Region

ANKARA — Turkish Airlines said it is investigating after Arabic inscriptions found on several of its plane engines sparked panic among staff who feared a security breach by Islamist militants — only to find the inscriptions were of a prayer for abundance.

The incident has raised security fears at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport as no security camera footage was available to find those responsible for the mysterious blessings, airport news website Airporthaber reported.

The discovery of Arabic writing on a jet engine at Europe's fifth-busiest airport on Sunday led to fears among staff who, unable to read it, feared it might be linked to Islamic State militants, Airporthaber said.

Similar inscriptions were then found on the engines of three more aircraft, all of which had arrived from different destinations.

Initial fears that the writings were Islamist propaganda were unfounded, however. A spokesman for the company told Reuters on Wednesday that they were in fact an Arabic prayer.

"An investigation has been launched into this issue. We don't think there is a link with a terror organisation, nor was there a threat to our flights," the spokesman added.

The incident comes as Islamic State fighters besiege the Syrian town of Kobani just metres from Turkey's southeastern frontier.

Foreign diplomats estimate that hundreds of so-called "foreign fighters" have travelled via Istanbul to reach the battlefields of Syria and Iraq, and say NATO member Turkey could be vulnerable to Islamist plots targeting western tourists.

Fear of retaliation from Islamic State has played a role in Turkey's reluctance thus far to take a frontline role in the US-led coalition to tackle the radical group, which has captured vast swathes of territory in the Middle East, sending shockwaves through the region.

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama on Tuesday told military leaders from more than 20 countries working with Washington to defeat Islamic State (IS) that he was deeply concerned about the radical group's advances at the north Syrian town of Kobani and in western Iraq.

But Obama did not hint any changes to what he saw as long-term strategy that would see ups and downs in the months ahead, even as pressure builds for the coalition to stop the IS from taking control of more territory.

"This is going to be a long-term campaign," Obama told the defence chiefs during a meeting at Andrews Air Force Base, outside Washington.

He spoke after US-led air strikes had pounded IS targets around Kobani near the Turkish border, where Kurdish fighters are struggling to repel an onslaught by the radical Islamist group.

He said at this point there was a focus on the fighting in Anbar, adding: "And we're deeply concerned about the situation in and around the Syrian town of Kobani, which underscores the threat that ISIL poses in both Iraq and Syria." He used an alternative acronym for the group.

US troops had battled hard to secure Anbar against Al Qaeda militants during the Iraq war but it is now at risk of being taken over by Islamic State militants.

"Coalition air strikes will continue in both of these areas," Obama said.

The meeting of military chiefs from 22 countries included representatives from Turkey and Saudi Arabia and was led by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff.

A US military official told Reuters after the talks that there was an acknowledgement that the IS was making some gains on the ground, despite the air strikes. But there was also a sense that the coalition, working together, would ultimately prevail, the official said.

"In the short term, there are some gains that they have been able to make. In the long term, that momentum will be reversed," the official said, adding the coalition would adjust its tactics as IS fighters increasingly blend into the population and become harder to target.

Alistair Baskey, spokesman for the White House National Security Council, said the meetings were "part of ongoing efforts to build the coalition and integrate the capabilities of each country into the broader strategy."

Obama said the campaign was still in its early stages. "There will be days of progress and there are going to be some periods" of setbacks, he said, but added that "our coalition is united behind this long-term effort".

The US military announced that US and Saudi planes had carried out 21 air strikes in the last two days near Kobani, the most intense attack yet after days of air strikes.

US Central Command said the strikes on the militants' staging areas, compounds and armed vehicles, were meant to hit supply lines and stop reinforcements. It said the situation was fluid but the Kurdish militia was "continuing to hold out”.

The White House said representatives from Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Britain Canada, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Iraq, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and the United States attended the closed meetings.

Having Turkey at the table was critical. Ankara has come under pressure to play a more active role against IS, and this week agreed to help equip and train some Syrian armed groups fighting the militants, as well as the Syrian government.

US and Turkish officials say talks are under way between the two countries on allowing the use of Turkish facilities for countries engaged in the campaign against Islamic State.

