Region

CAIRO — The British embassy in Cairo suspended public services on Sunday for security reasons, an embassy spokesperson said.

The embassy declined to give more details due to the sensitive nature of the matter but said it was working with the Egyptian authorities to reopen and resume full service as soon as possible.

"The decision to suspend public services at the embassy has been taken for security reasons and is in the best interests of our staff," the spokesperson said.

"The decision is independent of our wider travel advice for Egypt."

It was not clear when the embassy would reopen. The British embassy website said the office of the British consulate general in Alexandria was operating as normal.

Egypt has been battling an Islamist insurgency that is largely centred around the Sinai Peninsula, a strategic area near the border with Israel, Gaza and the Suez Canal.

Insurgent attacks have mostly targeted Egyptian police and soldiers, killing hundreds in the past year, but Egypt's most dangerous militant group said on Monday it was behind the killing of an American oil engineer in the western desert in August.

Smaller bombs also regularly explode in Cairo and the Nile Delta, usually causing limited injuries.

The British Foreign Office already advises against all travel to the volatile area of northern Sinai and all but essential travel to most of southern Sinai and to the west of Egypt, particularly near the border with Libya.

"There is considered to be a heightened threat of terrorist attacks globally against UK interests and British nationals from groups or individuals motivated by the conflict in Iraq and Syria. You should be vigilant at this time," the Foreign Office says on its Egyptian travel advice page.

The US embassy, which is in the same area of Cairo, was open for business as usual on Sunday.

However, it released a statement on December 4 warning staff not to stray too far from their homes.

"In light of the heightened tensions and recent attacks on Westerners in the region, the US embassy has recommended that its staff carefully scrutinise their personal movements and consider staying close to their residences and neighbourhoods over the coming period," it said in the message on its website.

It also urged US citizens to remain alert.

BEIRUT — Syrian troops have repelled an attack by jihadists from the Islamic State (IS) group on a key military airport in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, a monitoring group said Sunday.

Elsewhere, rebels fighting to oust President Bashar Assad blew up a tunnel near an ancient mosque in the northern city of Aleppo, as loyalists tightened the noose around opposition positions in the same province.

"Troops and pro-regime militia stopped the attack that Islamic State launched on the Deir Ezzor military airport," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, adding both sides suffered heavy losses in the fighting.

The jihadists had withdrawn to the edges of the base, a day after managing to seize a southeastern part of the complex, it said.

The observatory said more than 100 jihadists had been killed in fighting for the base since Wednesday, when they launched an operation to try to take the airport.

Pro-regime forces also suffered heavy casualties, with some 59 troops killed, it said.

State news agency SANA said Syrian army units had "repelled an attempt" by IS fighters to attack positions at the base, but provided no further details.

The Deir Ezzor base is a key regime outpost from which warplanes and helicopters mount raids on jihadist positions in several areas of the war-wracked country.

IS fighters control most of Deir Ezzor province, but half of its capital remains in government hands.

The oil-rich province lies between IS-controlled Raqqa province and the border with Iraq, and is a key prize for the jihadist group which declared an Islamic "caliphate" straddling the two countries in June.

Fresh regime advance 

On another front, the army secured a fresh advance in Aleppo province, said the observatory, adding troops killed at least 24 Syrian rebels and jihadists fighting northeast of the country's second city.

"The army... took Breij area northeast of Aleppo city," said observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The advance meant the army was closing in on rebels in the east of Aleppo city.

"There is a very real threat that the opposition's supply route will be cut off," Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Meanwhile in the heart of Aleppo city, rebels blew up a tunnel near an ancient mosque, claiming to be targeting army positions, said the observatory.

State television also reported the explosion, and said the rebels had blown up the Sultaniyeh Mosque itself.

The observatory said it could not confirm whether the mosque had been damaged.

Much of the Old City of Aleppo, home to multiple ancient religious and cultural sites, has been destroyed by more than two years of savage fighting.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Little noticed amid the furore over one of Israel's most contentious policies, a small but growing number of Arabs are moving into Jewish settlements on occupied land in East Jerusalem, drawn by cheaper rent and better services.

