Region

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia will no longer issue business visas to Swedes or renew the current visas of Swedish nationals living in the country, a senior Saudi official told The Associated Press on Thursday.

The official said the decision is in response to Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom's recent criticism of Saudi Arabia's record on human and women's rights. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to release the information.

The move appears aimed at pressuring Stockholm to distance itself from Wallstrom's comments. She spoke out during a speech in the Swedish Parliament against the flogging of a Saudi blogger who was convicted of insulting Islam on a liberal blog he founded. She said the royal family had absolute power, making Saudi Arabia a "dictatorship" where "women's rights are violated".

Swedish companies are concerned that the escalation in tensions and the visa ban will hinder their ability to do business in Saudi Arabia, said Andreas Astrom, the communications director at Stockholm's Chamber of Commerce.

"This is going to have a vast negative impact for the companies with interest in the region," he said. "This is not good for Swedish business society and, in the long run, jobs in Sweden."

Sweden's new left-wing government recently declined to renew a defence cooperation agreement with Saudi Arabia, which has since recalled its ambassador to Sweden.

Sweden last year exported nearly $1.3 billion worth of goods to Saudi Arabia, making it the 18th most important exporting country for Sweden, according to the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce. Multinational companies like Volvo, H&M and IKEA operate in Saudi Arabia, as do a range of medium-sized businesses.

The United Arab Emirates on Wednesday also recalled its ambassador to Sweden to protest criticism of its neighbour Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are close allies and members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, an energy-rich coalition of Arab monarchies. The GCC's Secretary-General Abdullatif Al Zayani on Thursday met with Sweden's Ambassador in Riyadh to formally criticise Wallstrom's remarks as "unacceptable interference in the internal affairs of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia”.

BAGHDAD — A bombing by the Daesh group in the city of Ramadi last week killed 13 Iraqi soldiers, the defence ministry said Thursday, denying reports they died in an air strike.

The March 11 blast completely destroyed a house used by the army in Anbar provincial capital Ramadi, west of Baghdad, and damaged neighbouring homes as well, the ministry said, announcing the results of a probe.

"The bodies of 13 of our heroic martyrs were found lying at various distances from the site of the explosion," it said, without specifying whether this was the final toll or if more might still be missing.

The blast occurred from the bottom up and there was evidence of a tunnel leading to the house, used as the headquarters of an army company, from the direction of Daesh lines, it said.

The ministry rejected reports that the blast was caused by an air strike, saying that neither Iraqi aircraft nor those from a US-led coalition carrying out strikes against Daesh were active in the area at the time.

Daesh launched a series of 23 bombings in Ramadi that day, it said.

Anti-government fighters have held parts of Ramadi for more than 14 months.

The city has seen heavy fighting between security forces and Daesh, which spearheaded a sweeping offensive last June that overran large areas north and west of Baghdad.

ERBIL, Iraq — Iraq has not requested air support from the US-led coalition for its campaign to retake Tikrit from Daesh insurgents, a senior military official in the coalition said on Thursday, as the assault on the city remained on pause for nearly a week.

Some Iraqi officials this week said more air strikes are needed to dislodge the militants, who are holed up in a vast complex of palaces built when Saddam Hussein was in power and have turned the city into a labyrinth of homemade bombs and booby-traps.

The coalition has been conspicuously absent from the campaign — the largest to be undertaken by Iraqi forces and Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militia groups since Daesh overran a third of the country last summer.

"We have not been asked by the Iraqi government to conduct air strikes in Tikrit," said the senior military official in the coalition, declining to speculate why. "We don't conduct any strikes without the request and agreement of the government of Iraq or the Kurdistan Regional Government."

More than 20,000 troops and Shiite militiamen are taking part in the offensive, which began more than two weeks ago, supported by a relatively small contingent of Sunni Muslim fighters from Tikrit and the surrounding area.

Having made steady progress towards Tikrit, retaking the surrounding towns before entering the city itself last week, the offensive has slowed and there have been no major advances since Friday.

Iraqi officials say there is no doubt they will prevail in Tikrit, but they have paused to await reinforcements, limit casualties in their ranks, and give remaining civilians one last chance to leave.

The senior military official in the coalition said it was "absolutely normal" that Iraqi forces should stop to regroup before a final assualt on the Sunni Islamist militants, now cornered in an area bounded by the river Tigris to the east.

