Region

TEHRAN — The Iranians conducting nuclear talks with world powers seem loath to use the word "compromise", but with much to lose President Hassan Rouhani may yet be pushing for a last-minute deal.

Negotiations to reach a final agreement on Iran's disputed atomic programme — culminating this week in Vienna ahead of a November 24 deadline — have divided the Islamic republic.

On one side stand hardline conservatives opposed to giving almost any ground to hated Western governments.

On the other is Rouhani, who put his credibility on the line and raised hopes of an end to isolation — and the possibility of conflict — by officially restarting the nuclear talks in 2013.

Standing in the middle is Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who will have the final word on any agreement, and whom Rouhani must convince of the merits of doing a deal.

Of all the powerbrokers in Tehran — politicians, clerics, generals, business leaders and academics all have influence — Rouhani has the most at stake if Khamenei does not ultimately back him.

"If these talks turn out to be a failure, or are seen as such, Mr Rouhani will be in a very difficult position," said Davoud Hermidas-Bavand, a Tehran-based analyst and veteran watcher of Iran's political scene.

"The die-hard groups who threaten the atmosphere of cooperation will say Mr Rouhani failed to do anything and it will be hard for him to tell the public that he has kept his promises," he added.

Khamenei holds the cards

Away from the nuclear negotiating table, Rouhani's plans to introduce more moderate domestic policies are under attack, as are his ministers — one has already been impeached and dismissed by parliament.

On Tuesday, lawmakers for the second time refused to approve a replacement.

So it is especially important for Rouhani to win a nod from Khamenei for a deal, or even just on a framework for an extension.

The leader's towering influence would silence those critical of Rouhani and Iran's negotiators, led by Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif.

Without such an endorsement, both Rouhani and Zarif could begin to look like lame ducks, said Siavush Randjbar-Daemi, a lecturer on Iran and the Middle East at Britain's Manchester University.

"A breakdown in the talks will weaken Rouhani and possibly cause the end of Zarif's tenure as foreign minister," Randjbar-Daemi said.

The big question is whether Rouhani can balance his desire for a deal with Iran's need to save face and preserve its nuclear programme.

Upping the stakes 

Talks between Iran and the P5+1 powers (UN Security Council members Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States plus Germany) have been taking place in a better atmosphere than in the past but momentum has stalled lately.

And Tehran's price for reaching an agreement has been steadily ticking up.

On July 7 — just 13 days before an original deadline for a final deal — Khamenei laid down new conditions, stating Iran would eventually require a uranium enrichment capacity almost 20 times greater than at present.

The West had wanted a reduction and that deadline was missed.

In the past month Iran again raised the stakes, demanding a total immediate lifting of sanctions imposed by the United States, the UN Security Council and the European Union — a condition seen as inflated and impractical.

While this may be a negotiating ploy, Zarif's team could lose out if there is no compromise, said Randjbar-Daemi.

"I believe this is the message the Iranians will deliver privately and discreetly in Vienna — that of a possibly very different team showing up, if and when talks resume after the current round breaks down," he said.

"There is a need to strike a deal while there is leeway to do so."

Economic forces are also at play. Without an agreement it is hard to see how foreign investment, promoted aggressively by the government as a boon to jobs, can return.

"What Rouhani will have to face, should the talks end without result, is a very sullen atmosphere in the business sector, which had pinned much hope in a deal being reached," Randjbar-Daemi added.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Two Palestinians armed with a gun and meat cleavers burst into a Jerusalem synagogue Tuesday and killed four Israelis before being shot dead in the city's bloodiest attack in years.

It was a rare assault on a place of worship and sent shock waves through the country, raising fears that the already deadly Israel-Palestinian conflict was taking on a dangerous religious dimension.

All four victims were Israelis with dual nationality — three were US citizens and the fourth British, Israel forces said. Israel's leading ultra-Orthodox website said all four were rabbis.

The bloodshed took place as months of unrest gripped Jerusalem's occupied Arab eastern sector, resulting in a string of deadly attacks by lone Palestinians and further enflamed by the death of a Palestinian bus driver in controversial circumstances.

Eight people were wounded in Tuesday’s attack, including two security officers, medics said. One person was in a critical condition and three sustained serious injuries, with eyewitnesses saying several had had limbs hacked off.

The attack began shortly before 7 am (0500 GMT) when the assailants burst in, waving meat cleavers and a gun at the synagogue in a Jewish seminary in Har Nof.

