Region

BEIRUT — The UN's World Food Programme says it is "extremely concerned" about images circulating on social media showing Islamic State (IS) labels affixed to its food aid boxes in Syria.

It said in a statement Monday that it was still trying to verify the photos, but that they appear to have been taken in the northern Syrian village of Deir Hafer, which was last reached by the WFP on August 5, when a convoy delivered 1,700 food rations, enough to feed 8,500 people for a month.

The WFP said it learned in September that IS members raided Red Crescent warehouses in the village where the rations may have been stored.

"WFP condemns this manipulation of desperately needed food aid inside Syria," said Muhannad Hadi, its emergency regional coordinator for the Syria crisis.

IS group controls large parts of Syria, and captured much of northern and western Iraq last summer. But its offensive has since stalled in the face of US-led coalition air strikes.

A senior Kurdish official said Tuesday that Kurdish forces and their Syrian rebel allies have seized a belt of villages around the Syrian town of Kobani from IS days after driving the militants out of the border town.

IS militants overran large parts of Kobani and surrounding areas in mid-September, forcing tens of thousands of Kurds to flee to neighbouring Turkey. For months Kurdish forces fought to retake Kobani, assisted by coalition air strikes. The battle was seen as a major test of whether the air strikes could halt the extremists' advance.

"Most of the villages close to Kobani have been liberated," said senior Kurdish official Anwar Muslim.

Muslim said Kurdish forces and their allies had secured a diameter of 10 to 15 kilometres around Kobani. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported similar information.

BEIRUT — A mainstream Syrian rebel group said on Monday they were seeking to swap an Iranian taken captive in the southwestern province of Deraa last month for women held in Syrian government jails.

Iran, a Shiite Muslim ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has sent mainly military experts to help him in his almost four-year-long battle with mostly Sunni Muslim rebels.

Last month several insurgent groups including the Sham Unified Front launched a major offensive in the province of Deraa in which they seized several military posts including a strategic army base in the Sheikh Maskeen area.

The group's leader Abu Ahmad said his rebels captured the Iranian as he was fighting alongside government forces in the province, and killed nine other soldiers as they took over a power station near Sheikh Maskeen in the province.

"We questioned him through a translator, he came to Syria last year, he is a 30-year-old and he comes from [the Iranian] city of Qom," Abu Ahmad, who was not using his real name, told Reuters.

"We are questioning him on how Iranians operate in Syria. Our priority right now is a swap [of him] for our prisoners. We have so many women in government prisons and we want to swap him for [some] them."

Reuters could not independently verify the account.

The opposition has consistently demanded the release of thousands of women they say have been jailed for involvement in anti-government activism since March 2011, when the civil war began as peaceful street protests.

The Sham Unified Front is part of the Southern Front alliance of mainstream rebel groups operating near the border with Jordan where they have managed to seize positions from government forces and hold them.

Two years ago, Syrian insurgents freed 48 Iranians they held in exchange for more than 2,000 civilian prisoners held by the Syrian government.

Opposition groups accuse the government of detaining tens of thousands of prisoners in its attempt to crush the anti-Assad revolt in which radical Islamist rebels have increasingly predominated, seizing much of the north and east of Syria.

Iranians killed in Syria's war have included several retired generals from the elite Iranian Revolutionary Guards. A general in the Revolutionary Guards was killed by an Israeli air strike in southern Syria last month, together with six operatives of the Lebanese Shi'ite Hezbollah movement, an ally of Assad and Iran.

ISMAILIA/GAZA — Egyptian troops fired warning shots over the frontier into Gaza on Tuesday after a bomb exploded on Gaza territory near an Egyptian army convoy, Egyptian security sources said, blaming Islamist group Hamas, which denied the charge.

In Alexandria, Egypt's second city, a man was killed in a bomb blast hours after two devices were discovered at Cairo airport and another went off in the centre of the capital without casualties, other security sources said.

Hamas, which governs Gaza, said Palestinian positions had come under fire from Egyptian soil with no justification.

"Fire was directed in a surprising, unjustified way and without any violation from the Palestinian side," said Eyad Al Bozom, a spokesman for Gaza's Hamas-run interior ministry.

Security concerns have deepened in Egypt since last Thursday, when Islamic State's Egyptian affiliate claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks that killed over 30 security personnel in the Sinai Peninsula.

