Region

UNITED NATIONS — UN chief Ban Ki-moon urged Israel and the Palestinians on Monday to step back from the brink and return to peace talks before time runs out.

"The Israeli and Palestinian people face a shared fate on shared land. There is no erasing the other," Ban told a UN committee on Palestinian rights.

He called "on the parties to step back from the brink and find the path of peace before hope and time run out”.

His comments reflected international alarm over the spate of violent attacks in East Jerusalem and the deadlock over peace talks that are fueling fear of another flareup after the 50-day war in Gaza.

The lack of peace prospects coupled with Israel's ongoing campaign to build settlements on occupied territory are chipping away at the stated UN goal of a two-state solution in which Israel and a new state of Palestine would co-exist.

Ban said Israelis and Palestinians appeared to be "losing any sense of connection" and that "when that goes, it is not far over the precipice”.

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

The Palestinians have yet to formally submit to the UN Security Council a UN draft resolution calling for an Israeli withdrawal from all occupied territory in 2016.

Despite Palestinian statements that the text would come up for a vote in November, Palestinian representative Riyad Mansour told AFP no date had been set for the draft to be discussed at the 14-member council.

France meanwhile is leading a European initiative to try to agree on a new draft resolution that would set out parameters for a return to Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, diplomats said.

It remains unclear whether that effort will yield results.

"We, as the international community, must assume responsibility for what is a collective failure to advance a political solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," said Ban.

"The mindless cycle of destruction must end. The virtuous circle of peace must begin."

VIENNA — Iran and six powers failed on Monday for a second time this year to resolve their 12-year dispute over Tehran's nuclear ambitions, and gave themselves seven more months to overcome the deadlock that has prevented an historic deal.

Western officials said they were aiming to secure an agreement on the substance of a final accord by March but that more time would be needed to reach a consensus on the all-important technical details.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who is trying to win relief from crippling international economic sanctions by patching up relations with the West, said that "many gaps were narrowed and our positions with the other side got closer" at talks in Vienna, state TV quoted him as saying.

US Secretary of State John Kerry gave a more sombre assessment, saying "real and substantial progress had been made” but adding that "some significant points of disagreement" remained.

"These talks are not going to get easier just because we extend them. They're tough. They've been tough. And they're going to stay tough," he told reporters.

Under an interim deal reached by the six powers and Iran a year ago in Geneva, Tehran halted higher level uranium enrichment in exchange for a limited easing of the financial and trade sanctions which have badly hurt its economy, including access to some frozen oil revenues abroad.

Monday marked the second self-imposed deadline for a final settlement to have passed without any deal. "We have had to conclude it is not possible to get to an agreement by the deadline that was set," British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond told reporters, adding that the target date had been extended to June 30, 2015.

Tehran dismisses Western fears that its nuclear programme might have military aims, saying it is entirely peaceful. However, the six powers - the United States, France, Germany, Russia, China and Britain — want to cut back Iran's uranium enrichment programme to lengthen the time it would need to build a bomb.

Pressure at home

Rouhani said he had no doubt there would be an agreement eventually. An unashamed pragmatist, he won election by a landslide last year on promises to work to end Iran's international isolation.

But he made clear that Tehran was taking a tough line at the talks. "There is no question the nuclear technology and facilities of the Islamic Republic of Iran will remain active and today the negotiating sides know that pressure and sanctions against Iran were futile," he told state TV.

Rouhani faces heavy pressure from hardline conservatives at home who have already blocked his drive to ease restrictions on Iranians' individual freedom.

The administration of President Barack Obama must also overcome strong domestic misgivings.

Three influential US Republican senators said the extension should be coupled with increased sanctions and a requirement that any final agreement be sent to Congress for approval. The three — John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte — said in a statement that a "bad deal" with Iran would start a nuclear arms race in the Middle East.

But Kerry defended the decision not to abandon the talks. "We would be fools," he said, raising his voice, "to walk away from a situation where the breakout time [for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon] has already been expanded rather than narrowed, and the world is safer because this programme is in place."

