Region

CAIRO — Egyptian President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi has told visiting US businessmen that a parliamentary election will be held by March, his spokesman said on Tuesday, trying to reassure them that the delayed poll would not be put off indefinitely.

Egypt has been without a parliament since June 2012, when a court dissolved the democratically elected main chamber, reversing a major accomplishment of the 2011 uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

Under Islamist President Mohamed Morsi, legislative power was transferred to the upper house pending a fresh election. But before that poll took place, Morsi was toppled by the army following protests against his rule.

A political roadmap declared after Morsi’s ouster envisaged a parliamentary election by November — six months after the May presidential poll which brought Sisi, the army chief behind Morsi’s overthrow, to the presidency.

No date has been set for the parliamentary poll, but Sisi told the US businessmen it would go ahead before a major economic summit in March that Egypt hopes will boost investment and aid, his spokesman Alaa Yousef said.

Election commission spokesman Medhat Idriss said preparations still needed to be completed before the vote could be scheduled. He declined to say when the vote was likely to happen but Egyptian newspapers have quoted unnamed sources as saying the polls would happen around March.

“We are still waiting for the constituencies law and preparations for the elections are ongoing,” he said.

Egypt’s 2011 revolt ignited hopes for more freedoms and ushered in presidential and parliamentary polls that brought Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood into office.

Since Morsi’s ouster, authorities have cracked down on the Brotherhood, killing hundreds and arresting thousands of its supporters. It has banned Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement, declaring it a terrorist organisation.

Secular and liberal activists are also facing charges of violating a law passed last year that restricts protests.

Many Egyptians welcome Sisi’s strong hand after three years of turmoil unleashed by the 2011 revolt, but critics say he is delaying elections to in order to consolidate his rule.

In the absence of parliament, Sisi has used his legislative authority to introduce economic reforms that have impressed investors, whilst also curtailing political freedoms.

Political sources say the long-awaited law outlining constituency boundaries could be passed any day, but that the delay suggests government anxiety about the election outcome.

With Mubarak’s National Democratic Party gone, loyalists have scrambled to form alliances to secure Sisi a sizeable bloc of support.

SANAA — Clashes at Sanaa airport between Yemeni police and Shiite rebel gunmen have left three dead, in a rare confrontation since the rebels overran the capital in September, a security official said Tuesday.

Two policemen and a civilian were killed in the clashes that erupted overnight between police and armed men based at the airport since the northern rebels seized the capital unopposed on September 21.

The gunfight caused a brief interruption of air traffic, the official said.

It followed a strike by airport staff who demanded the withdrawal of the rebel gunmen from the airport.

Complaints have recently been made by Western embassies that rebels stationed at the airport have opened their diplomatic mail, violating international conventions, sources at Yemen’s foreign ministry said.

The militiamen have also been insisting on boarding planes for inspection, aviation sources said, causing several airlines to delay resuming flights to Sanaa that were suspended on September 19 for security reasons.

The rebels remain the main force in the capital.

A UN-brokered agreement reached in September stipulated that the Houthi  rebels, also known as Ansarullah, would withdraw from Sanaa once a new prime minister is named.

But they have rejected a new Cabinet formed on Friday, insisting on a reshuffle that would keep out officials that they accuse of corruption.

Since they overran Sanaa, the Houthi s have expanded their control to coastal areas and regions south of the capital, where their fighters have met fierce resistance from Sunni tribes and Al Qaeda.

The turmoil has raised fears the Arabian Peninsula nation, which neighbours oil-rich Saudi Arabia and lies on the key shipping route from the Suez Canal to the Gulf, may become a failed state.

JIZAN, Saudi Arabia — Gains by the Shiite Houthi rebel movement in Yemen are ringing alarm bells in Saudi Arabia, concerned for what it means for its vulnerable southern border, already the conduit for a constant flow of illicit activity.

The Houthis control much of the territory along the 1,700km frontier, which traverses high mountains and vast expanses of dune desert, and five years ago fought a brief border war with the world’s top oil exporter.

With no border patrols or guard posts to the south, the only obstacles for smugglers, economic migrants and groups the Saudis worry about even more, such as Al Qaeda, are on the Saudi side.

“We are working alone,” said Lieutenant Colonel Hamid Al Asmari of the border guards in Jizan province, one of the most active parts of the frontier.