Three security personnel — two traffic officers and a forensics expert — arrived and exchanged gunfire with the attackers, killing them, security spokeswoman Luba Samri said.

Two security personnel were wounded, one critically.

The assailants were identified by family members as Uday and Ghassan Abu Jamal, cousins from the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabal Mukaber. Both were in their 20s.

Israel vowed a harsh response, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calling the bloodshed a “direct result” of incitement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas, vowing to respond with “a heavy hand”.

Abbas condemned the killings, but Hamas welcomed the attack, describing it as a fitting “response” to Israeli actions in occupied East Jerusalem.

Analysts warned of escalation in a situation already fraught with tension.

“This event has the potential of being a game changer,” said Kobi Michael, senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, adding it created a sense that things were “out of control”.

‘Death to terrorists’ 

Witnesses spoke of a bloodbath.

“There were people running from the synagogue, and a man sitting on the pavement covered in blood,” said resident Sarah Abrahams.

Emergency worker Moti Bukchi said the scene was “harrowing”.

Speaking to journalists at the scene, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat expressed shock at the “brutality” of the attack which took place just over 1.5 kilometres from the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum.

“To slaughter innocent people while they pray... it’s insane,” he said.

Har Nof is also very close to the former Palestinian village of Deir Yassin where Jewish militias massacred more than 100 villagers in 1948.

Shortly after Tuesday’s attack, Israel forces went to Jabal Mukaber and rounded up family members, sparking clashes with stone-throwing youths, relatives said.

Israeli forces arrested nine people but did not say how many were family members.

East Jerusalem tinderbox 

Arab East Jerusalem has been a tinderbox since early July when Jewish extremists killed a 16-year-old Palestinian in revenge for the murder of three Jewish teenagers, sparking a wave of violence which has shown no sign of letting up.

Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon vowed Israel would hunt down those who sent the perpetrators “wherever they are and in whatever way necessary, both inside and outside Israel’s borders”.

And Public Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch pledged to ease controls on carrying weapons for self-defence in a move that would apply to anyone licensed to carry a gun, such as private security guards and off-duty army officers.

US Secreray of State Kerry condemned the attack as an “act of pure terror and senseless brutality”, and called on the Palestinian leadership to denounce it.

But Hamas praised the assault and called for further attacks, saying it was a “response” to Sunday’s death of the Palestinian bus driver from East Jerusalem who was found hanged inside his vehicle.

Israeli forces said a post-mortem showed no evidence of foul play in the driver’s death, but colleagues said his body showed signs of violence, indicating he was murdered.

The Palestinian pathologist who attended the post-mortem also ruled out suicide, suggesting he may have been drugged then strangled, the family’s lawyer said.

BEIRUT — Syrian Kurds fighting the Islamic State group in the flashpoint town of Kobani made new gains Tuesday, expelling the jihadists from several central buildings and seizing weapons, a monitor said.

The advance came hours after the US-led coalition launched four strikes against IS positions in central Kobani, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) staged a "special operation" during which they captured six buildings used by IS, said the Britain-based group, which relies on a network of sources in Syria.

Thirteen IS fighters were killed, it said.

The Kurds "captured a large amount of weapons and ammunition, including RPG (rocket-propelled grenade) rounds, light weapons, sniper guns and thousands of heavy machine gun rounds," the observatory said.

The US and Arab allies began strikes against jihadist positions in Syria in late September, days after IS launched its assault on Kobani.

Some 1,200 people, mainly fighters, have been killed in the battle for the town on the border with Turkey.

Kobani has become a major symbol of resistance against IS, which has committed widespread atrocities and imposed its harsh interpretation of Islamic Sharia law in areas under its control.

Last month, the United States and Turkey warned that the town was teetering on the brink, but analysts say there have been signs the tide is beginning to turn in favour of its Kurdish defenders.

Highly motivated Syrian Kurdish troops are fighting alongside Iraqi peshmerga forces and Syrian rebels that have reinforced the town's defences, backed by US-led strikes on IS positions.

The multi-sided Syrian war has killed more than 195,000 people and forced millions from their homes since it began three and a half years ago as an uprising against President Bashar Assad's regime.

On Tuesday, at least 13 civilians, including two children, were killed in regime air strikes on a rebel-held area further west in Aleppo province, the observatory said.

The strikes came hours after 14 other civilians were killed on Monday night in Al Bab, an IS-controlled town in the same province, it added.

