Region

SANAA — Shiite rebels holding Yemen's president captive in his home reached a deal with the US-backed leader Wednesday to end a violent stand-off in the capital, the country's state news agency reported.

The agreement promised to give the rebel Houthi movement more say in the affairs of the Arab world's poorest country in exchange for the group removing its fighters from President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi's home, the SABA news agency said.

However, the late-night deal left unanswered who really controls the country and how much power is still held by Hadi, a key ally in US efforts to battle Yemen's local Al Qaeda branch.

In the deal, the Houthis also agreed to release a top aide to Hadi that they had kidnapped in recent days.

SABA said the agreement included a clause that would answer the rebels' demands to amend the constitution and expand their representation in the parliament and in state institutions. It also included promises to ensure better representation for Yemen's southerners as well, the deal said.

The agreement also calls on Hadi to shake up a commission tasked with writing a draft constitution to ensure greater representation for the Houthis.

The draft constitution has proposed a federation of six regions, something the Houthis reject. The agreement reached Wednesday night also ensures that Yemen would be a federal state, but doesn't mention the six-region proposal, saying controversial issues will be further discussed.

The agreement, while addressing the immediate Houthi takeover and security concerns in the capital, leaves the contentious political issues unresolved.

The Houthis, who took control of the capital in September, say they only want an equal share of power, while critics say that they prefer the presence of Hadi as a symbolic leader while they keep a grip on power. Critics also say the Houthis are backed by Shiite power Iran, something they deny.

The increasingly weakened leadership and power vacuum are setting a stage for Al Qaeda in Yemen, which claimed the recent attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

Aides to Hadi said earlier Wednesday that he was "captive" in his home. Soon after the agreement Wednesday night, there was no visible change in Houthi deployment outside Hadi's house.

TEL AVIV — A knife-wielding Palestinian attacked passengers on a morning rush-hour bus in Tel Aviv Wednesday, wounding 12 people, before being shot by a passing prison officer in the latest lone-wolf attack.

It was the first attack in Tel Aviv since November, when a young Israeli soldier was stabbed to death by a Palestinian.

The attacker struck in the heart of Israel's commercial capital, police spokeswoman Luba Samri said, describing him as a "terrorist”.

Twelve people were wounded, including three who were in serious condition, four in moderate condition and five who sustained light injuries, hospital sources said.

Another seven people were treated for shock.

“The terrorist stabbed the bus driver several times but the driver fought back until he fled on foot and was neutralised by a guard from the prisons’ service,” a police statement said.

He was shot in the leg then taken to hospital.

Witnesses told army radio the driver apparently used pepper spray or tear gas to try to stop the attack.

Brief footage from the scene broadcast on television showed people fleeing a man who rams a knife into the back of a woman, then runs on when she collapses.

Police identified the attacker as 23-year-old Hamza Matruk from Tulkarem refugee camp in the northern West Bank, who was staying in Israel illegally.

Pictures from the scene showed what looked like a large kitchen knife lying on the ground, which police said he had purchased in Tulkarem.

During his interrogation, Matruk gave several reasons for carrying out the attack: Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip last summer, the wave of unrest in and around Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al Aqsa Mosque compound as well as Islamist material he had seen, police said.

Matruk told investigators he perpetrated the attack in order to “reach heaven”, according to police.

‘Poisonous incitement’ 

Speaking to army radio, the prison service officer described how the incident played out.

“We saw the bus swerve to the side... then stop at a green light,” he said.

“Suddenly, we saw people running out of the bus, and when we saw them shouting for help, we jumped out [of our vehicle] and I and three others started running after the terrorist. At first we fired in the air, then at his legs.

“The terrorist fell, we handcuffed him and turned him over to police.”

There was no claim of responsibility for the attack, but it was praised by the Islamist movement Hamas.

A senior member of its exiled leadership, Izzat Al Rishq, hailed the “heroic operation”, calling it a “natural response to the crimes of the occupation”, in a post on Facebook.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the attack as a direct result of incitement by the Palestinian Authority of President Mahmoud Abbas.

