Region

BEIRUT — The UN's Syria envoy said Damascus is willing to facilitate a humanitarian ceasefire by halting fire on Aleppo, where regime troops are engaged in a new offensive to encircle embattled rebels.

The comments by Staffan De Mistura on Tuesday, came as regime forces severed the main rebel supply line into Aleppo in fighting that killed more than 150 people.

As clashes raged in the area, De Mistura announced that Damascus was willing to suspend its aerial bombardment of Aleppo city for a period of six weeks.

"The government of Syria has indicated to me its willingness to halt all aerial bombing and artillery shelling for a period of six weeks all over the city of Aleppo from a date we'll announce from Damascus," De Mistura told journalists after addressing the UN Security Council.

Rebel fighters who hold parts of Aleppo but have no air power would be asked to suspend rocket and mortar fire for six weeks.

"The purpose is to spare as many civilians as possible while we try to find a political solution," the diplomat said.

The announcement was the first sign of progress for De Mistura, who was appointed UN peace envoy for Syria in July.

Last year, he proposed a plan to "freeze" fighting in Aleppo in a bid to allow humanitarian access, but the proposal failed to gain much traction.

And De Mistura incurred the wrath of the opposition last week by describing President Bashar Assad as "part of the solution" to the country's conflict.

Rebel supply route cut 

On the ground, meanwhile, Syrian troops effectively severed the main rebel supply route into the eastern half of Aleppo city, which is under opposition control, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The highway runs up to the Turkish border through the town of Tal Rifaat, but regime forces now control two villages that straddle the route, effectively closing it to rebel traffic.

Aleppo city has been divided between regime control in the west and rebel control in the east since shortly after fighting began there in mid-2012.

In the surrounding countryside the situation is largely the reverse, with rebels controlling much of the area west of the city and regime forces much of the east.

Government forces advanced around the east of the city last year, but the front lines had been relatively static in recent weeks.

The severing of the highway leaves the rebels with only a long detour through the countryside available to them for resupply.

Regime forces also captured the village of Hardateen, in the countryside of Aleppo, but lost another village to rebel fighters in the area, the Britain-based observatory said.

The fighting left more than 150 people dead, the monitor reported, including at least 70 regime forces, both army troops and foreign and local militiamen.

At least 86 opposition forces were killed, including 20 from Al  Qaeda's Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front.

On Monday, regime troops had also opened fire on two towns on the road to Nubol and Zahraa, government-held Shiite villages that have been under rebel siege for more than 18 months.

"The regime troops have two goals in the area: to cut the road leading from Aleppo to the Turkish border, which is the key supply road for the rebels, and to open the way to Nubol and Zahraa," observatory director, Rami Abdel Rahman, said.

More than 210,000 people have killed in Syria since the country's conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests that spiralled into a war after a regime crackdown.

TUNIS — Around 20 Al Qaeda-linked Islamists attacked a checkpoint in Tunisia's central Kasserine region, killing four police officers and stealing their weapons, the government said on Wednesday.

Okba Ibn Nafaa fighters, a small brigade of fighters operating in mountains along the Algerian border, were behind Tuesday night's attack, interior ministry spokesman Mohamed Ali Aroui told reporters.

Tunisia recently completed its transition to democracy after the 2011 uprising against autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, but security remains a key worry due to the emergence of hardline Islamist groups.

"Around 20 terrorists attacked a checkpoint and killed four police. They opened fire on the checkpoint and then they fled with the police weapons," the spokesman said.

Local radio reported a separate groups of militants had raided houses near Kef, also near the Algerian frontier, holding residents at gunpoint to steal food and supplies before fleeing into the mountains.

Tunisia is waging a campaign against Islamists, who mostly target security forces. Since April last year, thousands of soldiers have been deployed to drive out militants from the Chaambi range bordering Algeria.

Fighters took refuge in the Chaambi range after fleeing the French military intervention in Mali last year.

CAIRO — Egypt is making an ambitious bid to place itself at the centre of the fight against extremism across the Middle East. Beyond fighting militants in its own Sinai Peninsula, it is trying to organise an international coalition against the Daesh terror group in Libya and helping Saudi Arabia defend its borders.

The growing military alliance is rooted in a shared belief among Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi and Gulf Arab leaders that extremism must be confronted region-wide.

