Region

BAGHDAD — US defence chief Chuck Hagel on Tuesday hailed “steady progress” in the war on the Islamic State (IS) but Iraq appealed for increased military assistance to break the back of the jihadists.

Meeting Hagel in Baghdad, Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi said that Iraqi forces were advancing on the ground against IS fighters who have seized large parts of the country.

“But they need more air power and more... heavy weaponry. We need that,” Abadi told Hagel, who was on his first — and probably his last — visit to the Iraqi capital as Pentagon chief.

His request highlighted a disagreement over war strategy between Baghdad and Washington, with the Americans favouring a more limited air campaign until Iraqi forces are ready to hold on to territory and organise major offensives.

“The focus of our conversations today was the effort to degrade and defeat IS, and as I discussed with Iraqi leaders, we are seeing steady progress in achieving this objective,” Hagel said.

He said he appreciated Abadi’s “directness” in requesting more firepower and added: “We talked about how in fact... the US has accelerated weapons systems that Iraq will need” such as Hellfire air-to-surface missiles and other arms and ammunition.

But Hagel, speaking to a group of US and Australian troops, said the outcome of the campaign would ultimately hinge on the Baghdad government.

“It’s their country, they have to lead, they’re the ones who are going to have to be responsible for end results,” he said. “We can help, we can train, we can assist, we can advise — we’re doing that.”

More coalition troops 

Washington has forged an alliance of Western and Arab countries that has launched more than 1,000 air strikes against IS in Iraq and Syria since August 8, after the extremist group seized swathes of territory and declared an Islamic “caliphate”.

Hagel said on Tuesday that four Arab countries — Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain — had conducted about a quarter of the strikes carried out by Washington’s partners in the 60-nation coalition.

US officials have said the scale of the American-led air campaign will not dramatically escalate until the Iraqi army is able to launch wider offensives.

But Hagel also said that Iraqi forces “are preparing now for broader offensives.”

Analysts have argued that the next major target for pro-government forces in Iraq would be to start taking back territory in the vast Sunni western province of Anbar, which is under almost total jihadist control.

The United States plans to double the number of its troops helping government forces to 3,100, and on Monday the American commander of the war effort said allies also would send roughly 1,500 security personnel.

Washington has about 1,500 troops in Iraq providing security for the American embassy and advising the Baghdad government’s army and Kurdish forces.

Last month President Barack Obama approved the deployment of another 1,500 troops to bolster the training and advising effort across the country.

Hagel announced his resignation last month, rejecting accounts that he had fallen out of favour with Obama as the United States launched a major air war against the IS group.

His farewell tour also took him to Afghanistan and he is due back in the United States on Wednesday.

BEIRUT — Lebanon needs more international help to fight jihadist forces that have launched a series of attacks against the army and kidnapped security forces, the country's prime minister told AFP.

Tammam Salam, speaking ahead of a visit to France this week, welcomed French arms deliveries due "in the coming weeks", but said his country's military needed more.

Lebanon's army, which has around 70,000 troops and is recruiting 10,000 more, "has showed respectable defence capacity", Salam said.

But "we need a lot more aid for it", he said.

Salam said Lebanon was not in danger of falling to jihadists from the Islamic State or Al Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, Al Nusra Front.

He dismissed the possibility of "an Islamic caliphate in Lebanon" such as that declared by IS in parts of Syria and Iraq.

"The danger is that they will try to weaken Lebanon," he said.

Last December, Saudi Arabia pledged $3 billion to fund the purchase of French weapons to bolster Lebanon’s military against jihadists.

Implementation of the deal has taken longer than expected, but Salam said the first arms deliveries were now expected within weeks.

“Things are moving — I’m very confident,” he said, speaking from his office at the Grand Serail residence in the capital Beirut.

“All the deals have been signed... We’re in agreement on 90 per cent of the types of weapons. The delivery should begin in the coming weeks.”

Salam said the deliveries would include “helicopters and the weapons necessary to help the army properly defend against incursions and attack from abroad, particularly those by terrorists”.

Hostage negotiations stalled 

Lebanon has tried to insulate itself from the effects of the war in neighbouring Syria, but has been wracked by increasing instability and spillover from the nearly four-year conflict.

Salam said Britain was also helping to bolster Lebanon’s defences, with a series of observation posts erected by British officers along part of the border with Syria.

