Region

SANAA — A first Iranian flight landed in the Yemeni capital on Sunday, a day after officials from the Shiite militia-controlled city signed an aviation agreement with Tehran.

The Mahan Air plane arrived in Sanaa carrying a team from the Iranian Red Crescent and medical aid, an aviation official told AFP.

Senior Iranian diplomats were on hand to welcome the flight — the first between the two countries in many years.

Yemen's official Saba news agency, which is controlled by the Shiite militiamen who overran Sanaa in September, said Mahan Air and Yemenia would each operate 14 weekly flights under the accord.

Western-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who last weekend escaped house arrest by the Houthis in Sanaa, slammed the agreement as "illegal", according to an aide.

"Those who signed it will be held accountable," Hadi said during a meeting with tribal chiefs in the southern city of Aden where he is now based.

Tehran has repeatedly been accused of backing the Houthi militia, also known as Ansarullah.

Meanwhile, Saba reported that a Houthi delegation led by the head of the "Ansarullah political council", Saleh Al Sammad, would travel to Tehran on Sunday for an "official" visit.

"The delegation which includes an economic delegation, will hold talks with Iranian government officials to discuss means of strengthening economic, political and other means of cooperation between both countries," Sammad told Saba.

The visit is part of efforts to "open new horizons in relations with countries that respect the will of the Yemeni people", said Sammad.

US Secretary of State John Kerry charged last week that "critical" support of the militia by Shiite-dominated Iran had "contributed" to the collapse of Yemen's government.

Iran rejected Kerry's "blame game", insisting that foreign intervention in Yemen would only "further complicate the situation".

The Houthis, who have long clashed with central authorities, descended from their power base in northern Yemen to seize Sanaa in September.

After moves to expand into southern and central Yemen were checked by fierce resistance from Al Qaeda and from Sunni tribesmen, the militia grabbed the seats of power in Sanaa in February.

ISTANBUL — Security footage appears to show three British girls, believed to be heading for Syria to join Daesh militants, waiting at a bus station in Istanbul before travelling to a Turkish town on the Syrian border, media reported Sunday.

Close friends Kadiza Sultana, 16, and 15-year-olds Shamima Begum and Amira Abase, boarded a flight from London to Istanbul on February 17.

British police, who have said the girls are thought to have since entered Syria, and their families have launched urgent appeals for them to return home.

The CCTV images show the three girls entering a bus terminal in Istanbul's Bayrampasa district on the European side of the city, which the trio reached by metro from the airport.

They are seen wearing winter coats on top of their niqabs, two of them with hoods pulled up and carrying luggage as they sit and wait, according to footage on the Aksam newspaper's website, which cited security sources.

The footage was recorded in the early hours of February 18, less than 24 hours after the girls left their homes in east London, telling their families they were heading out for the day.

At one point they can be seen leaving the waiting lounge of the busy terminal along with other passengers and walking through a snow-covered path into the departure lounge.

The time codes on the images suggest that the girls waited at the terminal for nearly 18 hours before taking a bus to the southeastern Turkish city of Sanliurfa close to the Syrian border.

Aksam said that Turkish police were trying to identify the passengers in the footage helping the girls carry their luggage at the bus station.

Turkey, which has been under fire from its Western allies of failing to do enough to stop jihadists crossing into Syria from its territory, accused Britain of failing to provide information about the girls sooner.

An estimated 550 Western women have travelled to join the militants in Iraq and Syria.

ADEN — President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi accused his predecessor on Sunday of conspiring with Iran to scuttle a 2011 deal backed by Gulf states to transfer power to him in cooperation with the Shiite Muslim Houthi group.

Hadi, who assumed office in 2012 after Ali Abdullah Saleh resigned following months of protests against his 33-year rule, fled to the southern port city of Aden last month after the Houthis battled their way to the presidential palace.

He told tribal leaders, heads of political parties and other figures at a meeting in Aden that Saleh, who heads the General People's Congress Party, the biggest bloc in parliament, had sent a parliamentary delegation to Iran to coordinate efforts to undermine the power transfer deal.