For decades, Israel has encouraged Jews to settle in East Jerusalem, changing the population balance, provoking Palestinian anger and drawing international condemnation.

But in one such settlement, around Mount Scopus where the Hebrew University is based and many Palestinians study, almost a fifth of residents are either Arab citizens of Israel or Palestinians, according to Israel's Central Bureau of Statistics.

"Really it's not a matter of ideology," said Rawya Mazal, an Arab Israeli realtor who sells or lets properties to Palestinian families in a nearby settlement at French Hill. "It's about convenience, living close to campus or making an investment."

Cross-community relations aren't always harmonious. Few if any Arabs live on Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, and a surge of violence in recent months has persuaded some to leave those in East Jerusalem.

Like so much in the region, the ethnic mix is complex. Official figures from 2013 show 7.4 per cent of French Hill residents are Arabs, and Mazal believes the true non-Jewish population is closer to 20 per cent.

While the high proportion of Arab residents in French Hill and Mount Scopus is probably exceptional, the trend is visible in other East Jerusalem settlements too.

In the working-class areas of Pisgat Ze'ev and Neve Yaacov to the northeast of Jerusalem's Old City, 1 to 2 per cent of residents are now Arab Israeli or Palestinian, figures show.

The Jerusalem municipality does not collect ethnic data, but Uzi Chen, the City Hall representative for northern districts, said "several hundred" Arab families live in Pisgat Ze'ev and Neve Yaakov, which have a combined population of 63,000.

Palestinians living in the settlements are mostly from East Jerusalem, which Israeli forces occupied in the 1967 Middle East war. As Israel regards all of the city as its unified capital, they hold Israeli residency permits although they are not citizens.

However, most world powers do not recognise Israel's designation of East Jerusalem, and want to see it as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Upsides and downsides

Sabrine Jabber, 26, is a Muslim Arab who has spent half her life in Neve Yaakov, a collection of white high-rises that expanded as a settlement in the 1970s.

While living in a religiously conservative neighbourhood, she plays down the effect of the recent tensions in Jerusalem that have led to violence between Palestinians and Israelis.

"Nothing has changed for us," she said, sunning herself on the rear terrace of her block. "My neighbours know me and I know them. We get on fine."

Arabs living in Neve Yaakov tend to send their children to schools in the nearby Palestinian neighbourhood of Beit Hanina, and if they want to go to the mosque, they just cross the road.

Moussab Abu Ramouz, a Palestinian who works in a supermarket in Neve Yaakov but lives in Beit Hanina, said rents in his area were up to 25 per cent more expensive than in the settlement, which also has better public transport.

What is more, while Palestinians pay municipal taxes at the same rates as Jewish residents, their neighbourhoods tend to have much poorer services, with rubbish seldom collected, the sidewalks in disrepair and street-lighting sparse.

While some middle-class Palestinians and Israeli Arabs may be attracted by practical considerations, moving into a settlement does not come without problems.

Mazal, the realtor, said she has had a Jewish homeowner refuse to sell a property to Arabs; that deal was clinched through a Jewish go-between.

Sarhan Ganayem, an Arab Israeli, has lived in Jerusalem settlements for 12 years, first in French Hill and then in Neve Yaakov. But he and his family have had enough.

"Relations between Arabs and Jews have become intolerable," said Ganayem, an accountant whose wife is giving up a good job as a city water engineer so that they can move to north Israel.

He said he had felt more menaced in recent months, following a string of violent attacks by Palestinians on Israelis and several reprisals by Israelis against Palestinians.

The family next door has two sons in the Israeli army and he said there was never any exchange of greetings with them.

"I don't want to be mistaken for a terrorist," Ganayem said. "And I don't want to risk a real terrorist turning up and maybe mistaking my wife, who is kind of blonde and Russian-looking, for a Jew."

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia said Sunday it has arrested 135 suspects for "terrorism" offences, after the kingdom's participation in air strikes against Islamic State extremists raised concerns about possible retaliation.