Egypt is facing an Islamist insurgency based in Sinai, which borders the Palestinian Gaza Strip as well as Israel and Egypt's Suez Canal.

The Egyptian government has accused Hamas of funnelling weapons and fighters to the Sinai-based militants.

Palestinian authorities have made contact with Egypt to protest about Tuesday's shooting and have demanded an investigation, Bozom of the Gaza interior ministry said.

An Egyptian court last week banned Hamas' armed wing and listed it as a terrorist organisation, prompting Hamas to reject Egypt as a mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, a role it has played for decades.

Authorities have accused the Muslim Brotherhood of conspiring with Hamas against the Egyptian state, allegations both groups deny.

Egypt declared the Brotherhood a terrorist group and repressed it systematically since the army ousted one of its leaders, Mohamed Morsi, from the presidency in 2013.

Both groups deny accusations that they engage in terrorism.

Militants have struck population centres such as Alexandria and Cairo with greater frequency since Morsi was ousted, though the most common and deadliest violence is concentrated in Sinai.

ADEN — At least three suspected Al Qaeda militants were killed on Monday in a US drone strike on a car in southeastern Yemen, local residents said, the third such strike in a week.

The attacks show there has been no let up in a US campaign against suspected militants despite a power vacuum left by the resignation of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi who had publicly backed the programme.

The United States regards Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has claimed responsibility for last month's deadly attack on France's Charlie Hebdo newspaper in Paris, as one of the most powerful branches of the global militant group.

Yemeni officials said the drone fired two missiles at the vehicle, which was travelling on a dirt road between the town of Maswara in Al Bayda province and the city of Beihan in Shabwa province in southeastern Yemen.

The strike destroyed the vehicles, killing the three people inside it. Residents reported explosions inside the vehicle after the strike, suggesting it was carrying weapons.

The United States has been cooperating with Yemeni security forces to track and kill suspected AQAP members in the country's deserts — a strategy that rights groups have criticised for causing repeated civilian deaths.

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State John Kerry Monday praised Qatar for its help in trying to resolve the crisis in Yemen, amid hints the US is in contact with Shiite rebels through go-betweens.

The Houthi militia Sunday set a three-day deadline for political parties to resolve the power vacuum in Yemen left after the president and prime minister offered to resign last month.

The Houthis' lightning offensive when they seized the presidential palace and key government buildings on January 20, plunged the country deeper into crisis and prompted US-backed President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and his premier to tender their resignations.

It has complicated the US fight against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) branded by the US one of Al Qaeda's most dangerous branches.

Meeting with Qatari Foreign Minister Khalid Al Attiyah at the State Department on Monday, Kerry said he was grateful for the "many ways in which Qatar, the emir, and Dr Attiyah have made themselves available in order to be of assistance".

"Most recently, they were particularly helpful with respect to Yemen and our efforts in the last few days to deal with some of the adjustments necessary to what has been happening there."

Asked later at a forum at the Atlantic magazine what Kerry meant, Attiyah did not go into details.

"We've been closely talking to our friends about the GCC initiative and how we can enhance the solution," the minister said.

In 2011, the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) urged the then-president to sign a power transfer plan ending the country's political turmoil.

But the new crisis has raised fears that impoverished Yemen, which lies next to oil-rich Saudi Arabia, could become a failed state.

Last week, the Pentagon said US officials were holding discussions with representatives of the Shiite militia but were not sharing intelligence on Al Qaeda in Yemen.

"Given the political uncertainty, it's fair to say that US government officials are in communication with various parties in Yemen about what is a very fluid and complex political situation," said Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby.

The Wall Street Journal last week reported that US officials were in touch with Houthi fighters largely through intermediaries.

"We have to take pains not to end up inflaming the situation by inadvertently firing on Houthi fighters," a senior US official told the Journal.

"They're not our military objective. It's AQAP and we have to stay focused on that."

VIENNA — With time for negotiations running short, the US and Iran are discussing a compromise that would let Iran keep much of its uranium-enriching technology but reduce its potential to make nuclear weapons, two diplomats tell The Associated Press.

Such a compromise could break the decade-long deadlock on attempts to limit Iranian activities that could be used to make nuclear weapons: Tehran refuses to meet US-led demands for deep cuts in the number of centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium, a process that can create material for anything from chemotherapy to the core of an atomic bomb.