It is only a few hundred metres from the sandbagged emplacement of the Saudi border guards in Jizan to the Al Mashnaq arms market, in a tiny mud village across a broad wadi.

When the guards pause for communal prayers each Friday, they can hear Houthi sermons broadcast from across the wadi. When they peer through binoculars they see the group’s slogans daubed in paint on the walls: “Death to America! Death to Israel!”

After the 2009-2010 war, fought in this very district, many villages were evacuated and abandoned, and now lie in a resurgent wilderness where butterflies dance over covered crumbling walls and shell-pocked houses.

Around 200 Saudi soldiers died in the conflict, triggered by a dispute between Riyadh and the Houthis over where the border lay.

The Houthis have had control of large swathes of north Yemen since they built a following among the region’s tribes in the early 2000s, campaigning for the rights of Zaydi Shiite Muslims.

After fighting six inconclusive wars with the central government, they took control of the capital, Sanaa, in September and are now a major force in Yemeni politics.

The movement rarely speaks to Western media and did not respond to a request for comment on this story.

Sunni Saudi Arabia is alarmed by the Houthis links to Iran, its rival for influence in the Middle East, and fears they may seek to emulate the king-making role played in Lebanon by its Shiite militia Hizbollah.

The Saudis are also concerned about another strategic threat emanating from Yemen: it is home to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which has declared war on the kingdom’s ruling Al Saud family and in July staged a cross-border raid further east.

For now, enmity between the Houthis and AQAP makes their presence in the Jizan border area improbable. Sunni AQAP has declared the Shiite Houthis heretics and staged suicide bombings against them, while the Houthis have pledged to rout the militant group from Yemen.

Smugglers

For the guards patrolling the border, then, the biggest concern is that its frontier lies in the hands of a group whose main constituents are local tribesmen who live off smuggling.

Last year in Jizan province alone, border guards detained 235,000 people trying to cross the border illegally, seized 2,800 weapons including assault rifles, hand grenades and small rockets, and 16 tonnes of hashish, Asmari said.

Saudi Arabia is working on a new border road with a fence running alongside as well as tall posts for cameras and radar equipment that should allow guards to maintain a watch on the entire length of the frontier and dispatch patrols quickly.

But the project will take years to complete. Although it has been in the works for many years, it was slowed down by the difficulty of the terrain, by legal disputes over land ownership and by the war.

In the meantime, this will remain one of the most dangerous places in Saudi Arabia. Last year two border guards were killed in Jizan province by smugglers. Guards in both the observation post and in another, much higher position far into the mountains, said they are occasionally shot at from a distance.

Driving along a dirt border track where scrubby bushes and acacia trees provide extensive ground cover, Asmari and his patrol unit stop to watch a group of men scurrying for cover.

Once they are 50 metres or so into the bushes, more or less back into Yemeni territory, the men turn to wait for the Saudi patrol to leave.

Further on, another group stands in the scrub eyeing the Saudi guards and one briefly raises what looked like a weapon.

The tension is in stark contrast to the district’s natural beauty and tranquillity. Wandering herds of camels, goats and cows with fatty shoulder humps daily cross from the Yemeni side to graze along the lush wadis before peaceably ambling home.

DAMASCUS — Syria's government has responded with "constructive interest" to a UN proposal to suspend fighting in the second city of Aleppo, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said on Tuesday.

"My meetings here with the government and with President [Bashar] Assad gave me the feeling that they are studying very seriously and very actively the UN proposal," De Mistura said at a press conference in Damascus.

"The initial response by the government of Syria... was of interest and constructive interest," he added.

"They are now waiting for our contact with the other stakeholders, the other organisations, people, with whom we will be talking in order to make sure that this proposal can be moving forward."

On Monday, Assad said he was ready to study the UN plan to "freeze" fighting in Aleppo, which has been divided since a major insurgent offensive in mid-2012 between government and rebel control.

De Mistura put the so-called "action plan" forward last month to allow for aid deliveries and to lay the groundwork for peace talks, saying Aleppo would be a "good candidate" for such a freeze.

"All Syrians need a concrete example... That's why we have come to the conclusion of making a specific proposal," he said Tuesday.

He said Aleppo was chosen because of its significance as Syria's second city, once the country's industrial powerhouse, and also a place of cultural and historical significance.