It has been anchored with a quid pro quo: Gulf oil powerhouses Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait have given Egypt an estimated $30 billion to rescue its damaged economy in return for Egypt providing military manpower alongside its Gulf counterparts.

With the alliance, this nation of 90 million people seeks to maneuver itself into a leadership role that has eluded it in recent years, first because of waning influence under former President Hosni Mubarak, then because of the turmoil that followed his 2011 ouster.

A contingent of Egyptian troops is already deployed on Saudi Arabia’s border with Iraq to help defend it against jihadi fighters, who earlier this year carried out a deadly cross-border raid, according to Egyptian military and security officials.

On another front, Gulf nations have said they are considering what action to take in Yemen, where Shiite rebels known as Houthis — widely suspected of links to Iran — have taken power in the capital and are fighting to seize more of the country.

Egypt already has military advisers on the Saudi-Yemeni border tasked mainly with developing a joint strategy with the Saudis to confront future hostilities, according to the officials, who have first-hand knowledge of Egypt’s plans. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk about the deployments.

Plans for the creation of a military alliance with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and possibly Jordan were back on track after a period of hiatus, said the officials, with France, Italy and Algeria now viewed as possible additional partners.

Already, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates are bankrolling multibillion dollar arms purchases by Egypt, including jet fighters and naval pieces from both France and Russia. A deal with Germany to buy two submarines is under discussion, said the officials.

Separately, Egypt is trying to persuade the West to open up a new front against the Daesh in Libya, Egypt’s western neighbour, and is appealing for “political and material” support to enable it to contain the threat in Libya.

On Tuesday, Sisi called on the United Nations to approve a new coalition for air strikes in Libya, where the extremists have set up their first major affiliate outside of Iraq and Syria. He argued in a radio interview that the Daesh group in Libya is not just a threat to Egypt — its militants beheaded a group of Egyptian Christians in a video released this week — but to Europe as well.

“I want to say humanity will judge us if we do not fight against terrorism and protect humanity,” Sisi told France’s Europe 1 radio.

France and Italy, directly across the Mediterranean from Libya, have come out in favor of some form of international action. The UN Security Council holds an emergency session Wednesday on the Libya crisis.

The more assertive Egyptian-Gulf campaign, however, threatens to mire Egypt in multiple fights that could further enflame the ongoing conflicts. Egypt’s military has been battling ferociously in Sinai, but has been unable to suppress jihadis who have sworn allegiance to the Daesh. They are believed to number in the hundreds or low thousands, bristling with heavy weapons smuggled in from Libya.

Striking militants in Libya could prompt an even more brutal response from Sinai extremists, who previously have carried out high-profile bombings in Cairo and other Egyptian cities.

“Gulf states want Egypt to stand by them in the face of the region’s entire range of crises,” a prominent Saudi journalist, Abdullah Nasser Al Otaibi, wrote in Monday’s edition of the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat. “They want to see heavyweight Egypt on their side unconditionally to end the Syrian crisis. They also want a clear and pragmatic position as well as an actionable plan to intervene in Yemen and save it from the control of Houthis, who take their orders from the clerical regime in Tehran.”

In Yemen, Saudi Arabia has already started arming Sunni tribesmen to fight back against the Houthis. But the Saudis and Egyptians may have little appetite for ground action in the mountainous, chaotic country.

Egyptian columnist Abdullah Al Sinnawi, who is close to the military, wrote that Egypt’s navy could deploy if there is any threat to shipping in and out of the Red Sea. Yemen lies on one side of the narrow entrance to the Red Sea, the only route to Egypt’s Suez Canal from Asia.

But Egypt cannot “endure a long war abroad” or the distraction of the military from the fighting in the Sinai, he wrote Monday in the Al Shorouk newspaper.

In recognition of the limits, the security officials said Egypt was not looking, at least for now, for a ground campaign in Libya, but rather an air assault similar to that by the US and its allies in Iraq and Syria. Egypt carried out two rounds of air strikes in Libya on Monday, on top of secret strikes it conducted last year along with the United Arab Emirates against Libyan Islamist militias.

The officials said Egyptian troops briefly crossed the border into Libya Monday to conduct search-and-destroy missions targeting possible surface-to-air rockets that could threaten warplanes headed back from Libya.