“The attack in Tel Aviv is a direct result of poisonous incitement from the Palestinian Authority towards Jews and their state. This is the same terror which tried to harm us in Paris, Brussels and everywhere,” he said on his Facebook page.

“We shall continue to work forcefully against terror, which has tried to harm us ever since the creation of the state, and we shall ensure it does not achieve its aims.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman issued a statement blaming the attack on Abbas, Hamas, Israeli Bedouin and Arab Israeli politicians, saying it was part of a broader plot to kill Jews.

“They are all parts of the same branch whose aim is to destroy the Jewish state,” he said.

“So we must work determinedly against all of these people, who... have the same aim: to kill Jews and to destroy Israel.”

The last attack in Tel Aviv was on November 10 when a Palestinian from the northern West Bank stabbed a soldier who later died of his injuries.

That attack took place as Israel was struggling to contain a growing wave of violence in annexed East Jerusalem, which spread to Arab towns and villages in Israel.

It has since abated, although there have been a number of violent incidents over the past month.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli conduct during last summer's war in the Gaza Strip increased the number of civilian casualties, an independent report has said, by failing to differentiate between military targets and civilian populations.

Despite claims to the contrary, the military did not give sufficient warning for civilians to evacuate residential areas before striking them, according to the report partly commissioned by Physicians for Human Rights and carried out by eight independent medical experts.

The report also cited potential violations of humanitarian law and indiscriminate strikes that led to the deaths of medical workers, and called for a full inquiry into the 50-day conflict.

The war between Israel and Islamist movement Hamas killed nearly 2,200 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and has caused growing instability in Gaza, where 100,000 people whose homes were destroyed or damaged remain displaced.

Another 73 died on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers,

"Attacks were characterised by heavy and unpredictable bombardments of civilian neighbourhoods in a manner that failed to discriminate between legitimate targets and protected populations," said the report, which was published Tuesday.

"In numerous cases, double or multiple consecutive strikes on a single location led to multiple civilian casualties and to injuries and deaths among rescuers."

The 237-page report was based on visits during and after the war, using interviews with 68 people wounded during the fighting, autopsies on 370 people killed and the review of dozens of medical files.

The army accused the report as "based on one-sided and incorrect data assumed from biased sources", saying its "credibility should be questioned".

"The IDF [Israel Defence Forces], in accordance to international law, went to extensive and unprecedented lengths in order to minimise civilian collateral damage," a statement said.

"Many of the practices of the IDF have far exceeded its obligations under international law."

The report said Israel's "early warning" procedures — including phone calls, text messages and dropping preliminary non-explosive missiles on buildings before striking them — were inconsistent and often did not provide enough time for evacuation.

Only 7 per cent of interviewees reported receiving early warnings.

Palestinian NGO Al-Mezan has said the ineffective use of preliminary warning strikes could constitute a war crime.

The Palestinians are attempting to sue Israeli officials over alleged war through the International Criminal Court, having formally joined the body earlier this month.

The report added that in Khuzaa, in southern Gaza, the "reported conduct of specific troops in the area is indicative of additional serious violations of international human rights and humanitarian law”.

It recommended a "legal determination of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law, whether through local or international justice mechanisms”.

Beirut — Syrian government air strikes on Tuesday killed at least 39 people, more than half of them civilians, in two main battlegrounds in the north of the country, a monitor said.

"The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has documented the deaths of at least 27 people... in air strikes targeting the outskirts of Tal Hamis," said the Britain-based organisation.

Speaking to AFP, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said nine of those killed had been identified by his group as civilians.

"More of the dead may be civilians too, but we have not yet been able to confirm that," Abdel Rahman said.

He added that Tal Hamis, situated in Hasakeh province which borders Iraq and which is home to a sizeable Kurdish population, is under the control of the Islamic State jihadist group.

Tuesday's bombing was especially deadly because it struck a cattle market.

"Some of the bodies were so mutilated by the strikes that people couldn't tell the human from the animal remains," said Abdel Rahman.

Earlier Tuesday, the Observatory reported a string of air strikes against the town of Saraqeb and the village of Sheikh Mustafa in the northwestern province of Idlib.

Eleven civilians were killed in Saraqeb, and another man died in Sheikh Mustafa, according to the group, which relies on a broad network of activists and doctors for its reports.