Asked about the coalition's view on the involvement of Shiite militias in Tikrit and elsewhere, the senior official said it was up to Baghdad which forces took part.

"I think any force that is here and the government of Iraq uses in the fight against IS (Daesh) is a good thing," the official said. "It's been quite effective."

ISTANBUL/BERLIN — The United States still wants a negotiated political settlement in Syria that excludes President Bashar Al Assad, according to a senior US envoy, but Washington’s close ally Germany said talks with the Damascus government might still be necessary.

As German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier hosted talks of the coalition against Daesh terror group on Wednesday which included the US special envoy John Allen, the pair appeared to contradict each other on how to handle Assad’s government.

US Secretary of State John Kerry raised concerns among Middle East allies who want Assad removed when he said on Sunday that the United States would have to negotiate with the Syrian president, who has been fighting Islamist and other rebels since 2011.

The US State Department that Kerry heads later maintained that he had not specifically referred to the Syrian leader, and that Washington would never bargain with him.

On Wednesday, Allen said Assad had no legitimacy as a ruler.

“General Allen reiterated that the United States position on Assad has not changed,” the US Embassy in Ankara said in a statement late on Tuesday after Allen held talks there.

“The United States believes that he has lost all legitimacy to govern, that conditions in Syria under his rule have led to the rise of ISIL [Daesh] and other terrorist groups, and that we continue to seek a negotiated political outcome to the Syrian conflict that does not in the end include Assad.”

But Steinmeier was quoted in German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday as saying: “The only way to an end to the violence is via negotiations for a political solution, even if that makes talks with the Assad regime necessary.”

Kerry’s comments at the weekend drew condemnation in Turkey, one of Assad’s most strident opponents, with Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saying negotiating with the Syrian leader would be like shaking hands with Adolf Hitler.

Allen and Steinmeier decline questions from reporters at the start of the meeting on how to stabilise Iraq and Syria once Daesh, which Steinmeier called “one of the most abhorrent terrorist organisations mankind has ever seen”, is beaten.

Steinmeier told the meeting the prime responsibility for improving the situation in Syria lies with Damascus, which must halt what he called “massive violence” against its own people.

But he pointed to a risk that success against the insurgents in Iraq could further complicate the situation in Syria. “Daesh has grown strong in Syria and there is a risk that success in Iraq may push Daesh back into Syria, where Assad has so far shown little enthusiasm to fight them.”

TUNIS — Gunmen in military uniforms stormed Tunisia's national museum, killing 17 foreign tourists and two Tunisians on Wednesday in one of the worst militant attacks in a country that has largely escaped the region's "Arab Spring" turmoil.

Visitors from Italy, Germany, Poland and Spain were among the dead in the noon assault on the Bardo museum near parliament in central Tunis, Prime Minister Habib Essid said.

Security forces stormed the former palace around two hours later, killed two militants and freed other tourists held hostage inside, a government spokesman said. One policeman was killed in the police operation.

European Union foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said "terrorist organisations" were behind the attack. "The EU is determined to mobilise all the tools it has to fully support Tunisia in the fight against terrorism," she added.

Prime Minister Essid declared in a national address:

“All Tunisians should be united after this attack which was aimed at destroying the Tunisian economy.”

Television footage showed dozens of people, including elderly foreigners and one man carrying a child, running for shelter in the compound, covered by security forces aiming rifles into the air.

The attack on such a high-profile target is a blow for the small North African country that relies heavily on European tourism and has largely avoided major militant violence since its 2011 uprising to oust autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Tunisia’s uprising inspired “Arab Spring” revolts in neighbouring Libya and in Egypt, Syria and Yemen. But its adoption of a new constitution and staging of largely peaceful elections had won widespread praise and stood in stark contrast to the chaos that has plagued those countries.

Authorities did not immediately identify the gunmen.

But several Islamist militant groups have emerged in Tunisia since the uprising and authorities estimate about 3,000 Tunisians have also joined fighters in Iraq and Syria — raising fears they could return and mount attacks at home.

“Two terrorists disguised in military clothes got into the parliament building, then the museum where they attacked tourists. Nineteen people were killed including 17 foreign tourists. Twenty-two tourists are wounded,” the prime minister said.

Arab spring revolts

“Two militants opened fire on the tourists as they were getting off the buses before fleeing into the museum,” one Bardo employee told Reuters at the scene.