BAGHDAD — Security forces entered Iraq's largest refinery for the first time on Tuesday after months of battling Islamic State (IS) militants who had surrounded it, a police colonel said.

Police sources said security forces were clearing out mines from the refinery complex and had moved to an area just to the northwest where they faced some resistance from IS militants. The insurgents still have a presence there.

Complete recovery of the Beiji facility could provide critical momentum for government forces charged with restoring stability in a country facing its worst security crisis since dictator Saddam Hussein was toppled in 2003.

"The first Iraqi force, the anti-terrorism force called Mosul Battalion, entered Beiji refinery for the first time in five months," police colonel Saleh Jaber of the Beiji refinery protection force told Reuters.

State television flashed news of the advance and broadcast footage it said was of Iraqi security forces entering the refinery's gate.

"In this area, terrorists were stationed to the left and right. If God is willing, Beiji will be the main key to liberating each span of Iraq," the commander of provincial security operations, Abdel Wahab Al Saadi, told the broadcaster.

US-led air strikes have prevented the Islamist group, which swept through northern Iraq in June almost unopposed by the Iraqi army, from making significant further territorial gains for its self-proclaimed caliphate.

IS seized the city of Baiji and surrounded the sprawling refinery during that first advance in June.

IS has stolen oil and petroleum products from areas it controls in an effort to create a self-sustaining Islamic empire, oil officials say.

Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi sacked 26 military commanders this month for corruption in an apparent bid to show the government is serious about improving the performance of the army to counter IS.

The Beiji refinery was producing around 175,000 barrels per day before it was closed, a senior Iraqi official said in June. Iraq’s domestic daily consumption is estimated at 600,000-700,000 bpd.

BEIRUT — The leader of the Shiite Hizbollah group Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah made a rare trip to visit to a top Shiite cleric visiting Lebanon for medical checkups, the group’s media office said Tuesday.

It is rare for Nasrallah to make public appearances, or leave his secret locations, for fear of assassination by Israel.

The Hizbollah media office said that Nasrallah visited Grand Ayatollah Bashir Al Najafi and discussed “Muslim affairs with him”. It did not elaborate or say where the meeting took place.

Najafi arrived in Beirut last week where he was supposed to undergo medical tests.

Najafi, a Pakistani, is one of the most influential Shiite clerics worldwide and has been based in the Iraqi Shiite holy city of Najaf for decades. He is one of four top Shiite clerics based in Najaf.

Najaf, known for its dozens of seminaries, is the centre of Shiite Islam’s religious leadership, to which many of the world’s 200 million Shiites turn for spiritual and political guidance.

Nasrallah did some of his religious studies in Najaf before moving to the Iranian holy city of Qom, fleeing Saddam Hussein’s persecution of Shiites.

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia has expanded a buffer zone along its northern border with Iraq, where a US-led military coalition is bombing IS (IS) extremists, official media said on Tuesday.

Mohammed Al Fahimi, a spokesman for northern region border guards, said "the depth of the border has been increased by 20 kilometres", the Saudi Press Agency reported.

Officers guarding the frontier "called on residents and citizens to stay away from the border areas", it added, without clarifying the previous depth of the border zone.

In early September, the kingdom inaugurated a multilayered fence, backed by radar and other surveillance tools, along its northern borders.

The project is part of efforts to secure the kingdom's desert frontiers against infiltrators and smugglers, state media reported at the time.

Saudi Arabia shares a boundary of 800 kilometres with Iraq.

In July 2009, Riyadh signed a deal with European aerospace and defence contractors EADS to build a high-tech security fence along thousands of kilometres of the kingdom's borders, not only in the north.

Since September, Saudi Arabia has been part of the US-led coalition bombing IS group extremists in Syria.

Saudi Arabia has not, however, participated in strikes on IS in Iraq where the Sunni extremists have also seized territory.

BASEL, Switzerland — Handball's governing body says Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates have changed plans and now want to play in the men's world championships in Qatar.

Bahrain and the UAE withdrew their teams this month in an apparent boycott to protest their Gulf neighbour's foreign policy supporting Islamic groups. The withdrawals left the International Handball Federation potentially needing to find two teams for the 24-nation event in January.

The IHF now says its member federations in Bahrain and the UAE "wish to cancel their withdrawal from their participation."

No reason was given for the decision.

