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NEW YORK — A US jury on Monday found Palestinian authorities liable for six attacks in Jerusalem that killed and injured Americans, awarding victims and their families more than $218 million in damages.

Under the US anti-terrorism act, the damages are automatically tripled, meaning that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) are liable to pay more than $650 million.

The jury reached its verdict following two half-days of deliberations, ending a landmark trial under US district judge George Daniels in New York that lasted more than five weeks.

The six attacks killed 33 people and wounded more than 390 others between January 2002 and January 2004.

The bombings and shootings were carried out by Hamas and the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades — blacklisted as terrorist organisations in the United States — during the second Palestinian uprising against Israel.

The 12-member jury decided unanimously that the PA and PLO were liable on 25 separate counts connected to the six attacks.

They apportioned individual damages ranging from $1 million to $25 million to Americans who were injured or lost loved ones.

The total falls well short of the $1 billion sought by lawyers for 11 plaintiff families when the trial opened in mid-January.

Steps against PA assets

But attorney Kent Yalowitz welcomed the verdict.

"This is a great day for our country, it's a great day for those who fight terror, we're so proud of our families who stood up," he told reporters.

"We're so impressed with how seriously the jury took their job, it's really amazing, very humbling."

It remains unclear if and how the PA can pay.

The Palestinian leadership is in serious financial difficulty because of revenue frozen by Israel.

Mahmoud Khalifa, Palestinian deputy information minister, expressed dismay at the verdict and vowed to appeal what he called "baseless" charges.

He said the case was politically motivated by "anti-peace factions" in Israel to block a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"We are confident that we will prevail, as we have faith in the US legal system and are certain about our common sense belief and our strong legal standing," he said in a statement.

Israeli lawyer Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told reporters in New York that she would leave no stone unturned in forcing the Palestinians to pay.

"Now the Palestinian Authority knows there is a price for sending suicide bombers to our malls, to our cafes and blowing our buses up, and we will pursue and will make sure that the PA will pay every dollar," she said.

"We're going to take steps against their assets, they have assets in the United States, in Israel. We're going to go after bank accounts and money that they are getting paid on a monthly basis in Israel, for instance."

Defence attorneys refused to comment after the verdict.

"There is no conclusive evidence that the senior leadership of the PA or PLO were involved in planning or approving specific acts of violence," lawyer Mark Rochon had argued in court last week.

Lawyers for the PA contended that the leadership should not be held responsible for "crazy and terrible" attacks carried out by people who acted independently.

He said the plaintiffs "exaggerated" testimony to make the Palestinian Authority "look bad" based in part on Israeli intelligence.

The Palestinians sought to argue that New York does not have jurisdiction to hear the case just because the PLO maintains a small office in the US.

The plaintiffs argued that the PA and PLO be held responsible for providing material support to the groups responsible for the attacks, blacklisted as a foreign terrorist organisation in the United States.

The court also heard that members of the two groups were on the payroll of the two organisations.

The six attacks took place against Hebrew University, in Jaffa Road, King George Street, against the number 19 bus and in French Hills, a Jewish settlement in East Jerusalem.

LONDON — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's claim that Iran was a year away from making a nuclear bomb was contradicted by his secret services, according to reports Monday citing leaked documents.

The inconsistency was revealed in a cache of communications between South African intelligence services and their global partners — including Israel's Mossad and America's CIA — that were leaked to Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera and Britain's The Guardian daily.

In 2012 Netanyahu told world leaders at the United Nations that Iran could create a nuclear weapon within a year, brandishing a diagram in the form of a lit bomb to indicate the advanced state of Tehran's development effort.

He warned the world that unless Iran was stopped, as of mid-2013 it would only need "a few months, or even a few weeks" of additional uranium enrichment activity to develop a bomb.

But weeks after the speech, Mossad shared a report with South African intelligence which concluded Iran was "not performing the activity necessary to produce weapons", according to The Guardian.

The discrepancy, the paper said, "highlights the gulf between the public claims and rhetoric of top Israeli politicians and the assessments of Israel's military and intelligence establishment."

The revelations come at a politically sensitive moment as the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany face a March 31 deadline to reach a deal with Iran to limit its nuclear programme in return for an easing of economic sanctions.

