Region

TRIPOLI — Libya's internationally recognised prime minister said Saturday that military forces in the strife-torn country had united to try to recapture Tripoli and the second city Benghazi from Islamist militias.

Abdullah Al Thani also expressed his frustration over a lack of support from the international community, calling for foreign weapons and assistance in the fight against the Islamists.

"All military forces have been placed under army command to liberate Tripoli and Benghazi soon, inshallah [God willing]," Thani told AFP in a telephone interview from the eastern town of Al Baida.

Since a 2011 revolution which toppled Libya's longtime leader Muammar Qadhafi, interim authorities have failed to establish a regular army and had to rely on state-backed militias.

Former rebels who fought against Qadhafi have formed powerful militias and seized control of large parts of turmoil-gripped Libya over the past three years.

On Wednesday, retired general Khalifa Haftar launched an operation against Islamist militias in the eastern city of Benghazi with the backing of army units and civilians who have taken up arms.

The operation is “under the control of the regular army and the control of the government and the parliament”, said Thani.

An AFP count based on hospital sources in the city put the death toll in Benghazi at 66 since Haftar’s offensive began, including eight killed on Saturday and four who died in a suicide attack the previous day.

Haftar launched a first, unsuccessful campaign against Islamists in the city back in May but failed to muster support from the authorities who accused the Qadhafi-era general of trying to mount a coup.

Before this week’s assault, Haftar’s forces had been steadily beaten back to a final redoubt at Benghazi’s airport, which has come under attack by Islamists since mid-September.

Thani’s government and parliament, elected on June 25, have taken refuge in the country’s east to escape Fajr Libya, a mainly Islamist coalition which seized control of Tripoli at the end of August.

The fall of the capital followed a weeks-long battle with pro-government militias from the town of Zintan in western Libya.

Thani said the Zintan forces had also been placed under army command and joined regular units which aim to recapture the capital.

“All the forces have been placed under the command of the army to liberate Tripoli,” Thani said.

He branded Fajr Libya as “outlaws” who had set up an “illegitimate” parallel government and alleged the group was the armed wing of movements such the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist factions.

Western arms needed

Unlike its predecessor, Libya’s new parliament is dominated by anti-Islamist lawmakers.

Nevertheless, Thani said Islamists “are welcome to join us to build a democratic state as long as they accept the choices of the Libyan people”.

After seizing Tripoli, Fajr Libya extended its operations to the western Warshefana region which supports Zintan fighters, charging that diehard Qadhafi loyalists were holed up in the town.

The Zintanis last week launched a counter-offensive on several fronts in western Libya, including attacks on the towns of Kekla and Al Kalaa which support Fajr Libya, triggering deadly clashes.

The United Nations called for a four-day ceasefire in the area beginning Saturday “to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian assistance”, its Libya mission said in a statement.

Thani said the conflict in western Libya was political, unlike violence in Benghazi where authorities are fighting “terrorist groups”.

He also voiced frustration about a lack of international assistance to fight the Islamists.

“Do they want us to fight terrorism with sticks and stones? We are not asking for forces on the ground but for logistical support and arms,” he said.

The key jihadist group on the ground in Benghazi is Ansar Al Sharia, classified as a terrorist organisation by the United States.

“Ansar Al Sharia wants to transform Benghazi into an Islamic state,” said Thani.

On Friday, US ambassador Deborah Jones tweeted that it was up to Libya to confront its Islamist insurgency.

“We condemn Ansar Al Sharia’s ongoing attacks against the Libyan people,” Jones posted on Twitter.

“Confronting terrorist orgs is necessary + should be done by regular armed forces under control of accountable, democratic central authority,” another of her tweets said.

Libya has been struggling to obtain weapons and ammunition due to UN sanctions imposed at the start of the 2011 revolt which are still in effect.

BAGHDAD — Iraqi lawmakers approved Prime Minister Haider Al Abadi’s remaining Cabinet nominees on Saturday, including for the critical defence and interior portfolios, completing the formation of a government that will strive to push the Islamic State (IS) extremist group out of the sprawling territory it has seized in recent months.