"Hadi said that this alliance between Saleh and the Houthis, in coordination with Iran, was behind the fall of Sanaa on September 21 to the Houthi militias," a source at the meeting told Reuters. "No, the historic city [Sanaa] has become an occupied capital," he added.

The United Nations Security Council last year accused Saleh of working with the Houthis to destabilise Yemen and imposed targeted sanctions on him and two senior Houthi leaders for threatening the peace and stability of the country.

Hadi has denied the charges.

Stability in Yemen, which shares a long border with the world's top oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, is important for the West. The impoverished country of 25 million has emerged as another frontline in a regional tussle for influence between rival powers Saudi Arabia and Iran.

The Houthis, who control much of the northern half of the country and run government ministries in Sanaa, on Saturday signed a civil aviation deal with Iran under which they will operate 14 flights a week in both directions, the Houthi-run state news agency said.

The first flight arrived in Sanaa on Sunday, and a delegation headed by one of the group's top leaders flew to Tehran heading an economic delegation to discuss cooperation between the two countries, the Houthi-run Saba news agency said.

The power struggle between the Muslim Shiite Houthis in Sanaa and Hadi in Aden casts more doubt on United Nations-sponsored talks to resolve Yemen's crisis peacefully, and exacerbates sectarian and regional splits which may plunge the country into civil war.

BAGHDAD — The UN mission to Iraq said Sunday that violence claimed the lives of at least 1,100 Iraqis in February, including more than 600 civilians.

The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq said in a statement that 611 civilians were among 1,103 people killed last month, with the rest hailing from the security forces. It said at least 2,280 people were wounded, including 1,353 civilians. January's death toll was at least 1,375.

The most violent city was the capital, Baghdad, with 329 civilians killed and 875 wounded, it said.

The UN numbers also offer minimal estimates for areas under the control of Daesh terrror group, which holds a third of Iraq, but excludes the country's Anbar province.

UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov blamed the deaths on the extremist group, government forces and pro-government Shiite militias.

"Daily terrorist attacks perpetrated by ISIL [Daesh] continue to deliberately target all Iraqis," Mladenov said in the statement. "There are also concerning reports of a number of revenge killings by armed groups in areas recently liberated from ISIL."

He called on Iraq's fractured leaders to reconcile, saying "an exclusively military solution to the problem of ISIL is impossible."

The statement came a day after series of attacks targeting public places and Shiite militia checkpoints in and around the capital killed at least 37 people. The deadliest, near the city of Samarra, saw two suicide car bombers attack checkpoints manned by Shiite militiamen, killing 16 Shite fighters and wounding 31.

Hours later, Daesh claimed responsibility for the Samarra attacks in a statement posted on a Twitter account used by the militants.

Daesh extremist group and other Sunni insurgents seized control of much of western and northern Iraq last year. According to UNAMI, last year was the deadliest in Iraq since the peak of the country's sectarian conflict in 2006-2007, with a total of 12,282 people killed and 23,126 wounded.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court listed the Palestinian group Hamas as a terrorist organisation, judicial sources said on Saturday, part of a sustained crackdown on Islamists in the most populous Arab state.

In a separate case earlier in the day, a court sentenced the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood's top leader Mohamed Badie to life in prison while other members received the death penalty.

Hamas is an offshoot of the Brotherhood, which the authorities have also declared a terrorist group in Egypt and have repressed systematically since the army ousted one of its leaders, Mohamed Morsi, from the presidency in 2013.

While a court ruled in January that Hamas’ armed wing was a terrorist organisation, Saturday’s broader ruling against the entire group has potentially greater consequences for the already strained relationship between Cairo and Hamas, which dominates the Gaza Strip on Egypt’s border.

“The Egyptian court’s decision to list the Hamas movement as a terror organisation is shocking and is dangerous, and it targets the Palestinian people and its factions of resistance,” Hamas said in a statement after the ruling.

