Region

TUNIS — Tunisia said Sunday it had killed the leader of the jihadists behind the massacre at its national museum, as foreign leaders joined thousands of Tunisians in a march against extremism.

Chanting "Tunisia is free! Terrorism out!" the demonstrators marched in a sea of red Tunisian flags to the capital's Bardo museum, where 21 foreign tourists were killed in the March 18 jihadist shooting rampage.

"The Tunisian people have proven that they will not give in to terrorism. My thanks go out to all and I tell the Tunisian people: 'Forwards. You are not alone,'" President Beji Caid Essebsi said after joining the march with foreign dignitaries.

French President Francois Hollande, whose country held a similar march after January's attacks in Paris, was among the figures attending along with Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas.

“We must all fight against terrorism,” Hollande told reporters after the march. “Tunisians wanted this international solidarity.”

Tunisian authorities earlier said Lokmane Abou Sakhr — an Algerian who allegedly masterminded the museum attack — was killed along with at least eight others from the notorious Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade.

Officials had accused Abou Sakhr and his group of organising the attack on the Bardo National Museum carried out by two gunmen who were shot dead, despite a claim of responsibility from Daesh terror group.

Tunisian forces “were able yesterday [Saturday] to kill the most important members of the Okba Ibn Nafaa Brigade including its head Lokmane Abou Sakhr”, Prime Minister Habib Essid told reporters.

Interior Ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told AFP that security forces had killed “nine terrorists” in an operation in the west-central area of Sidi Aich.

Show of unity 

Authorities say Okba Ibn Nafaa has been behind a series of attacks on security forces that have left some 60 dead since late 2012.

During the official march, a stone tablet was unveiled with the names of the foreign tourists and a Tunisian policeman killed in the attack.

The authorities gave no immediate estimate for the number of participants in the march, which took place amid tight security.

“Tunisia is not a country of jihad, extremism and terrorism!” yelled Majda Friga, a participant wrapped in the Tunisian flag.

“Let the terrorists leave our lands. Let them go to hell and leave us in peace,” said Fadhila Lahmar, a woman in her 60s.

Tunisia has seen an upsurge in Islamic extremism since overthrowing longtime strongman Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali in 2011, but has taken pride in forming a democratic government since the Arab Spring — in marked contrast to countries such as Libya, Syria and Yemen.

The moderate Islamist Ennahda main opposition party called on its supporters to join the march “as an expression of Tunisian unity in the face of this danger and of their determination to defend their country and... preserve their freedom”.

The country’s powerful UGTT trade union also urged its supporters to take part.

However, the leftist opposition Popular Front called for a boycott, accusing some participants of “hypocrisy”, referring to accusations that the Islamists in power after Tunisia’s 2011 revolution had failed to act against jihadists.

The march in Tunis echoed a similar anti-extremism demonstration in Paris after the deadly attacks on the Charlie Hebdo satirical weekly and a kosher supermarket.

The dead tourists were from Italy, Japan, France, Spain, Colombia, Australia, Britain, Belgium, Poland and Russia.

Officials have described the attack as “a big blow” to Tunisia’s crucial tourism industry.

Authorities have arrested nearly two dozen suspects in connection with the attack and fired senior police officials over alleged security failures.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces battled Daesh militants in central Tikrit on Sunday as the United States and its allies provided aerial support and local officials warned that the battle to retake the Sunni Muslim city would not be quick.

"A rapid advance in a city where the ground is littered with bombs and booby-traps is too tough to achieve," said Mayor Osama Al Tikriti.

Daesh fighters, whose goal is to create a Muslim caliphate across the Middle East, stormed into Tikrit last June during a lightning advance in which they seized swathes of Sunni Iraqi territory before finally being halted outside Baghdad.

Complicating matters around Tikrit was a decision by most Iranian-backed Shiite armed groups to boycott the current offensive in protest against the US-led air strikes that began on Thursday at the request of the Baghdad government.

