Region

RAMALLAH — The Palestinians are to lodge their first complaint against Israel for alleged war crimes at the International Criminal Court (ICC) on April 1, a senior official told AFP on Monday.

"One of the first important steps will be filing a complaint against Israel at the ICC on April 1 over the (2014) Gaza war and settlement activity," said Mohammed Shtayyeh, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO).

On January 2, the Palestinians moved to formally join the Hague-based court in a process which is due to take effect on April 1, setting the scene for potential legal action against Israeli officials for alleged war crimes.

Israel reacted furiously, and quickly moved to cut off millions of dollars in monthly tax payments it collects on behalf of the Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority, exacerbating an already severe financial crisis.

There was no immediate response from Israel, with foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nachshon refusing to react to a declaration which he described as "speculative and hypothetical".

On January 16, the ICC announced "a preliminary examination" into Israel's actions over a period beginning in June which included last year's war in Gaza in which about 2,200 Palestinians were killed.

UN figures indicate most of the victims were civilians.

The Palestinians are also planning to sue Israel over its policy of settlement building on land they want for a future state.

Under international law, all Israeli construction on land seized during the 1967 war is viewed as illegal and a major stumbling block to efforts to end the decades-long conflict.

BENGHAZI, Libya — Former Libyan General Khalifa Haftar was appointed as army commander for the country's internationally recognised government on Monday in a decision that may complicate UN talks to end fighting in Libya.

Four years after Muammar Qadhafi's demise, Libya is mired in a conflict pitting the recognised government against a rival administration set up by an armed faction known as Libya Dawn that took over the capital Tripoli last summer.

The appointment of Haftar, a former Qadhafi ally who later joined the 2011 revolution against the Libyan leader, is likely to stoke tensions with the Tripoli government, which sees his rise as a sign that the old guard is gaining strength.

"The House of Representatives has appointed General Khalifa Belqasem Haftar as top military commander," said Tarek Saqer Juroushi, deputy head of the defence committee at Libya's elected parliament.

He said Haftar had been promoted to lieutenant general, adding that he would be sworn in on Tuesday or Wednesday.

A former general who helped Qadhafi come to power only to fall out with him in the 1980s, Haftar has become one of the most divisive figures in post-revolution Libya where he re-emerged on the
political stage last year.

Last year, he began a self-declared war against Islamist militants in Benghazi city. He gained support from some Libyans tired of their country's chaos, but also criticism for air strikes and attacks on civilian airports and seaports.

Haftar has merged his irregular forces with army troops in the east to fight disparate Islamist groups. But he has also targeted forces loyal to the Libya Dawn armed faction.

The United Nations is trying to organise peace talks between the rival administrations to defuse the violent power struggle that is threatening to tear apart the North African country.

GAZA CITY — UN Middle East peace envoy Robert Serry criticised the international community Monday over the failure to deliver aid promised for reconstructing Gaza, on his final trip to the Palestinian territory.

Israel and Hamas fought a devastating 50-day war in the besieged coastal enclave last summer which killed more than 2,200 people and left 100,000 Gazans homeless and large swathes of the territory in ruins.

The UN and other agencies have warned failure to rehabilitate Gaza will lead to further conflict in the near future, and urged Israel to lift its eight-year blockade of the strip.

"Gaza is more isolated than ever, with many restrictions still in place at Israeli crossings for both goods and people and with the Rafah crossing [with Egypt] practically closed," Serry said in a statement.

"Only a small percentage of the $5.4 billion pledged at the Cairo reconstruction conference [in October] has actually been disbursed. This is, frankly, unacceptable," he said.

"I urgently call on all stakeholders, including... Palestinian factions, Israel, Egypt, the international community and donors, to change their failed policies and adopt a 'Gaza first' strategy."

More than 100,000 homes remain damaged or destroyed from the war.

Serry, who is to end his term as peace envoy next month, said there was movement towards reconstruction, but that it was too slow.

