Region

ALGIERS — Algerian militants have beheaded French tourist Herve Gourdel, who was kidnapped by gunmen on Sunday in what the group said was a response to France's action against Islamic State militants in Iraq.

In a video released by his captors, Gourdel, a 55-year-old from Nice, is seen kneeling with his arms tied behind his back before four masked militants who read out a statement in Arabic criticising France's intervention.

They then pushed him on his side and held him down. The video does not show the beheading, but a militant later holds the head up to the camera.

"This is why the Soldiers of the Caliphate in Algeria have decided to punish France, by executing this man, and to defend our beloved Islamic State," one of the militants says in the statement he read out.

France's President Francois Hollande confirmed the death of Gourdel, and vowed that French military operations against Islamic State would continue.

"Our compatriot has been killed cruelly and in a cowardly way by a terrorist group. Herve Gourdel was assassinated because he was French," Hollande, visibly shaken by the events, said at the United Nations. "My determination is total, and this aggression only strengthens it. France will continue to fight terrorists everywhere. The operations against Islamic State will continue."

The Soldiers of the Caliphate, a splinter group linked to Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria, had on Monday published a video claiming responsibility for the abduction and showed the man identifying himself as Gourdel.

The kidnapping had come after Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad Al Adnani urged the group's followers to attack citizens of the United States, France and other countries that joined the coalition to destroy the radical group.

Just before the militants gave their statement in the video, the Frenchman told his family that he loved them.

There was no immediate comment from Gourdel's relatives, but a friend, Eric Grinda, told France's i-Tele television: "They want to fan the flames of hatred and to make us want to respond. They only are able to do one thing, assassinate a man on his knees with his hands tied... My sadness is immense."

France launched its first air strikes targeting Islamic State targets in Iraq on Friday. It has said all must be done to rid the region of the group.

France raised the threat level at 30 of its embassies across the Middle East and Africa on Monday.

Western diplomats and intelligence sources say they believe there are fewer than 10 Western hostages still held by Islamic State. The group has recently beheaded two Americans, James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and one Briton, David Haines, and threatened to kill another Briton, Alan Henning.

The Frenchman's kidnapping was one of the first abductions of a foreigner by militants in Algeria since the North African country ended its decade-long war with Islamist fighters in the 1990s.

There have, however, been many attacks in the Maghreb region carried out by armed Islamists. In January 2013, Al Qaeda-linked militants took more than 800 people hostage at a gas facility near In Amenas, Algeria. Algerian special forces raided the site, but 40 workers were killed, all but one of them foreigners, along with 29 militants.

Gourdel, a French nature guide and photographer, was taken hostage when militants stopped his vehicle in the remote mountains east of Algiers where he planned a hiking trip, according to Algeria's interior ministry.

Algerian troops had launched a search for Gourdel in the mountains in an area known as the "Triangle of Death" during the bloody days of Algeria's 1990s war with Islamists. Though attacks from Islamists are rarer, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other groups are still active.

CAIRO — Israel and the Palestinians agreed on Tuesday to resume talks late next month on cementing a Gaza ceasefire, allowing time for Palestinian factions to resolve internal differences which could threaten the Egyptian-mediated negotiations.

Tuesday's meetings began in Cairo around noon under the leadership of Egyptian intelligence, having been delayed for almost three hours while Palestinian factions discussed whether to withdraw in protest over Israel's killing of two Hamas members in Hebron hours before the talks were set to begin.

Israel said the two men abducted and killed three Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank in June, touching off a chain of events that led to the July-August war in Gaza.

The Palestinian delegation condemned the killings but said it would not give Israel a pretext “to escape” commitments made in an August 26 truce that called for talks within a month to agree long-term border arrangements for the blockaded Gaza Strip.

Fifty days of conflict between Hamas and Israel left devastation in some Gaza districts. More than 2,100 Palestinians, most of them civilians, were killed in the fighting, according to the Gaza health ministry.

Sixty-seven Israeli soldiers and six civilians in Israel were also killed. Israel launched the offensive on July 8 with the declared aim of halting cross-border rocket salvoes by Hamas and other militant groups.

Egyptian-mediated talks in July and August succeeded in securing a series of ceasefires aimed at laying the groundwork for talks on a broader deal.

Palestinian delegates said Tuesday’s meetings were intended to set the tone for wider negotiations that will take place in late October, after the end of upcoming Jewish and Muslim religious holidays.

“Each side proposed the headline files that it wants to include on the timetable of future negotiations,” Hamas official Izzat Risheq said in a statement on his Facebook page shortly after the meetings ended. “It was agreed [the talks] would be resumed in the last week of October.”

Risheq said Palestinian negotiators had pressed for the construction of air and seaports in Gaza and for an end to punitive measures imposed on the West Bank since June, including the release of Hamas prisoners.

The Palestinians want an end to the blockade of Gaza by Israel. But Israel views Hamas as a security threat and wants guarantees that weapons will not enter the densely-populated area of 1.8 million people if restrictions are eased.

The Israeli delegation left Cairo early on Tuesday evening without making any comments.