Control over the two powerful security ministries has long been a source of tension among Iraq’s feuding political factions. The US and other allies have been pushing for a more representative government that can reach out to Sunnis, who felt marginalised by former Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al Maliki. Sunni discontent is widely seen as having fuelled the IS group’s dramatic advances in Iraq since June, when it captured the country’s second largest city Mosul.

Khaled Al Obeidi, a Sunni lawmaker from Mosul, was selected for the post of defence minister, by a vote of 175-85. He had served as an officer in Saddam Hussein’s military and holds a PhD in political science.

Mohammed Salem Al Ghabban, a Shiite lawmaker with Abadi’s State of Law political bloc, was approved as minister of interior by a 197-63 vote. He holds degrees from universities in both Tehran and London and he is currently pursuing a PhD in political science in Baghdad. He was a long-time opponent of Saddam and was detained in 1979.

Hoshiyar Zebari, a Kurdish politician and Iraq’s long-serving foreign minister, was named minister of finance, having previously been voted in as deputy prime minister. Shiite lawmaker Adel Fahd Al Shirshab was named tourism minister, and Kurdish lawmaker Bayan Nouri was appointed minister of women’s affairs.

Iraq is facing its worst crisis since the 2011 withdrawal of US troops, with the IS in control of about a third of the country.

Iraq’s US-trained and equipped armed forces collapsed in the face of the militants’ advance, abandoning heavy weapons that the extremist group is now using in battles across both Iraq and Syria.

Many have blamed the army’s poor performance on Maliki, saying he replaced top officers with inexperienced or incompetent political allies in order to monopolise power. 

From 2010 until his resignation in August, Al Maliki had held both the interior and defence portfolios, in part because lawmakers could not agree on nominees for them.

The US began launching air strikes against the Islamic State group in August and along with Western allies has provided aid to Iraqi forces and Kurds fighting in the north. But Washington has repeatedly called on Baghdad to reach out to the Sunni and Kurdish minorities, saying only a unified Iraqi government can defeat the extremists.

US Secretary of State John Kerry called the completion of the Iraqi government a “very positive step forward”.

“These were critical positions to be filled in order to assist with the organising effort with respect to ISIL,” Kerry told reporters in Boston on Saturday.

The State Department praised the move in a statement, saying the ministers “represent the diversity of Iraq, and complete an inclusive Cabinet”.

Iraqi lawmakers expressed hope that the new government would help boost morale among troops in the field.

“I think that the security situation will improve after the selection of the two ministers, because now troops know that when they fight, the whole country and all the political blocs are supporting them,” said Rsoul Radhi, a Shiite lawmaker from Al Abadi’s bloc.

“All security and political efforts should now be directed toward retaking the territories held by Daesh,” he added, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

Lawmakers approved most of Abadi’s Cabinet on September 8 and officially voted him in as prime minister, bringing a formal end to Al Maliki’s eight-year rule, but Abadi requested a delay in naming defence and interior ministers because lawmakers had not agreed on his proposed candidates. Candidates put forward on September 16 were rejected by parliament.

“Security issues should now be the priority for Iraqi officials and politicians who showed today they are aware that political wrangling will lead the country nowhere,” said Kurdish lawmaker Perwan Muslih. “All efforts should be directed toward the common enemy.”

MURSITPINAR, Turkey — Kurdish forces in the Syrian town of Kobani repulsed a new attempt by Islamic State (IS) fighters to cut off the border with Turkey Saturday as troops battled the jihadists in neighbouring Iraq.

It came as the US military said it had unleashed 25 more air strikes in Syria and Iraq since Friday, hitting IS jihadists and oil infrastructure they control.

But while Washington said it saw "encouraging" signs, it warned the raids might not prevent the fall of Kobani, and its priority remained the campaign against IS in Iraq.

Despite a wave of coalition air strikes in recent weeks, Iraqi forces are struggling to regain and hold ground from jihadists.

Heavy IS mortar fire hit the Syrian side of the border crossing with Turkey. 

The crossing is the Kurdish fighters’ sole avenue for resupply and the only escape route for remaining civilians, Kurdish official Idris Nassen told AFP.

At least three rounds crashed onto Turkey’s side of the border, one of them near a hill where the Turkish army is deployed, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.

The jihadists launched a fierce attack from the east towards the border gate before being pushed back, Nassen said.

