Region

AMMAN — The United Nations children's fund said Thursday that 14 million children are paying the price for warfare in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, with violence and hardship shaping their future.

"With the conflict in Syria now entering its fifth year, the situation of more than 5.6 million children inside the country remains the most desperate," UNICEF said in a statement.

The agency said up to 2 million children were living in areas of Syria largely cut off from humanitarian aid, and around 2.6 million children were out of school.

Almost 2 million Syrian children are living as refugees in Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan and other countries, "in addition to the 3.6 million children from vulnerable communities" in the host countries, UNICEF said.

"For the youngest children, this crisis is all they have ever known. For adolescents entering their formative years, violence and suffering have not only scarred their past; they are shaping their futures," said UNICEF chief Anthony Lake.

UNICEF said conflict in Iraq has also forced more than 2.8 million children from their homes.

BENGHAZI, Libya — Airport guards stopped Libya's Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thinni from getting on a plane to Tunis in protest against his choice of interior minister, officials said, in a stark demonstration of the collapse of state authority in the oil producer.

The guards were demanding the job go to a southerner, instead of the current Western holder, illustrating the regional and political divisions that have plagued the North African country since the ousting of Muammar Qadhafi four years ago.

Thinni's internationally recognised government is also fighting Islamist insurgents and has been holed up in the small eastern city of Bayda since an armed group seized the capital Tripoli in August and set up a rival administration.

Thinni and a senior delegation were meant to fly to Tunis late on Wednesday but guards at the eastern Labraq airport prevented him from boarding his plane, airport and government officials told Reuters. He later returned to his base, they said.

The guards were unhappy with Thinni's appointment of Economy Minister Munir Ali Asr as caretaker interior minister, the officials added, asking not to be named.

Thinni's government has struggled to make an impact with his Cabinet working out of hotels in Bayda, 1,200km  east of Tripoli.

Ministers and key state bodies such as a grain distribution agency in Tripoli are under the control of the rival government which has been boycotted by world powers.

Both sides are allied to former rebel groups who helped topple Qadhafi in 2011 but now fight for power, resources and territory. Both have attacked each other with war planes and fought over oil facilities.

Thinni had to appoint a new interior minister after suspending Omar Al Zanki for making public statements about another potentially embarrassing division, saying army General Khalifa Haftar had tried to stop the premier from visiting the eastern city of Benghazi, government officials have said.

Haftar's aides had said that inspecting troops in his eastern stronghold was his job, not the prime minister's, according to the officials.

Haftar started his own military campaign against Islamist militants in May before allying himself with the recognised government. He was appointed top army commander this week.

ABU HOMOS, Egypt — Egypt's ultra-conservative Islamist Nour Party says it is committed to participating in elections, in a boost to President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, whose crackdown on critics has stifled much of Egypt's political opposition.

A parliamentary election, originally set for this month but now deferred for legal changes, is meant to be the last stage of a political roadmap that Sisi announced after he, as army chief, ousted president Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2013 following mass protests against his rule.

The delay gives Sisi more room to wield sole legislative authority in a country that has not had a parliament since June 2012, although the government says it is committed to democracy.

"We, as the Nour Party, are committed to completing the roadmap," Nour leader Younes Makhyoun said in an interview on Wednesday in the Nile Delta town of Abu Homos. "Whatever the law, even if we object to it, we'll participate."

Nour was founded in the aftermath of the uprising that ousted Hosni Mubarak in 2011, and broke ranks with the Brotherhood after it became clear that Egypt's oldest and biggest Islamist group would not be able to stay in power.

Like the Brotherhood, it has gathered most of its support through charitable activities in poor areas where religion is prominent. But observers say it differs in being ready to seek accommodation in order to secure some influence and, perhaps, safety from repression. The group says it is not seeking political positions.

The bearded 59-year-old rejected accusations by the Brotherhood that his party was being used by the government to demonstrate its tolerance towards Islamists, despite the arrest of thousands of Brotherhood leaders and supporters.

Several parties say they will boycott the election because the clampdown on secular activists as well as the Brotherhood has made it a sham. The government has banned the Brotherhood as a terrorist organisation, and Sisi says it is a threat to national security, although the group says it is committed to peaceful activism.

For its part, Nour, which follows the Salafist school of Islam and achieved 28 per cent support in the post-Mubarak election, has backed the crackdown on the Brotherhood, and Makhyoun said last year that Nour would be prepared to join Sisi's government.

He said on Wednesday that he was against arbitrary detentions but added: "It's normal that there are excesses and mistakes... but does that mean we should make a bigger mistake of destroying the country?"

The government denies allegations of abuse.

