Region

BENGHAZI, Libya — Rival Libyan forces carried out tit-for-tat air strikes on oil terminals and an airport on Tuesday, escalating their battle for control of the oil-producing country days before United Nations peace talks are to resume in Morocco.

The United Nations called for the hostilities to end in preparation for the negotiations, which it hopes will end the war raging between Libya's two rival governments and their armed forces four years after the fall of Muammar Qadhafi.

Oil installations and key infrastructure are prime targets in the conflict, which pits Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thinni's internationally recognised government against Libya Dawn, the group which took Tripoli last year and set up its own administration.

A warplane belonging to forces allied to Libya Dawn bombed the oil ports of Ras Lanuf and Es Sidra, causing only minor damage, according to a security official with Thinni's government.

"They targeted the civil airport in Ras Lanuf, and oil tanks in Es Sidra. The rockets fell near the tanks, resulting in only minor damage," said Ali Hassi, a spokesman for the forces guarding Libya's oil infrastructure.

Es Sidra and Ras Lanuf, which make up half of Libya's oil output when operating normally, shut down in December due to the conflict. Libya currently produces around 400,000 barrels of oil per day, compared to 1.6 million bpd before Qadhafi was toppled.

Warplanes also hit Maitiga, Tripoli's airport, air force commander Saqir El Jaroshi said, and there were plans to carry out air strikes on the airport of port city Misrata, which is also a base of Libya Dawn.

Jaroshi said the strikes were retaliation for Tripoli forces bombing Zintan, a town loyal to Thinni's government, and also to stop suspected supplies to Islamist militants.

A source at Maitiga said a warplane struck close to the runway but did not cause major damage. Most international airlines stopped flying to Libya and foreign diplomats were pulled out as fighting worsened last year.

UN envoy 

meets both sides

Militants in Libya claiming ties to Daesh have carried out high profile attacks which have raised fears the country has become a haven for extremists, just across the Mediterranean from mainland Europe.

Western governments are backing United Nations efforts to bring the two sides together to form a unity government, broker a comprehensive ceasefire and to put Libya's fragile transition to democracy back on track.

The United Nations said on Tuesday it would restart talks this week in Morocco with delegations from both factions after special envoy Bernardino Leon met with the governments in Tripoli and the eastern city of Tobruk.

The statement said both sides had acknowledged the need for a united front and a more robust Libyan state to "confront the growing threat of terrorism in Libya”.

"The parties underscored the need to urgently resume the dialogue process as the only viable means of finding a peaceful solution...," the statement said.

ISTANBUL — Syrian rebels dealt a blow to a UN envoy's proposal for a ceasefire in the northern city of Aleppo as his team headed there on Tuesday, saying the plan would only benefit the Syrian government at the expense of the opposition.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura has been trying to broker a truce in the city, which is at the forefront of clashes between pro-government forces and a range of insurgents, including Islamist brigades, Al Qaeda's hardline Syria wing Al Nusra Front and Western-backed units.

de Mistura has said Damascus has expressed willingness for a six-week truce in the city but the Syrian military also launched a major offensive there last month. de Mistura's representatives arrived in Aleppo on Tuesday, an official from the team said.

Military and political opposition groups in Aleppo have refused to meet with de Mistura, a statement from armed opposition and civic groups in the Aleppo governorate said. The commission says it represents all opposition groups except Al Nusra Front and the ultra hardline offshoot Daesh.

The statement, from the newly-formed Aleppo Revolutionary Commission, said its representatives would only meet with UN officials if the ceasefire eventually led to the exit of President Bashar Assad and his inner circle as well as prosecution of individuals for war crimes.

"The opposition brigades do not find a clear plan to bring peace in Aleppo within the de Mistura initiative," said Osama Abo Zayd, a legal consultant for Syrian armed groups.

"The plan offers a break from fighting and certainly only the regime would benefit," he told told Reuters by phone from Aleppo. He added the plan ignored factors such as the possible transfer of combatants to other places.

Last month an insurgent group criticised de Mistura as "biased" and said it would not meet him.

"The whole de Mistura thing has been a waste of time. It has been a way of the international community saying they are doing something when actually it means nothing," said Adib Shishakly, a representative of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition to the Gulf.

"You cannot send a UN envoy without political backing of the big players in the UN Security Council. de Mistura does not have the tools," he said adding that the envoy had lost credibility from the opposition's perspective.

Syria's Information Minister Omran Al Zoabi told Reuters last month that the success of the UN bid hinged on whether foreign states that back the insurgents can get them to comply.

