Region

THE HAGUE — The International Criminal Court (ICC) will not launch a prosecution over Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010 in which 10 Turkish activists died, despite a "reasonable basis" to believe war crimes were committed, the chief prosecutor said Thursday.

Fatou Bensouda said that there would be no investigation leading to a potential prosecution because the alleged crimes, including the killing of the 10 activists by Israeli commandos, were not of "sufficient gravity".

"The information available provides a reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed on board the Comorian-registered vessel the Mavi Marmara during the interception of the flotilla," Bensouda said in a statement on Thursday.

"However, after carefully assessing all relevant considerations, I have concluded that the potential case(s) likely arising from an investigation into this incident would not be of 'sufficient gravity' to justify further action by the ICC," she said.

Nine Turkish nationals died when Israeli commandos staged a botched pre-dawn raid on a six-ship flotilla seeking to bust Israel's naval blockade of the Gaza Strip on May 31, 2010. A tenth activist later died of his wounds.

"Taking into account the serious nature of the physical injuries caused by the IDF's (Israeli Defence Force) use of force against some affected passengers, and even bearing in mind self-defence... the information available provides for a reasonable basis to believe that the IDF soldiers committed [a] war crime," Bensouda said.

The ICC, which was set up in 2002, tries persons accused of the "most serious crimes of international concern", namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.

'Our struggle is not over'  

At a press conference in Istanbul, attorneys representing the Comoros denounced the decision as "politically motivated". They vowed to appeal against it by "all legal avenues" open to them.

"This is a struggle for justice, humanity and honour," attorney Ramazan Ariturk said.

"Our struggle is not over. We will appeal to a higher court for a review and hopefully achieve a favourable result," he added.

Turkish Aid group IHH, which organised the flotilla, said in a statement on Wednesday that although ICC "admitted the crimes and wrongfulness of Israel", it "couldn't take the liberty of going on with the investigation".

Israel acknowledged the decision while expressing regret that the court's time had been wasted looking into what it called a "politically-motivated" complaint.

"Israel believes that it was pointless to initiate a preliminary inquiry in the first place," a foreign ministry statement said, adding that the court was established to "combat the world's worst atrocities".

It also noted that the incident had already been "thoroughly examined in detail" by both an Israeli committee and one established by the UN.

It said that both of these probes "determined that the IDF soldiers were forced to respond with force to protect their lives from lethal, pre-planned and organised violence".

Israel imposed its blockade on Gaza in 2006 after fighters there seized an Israeli soldier, who was eventually freed in 2011 in a trade for 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

The blockade was strengthened in 2007, when the Islamist Hamas movement took control of Gaza, then eased somewhat following an international outcry over the killing of the Turkish activists.

A Turkish court in May ordered the arrest of four former Israeli military chiefs over the raid as part of an ongoing trial in absentia brought by IHH and the victims' families in 2012.

The assault sparked widespread condemnation and provoked a major diplomatic crisis between the two countries.

Ankara expelled the Israeli ambassador, demanded a formal apology and compensation and an end to the blockade on the Gaza Strip.

An Israeli probe found that the raid did not violate international law, in a conclusion which Turkey said lacked credibility.

Israel and Turkey, encouraged by the United States, had until this year been negotiating a compensation deal to normalise their relations.

However, this was put off indefinitely by Israel's deadly onslaught on the Gaza Strip which Turkey strongly condemned.

ISTANBUL — Turkey is pursuing a delicate but dangerous strategy after allowing peshmerga fighters to transit its soil to the besieged Syrian town of Kobani, fearing Kurdish domination of northern Syria but also risking the collapse of the peace process with Turkish Kurds.

While the United States and the West see the Islamic State jihadists battling Kurds for Kobani as enemy number one, Turkey is equally worried about the risks to its security from separatist Kurdish groups.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has insisted that the fighters of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) leading the battle against IS for Kobane are part of a "terror group" allied to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who have fought Turkish security forces in a three decade insurgency for Kurdish self-rule.

Yet battling Western criticism Turkey was too soft on IS, Erdogan last week allowed a modestly-sized contingent of around 150 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga fighters to cross its territory to join the battle for Kobani.

