Region

CAIRO — Egypt’s Cabinet approved on Wednesday a draft anti-terrorism law that would give the government blanket power to ban groups on charges ranging from harming national unity to disrupting public order.

Authorities have cracked down hard on Islamist, secular and liberal opposition alike since the army toppled elected Islamist president Mohamed Morsi last year after mass unrest against his rule, dashing hopes for a more robust democracy stirred by the fall of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011.

The government already has broad security powers and has been able to exercise them largely at will — jailing thousands of Morsi supporters and more recently many leading lights of the 2011 uprising — because of many Egyptians’ weariness with lawlessness that crippled the economy after Mubarak’s fall.

The draft legislation, however, would help enshrine the security crackdown in the criminal code by permitting authorities to classify groups as “terrorist” according to a long list of offences, some of them non-violent.

“A terrorist entity is considered any organisation... which practices or seeks in any way to disrupt public order or exposes society’s integrity, interests or security to harm,” the draft legislation reads.

Any group designated as terrorist would be dissolved, the draft stipulates. It also allows for the freezing of assets belonging to the designated group, its members and financiers.

The government is already able to seize Brotherhood assets based on a specific court order; the new legal draft would ease such action against other groups.

The proposal must be approved by a judicial advisory body before Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who as head of the armed forces ousted Morsi in July 2013 and was elected president in May this year, can sign it into law.

Egypt declared Morsi’s Muslim Brotherhood a banned terrorist organisation last December and Egyptian courts have sentenced hundreds of the group’s members to death in mass trials that have drawn strong international criticism.

The Brotherhood formally renounced violence as a tool of political change decades ago and has denied any link with increased Islamist militant violence following Morsi’s exit.

But Sisi’s government does not distinguish between it and militants based mainly in the Sinai Peninsula where the army is fighting an insurgent group that recently pledged loyalty to Islamic State insurgents in Iraq and Syria.

BEIRUT — The death toll from a series of Syrian government air strikes on the Islamic State (IS) group's stronghold in northeastern Syria has risen to at least 95, making it one of the deadliest attacks on the city of Raqqa in the past three years, activists said Wednesday.

Some of the Tuesday air strikes hit a popular market near a museum and an industrial neighbourhood, causing many civilian casualties.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights raised its death toll Wednesday to 95. Its director, Rami Abdurrahman, said the dead include 52 civilians whose names the group was able to document. They include three women and four children, he said. At least 120 others were wounded in the strikes, according to the group.

Other activists, including the Local Coordination Committees and a Raqqa-based collective called Raqqa is Being Silently Slaughtered, estimated more than 100 people had been killed. It was not clear how many militants were among those killed.

The Associated Press could not independently confirm the death toll — one of the worst single-day tolls in the city, which is completely under the control of IS.

The Syrian government as well as the US-led coalition frequently bomb IS group targets in Raqqa, but it was not immediately clear what prompted Tuesday’s unusually intense attacks. The IS group has slaughtered hundreds of Syrian soldiers in the past few months, and recently posted a video showing what it said was the beheading of more than a dozen Syrian soldiers, including officers.

In Iraq, security forces backed by Sunni tribesmen repelled an assault by IS militants on a government complex in the centre of Ramadi, the provincial capital of western Anbar province, said officials. Soldiers, supported by army helicopters, were able to fend off the attack, according to the officials who spoke anonymously because they are not authorised to brief the media.

IS militants have overrun a large part of Anbar province in a push to expand their territory. The group now controls about a third of Syria and Iraq, declaring the territory as part of its self-described caliphate.

Meanwhile, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan made a surprise visit to Baghdad for meetings with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and other senior Iraqi government officials. The UAE is part of the US-led coalition conducting airstrikes in Syria but has thus far refrained from military involvement in Iraq.

Also Wednesday, the US said it had launched several airstrikes in Iraq and Syria since Monday. Near the northern Syrian town of Kobani, ten air strikes struck targets including a militant fighting position, as well as several staging areas. In Iraq, air strikes near Mosul destroyed an IS bulldozer, two vehicles, three IS-occupied buildings and an IS fighting position. The US also hit targets near Kirkuk, north of Sinjar and northwest of Ramadi.

VIENNA — The UN atomic agency will need more funds from member states to help pay for its monitoring of an extended interim nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers, it said on Wednesday.

Iran and the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia failed to meet a November 24 deadline for resolving a 12-year-old dispute over Iran's nuclear programme and gave themselves until the end of June for further negotiations.

