Region

MUQDADIYAH, Iraq — Iraqi forces have "liberated" Diyala from the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, retaking all populated areas of the eastern province, a top army officer said on Monday.

"We announce the liberation of Diyala from the (IS) organisation," Staff Lieutenant General Abdulamir Al Zaidi said.

Iraqi forces have regained "complete control of all the cities and districts and subdistricts of Diyala province," he said.

The last battle for a populated part of the province took place from Friday to Monday in the Muqdadiyah area, northeast of Diyala capital Baqouba.

Zaidi and district council chief Adnan Al Tamimi both said that Iraqi forces were in control of the entire area, which includes the town of Muqdadiyah and various villages, where the fighting took place.

Zaidi said that 58 members of pro-government forces were killed and 248 were wounded in the fighting, while "more than 50" IS fighters died.

The general said that there will still be further fighting against IS in the rural Hamreen mountains, which stretch across multiple provinces, including Diyala.

IS spearheaded a lightning militant offensive that began in the northern city of Mosul in June and swept down to overrun much of Iraq’s Sunni Arab heartland.

Iraqi federal forces, Kurdish troops, Shiite militiamen and Sunni tribesmen are all fighting against the jihadists in various parts of the country.

A US-led coalition is carrying out air strikes against IS in both Iraq and neighbouring Syria, and also advising and training Iraqi forces.

Beirut — Syrian President Bashar Assad said US plans to train vetted rebels to fight the Islamic State (IS) group were "illusory" as they would eventually defect to the jihadists, in an interview published Monday.

The Syrian leader also questioned talks to be held in Moscow this week, telling Foreign Affairs magazine that his government would attend but was not convinced the opposition figures taking part represented Syrians on the ground.

Washington has backed the Syrian opposition since early in the uprising and has unveiled plans to train more than 5,000 vetted rebels in Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey to fight IS.

Assad said the planned US-trained force would be "illegal" and would be treated like any other rebel group.

"They are going to be fought like any other illegal militia fighting against the Syrian army," he said.

"Bringing 5,000 [fighters] from the outside will make most of them defect and join ISIS [IS] and other groups.”

"The idea itself... is illusory."

The Pentagon has itself acknowledged that identifying and vetting potential rebel recruits for training is a difficult task that cannot be accomplished quickly without significant risks.

Assad questioned the seriousness of the US-led campaign against the jihadists.

"What we've seen so far is just, let's say, window-dressing, nothing real," he said.

"Did the United States put any pressure on Turkey to stop the support of Al Qaeda? They didn't," Assad said.

He was referring to his government's longstanding accusations that Ankara has backed rebel groups including IS' jihadist rivals in Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front.

Assad said the nearly four-year-old conflict could only be ended with a political solution, but cast doubt on the value of talks being organised this week by his key ally Russia.

The meetings, which opened on Monday, were intended to bring together government and opposition representatives, but the main exiled opposition bloc, the National Coalition, is boycotting.

Assad said his government would attend, but asked: "Who do you negotiate with?

"We have institutions, we have an army and we have influence," he said.

"The people we are going to negotiate with, who do they represent?"

His government has long argued that the exiled opposition does not represent people inside Syria, accusing it of being "puppets" of its main foreign backers, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States.

Assad also criticised Israel for a January 18 strike on Syrian territory that killed fighters of Lebanon's Hizbollah movement and a general of Iran's Revolutionary Guards.

Israeli sources said the strike was intended to prevent an attack on Israel, but Assad dismissed that as an "excuse”.

"Never has an operation against Israel happened through the Golan Heights since the ceasefire in 1974," he said.

"So for Israel to allege that there was a plan for an operation, that's a far cry from reality, just an excuse, because they wanted to assassinate somebody from Hizbollah”.

Iran has sent military advisers to Syria, while Hizbollah has dispatched thousands of fighters to battle the rebels, whom Damascus claims are backed by Israel.

Assad said the January 18 strike proved Israel's support.

"Some in Syria joke: 'How can you say that Al Qaeda doesn't have an air force? They have the Israeli air force'."

BEIRUT — Subjected to beatings and rape, and often driven to suicide, migrant domestic workers in Lebanon are trying to form a labour union in what would be a first for the Arab world.

"We want to be treated like human beings, like real workers," said Leticia, a Filipina who was assaulted and raped by her employer several years ago.

"With this union, I will no longer feel alone in the face of abuse," she told AFP.

Leticia joined more than 200 women from Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and other countries at the founding conference of their hoped-for union in Beirut on Sunday.