Experts warn that any reduction in centrifuge efficiency is reversible more quickly than a straight decrease in the number of machines, an argument that could be seized upon by powerful critics of the talks in the US Congress.

The diplomats are familiar with the talks but spoke only on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to discuss them. Ahead of a new round of negotiations this week, they said there is no guarantee that the proposal can be finessed into an agreement.

According to the diplomats, the proposal could leave most of Iran's nearly 10,000 centrifuges in place but reconfigure them to reduce the amount of enriched uranium they produce.

One of the diplomats said the deal could include other limitations to ensure that Tehran's programme is kept in check.

For one, Iran would be allowed to store only a specific amount of uranium gas, which is fed into centrifuges for enrichment. The amount of gas would depend on the number of centrifuges it keeps.

Second, Iran would commit to shipping out most of the enriched uranium it produces, leaving it without enough to make a bomb. Iran denies any interest in nuclear weapons and says its programme is for peaceful uses such as nuclear power and medical technology.

Iran offered last year to reduce the output of its centrifuges if it could keep most of them going. That was rejected back then by the US and its five negotiating partners. But both sides are under increasing pressure ahead of two deadlines: to agree on main points by late March, and to reach a comprehensive deal by June 30.

The latest negotiations have been extended twice, strengthening scepticism from both hardliners in Iran and critics in US Congress.

Failure this time could result in a push for new sanctions by influential US legislators, a move that some Iranian officials warn would scuttle any future diplomatic attempts to end the standoff.

The talks increasingly have become a dialogue between Washington and Tehran. Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany are also at the table but recognise that the US and Iran stand to gain — or lose — the most.

Iran now has withstood a decade of diplomatic and economic pressure aimed at reducing its programme. Washington demanded a year ago that Tehran reduce the number of operating centrifuges from nearly 10,000 to fewer than 2,000. That would increase the time it would need to make enough weapons grade uranium from a few months to a year or more.

By November, when the talks were extended, diplomats said the US and its partners were ready to accept as many as 4,500 but Iran had not significantly budged.

The possible compromise was revealed ahead of the next negotiating round on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference that starts Friday.

Centrifuges are set up in series — called cascades — to spin uranium gas to increasingly higher concentrations of enriched uranium. The diplomats said one possibility being discussed is changing their configuration to reduce the amount of enriched uranium produced at the tail end of each cascade.

Iran could try to re-pipe the cascades into their original setup. But that could take months, and such attempts would be quickly reported by the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, which would monitor Iran's compliance with any deal.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM/GENEVA — A United Nations inquiry into possible war crimes in the Gaza conflict will produce its report on time next month, officials said on Tuesday, brushing aside a demand from Israel's prime minister to shelve it after the chairman resigned.

It marked the latest chapter in fraught relations between Israel and the main UN human rights forum, which Israel and its ally Washington accuse of bias against Israel.

Mary McGowan Davis, already a member of the independent commission of inquiry on Gaza and a former justice of the Supreme Court of New York, will replace Canadian academic William Schabas, a UN statement said.

Schabas said on Monday he would resign after Israeli allegations of bias due to consultancy work he did for the Palestine Liberation Organisation.

Netanyahu said in a statement that following the resignation, publication of the report ought to be shelved and that the Hamas Islamist group in Gaza should be investigated rather than Israel.

More than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, 67 Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel, were killed in last summer's conflict. The UN investigation, due to issue its report on March 23, is probing violations by both sides.

Schabas' resignation follows a letter from Israel's ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, Eviatar Manor, to Human Rights Council President Joachim Ruecker of Germany decrying what he called a "blatant conflict of interest" and Schabas' prior relationship with the Palestinians. Manor demanded his immediate dismissal in the January 30 letter, made public on Tuesday.

Israel announced months ago that it would not cooperate with the inquiry, calling it a "kangaroo court". Alleging bias, it had previously boycotted the 47-member state forum for 20 months, returning in October 2013.

Schabas said in a letter to Ruecker he had been paid $1,300 for a legal opinion to the PLO in October 2012, but that he had acted with full "independence and impartiality" as chairman.

"The president respects the decision of Professor Schabas and appreciates that in this way even the appearance of a conflict of interest is avoided, thus preserving the integrity of the process," Ruecker said in a statement.

