Region

KHARTOUM — A Spanish diplomat was found stabbed to death in his home in Sudan's capital Khartoum on Monday, Sudanese police said.

The 61-year-old official headed the Spanish embassy's visa section and had worked in the country for three years, a police statement said.

A diplomatic source in Spain confirmed the death, telling Reuters: "Local authorities have opened a police investigation at the highest level."

The diplomat lived in Khartoum's affluent Garden City suburb, police said.

Attacks on foreigners are rare in the desert city situated at the meeting point of the Blue and White Niles.

In 2008 John Granville, an officer with the US Agency for International Development, became the first US government official to be killed in Khartoum in more than three decades. He and his Sudanese driver were shot dead by Islamists while returning home from New Year celebrations on January 1.

PARIS — Islamic State jihadists occupying parts of Iraq are destroying age-old heritage sites and looting others to sell valued artefacts on the black market, experts gathered at UNESCO's Paris headquarters warned Monday.

The extremist group has destroyed shrines, churches and precious manuscripts in Mosul, Tikrit and other areas of Iraq it controls and excavated sites to sell objects abroad, in what UNESCO chief Irina Bokova described as "cultural cleansing".

In July, for instance, IS rigged the Nabi Yunus shrine in the northern city of Mosul — revered by both Muslims and Christians as the tomb of Prophet Jonah — with explosives and blew it up.

The radical group advocates an brutal and strict interpretation of Islam, and considers worshipping at graves to be tantamount to idolatry.

"There were explosions that destroyed buildings dating back to the Assyrian era," Baghdad museum director Qais Rashid said according to a translation from Arabic into English, referring to the once powerful, ancient empire.

"Assyrian tablets were stolen and were suddenly found in European cities," he added, warning that the sale of such artefacts was being used to "finance terrorism".

"There are international mafias... that inform Daesh of what can be sold," he said, referring to an alternative name for IS.

Rashid acknowledged that nothing could yet be done to prevent further destruction and looting in IS-controlled territory. "We have to wait and do everything to retake it," he said.

Iraqi authorities have yet to put together a detailed list of what exactly has been destroyed or looted, but Rashid gave a few examples of recent incidents.

"The Mosul museum, the second most important in Iraq, suffered an attack from Daesh and they also attacked the staff from the museum," he said.

In another incident, "Daesh gathered over 1,500 manuscripts from convents and other holy places and burnt all of them in the middle of the city square," he added.

Bokova said she had alerted all UNESCO member states, "as well as the main museums around the world and the art market, Interpol, the World Customs Organisation... by calling for the utmost vigilance over objects that could come from the current looting of Iraqi heritage”.

She added that UNESCO had handed over the geographical coordinates of all key heritage sites to countries engaged in air strikes over Iraq to fight IS, to prevent further damage.

MURSITPINAR, Turkey — Turkey on Monday deployed tanks and armoured vehicles to reinforce its border with Syria amid escalating Islamic State violence, as parliament is set to consider whether to authorise military action against IS jihadists.

The army moved tanks and armoured vehicles to the border town of Mursitpinar which lies across from the key Kurdish town of Ain Al Arab after some stray bullets hit Turkish villages, sparking retaliation from Turkey's military under its "rules of engagement".

The government said Monday it would shortly submit motions to parliament authorising the armed forces to take action in Iraq and Syria, so Ankara can join the US-led coalition against the IS fighters.

"The motions have not yet been sent to parliament. They may come tomorrow," Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Cicek was quoted as saying by NTV television.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has said the motions will be debated on Thursday.

Turkey had refused to join a broad anti-IS coalition led by the United States while dozens of its citizens including diplomats and children were being held by IS militants having been abducted from the Turkish consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul.

After securing their freedom in a top-secret operation which reportedly resulted in the release of 50 IS fighters, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the country's position had changed, signalling a more robust stance towards the IS group.

"We will hold discussions with our relevant institutions this week. We will definitely be where we need to be," Erdogan said on Sunday.

"We cannot stay out of this."

The government hopes parliament will approve the military action before the Muslim Eid holiday which begins on Saturday.

On Monday, Erdogan said the Islamic State — blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by Ankara since October 2013 — has nothing to do with Islam, which he said "does not legitimise such savagery or violence”.

"Attributing terrorist actions in the Middle East to Islam means nothing other than distorting the truth," he said in a speech in Istanbul. "Our religion is a religion of peace."

In a rare move, Turkey's top general, Necdet Ozel, will speak to the Cabinet on Tuesday followed by a security summit chaired by Erdogan.

