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WASHINGTON — Republican US senators warned Iran's leaders on Monday that any nuclear deal with President Barack Obama could last only as long as he remains in office, an unusual partisan intervention into foreign policy that could undermine delicate international talks with Tehran.

The open letter made public on Monday was signed by 47 senators, all but seven of the Republicans in the Senate, but none of Obama's fellow Democrats, who called it a "stunt". It says Congress plays a role in ratifying international agreements and points out that Obama will leave office in January 2017.

They said they would consider any deal merely "an executive agreement" if it is not approved by Congress.

"The next president could revoke such an executive agreement with the stroke of a pen and future Congresses could modify the terms of the agreement at any time," the letter read.

A White House spokesman called the letter a continuation of a partisan strategy seeking to undermine Obama's ability to conduct foreign policy. He said it "certainly interferes" in efforts to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran.

A Western diplomat said the action was "without precedent”. "It's 100 per cent an American issue, but obviously it could become a real problem," the diplomat said.

Congressional Democrats called the letter a political stunt.

"This is a cynical effort by Republican senators to undermine sensitive international negotiations. It weakens America's hand and highlights our political divisions to the rest of the world," said Richard Durbin, the Senate's number two Democrat.

The letter, first reported by Bloomberg, was the latest Republican effort to influence the Iran talks. Many Republicans worry Obama is so eager for a deal he will sign off on an agreement leaving Iran able to easily make a nuclear weapon.

Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Congress that Obama was negotiating a "bad deal" with Tehran after Republicans invited him to address Congress without consulting the White House or Democrats.

Republicans have also repeatedly tried to pass legislation that the White House insists could undermine the talks.

World powers have been negotiating with Iran to try to reach a framework agreement this month, and a final deal in June, to curb Iran’s nuclear programme in exchange for easing crippling sanctions. Iran denies allegations its civil nuclear programme is a cover for development of a nuclear weapons capability.

The letter was spearheaded by first-term Senator Tom Cotton. Signers included Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and all of the Senate’s Republican leadership, as well as possible 2016 presidential contenders Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio and Rand Paul.

A spokeswoman for Cotton said his office had invited several Democrats to co-sign but none had done so.

One Senate Republican who did not sign was Bob Corker, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Corker has introduced a bill that would require Obama to submit any nuclear agreement with Iran for Congress’ approval.

An aide to Corker said he had not signed because his focus is on getting a veto-proof majority to support his legislation, which is backed by both Republicans and Democrats.

The US Constitution gives the executive branch responsibility for negotiating international agreements. Congress normally does not intervene with foreign leaders on matters being negotiated by the administration.

MANAMA — The international coalition fighting Daesh extremists could be jeopardised if the Baghdad government fails to bridge Iraq’s sectarian divide, the US military’s top officer warned Monday.

Iraq’s political leaders have yet to deliver on promises to reach out to the Sunni population and have raised concerns in the region by forging closer ties to Shiite-led Iran, General Martin Dempsey said after spending several hours in Baghdad.

For the longer term, the solidarity of the anti-Daesh coalition — which includes Sunni Arab states — could be put at risk, Dempsey told reporters in Manama.

In Cairo, Arab League chief Nabil El Araby called on Monday for the creation of a unified Arab force to battle Islamist extremist groups.

“There is an urgent need for the creation of a multi-purpose common Arab military force... able to intervene rapidly to fight terrorism and the activities of terrorist groups,” he said.

Dempsey, for his part, said: “I come away a bit concerned that it’s going to be difficult to sustain the coalition for the rest of the challenge — which is trans-regional — unless the government of Iraq can actually form that national unity platform to which they committed.”

With the Daesh group “under pressure in almost every corner of Iraq,” the “military aspect” of the campaign is on course and “going fine”, said the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But an overriding goal for Washington and other coalition members was to ensure that Iraq’s Shiite-led authorities also upheld the rights of its Sunni Arab and Kurdish communities, he said.

Flying over Baghdad by helicopter earlier, Dempsey noted Shiite militia banners flying over many buildings, describing “the plethora of flags, only one of which happens to be the Iraqi flag”.

He said Sunni Arab countries in the region, several of which are taking part in air strikes in Syria, were anxious over Iran’s influence in Iraq.