The IHF says its ruling council will deal with the issue Friday at a meeting in Herzogenaurach, Germany.

EL ARISH, Egypt — With soldiers firing warning shots to herald the nightly curfew and jihadist militants beheading informants, Sinai's residents find themselves caught in the middle of Egypt's "war on terror".

The Sinai Peninsula has become a hotbed of Islamist militancy after decades of neglect under former president Hosni Mubarak, and amid a security vacuum triggered by the army's ouster last year of his successor Mohamed Morsi.

Militant attacks remain commonplace almost two years since the military launched its "war on terrorism" in northern Sinai bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip.

A brazen suicide bombing on October 24 killed 30 soldiers near the North Sinai capital El Arish, sparking a state of emergency and a curfew being slapped on several areas of the province.

The attack was claimed by Egypt's deadliest jihadist organisation Ansar Beit Al Maqdis (Partisans of Jerusalem), which has since pledged allegiance to the IS group that has captured swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq.

Extra security including an overnight curfew, increased police and army patrols and additional checkpoints have left El Arish's nearly 170,000 residents angry and questioning Cairo's counter-terrorism strategy.

 'Controlled' blast wounds 10 

"Why did the security forces take all this time? Why did they did not defuse the bomb or move it away before detonating it?" asked Wael, inspecting a large crater caused by police detonating a car bomb in a busy district last week.

Residents told AFP security forces took four hours to respond after locals alerted them about a suspicious vehicle.

Police then set off a "controlled" blast of the booby-trapped car, wounding 10 people and damaging several houses.

"If they can't protect us, why did they come? They should leave and let the people deal with the terrorists themselves," Wael said.

Police stations and other security installations in El Arish are heavily guarded, with barbed wire and sandbags blocking access roads, an AFP correspondent saw.

At one police station on the city's outskirts, a sign proclaims: "Do not approach or we will open fire."

A 5:00pm to 7:00am curfew has had a major impact on daily life.

As the clock approaches 5:00pm, El Arish residents rush to their homes as soldiers fire warning shots.

Mobile phone networks and Internet services are cut for most of the day, affecting business, and there is also an acute fuel shortage, with regular queues up to four kilometres long.

El Arish residents are clearly unhappy.

'Why not surgical strikes?' 

"I'm not sure how the army operates, but I doubt it has enough intelligence information," said one merchant who lived under the Israeli occupation of the city between 1967 and 1979.

"The Israelis used surgical strikes to eliminate their targets without touching those sitting next to them. Why does the Egyptian army not use similar tactics?" he asked, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Despite the heightened security presence, residents are clearly afraid to cooperate with the army after several men were killed for being informants, the businessman said, referring to gruesome video footage of beheadings released by Ansar Beit Al Maqdis.

The group has killed scores of security personnel since Morsi's July 2013 ouster in retaliation for a bloody government crackdown on his Islamist supporters which has killed at least 1,400 people.

But it is not only the residents of El Arish who are living in fear.

The city's security chiefs have restricted their movements and "set up beds in their offices", indicated one local official, again speaking on condition of anonymity.

Near the main highway, the scene of several militant attacks, hundreds of hectares of olive groves have been razed.

"The army is convinced that jihadists hole up in these plantations," said a farmer who declined to give his name for fear of reprisal.

"My heart breaks when I see this, but when I see television pictures of people dying, I think anything's fine as long as my family and I are safe."

RIYADH — Tighter security in Saudi Arabia has made it hard for Islamic State (IS) to target the government so the militants are instead trying to incite a sectarian conflict via attacks on the Shiite Muslim minority, the Saudi Interior Ministry said.

Last week the Sunni group's leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi called for attacks against the Sunni rulers of Saudi Arabia, which has declared IS a terrorist organisation, joined international air strikes against it, and mobilised top clergy to denounce it.

He spoke after an attack on Shiite civilians, the first since 2006 by militant Saudis based inside the kingdom.

IS has not claimed the shooting and the Saudis have not held the group responsible but they arrested more than 50 people including some who fought with Sunni jihadis in Syria or had been previously jailed for fighting with Al Qaeda.

As the world's top oil exporter, birthplace of Islam and a champion of conservative Sunni doctrine, Saudi Arabia represents an important ally for Western countries battling IS and a symbolic target for the militant group itself.

"Islamic State and Al Qaeda are doing their best to carry out terrorist acts or crimes inside Saudi Arabia," Major General Mansour Turki, security spokesman for the Interior Ministry, told Reuters.