The border posts went up several weeks ago near the eastern Lebanese town of Arsal, which was briefly overrun in August by IS and Al Nusra jihadists.

After days of clashes with Lebanese troops, the jihadists withdrew into the mountains along the border following a truce negotiated by clerics.

But they took with them 30 security force members as hostages. Four have been executed and a fifth died of wounds sustained during the clashes.

The fourth execution, of policeman Ali Al Bazaal, was announced on Friday.

Lebanon has so far failed to win any releases of the hostages, and Qatari mediators have announced they are ending their efforts, local media said Monday.

“On this hostage affair, I’ve never said I was optimistic,” Salam said, speaking a day after Bazaal’s death was announced.

“It’s a very difficult situation that requires a lot of effort by all the political factions, the people, the hostages’ families, the security services and the media,” he said.

Salam said 16 police and soldiers were still being held by Al Nusra, with another nine held by IS.

The jihadists “act in a savage manner, they kill whenever... they are imposing this terrorism on the Lebanese and it’s difficult to know in advance what they will do”, he added.

“We have tried to negotiate with them... but things are very difficult.”

Deal for new president needed 

Salam said efforts involving Turkey and Qatar had failed to yield results, and that negotiating directly with the kidnappers through Lebanon’s security services was equally fruitless.

He also denied that authorities had arrested two women linked to jihadist leaders for use as “bargaining chips”.

Last week, Lebanon’s interior minister confirmed the arrest of an ex-wife of IS chief Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi and the wife of another IS commander.

But Salam said “they were being followed for some time” because of their ties to “networks of terrorist cells”.

Salam said his three-day trip to France, which begins on Wednesday, would also involve talks about Lebanon’s failure to pick a new president.

The post has been empty since May 25, when former president Michel Sleiman’s term ended.

Regional divisions and political stalemate in the country’s parliament have left lawmakers unable to agree on a replacement.

“The presidential vote in Lebanon is traditionally influenced from outside,” Salam acknowledged, noting the formation of his own government “was facilitated by a regional and international deal”.

“Why not have another deal to facilitate presidential elections?” he said.

TUNIS — Moncef Marzouki and Beji Caid Essebsi are to face off on December 21 in Tunisia's second round of presidential voting to decide who leads the nation that sparked the Arab Spring.

"Voting will take place on December 21," the head of the ISIE electoral organising body, Chafik Sarsar, told a news conference on Monday.

Campaigning will begin on Tuesday and last until midnight on December 19, Sarsar said, urging the two candidates and the media to respect electoral campaign rules given "the importance of this historic moment".

Neither incumbent Marzouki nor 88-year-old political veteran Essebsi won an overall majority in the first round of polling on November 23.

The final results from the first round, released on Monday, showed Essebsi ahead with 39.46 per cent of votes cast and Marzouki on 33.43 per cent.

The election in the North African nation is the first time its people have been able to vote freely for their head of state since independence from France in 1956.

Twenty-seven candidates stood in the first round of the milestone election in Tunisia, where the ouster in 2011 of longtime strongman Zine El Abidine Ben Ali set off a chain of revolts that saw several Arab dictators toppled by citizens demanding democratic reform.

The country's leaders pride themselves on the fact that Tunisia has been largely spared the bloodshed that has hit other Arab Spring states such as Egypt, Libya and Yemen.

But it faces significant challenges, including a jihadist threat, a weak economy and social unrest.

Anti-Islamist party Nidaa Tounes, which is headed by Essebsi, won 86 seats in parliamentary polls in October, beating moderate Islamist movement Ennahda, dominant since Ben Ali's ouster, into second place with 69 seats.

The presidential runoff is set to be polarising, with Marzouki's camp portraying him as the last line of defence against a return to the autocratic ways of the old regime, and Essebsi deriding him as an Islamist pawn.

Marzouki, 69, was an exiled dissident during Ben Ali's rule and was elected president at the end of 2011 by an interim assembly under a coalition deal with the then-ruling Ennahda.

Essebsi held key positions under Habib Bourguiba, the father of Tunisia's independence, and under Ben Ali.

To prevent another dictatorship, presidential powers have been restricted under a new constitution, with executive prerogatives transferred to a premier.

The electoral system calls for the party with the most votes to form a coalition government. Nidaa Tounes has said the process will start after the presidential run-off.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel said Monday it will not allow "sophisticated weapons" to fall into the hands of its enemies, after furious claims from Syria that Israeli warplanes carried out air strikes near Damascus.

