, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf, told Reuters in an interview.

Saudi Arabia’s announcement that it would end its campaign cast doubt over its next moves against its Houthi enemies, whose seizure of swathes of Yemen in recent months stirred Saudi fears that Iran is acquiring decisive influence in a country Riyadh sees as its backyard.

A Gulf official told Reuters that the new phase would see a downscaling of military activity by the Saudi-led coalition with no further bombing of fixed military targets.

On the political front, the official said, there was movement towards a dialogue, and that both Saleh’s followers and the Houthis should have a voice in the discussions.

Saleh welcomed the Saudi announcement and called for talks, while the Houthis have yet to react beyond calling for mass protests against the Saudi “aggression” for Thursday.

A Yemeni official told Reuters that the warring parties were discussing a seven-point peace plan offered by neighbouring Oman, which has stayed neutral in the conflict, involving the reinstatement of Hadi’s government and a Houthi withdrawal from leading cities — previously non-starters for the group.

The White House on Wednesday said Yemen remained unstable and much more work needed to be done in the region on a diplomatic solution, despite the declared halt to the Saudi-led bombing.

‘Restoring hope’

Saudi Arabia said a new phase called “Operation Restoring Hope” would now begin in which political, diplomatic and military action would be combined but the main focus would be on the political process and aid efforts.

The conflict has created severe shortages of food and other supplies by closing sea and airports. The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday that 944 people were reported killed and 3,487 wounded in Yemen in the month up to Friday.

The United States said on Monday an aircraft carrier and guided-missile cruiser had gone to waters off Yemen to join seven other US warships already in the area.

The Pentagon said the ships were there to ensure freedom of navigation through the area, which is vital to oil shipping and controls approaches to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal.

It said the ships were also watching a flotilla of Iranian cargo vessels that had approached Yemen. The UN Security Council has imposed an arms embargo on the Houthis, and the Saudi navy has imposed a naval and air blockade around the country that it says it will maintain in the coming phase.

President Barack Obama warned Iran on Tuesday not to send weapons to Yemen that could be used to threaten shipping traffic in the region.

Iran called for all sides in Yemen’s conflict to start negotiations, saying long-term peace was possible.

“History has demonstrated that military intervention is not a proper response to these crises and will instead exacerbate the situation,” Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said at an Asian-African conference in Jakarta.

The United States and Saudi Arabia have accused Shiite Iran of arming the Houthis, a claim Iran denies.

“Fear of Iran is part of a Saudi-American plan to bury Yemen’s revolution which rejected their hegemony,” top Houthi leader Saleh Al Sammad told Reuters. “There are no Iranian weapons here.”

BEIRUT — At least 42 fighters were killed in 24 hours of fierce fighting between Islamist rebels and Daesh terror group in Syria's Damascus province, a monitoring group said Wednesday.

"At least 30 Islamist rebels and 12 fighters from IS [Daesh] were killed in fighting since Tuesday" in the hilly region of Qalamun, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Qalamun is divided into a western portion, which borders Lebanon and is mostly controlled by the regime and its ally, the Lebanese Shiite movement Hizbollah.

The eastern sector has seen intense clashes between rebels and Daesh, and is strategic because it borders the "badiya", the Syrian steppe.

These plains are used by rebels to transport weapons from the Turkish border to the north and the Jordanian frontier in the south.

According to the Britain-based Observatory, Daesh has already cut off one of these routes and aims to take more to "suffocate" the rebels.

Meanwhile, at least 11 people were killed in regime bombardment of two towns in Damascus province.

"It is likely that there were even more killed in the attack, and the number will increase due to people in a critical condition," said Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman.

In the northern Aleppo province, 12 people were killed and at least 40 others injured in regime aerial attacks on Deir Al Hafir, a town under the control of Daesh militants.

“There are still people stuck in the buildings after they collapsed,” said Abdel Rahman.

Thirteen civilians, including nine children, were killed Tuesday night in shelling in the northwest province of Idlib, whose provincial capital was overrun by Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate and allied rebels.

Among them, a man and five children, three of them sisters, were killed in a regime air raid on Maarat Al Numan.

Seven others, including a couple and their four children, were killed by rebel shelling on Jisr Al Shughur, one of the last regime-held cities in Idlib province.

Since they lost control of Idlib city, regime forces have been trying to chip away at opposition-controlled parts of the province to protect their supply route between Ariha and Jisr Al Shughur.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces fought to rout Daesh militants from the western city of Ramadi on Wednesday, slowly regaining some ground from the militant group, security and local officials said.

The insurgents began encroaching on Ramadi two weeks ago and local officials warned it was about to fall, sending more than 100,000 people fleeing their homes in and around the provincial capital of Anbar.

Security officials said Daesh militants were being pushed back from sections near the military's Anbar operation command but booby-traps, snipers and suicide attacks were hindering government troops from recapturing other areas they lost last week.

"We're engaged in tough guerrilla warfare in Ramadi," said an Iraqi security officer whose unit is fighting in Ramadi. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the militants had dug tunnels between houses so they could carry out hit and run attacks.

Anbar provincial council member Falih Al Essawi said security forces were taking their time in advancing to avoid exposing themselves to sniper fire.

A spokesman for Iraq's counterterrorism forces, which are taking a lead role in the battle, told Reuters the troops had managed to recapture positions near the city centre but were still fighting to drive the militants from the city.

"Our main goal is to drive ISIS [Daesh] terrorists away from residential parts of the city towards open areas to make them an easy target for our forces," Sabah Al Noamani said.

The insurgents suffered a major defeat this month when Iraqi troops and Shiite paramilitaries expelled them from the city of Tikrit, but showed they could still strike by attacking Ramadi and Iraq's largest refinery in the north.

Iraqi forces regained control over most of the Baiji refinery at the weekend, but the militants made an incursion into the northern part of the sprawling complex late on Tuesday and briefly took over a key installation.

"We managed to repel the ISIS attack and drive them out of one of the installations this morning, but they still have a foothold near the southern gate of the refinery, and we need more reinforcements to take them out," said a police colonel by telephone from inside the complex.

In a separate incident, a car bomb blast killed seven people and wounded 13 in Baghdad's northern Talbiya neighbourhood, police and medical sources said.