Region

BEIRUT — Twenty-one rebels and nine members of Syria's regime forces were killed north of Aleppo on Sunday in fierce fighting for control of a key insurgent supply route, a monitor said.

The battle for Handarat hill comes as the United Nations tries to broker a ceasefire deal between rebels and the regime in Syria's second city.

"Nine regime fighters and 21 rebels have been killed and regime forces have made an advance at Handarat," said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Handarat is just north of Aleppo, which has been divided since a rebel offensive in summer 2012 between loyalist sectors in the west of the city and insurgent-held territory in the east.

Keeping control of the strategic hill is vital for the rebels as it overlooks their main supply line from Turkey.

"If regime forces seize control of the entire region, the rebel sector of Aleppo would be under total siege," Abdel Rahman said.

Syria’s state news agency SANA, quoting a military source, said the army backed by pro-regime militiamen had taken Al Maleh farms in Handarat’s west and part of the southwest.

“A large number of terrorists were eliminated,” SANA said of the rebels battling to overthrow the government of President Bashar Assad.

UN envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura in October announced a plan for a “freeze” in fighting in Aleppo.

On Saturday, his deputy Ramzi Ezzedine Ramzi arrived in Syria to push for a truce in the country’s former commercial capital, spokeswoman Juliette Touma said.

At the start of the week, De Mistura held what Touma called “constructive” talks on Aleppo with rebel groups in Gaziantep in Turkey.

Elsewhere in Syria, loyalist forces on Sunday battled jihadists from Al Nusra Front, Al Qaeda’s Syria franchise, in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Observatory said.

The fighting broke out after the jihadists assaulted an army post, killing 12 soldiers, it said. Eight attackers were also killed.

ROME — US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived in Rome on Sunday for a flurry of meetings about a looming showdown at the United Nations amid a European-led drive to push moves towards Palestinian statehood.

US officials told reporters accompanying Kerry on his plane that Washington wanted to learn more about the European position, saying the US administration had not yet decided whether to back or veto any UN resolution on the issue.

Kerry was first to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Sunday, before talks on Monday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a hastily arranged pre-Christmas diplomatic whirlwind, the top US diplomat will also meet for a few hours Monday in Paris with French, German and British foreign ministers and the new EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini.

He will then fly to London to meet with the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat and the secretary general of the Arab League on Tuesday.

Washington has long opposed unilateral Palestinian moves to win recognition for a state of Palestine at the United Nations, saying it would prejudge the outcome of stalled peace negotiations with Israel.

But officials said they drew a distinction between a unilateral step, and an effort to draw up a multilateral resolution at the UN Security Council which would have the backing of many nations.

"It's important to understand that our overall goal here is to hear from and engage with other stakeholders... to hear their views and to the best of our ability work towards a common path forward," a State Department official said.

"We all want to defuse tensions and reduce the potential for violence, we all want to keep open the hope of a two-state solution and we all want to prevent ... an escalation of the violence on the ground."

Competing resolutions 

Acknowledging any resolution on Palestinian statehood would be a "significant step", the US official insisted it was "premature" for Washington to lay out a position since no text yet existed.

Jordan last month circulated a draft Palestinian text setting November 2016 as a deadline for the end of the Israeli occupation.

But the text ran into opposition from the United States because it set a two-year timetable for the withdrawal of the Israeli army from the West Bank.

“That’s not the way I think that we would look at handling a very complicated security negotiation by mandating a deadline of two years,” the State Department official said, asking not to be identified.

Netanyahu on Sunday rejected all talk of withdrawing from East Jerusalem and the West Bank within two years.

Pulling out now would bring “Islamic extremists to the suburbs of Tel Aviv and to the heart of Jerusalem”, Netanyahu said, adding that he would raise the issue with Kerry and Italy’s prime minister Matteo Renzi.

France stepped in last month to try to cobble together along with Britain and Germany a resolution that would win consensus at the 15-member council.

The new text would call for a return to negotiations with a view to achieving a two-state solution by which Israel and a Palestinian state would co-exist.

Amid rising tensions on the ground, the Palestinians are seeking a vote on a resolution by the end of the year.

But the US official said there did not yet appear to be any European consensus on a draft resolution.

“There’s a draft, a paper, that the French floated around, but it by no means represents a consensus European position,” the official said.

He conceded though that the Europeans felt that with tensions running high and Israeli elections looming in March there was a sense of urgency.