On Tuesday fighting in Aleppo continued with shells launched by rebels and clashes between government-allied forces and Islamist battalions in other neighbourhoods, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

KIRKUK, Iraq — Iraqi forces closed in on Tikrit Tuesday, their progress slowed by militant snipers and booby traps, on the second day of Baghdad's largest operation yet against Daesh terror group.

The government has mobilised a 30,000-strong force for the push to retake Tikrit made up of Shiite militiamen and Sunni tribesmen as well as troops and police.

Outnumbered and outgunned, the jihadists who have held Tikrit since June 2014 have been resorting to guerrilla tactics to disrupt the government's advance.

"They are using urban warfare and snipers, so we are advancing in a cautious and delicate way, and we need more time," a lieutenant general on the ground told AFP.

Iraqi forces are moving on Tikrit from three directions, with units targeting the towns of Al Alam and Ad-Dawr to the north and south, while another large contingent drives on the city from the east.

“We are close to Ad-Dawr, but Daesh is still in the centre,” the senior officer said, using an Arabic acronym for IS.

Units were also moving from a variety of other directions, with military sources saying the plan was encircle Daesh fighters in Tikrit and besiege them.

The jihadist group announced in a radio bulletin Tuesday that a US national from its ranks had carried out a suicide attack against Iraqi forces near Samarra, the other main city in Salaheddin province.

The attacker was referred to by his nom de guerre, Abu Dawud Al Amriki. The group released a picture purportedly of him wearing a mask that only reveals a pair of dark eyes.

The operation, the government’s largest since it started attempting to regain the ground it lost to jihadists last summer, was announced on Sunday by Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi.

Both Iraqi and Iranian media said Qassem Soleimani — the commander of Al Quds Force covert operations unit of Tehran’s elite Revolutionary Guards — was in Salaheddin province to help coordinate operations.

No Mosul timeline 

The recapture of Tikrit is of both strategic and symbolic importance.

Located about 160 kilometres north of Baghdad, it is the hometown of former president Saddam Hussein, the remnants of whose Baath Party have collaborated with Daesh.

Military commanders have said Tikrit is a stepping stone for an even more ambitious operation aimed at retaking Mosul, the large northern city which has been the main Iraq hub of Daesh.

The battle for Tikrit, which the government has already tried and failed to retake several times, is seen as a test of how effectively such diverse fighting units work together.

“The battle for Tikrit and other towns in Salaheddin province will provide a mini-preview of what awaits further to the north in Mosul,” said the Soufan Group intelligence consultancy.

Tikrit and its surroundings are Sunni and some tribes have been accused of involvement in the massacre of hundreds of new, mostly Shiite, recruits at a nearby base called Speicher in June.

Some leaders, including the powerful head of Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation units Hadi Al Ameri, have explicitly said the Tikrit operation would be an opportunity to exact revenge.

The UN warned that operations “must be conducted with the utmost care to avoid civilian casualties, and with full respect for fundamental human rights principles and humanitarian law”.

In Baghdad, a handful of people whose relatives went missing after the attack on Speicher held a small sit-in at Tahrir Square.

“We hope that the battle of Tikrit will be success so that we can know the fate of our sons,” said Abu Walid, a 60-year old who has had no news of his son since June 2014.

A senior US defence official had suggested last month that the Mosul offensive should begin in April or May, a move that irked Iraqi commanders who argued the timing was theirs to decide.

On Monday, US President Barack Obama’s envoy for the fight against Daesh stressed there was no timeline.

“The point about Mosul, or the point about any aspect of the counteroffensive, is less about the timing than about the preparation,” John Allen said.

Australia announced Tuesday it will send another 300 troops to Iraq in a joint mission with New Zealand to help prepare Iraqi forces for the fightback.

But Allen said that preparation was not just military but should also include measures to assist the affected population.

Tents have been set up in Samarra to shelter civilians fleeing Tikrit and joining what the International Organisation for Migration says are 2.5 million people already displaced in Iraq.

ADEN — Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi called Tuesday for troubled UN-brokered reconciliation talks to be moved to neighbouring Saudi Arabia if agreement cannot be reached on a venue inside Yemen.

The call came as at least 32 people were killed in clashes between Shiite Houthi gunmen and Sunni tribesmen backed by Al Qaeda militants in central Yemen, tribal source said.

Meanwhile, Al Qaeda branch, which has sought to exploit the power vacuum, claimed on Twitter that it carried out a suicide car bombing of a Houthi gathering in Baida Tuesday "killing and wounding dozens”.

But medics reported that only 10 Houthis were killed and five wounded, which witnesses confirmed.

