Region

CAIRO — Jihadists in Egypt's Sinai killed 15 soldiers and two civilians in attacks on checkpoints on Thursday, security officials said, the deadliest in months despite a massive army campaign against the insurgents.

The gunmen, believed to be members of Daesh terror group's Egypt branch, simultaneously opened fire with assault rifles and grenade launchers at five checkpoints in the restive north of the peninsula, the security officials said.

Medics confirmed 15 soldiers and two civilians were killed in the attacks.

Military sources said 15 militants also died in an exchange of fire but the toll could not be verified by medics.

It was the deadliest attack in Sinai since suicide car bombers and gunmen killed more than 30 soldiers at a military base in North Sinai's capital El Arish in January, prompting Egypt's president to shakeup the military command.

The army has since claimed it killed more than 170 militants in air strikes and ambushes.

Thursday's attacks suggested the jihadists were still capable of conducting large-scale attacks in broad daylight despite a massive army deployment.

In a separate incident, a mortar shell fell on a house east of El Arish, wounding three civilians, police and health officials said.

Ansar Beit Al Maqdis — Partisans of Jerusalem in English — changed its name last year to the Sinai Province after pledging allegiance to Daesh, which controls territory in Iraq and Syria.

The group, which has claimed several sophisticated attacks in Sinai and the Nile valley, now wants to establish a province of the self-declared Daesh “caliphate”.

After the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, militants claimed a string of deadly attacks against security forces which they claimed were in retaliation for a deadly government crackdown against Islamists.

Ansar Beit Al Maqdis had also claimed deadly cross border raids against Israel before Morsi’s overthrow, and repeatedly bombed a gas pipeline leading to Israel.

Most of their attacks have targeted police and soldiers, but the group also took responsibility for a 2014 suicide bombing aboard a tourist coach that killed three South Koreans and their Egyptian driver.

President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the former army chief who ousted Morsi, has pledged to eradicate the militants believed to be led by a mysterious Egyptian cleric known as Abu Osama Al Masri.

The militants, who have drawn recruits from Sinai’s long-marginalised bedouin, have taken advantage of the peninsula’s desert and mountain terrain to survive.

Thursday’s attack came as the United States pledged to free up a delivery of F-16 fighter jets to Egypt and channel military aid into securing the strategic peninsula Egypt regained from Israel in 1981 following a peace treaty.

Washington had suspended part of its annual $1.3 billion (1.2 billion euros) in military aid to Egypt in response to the crackdown on Morsi’s followers, which left hundreds of protesters dead. 

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — After marathon negotiations, the United States, Iran and five other world powers announced a deal Thursday outlining limits on Iran's nuclear programme so it cannot lead to atomic weapons, directing negotiators toward a comprehensive agreement within three months.

Reading out a joint statement, European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini hailed what she called a "decisive step" after more than a decade of work. Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif followed with the same statement in Farsi. US Secretary of State John Kerry and the top diplomats of Britain, France and Germany also briefly took the stage behind them.

In Lausanne, Kerry said in a tweet that there was agreement "to resolve major issues on nuclear programme. Back to work soon on a final deal." He was expected to brief reporters later Thursday.

Mogherini said the seven nations would now start writing the text of a final accord. She cited several agreed-upon restrictions on Iran's enrichment of material that can be used either for energy production or in nuclear warheads.

Crucially for the Iranians, economic sanctions related to its nuclear programmes are to be rolled back after the UN nuclear agency confirms compliance.

Zarif told reporters the agreement would show "our programme is exclusively peaceful, has always been and always will remain exclusively peaceful", while not hindering the country's pursuit of atomic energy for civilian purposes.

"Our facilities will continue," he said. "We will continue enriching, we will continue research and development." He said a planned heavy water reactor will be "modernised" and that the Iranians would keep their deeply buried underground facility at Fordo.

“We have taken a major step but are still some way away from where we want to be,” Zarif said, calling Thursday’s preliminary step as a “win-win outcome”.

Israeli leaders, deeply concerned about Iran’s intentions, were much less positive.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that a final agreement “must significantly roll back Iran’s nuclear capabilities and stop its terrorism and aggression”.

Mogherini said Iran’s heavy water reactor wouldn’t produce weapons-grade plutonium and that Fordo wouldn’t be a site for enrichment of uranium, which can be used for nuclear weapons.

The officials spoke following weeklong talks that were twice extended past a March 31 deadline for a preliminary deal. Although the US pushed for concrete commitments, the Iranians insisted on a general statement of what had been accomplished. Negotiators worked concurrently on documents describing what needs to be done for the final agreement.

The US and its five partners want to curb Iran’s nuclear technologies so it cannot develop weapons. Tehran denies such ambitions but is negotiating because it wants economic sanctions imposed over its nuclear programme to be lifted.