As a result, a preliminary agreement reached late last year, under which Iran halted its most sensitive nuclear activity in exchange for limited sanctions easing, will remain in force. It was designed to buy time for the talks on a final settlement.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has seen its workload increase significantly under the preliminary accord, including its inspectors visiting Iran's uranium enrichment facilities of Natanz and Fordow daily, compared to about once a week before. The preliminary accord was initially due to run for six months from January but first extended in July and again this week.

The IAEA did not say how much more money it would need. It earlier this year asked for voluntary financial contributions of about 6.5 million euros to cover its extra Iran-related costs.

Because of the deal's political importance, diplomats have said there should be no problem raising the required funds.

"Taking into account the extension period, additional contributions will be required," senior IAEA official Serge Gas said in an e-mail. "The agency will communicate with member states as soon as we identify our needs."

The UN agency's "verification effort in Iran has doubled" under the interim accord, IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano told the United Nations General Assembly this month.

Iran denies Western allegations it has been seeking to develop the capability to make nuclear weapons. But its refusal to scale back its uranium enrichment programme has drawn international sanctions hurting its oil-dependent economy.

DUBAI — Iraq's reliance on Kurdistan for Internet connectivity due to Baghdad bureaucracy has put the northern autonomous region in control of three-quarters of Iraqi networks.

This runs contrary to what Baghdad had sought from state control of fixed infrastructure within its jurisdiction, and the situation has spooked private investors and neutered Internet development outside Kurdistan, which sets its own rules.

Iraq bars private companies from owning fixed networks transiting domestic data and anything they build is usually seized by the government.

Just 9.2 per cent of Iraqis are online, according to the International Telecommunication Union, placing OPEC's second-largest crude exporter below the likes of Haiti and Nepal despite an average income six times greater.

In Iraq proper, a one megabyte per second broadband connection costs $399 per month, Arab Advisors Group estimates.

This compares with $3.51 in the European Union and $7 in Iran, according to Ookla consultancy, while Kurdistan's pro-business approach has made the region's Internet faster, cheaper, more reliable and widespread.

Dyn Research estimates Kurdish Internet Service Providers (ISPs) transit three-quarters of Iraq's networks and about 90 per cent of individual IP addresses on those networks.

"If Kurdistan and Iraq became adversarial, then it could definitely become an issue," said Doug Madory, Dyn research director of Internet analysis. "I can't think of another example where a larger country was so reliant on a smaller country or territory for access to the Internet."

Intercept

That could allow the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to intercept Baghdad Internet traffic, but the region likely lacks the resources to intercept south-bound communications to an extent that would trouble Baghdad, Madory said.

"More importantly, it gives the KRG a chip to play in discussions with the government of Iraq," he said. "What can Iraq hold over the KRG in an attempt to enforce their policies when they are so dependent on the KRG for outside access?"

In April, Mohammed Noori, a senior official at the Ministry of Communications, acknowledged that greater private sector involvement in the sector could be beneficial, but highlighted security dangers.

"Maybe it will help in spreading and developing broadband services faster in Iraq but it will make another security issue for us," he said. "Our situation is so critical maybe now we cannot allow this, but maybe in the future."

Noori and the Ministry did not respond to repeated requests by Reuters for further comment, but state control appears at least as much a priority as security.

Erbil-based Newroz Telecom has the largest international Internet gateway in Iraq yet faces long-standing hostility from Baghdad, which often blocks the company transiting data into Iraq from Kurdistan, Ali Imad, Newroz technical director, said. Iraq allows it to carry traffic in the other direction.

Newroz had built 80 per cent of a fibre cable from Turkey to the Gulf via Kurdistan and Iraq, investing $137 million, before Baghdad halted work in 2012 citing security fears, said Imad.

Such a decision also reflects a generational gap between the Kurdish and Iraqi administrations, said Geoffrey Batt, a founding partner of New York hedge fund Euphrates Advisors.

"In Baghdad you have older generations in key positions," he said. "They don't think in modern economic terms, they still think of the state as being the centre of the economy."

Baghdad and the KRG may curb their differences as they unite against Islamic State — the two parties agreed this month to ease tensions on the separate issue of Kurdish oil exports — but their anti-militant alliance is unlikely to prove permanent due to mutual suspicions, analysts say.

State rules

State-run Iraqi Telecommunications and Post Company rents capacity on creaking government Internet networks, which ISPs complain is difficult and inefficient.