The Shiite militias, aligned with Tehran, have repeatedly said they do not need US support to drive Daesh militants from Tikrit, home city of late Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.

The security forces and Shiite militias, who provided the largest number of fighters, began their offensive on March 2 but halted operations after two weeks due to heavy casualties and tensions within the government and with US officials over Iran's prominent role.

The battle remains slow-going. At least 17 security personnel have been killed in fighting and another 100 wounded around Tikrit since Thursday when the US air strikes began, a security officer told Reuters.

On Sunday, an attempt to infiltrate Tikrit from the southern district of Shisheen was thwarted by militants. They used anti-tank missiles to destroy a bulldozer being used by the military to clear a path around booby-trapped roads, an official said.

Fighting to the south of Tikrit underscored the high stakes of the war against Daesh as even areas under government and militia control near Baghdad remain vulnerable to lightning fast attacks by the Sunni jihadist fighters.

Daesh ambushed an Iraqi army and Shiite paramilitary base near Dujail on Sunday, killing six paramilitary volunteers and wounding 14 others, a security official said.

The clashes in the countryside around Dujail, just 54km from Baghdad, lasted until sunset and involved two suicide bombers and machine gunners in pickup trucks.

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — Saudi Arabia accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of hypocrisy on Sunday, telling an Arab summit that he should not express support for the Middle East while fuelling instability by supporting Syrian leader Bashar Assad.

In a rare move, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi announced that a letter from Putin would be read out to the gathering in Egypt, where Arab leaders discussed an array of regional crises, including conflicts in Syria, Yemen and Libya.

"We support the Arabs' aspirations for a prosperous future and for the resolution of all the problems the Arab world faces through peaceful means, without any external interference," Putin said in the letter.

His comments triggered a sharp attack from Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal.

"He speaks about the problems in the Middle East as though Russia is not influencing these problems," he told the summit right after the letter was read out.

Relations between Saudi Arabia and Russia have been cool over Moscow's support for Assad, whom Riyadh opposes. The civil war between Assad's forces and rebels has cost more than 200,000 lives in four years.

"They speak about tragedies in Syria while they are an essential part of the tragedies befalling the Syrian people, by arming the Syrian regime above and beyond what it needs to fight its own people," Prince Saud said.

"I hope that the Russian president corrects this so that the Arab world's relations with Russia can be at their best level."

The Saudi rebuke may have been awkward for summit host Egypt, which depends heavily on billions of dollars in support from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab allies, but has also improved ties with Moscow.

In February, Putin received a grand welcome in Egypt, signalling a rapprochement.

BEIRUT — A new video released by Daesh terror group on Sunday shows its fighters cutting off the heads of eight men said to be Shiite Muslims. The video posted on social media said the men were beheaded in the central Syrian province of Hama.

The video could not be immediately independently verified, but it appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting of the events. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also said that the video was authentic.

Daesh has beheaded scores of people since capturing large parts of Iraq and Syria last year in a self-declared caliphate.

In the video, the men, wearing orange uniforms with their hands tied behind their backs, were led forward in a field by teenage boys. They were then handed over to a group of Daesh fighters. A boy wearing a black uniform hands out knives to the fighters, who then behead the hostages.

A Daesh fighter speaks in the video, using a derogatory term for Shiites and calling them "impure infidels". The Daesh fighter said in the video that the current military campaign against Daesh will only make the militant group stronger.

"Our swords will soon, God willing, reach the Nuseiries and their allies like Bashar and his party," the man said referring to Syrian President Bashar Assad and Lebanon's Hizbollah group that is fighting on his side. The word Nuseiry is a derogatory term to refer to Assad's Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

In Lebanon, the state-run National News Agency quoted the family of Younes Hujairi, who was kidnapped from his hometown of Arsal near the Syrian border in January, as saying he had been beheaded. NNA quoted members of Hujairi's family as saying they have seen pictures of an Daesh fighter carrying his severed head on social media.

