Region

QOM, Iran — Shiite and Sunni clerics from about 80 countries gathered in Iran's holy city of Qom on Sunday to develop a strategy to combat extremists, including the Islamic State (IS) that has captured large parts of Iraq and Syria.

Shiite-majority Iran has been helping Iraqi, Syrian and Kurdish forces battle the Sunni extremist group on the ground while the US-led coalition has been bombing it from the air. The IS views Shiites as apostates deserving of death and has massacred hundreds of captured Syrian and Iraqi soldiers, as well as Sunni rivals.

Grand Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, the chief organiser of the conference, appealed for consensus among Islam's two main branches, urging all Muslim clerics to work to discredit groups espousing extremism.

"Military attacks against this deviant group [IS] are necessary but insufficient. The roots of their violent ideology must be dried up. This is the job of Muslim scholars, to preach the true, moderate face of Islam and expose the ugly face of IS ideology," said Shirazi, a prominent Shiite cleric who has a large following in Iran and abroad.

Iraq's Foreign Minister Ibrahim Al Jaafari, a Shiite, said the IS is the biggest threat to Islam. "They were created to undermine Islam and destroy Muslim societies. IS kills both Shiite and Sunni Muslims," he said.

Sunni scholar Abdolrahman Sarbazi, who leads Friday prayers in an area of southeastern Iran that is home to many Sunnis, said "Sunni Muslims also condemn the violent practices of takfiris, who are a threat to humanity". “Takfiri" is an Arabic word for Islamic extremist.

Others repeated widely-circulated conspiracy theories holding that the United States and Israel created the IS to sow discord in the Muslim world.

"IS is a pawn whose job is to deepen divisions among Muslims," said Mahdi Alizadeh Mousavi, a lower-level Iranian Shiite cleric.

Iran is a strong backer of the Lebanese Hizbollah — viewed as a terrorist group in the West — and supports Iraqi Shiite militias that rights groups say have abducted and killed scores of Sunni civilians in reprisal attacks.

CAIRO — An Egyptian appeals court on Sunday confirmed jail terms for at least 85 students convicted of illegal demonstrations and vandalism in protests backing ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, officials said.

Hundreds of students have been tried in civilian courts after violence on campuses, bastions of pro-Islamist activists following the army's overthrow of Morsi in July 2013.

His student supporters have clashed regularly with security forces on university campuses since a nationwide government crackdown left hundreds of people dead and thousands jailed.

More than 200 Morsi supporters have also been sentenced to death after speedy mass trials, which the United Nations criticised as "unprecedented" in recent history.

A Cairo appeals court upheld verdicts sentencing at least 85 students in separate cases to jail terms of up to five years after finding them guilty of illegal protests, illegal assembly, vandalism and joining a terrorist group, judicial sources and a lawyer said.

Defence lawyer Mukhtar Mounir, who represented nine defendants, confirmed the outcome to AFP.

"A Cairo misdemeanour court of appeals confirmed the verdict against 85 students, including five female students... for violent clashes in Al Azhar University," said Mounir, who attended Sunday's session.

The verdict can still be appealed at the court of cassation.

At least 14 students were killed in clashes with security forces during pro-Morsi rallies at universities across the country during the academic year that ended in April.

Morsi himself and several top leaders of his Muslim Brotherhood movement are also on trial on charges punishable by death.

The authorities blacklisted the Brotherhood as a "terrorist organisation" last December.

CAIRO — A bomb went off near a train station in southern Egypt Saturday night, as police found three other explosive devices planted on railway tracks in the region, the government said.

A charred body was found near the railway station in Wasta, a town in the province of Beni Suef, the interior ministry said, adding it probably belonged to the person who had planted the bomb.

Security forces later combed the region and found three other explosive devices on railway lines linking Cairo to the far southern city of Aswan, the ministry said in a statement.

Egypt has been hit by a wave of bombings and shootings since the military ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Assailants have stepped up attacks targeting public transport, including a bomb last week on a train north of Cairo that killed two policemen and two passengers.