Brotherhood supporters have frequently accused Nour of backing Sisi purely to avoid the Brotherhood's fate. One hashtag used by critics calls it the “Zour” party, meaning “fraudulent”.

"We don't work for anyone at all... we just work for God, then for the Egyptian people," Makhyoun said.

DETROIT — A Palestinian activist was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Thursday for immigration fraud for failing to tell US authorities that she had been imprisoned in Israel for a 1969 supermarket bombing that killed two people.

Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, 67, also will be deported after serving her sentence as a result of last year's conviction in a Detroit federal court of unlawful procurement of naturalization.

Before sentencing, Odeh had told US District Court Judge Gershwin Drain, "I'm not a terrorist, I'm not a bad woman."

But Drain said the offence is about lying under oath.

"We in this country expect people to tell the truth about things, especially under oath," Drain said.

Drain said Odeh's history does include some terrorist activities but also acknowledged her work in the United States in helping immigrant women in Chicago. She had faced as much as 10 years in prison.

Odeh lived almost two decades in the United States and served as associate director of a Chicago-area community organisation called the Arab American Action Network.

Federal prosecutors said she failed to reveal her criminal history when she immigrated from Jordan in 1995 and again when she was naturalised as a US citizen in 2004.

RIYADH — Talks aimed at pulling Yemen out of crisis are open to the Shiite Houthi militia which seized power in Sanaa last month, Qatar's Foreign Minister Khalid Al Attiyah said on Thursday.

The Houthis have opposed any change in venue for UN-brokered talks, which broke down after Western-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi escaped from house arrest in Sanaa last month.

Hadi, who has resumed power from second city Aden in the south, has proposed that talks move to neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

The six Sunni-dominated Gulf Cooperation Council members agreed to that request last Monday but have not set a date for the meeting.

"The invitation concerns the Houthis," Attiyah, whose country currently holds the GCC's rotating presidency, told reporters following a meeting of Gulf foreign ministers in the Saudi capital.

"It's their business to accept or not."

GCC Secretary General Abdullatif Al Zayani confirmed that "the invitation was addressed to all" protagonists in the crisis in Yemen, which is a frontline in the United States war against Al Qaeda.

At the joint news conference with Attiyah, Zayani underlined that anyone joining the negotiations must adhere to Hadi's conditions.

These include rejecting "the coup d'etat" by the Houthis, returning seized military equipment and allowing the state "to recover its authority over all territory”, Hadi said in a letter to Saudi King Salman.

The talks would aim for a resumption of the political process begun after the departure of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh in early 2012 after a bloody year-long popular uprising.

The process, which stalled after Houthis overran Sanaa in September, called for turning the republic into a federation of six regions — a move rejected by the Houthis who say it would divide Yemen into rich and poor areas.

They have instead favoured the "national dialogue" in the capital Sanaa under the supervision of UN envoy Jamal Benomar.

The planned talks in Riyadh would be a separate initiative, Zayani said.

Saleh's General People's Congress Party has also warned that it will boycott talks held outside Sanaa. Saleh is widely accused of backing the Houthis.

Separatists from southern Yemen have, meanwile, suspended their participation in the UN-sponsored discussions until they are moved abroad.

The Gulf states are deeply suspicious of the Houthis, fearing they will take Yemen into the orbit of Shiite Iran.

Separately, the six Gulf states discussed the four-year conflict in Syria that has left at least 210,000 people dead and reiterated their calls for embattled President Bashar Assad to step down.

A statement said the GCC hopes a "political solution" could lead to the formation of "a transitional government with full executive powers" to resolve the conflict.

The GCC also "denounced" remarks by Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstroem criticising the human rights situation in Saudi Arabia.

These statement constitute a "flagrant interference in the kingdom's internal affairs", said the GCC ministers, mirroring Saudi Arabia's position.

Saudi Arabia has recalled its ambassador to Sweden, accusing it of flagrant interference in its internal affairs as Stockholm cut military ties with the oil-rich monarchy.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli authorities on Tuesday demolished an EU-funded shelter in Arab East Jerusalem, the European Union said, denouncing the move.

"We condemn today's demolition of temporary shelters funded by the European Union... as part of its response to the needs of the affected communities," an EU statement said.

EU funds have helped to pay for some 200 temporary buildings used as shelters in villages inhabited by Bedouin communities in the West Bank, just outside Arab East Jerusalem.

Israel occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 and later annexed it, in a move never recognised by the international community.

The structures demolished on Tuesday were small metal constructions put up on the outskirts of Arab neighbourhood Issawiya, an AFP correspondent said.

