Region

SANAA — Shiite Muslim rebels attacked the home of Yemen's intelligence chief in Sanaa on Saturday, residents and security sources said, showing the fragility of a power-sharing accord that has failed to halt fighting in the capital.

Houthi rebels seized control of much of Sanaa last week, hours before the accord was signed with other political parties providing for the creation of a new government.

The takeover of the capital effectively made the Houthis the main power brokers in Yemen, a US-allied country whose political, tribal and sectarian turmoil poses risks to the world's top oil exporter Saudi Arabia next door.

However, there have been several clashes between Houthi rebels and security forces in Sanaa since the accord was signed.

The rebels attacked National Security Chief's Ali Al Ahmadi's house in the city's upscale Hadda neighbourhood early on Saturday and clashes continued for two hours, the residents and security sources told Reuters.

One soldier and two insurgents were killed in the fighting, while 15 people — six soldiers and nine Houthis — were wounded, they said.

Houthis continue to patrol many parts of Sanaa, especially around government buildings, and to search passers-by. Military and police blocked off the Hadda area, home to many diplomatic missions and expatriates, after the fighting on Saturday.

The stability of Yemen is a priority for the United States and its Gulf Arab allies because of its position next to Saudi Arabia and shipping lanes which run through the Gulf of Aden.

The power-sharing deal signed on Sunday makes Houthis a part of the government, but it is not clear if that will satisfy their demands, or if it will instead embolden them to seek further powers.

Against the backdrop of the fragmented political, tribal and sectarian scene, any escalation of the fighting could also allow an array of other factions, including southern separatists, former leader Ali Abdullah Saleh and even Al Qaeda to take advantage.

President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi has said Yemen may be heading for civil war.

Suspected Al Qaeda militants attacked a military vehicle in the southern province of Shabwa on Saturday, killing two soldiers and wounding five, a local official told Reuters.

The army launched a campaign earlier this year to flush out Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula militants from their strongholds in the provinces of Shabwa and Abyan.

CAIRO — An Egyptian court postponed to November 29 its verdict on whether former president Hosni Mubarak ordered the killing of protesters during the 2011 uprising that ended his three-decade rule.

Before adjourning the hearing on Saturday, the judge said he and members of the prosecution team had not finished reviewing all the evidence in the case, which amounted to 160,000 pages.

A TV screen in the courtroom showed thousands of documents related to the case piled up in folders and bound with string.

Mubarak, his interior minister Habib Al Adly and six other senior security officers are accused of ordering the killings of more than 800 protesters, sowing chaos and creating a security vacuum during the 18-day revolt. They deny the charges.

The former strongman and Adly were both sentenced to life in prison in 2012 after being convicted in the case but an appeals court subsequently ordered a retrial.

Many Egyptians who lived through his autocracy and crony capitalism considered it a victory to see Mubarak behind bars.

His overthrow led to Egypt's first free leadership election but the winner, Mohamed Morsi, was ousted last year by the army.

Some Mubarak-era figures have since been released, raising fears among activists that the old regime was regaining influence.

Mubarak, 86, arrived at the court in a medical helicopter and was wheeled off the back on a stretcher surrounded by police clutching rifles. He appeared with fellow defendants in a courtroom cage, looking pale and glum and wearing sunglasses.

Outside the court at the Cairo police academy, his supporters gathered, carrying pictures of the former airforce commander and chanting slogans demanding his release.

Families of those killed by security forces during the uprising came to protest.

“This delay comes in preparation for the clearing of Mubarak,” said one woman whose son died during the street revolt. “We feel like our rights have been lost.”

Highlighting how polarised Egyptian society has become, fights broke out between Mubarak supporters and relatives of the deceased. Police broke up the fight and arrested two people.

The political demise of Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood at the hands of the military means voices more sympathetic to Mubarak are now being heard.

Mubarak told the court last month that he had not ordered the killing of protesters and said history would vindicate him.

Adly and other Mubarak-era officials have also had their testimonies broadcast in recent weeks, giving them a platform to rebuild their reputations with the public.