“It will have no influence on the Hamas movement,” Hamas said.

After the January decision against Hamas’ Qassem Brigades, a source close to the armed wing signalled the group would no longer accept Egypt as a broker between it and Israel.

Cairo has for many years played a central role in engineering ceasefires between Israel and Hamas, including a truce reached between the sides in August that ended a 50-day Gaza war.

A spokesman for the Egyptian government declined to say what actions the government would take to enforce the ruling.

“When a final judgment is issued, we will discuss this,” Hossam Al Qawish said.

Brotherhood leader given life

In the other case, Badie, the top leader of the now-banned Muslim Brotherhood, was among 14 who were sentenced to life, alongside deputy leader Khairat El Shater and leading figure Mohamed El Beltagy.

Four lower-level members were sentenced to death for inciting violence that led to the killing of protesters demonstrating outside a Brotherhood office days before Morsi’s ouster.

Two of those sentenced to death and three sentenced to life were tried in absentia.

The death sentences are subject to appeal and many of the defendants are already serving lengthy sentences on other charges.

Badie has already been sentenced to multiple life terms, and was one of hundreds given the death sentence in a mass trial that drew international criticism of Egypt’s judicial system.

President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who as army chief toppled Morsi, describes the Brotherhood as a major security threat.

The movement says it is committed to peaceful activism.

DAMASCUS — A UN envoy arrived in the Syrian capital Saturday for talks with the regime to try to finalise a deal to freeze fighting in the war-ravaged second city of Aleppo.

Staffan de Mistura visited Damascus as the army and pro-regime fighters regained territory in southern Syria from forces opposed to President Bashar Al Assad.

De Mistura "hopes to set in motion as soon as possible his project" to halt fighting in Aleppo for six weeks, said a member of his delegation who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The envoy has met government officials and opposition chiefs in recent weeks to promote his plan for a temporary truce in Aleppo in order to move aid into the northern city.

Once Syria's commercial hub, Aleppo has been devastated by fighting that began in mid-2012, and the city is now split between loyalist forces and rebels.

Last week De Mistura said the government had shown a willingness to suspend aerial bombardment of Aleppo for six weeks to allow a humanitarian ceasefire.

Under the plan, rebels would be asked to suspend rocket and mortar fire there during the freeze.

De Mistura incurred the wrath of the opposition earlier in February by describing Assad as “part of the solution” to the conflict.

About 220,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests that spiralled into a multi-sided civil war drawing foreign jihadists.

In Daraa province, southwest of Damascus, regime troops backed by Lebanese Shiite group Hizbollah, Iranian advisers and Iraqi militiamen gained territory from opposition rebels and Al Nusra Front, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday.

The pro-regime forces took control of three villages and several hills in Daraa in clashes that left seven rebels dead, the Britain-based monitor said.

Hizbollah and regime forces launched an operation earlier this month to try to reverse sweeping gains in the south made by anti-Assad rebels and Al Qaeda’s Syria affiliate Al Nusra Front.

Iranian advisers 

The strategically important region is near Damascus, the border with Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

The observatory estimates that 5,000 Hizbollah fighters are deployed in Syria.

Iran has also acknowledged sending military advisers and high ranking officers from the elite Revolutionary Guard to help its ally Assad.

In northern Syria, meanwhile, dozens of people were killed in fierce fighting that broke out on Friday between Al Nusra Front and US-backed rebels for a strategic northern military base.

At least 29 fighters from the Western-armed Hazm movement died along with six Al Nusra Front jihadists, according to the observatory.

“Al Nusra captured Base 46,” said observatory director, Rami Abdel Rahman.

Base 46 is a sprawling military compound that rebels seized in November 2012 from troops loyal to Assad.

The observatory also reported that a “court” of the Daesh terror group near Tal Tamr in Hasakeh province had ordered the release of 28 Assyrian Christians out of a group of at least 220 abducted by the jihadists last week.