On Thursday four people were hurt in a stampede at the capital's Ramses station after a blast inside a compartment of a train that pulled in from the Nile Delta, security officials said.

The blast was caused by a sound bomb, they said.

MILAN — Egypt would be ready to lend a hand in securing a future Palestinian state by sending in troops that could help out local police and offer Israel security guarantees, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi said in a newspaper interview.

Sisi, who is visiting Italy and France this week, told Italian daily Corriere della Sera the creation of a Palestinian state was the best way to protect Israeli security while restoring hope for the Palestinian people.

"We are prepared to send military forces inside a Palestinian state. They would help the local police and reassure Israelis in their role as guarantors," he said.

Sisi, who is scheduled to meet Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi on Monday, said any such troop deployment would only be for the time needed to restore trust between the sides.

Egypt, which shares a border with Gaza, is familiar with some of the territory that would likely make up a future Palestinian state. It ruled the Gaza Strip until the 1967 war.

Sisi said he had spoken at length of the idea with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

"I told him [Netanyahu] a courageous step was needed otherwise nothing would be resolved," he said.

Egypt mediated indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians that led to a ceasefire in August after 50 days of war in Gaza that killed more than 2,100 Palestinians and 73 Israelis.

The visit to Italy and France is Sisi's first European trip since the army overthrew elected president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. Sisi, the former army chief, went on to win presidential elections in May.

Asked about Libya, Sisi said the chaotic situation there was creating the conditions for very dangerous jihadist organisations to take root.

He said NATO had not completed its mission in the country but said he did not believe new military intervention was needed, adding Egypt had not and would not interfere militarily.

"The international community must make a very clear and collective choice in favour of Libya's national army and no one else," he said.

BAGHDAD — The Islamic State (IS) jihadist group killed at least 23 tribesmen during a major attack in the Ramadi area, a tribal leader and a police officer said on Saturday.

Parts of Anbar capital Ramadi have been outside government control since January, but IS struck on Friday with hours of shelling, car bombs and attacks by gunmen from four different directions in a bid to take more ground.

By Saturday, most of the fighting was over, but clashes were still taking place in southern Ramadi, a city 100 kilometres from Baghdad that is one of the last major population centres of Anbar still under government control.

Police Captain Qaysar Al Hayani said IS militants had besieged fighters from the Albu Mahal and Albu Fahad tribes in Al Sijariyah, waited for them to run out of ammunition, and then executed 23.

Sheikh Omar Alwani, a commander of tribesmen fighting IS, said about 15 jihadists infiltrated Al Sijariyah, east of Anbar province capital Ramadi, by pretending to be students from elsewhere.

The jihadists were unarmed when they entered the area but were then provided weapons by collaborators and attacked, killing 25 members of the Albu Fahad tribe, Alwani said.

Both Alwani and Hayani said Al Sijariyah had been retaken, with more than two dozen IS militants killed.

The defence ministry issued a statement on Al Sijariyah, saying that “violent clashes” took place between security forces, tribesmen and militiamen on one side, and the jihadists on the other.

Alwani said that fighting also took place on Saturday in Al Hoz, an area in southern Ramadi, while the other attacks by the militants had been held off.

Resisting IS has come at a heavy price for some in Anbar, with hundreds of members of the Albu Nimr tribe executed by the group in areas the government was unable to reach.

The government is now distributing weapons and ammunition to tribesmen in the province, but the tribes still want more air support, especially from the US-led coalition carrying out strikes against IS.

The jihadist group spearheaded a militant offensive that has overrun significant parts of Iraq since June, and further gains in Anbar in recent weeks sparked warnings that the province could fall entirely.

The latest fighting in the Ramadi area has been some of the heaviest since June, and holding of the attacks would be a significant victory for the government.

Baghdad’s forces have retaken some important areas, including the strategic northern town of Baiji and Jurf Al Sakhr, south of the capital, but three key cities and a swathe of other territory remains outside government control.

MANAMA — Bahrain went to the polls Saturday for its first legislative elections since a failed pro-democracy uprising in 2011, with the opposition boycotting the vote in the tiny Gulf monarchy.