Their initiative is unprecedented in the Arab world, which the United Nations says is home to some 30 million migrant workers.

It has the support of the National Federation of Workers' Unions in Lebanon (FENASOL), which says the country has a quarter of a million migrant domestic workers.

But it has yet to win recognition from the government.

Labour Minister Sejaane Azzi told AFP that Lebanese law does not allow foreigners to set up a union, but "new laws are needed to improve the situation of housemaids".

'Job like any other' 

"Foreign workers in Lebanon are required to have valid residence and work permits, as well as health insurance," said FENASOL head Castro Abdallah.

"So why is their contract not regulated under the labour law? It's a job like any other."

Rights groups frequently accuse Lebanon and Gulf states of racist and degrading treatment of migrant domestic workers, who are often referred to simply as "servants" or "Sri Lankans", regardless of their nationality.

Although their campaigns have helped raise public awareness, rights activists and union workers say there are no mechanisms in place to protect women when they are mistreated or when contracts are broken.

Gemma, a 48-year-old who has lived in Lebanon since 1993, told AFP: "We domestic workers are not seen as real employees."

The idea of setting up a domestic workers' union emerged after the International Labour Organisation's (ILO) Convention 189 came into force in 2013.

The convention stipulates that domestic workers have the right to at least one day off per week, a minimum wage and to choose where to live and spend their holidays.

Under the controversial "kafala" [sponsorship] system that Lebanon enforces, migrant domestic workers are left at the mercy of their employers.

It restricts workers from moving to a new job before their contracts end unless they obtain their employer's consent, trapping many in abusive situations.

Living conditions can be so abysmal that some countries, including the Philippines, have forbidden their citizens from taking up new work contracts in Lebanon.

"I have a friend whose employer did not allow her to eat any more than a piece of bread and a bit of lettuce, because she did not want her to gain weight," Gemma said.

"Some employers lock up their domestic workers in their rooms, while others won't pay their employees for months at a time."

'Employees, not slaves' 

Gemma makes only $150 per month and says there should be a decent minimum wage for migrant domestic workers.

"We are their employees, not their slaves," she said.

Rights groups have repeatedly raised concerns about the plight of Lebanon's domestic workers.

Human Rights Watch said last year that Lebanese authorities were refusing to renew the residence permits of children born to migrant domestic workers.

They began deporting children, often separating them from their mothers.

The New York-based watchdog said in 2008 that there was one suicide a week among migrant domestic workers in Lebanon.

Abdallah said he hopes the new union will establish clear guidelines on migrant workers' rights and duties.

"We hope this will serve as a model for the Arab world," he said.

SANAA — A drone strike killed three suspected Al Qaeda militants in Yemen on Monday after Washington vowed to continue its campaign against the jihadist group despite the country's ongoing political crisis.

US President Barack Obama on Sunday insisted Washington would pursue its efforts against Al Qaeda in Yemen regardless of upheaval that has seen Western-backed President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi tender his resignation.

The unrest continued on Monday with the Shiite militiamen, known as Houthis, attacking protesters gathered at the university in Sanaa to demonstrate against their continued occupation of the capital.

Monday's drone strike saw an unmanned aircraft, which only the United States operates in the region, fire four missiles at a vehicle in a desert area east of Sanaa, killing three suspected Al Qaeda militants, a tribal source told AFP.

Yemeni authorities have for years allowed Washington to carry out strikes against Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the local branch of the jihadist network which claimed responsibility for this month's deadly attack on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo.

In India on Sunday, Obama had vowed the United States would "continue to go after high-value targets inside of Yemen".

"Washington will continue its campaign, regardless of who will be sitting on Yemen's presidential chair, and regardless of whether the chair is empty or filled," said Khaled Fattah, a Yemen expert at the Carnegie Middle East Centre.

Hadi resigned last week after the Houthis kidnapped his chief of staff and seized key buildings across the capital.

The unrest has raised fears of strategically important Yemen, which lies next to oil-rich Saudi Arabia and along key shipping routes, collapsing into a failed state.

The longer a power vacuum persists "the more dangerous the political limbo in Sanaa gets", Fattah said.

On Monday Houthis armed with daggers attacked protesters who gathered inside the campus of Sanaa University to demonstrate against them, leaving 10 people wounded, activists said.

The Houthis had earlier blocked access to the university and the nearby Change Square with road barriers in a bid to prevent demonstrations.

Anti-Houthi demonstrators also gathered in Yemen's third city Taez on Monday, activists said.