The suspects include 26 foreign nationals, among them "16 Syrians and three Yemenis", interior ministry spokesman General Mansour Al Turki said, cited by the official Saudi Press Agency.

The detainees belong to "suspect groups... that terrorism united", and their arrests followed "repeated attempts to harm the security and stability of the homeland", Turki said without specifying when they were detained.

Forty of the suspects had gone to "zones of conflict, joined extremist groups and trained in the handling of weapons... before returning to the kingdom to destabilise the country", Turki said.

He added that 54 others were implicated in the "financing, recruitment, propaganda and manufacture of explosives... in aid of extremist groups".

Seventeen suspects were linked to unrest and armed attacks on security forces in Awamiya, a community in eastern province just west of Dammam city.

Awamiya has been a focus for clashes between security forces and minority Shiite protesters.

Turki said the detained foreign suspects included an Egyptian, a Lebanese, an Afghan, an Ethiopian, a Bahraini and a stateless person.

The arrests come as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Bahrain take part in US-led air strikes against IS in Syria.

Saudi pilots who took part in the initial air raids in September received online death threats after photos were published of those involved, among them a son of the crown prince.

The kingdom's Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh has said Al Qaeda and IS "have nothing to do with Islam and [their proponents] are the enemy number one of Islam".

Last week, an IS-linked media group released a video claiming to show the shooting in Riyadh of a Danish national by its "supporters", the US-based monitoring group SITE said.

Denmark has confirmed that one of its citizens was shot and wounded in the Saudi capital on November 22.

The video carries an audio recording, allegedly of IS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi saying that Saudi rulers will see "no more security or rest".

A week after the Dane was shot, someone stabbed and wounded a Canadian while he shopped at a mall in Dhahran on Saudi Arabia's Gulf coast.

Police arrested a Saudi suspect.

A source familiar with the situation told AFP last week that they were "still trying to figure out what the motive is", but many people were wondering if the attacks signalled a trend.

In October, a Saudi-American former employee of a US defence contractor shot dead an American colleague and wounded another in Riyadh.

The suspect had recently been fired, officials said.

That was the first deadly strike against Westerners in Saudi Arabia since several were killed in a wave of Al Qaeda violence between 2003 and 2007.

Both Canada and Denmark are among the Western states taking part in an aerial campaign against IS in Iraq.

In November, Saudi Arabia blamed IS-linked suspects for the killing of seven Shiites, including children, in eastern province.

SANAA/ADEN — A US journalist and a South African teacher held by Al Qaeda militants in Yemen were killed along with some of their captors during a night rescue attempt by US and Yemeni forces in a remote desert village, officials said on Saturday.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and a Yemeni intelligence official said Luke Somers, 33, and South African Pierre Korkie were shot by their kidnappers shortly after the raid began in the arid Wadi Abadan district of Shabwa, a province in southern Yemen long seen as one of Al Qaeda’s most formidable strongholds.

Kerry said the operation, the second attempt to free Somers in 10 days, had only been approved because of information that the American’s life was in imminent danger.

However, the Gift of the Givers relief group, which was trying to secure Korkie’s release, said it had negotiated for the teacher to be freed and had expected that to happen on Sunday and for him to be returned to his family.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is seen by Washington as one of the movement’s most dangerous branches. The United States has worked with the Yemeni government and via drone strikes to attack its leadership in southern and eastern parts of Yemen.

“The callous disregard for Luke’s life is more proof of the depths of AQAP’s depravity, and further reason why the world must never cease in seeking to defeat their evil ideology,” President Barack Obama said in a statement.

He said he had authorised the attempted rescue and said the United States would “spare no effort to use all of its military, intelligence and diplomatic capabilities to bring Americans home safely, wherever they are located”.

Somers was moved from the scene of the rescue attempt but died later from his wounds, a senior official in the Yemeni president’s office said.

Gift of the Givers said on its website: “We received with sadness the news that Pierre was killed in an attempt by American Special Forces, in the early hours of this morning, to free hostages in Yemen.”

It added: “The psychological and emotional devastation to [Korkie’s wife] Yolande and her family will be compounded by the knowledge that Pierre was to be released by Al Qaeda tomorrow... Three days ago we told her ‘Pierre will be home for Christmas’.”