The key US ally remains divided nearly four years after security forces in the Sunni Muslim-ruled kingdom crushed Arab Spring-inspired protests led by majority Shiites.

Al Wefaq, the main opposition group, warned on the eve of the vote that failure by Bahrain's rulers to ease their "monopoly" on power could trigger a surge in violence.

In the Shiite village of Sanabes, west of Manama, clashes erupted between youths and security forces in the afternoon, an AFP reporter said.

Security forces fired tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, some of whom were masked and armed with petrol bombs.

Voting had been due to last 12 hours until 1700 GMT, but this was later extended for two more hours, according to state media, in a likely bid to boost turnout.

The move came after officials said only 10 per cent of eligible voters had cast ballots two hours before polling stations were to have been closed.

Almost 350,000 Bahrainis have been called to elect a 40-member parliament, with most of the 266 candidates Sunnis.

The vote has been denounced by critics as a farce.

The boycott means turnout will be a key marker of the validity of the vote, which comes nearly four years after authorities crushed a month-long uprising calling for democratic reform.

Al Wefaq withdraw its 18 lawmakers after the crackdown.

'A farce' 

In Sanabes, and other Shiite villages around the Bahraini capital rocked by clashes overnight and during the day, shops were shuttered, witnesses said.

Security forces were deployed and plumes of smoke were seen rising from at least three districts.

On Saturday, hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of the Shiite village of Diraz, with police firing tear gas to disperse them.

"Boycott! Boycott!" they chanted.

In other villages AFP reporters saw downed trees, concrete blocks and burnt rubbish bins authorities said were aimed at preventing people from going to vote.

“The elections have no meaning,” said Yassin, an unemployed 35-year-old.

Umm Hussein, a woman draped in black, said “it’s a farce”, describing the boycott as a “success”.

By contrast voting appeared to be brisk in Sunni-dominated districts like Rifaa, in south Manama, where dozens of voters, mostly men, lined up outside polling stations from early morning.

“This election will help the development of the country under the leadership of the king,” said Naima Al Heddi, a civil servant in her 30s.

Shiite demonstrators have frequently clashed with security forces in villages outside the capital, and hundreds have been arrested and tried since the monthlong uprising was crushed in early 2011.

Reform demands 

The country’s 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 Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

The boycott stems from “the people’s demand for democratic reforms,” Salman told AFP, predicting a maximum 30 per cent turnout.

The opposition wants a “real” constitutional monarchy with an elected prime minister independent from Al Khalifa royal family.

But the Saudi-backed Sunni dynasty that rules over the majority Shiite kingdom has rejected the demand.

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.

Salman said he did not expect the opposition to reach an agreement with the government, following Shiite-led protests he said had cost “at least 100 lives” in the past three years.

Information Minister Samira Rajab stressed ahead of the polls that the government would not tolerate “chaos, unrest and foreign meddling” — a reference to Shiite Iran.

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

Attacks that cause death or injuries can now be met with capital punishment or life imprisonment.

Municipal elections were also being held on Saturday.

VIENNA — The likelihood of Iran and six world powers reaching an agreement over Tehran's nuclear programme by a November 24 deadline is "very small", a European source close to the talks in Vienna said on Saturday.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said discussions about the possibility of extending the negotiations beyond Monday's self-imposed deadline might begin on Sunday.

"The chances of reaching a deal in the next 48 hours are very small," the source said. "Our feeling is that they [Iran's negotiators] don't have a lot of flexibility."

There had been "no significant" progress so far on the main stumbling blocks of Iran's uranium enrichment capacity and the lifting of the sanctions imposed on Iran over its nuclear programme, the source said.

Iran rejects Western accusations that it is seeking to develop a capability to build nuclear bombs.

The source did not rule out a deal, but said the Iranian negotiators would need to be given instructions from Tehran to make it happen, and even then it would need between two weeks and two months to finalise.

“A political accord would need to be sufficiently detailed and precise, but on enrichment, sanctions and PMD [possible military dimensions], we’re not there. It seems to me the most unlikely [scenario].”