Turkey has so far accepted over 160,000 Syrian refugees who fled the IS assault near the town of Ain Al Arab, and has called for creating a safe buffer zone to help civilians inside Syria.

Turkey has already taken in more than 1.5 million refugees who fled the regime of President Bashar Assad.

On Monday, at least three mortar shells fired from Syria landed in Turkish soil — up to two kilometres from the border gate at Mursitpinar, an AFP photographer reported. They caused no damage or casualties.

CAIRO — An appeals court in Egypt Sunday acquitted 112 people convicted of holding an illegal protest on the third anniversary of the 2011 revolt that toppled Hosni Mubarak, judicial sources said.

The defendants, including supporters of ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi, were among 1,079 people arrested nationwide on January 25 as security forces cracked down on illegal demonstrations.

Clashes between protesters and police that day resulted in the deaths of 49 people.

A lower court originally sentenced the 112 to a year in jail after finding them guilty of violating the protest law, illegal assembly, rioting, inciting violence, blocking roads, assaulting police officers and vandalising public and private property.

Thousands of Morsi backers have been jailed in a crackdown since his July 2013 ouster after just one year in office, and dozens of secular activists have also been given lengthy prison terms for breaking the controversial protest law.

Adopted last November, the law prohibits all but police-sanctioned protests as part of a government attempt to restrict demonstrations.

In the past few weeks the authorities have released secular activists including Alaa Abdel Fattah and Mahienour Al Massry, and also many students who were detained last year over "violent protests".

DUBAI — A Saudi Arabian wanted for his role in violent protests calling for more rights for the Shiite Muslim minority has died from injuries sustained in a shootout with police on Friday, local media reported on Sunday.

The Sunni-ruled kingdom has been searching for a number of citizens suspected of involvement in anti-government violence in the Eastern Province, where a substantial number of the country's Shiite Muslim minority live.

Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman General Mansour Turki on Saturday said that security forces shot and wounded Bassem Ali Al Qudaihi during an exchange of fire when they tried to arrest him in the town of Al Awamiya.

"He was transferred to hospital for treatment and the necessary medical attention," state news agency SPA quoted Turki as saying.

The Arabic-language Okaz Daily later reported: "General Turki told Okaz that Qudaihi, who was taken into custody in a security operation in the town of Awamiya in the Qatif province the night before last, had died at the hospital where he had been taken, due to his injuries."

Turki had said that Qudaihi was not on a list of 23 Shiite Muslims it published in 2012 as being wanted for involvement in unrest that has led to shootings and protests in recent years.

"But he represents one of the most dangerous people wanted by security authorities in the town of Awamiya," Turki said, according to SPA, adding that Qudaihi had been found in possession of a pistol.

"Apart from leading attacks on vehicles and security positions in the town [Awamiya], he led terrorist activities, recruiting the young and training them in the use of [fire] arms and participating in riots and terrorising the peaceful and shooting at security men," he said.

SANAA — A suicide car bomber rammed into a field hospital run by Shiite rebels in Yemen on Sunday, killing one person and wounding others, a security official said.

The field hospital some 175 kilometres northeast of the capital was used by Shiite rebels, known as the Houthis, to treat their wounded from battles in recent months against rival Sunni Islamists. The Houthis swept through the capital earlier this month after consolidating their grip over northern provinces.

The official said one person killed and others were wounded in the bombing but was not able to provide exact figures. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the press.

The attack came as hundreds demonstrated in Sanaa, urging state security forces to return to the streets and demanding Houthis' exit. "For a secure capital free of armed militias," read a banner raised by demonstrators in Sanaa, who also called for the return of weapons seized from security forces by the Houthis.

Yemen's main political forces signed a security deal on Saturday in which the Houthis agreed to disarm and withdraw from areas they recently seized. The Houthis' main rivals — the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islah Party — also signed the deal, part of a comprehensive agreement brokered by the United Nations.

The agreement would grant the Houthis some executive power as it stipulates that the president name two advisers, one from the Houthis and one from Yemen’s southern separatist movement. It also calls for the formation of a new government within a month and the restoration of fuel subsidies, which the outgoing government ended in July, sparking the political confrontation now engulfing the country.

Meanwhile, Yemen’s local Al Qaeda branch claimed responsibility for firing a rocket Saturday near the US Embassy in Sanaa.

Militant websites posted a statement from Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on Twitter claiming responsibility for firing the rocket. It said the attack was in response to a drone attack that wounded children in Al Jawf province on Friday. It said the rocket assault wounded several embassy guards and destroyed an armored vehicle.