Israel refused to confirm or deny the strikes, but its forces have previously targeted weapons allegedly destined for arch-foe Lebanon's Hizbollah.

The two strikes on Sunday, including one on the country's main international airport, were fiercely condemned by Damascus, which called for UN sanctions against Israel.

Asked about the strikes on public radio, Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz refused to comment directly but stressed Israel's policy of preventing arms transfers to militant groups.

"We have a firm policy of preventing all possible transfers of sophisticated weapons to terrorist organisations," Steinitz said, in a clear reference to the Shiite militant group Hizbollah.

Israel has launched a series of air strikes inside Syria since the outbreak of the country's armed uprising in 2011, including raids reportedly targeting Iranian rockets bound for Hizbollah.

The Syrian army said Sunday's strikes by "the Israeli enemy" had targeted two areas near the capital, including Damascus International Airport, which is used by both civilian and military aircraft.

It said the strikes caused damage but that nobody was hurt.

"This direct aggression by Israel was carried out to help the terrorists in Syria," the army said, using the regime's collective term to refer to peaceful opponents, armed rebels and jihadists fighting in Syria.

There was no threat of retaliation, but the Syrian foreign ministry said it had asked UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Security Council to impose sanctions on Israel, describing the strikes as "a heinous crime against Syria's sovereignty".

According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the conflict, both of the targeted sites were used for military purposes.

“Both were military sites, and weapons were being stored there,” Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP.

‘Opening salvo’ of election? 

Syria’s regime is a close ally of Hizbollah, which has launched numerous attacks against Israeli forces and in 2006 fought a month-long war with the country.

The movement has fought alongside the forces of Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose Alawite sect is an offshoot of Shia Islam, against the mainly Sunni fighters opposing his regime.

Damascus has accused Israel of carrying out several air raids on its territory since the beginning of 2013, including one in the Quneitra region of the disputed Golan in March that killed a soldier.

Israeli media said the latest raid had targeted weapons such as anti-tank rockets and surface-to-air missiles meant to be delivered to Hizbollah.

There was little doubt among Israeli commentators on Monday that the country had carried out the strikes.

“There must have been a brief window of opportunity yesterday and the decision to strike was taken,” Israeli army radio said.

Some Israeli opposition figures raised questions about the timing of the strikes, which came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called early elections.

Netanyahu is looking to shore up his support on the right ahead of primaries for his Likud Party and the snap vote in March.

“I hope this isn’t the opening salvo of the campaign for the Likud primaries and the next elections,” Ilan Gilon of the leftwing Meretz Party said.

Steinitz dismissed claims of any political motive as “ridiculous and harmful”.

Some commentators said a possible response from Damascus or Hizbollah to the strikes could set the tone for the election.

“The Syrians’ response... will dictate the headlines and the public focus in the coming weeks and months.”

That response would most likely come through Hizbollah, and against Israeli troops, security analyst Daniel Nisman said.

“It could be something abroad, like an attack against Israelis... but it’s more likely to be some kind of IED [improvised explosive device] attack on the border, against an IDF [army] patrol,” he told AFP.

A roadside bomb attack in October claimed by Hizbollah wounded two Israeli soldiers near the Lebanese ceasefire line in the Israeli-occupied sector of the Golan.

The Syrian conflict, which evolved from a pro-democracy movement into a full-blown civil war, is estimated to have killed more than 200,000 people and forced half the population to flee their homes.

KUWAIT CITY — Members of a US-led coalition are ready to send roughly 1,500 security personnel to Iraq to help the Baghdad government in its fight against Islamic State, the American commander of the war effort said Monday.

Coalition partners meeting last week in the region made initial pledges that would bring "close" to 1,500 forces to Iraq to train and assist the country's army, in addition to the Americans already mobilised, Lieutenant General James Terry told reporters in Kuwait City.

The US general did not indicate which countries from the coalition would provide the security personnel or give a breakdown of how many of them would be in uniform or otherwise.

Terry said he was encouraged at the willingness of allies to send trainers and advisers to the December 2-3 meeting and that the details of the contributions were still being discussed.

"We're still working through it," he said. "I want to give them time to go back to their nations' capitals and work out the specifics of that."

But he said "the large percentage" of the contributions would be aimed at training Iraqi troops to "build partner capacity".

There are already about 1,500 US personnel in Iraq providing security for the American embassy and advising the Baghdad government’s army and Kurdish forces.