The move was Turkey's only concession in a tricky balancing act aimed at preventing the de-facto independence of Kurdish-populated Syrian territory while also placating the West and Turkish Kurds.

"The Turkish government keeps treating the PKK/PYD as its worst enemy — worse than IS it seems," said David Romano, Associate Professor at Missouri State University and author of several works on the Kurdish movement.

'Peshmerga good, PKK bad' 

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu made clear in an interview with the BBC broadcast last week that Ankara sees three "terror" groups at work in Syria — IS, the PKK, and the regime of President Bashar Assad.

Erdogan inflamed sentiment among Kurds on October 7 when he baldly stated that Kobani was falling, seemingly accepting the capture of the town as a fait accompli.

The peshmerga were given a hero's welcome by Turkey's Kurds who lined the streets to greet their arrival, in scenes that received zero coverage on pro-government television and were regarded with horror by some in Ankara.

But Turkish Defence Minister Ismet Yilmaz said there are no plans for a second deployment of peshmerga and there are also no signs of Turkey offering more.

Rather than a sign Erdogan was bending towards the PYD, the peshmerga deployment was rather new evidence of Ankara's flourishing ties with Iraqi Kurdistan.

"The Iraqi Kurds with their cautious foreign policy and pro-capitalist, conservative politics gave the government in Turkey an opportunity to show that it was just anti-PKK, not anti-Kurdish," said Romano.

But the dilemma for Turkey is that the Kobani crisis arose at a critical time in its own peace process to end the conflict with the PKK, which has left 40,000 dead since the group began its armed struggle in 1984.

Over 30 people were killed last month when Kurdish anger over Erdogan's softly-softly strategy against IS spilled onto the streets. The PKK has warned that a fragile ceasefire that has largely held since 2013 will be over if Kobani falls to IS. 

'Setback for peace process' 

The International Crisis Group said in a report published Thursday that the peace process was at a turning point where it would either collapse "as the sides squander years of work" or accelerate.

"As spillover from Middle East conflicts open up dangerous old ethnic, sectarian and political faultlines in Turkey, the government and the PKK must seek a common end goal that goes beyond a mere maintenance of a peace process," it said.

According to a new report by the the International Institute for Strategic Studies the Kobani crisis is "a major setback to hopes of an imminent resolution of the broader Kurdish question in Turkey”.

The situation is made even more combustible by the potential for internecine clashes within Turkey's Kurdish community involving the radical Kurdish Sunni Muslim Huda-Par group which is sympathetic to IS and abhors the PKK.

But Davutoglu said the government would pursue the peace process with "absolute determination", describing it as a "success story" that was essential for Turkey's future survival.

The ruling Justice and Development Party is acutely aware of the importance of the votes of Turkey's estimated 15-20 million Kurds as it prepares for legislative elections in June.

"We have been at war with Turkey for years. Neither we nor Turkey reached our goal through war. So there must be a political solution," the chief of the PKK's armed guerrillas Cemil Bayik told Austria's Der Standard newspaper in an interview.

PARIS — Reaching a nuclear deal between Iran and six world powers will be more difficult if negotiations drag beyond a November 24 deadline, US Secretary of State John Kerry said on Wednesday.

Kerry, speaking ahead of his planned weekend talks with Iran’s foreign minister, said the United States and its allies were not — for now — weighing an extension of the negotiations.

“I think it gets more complicated if you can’t” meet the deadline, Kerry said, adding “it’s not impossible”.

Negotiators are racing to complete an agreement that would curb Iran’s nuclear programme — which Western powers say they fear is aimed at producing nuclear weapons — in return for gradual lifting of economic sanctions.

Kerry’s remarks seemed aimed in part at raising the pressure on Tehran to agree to the deal, which would see limits on its enrichment of uranium and inspections to verify Iran is complying with the agreement’s terms.

Iran says it nuclear programme is solely for peaceful purposes.

“We have no intention at this point of talking about an extension, and we’re not contemplating an extension,” said Kerry.

The US secretary of state, who met earlier with French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, spoke in Paris a day after US mid-term elections handed control of the US Senate to the Republican Party.

Kerry predicted the change in Senate control would not affect the Iran nuclear talks.