Mubarak is unlikely to be freed, however. Though he has been given bail in this case, he is already serving a separate three-year sentence for embezzlement at a military hospital in the upscale Maadi district of Cairo. The court ordered that Adly remain in custody pending the verdict.

UNITED NATIONS — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas accused Israel on Friday of a "genocidal crime" in Gaza, telling the United Nations negotiations had failed and the time for Palestinian independence had come, drawing a sharp rebuke from Washington.

Abbas vowed to seek war crimes prosecutions against Israel over what he called the 50-day "war of genocide" in Gaza that killed 2,140 Palestinians, mostly civilians, and left the enclave in ruins.

The address angered the United States, which slammed it as "offensive", while Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused Abbas of waging "diplomatic terrorism" and making "false accusations".

Speaking at the UN General Assembly in New York, a feisty Abbas said: "There is an occupation that must end now. There is a people that must be freed immediately.”

"The hour of independence of the state of Palestine has arrived."

He did not set a deadline for fast-tracking to Palestinian statehood, after aides suggested they were eyeing 2017 as a possible date.

Describing Israeli attacks on Gaza as a “genocidal crime”, Abbas pledged: “We will not forget and we will not forgive, and we will not allow war criminals to escape punishment.”

The war in Gaza was “a series of absolute war crimes carried out before the eyes and ears of the entire world”, he said, citing the destruction left behind and the deaths of more than 460 children.

The Palestinians have threatened to join the Hague-based International Criminal Court to allow legal action to be taken against Israel, but Abbas did not specify in his address whether he would resort to the ICC.

In 2012, the Palestinians won the status of observer state in the United Nations, which gives them the ability to become a party to the ICC, where they could sue Israeli officials over alleged war crimes.

Speaking to the 193-nation Assembly, Abbas asserted that it would be “impossible to return to the cycle of negotiations that failed to deal with the substance of the matter and the fundamental question” of statehood.

He accused Israel of forging ahead with settlements and maintaining a blockade of Gaza despite formal pledges of peace.

Israel is offering Palestinians a future either in “isolated ghettos” or “at worst it will be a most abhorrent form of apartheid”, he said, referring to the racist regime that ruled South Africa until free elections in 1994.

US labels speech ‘offensive’ 

The US State Department reacted with a tersely worded statement, calling the speech provocative and saying it would undermine peace efforts.

“President Abbas’ speech today included offensive characterizations that were deeply disappointing and which we reject,” said spokeswoman Jen Psaki.

“Such provocative statements are counterproductive and undermine efforts to create a positive atmosphere and restore trust between the parties,” she said.

Abbas said a resolution backed by Arab countries would be presented to the UN Security Council to relaunch talks with a view to reaching a final settlement with Israel on the two-state solution.

It remained unlikely that such a resolution would garner support within the 15-member council, notably from the United States, which has repeatedly vetoed resolutions seen as undermining Israel.

The council has been trying for weeks to unite behind a draft resolution seeking to shore up a ceasefire accord in Gaza.

Abbas spoke after rival Palestinian factions reached a unity deal that will pave the way for the return of the Palestinian Authority to Gaza and for a massive internationally funded reconstruction effort to begin.

The war in Gaza ended on August 26 when the two sides agreed in Cairo on a ceasefire and to hold future talks on Palestinian demands to end an eight-year blockade of Gaza.

WASHINGTON — American leadership is as strong as ever despite a slew of challenges, from the fight to eradicate Islamic State militants to a deadly Ebola epidemic and efforts to tackle climate change, President Barack Obama said Saturday in his weekly address.

Obama, the reluctant warrior who took office nearly six years ago promising to end costly wars, instead now finds himself launching a new conflict — against the Islamic State jihadists — that the White House freely admits will stretch past his departure from office in January 2017.

But the world still looks to America, and its values of freedom and democracy in uncertain times, Obama said.

"American leadership is the one constant in an uncertain world. That was true this week, as we mobilised the world to confront some of our most urgent challenges," Obama said in his weekly broadcast address after a flurry of meetings and a major speech at the United Nations.