Both towns are under jihadist control, though all of Tuesday's casualties there were civilians.

Most of Idlib's countryside is out of government control, but its capital remains in regime hands.

In November, Al Qaeda affiliate Al Nusra Front expelled Western-backed rebels from their Idlib positions.

The province's countryside was among the first areas the government lost in the nearly four year conflict.

The conflict began when forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad launched a brutal crackdown on peaceful pro-reform protests in March 2011 that triggered a complex, multi-sided civil war.

It has cost the lives of more than 200,000 people and forced half the country's population to flee their homes.

BEIRUT — The Islamic State (IS) group threatened in a video Tuesday to kill two Japanese hostages within 72 hours unless it receives a $200 million ransom, but Tokyo vowed it would not bow to "terrorism".

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, in Jerusalem on the latest leg of a Middle East tour, demanded the jihadists immediately free the two hostages unharmed.

He flew home several hours earlier than planned to take charge of the crisis after meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who condemned the threat against the abductees as "despicable".

IS has murdered five Western hostages since August last year, but it is the first time that the extremist group — which has seized swathes of Syria and neighbouring Iraq — has threatened Japanese captives.

In footage posted on jihadist websites, a black-clad militant brandishing a knife addresses the camera in English, standing between hostages Kenji Goto and Haruna Yukawa who are wearing orange jumpsuits.

"You now have 72 hours to pressure your government into making a wise decision by paying the $200 million to save the lives of your citizens," he says.

The militant says that the ransom demand is to compensate for non-military aid that the Japanese prime minister pledged to support countries affected by IS violence at the start of his Middle East tour.

Japan 'will not give in' 

But Abe said Japan would not bow to extremism and pledged to honour his promise of aid.

"I strongly demand that they not be harmed and that they be immediately released," he told a news conference in Jerusalem.

"The international community will not give in to any form of terrorism and we have to make sure that we work together."

Abe said the aid he had promised in Cairo on Saturday was to help the displaced and those made homeless by the conflict in Iraq and Syria.

“This position is unshakable,” he said, describing the assistance as “absolutely necessary” for the survival of people who have fled fighting.

Since August, IS has murdered three Americans and two Britons, posting grisly video footage of their executions.

US journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, American aid worker Peter Kassig and British aid workers Alan Henning and David Haines were all beheaded.

The militant who appeared in the video threatening the Japanese hostages spoke with a very similar southern English accent to the militant who appeared in the footage posted of the executions of the Britons and Americans.

Goto is a freelance journalist, born in 1967, who set up a video production company, named Independent Press in Tokyo in 1996, feeding video documentaries on the Middle East and other regions to Japanese television networks, including public broadcaster NHK.

He had been out of contact since late October after telling family that he intended to return to Japan, NHK reported.

In early November, his wife received e-mail demands for about one billion yen ($8.5 million) in ransom from a person claiming to be an IS member, Fuji TV said.

The e-mailed threats were later confirmed to have come from a sender implicated in the killing of US journalist Foley, Fuji TV said.

‘I’m no soldier’

Yukawa is a 42-year-old widower who reportedly has a history of attempted suicide and self-mutilation after his military goods business went bankrupt and his wife died of cancer.

He came to widespread attention in Japan when he appeared in footage posted last August in which he was shown being roughly interrogated by his captors.

He offered brief responses to questions posed in English about why he was in Syria and the reason he was carrying a gun.

He replied in stilted English that he was a “photographer” and a “journalist, half doctor”.

“I’m no soldier,” he said.

Another video surfaced showing a man believed to be Yukawa test-firing an AK-47 assault rifle in Syria.

Japanese nationals’ involvement as combatants in foreign conflicts is limited, although the country’s extensive media is usually well-represented in hotspots.

Japan has been relatively isolated from the Islamist violence that has hit other developed countries, having tended to stay away from US-led military interventions.

In 2004, Japanese tourist Shosei Koda was among a series of foreign hostages beheaded by Al Qaeda in Iraq in grisly videotaped executions.

He had ignored government advice to travel to the country in the midst of the bloody insurgency that followed the US-led invasion of the previous year.