"To date, over 72,000 people have been cleared to receive construction material... and around 55,000 have actually purchased material to rebuild their homes."

But "many of those who now have access to building material lack the money to buy them or to carry out the works”.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/BRUSSELS — High-level discussions are under way on increasing involvement of Arab powers to reinvigorate a four-member group overseen by Britain's Tony Blair that has been seeking to mediate in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since 2002.

Rather than formally expanding the Middle East Quartet's membership, the idea is to have more frequent top-level meetings with at least Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt to ensure the region is more closely engaged at a time of tumultuous change, senior diplomats based in the Middle East and Europe said.

Federica Mogherini, the European Union's foreign affairs chief, is expected to appoint a special envoy to the Middle East in the coming days. Officials said a first meeting of the Quartet — the United States, the EU, the United Nations and Russia — along with Arab states and perhaps the Arab League could take place in the coming weeks.

Israeli-Palestininan peace talks collapsed last April after nine months of largely fruitless discussions sponsored by the United States.

"The important thing is that there will be an outreach to those countries," said a European diplomat briefed on the proposals. "There is an understanding that peace between Israelis and Palestinians must be embedded in a broader regional concept and for that you need neighbouring Arab countries.

"It's very difficult to say at the moment what format this will take because there are too many unknown factors."

No concrete plan is expected until after Israel's March 17 election, but US and UN diplomats have made clear that they are open to the idea. It is not clear where Russia, long an outlier in the Quartet, stands.

While Israel has not given the Quartet prominence in the past, preferring to have Washington lead negotiations, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has spoken of a need for a common approach with states in the region, especially amid a rising threat from Islamic State.

Robert Serry, UN special coordinator in the region, said he would welcome enlargement of the Quartet, which he described as "leaderless". Former British prime minister Tony Blair has served as chief representative since 2007.

"When the Quartet was having [its last] meeting on a high level, it was agreed that in any renewed Quartet activities to support the peace process, countries like Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others need to be more closely associated," Serry told Reuters.

As well as those three states, officials have mentioned possible involvement of the United Arab Emirates or Qatar, both now significant regional players.

RIYADH — A Saudi diplomat kidnapped in Yemen almost three years ago and handed to Al Qaeda has been freed and returned to the kingdom, the interior ministry said Monday.

Abdullah Al Khalidi, deputy consul in the southern port city of Aden, who was kidnapped on March 28, 2012, was freed following "intense efforts" by the Saudi intelligence services, a ministry statement carried by the official SPA news agency said without elaborating.

Less than one month after his abduction, Al  Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) demanded the freeing of all its members detained in Saudi Arabia as well as a ransom in exchange for the diplomat's release.

His captors initially asked for $10 million but later doubled the ransom demand to $20 million, a tribal mediator said in August 2012.

The release of Khalidi was the fruit of a tribal mediation led by dignitaries from the southern province of Shabwa, a tribal source told AFP.

The captors agreed after three weeks of negotiations to free Khalidi for a ransom, the source said, without disclosing the value.

AFP could not verify this claim with any independent sources.

The Saudi interior ministry said the diplomat had been handed over to Al Qaeda "in a suspicious deal" after his kidnap in Aden.

He "will undergo medical examinations and be reunited with his family", SPA said.

Khalidi has made several video pleas urging the Saudi government to secure his release.

AQAP was formed from a merger of the jihadist network's Yemeni and Saudi branches and is regarded by Washington as its most dangerous arm.

In recent years, it has carried out a growing number of abductions, with several hostages still in captivity.

It is still holding Iranian embassy staffer Nour-Ahmad Nikbakht who was abducted in July last year.

In December, AQAP shot dead American journalist Luke Somers and South African teacher Pierre Korkie during an abortive attempt by US commandos to rescue them from the hideout in southeastern Yemen where they were being held.

Powerful local tribes also frequently kidnap foreigners in a bid to extract concessions from Yemeni authorities.