BAGHDAD — An Iraqi MP and prominent militia leader was one of at least 21 people killed on Tuesday in a suicide bombing immediately claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

Ahmed Al Khafaji, a commander in the Shiite Badr militia, was killed in the attack in the Kadhimiyah area of Baghdad, a fellow lawmaker and a medical official said.

The bombing, which wounded at least another 51 people, was the third in the Shiite district of Kadhimiyah in four days.

In a statement posted online, the Islamic State (IS) said that a suicide bomber it identified as Abu Aisha Al Samarraie had carried out the attack and that Khafaji was the target.

A Shiite MP said that Khafaji was killed in the attack.

"We have confirmed that he was killed, although it is not yet entirely clear whether he was the target of the attack," the MP told AFP.

A medical official also said Khafaji was among the 21 people killed in the explosion.

Khafaji was a member of the main Shiite bloc in parliament, the State of Law coalition, of which Prime Minister Haidar Al Abadi’s Dawa Party is also part.

But he was best known as a top leader of the Badr organisation, which is one of the main Shiite militias in Iraq and has close ties to Iran.

The death of the Badr commander is the second high-profile killing in three days by IS, which also claimed an attack that killed the police chief of Anbar province on Sunday.

The Badr organisation was created in the 1980s with Tehran’s backing to fight the regime of executed former president Saddam Hussein.

It is currently headed by Hadi Al Ameri, a former transport minister whose declared candidacy for the as-yet-unfilled interior and defence portfolios has raised concern at home and abroad.

Badr plays a frontline role in Baghdad’s military efforts to fight back against IS and try to reclaim some of the land lost when the jihadists launched a devastating offensive in June.

Badr has for years been accused of a litany of abuses, including executions and abductions targeting the Sunni Arab minority in Baghdad and elsewhere.

Militia power 

The organisation is one of the four main Shiite militias in the country.

While they have ranks of up to several tens of thousands of fighters and are integrated in government operations, they act outside the law.

“They can look and operate like regular armed forces but are not regulated by any laws or subject to oversight and accountability mechanisms,” Amnesty International said in a report issued Tuesday.

The report, titled “Absolute Impunity: Militia Rule in Iraq”, said that execution-style killings and sectarian attacks carried out in the name of revenge against IS amounted to war crimes.

“By granting its blessing to militias who routinely commit such abhorrent abuses, the Iraqi government is sanctioning war crimes,” said Amnesty’s Donatella Rovera.

On Monday, at least 43 people were killed in triple bombings in Baghdad, including one on the edge of Kadhimiyah also claimed by IS.

The jihadist organisation claimed another of those attacks, saying one of its Saudi followers detonated a suicide car bomb packed with 650 kilogrammes of explosives in the Sadr City neighbourhood.

Kadhimiyah, a district home to one of the holiest shrines in Shiite Islam, was also one of two areas targeted in double bombings that left more than 40 dead on Saturday.

The United Nations said more than 1,110 people were killed in acts of violence across Iraq in September. According to an AFP count, more than 350 have already been killed this month.

While the bloodshed has been mainly on the frontlines where federal, Kurdish and allied forces — including Shiite militias — are battling IS, blasts and executions in Baghdad continue to take a heavy toll.

Most of the major suicide bombings in Baghdad are ascribed to IS, but some of the smaller bomb attacks and assassinations are carried out by other more marginal Sunni groups and by Shiite militias.

GAZA — Israel opened the border to the first post-war truckloads of rebuilding material for Gaza on Tuesday and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon lamented what he called destruction "beyond description" in the Palestinian enclave.

Gaza has been blockaded by Israel and Egypt since before the most recent conflict, which lasted for close to two months before a ceasefire in August.

Israel said it was allowing in 600 tonnes of cement, 50 truckloads of gravel and 10 truckloads of steel into Gaza for rebuilding homes and public buildings, shipments being monitored by the UN and the Palestinian Authority.

Palestinians said at least 200 tonnes of cement had already reached Gaza through the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel.

In a short visit under tight security, Ban toured areas that were heavily bombarded by Israel during the 50-day war, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed. Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel also died at the hands of Hamas rockets and other attacks.

"I am here with a heavy heart," Ban told a news conference. "The destruction which I have seen coming here is beyond description," he added, calling it much worse than what he had witnessed after the last war in 2008-9.

More than 1.8 million Palestinians live in Gaza, an area about
40 kilometre-long and
10 kilometre-wide at its widest point.