“What is complicated is managing internal expectations in other places,” he said. He was not more specific, but appeared to refer to US allies such as Israel and Saudi Arabia, which remain extremely wary of any deal with Iran.

RIYADH — Saudi authorities blamed militants linked to Al Qaeda, and a Cabinet minister was sacked Wednesday, after an unprecedented attack that killed Shiite worshippers and highlighted sectarian tensions in the Sunni-dominated kingdom.

The dismissal of Culture and Information Minister Abdlaziz Khoja follows Shiite calls for action against hate speech in the media.

Masked gunmen in the kingdom's east late on Monday killed at least six Shiites, including children, during the celebration of Ashura, one of the holiest occasions of their faith.

The attackers were "followers of the deviant ideology", interior ministry spokesman General Mansur Al Turki told Saudi media, using a term often employed by authorities to describe Al Qaeda.

Activists in the Shiite-populated and oil-rich region gave AFP the names and ages of seven people they said had been gunned down in Al Dalwa, a town of several thousand people.

Five of the victims were aged 18 or younger, including 15-year-old Mohammed Husain Al Basrawi, and the youngest to die, Mahdi Eid Al Musharef, aged nine.

The activists also named 12 people they said were wounded.

The interior ministry gave a different toll of six dead, up from five reported initially. Police said nine were wounded.

On Wednesday officials including the area's governor, Prince Badr Bin Mohammad, visited those recovering from their injuries, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

Radical Sunni groups consider Shiites heretics and have targeted them in deadly attacks elsewhere in the region.

The Ashura commemorations mark the killing of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohammed, by the army of the Caliph Yazid in 680 AD — an event that lies at the heart of Islam's sectarian divide into Shiite and Sunni sects.

A resident of Al Dalwa said the town is grappling with mixed emotions after the loss of so many: "Anger, sadness, and also afraid for the future."

Thousands — including some Sunnis — are expected to attend the victims' burial on Friday, said the resident who asked to remain anonymous.

A royal decree dismissed Khoja hours after the information minister announced the closure of a privately owned Sunni television channel which is known for hosting Sunni clerics critical of the Shiite faith.

The royal decree that fired Khoja, and was published by SPA, did not give specific reasons for his removal but said it came "at his request".

"Thank God I served my religion, my nation and my king for nearly a half century, faithfully and with honour,” Khoja tweeted.

In his rare comments on Twitter, he had denounced sectarianism.

"Saudi Arabia is a kingdom of humanity, founded on Islam. Our motto is tolerance, co-existence" he posted following the shootings.

ADEN, Yemen — Backers of Yemen's deposed president on Wednesday accused the US ambassador of threatening him with international sanctions if he didn't leave the country by Friday, an allegation American officials later denied.

Ali Abdullah Saleh, believed by some to be orchestrating the Shiite Houthi rebel uprising now in control of the capital of this impoverished Arab nation, angrily rejected the purported demand. A post on his Facebook page read: "The man has not been created or given birth by his mother yet to tell Ali Abdullah Saleh to leave his country."

His General People's Congress political party said in a statement that US Ambassador Matthew H. Tueller told its officials through mediators that Saleh had to leave before 5:pm Friday, otherwise "sanctions will be imposed against him".

"This is a blatant intervention in Yemen's internal affairs," the party said. "It's rejected and unacceptable."

In Washington, US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki later called the allegation "false".

"There have been no meetings between the ambassador and GPC officials at which any such statements have been made," Psaki said.

On Tuesday, the US asked the UN Security Council to freeze the assets and impose a global travel ban on three figures it blamed for orchestrating Yemen's current unrest: Saleh and two Houthi leaders. All 15 members must approve the sanctions for them to take effect and the council set a Friday night deadline for objections, diplomats at the United Nations said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the consultations have been private.

Saleh fought the Houthis while president for six years until 2010. After Saleh's was toppled in 2012, Houthis expanded their territorial gains from their stronghold of northern Yemen. Since September, the Houthis have managed to take the capital, Sanaa, as well as other key towns and cities.

Houthis are widely suspected of having links to Shiite powerhouse Iran. Houthis follow the Shiite Zaydi faith, a branch of Shiite Islam that is almost exclusively found in Yemen. They represent about 30 per cent of Yemen’s population.