Headline agreement

Hammond said the expectation was that Iran would continue to refrain from sensitive atomic activity. There was a clear target to reach a "headline agreement" of substance within the next three months and talks would resume next month, he said.

It is unclear where next month's talks will take place, he said, noting that during the extension period, Tehran will be able to continue to access around $700 million per month in sanctions relief.

A report by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, showed that Iran had reduced its stockpile of low-enriched uranium gas and taken other action to comply with last year's interim agreement with world powers.

No details about the "substantial progress" were immediately available. One senior Western diplomat expressed pessimism about the prospects for an agreement in seven months time.

"It's been 10 years that proposals and ideas have been put forward," he said on condition of anonymity. "There's nothing left. It's essentially a side issue now. The Iranians are not moving. It is a political choice."

The Vienna talks have aimed for a deal that could transform the Middle East, open the door to ending economic sanctions on Iran and start to bring a nation of 76 million people in from the cold after decades of hostility with the West.

The cost of failure could be high, and Iran's regional foes Israel and Saudi Arabia are watching nervously. Both fear a weak deal that fails to curtail Tehran's nuclear ambitions, while a collapse of the negotiations would encourage Iran to become a threshold nuclear weapon state, something Israel has said it would never allow.

As it appeared likely that no agreement was in the offing, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: "No deal is better than a bad deal."

TRIPOLI — An air raid on Monday targeted the runway of the Libyan capital’s only working airport, witnesses and an airport security source said.

A low-flying fighter jet fired two missiles at Mitiga airport, which is in an eastern suburb of Tripoli and held by Fajr Libya, an anti-government Islamist militia coalition which controls the capital, witnesses said.

The security source said the strike however caused no damage to the airport terminal or runway.

Flights were temporarily diverted to Misrata airport, 200 kilometres east of Tripoli, the source added.

Libyan carriers moved civilian flights to Mitiga after Tripoli’s main international airport was damaged by fierce fighting in the capital between state-backed fighters and Islamist militias in July.

Fighting persists between the two sides in western Libya, where pro-government militias are supported by forces loyal to retired general Khalifa Haftar, and air raids frequently target Fajr Libya positions.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia said Monday the assailants behind Shiite killings earlier this month are linked to the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group, including many jailed previously over suspected extremist ties.

The interior ministry said it had broken up the "criminal network" behind the attack in Eastern Province, adding that the group's "head had links with Daesh", the Arabic name for IS.

Gunmen killed seven Shiites, including children, in the eastern town of Al Dalwa on November 3 during the commemoration of Ashura, one of the holiest occasions of their faith.

Four men carried out the attack after killing a man from a neighbouring village and stealing his car to use it in the Al Dalwa shootings, the interior ministry said.

Security forces had since arrested 73 Saudis and four foreigners "linked" to the attack, it said in a statement carried by SPA state news agency.

The ministry said that three of the four assailants had served jail terms over links to the "deviant group”, a term usually used to refer to Al Qaeda.

In total, 32 of those arrested had been previously jailed.

Security forces seized during raids documents and electronic equipment that "revealed contact between this terrorist organisation and Daesh abroad”, the ministry said.

'Target has shifted' 

Although Sunni extremists attacked Westerners and government targets in the kingdom between 2003 and 2006, there had not been a major militant assault against Shiites before this month's shootings.

The killings followed the declaration of a "caliphate" in parts of Iraq and Syria by the IS group, which considers Shiites heretics.

Saudi Arabia and its Sunni Gulf neighbours have joined a US-led military coalition bombing IS in Syria, raising concerns about possible retaliation in the kingdom.

The Al Dalwa attack "shows that Sunni extremists have shifted their target set beyond the regime toward Shiites — perhaps in a bid to provoke civil strife”, said Frederic Wehrey, a Gulf expert at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Most of Saudi Arabia's minority Shiites live in the east, where the vast majority of the kingdom's oil reserves lie but where Shiites have long complained of marginalisation.