Yemeni security officials said a man on a motorcycle fired the portable missile, causing no casualties. They said the rocket targeted a building some two blocks away from the US Embassy.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said Saturday that there was no indication that the embassy was the target and that none of its staff were wounded.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen’s local branch, is considered by Washington to be the most dangerous affiliate of the global terror network.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — It was supposed to be a record-breaking year for tourist visits to Israel. But all that changed when the 50-day war between Israel and Hamas prompted jittery travellers to cancel trips en masse, leaving empty hotel rooms and barren tourist sites in their wake.

The summertime fighting delivered a serious hit to Israel's thriving tourism industry, causing losses of hundreds of millions of dollars and sparking concern that aftershocks may continue well after the war.

"Our challenge is how to prevent more cancellations. Despite a month having passed since the war, there is still an image among tourists that it is not safe to travel here," said Oded Grofman of the Israel Incoming Tour Operators Association.

Israel's war against Hamas came at the beginning of the peak tourist season, which includes July and August and runs through the Jewish High Holiday season and early winter.

Israel launched the war July 8 in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and to destroy a network of tunnels used to attack Israelis. More than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and 72 people on the Israeli side, mostly soldiers, were killed. Israel and Hamas signed a ceasefire on August 26.

None of the casualties on the Israeli side occurred in the country’s tourist hubs of occupied Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, which endured rocket attacks but were largely protected by the Iron Dome missile defence system. Still, gruesome images of the war beamed around the world scared tourists away. One rocket that landed near Israel’s international airport spurred American and European airlines to suspend flights for 48 hours, sending a chill through the local tourism industry.

Before the war, the country hoped for a record-breaking year for tourist visitors. Since the second Palestinian uprising subsided nearly a decade ago, Israel has enjoyed a tourism boom, with as many as 3.6 million foreign visitors to the country last year. Tourism is now an estimated $5 billion industry and provides more than 110,000 jobs in Israel.

But the war caused a 31 per cent drop in foreign visitors to Israel during that period compared to 2013, with the decline in August reaching 36 per cent. The amount of visitors during that month was the lowest since February 2009, shortly after fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants. Israel’s Tourism Ministry estimates the losses to be upward of $544 million. A postwar influx of visitors for the Jewish holidays is expected to bring some relief, but not enough to salvage a miserable season.

Merchants in occupied Jerusalem’s Old City, a top tourist destination, say they are still feeling the sting. The area’s cobblestone streets are typically filled with tourists purchasing chintzy wares and cheeky T-shirts and visiting the holy sites. But they’ve been eerily empty over the summer.

“When the Gaza war started it just went down,” said Kevork Kahvedjian, whose family has run a shop selling old photos in the Old City since 1949. “There were no people at all, none. It was as if there was a curfew or something.” Kahvedjian said his sales declined as much as 90 per cent.

Beyond tourists, the war also drove away foreign acts, with many artists slated to perform this summer — among them Neil Young, the Backstreet Boys and Lana Del Rey — pulling out. Singer Lady Gaga did end up performing in front of a crowd of 20,000 people in Tel Aviv, however.

The slump in tourism comes amid a wider economic slowdown in Israel, which emerged intact from the 2008 global financial crisis though is now suffering from timid growth. The Bank of Israel has taken measures to stimulate the economy, dropping interest rate levels to 0.25 per cent — the lowest ever — but some economists fear the country may be headed toward a recession. The Gaza war and its side effects may compound the sluggish growth.

Mirit Craven Schneider was among the droves of tourists who cancelled trips to Israel because of the war. She was set to spend two weeks touring the country with her husband and three young children in what would have been their first trip to Israel.

“Once everything started happening, it was very concerning,” said Craven Schneider, a first grade teacher from Houston, Texas. “We didn’t want to be there with air raid sirens going off, and the kids having to spend time in bomb shelters.”

The industry is hoping to bounce back. Israel’s Tourism Ministry is set to launch new campaigns in markets in the US, Germany and Russia meant to target niche travelers, including Jewish and Christian communities. This year is largely unsalvageable, but officials hope that the numbers will rise again.

“People abroad might feel that things here are unsafe but this is a very, very safe country,” Tourism Minister Uzi Landau said. “This is exactly the kind of perception that we would like to share with all of our potential visitors.”

DAMASCUS — US-led warplanes kept up strikes on oil sites funding the Islamic State (IS) group on Sunday, as Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate threatened reprisals after a key operative was reported killed.