As a precaution against possible retaliation from militants, Egyptian naval units in the area and border guards have been placed on high alert.

Egypt is likely to continue launching air strikes against Daesh positions focusing on arms depots and training camps, the officials said. A second phase of the campaign could involve special forces targeting high-value assets inside Libya, they said.

“This is a war that is as or more crucial than the 1973 war,” said a top Egyptian official, alluding to Egypt’s last war against Israel, when Egyptian troops crossed the Suez Canal to storm fortified Israeli positions on the waterway’s east bank.

TRIPOLI — As fears grow that Daesh is building a new stronghold in violence-wracked Libya, analysts warn that international military intervention would risk plunging the country deeper into turmoil.

Libya's eastern neighbour Egypt has called for concerted international efforts to tackle Daesh in the North African state.

Here are some key questions and answers about possible action: 

Who would be targeted? 

The expansion of Daesh is seen by the international community as the biggest threat in Libya, where rival militias and two parallel governments are vying for control of territory and oil wealth.

The fear is that Daesh is establishing a new bastion that could be used as a springboard for attacks on Europe which lies just across the Mediterranean.

But experts say it would be hard to identify targets for air strikes given the multitude of militias and jihadist factions.

Daesh is believed to have a toehold in the town of Derna in the east of the largely lawless country, and there are signs its presence is widening elsewhere.

Jihadist groups are trying to establish themselves in areas held by Fajr Libya [Libya Dawn], an Islamist-backed militia alliance that controls swathes of western Libya including the capital Tripoli.

Fajr Libya staunchly opposes international intervention and condemned recent Egyptian air strikes in retaliation for the beheading of 21 Coptic Christians.

The alliance is battling forces led by General Khalifa Haftar, who is backed by the internationally recognised government based in Libya's far east.

Egypt has called for the lifting of an arms embargo that Libya's Western-backed government says has hindered its efforts to tackle Islamist-linked groups.

Haftar's forces are also fighting militias in the second city of Benghazi led by Ansar Al Sharia, blacklisted by the United Nations for its links to Al Qaeda.

International intervention would "support Haftar's strategy at the expense of Fajr Libya", says Luis Martinez, a specialist in North Africa and the Middle East and senior research fellow at CERI in Paris.

Italy has warned Daesh fighters could forge an alliance with militias.

In the event of air strikes the jihadists could blend into the population as they have done in Syria and Iraq where Daesh has proclaimed an Islamic "caliphate" in areas under its control.

A ground intervention, meanwhile, would require tens of thousands of troops and "have little chance of success," said security expert Mazen Cherif. "The Afghan case is the perfect example."

What are the risks? 

"Intervention will turn Libya into a land of jihad where militants will gather, not only from the Maghreb and Africa but also from Syria and Iraq," warns Cherif.

Martinez said aerial bombardment would "radicalise the population" because of "the collateral damage and civilian casualties such an operation would generate".

"Countries that decide to intervene often have no serious policies for the post-military phase, as was the case in 2011" when NATO-backed rebels toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi, he added.

"The bombardment of Qadhafi was competent; what was incompetent was helping Libyans in the resulting transition," he adds.

Libyan analyst Ahmed Mohamed Nouh says the international community bears a responsibility towards Libya given the turmoil that followed Qadhafi's overthrow.

"The West betrayed us in 2011. It abandoned us. Now it senses danger — this is the time it must rush to do what it can," he says.

What's the alternative?

"The solution is political, not military," Martinez says. "It will no doubt take time, but this is the only way the country will eventually become a state with a representative government."

Cherif agrees. "As a first stage, there must be a political solution that allows the rival factions to unite and build a national Libyan army," he says.

"Later the West can support the Libyan forces in facing up to… [Daesh]."

Bernardino Leon, the UN mission chief in Libya, has been trying for months to broker a political deal that would allow the formation of a government of national unity, but so far without success.

WASHINGTON — A series of cyberattacks against Israel since mid-2013 appears to be coming from "Arab parties located in the Gaza Strip" and elsewhere, US security researchers say.

A research report by Trend Micro said the effort appears to be using "spear phishing" e-mails with an attachment disguised as a pornographic video.

When a user clicks on the attachment, it installs malware that allows for remote access of documents on the infected computer, the report said.