A South African government spokesman declined to comment.

There was no new information about three other hostages, a Briton, a Turk and a Yemeni, who had previously been held alongside Somers and Korkie, a Yemeni security official told Reuters.

Lucy Somers, the photojournalist’s sister, told The Associated Press that she and her father learned of her brother’s death from FBI agents at 0500 GMT (12 am EST) Saturday.

“We ask that all of Luke’s family members be allowed to mourn in peace,” she said from London.

Immediate danger

Kerry said the decision to mount the raid was based on fears that AQAP planned to kill Somers.

“Earlier this week, AQAP released a video announcing that Luke would be murdered within 72 hours. Along with other information, there was a compelling indication that Luke’s life was in immediate danger,” Kerry said.

US officials on Thursday said American forces had already attempted to rescue Somers, without giving details. Yemeni officials had previously disclosed the release of six Yemenis, a Saudi and an Ethiopian hostage in a raid on November 25.

There were contradictory accounts of how Saturday’s raid unfolded and how many of the kidnappers were killed. A Yemeni official said on Saturday morning that 10 Al Qaeda suspects had died in the raid.

A US official, speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said American special forces had conducted the operation alone at 1 am in Yemen, but that the kidnappers had been alerted to their approach shortly before they arrived.

The official said the kidnappers then “executed” the hostages, who each sustained multiple gunshot wounds. One died during the flight out and another aboard a US ship.

At no point was there an exchange of fire in the part of the compound where the hostages were being held, the source said, and at no point did US forces shoot into that part of the building.

A senior US official said Yemen’s President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi had given his support for the operation.

Although the United States knew there were two hostages at the location, and that one of them was Somers, it did not know that the other was Korkie, the senior Washington official said.

The rescue team was made up of about 40 members of Special Operations forces, and the raid lasted about 30 minutes from start to finish, said the US officials.

Yemen’s government said in a statement carried on state media that its security forces had led the raid. It said the security forces had surrounded the house and called on the kidnappers to surrender, but they instead shot the hostages.

That led to an assault on the building in which four Yemeni security officers were also wounded, it said. The statement said the house belonged to suspected militant Saeed Al Daghaari, which another Yemeni security source told Reuters it was in the village of Dafaar in the Wadi Abadan district of Shabwa.

“It’s a very small village with only 20-40 houses. There were very quick clashes with the gunmen and then it was all finished,” a tribal source from the area said.

AQAP on Thursday released a video showing a man it said was Somers saying: “I’m looking for any help that can get me out of this situation. I’m certain that my life is in danger”. Reuters was not able to independently verify the authenticity of that video, which was reported on by SITE Monitoring.

BAALBEK, Lebanon — Anger erupted in eastern Lebanon early Saturday after Al Qaeda-linked Syrian extremist group Al Nusra front said it had killed a captured Lebanese policeman to avenge the arrest of Islamic militants' wives and children.

The body of an unidentified Sunni man who had been shot dead was found on a road in the mainly Shiite Bekaa Valley region bordering Syria in a suspected act of revenge for the policeman's murder while gunmen abducted an unknown number of Sunni residents from the area, security sources said.

Angry residents were blocking roads and set fire to tyres in the village of Bazzalieh, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

The village is not far from the border town of Arsal where a former wife and young daughter of Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, the head of the jihadist Islamic State (IS) group that has seized large parts of Syria and Iraq, were detained this week.

The flare-up came after Al Nusra posted a photograph that it said showed the execution of detained Lebanese policeman Ali Al Bazaal, in a statement on its Twitter account picked up by the SITE terrorism watchdog.

Bazaal was one of around 30 Lebanese soldiers and policemen abducted by jihadists in August during fighting in Arsal.

"If the sisters that were unjustly arrested are not released, then after a short period of time the death sentence will be executed against another prisoner we hold," Al-Nusra said.

Lebanese security sources said they were trying to verify the claim.

The group did not identify the women and children it said Lebanon was holding, nor did it say how many were missing.