On Wednesday, Houthis swept through the city of Adeen, 200 kilometres south of Sanaa, after repelling Al Qaeda militants following nearly two weeks of fighting, security officials said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to journalists.

Adeen is not the only place where Al Qaeda militants and Houthis fighters are engaged in direct confrontations. On Tuesday, clashes between the two sides killed at least 30 people in the central town of Radda.

Houthis accuse the country’s embattled leadership of failing to take the lead in combatting its local Al Qaeda branch, deemed by Washington as the world’s most dangerous offshoot of the terror network, and has vowed to send Houthi militias to combat the extremist group.

The Houthis also have an anti-American stance and accuse the West of meddling in Yemen’s affairs. US drone strikes in the country target suspected militants in the country and civilian casualties from the strikes anger many here.

BAGHDAD — Britain will send more security personnel to Iraq to help train forces for their battle against the Islamic State jihadist group, Defence Secretary Michael Fallon said on Wednesday.

The United Kingdom, which is supporting US-led air strikes aimed at driving IS jihadists out of significant parts of Iraq, is already training Kurdish forces in the country.

"We will be stepping up our training effort. We're talking to our coalition partners about how the... additional training is going to be provided, in training centres in and around Baghdad," Fallon told journalists in the Iraqi capital.

The training would be for battalions able to leave the front lines, he said, without specifying if it would involve Iraqi soldiers, police or both.

The exact number of trainers that would be sent had not yet been decided.

"One particular area of expertise we have is in counter-IED [improvised explosive devices]. We've learnt from Afghanistan in dealing with roadside bombs and car bombs and we have some specialist knowledge to contribute," said Fallon.

Britain already has a "small number of people" in Baghdad, and "will be looking now to see how we can strengthen that, the liason work that we're doing in the ministries and the security agencies here," he said.

The ministry of defence said last month that a "small, specialist team" of soldiers was providing training to Kurdish forces in the country's autonomous north on the use of heavy machineguns.

And it said in a statement on Wednesday that Britain would be increasing the training on offer to the Kurds "to include infantry skills such as sharp-shooting and first aid, alongside the provision of further equipment".

Fallon met with Prime Minister Haidar Al Abadi, Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani and other senior Iraqi and Kurdish officials during the trip, on which he visited both Baghdad and the northern city of Erbil, the ministry said.

Prime Minister David Cameron has ruled out sending combat troops back into Iraq, wary of committing to a new conflict six months from a general election.

Britain was one of the main members of the US-led “coalition of the willing” that invaded Iraq in 2003 and overthrew dictator Saddam Hussein.

The last British forces withdrew from Iraq in 2011.

Britain has not participated in air strikes by the coalition against IS in Syria, where the jihadist group has also seized significant territory.

ISTANBUL — Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has accused Syrian forces of committing massacres in and around Aleppo and said Turkey would face a major new refugee crisis if Syria's second city fell into their hands.

As US warplanes bomb Islamic State (IS) forces in parts of Syria, President Bashar Assad's military has intensified its campaign against some rebel groups in the west and north that Washington sees as allies, including in and around Aleppo.

Ankara has been pushing for the US-led coalition to broaden its campaign to tackle Assad as well as IS, arguing there can be no peace in Syria if he remains in power.

"We are watching the developments in Aleppo with concern. Though the city is not on the verge of falling, it is under extreme pressure," Davutoglu told reporters late on Tuesday after meeting Turkey's top generals.

Aleppo, Syria's most populous city before the war, has been split roughly in half between opposition groups in the east and government troops in the west. Assad's forces have slowly encircled rebel positions this year trying to cut supply routes.

Davutoglu said Assad's forces were committing "large massacres" by barrel-bombing areas northeast and west of Aleppo under the control of the Free Syrian Army, an umbrella term for the dozens of armed groups fighting Assad.

"If Aleppo were to fall, we in Turkey would really be confronted with a large, very serious, worrisome refugee crisis. This is why we want a safe zone," he said.

Turkey already hosts more than 1.5 million refugees from Syria's civil war and has been pushing the United States and its allies to create a safe haven for refugees on Syrian territory. Any such move on the southern fringe of its border would require a no-fly zone policed by foreign jets.