The researchers said in a report released Sunday that this highly targeted campaign dubbed "Arid Viper" is a sort of "smash-and-grab" first seen in the middle of 2013, and which uses network infrastructure located in Germany.

The security firm said those behind the scheme are using sophisticated methods with the goal of stealing sensitive data from Israeli-based organisations — government, transport, military and academia and one organisation based in Kuwait.

A similar campaign which uses some of the same techniques and infrastructure has also been hitting targets in Egypt. This less sophisticated effort has been called Operation Advtravel by Trend Micro.

The researchers said both campaigns are hosted on the same servers in Germany and can be tied back to activity from Gaza.

"On one hand, we have a sophisticated targeted attack, and on the other a less skilled attack that has all the hallmarks of beginner hackers. So why would these groups be working together?" Trend Micro said in a blog post.

"Our working theory [and subject of continuing investigation] is that there may be an overarching organisation or underground community that helps support Arab hackers fight back against perceived enemies of Islam. They may do this by helping set up infrastructures, suggest targets and so on."

The report suggests there will be an increase of such "cyber militia" activity in the Arab world, where non-state actors fight against other organisations that would traditionally be considered enemies.

A separate report by the Russian security firm Kaspersky said it had uncovered "the first known Arabic group of cybermercenaries to develop and run full-scale cyberespionage operations."

Kaspersky said the group has targeted military and government entities, media outlets, security companies and other organisations.

Kaspersky said it identified more than 3,000 victims in 50 countries, with more than one million files stolen by the group it called "Desert Falcons".

Activity was found mainly in Egypt, Palestinian territories, Israel and Jordan, but also in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Lebanon, Norway, Turkey, Sweden, France, the United States and Russia.

The Falcons used e-mails secretly loaded with malware to infect computers for the scheme, Kaspersky said.

WASHINGTON — The White House said on Wednesday that Israeli officials had mischaracterised US negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme and criticised what it called "a continued practice of cherry-picking" and leaking information out of context.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said the Obama administration is mindful of the need to keep the negotiations private and accused Israel of distorting the US position.

"There's no question that some of the things that the Israelis have said in characterising our negotiating position have not been accurate," Earnest said at a news briefing. "There's no question about that."

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, speaking to reporters on Wednesday, also accused Israel of "selective sharing of information" but declined to say what information had been cherry-picked.

"I think it is safe to say not everything you are hearing from the Israeli government is an accurate reflection of the details of the talks," Psaki said.

The negotiations between the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany, Britain and Iran have reached a crucial stage, as the countries previously agreed to deliver a basic framework agreement by the end of March and a final agreement due by June 30.

Earnest would not discuss details of US-Israeli consultations on Iran nuclear negotiations.

"But I think it is fair to say that the United States is mindful of the need to not negotiate in public and ensure that information that's discussed in the negotiating table is not taken out of context and publicised in a way that distorts the negotiating position of the United States and our allies," he said.

Erbil, Iraq — Kurdish peshmerga forces have repulsed a major attack by Daesh southwest of Iraqi Kurdistan's capital Erbil, officials said Wednesday.

"The attack which was launched at 8:00pm (1700 GMT on Tuesday) was foiled. It lasted four hours and we killed 34 IS [Daesh] members," Sirwan Barzani, the local peshmerga commander, told AFP.

He said around 300 jihadists had attacked the villages of Sultan Abdallah and Tal Al Rim, between the towns of Gweyr and Makhmur, an area about 40 kilometres southwest of Erbil.

"Daesh was not able to use heavy military vehicles or car bombs due to trenches dug out by peshmerga on the front lines," said Barzani, also the nephew of Kurdish leader Massud Barzani.

He said the Daesh offensive achieved no gains and added that his operation received air support from the US-led coalition which has carried out hundreds of strikes against Daesh since August 2014.

"The clashes are over now. We are collecting their bodies," said Najat Ali, the deputy peshmerga commander on the Makhmur front.

Gweyr and Makhmur were among the very first targets of US air strikes against the jihadists six months ago.

SANAA/DUBAI — Hundreds of Sunni tribesmen in the central Yemeni desert parade in pickup trucks toting heavy machine guns and singing martial songs to raise morale.

They have pitched camps on the edge of the country's oil-rich Marib province, determined not to let their home turf fall as a prize to the Shiite militia that now rules much of Yemen.