“Aleppo city is not far from possible collapse and we need to do something before that happens,” he added.

In recent months, Syrian government forces have advanced around the outskirts of the eastern portion of the city that is under rebel control, threatening to encircle it completely.

Inside the city, fighting has raged along the dividing line between government and rebel control, with regime aircraft regularly bombing the east, and rebels shelling the west of the city.

De Mistura stressed that the “freeze” proposal was an “action plan, not a peace plan yet”.

“Certainly this is not a substitute for a political solution, but it is an incentive in that direction.”

More than 195,000 people have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011, with successive attempts at internationally backed negotiations failing to yield a peace deal.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian during clashes on Tuesday in the occupied West Bank, a day after Palestinian assailants fatally stabbed an Israeli soldier and a woman in attacks that raised fears of a new uprising.

Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Yaalon said the violence was not organised and it was not clear if it would lead to an Intifada, like the last Palestinian revolt that began more than a decade ago and died down in 2005.

The military said soldiers killed a 21-year-old Palestinian man at a refugee camp after coming under attack by a crowd hurling petrol bombs and stones. Residents said he was on his roof, away from the clashes when he was shot.

Confrontations also erupted in at least two other West Bank areas, where the army said soldiers shot and wounded two Palestinians.

The violence has raised Israeli concern that a new uprising was brewing, and Israel's Security Cabinet convened to assess the situation.

"We're not seeing masses pouring into the street. We're seeing, in certain places, young people using grassroots terrorism and lone attackers," Yaalon told reporters. "What do we call it? Let's wait and see how it develops. It's clear there is an escalation."

With the rise in violence, Israelis wondered if they would again have to worry about security in their daily lives.

“This is the same soundtrack we all remember from the days of the Intifada: you haven’t had time to come to terms with the morning’s terror attack and you’re already wallowing in the next one,” military affairs analyst Alex Fishman wrote in the Yediot Ahronot daily.

The last Palestinian uprising brought a surge in suicide bombings in Israel and crushing military operations in Palestinian cities.

The new bloodshed has been fuelled by tension over Israeli-controlled access to Jerusalem’s holiest site, revered by Muslims as Noble Sanctuary, where Al Aqsa mosque stands, and by Jews as the mount where biblical temples once stood.

“We ask you [Israel] to keep settlers and extremists far away from Al Aqsa Mosque and our holy places,” Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said on Tuesday, following recent visits to the site by far-right legislators. “Keep them away from us and we’ll stay away from them”.

Last week, a Palestinian rammed his car into pedestrians in central Jerusalem, the second such incident at a light railway station in as many weeks.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi soldiers battling the Islamic State group recaptured the heart and outlying districts of the town of Beiji, home to the country's largest oil refinery, state television and a provincial governor said Tuesday.

Retaking Beiji, 250 kilometres north of Baghdad, could allow Iraqi forces a base to attack neighbouring Tikrit, taken by the extremists in their lightning advance this summer. But troops backed by Shiite militias faced pockets of stiff resistance around Beiji, hindering their advance.

State television quoted the top army commander in Beiji, Gen. Abdul-Wahab Al Saadi, as saying that troops recaptured the city's local government and police headquarters at the centre of the town. It aired what appeared to be archival footage of the town showing Iraqi army troops firing their weapons from behind sand barriers.

Saadi later spoke to state television by telephone but the line appeared to be cut off after he said his forces were meeting stiff resistance.

Raed Ibrahim, the governor of Salahuddin province, where Beiji and Tikrit are located, said the military had secured about 75 per cent of the town as of Tuesday, retaking the centre of the town and outlying districts. He said government forces continued to meet fierce resistance from the militants, whom he said were using suicide bombers to stall the military’s advance.

Ibrahim also told The Associated Press that many militants booby-trapped buildings in Beiji, posing an added threat.

A senior military official earlier told the AP that troops had recaptured of about 75 per cent of Beiji. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to journalists.

Government officials in Baghdad offered no immediate comment on the news. Saadi said Saturday that his forces had recaptured most of the city and that it would soon be entirely rid of Islamic State (IS) fighters.

There was no word on the fate of the refinery, which lies on the outskirts of the town and has been besieged by IS fighters since June. The small army unit inside the refinery, resupplied and reinforced by air for months, successfully resisted wave after wave of extremist assaults.