IS suffered heavy losses in the fighting and was forced to send in reinforcements, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The jihadists lost 21 of their people to air strikes and another 14 in ground fighting on Friday, the Britain-based monitoring group said. The Kurds lost three of their fighters.

UN Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura warned earlier this month that about 12,000 civilians remained in and around Kobani and risked “massacre” if the jihadists cut off the border.

Overnight coalition air strikes on IS targets elsewhere in Syria killed 10 civilians, the observatory said.

Seven died in Deir Al Zor province in the east and three more in Hasakeh province in the northeast, said the group, which has a wide network of sources inside the country.

‘Iraq our main effort’ 

Of 15 air strikes in Syria since Friday, 12 were aimed at “degrading and destroying their oil producing, collecting, storage and transportation infrastructure,” the US Central Command said.

Three other strikes in Syria hit two IS fighting positions near Kobani and a military camp in mainly jihadist-held Raqaa province.

The US commander overseeing the air war hailed “encouraging” signs in the defence of Kobani, but said the town could still fall and that Iraq remained the coalition’s priority.

“Iraq is our main effort and it has to be, and the things that we’re doing right now in Syria are being done primarily to shape the conditions in Iraq,” said General Lloyd Austin.

In Baghdad, MPs on Saturday approved defence and interior ministers after weeks of delay.

Khaled Al Obaidi, a Sunni who was named defence minister, was a senior officer in the air force of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein.

Gaining some level of support from Iraq’s Sunni Arab minority — many members of which are deeply mistrustful of the Shiite-led government and view the armed forces as an instrument of repression — will be key to pushing IS back.

Iraqi government troops are battling IS on two fronts — in the Anbar provincial capital of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, and near Tikrit, Saddam’s hometown.

Ramadi is in a shrinking patch of territory in the predominantly Sunni Arab province where forces loyal to the Shiite-led government still hold ground, and its loss would be a major blow for Baghdad.

On Friday and Saturday, 10 air strikes targeted IS in Iraq, including five near the strategic Mosul Dam, north of Baghdad, the US military said.

But security in the capital also remains a problem with bombings killing nearly 50 people in the past two days alone.

The UN Security Council on Friday unanimously called for increased support for the Baghdad government in the face of the “vicious string of suicide, vehicle-borne and other attacks” in the capital.

The IS jihadists have committed a wave of atrocities including massacres of ethnic minority civilians and captured soldiers, and beheadings of Western aid workers and journalists.

In Syria’s northern province of Aleppo, IS jihadists on Thursday executed a man they accused of filming their headquarters, and displayed his body on a cross, the observatory said.

Meanwhile, two IS fighters, one just 15, were executed after being captured near Kobani by Arab allies of its Kurdish defenders, the monitoring group said.

BEIRUT — Lebanon has all but closed its borders to refugees fleeing Syria's civil war, overwhelmed by an influx of over 1 million people displaced by fighting, UN and Lebanese officials said Saturday.

Quoted by Lebanon's Al Akhbar newspaper, Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said Lebanon "no longer officially receives any displaced Syrians".

He said exceptions were available for refugees for "humanitarian reasons" to be judged by Lebanon's social affairs and interior ministries.

"We informed [the UN refugee agency] UNHCR that we are no longer able to receive displaced people," he added.

Ninette Kelley, UNHCR's representative in Lebanon, confirmed increased restrictions at the border with Syria.

"Our understanding is that people who are coming to claim refugee status are not being permitted to enter in the way that they were previously," she told AFP.

"What we've seen over the last two to three weeks is that there are greater restrictions... We've seen that there are fewer people approaching us for registration which is also indicative of tightening of the border."

Kelley said there were no precise figures on the number of refugees allowed to enter.

"Some days there are refugees that are allowed in, and there's other days where it's only a few."

Kelley said some refugees were still entering under the humanitarian criteria, which the government has yet to publicly explain or share with UNHCR.

She said the restrictions started on Lebanon's northern border in August and were extended to the main official border crossing, Masnaa, on its eastern frontier in September.

Not all Syrian refugees enter Lebanon through the official crossings, however, with many traversing the porous and difficult-to-patrol border area.