An estimated 20,000 homes were heavily damaged or destroyed in the fighting, while the territory's power station and other major pieces of infrastructure were hit. Contractors say it could take years to rebuild.

At a conference in Cairo on Sunday, international donors pledged a larger-than-expected $5.4 billion for Gaza's reconstruction, although a large portion of that money will go to support the Palestinian budget, not directly to rebuild homes and Gaza's infrastructure.

During his visit, Ban met with members of the Palestinian unity government that was formed following an agreement in April between the Palestinian Authority, led by Fateh, and Hamas, the Islamist militant group that dominates in Gaza.

The unity government, which contains no Hamas members and is largely technocratic, met for the first time last week. It allowed for the Palestinian Authority to take over responsibility for administering Gaza, a step Israel wanted to see before allowing a free flow of goods into the territory.

“We stand by you, the international community supports your government’s efforts to assume the security and governance responsibility in Gaza,” Ban said of the unity Cabinet.

On Monday, Ban criticised Israel for its continued building of settlements on land the Palestinians seek for an independent state and urged both sides to return to meaningful negotiations as soon as possible.

MURSITPINAR, Turkey/ISTANBUL — American-led forces sharply intensified air strikes against Islamic State (IS) fighters threatening Kurds on Syria's Turkish border on Monday and Tuesday after the jihadists' advance began to destabilise Turkey.

The coalition had conducted 21 attacks on the militants near the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani over the past two days and appeared to have slowed IS advances there, the US military said, but cautioned that the situation remained fluid.

War on the militants in Syria is threatening to unravel a delicate peace in neighbouring Turkey where Kurds are furious with Ankara over its refusal to help protect their kin in Syria.

The plight of the Syrian Kurds in Kobani provoked riots among Turkey's 15 million Kurds last week in which at least 35 people were killed.

Turkish warplanes were reported to have attacked Kurdish rebel targets in southeast Turkey after the army said it had been attacked by the banned PKK Kurdish militant group, risking reigniting a three-decade conflict that killed 40,000 people before a cease-fire was declared two years ago.

Kurds inside Kobani said the US-led strikes on IS had helped, but that the militants, who have besieged the town for weeks, were still on the attack.

“Today, there were air strikes throughout the day, which is a first. And sometimes we saw one plane carrying out two strikes, dropping two bombs at a time,” said Abdulrahman Gok, a journalist with a local Kurdish paper who is inside the town.

“The strikes are still continuing,” he said by telephone, as an explosion sounded in the background.

“In the afternoon, Islamic State intensified its shelling of the town,” he said. “The fact that they’re not conducting face-to-face, close distance fight but instead shelling the town from afar is evidence that they have been pushed back a bit.”

Asya Abdullah, co-chair of the dominant Kurdish political party in Syria, PYD, said the latest air strikes had been “extremely helpful”. “They are hitting Islamic State targets hard and because of those strikes we were able to push back a little. They are still shelling the city centre.”

The White House said the impact of the air strikes on Kobani was constrained by the absence of forces on the ground.

The Turkish Kurds’ anger and resulting unrest is a new source of turmoil in a region consumed by Iraqi and Syrian civil wars and an international campaign against IS fighters.

The PKK accused Ankara of violating the ceasefire with the air strikes, on the eve of a deadline set by its jailed leader to salvage the peace process.

“For the first time in nearly two years, an air operation was carried out against our forces by the occupying Turkish Republic army,” the PKK said. “These attacks against two guerrilla bases at Daglica violated the ceasefire,” the PKK said, referring to an area near the border with Iraq.

US President Barack Obama, who ordered the bombing campaign against IS fighters that started in August, was to discuss the strategy on Tuesday with military leaders from 20 countries, including Turkey, Arab states and Western allies.

Washington has faced the difficult task of building a coalition to intervene in Syria and Iraq, two countries with complex multi-sided civil wars in which most of the nations of the Middle East have enemies and clients on the ground.

In particular, US officials have expressed frustration at Turkey’s refusal to help them fight against IS. Washington has said Turkey has agreed to let it strike from Turkish
air base; Ankara says this is still under discussion.

NATO-member Turkey has refused to join the coalition unless it also confronts Syrian President Bashar Assad, a demand that Washington, which flies its air missions over Syria without objection from Assad, has so far rejected.