‘Bastion’ Aleppo

The United States continued its assault on IS militants this week, conducting 14 air strikes in recent days in Syria and Iraq, US Central Command said, three of them near the predominantly Kurdish border town of Kobani.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has criticised the US-led coalition’s focus on Kobani, which has been besieged by IS for more than a month, and warned its attention needed to be turned to other parts of the conflict.

The Syrian civil war has killed close to 200,000 people and forced more than 3 million refugees to flee the country, according to the United Nations.

At least 11 children were killed in Damascus when mortars fell on a school in an eastern district of the Syrian capital, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the war, said on Wednesday.

The school was in a rebel-held part of Qaboun, a district in the east of the city which is contested between government and rebel forces, the monitoring group said. The death toll was expected to rise because a number of those wounded were in critical condition, it said.

Fighters linked to Al Qaeda also took ground from moderate Syrian rebels last week in the northern province of Idlib, expanding their control. A member of the Syrian rebel forces based in southeastern Turkey said on Wednesday the Nusra Front had made further gains in recent days.

Echoing Erdogan’s calls, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said this week that Aleppo, the “bastion” of the opposition, was almost encircled by Assad’s forces and that abandoning it would end hopes of a political solution in Syria.

Paris says it is providing military aid and training to the ramshackle Free Syrian Army, but has not given any specific details. Turkey has also agreed to help train the rebels, although it remains unclear when and where that will happen.

France has also echoed Turkey’s calls for a buffer zone in Syria, but the idea has so far failed to gain much traction elsewhere in the coalition. French diplomats say it is not viable without a UN Security Council resolution.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — A Palestinian slammed his car into pedestrians in Jerusalem on Wednesday, killing an Israeli security officer and wounding nine other people in the second such attack in recent weeks.

The attack followed violent clashes at the flashpoint Al Aqsa Mosque compound earlier in the day involving Israeli forces and stone-throwers.

Israeli forces described the car incident, which took place on the seam line between West Jerusalem and the city's annexed Arab east part, as a "hit and run terror attack".

The driver, whom Israeli forces identified as a Palestinian from Shuafat refugee camp in East Jerusalem, hit two groups of pedestrians before getting out of the vehicle and attacking passers-by with an iron bar.

He was then shot dead by Israeli forces out on patrol in the area.

The attack mirrored an incident on the same road on October 23 when a Palestinian rammed his car into a group of pedestrians, killing a young woman and a baby.

Israeli security spokeswoman Luba Samri said the driver had first struck a group of security personnel Wednesday who were crossing the road near security headquarters, before continuing south and hitting a group of pedestrians waiting at the Shimon HaTsadik light rail station.

After the car came to a halt, the driver, who had sustained injuries during his rampage, “got out of the vehicle and started to hit people with an iron bar,” she said.

Emergency services spokesman Zaki Heller said two of the wounded were in very serious conditions.

Jerusalem’s Israeli mayor Nir Barkat urged the government to act with a firm hand against anyone seeking to terrorise the city through “terror or rioting”.

He was referring to persistent unrest, which has gripped the city’s east for the past four months, triggered by a policy to allow Jewish extremists to pray at Al Aqsa Mosque.

Hailed by Hamas, Jihad 

The attack was hailed by the Islamist Hamas movement, which described the attacker, 38-year-old Ibrahim Al Akari, as a “hero” whose actions were a “natural response” to Israel’s actions at Al Aqsa compound.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lashed out at Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, accusing him of encouraging such attacks by sending condolences to the family of a Palestinian who was shot dead by police last week over the attempted assassination of a rightwing Jewish activist.

“The hit-and-run attack in Jerusalem is a direct consequence of Abu Mazen’s [Abbas’] incitement and that of his partners in Hamas. We are in an ongoing battle for Jerusalem, which I have no doubt we shall win,” he said.

Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch praised the actions of the policeman who shot the driver.

“A terrorist who harms civilians should be killed,” he said in remarks broadcast on television and radio, saying he would recommend that anyone behind such attacks should have his home “destroyed”.

Shortly after the attack, clashes broke out in both Shuafat refugee camp and Issawiya, also in East Jerusalem, an AFP correspondent reported.

