Region

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is to make a formal request for extra time to piece together a new government, the president's office said Sunday.

After a surprise election victory, Netanyahu was on March 25 tasked by President Reuven Rivlin with forming the next government and given four weeks to do so.

With the deadline fast approaching, the Israeli leader was to formally request an extension of up to two weeks at a working meeting with Rivlin on Monday morning, the president's office said in a statement.

"At the conclusion of the meeting, the prime minister will request an extension of the time allocated to him to form the new governing coalition," a statement said.

"According to the Basic Law: ... the president has the power to extend that [initial four-week] period for a maximum of a further 14 days."

If he still cannot form a coalition, Rivlin can assign another party leader to the task - again with a 28-day deadline.

If that fails, he can select a third person who has just 14 days to complete the task. If that does not work, the president calls a new election.

Despite nearly four weeks of intensive negotiations, Netanyahu has not yet managed to reach agreement on the government he was hoping to form - which would comprise six rightwing and religious parties and have a majority of 67 in the 120-seat parliament.

Since the outset, Netanyahu has been expected to form a coalition which would comprise his rightwing Likud (30 seats), the far-right Jewish Home (eight), the hardline anti-Arab Yisrael Beitenu (six), the ultra-Orthodox parties Shas (seven) and United Torah Judaism (UTJ, six) and the centre-right Kulanu (10).

But as the talks have dragged on, there has been increasing talk about him turning to the centre-left Zionist Union to form a national unity government, although its leader, Isaac Herzog, has denied reports of a secret meeting with Netanyahu, scotching rumours of a deal.

"I said after the election results came in that we were headed to the opposition. That's not by default. That is our preference," he said late Saturday in remarks widely picked up by the Israeli press.

"Netanyahu needed to decide who he was forming a government with, and it is clear that he prefers a rightwing-religious government ... Our place is in the opposition. We will replace the Likud government."

The coalition will have to hit the ground running in order to shore up shattered ties with the administration of US President Barack Obama and address divisions at home.

It will also have to handle an emerging nuclear deal with Iran, vehemently opposed by Netanyahu, as well as the imminent threat of Palestinian legal action at the International Criminal Court.

ADEN — Clashes between rebels and pro-government forces and Saudi-led air strikes killed at least 60 people in Yemen, medics and military sources said Sunday, after Riyadh pledged to fund a UN aid appeal.

The United Nations says hundreds of people have died and thousands of families fled their homes since the coalition air war began on March 26 at the request of embattled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Ten Houthi rebels and four pro-Hadi "popular committees" militiamen were killed in pre-dawn clashes in the southwestern city of Taez, the sources said.

The city has seen fierce clashes over the past week, after having been largely spared in fighting that has spread across several provinces.

On Sunday, coalition warplanes pounded Houthi positions in Taez, an AFP correspondent said, adding that the streets were empty and shops were closed.

Air strikes on Shiite rebel positions in the southern city of Daleh as well as clashes on Sunday killed 17 Houthis and six southern fighters.

Seven more Houthis were killed in an attack by tribesmen in the southern province of Shabwa.

In Aden, 11 Houthis and five pro-Hadi fighters were killed in clashes on Saturday night and Sunday morning, military sources said.

The pro-Hadi fighters recaptured the Russian consulate and a Hadi residence from the Houthis, they added.

The rebels, who seized Sanaa unopposed in September, have since expanded their control across the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country.

Saudi King Salman ordered the aid pledge following a UN appeal on Friday for $274 million (253 million euros) in emergency assistance for the millions affected by Yemen's multi-sided conflict.

The kingdom "stands with its Yemeni brothers" and hopes for "the restoration of security and stability", the state Saudi Press Agency said.

UN Humanitarian Coordinator Johannes Van Der Klaauw said Friday that "ordinary families are struggling to access healthcare, water, food and fuel — basic requirements for their survival".

Aid trickles in 

Aid has only trickled in to Yemen, largely because of Saudi-led coalition restrictions on its airspace and ports.

On Saturday, the spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition said efforts are under way to step up aid to Yemen, after two loads of supplies donated by Qatar and the United Arab Emirates reached Yemen.

"Other cargos will follow in the coming days" in a "sea bridge to get aid to the Yemeni people”, Brigadier General Ahmed Al Assiri told reporters in Riyadh.