The fate of Kobani, where the United Nations says thousands could be massacred, could wreck efforts by the Turkish government to end the insurgency by PKK militants, a conflict that largely ended with the start of a peace process in 2012.

The peace process with the Kurds is one of the main initiatives of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decade in power, during which Turkey has enjoyed an economic boom underpinned by investor confidence in future stability.

The unrest shows the difficulty Turkey has had in designing a Syria policy. Turkey has already taken in 1.2 million refugees from Syria’s three-year civil war, including 200,000 Kurds who fled the area around Kobani in recent weeks.

Jailed PKK co-founder Abdullah Ocalan has said peace talks between his group and the Turkish state could come to an end by Wednesday. After visiting him in jail last week, Ocalan’s brother Mehmet quoted him as saying: “We will wait until October 15... After that there will be nothing we can do.”

A pro-Kurdish party leader read out a statement from Ocalan in parliament on Tuesday in which the PKK leader said Kurdish parties should work with the government to end street violence.

“Otherwise we will open the way to provocations that could bring about a massacre,” Ocalan said in the statement, which the party said he wrote last week.

Turkish attacks on Kurdish positions were once a regular occurrence in southeast Turkey but had not taken place for two years. The PKK said the strikes took place on Monday, although some Turkish news reports said they happened on Sunday. There was no immediate explanation of the discrepancy.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the Turkish military had retaliated against a PKK attack in the border area.

“Yesterday, there was very serious harassing fire around the Daglica military outpost. Naturally it is impossible for us to tolerate this. Hence the Turkish armed forces took the necessary measures,” he told a news conference, without referring specifically to air strikes.

Hurriyet newspaper said the air strikes caused “major damage” to the PKK. “F-16 and F-4 warplanes which took off from [bases in the southeastern provinces of] Diyarbakir and Malatya rained down bombs on PKK targets after they attacked a military outpost in the Daglica region,” Hurriyet said.

The general staff said in a statement it had “opened fired immediately in retaliation in the strongest terms” after PKK attacks in the area, but did not mention air strikes.

The battle for Kobani has ground on for nearly a month, although on Monday Kurdish fighters managed to replace an IS flag in the West of the town with one of their own. The fighters, known as Popular Protection Units (YPG) want Turkey to allow them to bring arms across the border.

In the Turkish town of Suruc, 10km from the Syrian frontier, a funeral for four female YPG fighters was being held. Hundreds at the cemetery chanted “Murderer Erdogan” in Turkish and also “long live YPG” in Kurdish.

Sehahmed, 42, at the cemetery to visit the grave of his son who was a YPG fighter and died only a few days ago, said if Turkey had intervened in Kobani, the town would have been saved.

“For days now they are just watching our people get killed. Obama is too late too. [Islamic State] is now inside the city, they’re on the streets. The air strikes won’t work, it will only delay the inevitable. Its too late for us. Our poor people, we face one disaster after another.”

At least six air strikes, gunfire and shelling could be heard from Mursitpinar on the Turkish side of the border on Tuesday, where Kurds, many with relatives fighting in Kobani, have maintained a vigil, watching the fighting from hillsides.

SANAA — Yemeni Shiite rebels seized a strategic port city Tuesday to widen their fast-expanding zone of control, hours after a new premier was named in a bid to defuse the country's political crisis.

And with the weakening of central authority, battered by the rebels' seizure of Sanaa last month, southern separatists were stepping up their demands for independence.

The Houthi Shiite rebels met little resistance as they overran Hudeida, taking control of Yemen's second most important seaport, a security official said.

The operation came just hours after President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi named a new prime minister in an effort to appease the rebels.

"Houthi militants are deployed across vital installations, including the airport and the port" in Hudeida, the official said.

Military and rebel sources confirmed that Houthi militants were seen deployed across main roads in the city of more than two million residents.

Witnesses and local sources said the militants had set up checkpoints at the city's main entrances, with a security guard reported killed when the rebels seized a court building.

The takeover came just weeks after the Houthis, almost unopposed, swept into the capital Sanaa, 225 kilometres to the east.

The rebels, traditionally based in the north, have been battling troops and Sunni militants in recent months as part of their bid to spread their control across the country.