Having almost miraculously avoided civil war for four years after being rocked by Arab Spring protests, the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country awash with weapons now appears to be leaning towards the kind of conflict that has ravaged other countries in the region.

A fight for land and power has spread since the Houthi rebels overran the capital Sanaa in September, taking on a sectarian stripe that may embroil regional powers Iran and Saudi Arabia and strengthen Yemen's powerful Al Qaeda branch.

"Traditional Yemeni political actors used to find middle ground and didn't let their clashes lead to a full-blown civil war. The Houthis don't seem to be interested in compromising," said Nadwa Dawsari, an expert and researcher on Yemeni tribes.

"They mix a lack of experience in politics with, as their own leader has said, limitless ambitions. The fact that Iran is involved aggravates things and brings in a regional dimension that makes a conflict harder to avoid," she told Reuters.

A decade of on-off government offensives against the Houthis devastated their homeland in Yemen's impoverished north, flattening villages and pulverising Saada city — the ancient centre of Yemen's Shiite sect which ruled the country for a thousand years until a republic was founded in 1962.

But after street protests ousted veteran president Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2011, national dialogue talks on Yemen's future foundered and the divided military could no longer hold off the aggrieved militants' advance. 

The devil's game

The rump state Houthi fighters have carved out in Yemen's north and west needs resources in order to be viable.

Clad in the traditional Yemeni dagger belt during a televised speech last week, the group's leader Abdel-Malek Al Houthi upbraided leaders of areas not yet under their control and warned them against "playing the devil's game."

"If people try to play games which affect the economy, the people will resist them. The revolution, the people, the army and the security forces will stand against them," he said.

Bereft of much of the state's revenue since Saudi Arabia pulled its aid late last year, the Houthi-run government likely won't be able to pay public sector salaries or keep the moribund economy afloat without the oil and electricity overwhelmingly concentrated in the hands of Sunni tribal enemies in Marib.

Not without a fight, leaders there say. Their arsenal of anti-aircraft missiles, Grad and Katyusha rockets will not be their only defence.

"We'll blow up the oil and gas wells if the Houthis use planes after the air force fell into their control, and we'll cut off the road to the capital," said Sheikh Hamad Ben Wuhayt, who leads a group of tribal fighters on Marib's western edge.

Tribal leaders say Saudi Arabia has kept up a longstanding policy of paying regular cash allowances to local leaders despite its boycott of the government, but has not given them weapons.

Analysts and diplomats have long said the Houthis receive arms and training from Shiite Iran, which has praised the Houthi takeover as a revolution while Sunni gulf leaders condemn it as a coup. 

‘Apostates’ vs. ‘little Islamic Staters’ 

A shooting war has been under way for months, with dozens of fighters killed each week in clashes pitting the Houthis against Sunni tribesmen and Al Qaeda fighters in the southerly Al Bayda province.

The province offers a strategic gateway both to Marib and Yemen's formerly independent South, which has eluded Houthi control along with its ports and gas reserves.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, the most powerful branch of the global militant group, has seen its space to thrive widen as the state's remit across the country has collapsed.

The militants have relished joining the tribal fight and driving suicide car bombs into the Shiite "apostates" — not just in the mountainous wastes of the battlefield but repeatedly in the capital, helping to sow poisonous sectarian resentment.

"We wish Saudi Arabia would intervene militarily, so we can rid the Islamic world of it and all its little Islamic Staters," Houthi official Zaid Al Houthi wrote on his Twitter page this week, referring to the ultra-radical Sunni militant group.

But the embrace some tribes have given to Al Qaeda may continue to convince Saudi Arabia to hold off providing them weapons, a senior Yemeni official told Reuters.

"A civil war would affect the security of the kingdom and the region. Others will join this war and be fighting in what is effectively Saudi Arabia's backyard," the official said.

BEIRUT — Syrian government troops began a new offensive around the northern city of Aleppo on Tuesday, attacking a string of villages in an attempt to encircle rebel fighters, a monitor said.

The offensive comes the same day that UN peace envoy Staffan De Mistura is to address the Security Council on his efforts, including a plan to "freeze" fighting in Aleppo that has so far failed to gain traction.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Monitor said government troops had seized two villages north of Aleppo and were engaged in fierce fighting for control of a third.