It was not clear if Hujairi was one of the men beheaded in the video. Hujairi is a Sunni, while the video states that all the beheaded men were Shiites.

The border town of Arsal, where Hujairi was kidnapped, was also the site of a bold joint raid by Daesh and Syria's Al Qaeda-linked Nusra Front last August that captured two dozen Lebanese soldiers and policemen. Four of those hostages have been killed so far, two of them beheaded by Daesh. The remaining 20 soldiers and policemen remain hostages.

BEIRUT — Syrians fled Idlib Sunday, fearing government reprisals a day after opposition fighters and a powerful local Al Qaeda affiliate captured the northwestern town, activists said.

Idlib, with a population of around 165,000 people, is the second provincial capital to fall to the opposition after Raqqa, which is now a stronghold of the Daesh group. Its capture by several factions led by the Al Qaeda-linked Al Nusra Front underscores the growing power of extremist groups in Syria, who now control about half the country.

Al Nusra Front and Syrian rebels have controlled the countryside and towns across Idlib province since 2012, but President Bashar Assad's forces had maintained their grip on Idlib city, near the border with Turkey, throughout the conflict.

Now that the city is in the hands of rebels, who stormed government buildings and tore down posters of Assad, many residents fear that troops will retaliate harshly.

Muayad Zurayk, an activist based in Idlib province, said via Skype that "residents are fleeing the city to nearby villages and towns”. He added that the situation was relatively quiet in the city Sunday despite some government shelling.

Rami Abdurrahman, who heads the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, confirmed some people were fleeing the city.

Also in Idlib, activists said members of a Syrian security agency killed more than a dozen detainees before withdrawing from a detention centre in the city. The activists said the killings were conducted shortly before rebels took the so-called security compound in Idlib on Saturday.

The Idlib Media Centre showed a video of what it said were at least 12 bloodied bodies inside a room at the Military Intelligence Directorate.

The Observatory said 15 men were found shot dead inside the compound. The group said 53 other detainees, including two women, were freed by the rebels in the compound.

More than 220,000 people have been killed in Syria's conflict, which began with an Arab Spring uprising in March 2011 and turned into an insurgency following a brutal military crackdown.

PESHAWAR — Pakistan evacuated about 500 of its nationals by plane from Yemen on Sunday during a brief pause in air strikes by a Saudi-led military coalition against Shiite Muslim Houthi forces, a Saudi military spokesman said.

Pakistan is a regional ally of Saudi Arabia, the main Sunni Muslim power in the Gulf, but has yet to say whether it will offer military support to Riyadh's campaign in Yemen.

Saudi military spokesman Brigadier General Ahmed Asseri said operations around the Red Sea port of Hodeida stopped for more than two hours on Sunday to allow the Pakistani evacuation.

"Around 500 Pakistani nationals were evacuated on Pakistani planes after the coalition forces provided a safe passage for them," Asseri told a news conference in Riyadh. "They were evacuated and arrived back in their country."

Their departure came a day after Saudi Arabia evacuated dozens of diplomats from Yemen and the United Nations pulled out international staff from the Yemeni capital Sanaa.

A Chinese vessel also docked in the southern Yemeni port of Aden on Sunday to transport Chinese diplomats, medical staff and technicians, a port source said.

Yemeni fighters loyal to Saudi-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi clashed with Iranian-allied Houthi fighters on Sunday in downtown Aden, the absent leader's last major foothold in the country.

Pakistan TV has interviewed distraught nationals trapped in Yemen who complained of nothing being done to rescue them.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif told Pakistan's parliament on Friday the government had made no decision on whether to give military support to the Saudi-led coalition, while pledging to defend Saudi Arabia against any threat.

"We have made no decision to participate in this war. We didn't make any promise. We have not promised any military support to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen," Asif said.