President Barack Obama has approved the deployment of another 1,500 to bolster the training and advising effort.

Terry said much of his work was aimed at coordinating international coalition against the Islamic State (IS) group.

The general also said Iraqi security forces were steadily improving but remained months away from staging large-scale offensives.

“While they still have a long to go I think they’re becoming more capable every day,” he said.

The IS group meanwhile was “on the defence, trying to hold what they had gained but still able to conduct some limited attacks out there”.

DUBAI — Qatar has halted its bid to broker the release of Lebanese soldiers and policemen captured by Islamist militants during a raid on a Lebanese border town in August, saying its efforts had failed after one of the captives was killed.

Militants affiliated with Al Nusra Front and Al Qaeda offshoot Islamic State took captive more than two dozen members of the Lebanese security forces during the August incursion.

Al Nusra Front said on Friday it had killed one of them in retaliation for the arrest by Lebanese authorities of women identified as wives of Islamist militants.

Qatar had previously helped mediate the release of hostages held by Al Nusra, Al Qaeda's official affiliate in the Syrian war.

"The [Qatari] foreign ministry announced that it was no longer possible for Qatar to continue its efforts to free the Lebanese military personnel who were kidnapped in August from the environs of the town of Arsal," the ministry said in a statement posted on its website on Sunday.

The ministry said its decision was based on the failure to secure the captives' release. It also expressed regret over the latest death — the fourth of the captives killed since August.

The SITE intelligence monitoring centre said in November that Al Nusra Front had proposed to a Qatari negotiator freeing the Lebanese captives in return for the release of Islamist prisoners held in Syria and Lebanon.

Lebanese authorities said last week they had detained a wife of Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi and the wife of an Al Nusra front leader.

Lebanese media have reported that the women were viewed by some Lebanese officials as a possible bargaining chip with the militants to gain the release of the captive soldiers.

CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait — With US help, Iraqi security forces have achieved a "new momentum" in their battle to regain territory lost this year to the Islamic State group, Defence Secretary Chuck Hagel said Monday.

Speaking to reporters at this army camp in northern Kuwait, which serves as a staging and logistics hub for US military operations in the Middle East, Hagel offered an upbeat assessment of progress in Iraq since the US began launching air strikes against Islamic State in August.

"It's given them some new momentum," he said.

Hagel said that IS group remains a formidable threat, not only to Iraq but also to neighbouring Iran and other countries in the region. He repeated the US government's policy of not coordinating military action in Iraq with Iran, but he also suggested that Iran has reason to be concerned about the long-term ambitions of IS.

"They are threatened by ISIL, just like every government in the Middle East is clearly threatened by ISIL," Hagel said, using an alternative acronym for the extremist group.

US officials said last week that Iran had recently conducted air strikes in the eastern Iraqi province of Diyala.

Hagel spent a short time touring a maintenance bay at Camp Buehring operated by soldiers of the 1st Armoured Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division. The brigade is on a nine-month deployment in Kuwait as the rotating US ground force that is on call for emergency duty anywhere in the Middle East. Hagel then fielded questions from several soldiers.

On this date in 2004, Camp Buehring was the site of a memorable visit by one of Hagel's predecessors, Donald H. Rumsfeld. In a similar setting, but in a far different circumstance, Rumsfeld was asked by a US National Guard soldier from Tennessee why troops were being sent into battle in Iraq with vehicles equipped with inadequate armour and other protection.

Rumsfeld replied, "you go to the war with the army you have, ... not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time". At that juncture, nearly two years after the March 2003 US invasion, the exchange with Rumsfeld suggested how ill-prepared the US was to wage a long ground war in Iraq.

CAIRO — Canada on Monday joined Britain in closing its embassy in Cairo to the public for security reasons, with neither country providing details about any specific threat.

The move comes amid increasing attacks by Islamist militants in Egypt and calls from the extremist Islamic State (IS) group for attacks on Western targets.

The Canadian embassy said in a statement that it would be closed "due to security reasons" on Monday, with a separate e-mail to Canadian citizens in Egypt saying this would be "until further notice".

The British embassy also remained closed after shutting its public services on Sunday.

British Ambassador John Casson said the decision had been taken "to ensure the security of the embassy and our staff".

"We are working to restore full services as quickly as possible," he said.

Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman Badr Abdelatty said he was unaware "of any specific threat" to the missions.