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

The impoverished and predominantly Sunni country has been wracked by political turmoil and sporadic violence since an uprising toppled strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh in 2012.

Yemen is also facing security threats from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and a southern separatist movement.

On Tuesday, suspected Al Qaeda militants shot dead an army officer in the southern province of Shabwa, a military source said.

Rival militants appear to be exploiting a power vacuum in Yemen, which is located next to oil-rich Saudi Arabia and key shipping routes in the Gulf of Aden.

Military sources had previously warned that Shiite rebels had their sights set on Hudeida and on extending their presence to the narrow Bab Al Mandab strait, which leads to the Suez Canal.

And in the east of the country, the Houthis are apparently eyeing Yemen's oil and gas reserves in Marib province.

Hadi on Monday named Yemen's envoy to the UN, Khalid Bahah, as the new premier, after the rebels rejected an earlier choice.

Bahah's nomination, which appeared to have the support of the rebels, was expected to be a key step in persuading them to withdraw from Sanaa.

'Benefit from changes' 

With the political crisis mounting in Sanaa, tens of thousands of supporters of the separatist Southern Movement gathered in Aden on Tuesday to press demands for the south's independence, an AFP correspondent reported.

The demonstration in the largest city of the south, called by hardliners in the Southern Movement, came on the 51st anniversary of the south's revolt against British colonial rule.

The exiled president of the former South Yemen, Ali Salem Al Baid, who champions secession, urged supporters to seize the opportunity to demand independence.

"All ongoing developments fall in the interest of the southern people's justified call for freedom... We must swiftly benefit from these changes," he said in a statement received by AFP.

Protesters pitched tents in central Aden's Al Arood Square at the launch of what they said would be an indefinite sit-in.

"We swear by God: Sanaa will not rule over us," chanted the protesters, who raised flags of the former South Yemen.

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.

The separatists, as well as Houthi Shiites, rejected plans unveiled in February for Yemen to become a six-region federation, including two for the south, as part of a post-Saleh political transition.

RIYADH — A former employee of a US defence contractor shot dead one American colleague and wounded another in the Saudi capital Tuesday, officials said, in a rare attack on Westerners in the kingdom.

The alleged shooter, Abdulaziz Fahad Abdulaziz Alrashid, 24, "worked at the same company as the victims, and was recently dismissed from his job due to drug related issues", Riyadh's embassy in Washington said in a statement.

A United States diplomat identified the gunman as a disgruntled former employee of Vinnell Arabia.

The victims of Tuesday's petrol station shooting in Riyadh also worked at Vinnell Arabia, the diplomat said, ruling out terrorism as a possible motive for the attack.

Vinnell Arabia provides training for the Saudi Arabian National Guard.

US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki confirmed one American was killed and a second was "lightly injured".

Following the attack near King Fahd Football Stadium, a shootout occurred between the gunman and security forces, a police spokesman said in a statement carried by the official SPA news agency.

A third American escaped unharmed, police said, adding the assailant was wounded and subsequently arrested.

They did not identify the suspect but Riyadh's embassy in Washington said the suspect, Alrashid, is a dual Saudi-American citizen born in Washington State.

Two small circles of blood stained the ground at the petrol station near the pumps, an AFP photographer said.

Children showed off a small-calibre cartridge case which they said they found in the same area.

Four police jeeps were stationed on the multi-lane road outside the closed petrol station, within sight of the football stadium.

Tuesday's shooting was the first deadly attack on Westerners in Saudi Arabia since several were killed in a wave of Al Qaeda violence between 2003 and 2006.

It comes as Saudi Arabia participates in a US-led campaign of air strikes against jihadists of the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in Syria.

Saudi pilots who participated in the initial late-September strikes against IS received online death threats.

Vinnell Arabia's Facebook page says the firm is "dedicated to providing the best in military training, logistics and support" to the Saudi National Guard, using expertise from former US military and government personnel.

In January, a Saudi court sentenced an Al Qaeda militant to death and jailed 10 others over a May 2004 attack that killed six Westerners and a policeman.

The defendants, seven of them brothers, were convicted of aiding assailants who attacked a US company in the northwestern port town of Yanbu, killing two Americans, two Britons, an Australian and a Canadian, as well as a Saudi.