“The real driving sense of urgency is coming from the facts on the ground, the fact that tension is high... the fact that no-one wants this to continue to escalate and potentially explode,” said another State Department official.

“These initiatives at the UN are not emerging spontaneously from purely political forces, they’re driven in very large part by concern that everybody feels about things that are happening on the ground.”

European parliaments in Britain, France, Spain, Ireland and Portugal have meanwhile asked their governments to recognise Palestinian statehood — a move that would bypass negotiations all together.

Kerry is also expected to quiz Lavrov on Moscow’s plans for a new round of Syria peace talks to see whether there is a way to bring the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad and the moderate opposition back to negotiations.

The Russian minister meanwhile will likely raise Russian anger of over a new US bill which gives President Barack Obama the authority to send lethal weapons such as anti-tank missiles to Ukraine.

BAQOUBA, Iraq — Police operations in Iraq's eastern region of Diyala have led to three hostages being freed and the dismantling of several extortion gangs, the local police chief said on Sunday.

Kidnapping for ransom in Baghdad and elsewhere in the country is a phenomenon that has grown to such an extent that the government has publicly declared tackling it would be one of its priorities.

"Kidnappings are a crime — we deal with them as we deal with terrorism," Diyala province police chief Lieutenant General Jamil Al Shammari told reporters.

"We managed over the past 24 hours to free three people who had been kidnapped thanks to good tip-offs that led us to their captors," he said.

Shammari said a series of operations had reduced the number of kidnappings in Diyala, an ethnically mixed province where the security forces, backed by Iran and Shiite militias, recently notched up significant victories against the Islamic State group.

While some abductions are a direct result of the sectarian tension that has grown since jihadists took over part of Iraq this year, others are the work of extortion gangs that have prospered in the confusion.

Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi recently announced the creation of special crisis cell to tackle kidnappings, which Baghdad’s top security official said were a greater threat to the capital’s security than the jihadists.

Thousands of people fearful of kidnappings have been forced to leave their homes or because they lost everything they had in paying a ransom.

The militias that have helped government troops defend the country against IS fighters have been blamed for abductions and other abuses in areas they control.

However, many kidnappings are also carried out by criminals posing as members of the security forces or militias.

BEIRUT — Lebanon's controversial and outspoken Druse leader Walid Jumblatt called in a "joint statement" on Twitter Saturday for the cultivation of marijuana to be legalised.

"It's time to allow hash to be grown and to overturn arrest warrants against people sought for doing so," the veteran politician wrote in Arabic on his Twitter account.

The marijuana industry generated hundreds of millions of dollars during the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

Despite Lebanese law punishing drug trafficking with prison terms, villagers in the Bekaa Valley in the east have little respect for the law and clans there grow marijuana openly and process it.

Jumblatt, long famed for his blunt manner and role as Lebanon's kingmaker, became an instant must-follow after opening a Twitter account.

He is the most senior member of the country's Druse minority and has often been dubbed a "chameleon" or "weathervane" for his shifting political alliances.

Jumblatt has used the social network to attack President Bashar Al Assad in neighbouring Syria, berate Lebanese political leaders and mock the international community.

According to cannabis growers in Lebanon, the conflict in Syria has turned the state's attention away from the problem at home and boosted traffic with the border now less secure.

Farmers say demand has risen by more than 50 per cent since 2012, the year after civil war erupted in Syria, with most of Lebanon's hashish going there.

CAIRO — Archaeologists on Sunday unveiled a restored colossal statue of Amenhotep III that was toppled in an earthquake more than 3,000 years ago at Egypt's famed temple city of Luxor.

The statue showing him in a striding attitude was re-erected at the northern gate of the king's funerary temple on the west bank of the Nile.

The temple is already famous for its existing 3,400-year-old Memnon colossi — twin statues of Amenhotep III whose reign archaeologists say marked the political and cultural zenith of ancient Egyptian civilisation.

The 12.92-metre statue unveiled on Sunday stands west of an existing effigy of the king, also depicting him walking, which was unveiled in March.

"These are up to now the highest standing effigies of an Egyptian king in striding attitude," said German-Armenian archaeologist Hourig Sourouzian, who heads the project to conserve the temple.

The world-famous twin Memnon colossi are 21 metres tall but show the pharaoh seated.

The restored statue now stands again for the first time since its collapse 3,200 years ago, Sourouzian told AFP from Luxor.

Consisting of 89 large pieces and numerous small fragments and reassembled since November, the monolith weighs 110 tonnes.