Asif told Reuters there was no danger of Pakistan getting caught up in a sectarian war. Pakistan has been plagued by sectarian violence on its own territory for years, with militant Sunni Muslim groups targeting its Shiite minority.

"So many minorities and sects live in Pakistan," Asif told Reuters. "Whatever assurances we give Saudi Arabia is to defend its territorial integrity, but I assure [you] that there is no danger of us getting involved in a sectarian war."

CAIRO — Egypt's public prosecutor has listed the Muslim Brotherhood's leader and 17 other top members of the group as terrorists, state media said on Sunday, part of a sustained crackdown by the authorities on Islamists.

Egypt has already listed the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation and jailed thousands of its supporters since the army removed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi from power in July 2013 following mass protests against his rule.

The Brotherhood's general guide Mohamed Badie and Khairat El Shater were listed alongside other members of the group's leadership, state news agency MENA said.

The move by public prosecutor Hesham Barakat was the first application of a terrorism law passed this year that requires the authorities to identify and list terrorist individuals and entities, MENA said.

Most members of the Brotherhood's leadership in Egypt are in custody and have already been given lengthy jail sentences or the death penalty. Badie has already been sentenced to death several times and Shater to life in prison.

The government blames the Brotherhood for attacks on Egyptian security forces that have killed hundreds of police officers and soldiers since Morsi's ouster.

The Brotherhood denies it is responsible for the attacks by suspected Islamist militants and says it is committed to political change through peaceful means.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has displayed "reprehensible animosity" towards Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, House Speaker John Boehner says.

Netanyahu's recent election victory dramatically exacerbated a diplomatic crisis with Washington, bringing his thorny relationship with US President Barack Obama into sharp focus.

In a bid to ramp up votes, Netanyahu had veered sharply to the right, vowing there would be no Palestinian state on his watch, promising to increase settlement construction and warning that Arab Israeli voters were going "in droves" to the polls, drawing a rebuke from the White House.

Republican Boehner, who invited Netanyahu to Washington in the lead-up to the Israeli election without consulting the White House, told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday: "I think the animosity exhibited by our administration toward the prime minister of Israel is reprehensible.

"And I think that the pressure that they've put on him over the last four or five years has, frankly, pushed him to the point where he had to speak up. I don't blame him at all for speaking up."

Boehner said his trip this week to Israel was planned "months ago".

"So it's not quite what I would describe as a victory lap," he added.

DUBAI — Just 4 per cent of emergency work in Syria for Palestinians has been funded so far this year, threatening the viability of a cash assistance programme that UNRWA spokesman Christopher Gunness described on Sunday as a "lifeline" for refugees.

He said the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) needs around $415 million, of which $250 million would fund its cash programme — which provides cash distributions for roughly half a million Palestinian refugees affected by the war in Syria.

Gunness spoke to The Associated Press from Kuwait, where an international conference will take place Tuesday to raise funds for humanitarian operations in Syria.

"We're not crying wolf here. If we don't receive the funds for this program at this conference in Kuwait we are going to have to cease in a matter of days our vital cash assistance program," he said.

"It will be devastating," he added. "This is literally a lifeline. It is quite literally a matter of life and death."

More than 95 per cent of Palestinian refugees from Syria rely on UNRWA assistance, particularly the cash distributions due to high unemployment caused by the Syrian civil war, now in its fifth year. The agency's relief reaches some 475,000 Palestinian refugees still residing in Syria, with another 45,000 in Lebanon and 15,000 in Jordan where many have fled.

Gunness said that last year, its emergency budget of $417 million was only 52 per cent funded. As a result, the agency had to slash its rounds of cash distribution in half and beneficiaries received just $16 per month, or around 60 cents a day.

At last year's donors' conference in Kuwait, nearly 40 nations and key organisations pledged $2.4 billion for overall needs in Syria. But $585 million had not been paid, according to information released in November by the UN humanitarian office's Financial Tracking Service.