Washington, in particular, faces strong domestic pressure. Critics in Congress are threatening to impose new sanctions over what they believe is a bad deal taking shape and the Obama administration needed to make as many details public as possible to sell the merits of its diplomatic effort.

The final breakthrough came after a day after a flurry of overnight sessions between Kerry and Zarif, and meetings involving the six powers.

ADEN — Yemen's Houthi fighters and their allies seized a central Aden district on Thursday, striking a heavy blow against the Saudi-led coalition which has waged a week of air strikes to try to stem advances by the Iran-allied Shiite group.

Hours after the Houthis took over Aden's central Crater neighbourhood, unidentified armed men arrived by sea in an area of the port city which the Iran-allied Shiite fighters have yet to reach.

A Yemeni official denied that ground troops landed in Aden and a port official said they were armed guards who disembarked from a Chinese warship evacuating people from the city.

The Houthis and their supporters swept into the heart of Aden despite an eight-day air campaign led by Riyadh to stem their advances.

The southern city has been the last major holdout of fighters loyal to the Saudi-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who fled Aden a week ago and has watched from Riyadh as the vestiges of his authority have crumbled.

In a symbolic move, the Houthis fought their way into a presidential residence overlooking Crater, residents said. They said a jet bombed the complex shortly after Houthis moved in, and three air strikes shook the city further north.

The Houthis, who took over the capital Sanaa six months ago in alliance with supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, turned on Aden last month and have kept up their advances despite the Saudi-led intervention which aims to return Hadi to power.

Crater residents said Houthi fighters and their allies were in control of the neighbourhood by midday on Thursday, deploying tanks and foot patrols through its otherwise empty streets after heavy fighting in the morning.

It was the first time fighting on the ground had reached so deeply into central Aden. Crater is home to the local branch of Yemen’s central bank and many commercial businesses.

“People are afraid and terrified by the bombardment,” one resident, Farouq Abdu, told Reuters by telephone from Crater. “No one is on the streets — it’s like a curfew.”

Another resident said Houthi snipers had deployed on a mountain overlooking Crater and were firing on the streets below. Several houses were on fire after being struck by rockets, and messages relayed on loudspeakers urged residents to move out to safer parts of the city, he said.

Hadi’s rump government has appealed for international ground forces to halt the Houthis. Foreign Minister Reyad Yassin Abdulla said he could not confirm that coalition forces had landed in Aden, but told Reuters: “I hope so. I hope very much.”

A military spokesman in Riyadh said there had been no ground operation by the coalition in Aden, and Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States said the kingdom does not have “formal” troops on the ground there. But he reiterated that a ground operation remained a military option.

A diplomat in Riyadh said Aden had come to symbolise Hadi’s fading authority, meaning that Saudi Arabia could not afford to allow it to fall completely under Houthi control. But he said Riyadh’s air campaign was so far geared more towards a slow war of attrition than an effective defence.

“Saleh and the Houthis are keeping the pressure on Aden, which is the weak point in Saudi strategy,” he said. “I think the Saudis would put ground forces into Aden to recapture it if it falls. It is a red line for them.”

Al Qaeda jailbreak

The war on the Houthis is now the biggest of multiple conflicts being fought out in the Arabian Peninsula’s poorest state, also grappling with a southern secessionist movement, tribal unrest and a powerful regional wing of Al Qaeda.

The fighting has forced Washington to evacuate US personnel from the country, one of the main battlefields in the secret American drone war against Al Qaeda.

Huge street demonstrations in 2011 linked to wider Arab uprisings forced veteran leader Saleh to step down, but he has re-emerged as an influential force by allying himself with the Houthis, his former enemies.

The Houthis are drawn from a Zaidi Shiite minority that ruled a thousand-year kingdom in northern Yemen until 1962. Saleh himself is a member of the sect but fought to crush the Houthis as president.

In the Arabian Sea Port of Mukalla, 500km east of Aden, suspected Al Qaeda fighters stormed the central prison and freed 150 prisoners, some of them Al Qaeda detainees, sources in the local police and administration said.

They named one of the escapees as Khaled Batarfi, a provincial Al Qaeda leader who was arrested four years ago. Soldiers loyal to Hadi clashed with the suspected Al Qaeda fighters in Mukalla early on Thursday, residents said.

In Dhalea, 100km north of Aden, where militia fighters from the south have battled Houthis for several days, residents said the militia were in control of the town but Houthis were sniping from rooftops.

Residents also reported air strikes overnight on the coastal town of Shaqra, which is under Houthi control and lies on the coast between Aden and Mukalla.

China’s Xinhua news agency said a Chinese missile frigate evacuated 225 people, all non-Chinese nationals, from Aden on Thursday to Djibouti.