Lebanon is already hosting more than 1.1 million Syrian refugees, an enormous strain for a country with a population of just 4 million.

The influx has tested the country's overstretched infrastructure, and created fresh tensions.

Lebanese politicians have long warned that the country cannot continue to shoulder such a disproportionate refugee burden, and calls for the closure of the border have increased after numerous security incidents.

In August, Syrian jihadist groups crossed into the eastern Lebanese border town of Arsal, sparking clashes with the military that left dozens dead.

The retreating jihadists took with them some 30 Lebanese police and troops as hostages, and have since executed three.

UNHCR has regularly urged the international community to provide Lebanon with greater assistance to tackle the influx.

The agency has also called on other countries to open their doors to fleeing Syrians to ease the burden on Lebanon and other neighbouring states.

More than 3 million Syrians have fled their country since the uprising that began in March 2011, with most taking shelter in Lebanon, Jordan, Turkey and Iraq.

MAJD AL KRUM, Israel — Their goal is to win Arab Idol, the Arab world's premiere television song competition.

But the journey Manal Mousa, 25, and Haitham Khalaily, 24, have taken from their villages in Israel to the competition in Lebanon could comprise a television drama of its own — featuring travel to an enemy country, Israeli security interrogations, and the complicated identity crisis of Israel's Arabs.

The two singers are competing for more than just fame: They want to be a part of the cultural world that has been largely off limits to them because of the decades long Arab-Israeli conflict.

"This is a chance for Haitham," said Waheeb Khalaily, Haitham's father, in his home in Majd Al Krum, a village in the Galilee, in northern Israel. "For the Arab world and the whole world to hear him and say that he represents a Palestinian people that clings to its land."

In the bitter conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbours, Arab-Israelis are stuck in the middle. Though citizens of Israel, they share the ethnicity, language and culture of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Arabs who remained in Israel after its creation in 1948, and their descendants, today make up 20 per cent of the population. Many identify as Palestinians rather than Israelis, watch Arab satellite television and dream of travelling throughout the Middle East. But their Israeli citizenship bars them from most Arab countries because Israeli passport holders are prohibited entry.

That includes the Lebanese capital of Beirut, where many Arab stars are born.

When the show held its first-ever auditions in the West Bank in March, the lure of making it big was too tempting for Mousa and Khalaily to worry about borders.

They, and other young Arab singers in Israel, drove past Israeli military checkpoints to stand in line with hundreds of Palestinians for videotaped auditions. Mousa, Khalaily and two dozen others advanced to the next round in Beirut the following month.

The Israeli-Lebanese border is sealed, so the two used their Israeli passports to cross into neighbouring Jordan where they boarded a plane for Beirut. At the Lebanese airport, they presented travel documents that the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank issued them especially for the trip, a Palestinian interior ministry official said.

In Beirut, they passed all three rounds of auditions and were chosen to be among the 26 final contestants from around the Arab world — the first time Arabs from Israel have ever been selected for the show.

After Mousa and Khalaily returned to Israel in May to wait for the show's taping, Israel's Shin Bet intelligence service summoned them for interrogations about their travel, their families said. Their Israeli passports were confiscated and they were told the passports would be revoked for up to three months, the families said. Through the help of rights groups, their passports were returned within days, Mousa's family said.

The Shin Bet did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Israel has sentenced Arab-Israelis in the past on charges of travelling abroad to conspire with groups for attacks against Israel or to fight alongside rebels in Syria.

The same month the two singers travelled to Lebanon, Israel arrested a 23-year-old Arab-Israeli journalist returning from a conference there. Officials initially thought he was recruited by fighters but later dropped the suspicion.

Travel to Lebanon is punishable under Israeli law by four years in jail or paying a fine, said Aram Mahameed, a lawyer from the Arab-Israeli rights group Adalah, whom Khalaily's family consulted after the contestant was interrogated.

"It is a law against the Arabs in Israel to disconnect them from other Arabs in the Arab countries," said Mahameed.

Though Jewish and Arab Israelis have faced indictment for travelling to Lebanon, their trials generally do not proceed unless they are accused of other crimes, he said, adding that Israeli Jewish journalists who have gone to Lebanon have not been questioned upon their return.