Saudi authorities have long feared blowback from jihadist groups, particularly after the attacks of a decade ago, which included assaults on housing compounds where foreigners lived.

One of the compounds attacked at that time housed employees of Vinnell.

Security around Western facilities has since been markedly increased.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who took part in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US were from Saudi Arabia.

Qatar's emir told Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah this week his country had done everything it could to resolve a dispute over Doha's links with Islamist groups, but the monarch appeared unconvinced, a Gulf security source said on Tuesday.

The source said Emir Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani flew to Jeddah on Monday for two hours of talks on the dispute in the US-allied Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), an unusual schism among the Arab world's wealthiest countries that has ramifications across the Middle East.

Saudi authorities did not appear to be completely convinced by the young emir's comments, said the source, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the topic. He did not elaborate.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) recalled their ambassadors to Qatar in March, accusing Doha of failing to abide by an accord not to interfere in each other's internal affairs.

The dispute centres on the role of Islamist groups, and in particular Egypt's outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, in the GCC and the wider region.

Gulf officials say the three countries, who along with Kuwait, Oman and Qatar make up the GCC, want Doha to end all financial and political support for the Brotherhood, which has been declared a terrorist organisation by Saudi Arabia.

"In the meeting, Tamim basically wanted to tell the King that Qatar has met all the conditions that the King asked for and this should be enough to bring a formal end to the rift," said the Jeddah-based source.

"The emir had also promised the king that he would keep him informed about Qatar's foreign policy in an effort to increase transparency, which he has honoured to some degree," he said.

The Saudi leadership remains unconvinced that Qatar has stopped financing what it sees as terrorist groups in the region, which also include militant groups in Syria such as Al Nusra Front, the source said.

"There is progress to be recognised, but more still needs to be done. Financing terror is still an issue for Qatar," said the source.

Qatar has given a home to Youssef Al Qaradawi, a prominent cleric associated with the Brotherhood, and Doha-based Al Jazeera news channel is accused by some Gulf states of promoting the Islamist group, which it denies.

The Gulf Arab state denies it funds terrorism and points out that both it and Saudi Arabia have provided support to a range of armed groups fighting to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, whose rule both Doha and Riyadh seek to end.

Foreign Minister Khaled Al Attiyah said in August that Qatar does not support extremist groups in any way, singling out Islamic State for condemnation. "We are repelled by their views, their violent methods and their ambitions," he said.

Qatar in September asked seven senior Brotherhood figures to leave the country, following months of pressure from neighbours to stop backing the Islamists.

But Ibrahim Munir, a senior Brotherhood official based in London, told Reuters at the time that the departures did not mean a rupture in ties between Qatar and the Brotherhood.

The emir met King Abdullah with a delegation that included Qatar Prime Minister Abdullah Bin Nasser Bin Khalifa Al Thani, the security source said.

Saudi Arabia is also concerned about Qatar's role in the freeing of hostages, the source said.

In Syria, Qatar has mediated the release of foreign and Syrian captives on several occasions in the course of Syria's three-year-old civil war.

Qatari officials deny paying ransom for hostages, but Western diplomatic sources in Doha say otherwise. Payment for captives is discouraged by Saudi Arabia.

"Yes, Qatar does have good networking relations with groups like Nusra," a Western diplomat told Reuters.

"That doesn't stop some form of direct or indirect payments to be made to these groups, which only encourages them to kidnap more people."

BENGHAZI, Libya — A self-declared government set up by an armed group that seized the Libyan capital in August has taken over the websites of the state administration and the national oil company, adding to confusion over who is running the country.

With Libya's official government and parliament now operating from towns hundreds of miles east of Tripoli, the armed group, from the western city of Misrata, that has seized ministry buildings in the capital now controls their websites.

The website of Prime Minister Abdullah Thinni — who now sits with his Cabinet in the eastern city of Bayda — shows the picture of the man the Misrata rebels have declared as prime minister, Omar Al Hasi, and lists the names of his team.

The group, which calls itself the National Salvation government, has also taken over the website of the National Oil Corp. Next to tender offers, the website features the picture of the self-declared government's oil minister.

Libya's neighbours and Western powers fear the conflict between the two rival governments could drag the OPEC member into civil war.