KIRKUK, Iraq — Some 30,000 Iraqi troops and militia backed by aircraft pounded jihadists in and around Tikrit on Monday in the biggest offensive yet to retake one of Daesh terror group’s main strongholds.

Government forces have battled their way north for months, notching up key victories against Daesh, but Tikrit has been their toughest target yet with the jihadists having resisted them several times.

Commanders voiced hope the broadest operation since Daesh overran swathes of the country last year would be a step towards the liberation of Mosul, the jihadists' main hub in Iraq.

"Security forces are advancing on three main fronts towards Tikrit, Ad-Dawr [to the south] and A Alam [to the north]," a senior army officer on the ground told AFP by telephone.

The operation began in early morning after being announced by Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi the previous evening.

The army officer said the forces involved were from the army, police, counter-terrorism units, a government-controlled volunteer group known as the Popular Mobilisation units and Sunni tribes.

Military sources said warplanes were involved but it was not immediately clear whether foreign air support — Iranian or from the US-led coalition fighting Daesh — was also called in.

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.

Appeal to spare civilians 

Abadi urged the security forces to spare civilians during the offensive, a message echoed by the UN and responding to fears of reprisals against the area's Sunnis.

Hadi Al Ameri, the Popular Mobilisation units' powerful commander, on Saturday urged Tikrit residents to leave their homes within 48 hours so government forces could "wrap up the battle of the revenge for Speicher".

Speicher is a military base near Tikrit from which hundreds of new, mostly Shiite, recruits were kidnapped before being murdered execution-style in the early days of the Daesh offensive that swept through much of the Sunni Arab heartland north and west of Baghdad in June.

Shiite militias in particular have vowed to avenge the murders, sparking fears of mass killings against Sunnis if Tikrit were to be recaptured.

Some Sunni tribes have been accused of direct involvement in the Speicher massacre.

Abadi appealed to residents to turn against the jihadists, who have suffered a string of losses since Iraq's foreign partners stepped up their support.

"I call on all those who were misled and made mistakes in the past to lay down their arms today. This may be the last chance," Abadi said, suggesting some could be granted amnesty.

New Daesh video 

Daesh replied with a video showing the execution of four men they said were Sunni Arabs belonging to a tribal group working against Daesh near Tikrit.

It also released pictures dated Monday that showed jihadists still manning checkpoints in Tikrit and Al Alam.

Iraqi forces tried and failed several times to wrest back Tikrit, a Sunni Arab city on the Tigris river about 160 kilometres north of Baghdad.

AKE Group analyst John Drake said the new assault stood a better chance of success because Shiite groups had more resources and were less stretched.

"Nonetheless, the operation is likely to still be very difficult," he said.

"It will also likely be difficult for the security forces to gain local intelligence on the ground," he said, explaining residents may be unwilling to assist Shiite forces or fear Daesh reprisals in the event of an inconclusive outcome.

The military commander for Salaheddin province, Abdel Wahab Saadi, said Tikrit had both symbolic and strategic importance.

"The aim of course is to liberate Salaheddin to allow for the return of displaced families but it is also going to be a stepping stone on the way to liberating Mosul," he told AFP.

SANAA — The US ambassador to Yemen visited President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi in Aden on Sunday, their first public meeting since Washington closed its embassy in Sanaa last month after Houthis took full control there.

Hadi has resumed official duties from southern Yemen's main city, where he fled last month after Houthi fighters put him under house arrest in Sanaa when they stormed his private residence and the presidency compound in January.

Washington has been worried over a deepening crisis in Yemen after the Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim Houthi group overran Sanaa last September and sidelined Hadi's government.

It fears the move will further embolden Al Qaeda's local branch, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which sees Shiites as heretics.

Local media published photos of Ambassador Matthew Tueller seated with Hadi at the presidential compound in the Al Tawahi district of Aden.