Mousa and Khalaily are now in Beirut taping the show, which is airing weekly on the Arab satellite channel MBC. Show producers said in a statement that contestants were unavailable for media interviews due to "exhausting preparations and tight production deadlines".

Last year, Lina Makhoul, an Arab-Israeli, won on the Israeli TV singing show The Voice, but her success has been confined to Israel. By contrast, when Mohammed Assaf, a Palestinian from Gaza, won Arab Idol last year, he catapulted to fame, and he continues to perform before Arab audiences throughout the Middle East, the United States and Europe.

It is unclear whether the two contestants' Israeli connection will affect their chances. Some in the Arab world perceive Arabs in Israel as traitors. Others sympathetically view Israel's Arabs as those who remained while others fled or were driven out in the 1948 war surrounding the end of the British Mandate of Palestine and the establishment of Israel.

Mousa's sister, Sabren, said her family feels "100 per cent" Palestinian.

"We live in Israel that was originally Palestine. I feel very proud... that we did not give up our lands," she said from their home in the Galilee village of Deir Al Assad in Israel's north.

Though some fans in the contestants' home base know by word of mouth that they live in Israel, viewers wouldn't know by watching the show.

Banners on the screen label them as hailing from Palestine, and the show makes no reference to their connections to Israel.

In a recent episode, Mousa sang a Palestinian ballad wearing dark red lipstick, a traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, and a headband of dangling coins.

"I salute the Palestine inside you," said Lebanese singing heartthrob Wael Kfouri, one of the judges.

"You're telling people that the voice of Palestine will reach the whole world," said another judge, Egyptian composer Hassan El Shafei, as the studio audience applauded and Mousa's eyes filled with tears.

Arab Idol is largely cut off from the singers' fan base in Israel. The show provides no local phone numbers for Arabs in Israel to dial to vote for contestants, so every week their families drive to the West Bank and use a Palestinian cell phone provider to cast their votes.

Khalaily's sister says she worries about her brother being charged for breaking Israeli law when he returns from Beirut.

"We hope he won't face problems, but if he does, he has nothing to fear," said Eman Khalaily. "He went to sing and that's what he loves to do... He wants his voice to reach everywhere."

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia is seeing "sporadic" cases of the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV), which has killed 324 people in the country, the health ministry said Thursday.

The kingdom has been hardest hit by MERS, which has also appeared in about 20 other nations.

The ministry said it has recorded "sporadic cases of MERS-CoV around the kingdom" and reiterated the need for precautions to help prevent the virus from spreading.

From June 2012 the ministry has recorded 763 people contracting MERS, 429 of which have recovered. Ten are listed as "active".

Data reported on the ministry's website show only one MERS death from July 11 to September 24.

Since then three Saudis have died, with the latest reported on October 7.

Research by Saudi scientists indicates that camels play a role in the transmission of the virus to humans.

In June, the World Health Organisation said a surge in MERS cases had receded but countries should remain vigilant ahead of pilgrimages to Saudi Arabia.

The kingdom engaged thousands of health workers to ensure the two million pilgrims who visited earlier this month for the annual Muslim hajj were protected from MERS and another deadly virus, Ebola.

On Tuesday the WHO said no new MERS cases have been linked to the hajj.

Acting Health Minister Adel Fakieh also has said the hajj was "free of all epidemic diseases".

DOHA — The leader of the Palestinian group Hamas on Thursday called on Muslims to defend Al Aqsa Mosque compound in Jerusalem, saying Israel was trying to seize the site, revered in Islam and Judaism, and focus of a Palestinian uprising in 2000.

Khaled Mishaal, speaking in the Qatari capital Doha where he lives in exile, said: "We call on all our people inside the country to hurry up to Al Aqsa to defend it."

Palestinians, fearing Israel planned to restrict access to the site for Muslims, clashed with Israeli police there earlier this week when security forces arrived for what a police spokesman said was an attempt to stop them from "staging a riot and disrupting visits".

Meshaal said the Israeli government was taking advantage of Arab preoccupation with regional turmoil, particularly in Syria and Iraq, to try to take over Al Aqsa, the third holiest shrine in Islam which is also revered by Jews as the former site of a Biblical temple.