An official at the Italian foreign ministry in Rome said two Italians had been wounded in the attack.

About another 100 Italians were in the area and had been taken to safety by Tunisian police, authorities added.

The museum is known for its collection of ancient Tunisian artifacts and mosaics and other treasures from classical Rome and Greece. There were no immediate reports the attackers had copied Islamic State militants in Iraq by targeting exhibits seen by hardliners as idolatrous.

Daesh affiliates are gaining a foothold in neighbouring Libya where two rival governments are battling for control. A senior Tunisian militant was killed while fighting for Daesh in the Libyan city of Sirte over the past week, authorities said.

Wednesday’s assault was the worst attack involving foreigners in Tunisia since an Al Qaeda suicide bombing on a synagogue killed 21 people on the tourist island of Djerba in 2002.

BAGHDAD — Iraq's Sunni province of Anbar is key to launching the long-awaited operation to retake the city of Mosul from Daesh terror group, the country's defence minister said Wednesday.

Khalid Al Obeidi's remarks reflected the challenges Iraqi forces, backed by US-led coalition air strikes, face as they try to claw back territory captured by Daesh militants. They also indicate the operation to take back Mosul, Iraq's second-largest city, may come later than expected.

At the moment, Iranian-backed Iraqi soldiers and allied Shiite militias are fighting to retake Daesh-held city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown — an offensive that is taking place without US air strikes.

Obeidi told reporters Wednesday that before Iraqi forces can undertake the battle for Mosul, they must "secure" Anbar so that it cannot serve as staging ground for militant counterattacks.

Anbar, west of Baghdad, was the first province to fall under Daesh’s control during the group's blitz last year. The province shares a long border with Syria, which has enabled the militants to move fighters and weapons between the two countries virtually unpoliced.

“We must secure Anbar and we are now focused on securing Anbar,” Obeidi said. He singled out the town of Hit, in Anbar, saying it is an obvious place from where Daesh can strike back.

Tikrit is viewed by Iraqi forces as key to opening a strategic corridor that leads to Mosul from one direction. US officials had said that there would likely be a spring offensive to reclaim Mosul, but Iraqi officials have backed away from setting a timeline.

Also Wednesday, a leading international rights group accused Iraq’s Shiite militias fighting alongside government forces of carrying out the of “deliberate destruction of civilian property” after the town of Amirli, northeast of Baghdad, and the surrounding area was recaptured from Daesh last year.

Human Rights Watch (HRW), in a report focusing on the Shiite militias’ role in freeing Amirli, cited evidence of militiamen looting the property of Sunni civilians who had fled the fighting, burning their homes and businesses, and destroying at least two villages.

“Iraq clearly faces serious threats in its conflict with ISIS [Daesh], but the abuses committed by forces fighting Daesh are so rampant and egregious that they are threatening Iraq long-term,” said Joe Stork, the deputy Middle East and North Africa director at HRW.

“Iraqis are caught between the horrors ISIS commits and abusive behaviour by militias, and ordinary Iraqis are paying the price,” Stork added, using an alternative acronym for Daesh.

In Baghdad, the spokesman for Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi’s office said the government has “zero tolerance for any human rights violations”.

In response to the report by the New York-based watchdog, Rafid Jabouri said that “if anything needs to be investigated, it will be.”

CLEVELAND — The White House on Wednesday scolded Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu following his re-election victory for abandoning his commitment to negotiate for a Palestinian state and for what it called "divisive" campaign rhetoric towards Israel's minority Arab voters.

Even as US President Barack Obama's administration congratulated Netanyahu for his party's decisive win in Tuesday's ballot, the White House signaled its deep disagreements — and thorny relationship — with Netanyahu will persist on issues ranging from Middle East peacemaking to Iran nuclear diplomacy.

In a hard-right shift in the final days of campaigning, Netanyahu backtracked on his support for eventual creation of a Palestinian state, the cornerstone of more than two decades of peace efforts — and promised to go on building Jewish settlements on occupied land. Such policies could put him on a new collision course with the Obama administration.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Wednesday reaffirmed Obama's commitment to a two-state solution to the Middle East conflict and said that based on Netanyahu's comments, "the United States will evaluate our approach to this situation moving forward”.

He said the United States believes that establishment of a Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israelis is "the best way to defuse regional tensions”.