On Wednesday, Lebanon's interior minister said authorities there were holding the daughter and former wife of IS chief Baghdadi.

While both the IS jihadist group and Al-Nusra are based in neighbouring Syria, they have clashed with Lebanese border forces and with the Lebanese militia Hizbollah, which supports Syrian leader Bashar Al Assad's regime.

Last month a roadside bomb wounded three Lebanese soldiers near Arsal, where in August troops fought a fierce gun battle with jihadists who streamed across the border.

Fighting ended with a truce mediated by clerics, but the jihadists took with them the Lebanese army and police hostages.

At least four have since been executed and Qatari-led efforts to free the rest have so far failed.

MANAMA — Bahrain urged the international community to focus its efforts on combating the "evil theocracy" of jihadist groups such as the Islamic State (IS), at the opening of a security conference on Friday.

"I call on you to discard the term 'war on terror' and focus on the real threat which is the rise of this evil theocracy," said Bahrain's crown prince, Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

"We are fighting theocrats... We will be fighting these theocrats for a very long time," said the prince, whose country is part of a US-led coalition carrying out air strikes on the IS group which has seized swathes of Syria and Iraq.

Referring to the jihadists' harsh and rigid interpretation of Islam, Prince Salman said: "The 17th century has no place in our modern 21st."

The annual Manama Dialogue, organised by the International Institute for Strategic Studies and running until Sunday, is being attended by defence ministers, military officials and security experts from around the world.

MANAMA — Britain's top diplomat said Saturday his country has signed a deal with Bahrain that will bolster the United Kingdom's military presence in the island nation and give it a more permanent naval base in the oil-rich Arabian Gulf region.

The agreement marks a strategic shift for Britain, which formally withdrew from its major Gulf military bases in 1971. It comes as the UK, the United States and their allies seek to push back Islamic State group militants that have taken over large parts of Iran and Syria and as world powers work to forge a lasting nuclear deal with Iran, which sits just across the Gulf from Bahrain.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond emphasised his country's historic links to the Gulf in announcing the plans at a security conference in the Bahraini capital, Manama.

"In a globalised world, our domestic security and prosperity depends on developments beyond our shores," Hammond said. "Your security concerns are our security concerns."

Tiny Bahrain already hosts the US Navy's 5th Fleet, which is responsible for operations around the Arabian Peninsula as well as parts of the Indian Ocean.

The deal ensures a permanent footing for the Royal Navy in the oil-rich Gulf, Hammond said. The Strait of Hormuz, which is the Gulf's only exit and is bounded by Iran and Oman, is the route for 30 per cent of world oil supplies carried by tanker ships.

The agreement calls for improved onshore facilities at Bahrain's Mina Salman Port that will give the Royal Navy a base to plan, store equipment and house military personnel.

Four British minesweepers are already based in Bahrain, and other British ships rely on facilities in the kingdom. Those operations were carried out on an ad hoc basis, and left personnel relying on "frankly very poor temporary accommodation," Hammond said.

He did not say how much the expanded operation would cost.

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon described the facility as "a permanent expansion of the Royal Navy's footprint" that will ensure Britain can send more ships and bigger vessels into the Gulf.

DUBAI — Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch published a video purporting to show an American hostage and threatened to kill him if unspecified demands were not met.

In the video, the man identified himself as Luke Somers and said he had been kidnapped well over a year ago. He was looking for “any help that can get me out of this situation”.

Reuters was unable to confirm the authenticity of the video, which was posted on YouTube and social media late on Wednesday and carried by SITE, an organisation that monitors militant statements.

The man in the video says he was born in the United Kingdom and holds American citizenship.

Somers, a 33-year-old journalist, was kidnapped in Yemen’s capital Sanaa in September 2013, joining several other foreigners including Westerners held by militant Sunni Muslim armed groups in the volatile Arabian peninsula country.

In the video, a member of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the militant network’s Yemen arm, criticised the foreign policy of US President Barack Obama which it said had led to deaths and “massacres”, mentioning drone strikes in Yemen and air attacks against suspected militants across the Muslim world.