Thinni's government — recognised by the United Nations — has relocated to Bayda, and the elected House of Representatives is now based in Tobruk, even further east, near the Egyptian border.

Last month, the United Nations launched talks aimed at solving the crisis by bringing together members of the House of Representatives and Misrata lawmakers who have boycotted the assembly since it convened in August.

The talks have not taken in armed factions from Misrata or a rival militia allied to the western city of Zintan who battled Misrata forces in Tripoli for more than a month over the summer.

But diplomats hope that since Misrata members from the house are indirectly linked to a rival parliament that has been set up in Tripoli, the talks will start a broader political dialogue.

The fluid situation in Tripoli has been exacerbated by a separate conflict between pro-government forces fighting Islamist fighters in the main eastern city of Benghazi, home to several state oil firms.

Three members of an irregular force commanded by a defected general but still allied to the army were killed on Tuesday by three road-side bombs near the airport, an area which Islamists have been trying to take, army sources said.

The airport is one of the last government-held areas in Benghazi after the Islamists overran several army camps in August.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — European officials are looking at new ways to press Israel to halt its building of settlements on land the Palestinians want for a state, as frustration over the construction programme reaches a new high, European diplomats say.

The discussions are at an early stage, but officials say the European Union may look at stopping Jewish settlers convicted of crimes from visiting the EU and could examine the fine print of a free-trade agreement, although there is no talk of sanctions.

A series of steps by Israel in recent weeks, including the seizure of 1,000 acres of land near the Palestinian town of Bethlehem and plans to build 2,600 settler housing units near Jerusalem, has angered the European Union, the United States and the United Nations, fuelling calls for a response.

Israel has regularly said its settlements are legal and an Israeli government official told Reuters on Tuesday Europe would be better off putting pressure on the Palestinians to live up to their obligations and recognise the legitimacy of Israel.

The EU has already imposed restrictions on loans to Israeli scientific institutions that operate in the occupied West Bank and is moving ahead with plans to label products made in Jewish settlements. But further steps are now being considered.

"No one is talking about imposing trade sanctions on Israel," said one EU country's ambassador to Israel. "But there is a very high level of frustration and there are many instruments at our disposal to make that frustration clear."

Another senior diplomat described Europe's patience as "wearing thin", with political sentiment shifting.

That shift was partly reflected in Sweden's decision to recognise Palestine as an independent state this month and a non-binding vote in the British parliament on the same issue on Monday.

EU foreign ministers meet in Luxembourg on October 20, though it was not yet clear whether Israel will be discussed.

While many of the EU's 28 member states have profound concerns about Israel's settlement policies, the country also has many staunch EU defenders. It is far from certain that there would be unanimous support for action against Israel.

An Israeli official said Europe was misguided. "By focusing ony on one issue and only on Israel, they are not doing the Palestinians a favour and they are definitely not playing as productive a role as they could do in peace talks," he said.

"Europe could be much more productive in its engagement if its messages to the Palestinians were that it's time for them to fundamentally accept the legitimacy of the Jewish state," said the official, who asked not to be named.

Palestinians hope to make a future state in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They accuse Israel of building settlements to strengthen its claim on territories captured in the 1967 Middle East War.

European diplomats and other officials mentioned several areas where the bloc could bring pressure to bear, including by strictly applying regulations contained in the Association Agreement signed between the EU and Israel in 1995.

That agreement sets out a very specific framework for free trade in goods, services and capital, presaging everything on "respect for human rights and democratic principles".

Article 83 of the agreement makes clear that it only applies to the territory of the state of Israel, which one official said raised questions about how you deal, for example, with Israeli banks which operate on occupied land that the EU does not consider to be part of the state of Israel.

"I'm not saying we should stop dealing with Israeli banks, but it's an issue that has been raised and some would say we need to look at it in more detail," said the ambassador.

Another measure being considered by the European Commission is to draw up a list of Israeli settlers who have been convicted of crimes and ban them from entering the EU, one official said.

"The paperwork has been done but it is frozen for now," said the official. "It is basically a blacklist of violent settlers who have been accused of or convicted of crimes. It would prevent them from travelling to Europe."

Such a step would probably only affect 100 to 200 people, and it might prove complicated to impose since some of those likely to be blacklisted also have European passports, but it would send a strong message that the EU means business, he said.