"We call on the nation to be angry and to send a message of painful anger to the world that the Palestinian people, the Arab and Muslim nation, will not be silent at the Israeli crime," Mishaal said.

Palestinians accuse Israel of trying to restrict their access to the mosque in Jerusalem's walled Old City to allow Jews to pray there. Orthodox Jews are pressing for easier access to the compound.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has denied there are any moves to restrict Palestinian access to the compound and blamed "Palestinian extremists" for the violence.

A visit in 2000 to the site by Israeli politician Ariel Sharon, after US-brokered peace talks broke down, was followed by a five-year Palestinian uprising.

Asked if he was worried his call may lead to a new conflict soon after Palestinians in the Gaza Strip endured a 50-day war with Israel that killed more than 2,000 Palestinians, Mishaal said: "Nobody wants a war, but it's our right to resist and preserve our rights. We are under occupation... We have been resisting for one hundred years and will continue.

"Al Aqsa is worth us becoming martyrs for, and anyone who can carry a weapon in the region should go and defend it, as this is the true meaning of jihad."

Hamas, founded in 1988 in the Gaza Strip, has grown to be one of the main Palestinian political and military groups. Last August it was one of the main groups that fought a seven-week war with Israel in the Gaza Strip.

SANAA — Suspected Al Qaeda militants have captured a town in southwest Yemen in a deadly attack seen as a countermove to advances by Shiite rebels sweeping across the strife-hit country.

Rival groups are seeking to exploit a power vacuum in impoverished Yemen, which has been in a political deadlock since the Houthi Shiite rebels took control of the capital Sanaa last month.

Al Qaeda's Yemen-based franchise, considered by the United States to be the deadliest branch of the extremist network, has vowed to fight the rebels in defence of Sunni Muslims.

Its militants stormed the town of Udain overnight, setting fire to the police headquarters and attacking the offices of the local government, a security official and local sources said Thursday.

Five policemen were reported dead.

The offensive came just hours after Shiite rebels overran the provincial capital of Ibb located 20 kilometres to the east.

Yemen, a key ally in US efforts to combat Al Qaeda, has been wracked by political turmoil and sporadic violence since an uprising toppled strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2012.

Al Qaeda is active in several Yemeni provinces, mainly in the south and southeast, where repeated government military campaigns drove the network's militants out of key cities they once controlled.

The push into Udain appeared to be in retaliation for the Houthis' capture of Ibb, a local official said.

Already in control of Sanaa and the strategic port city of Hudeida, the Shiite rebels on Wednesday appeared to have taken control, unopposed, of the Dhamar and Ibb provinces, security officials said.

They have been taking advantage of the political crisis in Sanaa to seize significant areas, threatening the authority of the Sunni-led central government.

The Houthis have kept up their advance despite the naming of a new prime minister on Monday by President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi in a bid to resolve the stalemate.

The steady expansion of the Shiite rebels has increased the threat of an open confrontation with Al Qaeda.

Deadly fighting broke out Tuesday when the Houthis tried to expand out of the town of Rada in central Baida and clashed with Al Qaeda militants.

Five rebels, six suspected Al Qaeda militants and a civilian were killed during the fighting in Rada, a security official and tribal sources said Wednesday.

Suspected Al Qaeda militants executed a local Houthi chief, Khalil Al Riyami, who was apparently captured during clashes, local sources said.

Al Qaeda gunmen were also spotted in Ibb and Taez, the largest city in Yemen that lies further south.

But a deal has been reached between the local government of Taez and representatives of the rebels who agreed not to enter the city, helping to avert potential confrontations, a local official said.

The Houthis, who have long complained of marginalisation by Sanaa, were so far concentrated in the mostly Shiite northern highlands in otherwise Sunni-majority Yemen.

Houthi militiamen stormed into Sanaa on September 21, easily seizing key government installations, and they now man checkpoints and run patrols across the capital in almost total absence of the security forces.

Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for a powerful suicide bombing that killed 47 people at a gathering of Houthi supporters in Sanaa earlier this month.

An unknown assailant on a motorbike late on Wednesday hurled a grenade at a Houthi post in the capital, killing two people and wounding two others, rebels said.

November 30 'deadline' 

Attempting to seize the opportunity of weakening state authority, thousands of supporters of the separatist Southern Movement continued a sit-in they started Tuesday in the main city of the south, Aden, demanding renewed independence.