De Mistura’s visit to Damascus coincides with a meeting of the main opposition National Coalition in the Turkish border town of Kilis to discuss the Aleppo freeze plan, an alliance spokesman said.

Those at the meeting — including coalition chief Khaled Khoja, opposition figures and representatives of Aleppo’s civil society — would declare a position on De Mistura’s proposal.

It would run into Sunday and conclude “with an announcement on the creation of a follow-up committee that will make contact with De Mistura about his project”, said the spokesman.

When he revealed his plan this month, De Mistura said he had asked the Syrian government to allow a UN team into Aleppo to identify a district for a trial ceasefire.

Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Muqdad told Al Watan newspaper that the envoy suggested the trial begin simultaneously in the Salaheddin and Saif Al Dawla neighbourhoods.

The two battleground districts in southwestern Aleppo are divided between loyalist forces and rebels.

French parliamentarians who met Assad on Wednesday have said the embattled leader expressed support for the plan which De Mistura has been mulling since his appointment in July.

ADEN — Separatists from southern Yemen suspended their participation in UN-sponsored talks on the future of the crisis-hit country as nine soldiers were wounded Saturday in a clash with secessionist fighters.

The violence coincided with a drone strike that killed three suspected Al Qaeda militants in southern Yemen, tribal sources said.

An official in the southern province of Lahij told AFP that separatists opened fire on an army convoy and clashes broke out leaving nine soldiers wounded.

The separatists last week abducted 12 soldiers and threatened to kill them unless the army handed over a military base to offset the growing influence of the Shiite Houthi militia that has seized Sanaa.

Tensions in Yemen have soared since the Houthis overran the presidential palace in the capital in February and placed Western-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a southerner, under house arrest.

Hadi escaped last week to Aden, where he has been reconsolidating his grip on power buoyed by support from Gulf states which have relocated their embassies to the southern city.

Several countries, including Britain and the United States, closed their embassies in Sanaa over security fears following the Houthi takeover.

On Saturday, thousands of Yemenis flooded the streets of Sanaa to protest against the Houthis, and demonstrations also took place in the central cities of Ibb, Taez and Bayda.

Protesters in the capital, including large groups of women, held up banners that read “No to the [Houthi] coup” and “No to armed militias”.

Some women also carried posters calling for the release of Frenchwoman Isabelle Prime, a consultant working on a World Bank-funded project who was abducted Tuesday in Sanaa with her Yemeni interpreter.

Yemen has never managed to achieve stability since longtime president Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in early 2012 after a bloody year-long popular uprising.

Hadi’s escape to Aden has turned what was the capital of an independent south Yemen before unification in 1990 into a diplomatic hub.

Kuwait became the latest Gulf nation to reopen its Yemeni embassy in Aden, instead of the militia-controlled capital, following similar moves by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Aden was the capital of an independent south Yemen before unification in 1990.

The Southern Movement, which seeks the secession of the regions of the formerly independent south, announced overnight Friday that it was pulling out of UN-brokered talks.

Dispute over venue 

“We have suspended our participation in the [UN-backed] national dialogue until it is moved out of the country,” Southern Movement member Yassin Mekkawi told AFP.

He said negotiators were facing mounting “political and psychological pressure”.

UN envoy Jamal Benomar has been shuttling between Yemeni parties to secure an end to the country’s political deadlock and to persuade them to return to the negotiating table in Sanaa.

But there has been widespread disagreement on the venue.

Benomar met Hadi in Aden on Thursday and said the latter wanted the talks moved to a “safe place to which the parties should agree”.

Saleh’s party, however, insists the talks resume in Sanaa, warning of a boycott.

The Houthis, who have long clashed with central authorities, descended from their power base in northern Yemen to seize Sanaa in September.

After moves to expand into southern and central Yemen were checked by fierce resistance from Al Qaeda and from Sunni tribesmen, the militia grabbed the seats of power in Sanaa in February.

The Yemen-based Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, is seen by the United States as the deadliest branch of the global extremist network.

AQAP took advantage of a 2011 uprising that forced veteran president Saleh from power to seize large swathes of the south and east.