Iran’s role has taken on new importance in recent days as Shiite militia armed and trained by Tehran are playing a high-profile role in a major offensive on Daesh in Tikrit, north of the Iraqi capital.

In a joint press conference with Dempsey in Baghdad, Iraqi Defence Minister Khaled Al Obaidi made no apologies for enlisting military aid from Iran.

“We are in a state of war and we look to our friends to help us in this confrontation,” Obaidi said.

But he said Iraq’s approach was “balanced” and added: “I want to assure you that Iraq does not want to enter into any conflicts with any of the countries around us.”

In his talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi and Obaidi, Dempsey said he acknowledged their “instinct” to look for assistance from any country ready to provide it.

But he also stressed that “they should also be aware of the challenge of holding together the... coalition”, Dempsey said.

Daesh has sought to exploit the grievances of alienated Sunnis in Iraq, and Dempsey has urged Baghdad to tackle what he calls the “underlying” sectarian issue.

The general, who spent several tours in Iraq during the 2003-2011 US occupation, said it was unclear whether Iraq’s links to Iran were only about battling the Daesh or part of a broader agenda.

“What I’m trying to sort out is the degree to which the near term embrace of the assistance they’re receiving from Iran is a reaction to the existential threat [from Daesh] or whether it’s something longer-term,” he said.

“And by the way, it could be longer-term and not necessarily negative.”

Throughout his trip to the region, which included talks with leaders in Bahrain and with his French counterpart aboard an aircraft carrier in the Gulf, Dempsey said he stressed the importance of maintaining the global coalition arrayed against the Daesh militants.

“I reminded everyone — the Bahrainis, the French and the Iraqis — that fundamental to the success of the campaign is the solidarity of the coalition, and anything that could threaten that solidarity we really need to be alert to,” he said.

BEIRUT — At least nine members of Daesh terror group were killed during infighting in northwestern Syria after some of them tried to flee over the Turkish border, a group monitoring the conflict said on Monday.

The fighters clashed on Saturday near the town of Al Bab, 30km south of the Turkish frontier, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Five of the escapees and four of those trying to prevent them were killed.

Those trying to escape included one Tunisian and nine European fighters, the observatory's Rami Abdulrahman said, adding it was not clear exactly which members of that group had been killed.

It is not the first time that Daesh, which controls tracts of Syria and Iraq, has killed its own members. The observatory reported in December that the group had killed more than 120 of its fighters in two months, most of them foreigners trying to return home.

The fighting on Saturday erupted when 10 Daesh combatants broke out of a prison run by the group. They had tried to escape Syria previously and had been jailed, Abdulrahman said, citing sources on the ground.

The five escapees who were not killed were recaptured by the group, the observatory said.

Thousands of foreigners from across the world have joined the group, an offshoot of Al Qaeda, which last year declared a caliphate in territory it controls.

RIYADH — The Gulf monarchies have agreed to a request by Yemen's beleaguered president to host talks in Riyadh aimed at pulling their impoverished neighbour out of crisis, the Saudi royal Cabinet said.

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who has been based in Yemen's second city Aden since escaping the Shiite militia-controlled capital last month, made the request after failing to reach agreement with the militia and their backers on a venue inside Yemen.

UN-brokered reconciliations talks, which had been taking place in Sanaa, have broken down since Hadi's flight to Aden.

The Western-backed president insists they can no longer be held in the capital and the militia and their supporters have threatened to boycott talks anywhere else.

"The secretariat general of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) is going to make the necessary arrangements" for the talks which Hadi requested in a message to Saudi Arabia's King Salman, the royal Cabinet said.

It did not give a date for the talks.

Hadi proposed that the Riyadh meeting convene "all the Yemeni political parties anxious to preserve the security and stability of Yemen," said the statement carried by the official SPA news agency late on Sunday.

He underlined that the conference should reject "the coup d'etat" of the Houthi militia, who seized power in Sanaa on February 6 after overrunning the capital last September.

Several GCC states, led by Saudi Arabia, have moved their embassies to Aden after an exodus of foreign diplomats from Sanaa in February over security concerns.

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

Geneva — UN investigators tasked with probing the 50-day war in Gaza last year asked Monday to postpone their report to allow time to adjust after the head of the team quit under Israeli pressure.