Palestinian divisions

Efforts to turn the ceasefire into a lasting truce could prove difficult, however, with the sides far apart on their central demands. At the same time, divisions among the Palestinians themselves could make it harder to secure a deal.

A Fateh delegation arrived in Cairo on Tuesday evening ahead of separate two-day talks beginning on Wednesday aimed at mending a rift between Hamas and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fateh faction over a range of key issues including control of Gaza.

The ceasefire struck last month to end the Gaza war included stipulations that the Palestinian Authority, led by Abbas, should take over civil administration in Gaza from Hamas.

But a dispute over the Palestinian Authority’s non-payment of salaries to Gaza’s public sector workers has brought tensions between the two main Palestinian factions to near-breaking point, raising the risk of a return to conflict.

Azzam Al Ahmed, a Fateh official who is leading the joint delegation in Cairo, said in a statement that as well as control of Gaza, Fatah wants decisions related to war and peace to be taken at the national level rather than by individual factions.

This thorny issue will not be easy to resolve and could undermine any broader deal with Israel.

“We cannot take one step forward because all the issues related to Gaza, especially after the war, cannot be resolved except with national unity... and the presence of a government that represents the recognised national authority, and this includes the ending of the blockade,” Ahmed said.

SANAA — President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi warned Tuesday of "civil war" in Sunni-majority Yemen and vowed to restore state authority as Shiite rebels appeared to be in near-total control of the capital.

"Sanaa is facing a conspiracy that will lead towards civil war," Hadi said in a speech at the presidential palace, two days after the rebels took control of all other key state institutions in the city, overshadowing a UN-brokered peace deal.

Hundreds of rebel fighters manned checkpoints on the airport road and other major throughfares on Tuesday while heavily armed patrols cruised the streets in four-wheel-drive vehicles, AFP correspondents reported.

Insurgents alongside small detachments of military police stood guard outside public offices they entered on Sunday, which include the main government building, parliament, army headquarters and the central bank.

But Hadi insisted: "Sanaa will not fall."

UN envoy Jamal Benomar, who mediated the accord aimed at ending deadly fighting between the rebels and Sunni Islamists, said the rebels' taking of key institutions virtually without resistance seemed to signify the "collapse" of the security forces in Sanaa.

“What has happened these past few days could lead to the collapse of the Yemeni state and the end of the political transition,” he told Al Arabiya television late Monday.

As Benomar spoke, the peace accord seemed to be holding after a week of clashes between Shiite rebels and Sunni militiamen that the government said killed at least 200 people.

The Houthi rebels, who last year rebranded themselves as Ansarullah (Supporters of God), claim direct descent from the family of the Prophet Mohammad.

Yemeni authorities have repeatedly accused Iran of backing the Houthi rebels, who also appear heavily influenced by Hizbollah, Lebanon’s powerful Shiite militia that is backed by Tehran.

Ansarullah waged a decade-long insurgency in the mountainous north before launching a bid for power in Sanaa last month.

Trying to rescue transition

Sunday’s UN-brokered deal, signed by Hadi and the main political parties, aims to put the troubled transition back on track in impoverished Yemen, which borders oil kingpin Saudi Arabia and is a key US ally in the fight against Al Qaeda.

The speed of the rebel advance reflected the fragility of Yemen’s regime three years after a deadly uprising forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh from power.

Saleh was himself a Zaidi Shiite, a community which forms 30 per cent of Yemen’s mostly Sunni population but is the majority in the northern highlands, including Sanaa province.

Under Sunday’s deal, Hadi had three days to bring a rebel representative into government as an adviser and to name a neutral replacement for prime minister Mohamed Basindawa.

Before the deal was struck, Basindawa tendered his resignation as the security forces surrendered state institutions without a fight, although it has yet to be formally accepted by the president.

A security protocol to Sunday’s agreement requires the rebels to hand over the institutions they have seized, and once a new premier has been named, to start dismantling armed protest camps they established in and around Sanaa last month. 

Rebel representatives refused to sign the security protocol at Sunday’s ceremony, however.

Rebel spokesman Mohammed Abdessalam said they would do so only once the security forces had apologised for the deaths of rebel protesters during an attempt to storm government headquarters earlier this month.

The deal also requires Hadi to appoint an adviser from the separatist Southern Movement which has been campaigning for the secession of the formerly independent south.

The southerners’ boycott of Hadi’s UN-backed plans for the transition has been another major obstacle.

RAMALLAH — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was to meet Arab diplomats in New York Tuesday ahead of a fresh bid at the United Nations to create a new "political reality”, his spokesman said.

"This visit is going to be a very important one, a crossroads," Nabil Abu Rudeina told Voice of Palestine radio.

"Settlements must stop. Israel must be forced to accept international legitimacy and law," he said.

"If it does not, there will be another political reality to deal with. The next few weeks will see developments that will affect the peace process in the future."

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

During the UN General Assembly, which opens Wednesday, Abbas plans to propose a three-year deadline for ending the Israeli occupation and establishing a Palestinian state within the 1967 lines.