On Monday, the United States began launching a series of strikes targeting the Islamic State, after building a broad coalition of partner countries, including Arab nations.

"America is leading the world in the fight to degrade and ultimately destroy the terrorist group known as ISIL," Obama added, using one of the acronyms by which the group is known.

His comments came shortly after a senior US defence official said that the United States was now engaged in "near-continuous" strikes.

Turning to the prolonged stand-off in Ukraine which has pit the US and Russia in a Cold War-style standoff, Obama vowed to "support the people of Ukraine as they develop their democracy and economy" along with allies.

As the world struggles to contain a rapidly spreading Ebola outbreak that has already killed about 3,000 people in West Africa, Obama said that "America is leading the fight".

Britain, France, Germany and Senegal have all increased their efforts to contain the outbreak.

And "we will continue to rally other countries to join us in making concrete commitments to fight this disease and enhance global health security for the long-term", Obama said.

On climate change, the president insisted that the United States was "engaging more partners and allies than ever to confront the growing threat of climate change before it's too late".

He noted that US climate assistance has now reached 120 countries.

"The people of the world look to us to lead. And we welcome that responsibility," Obama said.

"We are heirs to a proud legacy of freedom. And as we showed the world this week, we are prepared to do what is necessary to secure that legacy for generations to come."

ISTANBUL — Three Turkish police were killed after an ambush in Turkey's overwhelmingly Kurdish southeast, in an attack claimed Saturday by armed Kurdish militants despite a one-and-a-half-year ceasefire.

The private Dogan news agency said traffic police on the highway between the southeastern cities of Diyarbakir and Bitlis were attacked with rocket-propelled grenades and rifles late Friday.

Another team of police were deployed as reinforcements as the clashes continued, but their vehicle overturned in an "accident" at the scene, the agency added, without giving further details.

Dogan quoted Bitlis Governor Orhan Ozturk as saying that five police were taken to hospital. Three died of their wounds while the two others were receiving treatment.

NTV television showed the three police being given a funeral with full honours in Bitlis, their coffins draped in the Turkish flag.

There was no further information on the assailants from the authorities, with the ambush coming at a time of mounting tensions between the government and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels.

But the People's Defence Forces (HPG) — the military wing of the PKK — claimed on its website it had attacked the police as a warning to the Turkish government.

It said its "guerilla forces had carried out the action from a close distance".

It also claimed another attack outside Diyarbakir on Friday, which it said had killed one Turkish policeman. This purported incident has not been reported by Turkish media.

"If the Turkish government does not abandon its murderous actions... then our answer will be clear," the HPG said.

If confirmed, the attack by the HPG would be a significant breach of the ceasefire between the PKK and Turkish authorities, which has largely held since March 2013 despite stalling peace talks.

Several Kurdish militant factions have warned violence could break out again if the government does not produce a convincing roadmap for the peace process by the end of the month.

The PKK, which has been observing a truce in its 30-year insurgency in the southeast, is angry at Turkish policy on Syria as Islamic State (IS) militants advance on the Syrian Kurdish town of Ain Al Arab.

Some 160,000 mainly Kurdish refugees have fled across the border into Turkey, but Ankara infuriated Kurdish rebels last week by not allowing some back into Syria to fight the Islamists.

The ruling Islamic-rooted Justice and Development Party (AKP) has insisted it remains committed to ending Turkey's insurgency, which has claimed 40,000 lives over the last three decades.

"We have reached a very valuable point in the peace process and I know its value," the CNN-Turk television channel quoted Deputy Prime Minister Yalcin Akdogan as saying Saturday.

"Tearing this up or making threats is not going to get us anywhere and is just going to create problems. Let's sit down and talk," he added.

BEIRUT — Al Qaeda's Syria affiliate called on the Lebanese authorities Saturday to discuss its terms for the release of dozens of captive troops, after three of them were executed.

Al Nusra Front killed one of the around 30 soldiers and police Syrian rebels captured in fighting in a Lebanese town near the Syrian border last month. Rival jihadists of the Islamic State group beheaded the other two.