"The real losers are normal people who can't get decent services," said Martin Frank, chief executive of IQ Networks, a wholesale ISP based in the Kurdish city Sulaymaniyah.

Unusually, Iraq levies transit fees on Internet traffic.

"This makes it very expensive for service providers," said Frank. "They can't afford to buy much capacity so the bandwidth they give customers is very low."

About 90 per cent of traffic reaches end users in Iraq via wireless or microwave over congested, low-capacity frequencies, much of which is provided by unlicensed companies.

The Ministry's Noori said Iraq planned to roll out fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband to all provinces.

"The problem is everything takes more time because of legacy managerial, administrative procedures," he said.

The government awarded contracts to build some FTTH but these mostly only reached the street, industry sources say. From there, another firm should have built a further fibre link to each home, but there was scant interest in doing so.

"We have many qualified, experienced technicians, but the Ministry didn't hire these people — they hire relatives, friends," said Hayder al-Sammarray, a telecom engineer. "For FTTH, it's like the government threw the money into the sea."

PRETORIA — Israel's settlements policy is "undermining" prospects for a two-state solution, South African President Jacob Zuma said Wednesday as he welcomed Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas on a state visit.

"We reiterate our call for the total cessation of all settlement activities," Zuma told a joint news conference with Abbas.

South Africa was ready to assist with negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians and had appointed two special envoys for the task, Zuma added.

Abbas said the Palestinians sought to benefit from South Africa's "successful experiences" in building an independent state.

"We are the last nation in the world that is still living under occupation," he said.

Zuma's ruling African National Congress is a firm supporter of the Palestinian cause, with politicians regularly comparing Israel to the former racist apartheid state in South Africa.

The white minority government had cooperative relations with Israel, but when Nelson Mandela was elected first democratic president in 1994, he pledged to support Palestine, saying: "South Africa's freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians."

Abbas was greeted with a 21-gun salute at the Union Buildings in Pretoria, South Africa's administrative capital.

He has visited South Africa before — last year he attended Mandela's funeral — but officials said this is his first state visit.

"People of South Africa and Palestine have a strong bond built in the trenches of our two struggles, we want to build even stronger relations and cooperation based on that historical relationship," said Zuma.

Abbas' visit comes days after UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged Israel and the Palestinians to "step back from the brink" and return to peace talks amid European moves towards recognising Palestine.

His comments reflected international alarm over the spate of violent attacks in East Jerusalem and the deadlock over peace talks that are fuelling fear of another flareup after the war in Gaza earlier this year.

With no political solution in sight, governments and parliaments in Europe are moving towards Palestinian recognition, with France's National Assembly set vote on a non-binding resolution on December 2.

That follows Sweden's announcement that it will recognise Palestine and non-binding votes in the British and Spanish parliament in favour of recognising Palestinian statehood.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A cartoon in Israel's left-leaning Haaretz newspaper showed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu studying a poster made by his publicity team of Mahmoud Abbas, the mild-mannered, soft-featured Palestinian president.

The poster depicted Abbas looking fierce, with menacing eyes and bloodied fangs. A disappointed-looking Netanyahu turns to his aide and asks: "Can you lengthen his fangs a tad?"

The prime minister has lost no time in casting Abbas as the devil in recent months, accusing him of inciting violence in Jerusalem that has lead to the death of 11 Israelis, including four rabbis stabbed and shot by Palestinians in a synagogue. Around a dozen Palestinians have also been killed, including several of those who carried out the attacks.

While the head of Israel's security service says Abbas is not inciting unrest, and centrist politicians have warned Netanyahu against alienating the only partner Israel has in stalled peace negotiations, the prime minister shows no sign of letting up in his criticism of the 79-year-old Palestinian.

The reason, in large part, is politics.

With Netanyahu's 20-month-old, right-wing coalition looking increasingly shaky and talk of early elections growing, all the constituent parties are trying to shore up their base. The threat to Netanyahu comes from nationalist groups on the far right, and so he has sought to head off their challenge.

As well as demonising Abbas, he has pushed a highly contentious bill that would establish Israel as the Jewish nation state, legislation critics say it puts religion ahead of democracy and marginalises the Arab minority.

He has resumed demolishing the homes of Palestinians suspected of terrorism, a tactic halted in 2005 after the Israeli army said it was counterproductive, although surveys suggest many Israelis support it.