He insisted, however, that shipments must be coordinated with the coalition.

Aid group Doctors Without Borders said "more than 70 tonnes of medical material" arrived by plane in Sanaa on Saturday.

The UN agency for refugees says that up to 150,000 people have been displaced over the past three weeks, while more than 300,000 had already fled their homes because of unrest in past years.

The coalition has launched more than 2,000 air strikes on Yemen since its campaign began, Assiri said.

The Houthi rebels swept into the capital in September from their highland stronghold and later advanced south on the major Port of Aden, forcing Hadi to flee to Riyadh.

Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia fears the Houthis would shift Yemen into the orbit of its Shiite rival Iran.

Though a key ally of the Houthis, Iran denies arming the Shiite rebels who have allied with army units loyal to Ali Abdullah Saleh, the president forced out in Yemen's 2011 uprising.

On Friday, Tehran submitted a four-point Yemen peace plan to UN chief Ban Ki-moon — namely calling for a ceasefire, the resumption of political talks and the formation of a unity government.

Al Qaeda, which appears to have been spared the wrath of the coalition, has exploited the air war on the Houthis to expand its influence in Yemen.

On Friday it overran an army camp in the southern province of Hadramawt, a day after seizing the airport in provincial capital Mukalla.

On Saturday night, a US drone killed three Al Qaeda suspects when it targeted a vehicle in Saeed in Shabwa province, a tribal chief said.

PARIS — The first French weapons from a $3 billion Saudi-funded programme will arrive in Lebanon on Monday as allies seek to bolster the country's defences against Daesh terror group and other jihadists pressing along its Syrian border.

Anti-tank guided missiles are set to arrive at an air force base in Beirut, overseen by French Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and his Lebanese counterpart, Samir Mokbel.

France is expected to deliver 250 combat and transport vehicles, seven Cougar helicopters, three small corvette warships and a range of surveillance and communications equipment over four years as part of the $3 billion (2.8 billion-euro) modernisation programme.

It is being entirely funded by Saudi Arabia, which is keen to see Lebanon's army defend its borders against jihadist groups, particularly Daesh and Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra, instead of leaving the job to Hizbollah militants, who are backed by its regional rival, Iran.

The contract also promises seven years of training for the 70,000-strong Lebanese army and 10 years of equipment maintenance.

"This project is to help us re-establish a Lebanese army capable of responding to new security realities," said a French defence official.

Since the conflict in neighbouring Syria broke out in 2011, Lebanon has faced mounting spill-over threats, first from the millions of refugees pouring across the border and increasingly from jihadists.

"There are an estimated 3,000 armed militants based on our border, waiting for the moment to penetrate into the Bekaa valley," said Hisham Jaber, a former general now at the Middle East Centre for the Study of Public Relations in Beirut.

"They haven't come for tourism or to go skiing."

'Good fortune' 

Former colonial power France is actually a late-comer to the conflict, with almost all Lebanon's international support coming from the United States and Britain in recent years.

France only won the contract to supply the Lebanese army, argued analyst Aram Nerguizian, because Saudi Arabia had been frustrated by US and British refusal to attack the Syrian regime in 2013.

"It was good fortune for the French, but they have a lot to prove. The momentum of the US and UK defence programmes in Lebanon is far more consolidated," said Nerguizian, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

The challenge has been to find French military equipment that Lebanon actually needs, he said, and to ensure it can be integrated with their existing weapon systems.

Nerguizian said Lebanon had turned down France's Gazelle attack helicopter, Leclerc tank and larger warships, either because they were too expensive to maintain or not suited to the combat environment.

Instead, the focus is likely to be on radar capabilities, and command-and-control systems, which the Lebanese army currently lack, as well as transport aircraft.

"We urgently need helicopters. We are currently trying to transport elite units by truck," said Jaber.

The Cougar helicopters and corvette warships must first be built, and the first are not expected for at least 30 months.

'Night and day' 

A key problem has been France's unexplained reluctance to discuss the details of its modernisation programme with the US and Britain, said Nerguizian.

"They have perplexed their UK and US partners by not being clear about what is on the list," he said. "They need to be complementary or it becomes a problem."

Washington has provided around three-quarters of Lebanon's foreign military aid over the past decade — some $700 million — as well as Special Forces teams to train its elite units, according to IHS Jane's, a London-based think tank.