Aden television quoted Tueller as saying through an Arabic language interpreter: "There is no choice before Yemenis other than what they have chosen, which is the national dialogue that President Hadi also supports."

He was referring to nearly a year of talks held by various political factions on political and administrative reforms.

Tueller made no mention of any plans to establish a diplomatic presence in Aden, after the US embassy in Sanaa was closed last month due to what it described as the deteriorating security situation in the capital.

Speculation that Washington might relocate its embassy to Aden rose after Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states moved their missions to the city.

A senior US official travelling with US Secretary of State John Kerry in Montreux, Switzerland says Washington was not considering establishing a US embassy in Aden.

"No. We are currently exploring the option of some embassy staff relocating to another country in the region to continue their engagement on Yemen," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

After years of crisis, Yemen now risks descending into a full-blown civil war pitting regional, political, tribal and sectarian rivals against each other in a nation that shares a long border with top global oil exporter Saudi Arabia.

The United States has long conducted drone strikes on the militants, a strategy critics say has failed to make a decisive difference and has stoked anti-US sentiment.

CAIRO (AFP) — Eleven people were wounded, one critically, in a bomb explosion outside the Egyptian supreme court in Cairo on Monday, hospital officials said.

A police official and state media had said one man died but later retracted the information.

Hospital officials said the blast blew away part of his skull and brain, and he was in a critical condition.

The explosion appeared aimed at a police checkpoint near the court, a hospital official said.

The latest attack came a day after two civilians died in a bombing outside a police station in southern Egypt.

A worker in a nearby café in Cairo said he ran out into the street after hearing a loud explosion.

“I found three people lying on the ground covered in blood.”

Police sealed off the area and swept it with bomb detector dogs as ambulances tried to reach the site through a crowd of onlookers.

Militants have regularly set off bombs in the capital, mostly targeting police, after the 2013 military overthrow of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi unleashed a deadly crackdown on his supporters.

It was the second time a bomb went off near the supreme court, after an explosion wounded 12 people last October.

Monday’s explosion came days after a series of bombings in Cairo in which one person was killed.

Five bombs struck within hours, four of them near mobile phone service companies and a police station.

Most of the bombings in the capital have been rudimentary and caused no casualties.

But several have killed policemen, including two senior officers who died while trying to defuse bombs planted outside the presidential palace last June.

Those bombs and several others that killed policemen in Cairo were claimed by the Ajnad Misr (Soldiers of Egypt) jihadist group.

The deadliest attacks since Morsi’s overthrow have been launched by Daesh terror group’s affiliate in Egypt, Sinai-based Ansar Beit Al Maqdis, which has killed scores of soldiers and policemen.

BEIRUT — Syrian regime forces and Kurdish militia fought separate battles with the Daesh terror group on Monday in a strategic area near the Iraqi and Turkish borders, a monitoring group said.

Forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and fighters from the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) launched uncoordinated offensives against Daesh in the northeastern province of Hasakeh, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP that after three days of clashes, regime forces bolstered by fighters from Arab tribes had secured control over 23 villages in the centre of the province from Daesh.

Syria's official news agency SANA put the number at 31.

State television said the army offensive would continue until it controlled the main road linking the provincial capital Hasakeh and the city of Qamishli.

"IS [Daesh] has launched counter-attacks on regime checkpoints, while the regime fortifies its positions with support from local Arab tribes," Abdel Rahman added.

He said YPG fighters were meanwhile also battling Daesh alongside Arab tribes outside the village of Tal Tamr in Hasakeh's southwest.

"The YPG fighters in Tal Tamr are shelling Daesh around the area to lure Daesh to respond, so they can identify their positions" and call for strikes by the US-led coalition waging an air campaign against Daesh, he said.

"But Daesh is avoiding any response in order not to give away its positions."

YPG spokesman Redur Khalil confirmed to AFP that the Kurdish fighters were conducting "attack-and-retreat operations with Daesh on two fronts.