Since 2011, protests and sporadic attacks on security forces have occurred in Shiite areas, leaving about 20 Shiite youth dead.

The Al Dalwa killings led to expressions of solidarity and widespread condemnation by Saudi Arabia's Sunni leaders, which analysts have said could help to bridge the divide with Shiites.

Along with expressions of sympathy and the security dragnet, authorities have taken further steps since the killings.

Culture and Information Minister Abdulaziz Khoja was dismissed. The reasons for his firing were unclear but it followed Shiite calls for action against hate speech in the media.

The deputy governor of Eastern Province was also transferred out of the region, without explanation.

At a Cabinet meeting on Monday, ministers approved the establishment of a supreme body, led by the governor and with its own budget, for development of the eastern region and providing it with public facilities and services, SPA said.

RABAT — The death toll from three days of what residents described as the heaviest storms to hit southern Morocco in decades has climbed to at least 32, authorities said on Monday.

The storms since Saturday caused flash floods in much of the south at the foot of the Anti-Atlas Mountains, but a weather alert was finally called off on Monday afternoon.

The interior ministry gave an updated toll of at least 32 dead and six missing.

Rescue teams earlier recovered 11 bodies from high waters near Talmaadart River in the Guelmim region on the edge of the Sahara Desert that bore the brunt of the storms.

Authorities said two other people were missing in the same region, while at least five in total were unaccounted for in areas including Ouarzazate and Marrakesh, where cars and trees were swept away by the raging waters.

A girl of nine was among six people swept away by the bulging Tamsourt River, also in Guelmim.

"We haven't seen anything like this since the floods of 1986... People were very scared," resident Mustapha Al Gemrani told AFP by telephone.

"A family returning from a wedding were swept away and we don't know what has happened to them. But now the skies have cleared and helicopters are overhead," he said.

The authorities have set up crisis cells in the affected zones and the royal palace announced it would cover the expenses of victims' funerals and medical treatment for the injured.

On Sunday, the country's MAP news agency quoted the interior ministry as saying some 130 all-terrain rescue vehicles and 335 Zodiac inflatables and other boats were searching for the missing.

Rescue operations have so far "saved 214 people, dozens of whom were evacuated by army and royal guard helicopters", the interior ministry said.

Around 100 mud-brick homes were partly or totally destroyed in the south, and 100 roads cut off, including six national highways.

"In three days, the damage has been huge," Abdelkrim Rida, a resident of Ighounane, close to Ouarzazate, told AFP.

"Many people are homeless and some have also lost their livestock."

The head of Ouarzazate province's tourism office, Zoubir Bouhout, said two planes were chartered late Sunday to fly out 200 tourists, half of them French.

According to the 2M television channel, 25 centimetres of rain fell in just a few hours on some areas.

Spain's government said in a statement it had sent "emergency aid" to Morocco in the wake of the flooding.

Flash floods are common in Morocco, where four children drowned near Ouarzazate in September.

The authorities have stepped up alert systems in valleys of the Atlas region, especially in the tourist area of Ourika, south of Marrakesh, where hundreds perished in flash floods in 1995.

TUNIS — Tunisians voted Sunday in their first presidential election since the 2011 revolution that sparked the Arab Spring, in a ballot set to round off an often fraught transition to democracy.

The favourite among 27 candidates was former premier Beji Caid Essebsi, an 87-year-old veteran whose anti-Islamist Nidaa Tounes Party won a parliamentary election last month.

Essebsi, "according to preliminary estimates, is ahead and has a large lead", his campaign manager Mohsen Marzouk told reporters.

The front-runner was "not far short" of the absolute majority needed to win outright, but a second round was likely, Marzouk added.

A run-off vote will be held at the end of December if there is no outright winner. The result will be known by Wednesday.

Other candidates included outgoing president Moncef Marzouki, several ministers who served under ousted dictator Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali, leftwinger Hamma Hammami, business magnate Slim Riahi and a lone woman, magistrate Kalthoum Kannou.