"They informed us that it is a precautionary action... but we are dealing with the matter seriously," he told AFP.

"Our security apparatus is applying maximum security measures on the ground and we hope that the embassies do not exaggerate the matter out of context."

Cairo security chief Ali Al Demerdash also said he was unaware of any specific threat to the two embassies.

"No one has informed us of any security threat. We boosted security around embassies in Cairo and vital institutions a long time ago," he told AFP.

Both Britain and Canada previously issued warnings to their citizens against travelling to restive areas including parts of the Sinai Peninsula, where the Ansar Beit Al Maqdis militant group has pledged allegiance to IS.

The American embassy, which like the two others is in central Cairo, remained open Monday.

Australia updated its travel warning to nationals on Saturday, citing the "ongoing political situation and the threat of terrorist attack" in Egypt.

"Terrorist attacks could occur at anytime, anywhere in Egypt, including in tourist areas," the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade website said, specifically banning travel to the insurgent bastion of North Sinai.

Canberra's embassy in Cairo remained open for public services on Monday.

Foreign missions have stepped up security measures since last year's ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi prompted a rise in militant attacks on the security forces.

No foreign missions or interests have been directly targeted.

Most attacks have been in the Sinai, but Cairo and other cities have also experienced several deadly blasts.

IS, which has captured swathes of territory in Iraq and Syria, has called on affiliate groups to target foreign nationals and interests, especially citizens of states belonging to a US-led coalition fighting the jihadists.

Both Britain and Canada have joined the coalition, flying missions against IS targets in Iraq.

SANAA — A senior military commander of Al Qaeda in Yemen denounced on Monday beheadings carried out by the group's Islamic State rivals, calling the act and its filming for propaganda purposes barbarous and asserting that US drone strikes are expanding Al Qaeda's popularity in the country.

The comments, by Nasr Bin Ali Al Ansi, came in a video response to questions by reporters posted on one of the group's Twitter accounts. It appeared to have been recorded before Saturday's killing of two hostages — an American and a South African — during an attempted US rescue from Al Qaeda militants. Both groups regularly execute prisoners but beheadings and other brutal acts have become a trademark of IS.

Al Qaeda in Yemen — seen by Washington as the group's most dangerous Al Qaeda affiliate globally — has criticised the IS before for trying to expand its territory.

IS extremists initially fought to oust Syrian President Bashar Assad. But other groups, including Al Qaeda central command, denounced them as too violent. The group now controls large swaths of Iraq and Syria.

Al Ansi said that previous beheadings by Al Qaeda in Yemen were "individual acts" and were not endorsed by the leadership. He appeared to be referring to the beheading of 15 Yemeni soldiers by suspected Al Qaeda militants in August.

"Filming and promoting it among people in the name of Islam and Jihad is a big mistake and not acceptable whatever the justifications are,"  Ansi said. "This is very barbaric," he added.

Al Qaeda in Yemen has long faced attacks by US drone aircraft that have killed several of its leaders but also scores of civilians, drawing criticism from the government and human rights groups.

Ansi said that the drone strikes stoke popular outrage that boosts Al Qaeda's popularity.

"While they kill some of the jihadis, the US drone strikes increase the sympathy of Muslims with us," he said, adding: "Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, the call for jihad spreads."

ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday criticised Egypt's military rulers for having Interpol issue an arrest warrant for a Muslim scholar.

Islamist scholar Sheikh Youssef Al Qaradawi, whose fiery sermons have caused tensions with Cairo's military rulers, is a strong supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

He regularly launches tirades against Egypt's authorities since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July last year.

Egypt had approached Interpol seeking Qaradawi's arrest and in November Interpol put him on its wanted list.

"Look, a person who came to power through a coup is giving instructions to Interpol," Erdogan told a religious council in Ankara.

"A step is being taken for arrest of Youssef Al Qaradawi, president of the Union of Muslim Scholars," he said.

"What kind of a business is this? Science cannot be at the disposal of politics. Politics is the servant of science," he added.

"Things have turned upside down. All of these developments show the world is unfortunately going not for the good but for the bad."

Qaradawi, 88, is an Egyptian-Qatari national and a prominent Sunni cleric based in Doha.

He is named as a defendant in several trials along with many Muslim Brotherhood members, including one which has Morsi as a co-defendant.

Turkey is one of the staunchest supporters of the brotherhood, with Erdogan calling Morsi's removal from power a "coup".