Netanyahu has also threatened to revoke the residency permit of anyone involved in terrorism. Acting for the first time on the pledge, Israel announced on Wednesday it was cancelling the East Jerusalem permit of the wife of one of the synagogue attackers, who must now return to the West Bank.

When combined with Israel's ongoing construction of settlements on occupied territory and an increasingly abrasive relationship with allies including the United States, the upshot is the most hardline government analysts can recall.

"This is the most right-wing government in Israeli history, much further to the right than the Menachem Begin or Ariel Sharon governments," said Menachem Klein, a professor of Israeli politics at Bar-Ilan University near Tel Aviv.

When there are heightened security fears, as with the Gaza war and the violence in Jerusalem, Israeli society and politics tend to shift quickly to the right. Rather than that being uncomfortable for Netanyahu, it is familiar territory.

"He is originally from the far-right, that is his base. His beliefs, his heart are there," said Klein.

"He assumes early elections are on the horizon and he is competing with [Foreign Minister Avigdor] Lieberman and [Economy Minister Naftali] Bennett for leadership of the far right," he said, referring to the leaders of the nationalist, pro-settler parties in his coalition.

Still two-state solution?

The rightward shift may have a logic to it, but is likely to have profound, long-term consequences.

The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians was called off in April, after nine months of largely fruitless discussion. The Palestinians said Israel was not meeting its commitments on settlements and prisoner releases; the Israelis did not like Abbas' reconciliation with Hamas, the Islamist group that runs Gaza.

In the seven months since, differences have hardened. Almost no one on the Israeli or Palestinian side, or long-term observers of the peace process, sees any near-term prospect of a return to negotiations on a two-state solution.

Instead, unilateralism has ensued.

The Palestinians are pushing for a UN statehood resolution. Even if it has little chance of success, it has been encouraged by Sweden's formal recognition and non-binding votes in European parliaments supporting an independent Palestinian state.

On its side, Israel has pushed ahead with settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, territory it has occupied since 1967 and which the Palestinians want for a future state.

In the absence of a two-state solution, Bennett — perhaps the biggest political threat to Netanyahu — is suggesting that Israel annex 60 per cent of the West Bank and offer Palestinians citizenship in an enlarged Israel.

Combined with the nation-state bill, which would enshrine certain rights for Jews only, that has alarmed Arabs living in Israel and Palestinians who worry about Israel's long-term territorial goals.

"In terms of the nation-state bill, its effects on the peace process are immense," said Grant Rumley, a Middle East expert at the Washington-based Foundation for Defence of Democracies.

"It solidifies another gap," he said, making it much more difficult to bring the sides back to negotiations.

Klein believes Netanyahu has no genuine interest in a two-state solution. Instead, the Israeli leader hints at Palestinian autonomy in the West Bank, with security remaining in the hands of Israel, which would control of the West Bank border with Jordan.

"We are already in one regime," he said, referring to Israeli control of the whole area from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean.

"The government doesn't plan to stop this de facto annexation and the Palestinian Authority has no strategy to stop it."

CAIRO — Warplanes again bombed a Libyan military airbase Tuesday that until a day earlier was Tripoli's only functioning airport, shortly after the Islamist-backed prime minister said his government was at war.

Late Monday, Prime Minister Omar Al Hassi said the Cabinet will now adopt "a policy of confrontation and war", comments directed at his rivals in Libya's internationally recognised government based in the country's east.

"Now, we face an enemy that has plenty of weapons and support from abroad, and we are facing more than one country supplying it with arms," he said.

Hassi also sharply criticised the United Nations envoy to Libya, saying that Bernardino Leon "doesn't see the reality" of the situation.

The Monday-Tuesday bombings of Matiga airbase — held by Islamist-allied militias — appear to be part of efforts by the elected government to retake the capital after the Islamist-allied militias seized it.

The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief reporters, said the morning raids did not result in casualties or damage to the airport. They said several homes near the base were damaged and the attack caused panic at a nearby school.

Two people were killed in Monday's air strikes on the same base, and an airport official said that three missiles hit the military airstrip's runway.

The base had been used for civilian purposes since last summer when Tripoli International Airport was destroyed. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they weren't authorised to brief reporters.

A body affiliated to Hassi government later issued a statement accusing Gen. Khalifa Hifter — who led the military campaign against Islamist militias in the eastern city of Benghazi — of being behind the air strikes.