"We have set a deadline of November 30 to be handed control of military and security institutions in the south," said Southern Movement activist Adib Al Issa.

If this does not happened, he warned, "they will be seized by force".

The south was independent between the end of British colonial rule in 1967 and its union with the north in 1990.

A secession attempt four years later sparked a brief but bloody civil war that ended with northern forces occupying the region.

BAGHDAD — Militants unleashed a wave of attacks in Iraq on Thursday, mainly targeting Shiite areas in and around the capital of Baghdad, killing at least 47 people and wounding dozens, authorities said.

The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the day's deadliest attack. The Sunni militant group has overrun vast areas in western and northern Iraq as well as parts of neighbouring Syria, and has vowed to destabilise and eventually take over Baghdad.

In that strike, two parked car bombs exploded simultaneously in a commercial area in the northern Dolaie neighbourhood, killing 14 civilians and wounding 34 others, a police officer said.

Angry residents in the neighbourhood threw stones at police checkpoints and police cars that arrived to respond to the blasts, prompting police to withdraw from the area.

Senior Iraqi officials have tried to reassure residents that the capital is too well-protected for militants to capture, even as they struggle to stop frequent near daily deadly attacks.

The Islamic State group said the Dolaie attack targeted Iraqi soldiers and Shiite militiamen allied with them. The authenticity of the claim could not be independently verified, but it was posted on websites frequently used by the group.

In the eastern neighbourhood of Talibiyah, a suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a police checkpoint, killing at least 12 people, another police officer said. The dead in that attack included seven policemen and five civilians, he added. At least 28 other people were wounded.

Six other civilians were killed and 16 wounded in another car bomb explosion on a commercial street in the northern Hurriyah district, police said.

And in the northern Shula neighbourhood, six civilians were killed and 18 wounded when mortar rounds rained down on a residential area, police added.

IS fighters say they have a foothold inside Baghdad. They have claimed several large-scale bombings in the city recently, particularly in the Shiite districts in Baghdad.

Shortly before sunset, police said a car bomb explosion at the Shiite part of Mahmoudiya town killed seven people and wounded 12 others. Mahmoudiya is 30 kilometres south of Baghdad. A roadside bomb also hit an army patrol just south of Baghdad, killing two soldiers and wounding four others.

Medical officials confirmed the causality figures. All officials spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorised to release information to the media.

Thursday’s explosions have brought the death toll from attacks since Sunday to at least 150 people, mostly in Baghdad, according to an Associated Press tally.

RAMALLAH — The Palestinians will submit a draft resolution to the UN Security Council demanding the end of Israel's occupation by the end of October, a senior official said on Thursday.

The Palestinians have been under intense pressure not to push forward with the resolution — including with alleged threats of cuts to US aid — but Palestine Liberation Organisation secretary general Yasser Abed Rabbo said a decision was taken late Wednesday to push ahead.

"The political council of the PLO decided during its meeting last night... to go to the UN Security Council with the aim of getting a resolution passed to end the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories... by the end of this month," he said.

Voting could take place "two weeks or more after the request is presented," Abed Rabbo told a news conference in the West Bank city of Ramallah. "There is no excuse for a delay."

Since the collapse of US-led peace talks with Israel in April, the Palestinians have been pursuing a new diplomatic path to independence via the United Nations and by joining international organisations.

The Palestinians won the status of UN observer state in 2012.

A draft of the resolution obtained by AFP earlier this month calls for the "full withdrawal of Israel, the occupying power, from all of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, as rapidly as possible and to be fully completed within a specified timeframe, not to exceed November 2016”.

An initiative in the Security Council is sure to meet opposition from the United States, which has repeatedly vetoed resolutions seen as undermining Israel.

Abed Rabbo said he hoped the draft would at least survive long enough to be debated by the 15-member council, even if its chances of being carried were slim.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon on Monday that a Palestinian diplomatic offensive would "undermine" peace efforts.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said earlier this month that the Palestinians are risking $700 million a year in US aid by pursuing the resolution.

He warned the Palestinians could also seek to join the International Criminal Court, where they could sue Israeli officials over allegations of war crimes.