It had lain broken in pieces after the earthquake in 1200BC, Sourouzian said.

The statue shows the king wearing the white crown of Upper Egypt, and each hand holding a papyrus roll inscribed with his name, like the one standing next to it that was unveiled earlier this year.

His belt, holding a dagger with a falcon-head handle, is fastened with a rectangular clasp bearing the names of the king.

Work to conserve the Amenhotep III temple is entirely funded through private and international donations.

Pharaoh Amenhotep III inherited an empire that stretched from the Euphrates to Sudan, archaeologists say.

The 18th dynasty ruler became king aged around 12, with his mother as regent.

Amenhotep III died in around 1354BC and was succeeded by his son Amenhotep IV, widely known as Akhenaten.

Luxor, a city of some 500,000 people on the banks of the Nile in southern Egypt, is an open-air museum of intricate temples and pharaonic tombs.

CAIRO — Eight-year-old Rahma was on her way home from school when she was raped — another victim of a surge in child abuse that has been overshadowed by turmoil in Egypt.

Two months on, she is still receiving psychotherapy and dreads going anywhere near the spot where the assault took place, close to the family farm in the Nile Delta.

In the shadow of deadly political violence ever since Egypt's 2011 revolution, experts say the authorities have given a low priority to the plight of children and complain of a lack of legislation.

Primary school pupil Rahma was assaulted in Kafr Al Sheikh province, 150 kilometres north of Cairo.

Her sister Amira says that she "is no longer a virgin. The assault has ruined her future and caused severe internal injuries.

"The hardest part for Rahma is overcoming the trauma," Amira told AFP.

Experts say physical and sexual violence against children in Egypt has surged in 2014.

More than 1,000 such assaults were registered between January and October, while 660 were recorded on average during the preceding three years, according to the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM).

The cases included 131 rapes, 118 murders and 263 instances of torture.

"They get killed, tortured and raped in schools, orphanages, on the streets and even at home where they are supposed to be safe and protected," said Hany Helal, secretary general of the Egyptian Coalition for Children's Rights non-governmental organisation.

'Violence breeds violence' 

Four years of political upheaval have scarred Egyptian society, with the impact also felt by the country's 17 million children, experts say.

"Violence breeds violence," said Azza Karim, a prominent sociologist.

"Egyptian society has experienced violence from the authorities, and this has its effect on all individuals."

Hundreds of demonstrators were killed during the 18-day uprising that toppled Egypt's veteran leader Hosni Mubarak in early 2011.

Political violence surged after his successor, Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, was ousted by then army chief and now President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi in July 2013.

A brutal government crackdown on Morsi's supporters has since left at least 1,400 people dead, thousands behind bars and dozens sentenced to death after speedy mass trials.

"Children are the weakest link in the chain... Adults unleash all their stress and feelings of oppression on them," Karim said.

Helal said: "Children's rights are being eroded because the government is so focused on political issues."

Assaults unreported 

In October, the NCCM documented 300 cases of assault on children, including 27 boys and girls raped and 23 murdered, 13 of them by parents.

Schools topped the list of places of violence against children, including two deaths from sheer negligence caused by faulty equipment.

Several cases of physical and sexual assault on children were also reported in orphanages.

In August, the director of a Cairo orphanage was arrested after a video showing him beating children sparked outrage on social media.

The footage showed the man hitting the children with a stick and kicking them as they ran away, screaming in pain.

He was sentenced to three years in jail.

"A lot of cases of assault against children are never recorded because parents don't report them to authorities so as to preserve their image in a conservative society," said Helal.

"It's the lack of deterrent measures and the low priority given to children's issues" that have led to the rise in violence, according to Ahmed Hanafy, a psychotherapist with NCCM.

In a hospital in Damanhour, also north of the capital, the father of Mohammad consoled the eight-year-old at his bedside weeks after a violent sex attack.

Three youths tried to rape him before sexually assaulting him with an electric air pump, and his father says the only action taken since was when the governor paid a visit to his family.

A surge in kidnappings of children has put even more pressure on parents.

So far this year, 211 cases of kidnappings have been reported, with experts saying most are carried out by body organ traffickers.

"I'm very nervous. I don't let my children leave the house on their own, and I only relax when they're home," said father-of-three Mohammed Shalabi.

SANAA — Yemeni Shiite rebels and allied politicians sacked the governor of a strategic Red Sea province and replaced him with an ally on Sunday, amid an escalating power struggle with the country’s embattled president, a local official said.