The Commission of Inquiry on the 2014 Gaza conflict had been scheduled to present its findings to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 23.

But in a letter addressed to the head of the council, the investigators requested to delay their presentation until the next council session in June, saying they needed "to adjust our work due to the late resignation of [our] former chair".

Canadian international law expert William Schabas resigned as chair of the commission last month after Israel complained he could not be impartial because he had prepared a legal opinion for the Palestine Liberation Organisation in October 2012, the United Nations said.

Schabas strongly denied that he was beholden to the PLO but said he was reluctantly stepping down to avoid the inquiry into the July-August conflict — commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council — being compromised in any away.

Israel was not satisfied, calling for the entire inquiry to be shelved, insisting the commission and the Human Rights Council which created it are inherently biased against Tel Aviv.

Schabas' resignation left the commission with only two members: Former New York judge Mary McGowan Davis, who took over as chair, and Doudou Diene of Senegal, who previously served as the UN's watchdog on racism and on post-conflict Ivory Coast.

In her letter, McGowan Davis explained that in addition to dealing with the shrinking of the team, the commission was facing a "large number of additional submissions and documents received over the past few weeks from both sides", which it needed to "analyse with the utmost objectivity”.

Joachim Ruecker, the president of the Human Rights Council, said in a statement that he supported the request for extra time "to allow them to finalise a comprehensive report as mandated".

But the council as a whole will need to officially accept the delay, something that could likely happen on Tuesday.

The Gaza conflict ended with a truce between Israel and the territory's Islamist de facto rulers Hamas on August 26 after the deaths of more than 2,140 Palestinians, most of them civilians, and 73 people on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers.

The rights council vowed in August that both Israel and Hamas would be "subjected to a thorough investigation".

But Israel, which has long had a stormy relationship with the council, has fiercely opposed the probe from the start.

Last November, it announced that it would not cooperate with Schabas' investigation because of the "obsessive hostility against Israel of this commission”.

ERBIL, Iraq — Kurdish forces drove Daesh militants back from the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq on Monday, in an advance backed by heavy air strikes from a US-led coalition.

Speaking to a local television channel near the front line, Kirkuk Governor Najmaldin Karim, who was wearing a helmet, said the purpose of the offensive was to secure Kirkuk, which the Kurds have held since last summer.

Kurdish fighters retook around 100 square kilometres, including about a dozen villages, from Daesh to the south and west of Kirkuk, killing some 100 militants, a statement from the region's security council said.

"This morning we launched an attack on three axes," Major General Omar Saleh Hassan told Reuters by telephone from the front line near Tel Ward. "Our advances are continuing."

He said his forces faced little resistance from the militants, who are also fighting to hold the city of Tikrit around 110km southwest of Kirkuk as Iraqi forces close in.

Just north of Tikrit, home city of president Saddam Hussein, Iraqi security forces and Shiite militia fighters began an offensive to regain control over the town of Al Alam.

Military commanders said some of the attacking force were ferried across from the west bank of the Tigris River, while others were approaching from other directions.

"We have confirmed information from inside Al Alam that a few Daesh fighters are still inside, mostly suiciders, and this is why we attacked them from multiple directions in order not to give them time to catch their breath," Al Alam Mayor Laith Al Jubouri said.

Advance on Daesh stronghold

Jubouri, who has spent time with the attacking forces outside Al Alam, said clashes were continuing in the south, west and north of the town.

In the Kirkuk offensive, the peshmerga destroyed four suicide car bombs and a fifth was hit by a coalition air strike, according to the Kurdistan Security Council statement.

"In addition, peshmerga forces have successfully controlled the road between Maktab Khaled Bridge and Wadi Neft intersection — a key junction linking Mosul to Kirkuk, further disrupting the enemy's freedom of movement," the statement read.

The Kurds took full control of Kirkuk last August as the Iraqi army collapsed in the north and Daesh militants overran almost a third of the country.

But the city has remained vulnerable, with the front line no more than 20 kilometres away in some places and only an irrigation canal separating the two sides. In late January, Daesh briefly overran Kurdish defences around Kirkuk.