The Houthis, who descended from their base in Yemen's rugged north to overrun the capital in September, fired in the air on Sunday to disperse a protest at Change Square and detained several activists and reporters.

The journalists were released after signing pledges not to cover demonstrations, according to an activist, Mohammed Al Saadi.

Yemen's parliament on Sunday again postponed a session to consider Hadi's resignation.

If Hadi insists on his resignation, Fattah said "a presidential council will be the most likely temporary political body to rule the country”.

Four political parties negotiating with the Houthis to bring the country out of crisis announced late Sunday they were ending contact with the militia.

Abdullah Noaman, head of the Nasserist Unionist People's Party, accused the Houthis of "arrogance" as he announced the end of talks.

The UN Security Council was to hold closed-door discussions on Yemen later Monday, diplomats said.

Hadi tendered his resignation on Thursday along with Prime Minister Khalid Bahah, saying he could not stay in office as the country was in "total deadlock".

The crisis had escalated on January 17 when the Houthis seized Hadi's chief of staff, Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak, in an apparent bid to extract changes to a draft constitution.

Pitched battles then erupted in the capital, with the Houthis seizing the presidential palace and firing on Hadi's residence in what authorities said was a coup attempt.

Obama was expected to raise the crisis in Yemen with King Salman, the new leader of Saudi Arabia, in a visit to the country on Tuesday, the White House said.

AL BAIDA, Libya — A Libyan deputy foreign minister was released Monday, a day after his kidnapping by gunmen in the eastern city of Al Baida where the recognised government is based, his ministry announced.

"Deputy Foreign Minister Hassan Al Saghir has been freed," a ministry official said, without giving details. Saghir himself, contacted by AFP, said only that he was fine.

Gunmen kidnapped Saghir from his hotel room in Al Baida, 1,200 kilometres from Tripoli, before dawn on Sunday, telling staff they were members of the security forces, according to witnesses.

The interior ministry and army command have denied any link to the abduction.

Libya has been rocked by a spate of kidnappings of both foreigners and Libyans since the overthrow of longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi in a 2011 uprising.

The oil-rich North African nation is awash with weapons and has two rival governments and powerful militias battling for territory.

The internationally recognised government has been based in the remote east since an Islamist-backed militia alliance seized the capital last August.

GAZA CITY — A ministerial committee in Hamas-controlled and Israeli-blockaded Gaza announced plans on Sunday to ready the enclave's sole seaport to allow Palestinians to travel abroad.

The enclave, home to 1.8 million people, has been under an Israeli land and sea blockade since 2006. Its sole gateway to the world not controlled by Israel is the Rafah border with Egypt, which has been largely closed since late October.

Alaa Al Batta, spokesman for the committee formed to lift the blockade, said preparations are under way to launch within two months a boat service for the sick and students studying overseas.

The port in Gaza City is currently restricted to fishermen, whom Israel only allows to fish up to a maximum of six nautical miles from the shore.

Israeli forces routinely fire on any vessel close to the outer limit.

Opening a port was one of the main Palestinian demand to be tabled during negotiations with Israel to firm up a truce agreement which ended a 50-day war in July and August.

But the negotiations failed to get off the ground and the demand was never tabled.

"We are taking the necessary measures to allow maritime transport and to prepare for the construction of a port which will link Gaza with the outside world," Batta said.

There was no immediate reaction from Israel to the Gaza port plan.

Several ships manned by pro-Palestinian activists have tried to run the blockade and reach the shores of Gaza, but they have all been repelled by the Israeli navy.

In 2010, Israeli commandos staged a botched raid on a six-ship flotilla in international waters, killing 10 Turkish nationals and sparking a diplomatic crisis with Ankara that has yet to be resolved.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — New Saudi King Salman is expected to use President Barack Obama's stopover on Tuesday to push for greater US involvement in resolving Middle East crises, analysts say.

Obama, accompanied by his wife Michelle, is cutting short a visit to India to convey his condolences after the death of ailing King Abdullah last Friday.

Following the death, Obama in a statement paid tribute to the late king as a bold leader who made an enduring contribution to Middle East peace.

The American president praised King Abdullah's "steadfast and passionate belief in the importance of the US-Saudi relationship”.

But despite the longstanding strategic partnership between the world's biggest oil exporter and one of its major buyers, analysts say Riyadh has grown dissatisfied with what it sees as a lack of US engagement with the region's key issues.

Anwar Eshki, chairman of the Jeddah-based Centre for Strategic and Legal Studies, said "divergences persist" between the two sides.

These differences include the battle against the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, Yemen, Syria and Libya, Eshki said.