Netanyahu’s insistence that there will be no Palestinian state while he holds office — seen as a manoeuvre to mobilise his right-wing base when his re-election prospects were flagging — angered the Palestinians and drew criticism from the United Nations and European governments. Chances for restarting long-stalled Middle East peace moves already had been very low.

Deep concern

Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One on the way to Cleveland, Earnest said the administration would communicate its concern directly to the Israeli government over much-criticised rhetoric used by Netanyahu’s campaign.

He charged on election day in Israel that left-wingers were trying to get Arab-Israeli voters out “in droves” to sway the election against him.

“The United States and this administration is deeply concerned about rhetoric that seeks to marginalise Arab-Israeli citizens,” Earnest said. “It undermines the values and democratic ideals that have been important to our democracy and an important part of what binds the United States and Israel together.”

Arabs comprise about 20 per cent of Israel’s population of eight million and have long complained about discrimination. They emerged from Tuesday’s vote as the third largest party in parliament.

Two weeks ago Netanyahu defied Obama with a politically divisive speech to Congress attacking US-led nuclear talks with Iran. The final days of campaigning only served to deepen tensions with the White House.

Despite US concerns, Earnest said Secretary of State John Kerry had called Netanyahu to congratulate him on his election victory and Obama would follow suit “in coming days.”

“The unprecedented security cooperation between the United States and Israel, including our strong military and intelligence relationship will continue and that relationship will continue,” Earnest said.

US officials had left little doubt they hoped for an election outcome that would create a new ruling coalition more in sync with — or at least less hostile to — Obama’s agenda, especially with an end-of-March deadline looming for a framework nuclear deal in negotiations between Tehran and world powers.

But Netanyahu’s Likud party looked set to win 30 seats in the 120-member Knesset, comfortably defeating the centre-left Zionist Union opposition with 24 seats.

Although Netanyahu must still put together a coalition to remain in power, his victory all but guarantees that Israel’s president will give him the first opportunity to form a government, putting him on course to become the longest-serving leader in Israeli history.

SANAA — Assailants on a motorbike on Wednesday shot dead one of Yemen's top journalists, Abdul Kareem Al Khaiwani, who is also an activist close to the country's dominant Houthi group, police sources said.

The group's television channel Al Maseerah said Al Khaiwani, who had served as a delegate for the group in a national dialogue conference on Yemen's future, was "martyred in a criminal assassination" near his house in the centre of the capital Sanaa.

The killing ends a relative lull in bombing and shooting attacks in the capital since the Houthis ousted the government in January.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, though Sunni Muslim Al Qaeda militants have claimed several previous attacks on the Shiite Houthis, whom it regards as heretics.

Yemen is torn by a power struggle between the Iranian-backed Houthis in the north and the UN-recognised President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who has set up a rival seat in the southern port city of Aden with Gulf Arab support.

Khaiwani's editorials were once the scourge of Yemen's veteran autocrat, former President Ali Abdullah Saleh, and he accused the ruler of 33 years of styling his son to succeed him.

Growing closer to the Houthi movement when Arab Spring protests ousted Saleh in 2012, Khaiwani was among several delegates who represented the group at the talks, convened to map out reforms to be incorporated into a new draft constitution before the Houthis captured Sanaa in September.

But the liberal writer earned the ire of activist allies when he backed the group's dissolution of parliament in February — which critics called a coup — but was remembered fondly for his muckraking past.

DUBAI — The United Arab Emirates said Wednesday that it has recalled its ambassador to Sweden to protest comments made by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom criticising neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

The move comes one week after Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Sweden after Wallstrom strongly criticised the women's rights situation in Saudi Arabia and the flogging in January of a Saudi blogger convicted of insulting Islam and breaking Internet laws.

The official UAE news agency, WAM, reported that Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Anwar Gargash also summoned Sweden's Ambassador to the UAE Jan Thesleff to formally condemn the "abusive remarks" made about Saudi Arabia and its judicial system.

Gargash said Wallstrom's statements "violate the principle of sovereignty upon which the normal relations between countries are based" and fail to respect "the religious and cultural particularities of states and communities".

Saudi Arabia and the UAE are close allies and members of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, a clubby energy-rich coalition of Arab monarchies.

Saudi Arabia is the regional heavyweight of the group and its most conservative member. Women in Saudi Arabia are not allowed to drive and need the written consent of male guardians to travel abroad, for example. The UAE, by contrast, is among the Gulf's most liberal countries, where foreigners greatly outnumber locals.