Iraq’s army and security forces partially have regrouped after melting away in the face of the summer’s IS offensive. In recent weeks, they recaptured a string of small towns and villages, but taking Beiji would be strategically significant in what is shaping up to be a drawn-out campaign against the extremists.

Recapturing Beiji also would be a major boost for Iraq’s Shiite-led government and could pave the way for a fresh offensive to drive IS militants from the nearby city of Tikrit, Saddam Hussein’s hometown and the capital of Salahuddin province.

The Beiji campaign has been carried out by a contingent of troops and security forces drawn from a nearby military base and airlifted from government-controlled areas elsewhere.

Air strikes by a US-led coalition have aided Iraqi forces, militias and Kurdish peshmerga fighters battling IS militants. Hundreds of US advisers and trainers also have been working with the Iraqis.

US Central Command said Monday that coalition aircraft conducted seven air strikes near Beiji since Friday, destroying three small militant units, a sniper position and two militant vehicles, including one used for construction.

Meanwhile in Syria, UN envoy Staffan de Mistura reiterated his call for a truce in the northern city of Aleppo where rebels still hold large areas, although they are under increasing attack from advancing government forces. De Mistura, who met Syrian President Bashar Assad on Monday, said an Aleppo truce could be a step towards a wider resolution of the country’s civil war.

Assad has said the suggestion was “worth studying”.

And in Qatar, ruling Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani warned US-led air strikes won’t be enough to defeat “terrorism and extremism” in Iraq and Syria. Speaking to the Gulf nation’s legislative advisory council, he said the policies of Assad’s government and “some militias in Iraq” — a reference to Iranian-backed Shiite militias — are the most important factors contributing to extremism in the two countries.

Qatar plays a supporting role in the US-led military coalition conducting air strikes by allowing coalition forces to use its vast Al Udeid airbase. The country also has provided substantial arms and other aid to Syrian rebels, but has come under fire from critics for its support of Islamist groups. Qatar denies supporting militants and says it has never provided backing for IS fighters.

DETROIT — A Palestinian activist was found guilty on Monday of immigration fraud for failing to reveal to US authorities that she had been convicted and served time in Israel for a 1969 supermarket bombing that killed two people.

After a trial last week in a federal court in Detroit, Rasmieh Yousef Odeh, 67, was convicted of unlawful procurement of naturalisation, said Ron Hansen, a spokesman for the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

Odeh, who is currently free on bail, faces 10 years in prison and would lose her US citizenship. The judge will hold a bail revocation hearing before setting a date for sentencing for Odeh, who is also known as Rasmea.

"Make no mistake. Rasmea came under attack by the US government because she is Palestinian, and because for decades, she has organised for Palestinian liberation and self-determination," the Rasmea Defence Committee, which has supported her during the trial, said in a statement on Monday.

Dozens of supporters had travelled to Detroit for her trial and they rallied on her behalf outside the federal courthouse on Monday. The defence committee said it was unfair that Judge Gershwin Drain had not allowed Odeh to tell the jury that she confessed to the supermarket bombing allegedly under torture by the Israeli military.

Odeh has lived almost two decades in the United States and served as associate director of a Chicago-area community organisation called the Arab American Action Network.

Federal prosecutors said she failed to reveal her criminal history when she immigrated from Jordan in 1995 and again when she was naturalised as a US citizen in 2004.

Odeh and members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine were convicted by an Israeli military court for the supermarket bombing and for placing a bomb at the British consulate in Jerusalem.

TUNIS/BENGHAZI, Libya — Libya's political strife intensified on Monday as a rival government that has seized the capital stepped up its battle for power and legitimacy, taking control of a key oil field, according to a security commander, and meeting its first foreign minister.

An armed brigade from Operation Dawn, one of the factions backing the rival government, took control of Libya's largest oil  field, El Sharara, a commander in charge of security at the site said. If confirmed, it would be the first attempt to take physical control of oil production by the rival government.

The Tripoli-based rival administration has also appointed its own oil minister in a move seen by analysts as designed to assert more pressure on Libya's National Oil Corp., which had previously remained largely above the political forces tearing at the seams of the country.

While the National Oil Corp. said El Sharara would reopen by Wednesday, the growing turmoil has cast doubt on Libya's ability to maintain its recent rebound in output, which contributed to a near 30 per cent drop in international oil prices since June.