On Saturday, three suspected Al Qaeda militants were killed in a drone strike in the southern province of Shabwa, tribal sources said.

The United States is the only country operating drones in Yemen.

SANAA — Yemen and Iran signed a civil aviation deal on Saturday, Yemeni state news agency SABA reported, a move that may reflect Tehran's support for the Shiite Muslim militia that now controls Sanaa.

The deal signed in Tehran by the aviation authorities of both countries allows Yemen and Iran each to fly up to 14 flights a week in both directions, SABA said. The websites of the Iranian and Yemeni national airlines indicated there were currently no flights between the two.

The Shiite Muslim Houthi militia seized Yemen's capital in September, which eventually led President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee last month to the port city of Aden where he is seeking to set up a rival power centre.

TEHRAN — Iran on Saturday shrugged off a bid by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to abort a nuclear deal between Tehran and world powers by lobbying opposition in a speech to the US Congress.

"I believe this effort is fruitless and it should not be an impediment to an agreement," Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said at a joint press conference with his visiting Italian counterpart Paolo Gentiloni.

"It is unfortunate that there is a group which sees its interests in tension and crisis."

Netanyahu's bid was "an attempt to utilise a fabricated crisis to cover up realities in the region, including occupation, the suppression of Palestinians and the violation of their rights", he said.

"It is an old policy to intimidate and spread lies ... in order to prevent peace in the region," said Zarif.

Netanyahu will travel next week to Washington to denounce a possible agreement in the Iranian nuclear talks, which he considers contrary to the interests of Israel.

The Israeli leader said Wednesday that his speech before Congress was part of his "duty" to protect Israel’s security.

"Under the agreement that is being prepared, we have reason to worry ... if the world powers have apparently found common ground with Iran," he said.

The so-called P5+1 group of Britain, China, France, Russia, the United States and Germany are trying to strike an accord that would prevent Tehran from developing a nuclear bomb.

The next round of talks is to start next week in Switzerland.

In return, the West would ease punishing sanctions imposed on Tehran over its nuclear programme, which Iran insists is purely civilian.

A March 31 deadline for a political framework for the deal is looming with negotiators saying they will aim to pin down the final technical details by June 30.

BAGHDAD — A series of attacks targeting public places and Shiite militia checkpoints in and north of Iraq's capital killed 37 people Saturday, authorities said.

The first bombs exploded near the market in the town of Balad Ruz, 70 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, killing 11 people and wounding 50, police and hospital officials said.

Two suicide car bombers later attacked checkpoints manned by Shiite militiamen near the city of Samarra, killing 16 Shiite fighters and wounding 31, authorities said.

Samarra and surrounding areas have been under constant attacks by Daesh terror group, which holds about a third of Iraq and neighbouring Syria in its self-declared “caliphate”. Clashes between Iraqi security forces and Daesh militants followed the attack around Samarra, 95 kilometres north of Baghdad.

Saturday night, police said a bomb killed four people in western Baghdad, while another in Baghdad's neighbourhood of Abu Dashir killed three people and wounding eight.

Four mortar shells also hit homes in Sabaa Al Bour, just north of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding six, police said.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to journalists.

Iraq's interior ministry later said Iraqi border guards repelled an attack by Daesh militants on a post on the Iraqi-Saudi border, saying several militants were killed.

Meanwhile in Baghdad, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi vowed to track down and punish those who smashed rare relics in the northern city of Mosul.

On Thursday, Daesh released a video purportedly showing militants using sledgehammers to smash statues, describing them as idols. The vandalism drew global condemnation.

The destruction is part of a campaign by the extremists, who have destroyed a number of shrines. They are also believed to have sold ancient artifacts on the black market to finance their bloody campaign.

"Those barbaric, criminal terrorists are trying to destroy the heritage of the mankind and Iraq's civilisation," Abadi said. "We will chase them in order to make them pay for every drop of blood shed in Iraq and for the destruction of Iraq's civilisation."