The reconciliation talks, which had been held in the Shiite militia-held capital, have broken down since Hadi escaped to second city Aden last month after weeks under house arrest.

Several Gulf Cooperation Council states, led by Saudi Arabia, have moved their embassies to Aden after an exodus of foreign diplomats from Sanaa last month over security concerns.

But the United States, the first to close its mission in Sanaa, announced Tuesday that is not planning to follow its Gulf partners and move its embassy to Aden.

The Western-backed president had proposed that the talks resume in Aden or in third city Taez, which is also outside the control of the Houthis.

"As Aden and Taez are not accepted by some, I call for shifting the talks to the headquarters of the GCC in Riyadh," Hadi told tribal chiefs.

He also called for the six-member GCC, which group's impoverished Yemen's oil-rich neighbours, to sponsor the talks, an aide said.

The Houthis, who control much of northern Yemen and have set up their own government institutions in the capital, have opposed any change of venue for the UN-brokered talks.

LONDON — Three British men are being detained in the United Arab Emirates on national security grounds after being arrested while plane spotting, their relatives said Tuesday.

Valerie Clitheroe said her husband Conrad, 53, and his friend Gary Cooper, 45, are being held with their former work colleague, Neil Munro, who lives and works in the UAE.

She said they were taking notes of plane numbers at Fujairah airport, in the Gulf emirate of Fujairah about 100 kilometres east of Dubai, on February 21 when they were arrested.

The Foreign Office in London confirmed the arrests in a brief statement.

"We can confirm the arrest of three British nationals in Dubai on 22 February. We are providing consular assistance at this time," it said.

Valerie Clitheroe told BBC radio she had spoken to her husband on the telephone and said "he seems very distressed, very upset that this has happened — they're just very scared in there".

"I'm very concerned that it has dragged on this long, we're in our 10th day now and we haven't had any information."

Cooper's son, Adam, told the same programme that the three men had already had a hearing and the authorities were in the process of transferring the case to the capital Abu Dhabi.

"They were originally arrested on the suspicion that they were taking photographs, and also for the recording of registrations [of planes]," he said.

“Both Cooper and Clitheroe said that they weren't taking photos because they were aware that they could find themselves in trouble," he said.

"But now we've been told that it's been escalated from that to a national security issue."

Valerie Clitheroe, from near Manchester in northwest England, said her husband had high blood pressure and a heart murmur, and his medication would have run out by now.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court on Tuesday deferred a long-awaited parliamentary election due in March indefinitely after another court declared the election law's provision on voting districts as unconstitutional, judicial sources said.

Egypt has been without a parliament since June 2012, when a court dissolved the democratically elected main chamber, reversing a major accomplishment of the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

This delay prolongs a period in which President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has wielded sole legislative authority and slows Egypt's progress towards democracy since its first freely elected president was ousted by the army in 2013.

The decision by Egypt's administrative court came as expected after a ruling on Sunday by the supreme constitutional court against an article on voting districts in an election law which heralded a likely delay to the poll.

The first phase of voting was due to begin on March 22.

The spokesman for the high election committee, which said on Sunday it was working on a new timetable, told Reuters on Tuesday a new date would be set after the law had been amended.

Sisi directed his government to change the law within one month. Analysts say it could be several months before elections were held.

According to one expert, Sunday's ruling requires the government to merge or create new voting districts so that each contains an equal number of voters.

"If we assume the legal committee finishes this work within one month, a new period for nominations will have to be opened, which will delay us about three months," Hassan Nafaa, a professor of political science at Cairo University, said.

The election is the final step in a political roadmap the army announced in July 2013. Egypt's leaders say the election shows their commitment to democracy but critics say Sisi, who as army chief toppled his predecessor, has undermined freedoms gained after the Arab Spring revolt.

"The final result is the same: no parliament, and the continuation of the executive enjoying legislative authority without any checks or balances," wrote H.A. Hellyer, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, following Sunday's ruling.

Egypt is trying to burnish its image in the run-up to an investors' summit later this month which the government sees as key to turning around an economy battered by four years of political turmoil.

Ahmed Imam, member of the opposition Strong Egypt Party which had announced it would boycott the election because it lacked credibility given a clampdown on political freedoms, said changes to the voting districts alone would not result in a fairer election.

Imam said that in order for the elections to be fair, no party should be excluded from running, the state should be neutral throughout and party lists, rather than individual candidates, should take precedence.

"Without these basic changes, whether the election is held now, a month or three months from now, the situation for us won't have changed."

MONTREUX, Switzerland/RIYADH — US Secretary of State John Kerry flies to Riyadh this week to reassure King Salman that any nuclear deal with Iran is in Saudi Arabia's interest, despite the country's fears it may boost its rival's support for Shiite Muslim interests in the region.