The United States, along with coalition partners Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, hit four modular refineries as well as an IS command and control post, all north of Raqqa in Syria, US Central Command said.

"Initial indications are that they [the strikes] were successful," it said in a statement.

The latest raids were part of intensifying efforts to deny IS funding after a wave of strikes on its oil infrastructure on Thursday night.

IS controls a swathe of territory straddling northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria, that includes most of Syria's main oilfields and which the jihadists have sought to exploit through improvised refining and smuggling.

The coalition strikes hit close by the Turkish frontier, near Tal Abyad just across the border from the Turkish town of Akcakale, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“At least three makeshift refineries under IS control in the Tal Abyad region were destroyed,” the observatory said.

“IS had been refining crude and selling it to Turkish buyers,” said the Britain-based watchdog, which has a broad network of sources inside Syria.

Before the launch of US-led air strikes on IS in Syria last Tuesday analysts say the jihadists were earning as much as $3 million a day from oil revenues.

The coalition carried out raids on the jihadist heartland province of Raqqa early Sunday as it pressed what Washington says are “near continuous” strikes.

The raids also destroyed a plastics factory outside Raqqa city, killing one civilian, the observatory said.

IS oil infrastructure has been one of the main targets of the bombing campaign in Syria that Washington and its Arab allies launched last Tuesday, building on the air war under way against IS in Iraq since August 8.

The air strikes on Sunday also destroyed a tank and damaged another near Deir Ezzor in eastern Syria, US Central Command said.

Human Rights Watch, meanwhile, said apparent US missile strikes had killed at least seven civilians in Idlib province in northwestern Syria last Tuesday, calling for a probe into possible violations of the laws of war.

In Iraq, the Pentagon said US-led air strikes near insurgent-held Fallujah on Sunday destroyed two IS checkpoints and a transport vehicle used by the jihadists.

Al Nusra threat 

On the ground in western Iraq, pro-government forces backed by warplanes on Sunday repelled an IS attack on the strategic town of Amriyat Al Fallujah, security sources said.

“Warplanes eventually engaged the insurgents and killed 15 of them,” local police chief Aref Al Janabi said, without identifying the aircraft.

The town “has strategic importance. It is a main logistics road for the army and it is the link between Anbar and Karbala”, a Shiite holy city south of Baghdad, Janabi said.

Multiple European governments have approved plans to join the air campaign in Iraq, including most recently Britain.

British fighter jets flew their first combat mission over Iraq on Saturday but returned to base in Cyprus without firing a shot after no targets were identified.

European governments have resisted joining the US-led air campaign in Syria for fear of getting embroiled in the country’s more than three-year-old civil war, forcing Washington to rely on Arab allies.

The opening salvo of the US-led bombing campaign in Syria actually targeted not IS but its jihadist rival Al Nusra Front and drew a threat of retaliation on Saturday after one of its leaders was reported killed.

Al Nusra has been targeted by the US-led air campaign killing at least 57 of its fighters, according to the observatory.

Washington has made a distinction between the wider Al Nusra Front and a cell of foreign fighters dubbed the Khorasan Group that it says was plotting attacks against the United States.

Muhsin Al Fadhli, a long-standing Al Qaeda operative and alleged leader of Khorasan, was reportedly among those killed in the strikes.

Al Nusra threatened reprisals for the deaths of its militants.

The allies had “committed a horrible act that is going to put them on the list of jihadist targets throughout the world”, Al Nusra spokesman Abu Firas Al Suri said in an online video message.

Al Nusra, the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, is prominent on the battlefield across much of western Syria but has been at sometimes deadly loggerheads with IS since Al Qaeda leadership disavowed the rival group’s commanders in February.

ISTANBUL — Turkey cannot stay out of the international coalition fighting Islamic State (IS) jihadists, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday, as Ankara prepares in the coming week to define its military involvement.

Turkey has for months frustrated the West with its cautious position against IS, but there appears to have been a sea change in its policy following Erdogan's trip last week to the United States.

"We will hold discussions with our relevent institutions this week. We will definitely be where we need to be," Erdogan said in a keynote address to a World Economic Forum meeting in Istanbul.

"We cannot stay out of this," he added.

IS militants have now advanced in Syria to just a few kilometres from Turkey, sending tens of thousands of people fleeing across the border.

Turkey has so far taken in over 160,000 refugees who fled the IS assault around the town of Ain Al Arab, but Erdogan said it would be better if they could live safely in their own country.