Iran denies seeking an atomic bomb, insisting that its nuclear programme is purely for peaceful energy purposes.

An Israeli government official told the Guardian that there was no contradiction between Netanyahu's statements and the report, claiming both state Iran was enriching uranium to produce weapons.

The leaked documents dating from 2006 to late 2014 consist mainly of communications between South Africa's intelligence agency and other agencies around the world, such as Britain's MI6, Russian intelligence and the CIA.

RAMALLAH — Israeli soldiers shot dead a Palestinian in the occupied West Bank on Tuesday, the military and a Palestinian hospital official said.

Residents of the Deheishe refugee camp in Bethlehem said Palestinians threw stones at Israeli soldiers who had entered the area and the troops opened fire.

An Israeli military spokeswoman said the Palestinians hurled rocks, blocks and firebombs at the troops, wounding one soldier. "The force, feeling imminent danger to their lives, responded with fire toward an instigator," she added.

A Palestinian hospital official identified the dead man as 20-year-old Jihad Al Jaafari.

The Palestinians want to establish a state in East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, territories Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East war.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem in a move unrecognised internationally and in 2005 pulled out of Gaza, now controlled by Islamist Hamas and under an Israeli-Egyptian blockade.

The Israeli military remains in charge of the West Bank, allowing the Palestinians limited self-rule in certain areas, including the major urban centres.

US-brokered peace talks between the sides broke down in April. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has since stepped up unilateral moves at the United Nations towards Palestinian statehood.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The number of new settler housing units under construction in Jewish settlements on the Israel-occupied West Bank rose last year by 40 per cent, the Peace Now anti-settlements watchdog said Monday.

The Israeli group said the construction of 3,100 "residential units" began last year in West Bank settlements, while 4,485 tenders for construction there and in East Jerusalem settlement districts were launched in 2014 — "a record high for at least a decade".

Of the 3,100 units, 287 were in so-called wildcat settlements without official authorisation from Israeli authorities, Peace Now said.

The international community draws no distinction between "legal" and "illegal" settlements, considering all to be illegitimate on occupied Palestinian territory.

Peace Now said the monthly average for new housing units in settlements was 460 during Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's third government which took office on March 18, 2013.

It said that over the same period 66 construction projects were launched to build 10,113 housing units in 41 settlements.

"All these figures prove that Benjamin Netanyahu is doing everything to increase faits accomplis on the ground and make a two-state solution impossible," Peace Now's Hagit Ofran said.

"We hope Israeli voters will take this essential fact into account" when they go back to the polls on March 17, she said.

Last month, Israel also announced plans to build 450 new settler housing units in the West Bank, drawing the ire of Washington which denounced this as "illegitimate and counterproductive" to achieving peace with the Palestinians.

The announcement, coming just weeks before early elections, further strained relations between the United States — the broker of now frozen peace talks — and its main Middle Eastern ally.

The Palestinians denounced the plan for the 450 new housing units as a "war crime".

Peace Now said the housing units were to be built in four existing settlements across the West Bank.

Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.

Building settlements there is illegal under international law and is opposed by the international community as an obstacle to an eventual peace deal with the Palestinians.

CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait — New Pentagon chief Ashton Carter on Monday vowed "lasting defeat" against Daesh terror group as he summoned top generals and diplomats to Kuwait to review the war effort against the jihadists.

Only days after taking office, Carter convened the extraordinary meeting of more than two-dozen senior military officers, ambassadors and intelligence officials at the sprawling US army base of Camp Arifjan.

Speaking to American troops at the base before the talks, Carter said the US-led coalition was "pressing" Daesh "very ably from Kuwait and elsewhere".

"And we will deliver lasting defeat, make no doubt," he said.

Carter said he had called the meeting of commanders and officials "to sit around one table and talk about all of the dimensions of this campaign".

The discussion would look not just at the fight in Iraq and Syria, where US and coalition aircraft have carried out daily bombing raids, but the wider regional struggle against Daesh, he said.

“ISIL [Daesh] is not just a threat to Iraq and Syria. It’s a larger threat to the region,” said Carter, using an alternative acronym for the Sunni extremist group.

Asked by one soldier if Washington would consider sending ground troops to take on the jihadists, Carter said any additional military action would have to be weighed carefully.

But he added “we’ll do what it takes” to prevail.