"The manager of the field insists reopening the field just because he wants to make good relations with the invaders," said commander Abdulhamid Kraeer, who belongs to a brigade from Zintan allied to the internationally recognised government, which has fled to the country's east.

"But it is difficult to reopen the [El Sharara] field as there will be, I guess, an escalation," he said, adding that the attackers belong to Operation Dawn, the brigade controlling Tripoli. Dawn was not immediately available for comment.

Libya's oil production rose above 900,000 barrels a day in September, sharply above lows of 100,000 barrels a day in June.

But it now looks increasingly under threat, and has already fallen to around 500,000 bpd at most.

In another sign of shifting power, Sudanese Foreign Minister Ali Karti flew to Tripoli to meet Omar Al Hassi, prime minister of the rival government. A Turkish envoy had already met Hassi, who has so-far been shunned by Western powers.

The internationally recognised government, based in the eastern city of Tobruk since August, has not appointed an oil minister, leading to questions about who will represent Libya when the OPEC producer group meets in Vienna later this month.

UNITED NATIONS — UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Monday appointed a five-member panel to investigate Israeli attacks on UN shelters during the Gaza war and the discovery of Hamas weapons at UN sites.

Ban announced plans to set up a probe during his visit to Gaza last month after describing the three Israeli shellings of UN-run schools as a "moral outrage".

Israel maintained that Palestinian Hamas fighters were using the schools to store weapons but denied that it had deliberately targeted the schools, which were being used as shelters by Palestinians during the 50-day war.

The inquiry led by retired Dutch General Patrick Cammaert will "review and investigate a number of specific incidents in which death or injuries occurred at, and/or damage was done to United Nations premises", said UN spokesman Farhan Haq.

UN officials have said that Hamas rockets were found in vacant shelters and condemned those responsible for putting civilians at risk.

The other members of the panel include Maria Vicien-Milburn of Argentina, American Lee O'Brien, Canadian Pierre Lemelin and K.C. Reddy of India.

The UN spokesman emphasised that Ban "expects that the board will enjoy the full cooperation of all parties concerned".

The UN Human Rights Council in Geneva separately has set up a commission of inquiry into the Gaza offensive, led by Canadian lawyer William Schabas.

BEIRUT/VIENNA — Gunmen killed five nuclear engineers, four of them Syrian and one Iranian, on the outskirts of Damascus on Sunday, a monitoring group said on Monday.

No one claimed responsibility and Syrian and Iranian state media did not mention the attack, which occurred in an area controlled by forces loyal to President Bashar Al Assad.

It was not clear in what capacity the Iranian nuclear engineer was in Syria, if his presence were to be confirmed.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the engineers were shot dead while travelling in a small convoy to a research centre near the northeastern district of Barzeh.

Iran has supported Assad throughout Syria's three-year civil war and Iranian military advisers are working with Syrian forces throughout the country, which is partly under insurgent control.

Both Iran and Syria are under investigation by the UN nuclear watchdog, the IAEA. Both countries have repeatedly denied ever having any nuclear weapons ambitions.

The IAEA said last year that Syria declared a "small amount of nuclear material" at a Miniature Neutron Source Reactor (MSNR), a type of research reactor usually fuelled by highly enriched uranium, near Damascus.

Former IAEA chief inspector Olli Heinonen said there are two nuclear centres on the outskirts of Damascus and that the MNSR is one of them. Heinonen, now at Harvard University's Belfer Centre, said that “the centres do not appear to have had extensive nuclear fuel cycle activities.”

The IAEA used to visit the MNSR about once a year to check nuclear material there but cancelled such inspections last year due to the violence in the country. The MNSR is believed to hold less than a kilogramme of highly enriched uranium, well below the roughly 25kg which experts say would be needed for any bomb.

IAEA inspectors in mid-2008 examined a site in the eastern province Deir Al Zor that US intelligence reports say was a nascent, North Korean-designed reactor geared to making plutonium for nuclear bombs. Israel bombed it in 2007.

But Syrian authorities later repeatedly rebuffed IAEA requests to revisit the site to gather evidence, saying it had been a conventional military base only. The Deir Al Zor region is now largely under the control of Islamist insurgents.

Iran, the United States and European Union began a second day of talks in Oman on Monday to discuss ways to resolve a confrontation over Tehran's nuclear programme.