“We warn Obama and the American government of the consequences of proceeding ahead in any other foolish action,” an AQAP official identified as Nasser Bin Ali Al Ansi said.

“We give the American government a timeframe of three days from the issuance of this statement to meet our demands about which they are aware; otherwise, the American hostage held by us will meet his inevitable fate,” he added, without specifying the demands which he said the United States “knows well”.

Ansi also criticised a raid last week by Yemeni and US forces that targeted an AQAP hideout where a number of foreign hostages were being held.

In the assault on a cave in remote Hajr as-Say’ar district in the eastern province of Hadramout, Yemeni security forces rescued six Yemenis, a Saudi and an Ethiopian, and killed seven Al Qaeda kidnappers, Yemeni officials have said.

The defence ministry’s 26sept.net website later quoted a soldier who had participated in the rescue as saying an American, a Briton and a South African held there had been moved elsewhere two days earlier.

The website had no word on the identity of the three.

U.S. officials say al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) has funded its operations with millions of dollars in ransoms received for European hostages.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Fadi has endured verbal abuse and even the threat of suicide bombers during 15 years at the wheel of Jerusalem’s public buses, but like dozens of Palestinian drivers he has finally had enough.

The 35-year-old began his career in West Jerusalem at a far more dangerous time, during the second Palestinian Intifada when dozens of suicide bombers were targeting Israeli public transport on a regular basis.

After a period of respite he again feels unsafe, but this time the threat is from Jewish extremists.

“Since the war in Gaza during the summer, it’s clear now that there’s a war against Arabs,” said Fadi, who did not want to give his full name.

Tensions in Jerusalem soared in July when Jewish extremists killed a Palestinian teenager in revenge for the murder of three Israeli settlers in the West Bank.

Since then there have been months of clashes between security forces and Arab residents of East Jerusalem. An Israeli military campaign against fighters in the Gaza Strip in July and August adding to Palestinian anger.

Violence in Jerusalem spiked in November with several deadly assaults against Jews by lone Palestinian attackers.

Then last month a Palestinian bus driver was found hanged in his vehicle following anti-Arab incitement by Jewish radicals.

Israeli forces said it was suicide, but Palestinians believe it was a murder linked to the wider conflict, and that incident alone prompted dozens of Fadi’s colleagues to resign.

Bassem, another driver, did not hang around long enough to see if the regular death threats from extremist religious passengers were real.

“They’d board the bus and when they saw I was Arab, would say things like ‘death to Arabs’ or ‘Arabs are sons of bitches’,” said Bassem, who also wished to remain anonymous.

He resigned after six years of working for bus company Egged, following the death of the driver, Yusef Ramuni.

“You no longer feel safe,” Bassem said, recalling one occasion when he drove through an Israeli settlement.

“A group of young Jews went onto the road and stood in front of the bus, forcing me to stop. They threw stones and began breaking windows. Thankfully some settler passengers convinced them to stop.”

Mass strike 

When Bassem resigned, the company was desperate to keep him on.

Of 1,470 drivers employed by Egged, about 570 are Palestinian, according to union leader Mahmud Alqam, and the company cannot afford to lose them.

During the funeral of Ramuni, around 500 Palestinian drivers staged a mass walk-out, striking for at least a day.

Roughly 40 of them then quit.

“Maybe they were stressed out or felt under pressure,” said Egged spokesman Assaf Arad, insisting that working conditions at the company “are very good”.

Alqam, the union leader, said requests to strengthen security and ensure the personal safety of Palestinian drivers — such as putting marshals on the buses and erecting glass screens to separate the driver’s compartment — were rejected.

“The transport ministry told us that the extra security would cost around $64 million [51 million euros], and that they couldn›t afford it,” he said.

A large number of the 300,000 Palestinians living in East Jerusalem, which Israel occupied in 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community, work at Israeli companies.

But the Israeli-Palestinian tensions mean some are looking elsewhere for jobs.

A short distance away in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian bus company director Nidal Siyam has seen a flood of job applications from Jerusalem’s Arabs.

“We’ve had about 60 applications since Ramuni died,” he said. “They just don’t want to work for Israel.”