The source said that no decision had yet been made to extend the talks, but suggested that an extension was preferable to letting them collapse. “It’s the ministers’ decision, but talks on an extension could begin Sunday or Monday,” he said, adding that a rollover would run for several months.

The source said that, even if an extension was decided, he was “sceptical” that a final deal could be reached.

“I’m not certain they [Iran’s negotiators] have the mandate to reach where they need to be,” he said.

WASHINGTON — A probe by a Congressional committee into the September 11, 2012 attack on a US compound in Benghazi debunked allegations that President Barack Obama's administration fell down on the job.

Since the assault on the US mission in the Libyan city, which left the ambassador and three colleagues dead, the White House, CIA and State Department have been accused of mishandling their response.

But the report released Friday by the House intelligence committee, which is led by some of Obama's fiercest Republican opponents, cleared the administration of all the most serious charges.

One claim investigated was that the Central Intelligence Agency had not provided adequate security for its own agents at an annex near the diplomatic mission, and Washington had failed to send support.

But the report, based on "thousands of hours of detailed investigation" and interviews with both senior officials and agents who had been on the ground found that this had not been the case.

"CIA ensured sufficient security for CIA activities in Benghazi and, without a requirement to do so, ably and bravely assisted the State Department on the night of the attacks," it said.

"Appropriate US personnel made reasonable tactical decision that night, and the committee found no evidence that there was a stand-down order or a denial of available air support.

"The CIA received all military support that was available," it added.

The report did conclude, however, that the State Department diplomatic compound where Ambassador Chris Stevens was killed had inadequate security and had needed CIA assistance.

The committee also found that there was "no intelligence failure prior to the attacks" as the US mission was aware of the worsening security situation in Benghazi but not of a specific planned attack.

The 2012 attack, which came on the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 Al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, was carried out by Libyan militias and extremists, some with Qaeda ties.

But after it was carried out, then US ambassador to the UN Susan Rice blamed the attack on a spontaneous local protest provoked by a privately-made propaganda film that attacked Islam.

False reports 

During a highly charged presidential campaign, Obama's critics accused the administration of denying Al Qaeda role in the attack in order to protect the president's counterterrorism record.

But the report concluded that Rice had based her remarks — which did indeed prove false — on an intelligence assessment that was believed correct at the time.

The report also tried to put to rest a persistent rumour that began after the attacks that the CIA had been using the Benghazi base to covertly smuggle Libyan weapons to Syrian rebels.

"The eyewitness testimony and thousands of pages of CIA cables and e-mails that the committee reviewed provide no support for this allegation," it said.

In fact, the report said, the CIA agents at the facility were tracking on local groups smuggling weapons, not collecting them themselves.

The report also said that, while some government agencies were slow to respond to its queries, all eventually cooperated with the inquiry and no CIA personnel were intimidated by the administration.

LONDON — Saudi Arabia has not yet traced the source of a mysterious camel virus, leaving many questions about a disease that has killed 346 people in the Kingdom.

The lack of scientific evidence about how camels contract the virus, which causes an often fatal illness called Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in people, echoes wider concerns about the threat posed to human health by animAl borne pathogens, including the Ebola virus.

There is no cure or vaccine for MERS — a severe respiratory disease which causes cough, fever, breathing problems and can lead to pneumonia and kidney failure.

Yet studies of both camels and people infected with MERS in Saudi Arabia have given preliminary results that are helping authorities curb the disease's spread, according to the scientist overseeing the work.

"Coming into close contact with the nasal secretions of camels is a major risk factor," said Tariq Madani, head of the scientific advisory board of the Saudi health ministry command and control centre (CCC) set up in June to handle the outbreak.

"The main transmission is actually human to human," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

MERS was first identified in humans in 2012 and is caused by a coronavirus from the same viral family as the one that caused a deadly outbreak of SARS in China in 2003. Some 808 people in Saudi Arabia are known to have been infected with it since it was discovered, and 346 of them have died.

The World Health Organisation and leading global health specialists have criticised Saudi Arabia for failing to properly investigate the causes of MERS.