Monday's gains bring the peshmerga closer to Daesh stronghold of Hawijah, where black-clad militants recently paraded the bodies of what they said were Shiite militiamen they had killed.

MANILA — Four Filipinos, an Austrian and four other foreigners were abducted in an attack on a Libyan oilfield last week, official sources said Monday, after an assault blamed on Daesh militants.

Eight guards were killed in the surprise attack on the southern oilfield of Al Ghani on Friday, the Libyan unit tasked with protecting oil installations has said.

The Libyan National Oil Company also said at the time that two foreigners — an Austrian and a Filipino who worked for a services company — were missing after the attack.

Austria's foreign ministry, which had confirmed that one of its nationals was missing, said Monday that there were "reliable information" that they were "in the hands of IS [Daesh] terrorists".

The ministry said in a statement that there were "no signs to indicate whether they are dead or alive".

The missing Austrian, who is 39 years old, was named in unconfirmed Austrian media reports as Dalibor S., a father-of-two oil manager and former soldier from the northern city of Linz.

Philippines foreign department spokesman Charles Jose said Manila's embassy in Tripoli had reported that four Filipinos and five foreigners had been snatched, including the Austrian, two Bangladeshis, a Czech national and a Ghanian.

The attack "underscore[s] the escalating threat to the safety and security of Filipino oil workers in Libyan oil fields which have been targeted by armed groups in recent weeks," Jose told a news conference, adding that no demands had been issued.

A total of seven Filipinos have now been abducted in the North African state this year and the fate of another three seized in Al Mabruk oilfield early last month remains unknown.

Libya has been wracked by conflict for the past four years, with rival governments and powerful militias battling for control of key cities and the country's oil riches.

There were 13,000 Filipinos working in Libya when the Philippine government ordered mandatory repatriation in July 2014, the foreign department said.

The government and private employers have since brought many home, but about 4,000 others have remained, lured by salaries they could not expect in the Philippines.

Some one in 10 Filipinos work overseas.

"In view of this worsening situation we appeal once again to the estimated 4,000 plus Filipinos who are still in Libya to get in touch with our embassy in Tripoli," Jose said.

VAOS Oil Services, an Austrian contractor for Al Ghani oilfield, had evacuated dozens of other Filipino workers to the Libyan capital before the attack, Jose said, adding that many will now return to the Philippines.

CAIRO — Three Egyptian soldiers were killed Monday and three others critically wounded in a roadside bomb attack in the restive Sinai peninsula, police and medical officials said.

Egyptian security forces have been battling an Islamist insurgency in North Sinai since the army ousted president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

"Gunmen remotely detonated a roadside bomb when a military vehicle drove by, near a security checkpoint in Sheikh Zuweid city," east of the provincial capital of El Arish, a police official told AFP.

A health ministry official in North Sinai said three soldiers were killed and three others critically wounded.

Militant attacks in Sinai are spearheaded by a group called Ansar Beit Al Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem), the Egyptian affiliate of Daesh terror group that has seized chunks of Syria and Iraq.

The group says the attacks, which have killed scores of security personnel, are in retaliation for a government crackdown against Morsi supporters that has left hundreds killed and thousands jailed.

KUWAIT — A lawyer representing the father of a man identified as the masked killer in Daesh beheading videos said on Sunday Western officials had presented no proof his client's son was the so-called "Jihadi John".

US media and government sources have said the black-clad militant who apparently decapitated hostages including Americans, Britons and Syrians in the videos had been named as Mohammed Emwazi, a Kuwait-born Londoner.

But Salem Al Hashash, a lawyer who represents Jassim Emwazi, denied his client's son was the same person who appeared in Daesh videos and was dubbed "Jihadi John" by Western analysts because of his fluent English.

"We would like to point out that until now, the Western intelligence services have not provided sufficient evidence that Mohammed Emwazi is the same as Jihadi John," Hashash told journalists in Kuwait City.

"There are many rumours, stories and untrue tales that have been broadcast by various media and on social media about my client, Jassim Emwazi," he said. "I want to inform you that all of these are not true and are figments of the imagination of some of the journalists and their irresponsible sources."

He said he had initiated court cases against all those he said had defamed his client and that they would be questioned.

Hashash, who took no questions at the news conference, provided no names or any further details.