Convincing Saudi Arabia to accept any agreed nuclear deal is important to President Barack Obama because he needs Riyadh to work closely with Washington on a host of regional policies and to maintain its role as a moderating influence in oil markets.

The main critics of the US push for a nuclear deal are Israel and congressional Republicans. But Saudi Arabia is sceptical too that any agreement would only let Iran devote more cash and energy to Shiite proxies in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen, escalating conflicts.

"The Saudis fear Obama will give the Iranians a deal whatever the cost because it is important for his legacy, and that Iran will get a certain regional status in exchange for an agreement," said a diplomat in the Gulf.

Kerry met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Montreux, Switzerland, on Monday at the start of up to three days of negotiations to try to meet a self-imposed deadline to achieve a framework agreement by the end of March.

He will then brief Saudi Arabia's new king on the talks, and meet other senior Gulf officials later in the week, in an attempt to convince them that a diplomatic solution to the long-festering crisis over Iran's atomic programme is in that country's interest too.

Saudi's anxiety about an agreement has fuelled a flurry of diplomacy in recent days to bolster unity among Sunni states in the Middle East in the face of shared threats including Iran, analysts say.

Washington shares Arab concerns about Iran's role, particularly in Syria and Yemen and through its ties to Lebanon's Hizbollah militia, a senior Obama administration official said, on condition of anonymity, but added that there was a "very substantial" US military commitment to Gulf allies.

"What we need to do is have the appropriate strategies to counter any provocative and destabilising behaviour... it's going to depend on what can we do effectively in places like Syria and Yemen," he said.

Anxious

US officials are unwilling, however, to outline what strategies might curb Iran's regional influence, and Washington's record in Iraq, Syria and Yemen — where armed Iranian allies have since flourished — has caused Saudi Arabia great anxiety.

The country's trust in Washington during the Iran talks is also still recovering from the sudden move in late 2013 towards a nuclear deal, when Saudi officials were blindsided by the revelation of months of secret talks between the US and Iran.

"They are very, very nervous about the way we are moving forward," said a Western diplomat who tracks the issue closely and said Riyadh feared a "lose-lose situation" in which Iran either gained an atomic weapon or was freed from sanctions.

Riyadh has long been worried about Iran gaining nuclear weapons capability, something that once led King Abdullah to ask Washington to "cut off the head of the snake" by striking Iran, diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks showed.

But it now sees Iran's involvement in Arab countries, particularly its backing of Syrian President Bashar Assad, its support for Iraqi Shiite militias and its ties to the Houthi group that has seized control in northern Yemen, as a more urgent problem.

A senior State Department official told Reuters: "Secretary Kerry will make clear we understand the concerns they have about the region's security, concerns that we also share."

Meanwhile, King Salman is working to forge a united front among Sunni states against what Riyadh sees as the dual threat from Iran and
Daesh, analysts say.

Over the past week King Salman has met the leaders of all Saudi Arabia's Gulf Arab neighbours, His Majesty King Abdullah and the presidents of Egypt and Turkey, the two most populous and militarily powerful Sunni states in the region.

"The understanding is we will face a more aggressive Iran if they sign an agreement. All the restrictions on it will be lifted and it will be much stronger. This is an issue that needs some sort of unity," said Mustafa Alani, an Iraqi security analyst with ties to the Kingdom's Interior Ministry.

GENEVA — EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini warned Tuesday against "spreading fears" about a deal being negotiated with Iran over its nuclear activities, just as Israel's prime minister was addressing the US Congress about the issue.

"Spreading fears is not helpful at this stage," Mogherini told reporters in Geneva in comments that appeared directed at Benjamin Netanyahu, though she did not mention him by name, adding: "We are getting closer" to a deal.

Her comments came as Netanyahu, who has repeatedly attacked the emerging Iran deal, began a speech in which he reportedly plans to unveil classified details shared by the US to show why he believes it poses a grave danger to Israel.

World powers are nearing a March 31 deadline to strike a political framework for a deal to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb.

"I would like to make an appeal, a plea to all public actors to facilitate rather than put in danger diplomatic efforts that have been extremely difficult," Mogherini said.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has been holding talks with his Iranian counterpart Mohammad Javad Zarif on the deal since Monday in the Swiss lakeside town of Montreux.

Mogherini said she had spoken to Kerry by phone and was due to speak to Zarif later Tuesday.

"There were significant steps made in the last weeks, with a lot of political will that I see on many sides," she said.