Britain has provided training facilities as well as watch towers and forward operating bases along the border with Syria.

This has led to a dramatic improvement in the Lebanese army's capabilities, said Nerguizian.

"Compared with just three years ago, it's like night and day. They have gone from a constabulary police force to being the only military in the world that is defending its frontiers against ISIS [Daesh]," he said.

But working with Lebanon is never simple. The sharp divisions between its religious and ethnic communities have been deepened by conflicting views on the Syrian war.

Hizbollah, which is a powerful political force in Lebanon, sent its fighters to support Syrian President Bashar Assad last year, but many Lebanese still deeply resent the Assad regime which effectively colonised the country up to 2005.

Meanwhile, Israel remains concerned about any military assistance that might bolster a regional rival or fall into the hands of Hizbollah, which fought a short and brutal war against Israel as recently as 2006.

"The Lebanese army is already well-infiltrated by Hizbollah," said an Israeli official on condition of anonymity. "But we understand the necessity of reinforcing the capacity of the Lebanese army."

BERLIN — A former intelligence officer for the late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was the mastermind behind Daesh’s takeover of northern Syria, according to a report by Der Spiegel that is based on documents uncovered by the German magazine.

Spiegel, in a lengthy story published at the weekend and entitled "Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Daesh", says it gained access to 31 pages of handwritten charts, lists and schedules which amount to a blueprint for the establishment of a caliphate in Syria.

The documents were the work of a man identified by the magazine as Samir Abd Muhammad Al Khlifawi, a former colonel in the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein's air defence force, who went by the pseudonym Haji Bakr.

Spiegel says the files suggest that the takeover of northern Syria was part of a meticulous plan overseen by Haji Bakr using techniques — including surveillance, espionage, murder and kidnapping — honed in the security apparatus of Saddam Hussein.

The Iraqi national was reportedly killed in a firefight with Syrian rebels in January 2014, but not before he had helped secure swathes of Syria, which in turn strengthened Daesh’s position in neighbouring Iraq.

"What Bakr put on paper, page by page, with carefully outlined boxes for individual responsibilities, was nothing less than a blueprint for a takeover," the story by Spiegel reporter Christoph Reuter says.

"It was not a manifesto of faith, but a technically precise plan for an 'Islamic Intelligence State' — a caliphate run by an organisation that resembled East Germany's notorious Stasi domestic intelligence agency."

The story describes Bakr as being "bitter and unemployed" after US authorities in Iraq disbanded the army by decree in 2003. Between 2006 to 2008 he was reportedly in US detention facilities, including Abu Ghraib prison.

In 2010 however, it was Bakr and a small group of former Iraqi intelligence officers who made Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi the official leader of Daesh, which calls itself the “Islamic State”, with the goal of giving the group a "religious face", the story says.

Two years later, the magazine says, Bakr travelled to northern Syria to oversee his takeover plan, choosing to launch it with a collection of foreign fighters that included novice militants from Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Europe alongside battle-tested Chechens and Uzbeks.

Iraqi journalist Hisham Al Hashimi, whose cousin served with Bakr, describes the former officer as a nationalist rather than an Islamist. The story argues that the secret to Daesh's success lies in its combination of opposites — the fanatical beliefs of one group and the strategic calculations of another, led by Bakr.

Spiegel said it had obtained the papers after lengthy negotiations with rebels in the Syrian city of Aleppo, who had seized them when Daesh was forced to abandon its headquarters there in early 2014.

DUBAI  — Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told military commanders on Sunday the United States had created the "myth" of nuclear weapons to portray Iran as a threat, hardening his rhetoric before nuclear negotiations resume this week.

Khamenei, the highest authority in Iran, has supported the nuclear talks but continues to express deep mistrust of the United States.

"They created the myth of nuclear weapons so they could say the Islamic republic is a source of threat. No, the source of threat is America itself, with its unrestrained, destabilising interventions," Khamenei said in a televised address to a hall of several hundred military commanders.

"The other side is methodically and shamelessly threatening us militarily ... even if they did not make these overt threats, we would have to be prepared," he said.

Political leaders in Iran and the United States have to contend with domestic constituencies sceptical about the outcome of the talks. Khamenei's comments did not appear to suggest he has withdrawn his cautious support for the diplomatic process.