President Barack Obama, anxious to avoid a drawn-out ground war, has backed an air campaign but ruled out deploying “boots on the ground”.

The talks follow more than six months of US-led air strikes that have halted Daesh advances for the most part and enabled Kurdish forces to recapture some ground in northern Iraq and the Syrian town of Kobani on the border with Turkey.

But the jihadists still hold large swathes of territory seized last year across Iraq and Syria and appear to have spread their influence to Libya.

In recent days, Daesh has claimed responsibility for bombings in Libya as well as the murder of 21 Coptic Christians, most of them Egyptian.

Recruiting Sunnis to fight 

The meeting of top brass and diplomats was not intended to produce a new strategy but to allow Carter to better understand the challenge posed by the jihadists and the range of efforts aimed at defeating them, said a senior US defence official.

Carter would be looking for an update on the Iraqi government’s efforts to recruit other Sunnis into the fight against Daesh, the official told reporters.

Carter, an experienced Pentagon technocrat who took office last week, “wants it to be an open conversation regardless of rank”, without formal presentations featuring power point slides, the official said.

Commanders believe the air war against Daesh and the training of Iraqi soldiers is mostly on course, but Baghdad’s Shiite-led government has more work to do to persuade Sunnis to take up arms.

“On the military side, things are going well,” the official said, adding, however, that “it’s still yet to be seen how the Iraqis are really going to lead this thing”.

“Thousands” of Sunni tribesmen have signed up to fight but a proposed Sunni national guard was still a long way off, the official said.

“Are Sunnis in the fight? Yes. Are they in the numbers we want? No.”

Carter was likely to raise questions about “what it means when we have groups swearing allegiance to ISIL in Libya, in Egypt, in Afghanistan” and “how are we thinking about the next few years of the counter-terrorism fight”.

The meeting was to include the commander running the anti-Daesh campaign, Lieutenant General James Terry, as well as the heads of US Central Command, Africa Command, European Command, Special Operations Command and Joint Special Operations Command.

Diplomats and civilian officials due to take part included John Allen, Obama’s envoy to the anti-Daesh coalition, as well as the US special envoy to Syria, Daniel Rubinstein, the official said.

US ambassadors to Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would also attend.

On his first trip abroad as defence secretary since being sworn in last Tuesday, Carter came to Kuwait after a two-day visit to Afghanistan, consulting commanders about the pace of a US troop withdrawal.

SANAA — Yemen's Shiite rebels on Monday threatened to arrest and try for treason the prime minister and all Cabinet members if they fail to return to work, as thousands of Yemenis took to the streets in the capital, Sanaa, to denounce the rebel power grab.

The threat came a day after the rebel Houthis ordered Prime Minister Khaled Bahah and all Cabinet members back to work, but they declined.

In January, Bahah and the ministers were placed under house arrest by the rebels who had seized Sanaa. The officials resigned en masse in a gesture of protest and the Houthis subsequently declared they have taken over the country.

The Houthi TV channel, Al Masirah, said Monday that 17 Cabinet members agreed to resume their posts. The report could not be immediately confirmed and none of the Cabinet ministers could be reached for comment.

Meanwhile, protesters in the Yemeni capital chanted in support of embattled President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, who over the weekend fled Sanaa where he had also been held under house arrest by the Houthis.

Hadi arrived in the southern port city of Aden and from there called on the Houthis to leave the capital, and for the military and security forces to rally to his side. He announced on Sunday that he is still the legitimate leader of Yemen and that all actions taken since the rebels stormed the capital Sanaa last September were illegitimate.

The Houthis swept into Sanaa last September, after battling their way from the northern Shiite heartland and imposing control over at least nine provinces. Since taking over the country, the Houthis also disbanded the parliament and empowered their security arm, known as the Revolutionary Committee, to act as the country's top decision makers.

Also Monday, Sunni tribesmen in control of eastern Marib province, where Yemen's oil infrastructure is based, threatened to cut fuel supplies to Sanaa if the Houthis try to pressure them by halting the payments of their salaries from the capital.

The Marib governor, Sultan Al Arada, said in a statement obtained by The Associated Press that the Sunni tribes were "making all effort to avert confrontation and warfare”.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel's state-owned electric company briefly cut power to two Palestinian cities in the occupied West Bank on Monday to press for payment of what it said was $492 million owed by the Palestinian government.