In a video posted on YouTube, Al Nusra accused Lebanese authorities of allowing its Shiite Muslim foe Hizbollah, which has been heavily involved in the civil war in neighbouring Syria, to block negotiations for the soldiers' release

Hezbollah "is causing all attempts to negotiate the release of the Lebanese hostages to fail", the video charges.

Al Nusra has previously demanded that in return for the release of the captive soldiers, Hezbollah end its intervention in Syria on the side of President Bashar Assad's regime and that Lebanon free jailed Islamists.

The Lebanese government has so far rejected the Al Qaeda affiliate's terms.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah has urged the government not to cave in to the Sunni extremists' demands but has denied impeding efforts to free the captive troops.

Last month's fighting in the border town of Arsal — a Sunni enclave within the mainly Shiite Hizbollah-dominated Bekaa Valley border region — was the most serious in Lebanon since the Syrian conflict erupted in March 2011.

PARIS — In tweets, in street gatherings and in open letters, moderate Muslims around the world are insisting that Islamic State extremists don't speak for their religion. Many are also frustrated that anyone might think they do, and a backlash has already begun.

Last week's videotaped beheading of a French mountaineer by militants linked to the Islamic State group prompted heartsick fury among Muslims in France and elsewhere in Europe, torn between anger at the atrocities committed in the name of Islam and frustration that they have to defend themselves at all.

Herve Gourdel was the fifth Western hostage decapitated in recent weeks by Islamic extremists — this time, the militants said, as revenge for France's decision to join air strikes against the Islamic State group.

The head of France's largest mosque called for Muslims to rally Friday in Paris to condemn Gourdel's slaying and show unity against terrorism, saying Islamic State's "deadly ideology" had nothing to do with Islam. Within hours of the call, the rector of the Bordeaux mosque, Tareq Oubrou, said French Muslims need not demonstrate in the name of Islam — but should be joined by everyone.

"They are doubly affected, because this crime touched one of our countrymen and because this crime was carried out in the name of our religion," Oubrou told RTL radio.

The same debate played out elsewhere. The hashtag campaign #notinmyname — or #pasenmonnom in French — initiated by British Muslims who wanted to show their opposition to extremist violence, spawned a #MuslimApologies backlash by those who thought the sense of regret was overwrought. Tweets "apologised" for algebra, soap and coffee.

"Nowhere does the Koran say other religions or nations must be attacked. Cutting people's heads off is really the most despicable. If air strikes can stop these fundamentalist, aggressive ideas from spreading, I am all for it," said 65-year-old Enes Mustafic.

Another congregant, Omer Jamak, questioned the devotion and even sanity of anyone who thought otherwise.

"According to Islam, nobody is allowed to be evil to others. Nobody has the right to do such a thing. I am against everything they do down there like every sane person is," Jamak said.

An online poll posted by France's Le Figaro newspaper, asking whether people thought the country's Muslim community had sufficiently denounced Gourdel's death, drew an infuriated response. Rachida Dati, the mayor of Paris' 7th arrondissement and the daughter of Algerian immigrants, called for an end to the "confounding of Islam and fundamentalism, as the French political class has done for too long". The paper on Friday apologised for what it called a "clumsy" question.

Dawud Walid, director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said headlines about the Islamic State were often frustrating in his work. Walid said he's been speaking out against excessive force by police after the fatal shooting of a young black man in Ferguson, Missouri.

"I received calls and e-mails from fellow Americans who say, 'Why are you worried about what's going in Ferguson? Stop ISIS.' That is ridiculous," said Walid, a black Muslim.

"My primary responsibility as an American citizen is to try to make America more of a just place," Walid said. "People in Iraq and Syria can't even fix their own problems. What am I supposed to be doing from Detroit?"

Still, the banner at Friday's gathering in Paris honouring Gourdel was emblasoned with "Not in My Name" and many in the crowd of about 500 said they were dismayed and appalled.