The area was empty of residents following the demolition by bulldozer.

Jerusalem's municipality was not immediately available for comment.

A spokesman for Regavim, a rightwing lobby group, said the move was unusual.

"This doesn't happen every day, and it certainly doesn't happen to EU buildings," Avi Hyman told AFP.

Israeli authorities regularly demolish structures inhabited by the Bedouin in the West Bank, and have tried to move communities into housing planned by the state.

Activists say Israel is deliberately displacing the Bedouin in order to build settlements in the area of the West Bank just outside East Jerusalem.

That effective annexation of a corridor running through the middle of the West Bank would make the creation of a contiguous Palestinian state impossible.

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State John Kerry told US lawmakers on Wednesday they would not be able to modify any nuclear agreement struck between the United States and Iran despite threats by Republican senators.

In congressional testimony, Kerry said he responded with "utter disbelief" to an open letter signed by 47 Republican senators that warned that any nuclear agreement would only last as long as US President Barack Obama remains in office.

"When it says that Congress could actually modify the terms of an agreement at any time is flat wrong. You don't have the right to modify an agreement reached executive to executive between leaders of a country," Kerry told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which does not include Senator Tom Cotton, the Republican from Arkansas who wrote the letter.

The White House slammed the letter as "reckless" and "irresponsible", warning that it interfered with efforts to negotiate with the Iranians.

The negotiations, which resume in Lausanne, Switzerland, next week led by Kerry, are at a critical juncture as the sides try to meet an end of March target for an interim deal, with a final deal in June that would ease crippling sanctions against Iran's economy.

The letter was an unusual intervention by lawmakers into US foreign policy. The US Constitution divides foreign policy between the president and Congress.

"During my 29 years in the Senate I never heard of, or even heard of it being proposed, anything comparable to this," Kerry said. "This letter ignores more than two centuries of precedent in the conduct of American foreign policy."

Kerry said the letter undermined and added uncertainty to the "thousands of agreements" the United States signs with foreign governments across the globe.

BEIRUT — Daesh militants launched a major offensive Wednesday to try to capture a strategic town on the Syrian-Turkish border, leaving dozens dead in clashes, a monitor said.

"Fighters from the Islamic State group [Daesh] started a huge assault towards Ras Al Ain and were able to take over a village nearby," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The offensive is a preemptive strike against Kurdish militia who were planning an attack on Daesh held town of Tal Abyad farther west along the border, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Tal Abyad is an Arab and Kurdish town in the Syrian province of Raqaa used by Daesh militatns as a gateway from Turkey.

At least 12 fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG), which control Ras Al Ain and the surrounding villages, were killed in the Daesh onslaught, according to Abdel Rahman.

"This is a big hit to the morale of Kurdish fighters," he said.

He was unable to give an exact death toll for the jihadists but said that including Daesh casualties scores had been killed.

A spokesman for the Democratic Union Party, the YPG’s political arm, confirmed an intense battle was raging around the town.

Ras Al Ain, in Hasakeh province, was the scene of major fighting in 2013 before Kurdish forces ousted rebels and Al Qaeda-linked jihadists from the town, which has a border crossing with Ceylanpinar in Turkey.

Kurdish fighters are also locked in clashes with Daesh around the strategic town of Tal Tamr, just southeast of Ras Al Ain, which lies near a key road that links to their Iraqi bastion of Mosul to the east.

The Daesh offensives come just weeks after Kurdish militia backed by Iraqi peshmerga fighters and Syrian rebels drove the extremists out of Kobani farther west along the Turkish border.

The town, which was devastated by months of fighting and US-led coalition air strikes, became a prominent symbol of resistance against the militants.

Kurdish and allied forces have since taken much of the surrounding countryside in northern Aleppo province and have begun pushing east into neighbouring Raqqa province, home to Daesh’s self-proclaimed “capital”.

Daesh has seized large parts of Syria and neighbouring Iraq and imposed a harsh interpretation of Islamic law.

Foreign jihadists have flocked to Syria, often crossing over from Turkey, since the country’s conflict began in March 2011 as a popular revolt which later escalated into a full-blown civil war.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi security forces and militias fought their way into Saddam Hussein's home city of Tikrit on Wednesday, advancing from the north and south in their biggest counter-offensive so far against Daesh militants.

In a possible response to the fighting north of Baghdad, militants in Daesh stronghold of Anbar west of the capital launched 13 suicide car bomb attacks on army and security positions in the provincial capital of Ramadi.

Army and militia fighters captured part of Tikrit's northern Qadisiya district, the provincial governor said, while in the south of the Tigris River city a security officer said another force made a rapid push towards the centre.