In December, the World Food Programme was forced to launch a social media campaign to raise money from people online after an electronic food voucher programme for Syrian refugees was suspended because many donors failed to meet their commitments.

LAUSANNE, Switzerland — Iran and six world powers tried to break an impasse in nuclear negotiations on Sunday, but officials cautioned that attempts to reach a preliminary deal by a deadline in two days could yet fall apart.

The two sides explored compromises in areas including numbers of centrifuges used to enrich uranium that Iran could operate, and its nuclear enrichment work for medical research.

But Israel, which feels especially threatened by the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran, said the details of a possible framework agreement emerging from the talks in the Swiss city of Lausanne were even worse than it feared.

The six powers — the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China — want at least a 10-year suspension of Iran's most sensitive nuclear work. Tehran, which denies it trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability, is demanding an end to international sanctions that are crippling its economy.

Officials warned that deep disagreements remained over several sticking points in Lausanne. Nevertheless, they said that in recent days the two sides have been closing in on a preliminary deal that could be summarised in a brief document of several pages that may or may not be released.

Several officials told Reuters that Tehran had indicated a willingness to cut the number of centrifuges it uses to fewer than 6,000, thereby slowing its programme, and to send most of its enriched uranium stockpiles for storage in Russia.

Western powers, on the other hand, were considering the idea of allowing Iran to conduct limited, closely-monitored enrichment-related work for medical purposes at an underground facility, the officials added on condition of anonymity.

Iran had originally insisted on keeping in operation the nearly 10,000 centrifuges it currently uses, but said in November that Washington indicated it could accept around 6,000. Iranian officials say they had been pushing for 6,500-7,000.

All parts of an emerging nuclear deal are interrelated. "Everything could still fall apart," a Western official told Reuters, adding that the talks could drag on to Tuesday, the self-imposed deadline for a framework agreement.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi also said the outcome was uncertain. "All sides are working hard to resolve remaining issues but there is still a long way to go," he told reporters.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier warned that the stakes were high. "I can't rule out that there will be further crises in these negotiations," he told reporters.

A main sticking point is Iran's demand that it continue with research into a new generation of advanced centrifuges. These machines can purify uranium faster and in greater quantities for use in nuclear power plants or, if very highly enriched, in weapons.

Another question is over the speed of removing United Nations sanctions on Iran. A senior US official said there were unresolved questions on other issues but expected those would fall into place if the big sticking points could be worked out.

The US official added that the negotiators were working towards something that would be called an "understanding", as opposed to a formal agreement.

Such a deal would form the basis of a comprehensive deal, including all technical details, to be tied up by June 30.

The powers' aim is to ensure that Iran is kept at least one year away from the ability to produce enough fissile nuclear material for a single weapon for at least 10 years.

Israel furious

"We're hopeful, but there is still a lot of work to be done," French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters on Sunday. His remarks contrasted to hostility from Israel, which is believed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal but is not a party to the talks.

"This deal, as it appears to be emerging, bears out all of our fears, and even more than that," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told his Cabinet in Jerusalem.

Netanyahu referred to advances made by Houthi rebels allied to Tehran in Yemen, and accused the Islamic republic of trying to "conquer the entire Middle East".

"The Iran-Lausanne-Yemen axis is very dangerous to humanity, and must be stopped," he said.

In the past, Israel has threatened to attack Iran if it is not happy with an eventual deal and has long described France as the negotiating power with a position closest to its own, a view confirmed by officials close to the talks.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who met Fabius in Lausanne on Sunday, said there was now positive momentum towards a comprehensive agreement. However, "some outstanding differences remain obstacles in the negotiation process," his ministry quoted him as saying.

Fabius, Steinmeier and US Secretary of State John Kerry have all canceled travel plans so they could remain in Lausanne to continue the talks at a ministerial level. If there is a deal, the talks may shift to Geneva for the announcement.

Their Russian and British counterparts are expected in Lausanne soon.