"We all gathered today... to tell people, you want to convert, that's very good, but do it for your faith, because you want to convert and because you appreciate this religion. Don't do it to go fight, to go kill people because it is not what Islam says," said Nadir M'Sallaoui, a 27-year-old Parisian.

US Muslim leaders and scholars issued an open letter Wednesday denouncing Islamic State militants point by point, notably on "the killing of innocents" and jihad.

Muqtedar Khan, professor of political science at the University of Delaware and author of "American Muslims, Bridging Faith and Freedom", said Muslim condemnations after the 9/11 attacks failed to dent the reach of extremists.

"They are beginning to react the way they should have on September 12, 2001," Khan said. "Muslims have gotten really tired of these groups that bring nothing, that have no positive impact at all among their societies."

Khan said whether the protests take root will depend upon what happens when the beheadings have subsided, and Islamic State is no longer considered an immediate threat. Muslim leaders will have difficulty coming up with a message as attractive as the extremists' sermons to young people disillusioned with life in countries where they feel under constant suspicion. France's ban on face-covering veils and prohibitions on wearing headscarves in schools, for example, are often cited as proof the country is hostile to Muslims.

Speaking of the extremist preachers, Khan said: "Their theology becomes more potent because their politics are right."

UNITED NATIONS — Iran and six world powers made little progress in overcoming significant disagreements in the most recent round of nuclear talks, including on uranium enrichment, Iranian and Western diplomats close to the negotiations said on Friday.

Officials from Iran and the six countries had cautioned ahead of the talks in New York that a breakthrough was unlikely to end sanctions on Tehran, although they had hoped substantial progress could be made in narrowing disagreements.

A senior State Department official said gaps "are still serious" with just eight weeks to go before a November 24 deadline.

"We do not have an understanding on all major issues, we have some understandings that are helpful to move this process forward and we have an enormous number of details still to work through," the official told reporters.

"We still have some very, very difficult understandings yet to reach, and everyone has to make difficult decisions and we continue to look to Iran to make some of the ones necessary for getting to a comprehensive agreement," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Another diplomat said Iran and the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China would likely meet again in the coming weeks, but no date and venue have been set.

Iran President Hassan Rouhani said at a news conference on in New York that the "progress we have witnessed in recent days has been extremely slow”.

"We must look forward to the future and make the courageous decisions vis-a-vis this problem," he said, adding that any deal without lifting all sanctions against Tehran was "unacceptable”.

US Secretary of State John Kerry told reporters that an interim deal approved in Geneva last November under which Iran had halted higher-level enrichment in exchange for limited sanctions relief "has made the world safer”.

On a long-term deal, Kerry said "it remains our fervent hope that Iran" and the six powers "can in the next weeks come to an agreement that would benefit the world”.

Iran and the six hope that a resolution of the more-than-decade-long nuclear stand-off with Iran will reduce regional tensions and remove the risk of another war in the Middle East.

At the General Assembly earlier in the week, Rouhani said a deal that ends sanctions will open the door to deeper cooperation on regional peace and stability and the fight against militants such as Islamic State, a group that has seized parts of Iraq and Syria. The United States has made clear it will not link the two issues.

Israel has repeatedly threatened to use military force against Iranian atomic sites if diplomacy fails to defuse what it sees as the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

Iran rejects allegations from Western powers and their allies that it is seeking a nuclear weapons capability but has refused to halt uranium enrichment, inviting multiple rounds of US, European Union and UN Security Council sanctions. Enrichment is a process of purifying uranium for use as fuel for power plants or, if enriched to a very high purity, for bombs.

Mistrust

Senior foreign ministry officials from the six countries and Iran began meeting in New York last week. Despite a generally positive atmosphere in the negotiations, the Western diplomat said neither side has much confidence in the other.

"The level of mistrust is still pretty high," the Western diplomat said.

French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters there had been "no significant advances" in the latest talks, prompting the parties to cancel a scheduled negotiating session on Friday.

Kerry and European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif late on Thursday, and again on Friday to discuss next steps in the deadlocked negotiations, the Western diplomat said.