WASHINGTON — US President Barack Obama on Thursday said a framework agreement reached at talks in Switzerland on Iran’s nuclear programme is “a good deal” that would, if fully implemented, prevent Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and help make the world safer.

Speaking at the White House Rose Garden, Obama said he would talk with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — a fierce critic of an Iran deal — as well as US congressional leaders later on Thursday, and had already spoken with Saudi Arabia’s King Salman.

“It is a good deal,” Obama said.

“This is the best option,” he added, especially when compared to military action.

Obama, who delayed a scheduled trip to Kentucky and Utah to make the statement after negotiators announced the agreement, addressed critics of the talks with Iran and acknowledged that the framework deal alone would not erase distrust between the Washington and Tehran.

“Today, the United States, together with our allies and partners, has reached a historic understanding with Iran, which if fully implemented, will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon,” Obama said.

“If this framework leads to a final comprehensive deal, it will make our country, our allies and our world safer,” he said.

The framework agreement would cut off every pathway that Iran could take to develop a nuclear weapon, Obama said as he sought to sell the deal to the American public and US lawmakers.

“Iran will face strict limitations on its programme, and Iran has also agreed to the most robust and intrusive inspections and transparency regime ever negotiated for any nuclear programme in history. So this deal is not based on trust. It’s based on unprecedented verification,” Obama added.

Obama said there was always the possibility that Iran would try to cheat on the deal.

“If Iran cheats, the world will know it. If we see something suspicious, we will inspect it. Iran’s past efforts to weaponise its programme will be addressed,” Obama said.

BEIRUT — Washington is planning to increase the number of Syrian refugees allowed to resettle in the United States, mostly for vulnerable cases, a US official said Thursday.

Assistant Secretary of State Anne Richard said the numbers will still be very small compared with the nearly 4 million Syrians who have become refugees in neighbouring countries, mostly Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey.

Richard told reporters at the US embassy in Beirut that the US has received 648 Syrian refugees since the crisis began in 2011. She said the US is "moving to bring more refugees to the United States”, and that between 1,000 and 2,000 will be brought in by the end of September and several thousand others in 2016.

Washington seeks to bring "those who have severe medial conditions, widows and orphans" and traumatised people, she said.

Richard came to Lebanon from Kuwait where she took part in a donors' conference Tuesday that pledged $3.8 billion to help Syrians affected by the civil war.

At the conference, the US promised the largest single commitment of $508 million. Of that pledge, $118 million will be spent and invested in Lebanon, a country hosting 1.2 million Syrians, or nearly a quarter of its population, Richard said.

Richard added that after Lebanon, where she met some officials and visited a school where Syrian refugees are staying, she will be going to Turkey and Jordan.

ANKARA — A 19-year-old British woman, one of a group of medical students that includes seven Britons, an American and a Canadian thought to have travelled to join Daesh terror group, has told her family she wants to go home, a Turkish lawmaker has said.

"A female student, 19-year-old Lena, sent a message to her family saying she wanted to go back. We will try tomorrow to bring her and those who are with her back, if we can persuade them," opposition CHP lawmaker Mehmet Ali Ediboglu said in an interview with Reuters television late on Wednesday.

Thousands of foreigners from different countries have joined the ranks of radical groups such as Daesh in Syria and Iraq, many of them crossing through Turkey.

Turkey has stepped up border security, regularly releasing details of would-be fighters it has detained, after criticism it had not done enough to stem the flow of foreign fighters through the region.

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan will hold a special session of parliament on Monday to debate whether to join the Saudi-led coalition against anti-government rebels in Yemen, the prime minister's office said.

Islamabad, a close and long-standing ally of Saudi Arabia, has so far resisted Riyadh's demand for it to join the group of Arab nations trying to prevent Shiite Houthi rebels from taking over in Yemen.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif chaired a meeting on the Yemen crisis on Thursday after a high-level political and military delegation returned from a fact-finding trip to Saudi.

A statement released afterwards reiterated the government's stance that any breach of Saudi "territorial integrity" would bring a "strong response" from Pakistan.

It also condemned "actions by non-state actors in Yemen to overthrow a legitimate government”, but stopped short of committing to join the kingdom's coalition at this stage.

"The prime minister... emphasised that all decisions in the matter will be taken in accordance with the wishes of the people of Pakistan," the statement said.

"To this end, the prime minister is advising the president to convene a joint session of parliament on Monday April 6 to discuss this matter of national importance."

Pakistan faces a tricky dilemma over the intervention in Yemen. It enjoys long military ties with Saudi and has benefited hugely from the kingdom's largesse over the years.

Like Saudi, Pakistan is majority Sunni Muslim, but 20 per cent of its population is Shiite and it is wary of fanning sectarian discord at home.

Pakistan also borders Iran, the main Shiite power, which has strongly criticised the Saudi-led strikes on Yemen.