The investigators are "now in the final phase of collecting evidence from as many victims and witnesses as possible from both sides", he said.

The inquiry was set up by the Geneva forum last July at the Palestinians' request. Its other member is veteran investigator Doudou Diene of Senegal.

Schabas, in his letter, said he had not been asked to provide any details of his past activity concerning Palestine and Israel. His curriculum vitae and blog were public, he said.

"This work in defence of human rights appears to have made me a huge target for malicious attacks, which, if Israel's complaint is to be taken at face value, will only intensify in the weeks to come," he said.

Rather than waiting for a legal opinion from the world body in New York, which would delay final drafting of its report, its work would be better served by his resignation, he said.

CAIRO — Al Jazeera journalist Mohamed Fahmy has renounced his Egyptian citizenship, his family said Tuesday, in a bid to follow his Australian colleague Peter Greste in being released from a Cairo jail.

Fahmy's surrender of his Egyptian passport is a necessary step for him to be freed and deported as a foreign national under a decree issued by President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in November. He also has Canadian citizenship.

The news came after Canadian Foreign Minister John Baird said Fahmy's release was "imminent" following the freeing of Greste on Sunday.

An Egyptian official following the case told AFP: "The final legal procedures for his [Fahmy's] deportation are being completed."

He said the renunciation of citizenship had already been finalised.

Fahmy and Greste were arrested in December 2013 along with Egyptian producer Baher Mohamed, and later sentenced to up to 10 years in prison on charges of aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood.

Their jailing sparked a global outcry and proved a public relations nightmare for Sisi, who has cracked down on Islamists since toppling president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

"He signed the papers more than a week ago" giving up his Egyptian citizenship, a relative of Fahmy said on condition of anonymity.

"It was very hard for him because he is a proud Egyptian who comes from a family of military servicemen."

On Tuesday, Fahmy's fiancee Marwa Omara told AFP: "We are still waiting and we hope that he is out today."

Egyptian police arrested the three journalists at the peak of a diplomatic row between Cairo and Qatar, which owns Al Jazeera.

The broadcaster had been critical of the deadly crackdown on Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood following the Islamist leader's overthrow.

Qatar has since moved to mend ties with Egypt, and Al Jazeera has closed its Arabic-language Egyptian affiliate.

Last month, the three men's convictions were overturned by an appeal court which ordered a retrial but kept them in custody.

'Incredible angst'

On Tuesday, in his first posts on his official Twitter account after more than 400 days in jail, Greste — resting in Cyprus — said he would soon be heading home.

"Brother Mike and I due to head home to Australia shortly. Can't wait for the family reunion," he wrote.

"Special thanks to all who've supported us over the past year. Must not forget those still in prison," he added.

On Monday, Greste expressed hope that his two colleagues would be released soon.

"This is a massive step forward... I just hope that Egypt keeps going down this path with the others," he said in an Al Jazeera interview referring to his release.

Greste said he felt a "real mix of emotions boiling inside" upon hearing the unexpected news that he was to be released because it meant leaving behind "my brothers" Fahmy and Mohamed.

"I feel incredible angst about my colleagues, leaving them behind," he said.

"Amidst all this relief, I still feel a sense of concern. If it's appropriate for me to be free, it's right for all of them to be freed."

Al Jazeera has vowed to pursue the campaign to free both Fahmy and producer Mohamed.

But the channel's head of newsgathering, Heather Allan, admitted she was not confident that Mohamed would be released as he has no second passport.

"I can't say I am confident, no. I just don't know, honestly. Are we going to keep on fighting it? Absolutely — we are not going to leave him there," she said.

Mohamed's family has pinned its hopes on a presidential pardon or his acquittal on appeal.

Amnesty International said Greste's release should not divert attention from the continuing imprisonment of Fahmy and Mohamed.

"All three men are facing trumped up charges and were forced to endure a farcical trial marred by irregularities," the rights group said.

SANAA — Yemen's Shiite rebels, who control the capital, Sanaa, are demanding their militia becomes part of the country's army and police force as a precondition for talks on releasing the nation's president and Cabinet members from house arrest, a senior politician said Monday.

The demand is the latest in the power grab by the rebels — who descended from their northern stronghold into Sanaa in September and took over key state institutions and military facilities.