Critics said Saudi delays contributed to the virus taking hold and spreading via travellers to some 20 countries around the world.

Madani, who was appointed after the former Saudi health minister and his deputy lost their jobs amid discontent about their handling of the outbreak, said an analysis of a large outbreak in Jeddah in 2014 showed most people were infected in hospital.

"We found out that 97 per cent of the cases were healthcare associated," he said. "And 3 per cent of them were primary cases who probably acquired the infection from contact with camels."

Tighter infection controls in hospitals have contributed to a significant drop in cases recently, but he warned sporadic primary cases will still pop up.

Tests of nasal and rectal swabs from camel imports arriving from the Horn of Africa — the source of the majority of camels traded and farmed in Saudi — found no traces of the MERS virus, Madani said, with 71 animals tested so far.

"Until now the camels we have examined have proven to be negative — and this is really very unexpected," he said.

Asked whether this suggested the camels were being infected within Saudi Arabia's borders, Madani said it was too early to reach conclusions, but said tests on imported camels will continue alongside studies of wild animals such as bats and monkeys that may also be harbouring the virus.

Meanwhile, studies of 12 camels with which MERS patients had had contact showed six had the virus circulating in their noses, but tests of their milk and urine were virus-free — suggesting the risk to humans from drinking camel milk is far lower than from direct contact with nasal secretions.

Another study found that among a group of 36 workers in a camel slaughterhouse, 58 per cent had MERS antibodies — indicating they had been infected with it at some point.

"None of them recalls having a severe infection or pneumonia," Madani said. "And this indicates that you get some sort of immunity as a result of repeated exposure to camels and the virus."

TUNIS — Tunisians vote on Sunday in a presidential election pitting an ex-official from the days of autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali against a rights activist appealing to the spirit of the 2011 revolt that ousted him.

Beji Caid Essebsi, an 87-year-old former Ben Ali official, prefers to invoke the memory of Habib Bourguiba, Tunisia's first post-independence leader, as a reference for the secular, modern state-building he advocates for the North African country.

His main rival, current President Moncef Marzouki, casts Sunday's vote as a ballot against the return of one-party era figures like Essebsi, whose victory he says would be a setback for the 2011 revolt that ended Ben Ali's rule.

More than 25 candidates are in the running, but Essebsi and Marzouki lead the field. If neither wins the more than 50 per cent, a run-off round between them will be held in December.

Sunday's vote follows the October general election when Essebsi's Nidaa Tounes Party won the most seats, besting the Islamist Party Ennahda that won the first free poll in 2011.

Essebsi, who was Ben Ali's parliament speaker and foreign minister in Bourguiba's government, has cast himself as a statesman to fix Tunisia's troubles and finish its transition.

"The state has been absent from recent years, we are going to bring back its prestige, but with the guarantees of freedom," Essebsi told supporters at a Tunis rally.

But his party's front-runner status worries critics who see risk in the return of Ben Ali "remnants" and domination of politics just like the times of former president's RCD Party.

Essebsi dismisses such concerns, saying most former Ben Ali officials were not tarnished by the abuses and corruption of his rule from 1987 to 2011. But Marzouki disagrees.

"There is a real danger of power being in one party's hands," Marzouki told his supporters at a rally. "This fight is clear between the revolutionary forces and the old regime,"

The presidential vote will be one of the last steps in Tunisia's often unstable path to full democracy.

Tunisia has mostly avoided the chaos that followed the Arab Spring uprisings of 2011 across the region mainly because its political rivals have managed to reach compromises.

After months of bitter, sometimes violent, clashes over the role of Islam in politics, Tunisia has now emerged as a model for compromise and democratic progress in a troubled region.

A new Nidaa Tounes-led government will be formed after the presidential ballot. But the narrow gap between it and Ennahda in parliament will mean tough post-election negotiations over the new administration.

Ennahda has not put forward a candidate or backed anyone, so its supporters will be key to the outcome of the vote.

"The current political context is extremely favorable to Essebsi, owing to Islamist party Ennahda abstaining from supporting any of the presidential hopefuls," said Eurasia Group's Riccardo Fabiani.