"The Israel Electric Corporation [IEC] limited for 45 minutes today the supply of electricity to five power lines in Nablus and Jenin," the company said in a statement, adding that further cuts were possible.

Nablus Mayor Ghassan Al Shaka'a said the power went out in parts of the city and was gradually restored.

"This is collective punishment," he told Reuters, calling the blackouts politically motivated.

IEC said in a statement it had "long warned... about a debt that has ballooned to more than 1.9 billion shekels over the years — but no solution has been found".

Palestinians in the West Bank, territory Israel occupied in the 1967 Middle East War, are largely dependent on electricity supplied by IEC.

A Palestinian power company in occupied East Jerusalem also buys electricity from IEC and sells it to the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank under interim peace deals with Israel.

Shaka’a told Reuters that Israeli power cuts would do more damage to a Palestinian economy already hit by Israel’s withholding of the monthly transfer of more than $100 million in tax revenues that it collects on behalf of the PA.

Israel suspended the transfers last month after the Palestinians applied to join the International Criminal Court, where war crimes prosecutions could be pursued. The United States has expressed concern about the PA’s viability if the funds remain frozen.

In previous instances in which Israel has withheld Palestinian tax revenues, some Israeli officials have proposed that some of the money be used to pay off some of the PA’s electric bill.

GENEVA — The United States made "some progress" in talks with Iran on its disputed nuclear programme and managed to "sharpen up some of the tough issues", a senior US official said on Monday, but both sides said much remained to be done.

Negotiators from Iran and six major powers agreed to resume talks next Monday at a venue to be decided, the official said, speaking after US Secretary of State John Kerry and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif held two-day talks in Geneva.

Zarif told Iran's Fars news agency: "We had serious talks with the P5+1 representatives and especially with the Americans in the past three days ... But still there is a long way to reach a final agreement."

The P5+1 group — the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany — are seeking to negotiate an agreement with Tehran to address concerns that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons technology, something it denies.

"These were very serious, useful and constructive discussions. We have made some progress but we still have a long way to go. We did very much sharpen up some of the tough issues so we can work to resolution," the senior US administration official told reporters.

Negotiators hope to meet a self-imposed March 31 deadline for an initial political deal, but the US official said that would not "make us rush to an agreement that does not fulfil the objectives that the president has given to us”.

The aim of ensuring Iran does not acquire a nuclear weapon "has to be met and that is not about the deadline, it is about the purpose", the official said. Iran, which denies having any nuclear weapons programme, hopes a deal will bring relief from international sanctions.

US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, Iran's atomic nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi, and Helga Schmid, political director of the European Union's External Action Service also took part in the talks.

Few details of the negotiations have emerged, but the approaching deadline has caused divisions between the United States and one of its closest allies, Israel, which has called the talks "dangerous" and "astonishing". The United States has accused it of distorting Washington's position.

BAYDA, Libya — In a hotel lit by a generator in the eastern Libyan town of Bayda, Economy Minister Munir Ali Asr outlines optimistic plans to attract investment to a country ravaged by war and political chaos.

Outside, Bayda lies in darkness after another power cut. Hundreds of residents wait outside petrol stations that have closed as a result of a debilitating power struggle between two rival governments that has wrecked basic services.

Growing frustration over the reality of life in eastern Libya, which contrasts with the promises of politicians, is feeding support for a former army general, Khalifa Haftar, who has set himself up as a warrior against Islamist militancy and who some also see as their saviour.

The internationally recognised prime minister, Abdullah Al Thinni, and his government sit in Bayda, while a rival faction, Libya Dawn, has set up its own government in Tripoli, 1,200 km away, after taking over the capital last summer.

"I am tired of politicians just talking and talking," said Raed, an oil service manager who has been demonstrating in front of Thinni's office. "Thinni is too weak to end this mess. We need a military council headed by Haftar."

Haftar, who has merged his own troops with regular army forces to fight Islamists, is styling himself as a would-be strongman in the east.

But while his fighters have won back some territory from Islamists in Benghazi, Haftar is proving a divisive figure among those around Thinni, the parliament, and a federalist movement demanding autonomy for the east.