Iran and six world powers including the United States reached a framework accord on Iran's disputed nuclear programme this month and will resume negotiations in Vienna this week, aiming to reach a final deal by the end of June.

The framework accord is a step towards a settlement that would allay Western fears that Iran could build an atomic bomb, with economic sanctions on Tehran being lifted in return.

Despite significant progress, the two sides still disagree on several issues, including how quickly international sanctions would be lifted under a final deal.

‘National humiliation’

Earlier this month, Khamenei insisted that all sanctions be lifted immediately on a deal being reached, a condition the US State Department dismissed. He warned of Washington's "devilish" intentions, even as he reaffirmed his support for Iran's negotiating team.

The deputy commander of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on Sunday rejected any inspections of military sites as a "national humiliation", highlighting another area of difference between the two sides.

"This subject is treasonous and selling out the country, and if anyone speaks of it we will respond with hot lead," Hossein Salami said, in comments cited by state news agency IRNA.

Republican US Senator Bob Corker, the co-author of legislation that would allow Congress to review any final nuclear deal with Iran, told CNN on Sunday that lifting of sanctions must be phased to ensure Iran's compliance and include broad inspection capabilities for military sites.

Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican 2016 presidential candidate, said the agreement thus far leaves too much infrastructure in place for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.

He told the CBS programme "Face the Nation" that US and international sanctions must remain in place, with a warning of US military action if certain thresholds are crossed.

"We don't want that to happen, but risk of a nuclear Iran is so great that that option must be on the table," Rubio said.

Khamenei also criticised US support for a Saudi-led offensive in Yemen, where a coalition of Arab countries is bombing Iran-allied Houthi rebels who seized the capital Sanaa last year and took control of other parts of the country.

"Today these tragic events are happening in Yemen and the Americans are supporting the oppressor," he said.

The four-week old campaign, in which Iran and Western countries have backed opposite sides, began during the last round of nuclear talks. Growing civilian casualties and Western suspicions that Iran is arming the Houthis have added to tensions.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi forces retook most of the country's largest refinery from Daesh on Saturday, officials said, reversing gains by the militants who seized parts of the sprawling complex in northern Iraq last week.

A spokesman for the US-led coalition fighting Daesh said troops had recaptured all of Baiji refinery at 11:30 GMT, but officials in Salahuddin, the province where it is located, said there was still fighting around some facilities.

The insurgents attacked the refinery a week ago by blasting through the security perimeter around it and taking over several installations, including storage tanks, a technical institute and a distribution point.

The Baiji refinery produced around 175,000 barrels per day before it shut in June when Daesh militants seized it at the same time as the city of Mosul. Iraqi forces retook it from militants in November but subsequently lost control again.

A source in the military command for Salahuddin province said clashes continued on Saturday, with insurgents fighting the army's elite Golden Division and paramilitaries in southern and western parts of the refinery complex.

Raid Jubbouri, the governor of Salahuddin province, said Iraqi forces were in full control of the refinery "from a military perspective", but some insurgents remained hidden inside the complex.

Daesh insurgents suffered a major defeat this month when Iraqi troops and Shiite paramilitaries routed them from the city of Tikrit, but struck back at Baiji and in the western province of Anbar.

Thousands of families have fled Anbar in recent days as Daesh militants encroached on Ramadi and local officials warned the city was about to fall.

Two members of the Anbar provincial council and police Major Khalid Al Fahdawi who is stationed inside Ramadi said reinforcements were on the way and the city was no longer in immediate peril.

“The danger is still there, but the situation is better than yesterday,” provincial council member Sabah Karhout told Reuters.

RAMALLAH — Israel has agreed to transfer in full hundreds of millions of dollars in taxes collected for the Palestinian Authority but frozen in a row over the International Criminal Court (ICC), the Palestinian premier said.

Rami Hamdallah, in a statement from his office late Friday, said Israel pledged at a meeting with Palestinian officials to hand over the taxes collected between December and March, amounting to almost half a billion dollars.

Israeli officials on Saturday confirmed an agreement was sealed on the taxes, while the media said the transfer of 1.8 billion shekels would take place on Monday.

The UN special coordinator for Middle East peace efforts, Nickolay Mladenov, welcomed the deal as an important step “in the right direction”.