Moreover, concerns have been voiced in Pakistan about joining the Yemen intervention, seen by some as a "foreign" war, when the army is already stretched at home fighting Taliban militants.

TUNIS — Tunisia said on Thursday it plans to reopen a consulate in Syria and offered to invite the Syrian ambassador back to Tunisia in part to help track an estimated 3,000 Tunisian militants fighting in Iraq and Syria.

Last month, two Tunisians who trained with militants in neighbouring Libya, stormed the Tunis Bardo museum and shot 21 foreign tourists, one of Tunisia's worst such attacks.

"We will not have an ambassador there, but Tunisia will open a consulate or put in place a charge d'affaires, and a Syria ambassador is welcome to Tunisia, if Syria wishes so," Foreign Minister Taieb Bakouch told reporters. He gave no dates.

The minister said a consular presence in Syria would help Tunisia glean information on Tunisians fighting alongside Islamist militants in Iraq and Syria and who officials fear will return to carry out attacks at home.

Tunisia would also reestablish diplomatic relations with neighbouring Libya, Bakouch said.

In the four years since its Arab Spring uprising, Tunisia completed a mostly peaceful transition to democracy but has struggled to clamp down on Islamist militants who have been carrying out regular attacks.

After withdrawing their envoys after the start of the uprising against Syrian President Bashar Assad in 2011, some European Union countries have started to privately support more communication with Damascus.

Several countries including China, Indonesia and top allies Russia and Iran have envoys or charge d'affaires in Damascus.

DUBAI — A major sandstorm across the United Arab Emirates disrupted flights at Dubai's two international airports on Thursday and caused delays at other air transport centres in the Gulf, according to authorities.

The thick orange haze that had blanketed Saudi Arabia on Wednesday moved eastwards and severely reduced visibility, threatening to continue delays and cancellations for the rest of the day, the Dubai Airports live flight status website showed.

Dubai International was the world's busiest airport for international passenger traffic in 2014, replacing London's Heathrow for the first time, as 70.5 million passengers travelled through the airport.

"Bad weather conditions persisting across the Gulf region since morning have affected normal operations at Dubai International (DXB) and Al Maktoum International (DWC)," Dubai Airports, which operates both facilities, said in a statement.

In a later e-mailed statement, Dubai Airports said it had re-routed some flights during the day to Al Maktoum, Dubai's second airport that mainly handles cargo, and was working with all airlines to minimise disruption.

Flights into the international airport in neighbouring Abu Dhabi from Dammam, Muscat, Bahrain, Ras Al Khaimah and Mumbai during the morning were either delayed or cancelled, according to the flight status page on the airport's website.

But Abu Dhabi Airports Company, the airport's operator, said in a statement that "flight departure and landing are proceeding as normal with no delays or diversions to any of the scheduled flights from and to Abu Dhabi International Airport due to the sandstorm."

It said a departure from Abu Dhabi to Dammam in eastern Saudi Arabia and another to Bahrain had been delayed, but this was due to the bad weather conditions at those airports.

Air Arabia, which has a base in the smaller emirates of Sharjah and Ras Al Khaimah, has also experienced delays to scheduled flights due to the weather, a spokesman for the low-cost airline said.

Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain

Saudi Arabia's General Authority for Civil Aviation said in a statement late on Wednesday that flights from Riyadh, Dammam, Qassim and Hafr Al Batin had either been delayed or rescheduled due to the sandstorm.

Operations returned to normal on Thursday, it added.

A Qatar Airways spokesman reported minor disruption to some of its flights at Doha's Hamad International Airport on Thursday morning.

Bahrain Airport's flight schedule shows some cancelled and delayed regional flights operated by Gulf Air, with few other disruptions.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A Palestinian stabbed an Israeli soldier Thursday during an arrest of Palestinians who had sneaked past the West Bank separation barrier on their way into Israel, the military said.

The soldier was stabbed in the West Bank alongside the barrier. He suffered light injuries and was evacuated to the hospital, the military said.

Israel says its West Bank separation barrier is meant to prevent Palestinian attackers from entering Israel. Palestinians without Israeli entry permits frequently sneak past the barrier, often looking for work.

Also Thursday, Israel arrested a Palestinian lawmaker from a left-wing group for disobeying an Israeli order restricting her movement in the West Bank.

The Israeli military said it arrested Khalida Jarrar, a senior political leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, early Thursday in the West Bank city of Ramallah due to "substantial concerns about the safety and security of the region”.

Last year, the military confined her movement to the city of Jericho and its surroundings. The army said the restraining order was based on her "incitement and involvement in terror”.

Her husband, Ghassan Jarrar, said she was arrested from their Ramallah home. She had long flaunted the Israeli ban.

The military said it was questioning her but has not yet decided whether to press charges.