"[In] the talks of this last round, including the one of today, [there] were encouraging signs."

MONTREUX, Switzerland — The United States will "confront aggressively" Iran's bid to expand its influence across the Middle East even if a nuclear deal is reached, a State Department official said Tuesday.

The official's comments came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a controversial address to the US Congress, sought to highlight Iran's expansionist hopes as one reason to halt the nuclear talks.

Top US diplomat John Kerry will travel to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday to reassure US Gulf allies that an Iran deal would not mean Washington would turn a blind eye to the Islamic Republic's regional ambitions.

"Regardless of what happens in the nuclear file, we will continue to confront aggressively Iranian expansion in the region and Iranian aggressiveness in the region," the official said.

Iran, a Shiite Muslim nation, is blamed for helping to prop up Syrian President Bashar Assad, for supporting Houthi Shiite rebels who have seized the Yemeni capital and for trying to influence Iraqi leaders.

"You can't read into the nuclear negotiation any kind of determination of where the US relationship with Iran may go in the future," the senior State Department official told reporters.

He said Washington was working closely with its majority Sunni Muslim Gulf allies to help build up their security and capabilities to defend their interests.

"Obviously the Gulf states are watching the negotiations very carefully, they have a legitimate reason to want to understand better what it is we're trying to achieve."

But he stressed: "This is not going to change any of the other aspects of our approach to Iran."

Netanyahu said in his controversial address to the US Congress on Tuesday that "at a time when many hope that Iran will join the community of nations, Iran is busy gobbling up the nations.

"We must stand together to stop Iran's march of terror," he said to applause.

WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared Tuesday that the deal being negotiated between world powers and Iran would leave Tehran free to develop nuclear weapons.

In an impassioned address to the US Congress, conducted even as Secretary of State John Kerry was in nuclear talks in Switzerland with his Iranian counterpart, Netanyahu branded Iran a global threat.

"That deal will not prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons," he said, placing himself in stark opposition to US President Barack Obama's policy of containing Iranian ambitions through a diplomatic accord.

"It would all but guarantee that Iran gets those weapons, lots of them," he said, dismissing promises from US and European leaders that the planned accord would block Iran's path to the bomb.

"Iran's nuclear programme would be left largely intact. Iran's breakout time would be very short," he said.

Around 50 Democratic members stayed away from the event, but many more lawmakers from both sides of the aisle did attend, and Netanyahu was welcomed with a warm standing ovation and left to cheers and raucous applause.

"I know that my speech has been the subject of much controversy. I deeply regret that some perceive my being here as political," he said, acknowledging complaints that he has endangered Israel's close ties with Washington.

He has also been accused of using the nuclear stand-off as a platform for electioneering, two weeks ahead of Israeli polls that could threaten his ruling coalition.

"That was never my intention," he protested. "I want to thank you, Democrats and Republicans, for your common support for Israel year after year, decade after decade."

"We appreciate all that President Obama has done for Israel," he said, citing the close security cooperation between the countries.

But, despite his warm opening words, his speech built to a thorough denunciation of Obama's efforts to strike an accord, citing Iranian leaders' threats to "annihilate" Israel and "aggression" against their Middle East neighbours.

"So you see, my friends, this deal has two major concessions. One, leaving Iran with a vast nuclear programme. Two, lifting the restrictions on that programme in about a decade," he said.

"That's why this deal is so bad. It doesn't block Iran's path to the bomb. It paves Iran's path to the bomb."

He cited the strength of Iranian-backed factions in Lebanon, Yemen, Syria and Iraq as evidence of Tehran's regional ambitions, and recalled threats against his own people.

Thus, he said, no nuclear deal should weaken economic sanctions against Iran until its government ends its aggressive stance and alleged support for terrorist violence.

"A deal that is supposed to prevent nuclear proliferation would instead spark nuclear arms race in the most dangerous part of the planet," he warned.

"This deal won't be a farewell to arms. It would be a farewell to arms control.”

"The Middle East would soon be criss-crossed by nuclear trip wires. A region where small skirmishes trigger big wars would turn into a nuclear tinderbox," he said.

"Before lifting these restrictions, the world should demand that Iran do three things.

"First, stop its aggression against its neighbours in the middle east. Second, stop supporting terrorism around the world. And third, stop threatening to annihilate my country, Israel, the one and only Jewish state."

And he concluded by hailing the US-Israeli alliance.

"Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand," Netanyahu said, but I know that America stands with Israel.

"I know that you stand with Israel. You stand with Israel because you know that the story of Israel is not only the story of the Jewish people, but of the human spirit that refuses again and again to succumb to history."