"The first is around Tal Tamr, in order to retake Assyrian towns in the area, and the second is around Tal Burak," a town between Hasakeh and Qamishli, he said.

Daesh launched an attack last week on the areas around Kurdish-controlled Tal Tamr and kidnapped 220 Assyrian Christians from 11 villages. Nineteen of them were freed Sunday after ransoms were paid.

Control of Hasakeh province is split between Daesh, regime fighters and Kurdish militia, with overlap at a number of points.

Government forces withdrew from most of the province in the first few months after the start of Syria's uprising in March 2011, granting greater autonomy to the Kurds.

The area is of strategic importance because it borders both Turkey and Iraq.

A UN fact-finding mission meanwhile deployed to Syria's second city Aleppo on Monday, despite the rejection by opposition forces of a partial ceasefire there proposed by UN envoy Staffan De Mistura.

"The mission will aim to assess the situation on the ground and to ensure that, once the freeze is announced, humanitarian aid can significantly increase, and to prepare arrangements to follow up on violations of the freeze," his office said in a statement.

The Italian-Swedish diplomat has made the Aleppo freeze the centrepiece of his mediation efforts since he was named as special envoy on the Syrian conflict in July.

WASHINGTON — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned Washington on Monday that an emerging nuclear deal with Iran could threaten his country's very survival, but insisted Israel-US relations remain solid.

"You are here to tell the world that reports of the demise of the US relationship is not only premature, but it is wrong," the Israeli leader told delegates to a packed pro-Israel conference in Washington.

Netanyahu goes to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to address a joint meeting of Congress on the perils of President Barack Obama's ongoing efforts to reach agreement with Iran to curtail its nuclear programme.

"My speech is not intended to show any disrespect to President Obama or the office that he holds. I have great respect for both," he told 16,000 activists at lobby group AIPAC's annual conference.

"The purpose of my address to Congress tomorrow is to speak up about a potential deal with Iran that could threaten the survival of Israel.

"Israel and the United States agree that Iran shouldn't have nuclear weapons. But we disagree on the best way to prevent them from developing those weapons," he added.

Speaking before Netanyahu, Washington's ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power sought to counter his opposition to the emerging deal with Tehran.

"The United States of America will not allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, period," she said.”

And she insisted that Obama would stand by US allies "whether the negotiations collapse or produce a diplomatic solution that meets our bottom line.”

Netanyahu aides say Israel has "excellent information" that talks between the Islamic republic and the so-called P5+1 group negotiating a deal meant to prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb are heading towards an easing of international sanctions without the ironclad safeguards Israel says are essential to deny Iran a nuclear bomb.

"We know a great deal about the emerging agreement," an official told journalists on Netanyahu's flight to Washington Sunday. "In our view, it is a bad agreement."

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, would not indicate the source of the information but said Netanyahu would elaborate in his congressional address.

That apparently prompted US Secretary of State John Kerry to comment that he was "concerned by reports" that "selective details" of the deal aimed at curbing Tehran's nuclear programme would be revealed in the coming days.

Netanyahu's opponents at home and abroad accuse him of endangering the special relationship with the United States in order to further his policy agenda.

Similar criticism has been levelled at Obama's Republican opponents in the US Congress.

"Our commitments to our partnership with Israel are bedrock commitments rooted in shared fundamental values cemented through decades of bipartisan reinforcement," Power said.

"This partnership should never be politicized," she added, vowing that the joint commitments "cannot and will not be tarnished or broken”.

Netanyahu is running for reelection in a March 17 general election.

Top-selling Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot, already fiercely critical of his campaign, was spitting fire again on Monday.

"Netanyahu is going to Washington less in the role of a prime minister who is concerned for his citizens' security and more in the role of a pyromaniac," its veteran political analyst Shimon Shiffer wrote.

"In practice, there is no chance of preventing the agreement at the advanced stage that the talks have reached."

Meanwhile, the White House denied reports that it would curb US aid to Israel in response to the duel with Netanyahu.