Whatever the outcome, many Tunisians saw the election as a milestone in the North African country, where for the first time they could freely choose their president.

“This election is very important. It’s the culmination of the revolution and something that we really should not pass up,” said an electoral observer who gave his name only as Moez.

Bechir Yahyaoui could hardly control his emotions as he voted in the Tunis district of Hay Al Khadhra, saying that for once he was “voting for who I want, with no pressure, no bribes”.

“Before [under Ben Ali] you had to go and vote, regardless of the outcome. This time the election is free and transparent,” he said.

Some 5.3 million people were eligible to vote, with tens of thousands of police and troops deployed to guarantee security amid fears Islamist militants might seek to disrupt polling day.

‘Historic day’ 

Polling stations opened at 0700 GMT and closed at 1700 GMT, but voting was restricted to just five hours in about 50 localities near the Algerian border, where armed groups are active.

Turnout was estimated at nearly 58 per cent an hour and a half before polling ended.

Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa hailed the vote.

“It’s a historic day, the first presidential election in Tunisia held under advanced democratic norms,” he said. “God willing, it will be a great festival of democracy.”

Tunisia has won international plaudits for largely steering clear of the violence, repression and lawlessness of other Arab Spring states such as neighbouring Libya.

Until the revolution, Tunisia knew only two presidents — Habib Bourguiba, the “father of independence” from France in 1956, and Ben Ali, who deposed him in a 1987 coup.

To prevent another dictatorship, presidential powers have been restricted under a new constitution, with executive prerogatives transferred to a premier drawn from parliament’s top party.

‘Long live Tunisia’ 

Front-runner Essebsi ran on a campaign of “state prestige”, a slogan with wide appeal to Tunisians anxious for instability to end.

Supporters argue only he can stand up to the Islamists who first held power in the post-Ben Ali era, but critics charge he is out to restore the old regime, having served under both former presidents.

“Long live Tunisia,” Essebsi said as he voted in a suburb of the capital.

Marzouki, who argues that only he can preserve the gains of the uprising, voted near the city of Sousse, south of Tunis.

Protesters demonstrating against his bid for re-election were kept at bay by police, an AFP reporter said.

The Marzouki camp accused Essebsi supporters of planning to attack the incumbent when he arrived to vote.

Critics have accused Marzouki of having forged a pact “with the devil” in 2011 when he joined a coalition with the moderate Islamist party Ennahda.

Ennahda, which came second in the parliamentary election, did not put up a candidate and invited its members “to elect a president who will guarantee democracy”.

“The polls are an important turning point for Tunisia, the outcome of a whole process that will allow Tunisians to decide their future,” said veterinary professor Jamel Shemli.

Whoever wins, tackling the faltering economy will be a top priority, with unemployment, a leading cause of the revolution, running at 15 per cent.

BEIRUT — Members of Al Qaeda's Nusra Front and other Sunni Islamists seized an area south of a Shiite Muslim village in north Syria on Sunday after clashes with pro-government fighters, opposition activists said.

The insurgents advanced overnight on Al Zahra, north of Aleppo city, seizing territory to the south and also trying to take land to the east in an attempt to capture the village, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Al Zahra and the nearby village of Nubl have been under a long siege by anti-government forces in an isolated Shiite area. The United Nations said in March that armed groups surrounding the villages had cut electrical and water lines supplying 45,000 residents. The army has used helicopters to drop supplies to the villagers.

Opposition activists said the fighters also targeted Nubl and were seeking to capture both in the advance on the villages, which are located along a highway that leads to Turkey. Control of the villages could open up a new supply line into Aleppo for the insurgents.

"We targeted the town with dozens of mortar shells and dozens of hell cannon shells and Nusra's forces made progress and control buildings which are in the first line of defence of Nubl," said media activist Ahmed Hamidou who was accompanying battalions involved in the campaign.

The clashes killed at least eight of the fighters advancing on Al Zahra and a number of fighters from the pro-government National Defence Force, the observatory said.