In early 2013, Japan was rocked when militants overran a remote gas plant in the Algerian desert. The four-day ordeal that involved hundreds of hostages ended when Algerian commandos stormed the plant.

Ten Japanese died, giving the country the single biggest body count.

UNITED NATIONS — UN peacekeepers stationed in the Golan Heights along the Syrian-Israeli border observed drones coming from the Israeli side before and after an air strike that killed top several Hizbollah figures, the United Nations said on Monday.

The flight of the drones in the airspace over the Golan Heights was a violation of the 1974 ceasefire agreement between Syria and Israel, UN spokesman Farhan Haq told reporters.

Lebanon's Hizbollah said on Sunday that an Israeli helicopter strike in Syria killed one of its commanders and the son of the group's late military leader Imad Moughniyah. It was a major blow that could lead to reprisal attacks.

Haq was asked if the UN observer mission deployed in the so-called area of separation in the Golan Heights, known as UNDOF, had seen anything. He said UNDOF had "observed two unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs] flying from the Alpha side and crossing the ceasefire line."

The Alpha side refers to the Israeli-occupied part of the Golan. Haq said UNDOF saw the drones moving towards UN position 30, after which the UN observers lost track of them.

An hour later, he said, they saw smoke coming from position 30, though they were unable to identify the source of the smoke.

“Subsequently, UNDOF observed UAVs flying from the general area of position 30 and over Jabbata crossing the ceasefire line,” Haq said. “This incident is a violation of the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement between Israeli and Syrian forces.”

“We criticise all violations,” he added, noting that the UN called on all sides to refrain from actions that could exacerbate already existing tensions.

Asked to react, Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari told Reuters: “Thank God. Finally the spokesperson woke up from his self-imposed lethargy.”

Haq offered no details on whether the drones were for surveillance or armed. He also did not say they were Israeli.

Sunday’s strike hit a convoy carrying Jihad Moughniyah and commander Mohamad Issa, known as Abu Issa, in the province of Quneitra, near the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, killing six Hizbollah members in all, a Hizbollah statement said.

Shiite Muslim Hizbollah, which is backed by Iran and fought a 34-day war with Israel in 2006, has been fighting alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces in Syria’s four-year civil war.

Israel has struck Syria several times since the start of the war, mostly destroying weaponry such as missiles that Israeli officials said were destined for Hizbollah, Israel’s long-time foe in neighbouring Lebanon.

Israel’s UN mission did not respond immediately to a request for comment.

SANAA — Shiite militia fighters attacked Yemeni President Abed Rabo Mansour Hadi's residence and seized the presidential palace Tuesday in what officials said was a bid to overthrow his embattled government.

As the UN Security Council began an emergency meeting over the unrest, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said he was "gravely concerned" and called for an immediate halt to the fighting.

The past two days have seen a dramatic escalation in violence in Sanaa, raising fears that Hadi's government, a key US ally in its fight against Al Qaeda, will collapse and the country will descend into chaos.

Information Minister Nadia Sakkaf said the militiamen, known as Houthis, had launched an attack on Hadi's residence, after witnesses reported clashes had erupted at the building in western Sanaa.

He was earlier reported to have been in the residence meeting with his advisers and security officials.

“The Yemeni president is under attack by militiamen who want to overthrow the regime,” Sakkaf said on Twitter.

Witnesses said the fighting outside the residence appeared to have subsided after two soldiers were killed.

A military official told AFP the militiamen had also seized the presidential palace in southern Sanaa, where Hadi’s offices are located.

“The Houthi militiamen have entered the complex and are looting its arms depots,” the official said.

Prominent Houthi member Ali Al Bukhaiti said on Facebook that the fighters “have taken control of the presidential complex”.

Ceasefire shattered

In New York, Ban urged “all sides to immediately cease all hostilities, exercise maximum restraint, and take the necessary steps to restore full authority to the legitimate government institutions”.

The fresh unrest shattered a ceasefire agreed after a bloody day on Monday that saw the Houthis, who overran Sanaa in September, tighten their grip on the capital.