The rebels, allied with supporters of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, seized control of the capital Sanaa in September before pushing into the Red Sea province of Hodeida. On Saturday, the rebels seized control of a district north of the capital.

The months-long conflict between the Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, and President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has plunged the impoverished country deeper into turmoil. The rebels, enlisting help from Saleh’s loyalists still in government, are demanding a greater role in Yemen’s affairs and say they are battling both corrupt officials and a powerful local Al Qaeda affiliate.

The official said Saleh loyalists in the provincial council of Hodeida signed a petition sacking Sakhr Al Wagih, who had protested the Houthi takeover, and appointed Hassan Haij in his place. Before the Houthis launched their wide offensive, they appointed a loyal governor in their stronghold, the northern Saada province.

GAZA — Vowing to destroy Israel, Hamas paraded some 2,000 of its armed fighters and truck-mounted rockets through Gaza on Sunday, marking its 27th anniversary with its biggest show of force since the end of the Gaza war this summer.

A ceasefire in August halted 50 days of fighting with Israel in which local health officials said more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed. Israel put the number of its dead at 67 soldiers and six civilians.

At the parade, a senior Hamas leader reaffirmed the Islamist movement's founding charter's pledge to destroy Israel.

"This illusion called Israel will be removed. It will be removed at the hands of the Qassem Brigades," said Khalil Al Hayya, a top Hamas leader, referring to the movement's armed wing.

In recent years, some Hamas leaders have said they would accept a Palestinian state on land Israel occupied in a 1967 war in return for a long-term truce but would continue to refuse to recognise its enemy's right to exist.

Abu Ubaida, the brigades' spokesman, said another confrontation with Israel might be inevitable unless tens of thousands of homes damaged or destroyed in the Gaza Strip in last summer's conflict are rebuilt soon.

"We will accept no less than the rebuilding of everything that was destroyed by the savage Zionist aggression," said the masked spokesman, whose group is shunned by the West as a terrorist organisation.

Palestinians have voiced disappointment over the slow pace of reconstruction and a limited flow of building material into Gaza since international donors pledged more than $5 billion in October.

Both Israel and Egypt — which is battling Islamist militants in neighbouring Sinai — are concerned Hamas could use such material for weaponry.

Israel has said Hamas has been test-firing rockets into the Mediterranean in recent weeks and Gaza residents have reported hearing explosions. Hamas has neither confirmed nor denied such tests.

Trucks carrying what Hamas said were three-long range rockets, and other vehicles with multiple-launcher rockets drove in the parade. A drone with Hamas markings was on one flatbed truck, and another unmanned aircraft, identified by the group as one of its own, flew overhead, as did an Israeli fighter jet.

During the war, Hamas long-range rockets disrupted daily life in Israel's major cities. Most were intercepted by the Iron Dome anti-missile system.

Addressing a crowd of several thousand in the rain, Abu Ubaida praised Iran for supplying Hamas with money and weapons. Relations with Tehran have been strained by Hamas' hostility towards Iran's closest regional ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad.

Hamas seized control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 from Fatah forces loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Both groups signed a unity deal in April but are divided over how to administer the Gaza Strip.

WASHINGTON — The UN’s decision in July to begin moving aid into war-torn Syria without the consent of President Bashar Assad was heralded as unprecedented. It was the first time that humanitarian need trumped a nation’s sovereignty.

Five months later, aid workers are dismayed that more trucks loaded with UN aid aren’t moving into Syria, where civilians face bullets and barrel bombs in the crossfire of a war that has killed 200,000. Despite their disappointment, they still want the UN Security Council next week to renew a resolution that permits the UN aid to move through four border crossings — two in Turkey, one in Jordan and one in Iraq — without Assad’s blessing.

The UN humanitarian office has said that if security allowed, UN aid trucked through the four crossings could reach 2.9 million people, complementing the much higher levels of cross-border aid that non-governmental organisations have been moving into the country for years. So far, the number of people who have benefited from aid delivered under terms of the resolution is in the hundreds of thousands, not millions.

“While some progress has been made, over 12 million people still urgently need help,” UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon wrote late last month. “Nearly 5 million of them live in areas that remain hard to reach despite the additional access granted through Resolution 2165, and only a portion are receiving humanitarian assistance.”

He said the resolution had enabled UN agencies and partners to reach more places where assistance is urgently needed. But “needs continue to rise and the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate”.

Before the resolution was adopted, the UN and its partners were getting aid to 38 hard-to-reach areas a month. Since its adoption, an average of 66 of these areas are reached each month.