The city had been on edge since the morning following heavy clashes between police and protesters at Al Aqsa Mosque compound ahead of a visit by a group of Jewish extremists.

The clashes prompted a furious response from Jordan, which has custodial rights over Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, with Amman recalling its ambassador to Israel “in protest at Israel’s escalation on Al Aqsa Mosque compound”.

In a bid to quell the disturbances, occupation forces entered “several metres [yards]” inside the mosque to remove blockages set up by the protesters in order to lock them inside, she said.

Although it was an “extremely rare” move, Samri said it was not the first time.

Amin Abu Ghazali of the Palestinian Red Crescent told AFP that 39 people were wounded, six of whom were in serious conditions.

The compound was later reopened to visitors with around 108 Israeli Jews entering alongside 200 foreign tourists, Israeli forces said.

Although Jews are permitted to visit the plaza, they are not allowed to pray for fear it could stoke tensions at the site, which is the third holiest shrine in Islam after Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia.

CAIRO — At least 18 people were killed when a bus packed with high school students collided with three other vehicles, including a tanker truck, in northern Egypt on Wednesday, medics said.

The crash, near the Nile Delta city of Damanhur, 160 kilometres north of Cairo, also injured 18 people, some of them seriously, police and hospital officials said.

Medics were not immediately able to say how many of the dead were children because the bodies were so badly burned after the vehicles burst into flames.

The fire completely gutted the bus which had been transporting the teenagers to school. Scorched textbooks were scattered near the wreckage, shown in footage aired by Egyptian television.

Medics said three charred bodies, including that of a police officer, were pulled out of a sedan which was also involved in the crash.

Provincial governor Mustafa Hadhud told Egyptian television that the bus had skidded after torrential rains struck the region.

One of the pupils who survived the crash said that the bus had arrived late and that the driver had explained "there had been a problem" with the vehicle.

"I was sitting in the back of the bus when the accident happened, and I jumped out of a window," the child told the private Egyptian CBC Extra in a telephone call from hospital.

Roads in Egypt are often poorly maintained and traffic regulations little enforced.

On Sunday, 11 female university students were killed in a collision in the south of Egypt.

That accident sparked protests by fellow students in Sohag province.

Road accidents are responsible for an average of nearly 12,000 deaths a year in Egypt, according to the World Health Organisation.

After Wednesday's crash, President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi ordered the prime minister to visit the scene.

He also gave instructions for the injured to be treated in military hospitals.

A Cabinet statement promised "decisive measures to confront road accidents".

MUSCAT — Oman's Sultan Qaboos, in Germany for medical treatment since July, said on Wednesday he would miss annual celebrations of his birthday this month in the Arabian peninsula country he has ruled for more than four decades.

Many Omanis have been praying publicly for the safe return of their 73-year-old ruler after nearly four months abroad — an unprecedented absence for the sultan.

Since taking power in 1970, Sultan Qaboos has transformed the small oil exporter from a poverty-stricken backwater torn by dissent into a prosperous Western-allied state, earning a reputation as a mediator seeking to ease periodic tensions between the Gulf Arab states and neighbouring non-Arab Iran.

In a video message broadcast on state television, a frail-looking Sultan Qaboos offered greetings to Omanis on the occasion of his birthday, which falls on November 18 and is celebrated in Oman as a national day.

"The divine will has dictated that the occasion this year falls while we are outside the dear homeland for reasons you know," said Sultan Qaboos, seated on chair in a greenish-brown uniform and reading from a written text.

"But, by God's grace, He prepared the good results that will require a follow-up in accordance with the medical programme during the coming period," he added, without giving any further details.

Sultan Qaboos usually presides over an annual military parade in Muscat on his birthday, an event he is not known to have missed since ousting his father in a 1970 palace coup.

Oman's royal court last month told Omanis ahead of the Muslim Eid Al Adha holiday that Sultan Qaboos was in good health, but did not say what kind of tests he was undergoing or what he might be suffering from.

In private conversations, some Omanis have expressed concern about reports that the sultan is suffering from colon cancer. The authorities have not commented on the reports.

In his message, Sultan Qaboos also greeted Oman's armed forces, saying he remained committed to "equip them with whatever is necessary to carry out their duties and to deliver on their noble task of protecting the homeland and safeguarding its gains".