Villagers from both Al Zahra and Nubl backed up forces trying to stop the Nusra-led offensive, activists said, adding that the Syrian air force had also reacted by bombing several other villages north of Aleppo.

An opposition spokesman said in January that the area had been surrounded because it had been used as a launching pad by the Syrian military to attack Aleppo. The opposition said at the time it could lift the siege if the Syrian military reciprocated elsewhere, but this had not happened.

Aleppo and surrounding areas have been hit by heavy fighting in a conflict which is now in its fourth year and has killed some 200,000 people, according to the United Nations.

The UN’s Syria mediator has said that Aleppo would be a good starting point for local ceasefire agreements and has discussed the idea with President Bashar Assad.

Further east, Islamic State fighters shot down a Syrian war plane on Sunday close to the eastern city of Deir Al Zour, the observatory reported, the first time the militant group had taken down an aircraft in that part of the country.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel's government Sunday endorsed a proposal to anchor in law the country's status as the national homeland of the Jewish people, drawing fire from critics who said it weakened democracy.

"The Cabinet today approved a draft basic law: 'Israel the national state of the Jewish people" said a statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Likud Party, one of whose MPs was a sponsor.

Netanyahu also announced a separate initiative to strip Arabs of their residency and welfare rights if they or their relatives take part in unrest.

Following a stormy meeting, the Cabinet voted 14 to six in favour of the national homeland proposal, with ministers from the two centrist parties — HaTnuah led by Justice Minister Tzipi Livni and Yesh Atid of Finance Minister Yair Lapid — voting against, media reports said.

The proposal would mean Israel would no longer be defined in its Basic Laws as "Jewish and democratic" but instead as "the national homeland of the Jewish people".

Critics, who include the government's top legal adviser, say the proposed change to the laws that act as Israel's effective constitution could institutionalise discrimination against its 1.7 million Arab citizens.

By giving preeminence to the "Jewish" character of Israel over its democratic nature, the law in its current format is anti-democratic, they say.

The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI) said that the state's “Jewish identity is already contained in its 1948 declaration of independence”.

'Equal weight' 

"However, that declaration also emphasises the Jewish State's absolute commitment to the equality of all of its citizens — an essential component missing from the proposals being presented to the government today," IDI President Yohanan Plesner said in a statement.

Netanyahu insisted the law would give equal weight to both characteristics.

“There are those who would like the democratic to prevail over the Jewish and there are those who would like the Jewish to prevail over the democratic... both of these values are equal and both must be considered to the same degree,” he said.

The proposal has provoked uproar among MPs and ministers from the centre and the left, who fear the text only institutionalises discrimination.

There are also concerns about a plan to revoke the rights of any Arab resident who took part in or incited violence, even stone-throwing.

“It cannot be that those who attack Israeli citizens and call for the elimination of the state of Israel will enjoy rights such as national insurance — and their family members as well, who support them,” Netanyahu told ministers.

Israel’s Arab minority, comprising some 20 per cent of the population, are descendants of Palestinians who stayed after the creation of Israel in 1948.

If the Jewish homeland proposal becomes law, it would mean “the institutionalisation of racism, which is already a reality on the street, in both law and at the heart of the political system”, warned Majd Kayyal of Adalah, the Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights in Israel.

Nod to hardliners 

“Democracy guarantees that all citizens have the same rights and are equal before the state, but this racist change introduces a distinction on the basis of religion,” he said.

Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein, the government’s legal adviser, has also criticised the proposal, saying it weakens the state’s democratic character.

The version of the bill approved by ministers on Sunday represents a nod from Netanyahu to the most hardline elements of his party and ruling coalition as talk grows of an early election.

But it will be incorporated into a hybrid proposal approved by Netanyahu, the Likud statement said.

“The bill will pass a preliminary reading in the Knesset this Wednesday and will be revised to conform with a government bill which will be drafted and approved by the Cabinet soon,” it said.

The final version of the text submitted to parliament for approval is likely to be softened, predicted Denis Charbit, a political scientist at Israel’s Open University.