Saudi Arabia and its Gulf neighbours in September joined a US-led coalition conducting air strikes against IS in Syria.

Despite this cooperation, Riyadh thinks "it is necessary to eliminate the underlying reasons" that led to the emergence of IS, chiefly discrimination against Sunni Muslims in Iraq, Eshki said.

White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes confirmed in New Delhi that Yemen's turmoil and the battle against IS would figure on the agenda.

"I'm sure that while we are there, they will touch on some of the leading issues where we cooperate very closely with Saudi Arabia," he said.

"Clearly that would include the continued counter-ISIL campaign where the Saudis have been a partner and have joined us in military operations," he said, using another term for IS.

"That of course also includes the situation in Yemen where we have coordinated very closely with Saudi Arabia and the other countries."

Relations not ideal 

Riyadh would like Washington to exercise more pressure to get the protagonists in both Yemen and Libya back to negotiations, Eshki said.

Libya has two rival governments and powerful militias are battling for territory.

In Yemen, on Saudi Arabia's southern border, President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, a key US ally in the fight against Al Qaeda, tendered his resignation last week after Shiite militiamen kidnapped his chief of staff and seized key buildings.

Seen from Riyadh, US Secretary of State John Kerry has failed to achieve a breakthrough on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, 13 years after the kingdom launched an initiative for peace with Israel, Eshki pointed out.

Ties between Washington and Riyadh have not been at the ideal level in recent years, said Jean-Francois Seznec, a Middle East specialist at Georgetown University in the United States.

"The Saudis at all levels think that the Americans are no longer reliable," said Seznec.

However, he said the Saudis view in "a quite positive way" international negotiations with Iran and a potential agreement on Tehran's controversial nuclear programme.

The US and four other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council face a June 30 deadline for a final deal with Iran.

Tehran insists its nuclear enrichment programme is for domestic energy production and denies pursuing an atomic weapons programme.

Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia and Shiite-dominated Iran are regional rivals.

According to Seznec, the Saudis are convinced that if international powers reach an agreement with Tehran, the Saudis could then strike their own deal with Iran to "restore order" in the region, starting in Syria and Yemen.

Frederic Wehrey, of the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Middle East Programme, said disagreements between Saudi Arabia and the United States are manageable.

"But the Saudis are still looking for greater collaboration and coordination," he said.

CAIRO — The sons of deposed Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak were released from prison on Monday, security officials said, a move that could fuel tension after the violent anniversary on Sunday of the 2011 uprising that toppled the autocrat.

An Egyptian court last week ordered the release of Alaa and Gamal Mubarak pending their retrial in a corruption case.

Mubarak's sons, big businessmen in his era of crony capitalism, were released at 2am. Accompanied by their lawyer and bodyguards, they were driven to their home in Cairo's upscale Heliopolis area, security officials said.

Security and medical officials said they had also visited Mubarak in the military hospital where he is still in detention. Judicial sources have said Mubarak could soon be freed pending retrial in a corruption case as the former air force commander currently has no convictions against him.

Elected President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, the latest man from the military to rule Egypt, has restored a degree of stability after Mubarak's fall triggered nearly four years of political and economic distress.

But signs of discontent, including rare protests in downtown Cairo, emerged in the run-up to Sunday's anniversary of the start of the uprising.

On Saturday, activist Shaimaa Sabbagh was shot dead during a protest in central Cairo. In rare criticism of Sisi, a front-page column in state-run newspaper Al Ahram blamed "the excessive use of force" for her death and called for changes to a law passed on Sisi's watch which severely restrict protests.

"Four years after Egypt's revolution, police are still killing protesters on a regular basis," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

"While President Sisi was at Davos [at the World Economic Forum] burnishing his international image, his security forces were routinely using violence against Egyptians participating in peaceful demonstrations."

At least 25 people were killed in anti-government demonstrations on Sunday on the anniversary of the 2011 uprising that raised hopes of greater freedom and accountability in Egypt, a close US ally with influence across the Arab world.

Witnesses say security forces with rifles and police armed with pistols fired at protesters. Some called for a new uprising.

Security officials said 19 people were killed in the Cairo suburb of Matariya, a stronghold of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that then-army chief Sisi removed from power in 2013 after mass protests against its rule.

Interior Minister Mohamed Ibrahim told a news conference on Monday that members of the Muslim Brotherhood fired on crowds in Matariya during the protests and killed people, including two policemen.

Ibrahim said 516 Brotherhood members were arrested during the unrest in several cities and reiterated that Egypt was "committed to fighting terrorism”.