The Palestinians had threatened to turn to the ICC over Israel’s decision in early January to retain the taxes in retaliation for the Palestinians joining the ICC.

The monthly funds account for two-thirds of the Palestinians’ annual budget, excluding foreign aid.

Israel agreed at the start of April to release the funds after deducting debts due for electricity, water and medical services, a proposal rejected by the Palestinians who insisted on full payment.

Hamdallah said the PA, once the funds are received, will firstly pay the April salaries of its 180,000 employees, who have been receiving only 60 per cent of their wages since December.

The deficit will also be paid “as soon as possible”, the prime minister said.

Under an economic agreement signed in 1994, Israel transfers to the PA tens of millions of dollars each month in customs duties levied on goods destined for Palestinian markets that transit through Israeli ports.

Although transfer freezes have been imposed many times, they have rarely lasted more than one or two months, except in 2006 when the Islamist movement Hamas won a landslide victory in Palestinian legislative polls and Israel withheld the funds for six months.

SANAA — Saudi Arabia pledged Saturday to cover the entire $274 million in humanitarian aid sought by the UN for conflict-torn Yemen, which has also been the target of Saudi-led air strikes against Shiite rebels.

The United Nations says hundreds of people have died and thousands of families fled their homes in the war, which has also killed six Saudi security personnel in border skirmishes.

At least 27 more people died in the southwestern city of Taez during overnight clashes between loyalist forces and the Iran-backed Shiite Houthi rebels as well as Saudi-led coalition air raids, medical sources said.

Saudi King Salman ordered the humanitarian pledge following a United Nations appeal on Friday for $274 million (253 million euros) in emergency assistance for the millions affected by Yemen's war.

The kingdom "stands with its Yemeni brothers" and hopes for "the restoration of security and stability", the state Saudi Press Agency said, quoting an official statement.

UN Humanitarian Coordinator Johannes Van Der Klaauw said in the appeal: "Ordinary families are struggling to access healthcare, water, food and fuel — basic requirements for their survival."

Aid has only trickled into the country, largely because of restrictions imposed by the coalition on the country's air space and sea ports.

The Houthi rebels swept into the capital Sanaa last September from their highland stronghold and then advanced south on the port city of Aden, forcing President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee to Riyadh.

Explosions, gunfire 

The coalition began its campaign after Saudi Arabia feared the Houthis, allied with army units loyal to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, would shift Yemen into the orbit of Shiite Iran, Sunni Saudi Arabia's regional rival.

Residents said explosions and gunfire shook Taez overnight during fighting between Hadi loyalists and the rebels.

Nineteen rebels, four soldiers of a mechanised army unit loyal to the president and four other pro-Hadi fighters were killed, a medical source told AFP.

Rival fighters also clashed Friday night in districts of Aden, the main southern city, residents and security sources said.

Pro-Hadi forces backed by air strikes held off rebels battling for the past week for control of Aden’s refinery, 15 kilometres to the west of the city.

The Yemen conflict has sent tensions soaring between Saudi Arabia and Iran — the foremost Sunni and Shiite Muslim powers in the Middle East, respectively.

Tehran is a key ally of the Houthis but denies arming them.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday that his country’s military should not be seen as a threat in the Middle East.

The presence of Iranian navy ships “in the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Aden is intended to ensure the security of neighbouring countries and maritime traffic”, he said in an Army Day ceremony.

On Friday, Iran submitted a four-point Yemen peace plan to UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

It calls for a ceasefire and immediate end to all foreign military attacks, the urgent delivery of humanitarian and medical aid, a resumption of political talks and the formation of a national unity government.

“It is imperative for the international community to get more effectively involved in ending the senseless aerial attacks and establishing a ceasefire,” Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif wrote in a letter to Ban.

No early end 

In Riyadh, coalition spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Al Assiri said late Friday that “from this afternoon we have started operations in Taez”.

There had been 100 sorties in Yemen on Thursday, he said, indicating no early end to the operation.

“This works needs patience, persistence and precision. We are not in a hurry... We have the time and we have the capabilities.”

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, said opposing forces in the southern city of Lahej, near Aden, had endangered a hospital.

“Fighters on both sides in Lahej have unlawfully put a hospital in the middle of a battle,” said Joe Stork, the watchdog’s deputy Middle East and North Africa director.