Houthi fighters and government troops fought pitched battles near the presidential palace and in other parts of Sanaa, leaving at least nine people dead and 67 wounded.

The militia seized an army base overlooking the presidential palace, took control of state media and opened fire on a convoy carrying the prime minister from Hadi’s residence.

Prime Minister Khalid Bahah escaped to his residence, where he has lived since taking office in October, and it was surrounded late on Monday by the Houthis.

Tensions have been running high in Sanaa since the Houthis on Saturday abducted Hadi’s chief of staff, Ahmed Awad Bin Mubarak, in an apparent move to extract changes to a draft constitution that he is overseeing.

Mubarak is in charge of a “national dialogue” set up after veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh was forced from power in February 2012 following a year of bloody Arab Spring-inspired protests.

Saleh has been accused of backing the Houthis and a source in the presidential guard told AFP some Yemeni troops still loyal to the ex-leader had supported the militia in Monday’s fighting.

The source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said groups of soldiers and fighters left the Sanaa home of Saleh’s son Ahmed, Yemen’s current ambassador in the United Arab Emirates, “to lend a hand to Houthi fighters”.

Residents said some soldiers had also abandoned their positions on the hill overlooking the presidential palace without any resistance to the Houthis.

Ally against Al Qaeda 

Before his kidnapping, Mubarak had been due to present a draft constitution dividing Yemen into a six-region federation, which the Houthis oppose.

The militants, who hail from Yemen’s remote north and fought a decade-long war against the government, have rejected the decentralisation plan, claiming it divides the country into rich and poor regions.

Yemen has repeatedly accused Shiite-dominated Iran of backing the Houthis, who are also known as Ansarullah.

Since their takeover of the capital, the Houthis have pressed their advance into areas south of Sanaa, where they have met deadly resistance from Sunnis including Al Qaeda loyalists.

Yemen’s branch of the jihadist network, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, is considered its most dangerous and claimed responsibility for this month’s attack in Paris on French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo that left 12 dead.

Hadi’s government has been a key ally of the United States, allowing Washington to carry out repeated drone attacks on Al Qaeda militants in its territory.

The increasing unrest has raised concerns that strategically important Yemen — which borders oil-rich Saudi Arabia and is on key Gulf shipping routes — will become a failed state similar to Somalia.

RAHAT, Israel — Israel's large Arab minority closed shops and schools from the northern Galilee to the southern Negev desert on Tuesday as part of a day-long strike to protest against the death of two Arab men in incidents involving Israeli police.

Sami Al Jaar, 20, was shot dead by officers during a drugs raid which triggered protests in the southern town of Rahat on Thursday. Police have not said why Jaar, who was unarmed, was shot, other than that he took part in "riots".

"Police were in danger and they opened fire," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.

At Jaar's funeral on Sunday, 45-year-old Sami Zayadna died as police fired tear gas and rubber bullets towards thousands of angry mourners. Locals said Zayadna died of gas inhalation and hailed him as a "martyr". Police said he had a heart attack. The results of an autopsy are expected soon.

Tensions between Israel's police and the Arab community, which at 1.7 million people accounts for 20 per cent of the population, have surged since a 22-year-old Arab man was shot dead in the Galilee last November moments after banging on the window of a police vehicle.

Tuesday's strike is a relatively rare occurrence and represents a show of unity among the Arab population, which frequently complains of discrimination.

Israel's three main Arab parties, divided in the past, plan to run on a joint list in elections on March 17. Despite that coordination, polls indicate they will still win only around 11 seats in the 120-member Knesset, as in the past.

But politicians are buoyed by the growing unity.

"Every day we're stronger. A few years ago if a citizen were killed here there wouldn't be this kind of movement," Arab Knesset member Jamal Zahalka told Reuters.

"We're more inspired, the Arabs of the Negev are bound more closely to those of the Galilee and the north. We're more united and able to defend ourselves," he said.

Since the deaths, police have pulled out of Rahat. Squad cars and a water cannon truck idled outside its main gate, where red graffiti reading "Our blood isn't cheap!" is scrawled.