In November, an Egyptian court dropped its case against Mubarak over the killing of protesters in the revolt of 2011 which raised hopes of greater freedom and accountability.

Many Egyptians say Mubarak's rule enriched an elite that included his sons but neglected millions of poor in the biggest Arab nation.

Analysts say Mubarak's perceived plans to set up his son Gamal to succeed him alienated the military, which largely turned a blind eye to the protests that helped end his 30 years of ironfisted rule.

Critics accuse Sisi of returning Egypt to authoritarian rule, allegations the government denies.

After toppling elected president Mohamed Morsi of the Brotherhood in 2013, following mass protests against him, then army chief Sisi announced a political roadmap that he said would lead to democracy.

Morsi's removal was followed by one of the toughest crackdowns in Egypt's history. Security forces killed hundreds of Brotherhood supporters at a Cairo protest camp and arrested thousands of others.

Hundreds of soldiers and police have been killed by Islamist militants since Morsi's ousting.

When liberal activists challenged the government, they too were jailed on charges of violating a law enacted under Sisi's watch that severely restricted protests.

More than a dozen Egyptians approached by Reuters seemed too nervous to comment on the release of Mubarak's sons. A few were indifferent.

"Honestly we don't pay attention to these things any more. Free them, don't free them, it doesn't matter. Conditions are bad," said a man who asked not to be named.

TOKYO — From the prime minister to ordinary people, Japan was shocked Sunday at a video purportedly showing that one of two Japanese hostages of the extremist Islamic State (IS) group had been killed.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe appeared on public broadcaster NHK early Sunday demanding the militants release 47-year-old journalist Kenji Goto unharmed.

He said the video was likely authentic, although he added that the government was still reviewing it. He offered condolences to the family and friends of Haruna Yukawa, a 42-year-old adventurer taken hostage in Syria last year.

Abe declined to comment on the message in the video, which demanded a prisoner exchange for Goto. He said only that the government was still working on the situation and reiterated that Japan condemns terrorism.

"I am left speechless," he said. "We strongly and totally criticise such acts."

Yukawa's father, Shoichi, told reporters he hoped "deep in his heart" that the news of his son's killing was not true.

"If I am ever reunited with him, I just want to give him a big hug," he said.

President Barack Obama condemned what he called "the brutal murder" of Yukawa and offered condolences to Abe. 

The UN Security Council issued a statement that "deplored the apparent murder" of Yukawa, declaring that the IS group "must be defeated and that the intolerance, violence and hatred it espouses must be stamped out”.

The Associated Press could not verify the contents of the video message, which was removed from websites soon after it appeared and varied greatly from previous videos released by the IS group, which now holds a third of both Syria and Iraq.

Goto's mother, Junko Ishido, was sceptical about the voice on the video claiming to be her son's.

"I'm petrified," Ishido told NHK. "He has children. I'm praying he will return soon, and that's all I want."

Yukawa was captured last summer, and Goto is thought to have been seized in late October after going to Syria to try to rescue Yukawa.

BENGHAZI, Libya — Gunmen kidnapped the deputy foreign minister of Libya's internationally recognised government on Saturday, the interior minister said.

As sporadic factional fighting continued in several parts of the country, six people were killed when rockets hit residential houses in the city of Benghazi on Sunday, medics said.

The kidnapping of Hassan Al Saghir happened in the eastern city of Bayda — near where the officially recognised government has been based since being ousted from the capital in August. Gunmen snatched the deputy minister from his hotel, Interior Minister Omar Al Zanki said.

Kidnappings have become frequent in the North African country, where two governments and parliaments, allied to different armed factions, are vying for legitimacy and control four years after the ousting of Muammar Qadhafi.

Abdullah Al Thinni, the internationally recognised prime minister and his Cabinet have been based in the east since a group called Libya Dawn seized Tripoli in August and reinstated the old assembly known as General National Congress.

The struggle has been complicated by a separate battle between army forces allied to Thinni and Islamists in Benghazi, the country's second largest city.

As well as the six dead, 20 people were wounded when rockets hit residential buildings in the Al Lithi district of Benghazi which the army has been surrounding for weeks to chase fighters of the Ansar Al Sharia Islamist group, medics and military officials aid.

Salim Al Naili, a special forces battalion commander, accused Ansar Al Sharia of having fired the rockets.

The army has merged its force with the troops of general Khalifa Haftar who declared in May his own war on Islamists.

The alliance now controls much of the port city but critics say Haftar's use of war planes and helicopters has damaged many buildings and caused civilian casualties.