Yemen is also a front line in the US war on Al Qaeda, which has exploited the growing turmoil to expand its control of areas in the southeast of the deeply tribal Arabian Peninsula country.

On Friday, Al Qaeda overran a key army camp in the Hadramawt provincial capital Mukalla, seizing heavy weapons and consolidating its grip on the city, an official and residents said.

The World Health Organisation, in its latest toll, said 767 people have died in Yemen’s war since March 19 and more than 2,900 were wounded. The majority have been civilians.

Erbil, Iraq — Daesh terror group claimed Saturday a bombing near the US consulate in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region a day earlier that killed two Turks.

"Security detachments were able to... detonate a car bomb left at the American consulate building in the city that led to the killing and wounding of many of them," Daesh said in a daily audio message posted online.

But the US State Department said the bombing in Ainkawa, near Kurdish regional capital Erbil, did not kill or wound any consular employees.

Saman Barzanchi, the head of the Erbil health department, said Saturday that two ethnically Kurdish Turks were killed and eight people wounded.

Officials had said Friday three people were killed.

A Daesh-spearheaded offensive overran large areas of Iraq last year, and forces from the Kurdistan region have battled the jihadists on multiple fronts in the north.

The relatively stable region has largely been spared the bombings and shootings that have plagued other parts of Iraq on an almost daily basis.

The last major attack was a suicide car bombing near the governor's compound in Erbil in November.

KIRKUK, Iraq — Iraq is to test the body of a man killed on Friday by pro-government forces to determine if it is that of Saddam Hussein's long-fugitive deputy Izzat Ibrahim Al Duri.

Duri was vice president at the time of the 2003 US-led invasion.

Nicknamed "The Iceman" for his humble origins selling blocks of ice, he was the King of Clubs in the US deck of cards depicting most-wanted Iraqis.

Killing him would be a significant victory for Baghdad, but Duri has previously been reported dead only to resurface in audio and video messages.

It is "95 per cent [certain] that the body which we killed today belongs to Izzat Al Duri," army Staff Lieutenant General Abdulamir Al Zaidi said.

"I saw the body" and it appears to be Duri, Zaidi said, adding that it would be taken to Baghdad for testing.

Salaheddin province governor Raad Al Juburi said fighting in the province's Hamreen mountains area "killed 12 terrorists, among them Izzat Al Duri", but that testing was needed to provide confirmation.

Ahmed Al Krayim, head of the Salaheddin provincial council, confirmed that a body resembling Duri had been recovered in the Hamreen area.

Pictures circulated online showed the body of a man who bears some resemblance to Duri, but with a bushy red-dyed beard instead of the trimmed moustache he sported while in office.

Duri was already in poor health, suffering from leukaemia when US-led forces invaded Iraq.

Zaidi said the man suspected of being Duri was killed during 25 minutes of clashes with a joint force including pro-government paramilitaries in Hamreen, terming it "a great victory".

Bodyguards, cash 

Three vehicles were destroyed in the fighting, while light and medium weapons, Iraqi currency worth thousands of dollars and communications devices were seized, he said.

Omar Abdullah Al Jbara, a leader in the volunteer forces from the nearby Al Alam area, said they had received information that a group of 15 people had managed to sneak out of the city of Tikrit around the time it was retaken from jihadists earlier this month.

They searched unsuccessfully but received a tip on Friday from a person who had seen the group, after which volunteer fighters and police mobilised and clashed with them between Al Alam and Hamreen, killing 12.

The leader of the group — whom Jbara said resembled Duri and had the same blue tattoo on his right wrist and gold teeth — was guarded by four men, and they were the last to be killed.

The Army of the Men of the Naqshbandiyah Order — known by its Arabic initials JRTN and believed to be close to Duri — took part in a sweeping militant offensive that overran large areas north and west of Baghdad last June.

But little has been heard from JRTN and other groups in the months since, with the Daesh group, which led the drive, dominating conquered territory.

Senior members of Saddam's Baath party, to which Duri belonged, have also reportedly played a major role in Daesh itself.

Iraqi security forces performed dismally in the early days of the Daesh June 2014 offensive, but with backing from Shiite paramilitaries, US-led air strikes and Iran, have made major gains against IS in recent months.

Duri's home town of Dawr was retaken in March as part of an operation that eventually saw pro-government forces recapture Tikrit, Saddam's home town.