The demand, along with other conditions put forth by the rebels, known as Houthis, could thwart UN efforts to find a negotiated solution to the crisis in Yemen.

The impoverished Arabian Peninsula country, which is also home to a formidable Al Qaeda affiliate, has been leaderless since President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi submitted his resignation last month after the Houthis besieged his home and pressured him for a greater share of power.

On Monday, Abdullah Noaman told The Associated Press that his Nasserite Party pulled out of UN-brokered talks the day before, after the Houthis demanded that their 20,000-strong militia join the country’s military and security forces as a precondition to any kind of deal.

He accused the Houthis of using the talks as “political cover to complete their coup”.

On Sunday, the Houthis gave Yemen’s political factions a three-day ultimatum to reach an agreement, warning they would take over if no agreement was reached.

The Houthis’ expansionist aspirations raised fears that Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, considered the terror group’s most dangerous branch, would benefit from fallout among disgruntled Sunni tribes. The loss of Hadi, a strong US ally in the war against terrorism, has been also a concern in Washington.

However, US drone strikes resumed even with the Houthis consolidating their grip on the capital and the resignation of Hadi; US officials insist that the drone strikes will continue despite the political turmoil.

In what appeared to be another attack on Al Qaeda, tribal officials and witnesses say that a US drone strike targeted a moving vehicle loaded with weapons and explosives on Monday in the central province of Bayda.

The strike caused a large explosion and a number of people were killed in the vehicle, tribal leaders and witnesses said.

It was not immediately clear how many among the slain men were Al Qaeda members. If confirmed, it will be the third strike against Al Qaeda members by a US drone in 2015.

Beirut — Syrian government air strikes on opposition-held towns across the country killed at least 44 people on Monday and wounded more than 100, a monitoring group said.

In Jassem in the southern province of Daraa, 16 civilians were killed in four air strikes, while 25 were wounded, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The strikes came in response to a major rebel offensive that has been under way in southern Syria for months.

"As usual, the regime is striking populated areas in order to make civilian supporters of opposition fighters turn against them," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Rebels fighting to oust President Bashar Assad have suffered a spate of defeats at the hands of his forces, but they still have the upper hand in Daraa.

"Opposition fighters are making steady progress in Daraa province. The vast majority of the west of the province has completely fallen out of government control, and that is where Jassem is located," Abdel Rahman said.

Rebels in the area benefit from "the fact that supply lines from Jordan are still open", he added.

The involvement of experienced fighters from Syria's Al Qaeda affiliate, Al Nusra Front, has also helped the rebels to gain territory in Daraa.

Elsewhere, air strikes on Douma, the besieged rebel-held town east of Damascus, killed at least 10 civilians and wounded dozens more, the observatory said.

An AFP photographer in Douma said the strikes hit residential areas and that most of the wounded were children.

Defector killed 

At Khan Sheikhun in the northwestern province of Idlib, 15 people were killed, including a former army officer who had defected from loyalist ranks to join opposition forces, the observatory said.

Another three people were killed in strikes elsewhere in Syria — one in Aleppo province, a second in Damascus province and a third in Busra Al Sham in Daraa province.

The regime first deployed warplanes in the Syrian conflict in July 2012.

Now, nearly four years into the war, there are air strikes every day, despite repeated warnings from the international community that such tactics fail to discriminate between civilian and military targets.

On a separate front, Syrian Kurds fighting the IS group made fresh advances near Kobani, seizing a new string of villages a week after the flashpoint town was recaptured from the IS jihadists.

“The Kurds now control an area stretching across 14 kilometres southwards from Kobani, 10 kilometres to the east, and 10 to 12 kilometres to the west,” said Abdel Rahman.

The Observatory director also said Kurdish People’s Protection Units backed by Syrian rebels had killed 10 IS members in the past 24 hours.

The US-led coalition targeting the jihadists in both Syria and Iraq reported Monday it had launched 10 air strikes against IS in Syria — nine near Kobani and one at Deir Ezzor in the east.

Another 17 strikes targeted the jihadists in neighbouring Iraq, the Pentagon said.

The Syrian conflict began as a peaceful uprising in March 2011 but escalated into a civil war after the government unleashed a brutal crackdown on dissent.

More than 200,000 people have been killed since then, and nearly half of the population has fled their homes.