Resolution 2165, which was approved for six months, is set to expire on January 9. UN diplomats say they hope to vote on renewing it for a full year next week.

A half dozen aid officials and workers told The Associated Press in interviews that the cross-border UN aid has been slowly increasing. They say it is hampered by fighting, militant roadblocks, bureaucratic and logistical delays, poor coordination and — in some cases — the aid community’s fear of angering the Syrian government because it needs its help with other projects in the country.

The aid workers all spoke on condition of anonymity because they said speaking publicly would make them targets for extremist militants and potentially damage their working relationships with the UN.

One aid official, who coordinates work in several countries in the region, said that since the resolution was adopted, the UN had moved about 420 truckloads of aid through border crossings in Turkey and Jordan compared to the 688 truckloads of aid his organisation had moved in the same time period through Turkey alone.

The aid workers said northeast Syria was especially difficult to reach because roads from warehouses are controlled by armed militant groups. They spoke of problems with the road at the Jordanian crossing but said Saudi Arabia had financed improvements. They recounted situations where aid was stolen or resold by militants or government forces, hospitals and ambulances bombed and shipments stopped before they could ever reach their destinations.

Many areas that are controlled by IS militants or government forces remain impossible to penetrate or are too dangerous to visit. Sixty-nine humanitarian aid workers have been killed since 2011, including three who were beheaded by IS this year. Twenty-seven UN staff members are detained or missing.

Before the civil war started in March 2011, an estimated 22 million people lived in Syria. Now, nearly half are displaced — 7.6 million have fled their homes but still live inside Syria and more than 3.2 million have become refugees in other countries.

The UN says parties to the conflict continue to restrict access to besieged areas. No more than two besieged areas have been reached in any month since the adoption of Resolution 2165, and only one location has been reached in each of the past two months.

The moderate Syrian National Coalition doesn’t want to see the resolution just renewed. It wants to see it strengthened to make sure the Assad government faces consequences for noncompliance.

Abrahim Miro, the coalition’s finance minister, said recently in Istanbul that Resolution 2165 was not solving the problem and aid still was not reaching areas held by forces fighting IS and the Assad government. He accused Assad of using humanitarian aid as a “political tool” and argued that better coordination with the opposition would allow more aid to flow into areas it holds.

“If some NGOs drop, let’s say, 50 tonnes of flour in a certain city, the price of bread goes down for three days and then it goes up. This volatility is making people very tired,” Miro said. “We need people to have the aid as soon as possible, and that is unfortunately not happening at the time being.”

UNITED NATIONS/GENEVA — The UN Security Council has called for a speedy and transparent investigation after a senior Palestinian official died during a confrontation with Israeli soldiers.

The Palestinian leadership has blamed Israel for "killing" 55-year-old Ziad Abu Ein last Wednesday, which came during an anti-settlements protest march by roughly 300 Palestinians who intended to plant olive trees as a symbolic act.

Israeli authorities say an investigation has been launched and called for calm, amid speculation the Palestinian Authority would suspend security coordination with Israel in the West Bank.

A Security Council statement issued late Friday "encouraged the parties to ensure that a swift and transparent investigation is undertaken. Council members took note of the willingness of the government of Israel to conduct a joint investigation into the incident.

"The members of the Security Council called on all sides to exercise maximum restraint and to refrain from steps that could further destabilise the situation."

Meanwhile, the UN's human rights chief said on Friday that the circumstances of Abu Ein's death were "disturbing" and called for a timely and impartial investigation.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights HH Prince Zeid Ra'ad welcomed an investigation launched by the Israeli military into the minister's death.

He said the probe needed to be "quick and utterly transparent if people are to have faith in its findings".

"Peaceful protest is a human right and security forces must exercise appropriate restraint when policing protests in accordance with international standards," he added.

"Because of the well-established illegal nature of the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, such protests will inevitably continue."

The Palestinian leadership blamed Israel for "killing" the 55-year-old.

The UN rights chief also urged a "proper" investigation into the shooting on Wednesday by Israeli troops of a 14-year-old Palestinian boy during a clash at the Jelazoun refugee camp in the West Bank.

He drew attention to a sharp rise in reports of excessive use of force by Israeli forces in the occupied territories, noting at least 50 Palestinian fatalities in the West Bank in such circumstances so far this year — almost double the 27 that occurred in 2013.

"This continuous stream of fatal incidents underscores the need for effective accountability measures," Zeid said.