“The text proposed by Netanyahu is more moderate but it is still problematic because he disassociates the Jewish character from the democratic character of the state and this institutionalises a hierarchy between them, to the detriment of democracy,” he told AFP.

VIENNA — Iran, the United States and other world powers are all but certain to miss Monday's deadline for negotiations to resolve a 12-year stand-off over Tehran's atomic ambitions, forcing them to seek an extension, sources say.

The talks in Vienna aim for a deal that could transform the Middle East, open the door to ending economic sanctions on Iran and start to bring a nation of 76 million people in from the cold after decades of hostility with the West.

But sources confirmed on Sunday what officials close to the talks have been predicting privately for weeks: That a final deal is still too far off to hammer out by the deadline.

"Considering the short time left until the deadline and number of issues that needed to be discussed and resolved, it is impossible to reach a final and comprehensive deal by November 24," Iran's ISNA news agency quoted an unidentified member of the country's negotiating team in Vienna as saying.

"The issue of extension of the talks is an option on the table and we will start discussing it if no deal is reached by Sunday night," the official said.

A European official who spoke to reporters on condition of anonymity said: “To reach a comprehensive deal seems physically impossible. Even if we were to get a political agreement the technical annexes are not ready.”

The United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China began the final round of talks with Iran on Tuesday to clinch a pact under which Tehran would curb its nuclear work in exchange for lifting economically crippling sanctions.

Some Western officials describe two possible options for a rollover if Monday’s deadline is missed. Under one scenario, the talks would simply break off and experts from the two sides would reconvene in a few weeks for another attempt at a comprehensive deal. A lengthier option would be a formal extension into next year, adding new elements to an interim agreement from last year.

Too early for final judgement

US Secretary of State John Kerry met Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and EU envoy Catherine Ashton on Sunday at a 19th century palace in the centre of Vienna, their fifth meeting since the talks began.

An Iranian official described the meeting as good, but added: “We still have a lot to work on.”

The talks aim to end Western suspicions that Iran is seeking an atomic bomb capability, while allowing Iran to have the civilian nuclear programme it says is its right under international treaties.

In a breakthrough preliminary deal reached a year ago, the United States and European Union agreed to ease some sanctions on Iran while Tehran agreed to some curbs on its nuclear programmes. But a final deal proved elusive, with the sides forced to extend an earlier deadline in July.

Last year’s negotiations opened secret talks between Tehran and Washington, which have transformed relations between two countries whose deep enmity has been one of the central facts of the Middle East since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

This year, the United States and mainly Shiite Muslim Iran have found themselves on the same side on the battlefield against Sunni Muslim militants from Islamic State, especially in Iraq where both Washington and Tehran provide military support to the Baghdad government.

But without a nuclear deal, two countries that have labelled each other the “Great Satan” and a member of the “axis of evil” are destined to remain enemies.

Sanctions, tightened sharply since 2010, are inflicting severe damage to Iran’s economy, while the United States and ally Israel have said they reserve the right to use force to destroy any Iranian nuclear bomb programme.

Both US President Barack Obama, a centre-left Democrat, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, a Shiite cleric elected on a pledge to reduce Iran’s isolation and improve the economy, would have to sell any deal to sceptical hardliners at home.

Washington would also have to win acceptance from regional allies Israel and Saudi Arabia, both foes of Iran. Kerry briefed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone on Saturday and Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal in person at the Vienna airport on Sunday.

“Iran must not be allowed to set itself up as a nuclear threshold state,” Netanyahu said about his conversation. “There is no reason for it to retain thousands of centrifuges which would allow it to enrich uranium for a nuclear bomb in a short period of time.”

Officials say an extension of the talks could last from several weeks to several months, depending on how close a deal seems by the end of Monday. Neither side wants the negotiations to collapse, but Western officials say they are afraid extending the talks again could make it even harder to get a final deal.

Iranian and Western diplomats close to the negotiations in Vienna have been telling Reuters for weeks that the two sides remained deadlocked on the key issues of Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity and the pace of lifting sanctions.