The president also reaffirmed his call for a buffer zone and no-fly zone within Syria to protect Turkey's borders and the refugees. He also indicated ground forces could be needed.

"It is not possible only from the air, there is also a ground dimension," he said.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced on Sunday that the government would send motions requesting extended mandates for military action in Iraq and Syria on Monday.

In a hugely rare intervention, Turkey's top general, Necdet Ozel, will speak to the Cabinet on Tuesday, Davutoglu added. Parliament will then debate the mandates on Thursday, paving the way for military action, although what that will involve is still not clear.

Erdogan, who has long pressed for the ouster of Syria's President Bashar Assad, indicated that he did not think military action would be enough to thwart IS and long-term solutions were needed to solve political problems in Syria and Iraq.

"Dropping bombs from air only brings a temporary solution," he said, adding that coordinated action needs to be taken against IS in both Syria and Iraq, attacking Britain for only planning strikes on targets inside Iraq.

"Instead of handling it this way, we should send our Syrian brothers to their own country through a safe zone."

Ankara has justified its low key role in the fight against IS by saying its hands were tied by concerns over the fate of dozens of Turkish hostages abducted by IS in Iraq.

But these hostages were freed last weekend, prompting what Erdogan has acknowledged as a major change in Turkish policy.

BEIRUT — George Clooney's Lebanese father-in-law said on Sunday that his daughter Amal Alamuddin's wedding to the Hollywood heartthrob was "very good news" for the turmoil-ridden Middle East.

"The wedding was more than perfect," Ramzi Alamuddin told AFP by telephone from Venice.

Clooney and his Lebanese-British lawyer bride married on Saturday at a star-studded private wedding, although they are expected to officially tie the knot on Monday.

Ramzi Alamuddin said the wedding was a "grand" but "simple" affair, with close friends and relatives attending an event he described as "good news".

"It is very good news among the bad news we are living now," he said.

The celebrity nuptials come as unrest grips much of the Middle East, where a US-led coalition is staging air strikes on the jihadist Islamic State group in Lebanon's neighbour Syria and in Iraq.

Saturday's ceremony also coincided with Al Qaeda's Syria franchise, Al Nusra Front, threatening reprisals against the coalition which includes several Arab allies.

Other Lebanese agreed that the wedding was the only good news to have emerged from their problem-riddled Mediterranean nation.

"The roads in the country are blocked, we don't have a president, parliament is paralysed, [Prime Minister Tammam] Salam is busy with the issue of the soldiers [kidnapped by jihadists], and the country is on the verge of collapse," said one Twitter user, using the hashtag #congratulations.

"But thank God, Clooney has become the son of Lebanon," he added.

Parliament in Beirut has tried but failed several times since June to elect a new president, but a vote has been delayed again and again by political wrangling.

Ridden with tensions 

The Syria war has also stoked existing tensions, particularly between Sunnis who tend to back the uprising and Shiites, including the powerful Hizbollah group, who generally support the Damascus regime.

Last month, Lebanese troops battled jihadists who crossed the border from Syria, and around 30 Lebanese soldiers and policemen are still being held hostage since the clashes.

Al Nusra Front killed one hostage and rival jihadists of the Islamic State group beheaded two more.

But far from the turmoil, Clooney, Alamuddin and their close friends and relatives danced until dawn on Sunday at one of the most eagerly awaited celebrity marriages in years.

"It was grand simple and perfect. The couple really do match," said the actor's new father-in-law.

"The couple was very happy about how they were welcomed in Venice," he said.

Alamuddin said the guest list included "the closest from the family and the closest from friends".

Among the guests were Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cindy Crawford and her husband Rande Gerber — rumoured to be Clooney's best man.

Amal, 36, is a prominent international lawyer who in 2004 worked at the International Court of Justice. She has represented Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Ukraine's ex-prime minister Yulia Tymoshenko.

She was just a child when her family left Lebanon for Britain, during a 15-year civil war that ended in 1990.

She comes from the Druze community, a minority sect of Shiite Islam, who live mainly in Lebanon and Syria.

Watching from afar, one Twitter user effusively welcomed Clooney, 53, as Lebanon's new "son-in-law".

"God bring you prosperity and children," she tweeted.

Nisreen, a 24-year-old technician, joked that Clooney should have chosen her instead.

"Where was I?" she wrote, adding "She must be a special one for him to have chosen her".

Amal's father taught tourism at the prestigious American University of Beirut. Her mother, Baria, heads the international section at London-based pan-Arab daily Al Hayat.