BAGHDAD — Baghdad's neighbourhood of Gorayaat, a small Shiite enclave on a bend in the Tigris River, exemplifies the failures of Iraq's security agencies trying to protect the capital from attacks by the Islamic State (IS). The district has been a target for years, hit by so many bombings, suicide attacks, rockets and mortars that residents have lost count.

After a car bomb ripped through its main commercial street earlier this month, killing 15 people and wounding 42, security forces responded as they have after every previous attack. Soldiers and police swarmed in to secure Gorayaat's streets. At checkpoints, they checked people's IDs, and anyone who was not a resident had to account for his presence.

"That goes on for one or two days, then it's back to normal and we wait for the next bombing," said Idris Jawad, a resident.

For months, IS group militants have hammered Baghdad with bombings and suicide attacks, the work of dozens of cells operating in the Iraqi capital, officials say. Security agencies have floundered trying to stop them, relying on techniques that haven't changed — or succeeded — in a decade.

The government is now trying to revamp security measures, moving away from reliance on concrete blast walls and police checkpoints. Instead, the plan is to beef up police intelligence units that have gone understaffed and underfunded since the 2003 fall of Saddam Hussein, according to intelligence and interior ministry officials.

Among the ideas being considered is to significantly increase the recruitment of informers among the public to report on suspicious behaviour, the ministry official told The Associated Press.

That would mean recruiting Sunnis, something that has been difficult in the past. Sunnis deeply distrust the Shiite-dominated security forces, which they often accuse of discriminating against their co-religionists. Moreover, the security forces are known to be infiltrated by both Sunni and Shiite militants, meaning that anyone who cooperates with authorities against militants risks being exposed.

The interior ministry official and two intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorised to discuss the steps under discussion.

Interior ministry spokesman Maan Saad said a large shipment of new, US-made bomb-detection equipment is arriving soon in Iraq. "It will be very useful and effective in minimising the terrorist threats against Iraqis," he said, refusing to give details of the technology or the cost.

Iraqi forces are battling IS, struggling to push them back from the vast swaths of territory they captured in the summer. While the extremist fighters hold territory on Baghdad's doorstep, they are seen as unable to overrun the capital as they did Iraq's Sunni-majority areas.

But they have proven able to infiltrate with relative ease. More than 3,000 people have been killed and twice that number wounded in attacks in Baghdad in the first 10 months of 2014 alone, according to UN figures. The bombings that rip through neighbourhoods keep the city in fear, which pro-governmental media have tried to tamp down by avoiding reporting on attacks. State TV airs little besides propaganda designed to lift Iraqis' morale and build trust in the military and police.

While demoralising Baghdadi residents, the attacks build morale among the extremists at a time when the group has lost some of the aura of invincibility it gained over the summer. Instructions sent to IS group operatives in the capital and intercepted by the main intelligence agency said bombings must continue at any cost, even if the targets are not always high value, the two intelligence officials said.

The capital has seen constant violence since the 2003 ouster of Saddam — and in even times when the bombings eased, they never completely went away.

This month, Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi met with Baghdad's top military and police officials and announced a security approach. In a first step, he said he plans to place security responsibilities for Baghdad entirely in the hands of the interior ministry, which is in charge of police, and redeploy army units outside the city. The military has been seen as ill-trained for policing duties.

Abadi also intends to remove some of the blast walls that have given Baghdad the look of a city under siege ever since Saddam's ouster. Hundreds of checkpoints and kilometres and kilometres of high concrete barriers surround many neighborhoods. The grey, 6-metre-high barriers also shield government offices, banks, hospitals and police stations.

But the barriers and checkpoints only harden the city's sectarian divisions and never stopped bombings.

"We plan to remove the barriers and reopen the streets, because many of them are blocked off without any security benefit," Abadi told the meeting.

At the same time, the government aims to increase its intelligence capabilities. The campaign of bombings has exposed the agencies' "intelligence and technical shortcomings in detecting bombs and uncovering Daesh networks in the city", said one of the two officials, using the Arabic acronym for the IS.

Most IS cells are believed to be largely operating in the fringes of Baghdad, the official said. To minimise chances of detection, they assemble car bombs in or near the neighbourhood they intend to strike, he said.

Another intelligence official gave a rough estimate of "dozens" of IS cells in the capital, though he said it was impossible to know for certain. He said the group continues to infiltrate Baghdad by sending operatives among displaced Iraqis fleeing areas under their control. Authorities now demand landlords report the names and ID numbers of new tenants to police.