In addition to enrichment, diplomats said the speed of lifting sanctions is a difficult issue, one on which Iranian and Western delegations have sharp differences.

The Western diplomat said the United States and Europeans were prepared to lift their unilateral sanctions very quickly in the event of an acceptable agreement, but UN measures would be ended gradually based on Iran's compliance with any future deal.

"What they would like to see is to get rid of the Security Council sanctions very quickly, immediately," he said. "But this is not exactly how we think." He added, however, that Iran was underestimating the speed at which the Western powers were prepared to move on sanctions relief if an agreement is reached.

The diplomat said Iran's President Rouhani, who held bilateral meetings with top European officials in New York, had nothing to offer to move the talks forward.

"There was nothing really new from him," the diplomat said. "He said we should not miss this historic opportunity over a couple of centrifuges. And by the way, we think the same way."

Iran's enrichment programme, above all the number of enrichment centrifuges Tehran would be permitted to keep for the duration of any deal, is one of the major sticking points.

Rouhani, widely seen as a pragmatist, was elected last year on a platform of improving foreign relations. Rouhani and his government have adopted a more conciliatory stance compared to his hard-line predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, raising hopes there might be avenues to reach an agreement.

The head of the US delegation, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, said in an interview with Voice of America that "I believe we are making progress". But she added that there are "still some very crucial decisions that need to be made."

The Western diplomat echoed those remarks, saying: "We are expecting significant moves on the Iranian side" if there is to be an agreement over the next two months.

DUBAI — The lightning takeover by Shiite rebels of Yemen's capital this week is a potential boost for Iran against its rival Saudi Arabia, while the US is preoccupied with fighting jihadists, analysts said.

It is still unclear what the links are between the Ansarullah, or Houthi, rebels and Shiite-ruled Iran, but Tehran will no doubt be pleased by a move that offers the prospect of expanding its influence on the Arabian Peninsula.

But while it is also unclear what the rebels plan to do now, any ambitions they may have to dominate the whole country are out of the question.

The capital Sanaa lies in the Shiite-majority northern highlands, but the rest of Yemen is overwhelmingly Sunni and virulently anti-Shiite Al-Qaeda militants have a strong presence in the south and east.

And a complicating factor could be former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, forced from power after 33 years of iron-fisted rule by a 2011 uprising but still a key powerbroker.

Saleh, who is himself Shiite, is widely believed to have played a role in the rebels' takeover of Sanaa through his tribal and security force allies, and it is still unclear what he may expect in return.

As it stands, rebel leader Abdelmalek Al Houthi has taken advantage of growing poverty, a rejection of the traditional tribal elites and the collapse of state institutions to impose himself as a force to be reckoned with in the capital.

Ibrahim Sharqieh, an analyst at Brookings Doha, said there is "no hard evidence to confirm official Iranian backing though the issue is very clear that the Houthis receive significant support from Iran".

Saleh's successor, Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi, a Sunni originally from the south, is adamant there are "foreign plots" aimed at torpedoing progress in Yemen.

"Internal and foreign forces [have] allied to... overthrow the Yemeni model" of political transition after the uprising of 2011, the president said.

His claims were backed by reports that Yemen freed this week two Iranians said to be members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards who were accused of having trained the Shiite rebels.

Counterterrorism US priority 

The rebels’ advance coincides with an intensification of the war on the Sunni extremists of the Islamic State group by the United States and its Gulf Arab allies, leaving the battle against pro-Iranian groups low among priorities.

For the analyst Sharqieh, “the Americans have chosen to accommodate Iran’s expansion of influence in Yemen for two reasons”.

The first is “a lack of strategy on how to resist this increasing influence”, coupled with Washington “sticking to its traditional security-focused approach of prioritising counterterrorism over any other aspect of its relations with the Middle East”.

Washington regards Al Qaeda’s Yemen-based affiliate as its most dangerous and has been waging a drone war against its leaders for years, with the backing of first Saleh and more recently Hadi.