He concluded the press conference by saying he had decided to stop representing Jassim Emwazi, a resident of Kuwait, citing "special reasons" that he did not clarify.

Mohammed Emwazi's name was first disclosed by The Washington Post, citing unidentified former associates. Two US government sources who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed to Reuters that investigators believed he was Jihadi John.

He was born in Kuwait but moved to Britain aged 6 and graduated with a computer programming degree from the University of Westminster.

MUSCAT — Solar Impulse 2 landed Monday in Oman, completing the initial leg of its epic bid to become the first solar-powered plane to fly around the world, testing its pilots to the limit.

The aircraft touched down in Muscat after nightfall, 13 hours and two minutes after taking off from Abu Dhabi.

Pilot Andre Borschberg, who was at the controls on the 400-kilometre trip, smiled and waved to his team after landing.

"The adventure has started," Solar Impulse Chairman Bertrand Piccard had said just after Borschberg took off in the early morning from Abu Dhabi's Al Bateen Airport on the historic circumnavigation aimed at promoting green energy.

The takeoff by Solar Impulse 2, which had originally been scheduled for Saturday but was delayed because of high winds, capped 13 years of research and testing by Swiss pilots Borschberg and Piccard.

Live video streaming on the www.solarimpulse.com website monitoring the unique aircraft's progress showed the pilot, wearing an orange jumpsuit, breathing using an oxygen mask.

"From Mission Control Center in #Monaco the engineers are helping me to perform Oxygen Mask tests from #SolarImpulse," he tweeted.

Borschberg earlier called his wife from on board, according to the live feed.

Shortly before takeoff, the 63-year-old pilot tweeted that the "challenge to come is real for me & the airplane".

The wingspan of the one-seater known as the Si2 is slightly bigger than that of a jumbo jet, but its weight is around that of a family car.

From Muscat, it will make 12 stops on an epic journey spread over five months, with a total flight time of around 25 days.

On Tuesday, it is expected to cross the Arabian Sea to Ahmedabad in India before later legs to Myanmar, China, Hawaii and New York.

Landings are also earmarked for the midwestern United States and either southern Europe or North Africa, depending on the weather conditions.

The longest single leg will see a lone pilot fly non-stop for five days and nights across the Pacific Ocean between Nanjing, China and Hawaii, a distance of 8,500 kilometres.

Cockpit like home 

Borschberg and Piccard will alternate stints flying the plane, which can hold only one person, with the aircraft able to fly on autopilot during rest breaks.

"You have to make the cockpit like your own house... you go to the toilet, you wash yourself with wet wipes, you eat, you drink, you recline the seat to have some rest, you turn on the autopilot," Piccard told reporters.

Both pilots have undergone intensive training in preparation for the trip, including in yoga and self-hypnosis, allowing them to sleep for periods as short as 20 minutes but still awake feeling refreshed.

All this will happen without burning a drop of fuel.

While in the air, the pilots will be linked to a control centre in Monaco where 65 weathermen, air traffic controllers and engineers will be stationed. A team of 65 ground staff will travel with the two pilots.

Should a problem occur while a pilot is asleep, the support staff can wake him.

"We want to share our vision of a clean future," Piccard said of the mission, which was ridiculed by the aviation industry when it was first unveiled.

But the 57-year-old, who hails from a family of scientist-adventurers and in 1999 became the first person to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon, clung to his belief that clean technology and renewable energy "can achieve the impossible".

The plane is powered by more than 17,000 solar cells built into wings that, at 72 metres, are longer than on a Boeing 747 and approaching those of an Airbus A380 superjumbo.

Thanks to an innovative design, the lightweight carbon fibre aircraft weighs only 2.3 tonnes, about the same as a family 4X4 and less than 1 per cent of the weight of the A380.

The Si2 is the first solar-powered aircraft able to stay aloft for several days and nights.

The propeller-driven craft has four 17.5 horsepower electric motors with rechargeable lithium batteries.

It will travel at 50-100 kilometres per hour, with the slower speeds at night to prevent the batteries from draining too quickly.

"This airplane is conceived to stay airborne days and nights in a row, maybe a week, so we hope that we make these very long flights because this is the demonstration of the vision of flying solar power with no fuel forever," said Piccard.