The Iranian official quoted by ISNA said the sides “were trying to reach a framework accord on major issues like... the number of centrifuges, enrichment capacity and the time frame of lifting sanctions”.

MANAMA — Controversy clouded Sunday Bahrain's first election since Sunni authorities crushed protests led by the Gulf monarchy's Shiite majority, with the opposition mocking government boasts of more than 50 per cent turnout.

The focus was on turnout, a key marker of the poll's validity after an opposition boycott, and the count was still under way after Saturday's election to a 40-member parliament.

The official electoral commission put turnout at 51.5 per cent, but the Shiite opposition, which has dismissed the polls as a "farce", said only 30 per cent of eligible voters had cast their ballot.

Both sides also traded accusations of electoral malpractice, with the opposition saying tens of thousands of people were pressured to vote, while the Sunni authorities accused Shiite militants of preventing others from reaching polling stations.

"Lying, insults and ridicule are the weapon of the defeated," wrote Information Minister Sameera Rajab on her Twitter account, retaliating to claims of vote rigging.

The legislative polls were the first since security forces in the Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdom crushed Arab Spring-inspired protests led by the majority Shiites in 2011.

The tiny Gulf state and key US ally remains divided nearly four years after the protests.

"It was an astonishing turnout. It was unprecedented," wrote columnist Hisham Al Zayani in Al Watan daily, insisting the fraud claim was the result of a failed boycott.

Al Wefaq, the main Shiite opposition group which withdrew its 18 lawmakers after the crackdown, warned Friday that failure by the ruling Al Khalifa dynasty to ease the Sunni "monopoly" on power could trigger a surge in violence.

'End to confessionalism' 

Voting closed at 1900 GMT Saturday after a two-hour extension decided by the electoral commission, in a likely bid to boost turnout amid reports that many Shiites had heeded the boycott call.

An hour later the commission's head, Sheikh Khaled Al Khalifa, who is also justice minister, said initial estimates showed 51.5 per cent of registered voters turned out to vote.

The high turnout "puts an end to confessionalism in Bahrain", he said in reference to the opposition's boycott call.

Almost 350,000 Bahrainis had been called to elect the lower house of parliament, with most of the 266 candidates Sunnis.

Al Wefaq dismissed the official turnout figure as "amusing, ridiculous, hardly credible".

Government officials were "trying to fool public opinion and ignore the large election boycott by announcing exaggerated figures", the opposition group said in a statement early Sunday.

The Shiite opposition instead cited a turnout figure of "around 30 per cent", allowing a possible 5 per cent difference either way.

It also accused the authorities of forcing tens of thousands of state employees and others to vote or face consequences.

Government officials, for their part, accused Shiite militants of provoking incidents which blocked roads in Shiite areas of the capital Manama to prevent people from voting.

Security forces fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, some them masked and armed with petrol bombs, in Shiite villages on Saturday.

'National dialogue' fell apart 

The political rivals have struggled to bury their differences through a so-called "national dialogue" that fell apart despite several rounds of negotiations.

Al Wefaq chief Sheikh Ali Salman said the lack of accord could lead to an "explosion" of unrest in Bahrain, home to the US Navy's Fifth Fleet and a partner in the US-led campaign against the IS in Syria and Iraq.

The boycott stems from "the people's demand for democratic reforms", Salman told AFP.

The opposition wants a "real" constitutional monarchy with an elected prime minister independent from the Al Khalifa royal family — a demand rejected by the Sunni dynasty.

In October, a court banned Al Wefaq for three months for violating a law on associations.

The movement refused to resume talks with the authorities in September despite a new proposal announced by Crown Prince Salman Bin Hamad Al Khalifa.

Authorities ignored pleas by human rights groups last year to release political prisoners, instead increasing the punishment for violent crimes.

At least 89 people are estimated to have been killed in clashes with security forces and hundreds arrested and tried since the uprising began in February 2011.

Local municipal elections were also held on Saturday.