Sharqieh said the Houthis and Iran are “staunch adversaries” of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, “so the arrival of Houthis to power, though they raise a slogan of ‘death to America’, is still [more] favourable to the US than an increasing influence of Al-Qaeda”.

And he added that US Secretary of State John Kerry’s statement about a role for Iran in the fight against terrorism “is an indicator of where [President Barack] Obama’s first priority is”.

Neil Partrick, a Gulf analyst at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, said the Houthis “are more likely to be seen in Iran as one of several ways of pressuring Saudi Arabia and of suggesting regional leverage”.

Meanwhile, looming over the scene is the figure of 72-year-old Saleh.

“It is widely believed that his alliance with the Houthis was a key for their successful move,” Sharqieh said.

Partrick said the 72-year-old Saleh “has seemingly been coordinating with the Houthi for some time and recently boasted of such an alliance”.

All of this may form part of a move by the ousted strongman to return to centre stage in Yemeni politics.

He continues to maintain links with neighbouring Saudi Arabia and its ally, the United Arab Emirates, to which his son Ahmed is Yemen’s ambassador.

So far, Riyadh has not reacted to the seizure of Sanaa by the rebels, who fought border skirmishes with Saudi Arabia in 2009 and 2010.

For now it remains to be seen whether the kingdom will accept the latest turn of events in Yemen or, instead, support the Houthis’ Sunni rivals, the Islamist Al Islah Party, which is linked to the Muslim Brotherhood, an organisation opposed by Riyadh.

CAIRO — A unity government is to take control of the Gaza Strip, after a breakthrough in talks between Palestinian factions on Thursday which could strengthen their hand in talks with Israel next month.

The Gaza ceasefire struck in August between Israel and the Palestinians called for the Palestinian Authority, led by President Mahmoud Abbas, to take over civil administration in Gaza from the Islamist Hamas.

Officials from Hamas and Abbas' Fateh movement announced the deal on Thursday in Cairo, where they had been meeting under the auspices of Egypt's intelligence services.

Hamas took power in Gaza in 2007 after making sweeping election gains, amid bitter rivalry between the Islamists and Fateh which erupted into violence. The two sides have been deeply divided since.

The factions agreed to the make-up of a national unity government in May but a dispute over the Palestinian Authority's non-payment of salaries to Gaza's public sector workers later brought relations close to breaking point.

"All civil servants will be paid by the unity government because they are all Palestinians and it is the government of all Palestinians," said Azzam Ahmed of Fateh on Thursday.

Musa Abu Marzouk, deputy chairman of Hamas' political bureau, said control of Gaza's border crossings, another contentious issue, would be shared with the United Nations.

"The United Nations will come to an agreement with Israel and the unity government on how to run the crossings," he said.

The agreement states that 3,000 members of the security forces employed by the Palestinian Authority will be merged into Gaza's security services and tasked with running the territory's border crossings.

Marzouk said the Rafah border crossing with Egypt was not part of the deal.

Gaza reconstruction

Ahmed said the two factions had agreed on “eliminating all the obstacles before the national unity government”.

He said a committee comprised of all Palestinian parties would be formed to implement the agreement and resolve any further problems.

There was no initial comment on Thursday’s breakthrough from Israel, which is celebrating a religious holiday.

Israel froze US-brokered peace talks with Abbas when the unity deal was first announced in April and urged the world not to recognise the new government. It regards Hamas, which refuses to recognise the Jewish state, as a terrorist group.

Fifty days of conflict in Gaza between Hamas and Israel ended late last month.

More than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed along with 67 Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel, after Israel launched an offensive with the declared aim of halting cross-border rocket salvoes by Hamas and other groups.

The conflict left wide areas of Gaza devastated. The Palestinian Authority said in a study reconstruction work would cost $7.8 billion, two and a half times Gaza’s gross domestic product.

International concerns about Hamas’ inclusion in the unity government could undermine a donors’ conference intended to raise reconstruction funds for Gaza, which Egypt is set to host on October 12.

Ahmed said on Thursday Palestinians would seek membership in UN organisations including the international criminal court “to enable our people to hold Israel accountable for the war crimes it has committed”.