Police deny any excessive use of force in dealing with Arabs and point to the diversity in Israeli society, where Arabic is an official language and an Arab serves on the Supreme Court. Despite that, poverty rates and joblessness among the Arab population are far higher than the Israeli average.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who leads a right-wing government, has threatened to revoke the citizenship of anyone who calls for Israel's destruction. Others in his government have called for a "loyalty test" for Arab citizens, hardening the sense of isolation.

"Because the Jewish street has become more racist toward us, the police have too," said Rahat's deputy mayor, Alaa Abu Mudghaim. "It's ultimately a failure of the Israeli leadership."

Abu Dhabi — A plane with the top speed of a homing pigeon is set to embark on a landmark round-the-world flight powered only by the sun's energy, organisers said Tuesday.

Solar Impulse 2, the first solar-powered plane to be able to fly for several days and nights, will land 12 times along its roughly 35,000-kilometre trip — including a five-day stretch above the Pacific Ocean without a drop of fuel.

"We want to demonstrate that clean technology and renewable energy can achieve the impossible," said Solar Impulse chairman Bertrand Piccard, the scion of a dynasty of Swiss scientists-cum-adventurers.

"Renewable energy can become an integral part of our lives, and together we can help save our planet's natural resources."

The plane's route was unveiled Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, where it will begin the journey in late February or early March.

It will first stop at Muscat in Oman, to benefit from the Gulf's low-cloud conditions, before crossing the Arabian Sea to India and heading on to Myanmar, China, Hawaii and New York.

Landings are also earmarked for the midwestern United States and either southern Europe or north Africa, depending on weather conditions.

The longest single leg will see a pilot fly the plane non-stop for five days and nights across the Pacific between Nanjing in China and Hawaii — a distance of 8,500 kilometres.

It will take around 25 days of total flying time for Si2 to complete its round-the-world journey.

'Virtually unlimited autonomy' 

Although groundbreaking in distance, the trip will not be undertaken at a lightning pace.

With flight speeds of 50-100 kilometres (per hour, the entire round-the-world journey is expected to take five months to complete.

The plane is the successor of Solar Impulse, a pioneering craft which notched up a 26-hour flight in 2010, proving its ability to store enough power in lithium batteries during the day to keep flying at night.

This year's flight marks the culmination of 12 years of research and testing, organisers say.

Si2, whose makers claim it is the most energy efficient aircraft ever built, has a wider wingspan than a Boeing 747 but, thanks to its innovative design, weighs about as much as a family 4x4.

The carbon fibre, single seater plane has 17,249 solar cells built into its wings that will supply four electric motors and the rechargeable lithium batteries.

Speed at night will be limited to prevent the batteries from being run down too quickly.

Designers say the system gives Si2 "virtually unlimited autonomy".

Aviation enthusiasts will be able to watch a live video stream of the plane's progress once it sets off from Abu Dhabi on its pioneering voyage on the firm's website www.solarimpulse.com.

"Solar Impulse 2 must accomplish what no other plane in the history of aviation has achieved — flying without fuel for five consecutive days and nights with only one pilot in the unpressurised cockpit," said Andre Borschberg, a former Swiss air force pilot and the company's co-founder and chief executive.

ABU DHABI — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi on Monday said the fight against "terrorism" needs a new Muslim religious discourse in addition to security and military measures.

"The rise in terrorism... requires a thoughtful response from the international community," said Sisi told the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi.

"The fight must not only be restricted to security and military aspects... but should include a reformed religious discourse from which false ideologies that could lure some into adopting violence to impose their ideas have been removed," he said.

Egypt and the United Arab Emirates enjoy a close relationship and cooperate in various fields besides military activities.

Both governments are hostile towards Islamists and have blacklisted the Muslim Brotherhood, branding it a "terrorist" organisation.

Gulf security is "a red line" for Egypt, Sisi said, affirming his country's unwavering support for efforts by the UAE "to preserve its national security" and urged "increased" action to "confront all attempts to breach the security of Gulf countries”.

The UAE last year jailed a group of 30 Emiratis and Egyptians for terms of three months to five years for forming a Muslim Brotherhood cell.

They were part of dozens of other Islamists jailed in the UAE since the Arab Spring uprisings erupted in 2011, even though the country itself has not seen any anti-regime movements.