Wallstrom's spokesman Erik Boman told The Associated Press that Sweden regrets the UAE's decision.

"We have good and broad relations with the United Arab Emirates that we want to protect and develop," he said. "We don't want to do draw any exaggerated conclusions about this."

Asked if Wallstrom was considering apologising to Saudi Arabia for her comments, Boman said "she stands by what she's said earlier". He added that Sweden hopes to resolve its bilateral issues with Saudi Arabia as soon as possible.

Relations between the two countries started to fray after a left-wing government took office in Stockholm in October and refused to renew a 10-year-old weapons deal with Riyadh.

GAZA/RAMALLAH — Palestinian leaders on Wednesday called for international pressure on Israel and support for their unilateral moves towards statehood after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's election win.

Netanyahu's surprise victory, after pledging in the final days of the campaign that there would be no Palestinian state as long as he was in power, left Palestinians grim about prospects for a negotiated solution to a decades-old conflict.

"It is clear Israel has voted for burying the peace process, against the two-state choice and for the continuation of occupation and settlement," Saeb Erekat, chief Palestinian negotiator in talks with Israel that collapsed in April, told Voice of Palestine radio.

Seeking to shore up right-wing votes and saying that Islamist militants would move into any territory relinquished by Israel, Netanyahu also vowed to keep building settlements on occupied land Palestinians seek for a state.

Palestinian leaders said a fourth term for the Likud Party leader meant they must press forward with unilateral steps towards independence, including filing charges against Israel at the International Criminal Court (ICC).

"This makes it more necessary than ever to go to the international community, and to go to the ICC and escalate peaceful resistance and boycott against the occupation," Wasel Abu Youssef, a Palestine Liberation Organisation leader, told Reuters.

The Palestinians are due to become ICC members on April 1.

Erekat called in a statement on the international community to back Palestinian efforts "to internationalise our struggle for dignity and freedom through the International Criminal Court and through all other peaceful means".

In the West Bank city of Ramallah, taxi driver Zeyad Maaly said Palestinians should now rise up against Israel in the occupied territory.

"There will never be peace, not even in dreams," he said.

Ismail Ahmed, who drives a taxi in Hamas Islamist-run Gaza, where Israel and Palestinian groups fought a 50-day war last summer, said Palestinians should now put aside their differences and join in a common front against Israel.

"This is the only way we can make them recognise us," Ahmed said.

Netanyahu's stand against a Palestinian state had already threatened to strain ties with the United States and Europe.

The parliaments of several European countries, including Britain and France, have called on their governments to recognise an independent state of Palestine in the past year, reflecting exasperation at continued settlement building on occupied land. Sweden formally recognised Palestine in October.

Netanyahu, who in 2009 had endorsed the two-state solution, seemed on course to form a coalition government leaning further to the right than his outgoing Cabinet, which had included two centrist parties and engaged in the US-brokered peace talks.

‘Masquerade over’

In his new coalition, Netanyahu is expected to include his natural allies, religious and far-right parties, as well as one centrist party which campaigned on internal social-economic issues rather than on matters of war and peace.

Yariv Oppenheimer, head of the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, said he was concerned that as head of rightist-dominated government, Netanyahu would move forward more easily towards expanding settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, enclaves many countries view as illegal.

"Netanyahu's masquerade is over. Everything's clear now, we're talking about a man who has sworn allegiance to the right, not about a centrist," Oppenheimer said.

Adding to Palestinian frustration is Israel's January decision to withhold $127 million tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, a retaliatory step after the Palestinians moved to join the ICC.

Though Israeli officials have indicated no imminent change, Gaza-based political analyst Hani Habeeb said Netanyahu may unfreeze the funds, which cover around two-thirds of the Palestinian budget, now that the election is over.

"I do not rule out Netanyahu releasing the PA tax revenues to improve his [international] image," Habeeb said. "He used it as a card during the election campaign and now he won."

Erekat suggested the Palestinians may press on with their pledge this month to suspend security coordination with Israel, a move that could have an immediate impact on stability in the West Bank.

But Nabil Abu Rdainah, spokesman for President Mahmoud Abbas, did not close the door completely on negotiations with Israel.

"We are not bothered by who is head of government in Israel, what we want from the Israeli government is to recognise the two-state solution and that East Jerusalem be the capital of the state of Palestine," he said.