"The forces entered Tikrit general hospital," an official at the main military operation command centre said. "There is heavy fighting going on near the presidential palaces, next to the hospital complex."

Daesh fighters who stormed into Tikrit last June during a lightning offensive through northern and central Iraq have used the complex of palaces built in Tikrit under Saddam, the executed former president, as their headquarters.

More than 20,000 troops and Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militias known as Hashd Shaabi, supported by local Sunni Muslim tribes, launched the offensive for Tikrit 10 days ago, advancing from the east and along the east bank of the Tigris.

On Tuesday, they took the town of Al Alam on the northern edge of Tikrit, paving the way for an attack on the city itself.

"The governor of Salahuddin announces the purging of half of Qadisiya district, the largest of Tikrit's neighbourhoods," a statement from governor Raed Al Jubouri's office said.

The army and militia fighters raised the national flag above a military hospital in the section of Qadisiya they had retaken from the militants, security officials said.

After pausing while helicopters attacked Daesh snipers and positions, the ground forces were progressing steadily, taking "one street every 30 minutes", the security official said. He said there was fierce fighting around Tikrit police headquarters just south of Qadisiya.

To the northwest, troops and Hashd Shaabi fighters were clashing with Daesh militants in the city's industrial zone, he added.

Ramadi attacks

If Iraq's Shiite-led government retook Tikrit it would be the first city clawed back from the Sunni insurgents and would give it momentum in the next pivotal stage of the campaign — recapturing Mosul, the largest city in the north.

Mosul is also the biggest city held by the ultra-radical Daesh, who now rule a self-declared cross-border caliphate in Sunni regions of Syria and Iraq.

Over the past few months Daesh has gradually lost ground in Iraq to the army, Shiite militias and Kurdish peshmerga forces, backed by air strikes carried out by a US-led coalition of mainly Western and allied Arab states.

The United States says Baghdad did not seek aerial backup from the coalition in the Tikrit campaign. Instead, support on the ground has come from neighbouring Iran, Washington’s longtime rival in the region. Tehran has sent an elite Revolutionary Guard commander to oversee part of the battle.

In Ramadi, about 90km west of Baghdad, suicide car bombers in 13 vehicles attacked Iraqi army positions. The death toll from the attacks was not clear and officials rarely give details of casualties among security forces in Anbar.

A medical source said five people were killed in the attacks, but the real figure could be significantly higher.

One of the car bombs exploded near a bridge in the west of the city and damaged part of the bridge, a police source said.

A Daesh suicide bomber also struck a position of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in the northern town of Sinjar. After the bombing some 70 militants launched an attack but were driven back by coalition air strikes, according to a senior Kurdish security official in the area.

In Baghdad, six people were killed when a car bomb exploded in a busy street in the mainly Shiite district of Hurriya.

DOHA — In an attempt to allay Arab concerns about his country's role in the region, Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani said Wednesday that Tehran's assistance to the Iraqi people in confronting Daesh group, has prevented more countries from being threatened by Daesh terrorism.

Larijani spoke Wednesday at a press conference in the Qatari capital of Doha after meeting with Qatar's Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani; a day earlier he met Kuwaiti ruler Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah. Iran shares the world's largest gas field with Qatar in the Persian Gulf, and has economic relations with Kuwait.

He said that Tehran was asked by Iraq's government to help them fight the Daesh group, which has taken over about a third of Iraq and neighbouring Syria. Iran and the Shiite militias it supports are leading the battle to dislodge the militant Islamic group from the Iraqi city of Tikrit. Its increasingly hands-on role in Iraq has both left the US and Gulf Arab nations wary as they carry out their own parallel campaign against Daesh fighters.

Larijani said he spoke with Qatar's emir about the security situation in Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, where a rebel Shiite group has overrun the capital.

Qatar and Kuwait are members of a six-nation bloc of Gulf Arab countries that have accused Iran of interfering in neighbouring Yemen. In an apparent reference to regional rival Saudi Arabia, Larijani said the crisis in Yemen should not be handled with bias against certain groups, but through dialogue.

Some media in Saudi Arabia have suggested that Iran sent military personnel to Yemen to help the rebels overthrow the Saudi and US-backed Yemeni president — who has since fled to the southern port city of Aden. Larijani insisted that Iran has no ground forces in Yemen.

He also downplayed recent comments by Ali Younesi, one of more than a dozen advisers to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Younesi was quoted in Iranian media on Sunday saying Iran and Iraq are united and essentially part of Tehran's sphere of influence.

Larijani said Iran's policy is based on peaceful co-existence and Islamic unity.