An intelligence unit codenamed "the Hawks' cell" specialises in infiltrating the militants and running moles, but it is understaffed and overstretched, the officials said. Plans are under way to bring in new officers.

RAMALLAH — The Palestinian leadership on Tuesday slammed the Israeli government's approval of a law determining the country's status as the national Jewish homeland, saying it "killed" Middle East peace prospects.

The Palestine Liberation Organisation's executive committee expressed in a statement its "strong condemnation and rejection of this law".

"The law aims to kill the two-state solution by imposing the project of a 'greater Israel' as well as the Jewishness of the state upon the historical land of Palestine," said the PLO, which dominates the Palestinian Authority.

Israel's Cabinet on Sunday endorsed a proposal to anchor in law the country's status as "the national state of the Jewish people," voting 14 to six in favour of the initiative.

The country's parliament, the Knesset, is to vote on the law on December 3.

Critics, who include the government's top legal adviser, say the proposed change could institutionalise discrimination against its 1.7 million Arab citizens — descendents of the 160,000 Palestinians who stayed after Israel was created in 1948.

And the PLO said the law was "an attempt to tarnish and twist the Palestinian historical narrative and wipe out Palestinian existence" in the region by reserving it exclusively for Jews.

Peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have failed time after time as Israel builds more settler homes on land the Palestinians want for their future state.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted the law, which acts as Israel’s effective constitution, would give equal weight to both the country’s Jewish and democratic characteristics.

But Israel’s identity is already contained in its 1948 declaration of independence, according to the Israel Democracy Institute, which said that the new proposal fails to emphasise “commitment to the equality of all its citizens”.

ADEN — Special forces in Yemen rescued eight hostages including "a foreigner" on Tuesday just hours after Al Qaeda seized them at an air base in the violence-wracked country, military officials said.

The seven Yemeni soldiers and a man sources said was an American — despite US denial — were abducted when the militants assaulted Al Anad base in the southern province of Lahij, an official said.

"There were no US personnel rescued from Yemen last night," a Pentagon official said. "We applaud the government of Yemen's hostage rescue operation."

The American embassy in Sanaa declined comment and the Pentagon referred any other queries about the operation to Yemen's government.

Special forces launched a dawn raid to free the hostages, killing seven kidnappers. A member of the security forces was reported to have been lightly wounded during the rescue.

"The seven assailants have been killed by Yemeni forces, supported by American forces," a Yemeni military official told AFP, without elaborating on the reported US role.

The militants captured seven soldiers on guard during the night, before advancing into the base and seizing the other hostage, an official said.

Yemen is a key US ally in the fight against Al Qaeda, allowing Washington to conduct a longstanding drone war against the group on its territory.

Yemeni officials acknowledge that Washington has deployed personnel at Al Anad base to gather intelligence for drone strikes.

A military official said that "dozens of American military personnel" are based at Al Anad, mainly instructors involved in training anti-terror forces.

Al Qaeda has exploited instability in the impoverished Arabian Peninsula country since a 2011 uprising overthrew longtime president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Hundreds of foreigners have been kidnapped over past years in Yemen, mostly by disgruntled tribesmen trying to pressure local authorities. Almost all were freed unharmed, mostly in exchange for ransom or government concessions.

Al Shabab infiltrators 

On another front, Yemen's interior ministry said overnight that the coast guard was on alert in several provinces following information that "terrorist groups belonging to Somalia's (Al Qaeda-affiliated) Shabab are planning to enter Yemen to carry out terrorist attacks".

The ministry ordered "increased deployment of security patrols along Yemen's coast in coordination with naval forces... to arrest any elements and foil any suspected movement".

It was unclear if the warning was linked to the attack in Lahij.

Tens of thousands of Somali refugees cross the Gulf of Aden every year to reach Yemen.

But African and Yemeni officials have warned that Shabab fighters were also infiltrating among refugees entering the country, which is home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Washington calls AQAP the deadliest franchise in the global extremist network.

Several Al Qaeda militants have been killed in attacks by unmanned drones.

The United States is the only country operating drones over Yemen, but US officials rarely confirm individual strikes.

The militants remain active in southern and eastern regions of Yemen despite several military campaigns by government forces.

Al Qaeda militants have closed ranks with Sunni tribesmen in southern Yemen to halt the advance of Shiite Houthi militias who seized Sanaa in September unopposed, and who have since extended their control to coastal areas and regions south of the capital.