Critics say Haftar, who did not respond to a request for an interview, sees himself as Libya's version of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, a former military man.

Certainly, Haftar misses no opportunity to praise Sisi. His war planes joined Egyptian jets bombing suspected Daesh targets in Libya this week after the jihadist group released a video showing the beheading of Egyptian Coptic Christians.

"Haftar wants to dominate. But if you want to build a state nobody should be above accountability," said a minister in Thinni's Cabinet, asking not to be named.

Uneasy alliance

Haftar tends to pop up whenever there is upheaval in Libya. He helped Muammar Qadhafi to power in 1969 but fell out with him after a disastrous defeat suffered by troops he was commanding during Libya's war with Chad in the 1980s.

He was rescued with the help of the United States and lived there until he joined the uprising against Qadhafi in 2011.

In 2013, the grey-haired army veteran ordered parliament dismissed although nothing happened. He has since given a series of televised speeches announcing such things as the establishment of a military council, the imminent "liberation" of Benghazi, and his retirement plans.

Officials in Bayda struggle to explain their relationship with Haftar. They need his forces but prefer not to talk about it.

Lawmakers have several times confirmed and then denied the existence of a decree signed by the parliamentary speaker recalling Haftar to official duty.

But there is no doubt that he is dominating politics in the east. Haftar's top air force officer, Saqer Al Joroushi, has been put in command of the regular air force with the support of his son, a member of the eastern parliament. The regular army is now calling itself the "Libyan National Army", a name already in use by Haftar's troops.

Military sources say regular army commanders in Benghazi feel sidelined as Haftar's officers say they speak for the government.

In an apparent power play, Haftar's forces tried to stop Thinni from visiting Benghazi. Thinni suspended his interior minister, Omar Al Zanki, for making the incident public after Haftar put pressure on the prime minister, military sources say.

Weakness

Thinni is in a weak position, even in his seat at Bayda, a town in the Green Mountains of eastern Libya. It is packed with people who have fled Tripoli complaining of threats or attacks from Libya Dawn.

"The situation not stable," said a soldier at a checkpoint near Thinni's office. Some 50 protesters have showed up several times to demand Thinni's resignation. His scared staff left their posts on one occasion.

"I don't like Haftar. But only he as a military man, and a military council, can save Libya," said a protester who gave his name as Abdelaziz.

A Libyan entrepreneur dismissed the protesters as "thugs paid by the new Qadhafi, Haftar".

Having no ministries, Thinni's team work out of hotels or rented villas. They claim to be in contact with Tripoli-based state bodies but power cuts in Bayda make it almost impossible to make calls.

Thinni's economy ministry said it had released strategic wheat reserves in response to a flour crisis. But the chairman of a Tripoli-based state fund in charge of allocating wheat said he was not aware of any such statement.

"We have a crisis committee in place," said economy minister Asr when asked how basic services will be restored.

He acknowledged difficulties but said Libya had a bright future as an investment destination and trade gateway for Africa. "There is no need to be worried about Libya's economy."

Moscow — Russia has offered Iran advanced surface-to-air missiles after scrapping a similar deal in 2010 because of UN sanctions over Tehran's nuclear programme, the state defence company said Monday.

Any such a deal is likely to go down badly in Washington as Western countries seek to keep up the pressure on Iran to agree a comprehensive deal on its nuclear activities.

Sergei Chemezov, head of the Rostec corporation which manages Russia's defence industry, said Moscow has offered to supply Antey-2500 missiles, an upgraded version of the S-300 air defence system that figured in the previous contract.

"We have offered them the Antey-2500," Chemezov was quoted as saying by RIA-Novosti news agency.

But he added: "The decision has not been made yet."

Moscow signed a contract in 2007 to deliver S-300 missiles to Iran worth $800 million.

The deal was intensely criticised by the United States and Israel, and Moscow later dropped it as being in breach of UN sanctions.

A UN resolution adopted in 2010 bans the supply, sale or transfer to Iran of missiles or missiles systems.

Chemezov said the Antey-2500 is a more modern version of the S-300, which Russia no longer makes. The same surface-to-air missiles were reportedly delivered to Venezuela in 2013.

Now under Western sanctions itself over the conflict in Ukraine, Russia — a permanent member of the UN Security Council — has strengthened its alliance with Iran.