The villages are strategically located alongside a road that serves as a key supply route for the rebels, leading from the east of Aleppo to the border with Turkey.

At least 12 rebels were killed in the fighting for the villages, the Observatory said, adding that the clashes had stopped traffic on the key highway.

As they launched the attacks, government forces also began shelling two towns on the road to Nubol and Zahraa, both government-held Shiite villages.

Nubol and Zahraa have been under rebel siege for more than 18 months, and pro-government militants inside the villages have repelled several attacks.

"The regime troops have two goals in the area: to cut the road leading from Aleppo to the Turkish border, which is the key supply road for the rebels, and to open the way to Nubol and Zahraa," Observatory Director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The offensive in northern Aleppo province was also accompanied by renewed fighting inside Aleppo city, which is divided between rebel and regime control.

The Observatory reported fierce clashes in several parts of the government-controlled west of the city, where at least six rebels were killed.

Rebel rocket fire into several western neighbourhoods also killed eight civilians, the monitor said, among them a child.

Aleppo divided 

Once Syria's industrial powerhouse, Aleppo has been split between rebel control in the east and regime control in the west since shortly after fighting began there in mid-2012.

In the surrounding countryside the situation is largely the reverse, with rebels controlling much of the area west of the city and regime forces much of the east.

Government forces advanced around the east of the city last year, but the front lines had been relatively static in recent weeks.

On Monday, the Observatory reported an influx of regime reinforcement and the Syrian daily Al Watan, which is close to the government, said regime forces planned to encircle the city in a new offensive.

"Aleppo is very important for us," a Syrian military source told AFP on Tuesday.

"The main goals are to break the siege of Aleppo and open the road to Nubol and Zahraa," he added.

The new offensive comes shortly after regime forces opened a new front in southern Daraa province.

"This military operation in Aleppo proves the ability of the Syrian army to open multiple fronts at once," the military source said.

The offensive began as UN envoy De Mistura prepared to address the Security Council.

He has advanced a plan for a "freeze" to the fighting in Aleppo, in a bid to ease the humanitarian situation and provide an example for ceasefires elsewhere.

But the proposal has gained little traction, and De Mistura drew criticism from the opposition last week after describing Syria's President Bashar Assad as "part of the solution" to the conflict.

The rebels and opposition insist Assad's departure is a precondition for resolving the country's brutal war, which began in March 2011 with peaceful anti-government protests.

It spiralled into a civil conflict after a government crackdown, and the violence has killed more than 210,000 people.

RIYADH — Qatar's ruler was in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday for talks with the newly enthroned King Salman about the deteriorating security situation in Yemen and relations with Egypt.

A Saudi official said King Salman greeted Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani at the airport, a day after a high-level delegation from the United Arab Emirates arrived for similar talks. The Gulf rulers of Bahrain and Kuwait have also met with King Salman for bilateral meetings since he assumed the throne last month after the passing of his half-brother King Abdullah.

The official said Tuesday's talks between King Salman and the emir focused mostly on the Shiite rebel takeover of Yemen's government, which Saudi Arabia sees as a threat to its own stability and as regional interference from rival Iran.

The two leaders also talked about Qatar's relations with Egypt, according to the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to release the information.

Taking part in the talks was the head of the Saudi National Guard Prince Miteb, Deputy Crown Prince and Interior Minister Prince Mohammed bin Nayef and Defence Minister and King Salman's son Prince Mohammed.

The emir last visited Saudi Arabia in January to offer condolences after King Abdullah's death. Relations soured between Qatar's young emir and the aging monarch after the ouster of Qatari-backed Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi in 2013.

Saudi Arabia supported Egypt's military when it overthrew Morsi from power and backed his successor, Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, as he led a lethal crackdown on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood. 

Under King Abdullah last year, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Bahrain withdrew ambassadors from Qatar, citing it as a move to protect their security in the face of Doha's support for organisations that threaten the Gulf's stability. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the UAE have branded the Brotherhood a terrorist organisation.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours agreed to reinstate ambassadors to Qatar eight months later in November after several rounds of high-level talks and months of pressure that forced Doha to expel several Brotherhood figures. Saudi Arabia had also begun overseeing efforts to repair ties between Egypt and Qatar.