"They are trying to target the social fabric and trying to create a sectarian conflict inside the country."

The attack by gunmen in the Eastern Province district of Al Ahsa on November 3 killed eight members of the kingdom's Shiite minority who were marking their holy day of Ashoura.

Turki said he was not aware of any evidence that it was coordinated with IS operatives outside Saudi Arabia.

He said improved government security, such as guards at possible targets, increased border defences and surveillance, have made it much harder for militants elsewhere to organise violence inside Saudi Arabia such as Al Qaeda's 2003-06 uprising which killed hundreds and led to the detention of more than 11,000 people.

“Although Saudi citizens have played important leadership roles in various Al Qaeda organisations, Riyadh has not yet identified any in senior positions in Islamic State,” Turki said.

“However, the group tends to use Saudi members of IS in its propaganda because of the kingdom's role as the leading Sunni state,” he said.

‘They want our personality’

Riyadh is worried that the rise of militant Sunni groups, including Al Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front and IS, as participants in the Syrian war would radicalise Saudis who might then carry out a new wave of strikes inside the kingdom.

Although it has backed rebel groups fighting alongside jihadis against Syrian President Bashar Assad, Saudi Arabia has also taken steps to stop its people joining militants in Syria or Iraq or giving them money.

Turki said a royal decree in February imposing long prison terms for people who went abroad to fight or helped others to do so, and for people who gave moral or material support to militant groups had reduced the number of Saudi jihadis.

"One of the people we arrested [since the decree] was used by them [Islamic State] to write Friday sermons. Does this mean they do not have anybody capable of doing that? Of course not, but they want our language, our personality, to be reflected in their speeches," he said.

Since the decree was issued, the rate of Saudis travelling to Syria or Iraq for jihad had slowed sharply, while the rate of Saudis returning to the kingdom from those countries had accelerated, he said.

The authorities have identified between 2,000-2,100 Saudi citizens who have fought in Syria since its crisis began in 2011, of whom around 600 have returned, he said. Of those numbers, only about 200 had left Saudi Arabia since the February decree while around 170 had come back.

Sectarian attack

The difficulty of getting its fighters past security and into Saudi Arabia has pushed IS to try to incite sympathisers inside the kingdom to carry out their own attacks, Turki said.

Unlike the Al Qaeda campaign last decade, the attack in Al Ahsa was not aimed at government, infrastructure or foreign targets, which are now better protected by security forces, but struck at unarmed Shiite villagers.

That showed the increasingly sectarian nature of jihadi ideology but also that tighter security had reduced the number of straightforward targets for militant attacks, Turki said.

The authorities detained 10 more people on Sunday for the attack, taking to 54 the total number of suspects arrested in 11 different Saudi cities.

"The situation is unlike 10 years ago when we had the first Al Qaeda attacks. We were not ready at that time. Our public was not informed, our policemen were not trained or equipped for such a danger," he said.

ANKARA — Turkey fears another 2 to 3 million Syrian refugees could cross its borders if the region of Syria's second city of Aleppo is overrun either by Islamist extremists or regime forces, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Tuesday.

Turkey is already hosting at least 1.5 million refugees displaced by the Syrian conflict and has repeatedly warned that its capacities are being strained by the numbers.

Cavusoglu said supporting the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) was the only option for the international community against what Ankara sees as the twin threat of Islamic State jihadists and the regime of President Bashar Assad.

"The main force fighting both ISIS and the Syrian regime today is the Free Syrian Army," he said, using another term for the Islamic State group.

"But it has failed to achieve the desired outcome because it is fighting against both groups," he told reporters in Ankara alongside his Finnish counterpart.

Cavusoglu said there was little difference between IS militants and the Assad regime.

"Both of them are killing people brutally and don't refrain from using any kinds of weapons at their disposal. Both force people to flee their land."

He added: "An advance on Aleppo would mean an influx of 2 to 3 million people to the Turkish border."

He said a weakening of the moderate opposition to Assad and the FSA would "result in the advance of the unstoppable ISIS as well as the regime".

"And this will make Syria even more unstable. Therefore, the advance of both of them should be halted."

Turkey has repeatedly called for the ousting of Assad as the sole way to resolve the Syrian crisis permanently.

But it has grown increasingly concerned in recent months that the US-led coalition strikes against IS could end up strengthening the Assad regime.