He will meet the Arab group "to devise a unified position for making the next move towards establishing a state", Abu Rudeina said.

"Things are critical right now, but the Palestinians and Arabs are determined to go to the [UN] Security Council and demand international protection," he told the radio.

Speaking to students in New York Monday, Abbas confirmed he would lay out "a new timetable for peace talks”.

Abbas will meet US Secretary of State John Kerry Wednesday to lay out details of his initiative.

"If he rejects it, the leadership has other options. We will go to international agencies and the Security Council," Abu Rudeina warned.

But if Abbas' proposal were put to the Security Council, it would likely be vetoed out of hand by the United States as a "unilateral move”.

Last week, Abbas held talks with French President Francois Hollande, who confirmed that a "solution to the conflict" would be put to the Security Council because years of stop-start negotiations had gone on "too long".

"We will have a resolution, to be presented to the Security Council, that will say very clearly what we expect from the [peace] process and what the solution to the conflict must be," Hollande told reporters, without elaborating. 

In 2012, the Palestinians won the status of UN observer state. That gives them the ability to become a party to the International Criminal Court, where they could sue Israeli officials over allegations of war crimes.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel shot down a Syrian fighter jet over the Golan Heights on Tuesday, the army said, indicating that it had crossed the ceasefire line into the Israeli-occupied sector. 

It was the most serious incident to take place on the strategic plateau since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011. 

"A warplane that penetrated Israeli territory was successfully shot down a short while ago by the air defence systems along the Syrian border," a military statement said, without giving further details.

Army radio said it was apparently a MiG-21 fighter jet which was shot down by a surface-to-air Patriot missile, with the wreckage landing on the Syrian-controlled side of the plateau.

The downing came just three weeks after Israel shot down a drone over the Golan as heavy fighting raged on the Syrian side, most of which has been seized by rebels fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad. 

The Assad regime has been hitting back with frequent air strikes in a bid to retake control of the plateau. Some have been close to Israeli positions. 

Since the uprising erupted more than three years ago, the plateau has been tense, with a growing number of rockets and mortar rounds hitting the Israeli side, most of them stray, prompting occasional retaliatory fire.

NEW YORK — If Iran and world powers will reach a long-term nuclear deal that ends sanctions against Tehran, it will open the door to deeper cooperation on regional peace and stability and the fight against terrorism, Iran's president said on Tuesday.

President Hassan Rouhani, who spoke to senior editors ahead of the annual gathering of world leaders at the UN General Assembly, Rouhani said he had no plans to meet US President Barack Obama while in New York City.

"Without a doubt, reaching a final nuclear deal will expand our cooperation, and we can cooperate in various fields including restoring regional peace and stability and fighting against terrorism," he said through an interpreter.

Senior foreign ministry officials from the United States, Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and Iran are meeting this week in New York. Officials close to the talks say a deal is unlikely in coming days given deep disagreement on issues such as the scope of Iran's future enrichment programme.

The sides have set a November 24 deadline for a long-term agreement that would end sanctions on Tehran in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme.

"The talks occurring will clear many things, whether we will be able to reach a final agreement or not," he said. "I believe both sides have reached the conclusion that the continuation of the current condition doesn't benefit anyone.... So why not make strides to reach this agreement?"

He appeared to suggest relations with the United States had improved despite their differences, and even if no final agreement is reached, the negotiating process, inconceivable two years ago, had altered relations.

"It doesn't mean we will go back to the way things were prior," he said. "The ground will be paved for further cooperation if the nuclear issue is resolved."

Iranian officials last week told Reuters that Tehran was ready to work with Western powers to stop Islamic State militants, who have taken over substantial territory in Syria and Iraq, but would like concessions on Tehran's uranium enrichment programme in return.

Hours before Washington and Arab allies launched air strikes against Islamic State positions in Syria for the first time, the White House declared that it refused to connect the nuclear talks with the fight against the militant group.

Legality of air 

strikes in Syria?

Washington broke off ties with Iran during a hostage crisis after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Rouhani succeeded the fiercely anti-Western Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president in August 2013, and the two estranged nations have gradually resumed senior-level contacts while remaining deeply suspicious of each other.

Rouhani, viewed by comparison as a soft-spoken pragmatist with strong ties to Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is on his second visit to New York as the head of Iran's government. He will address the 193-nation General Assembly on Thursday.

The Iranian president appeared to question the legality of the airs trikes in Syria. He neither condemned nor endorsed the military action by the United States and Arab allies but said there were formal legal procedures that must be followed.

"Bombarding a country has a legal process," he said. "It should take place within the framework of the UN, or that country's leaders should have asked for it to be carried out officially and formally."

Without a UN mandate or formal government request, military interventions "don't have any legal standing", he said.

An Iranian foreign ministry spokeswoman, however, was quoted by the semi-official Fars news agency as saying the US strikes were a violation of Syria's sovereignty and a breach of international law. She added that they will further complicate the situation in the region and have negative consequences worldwide.

Syrian President Bashar Assad is a close ally of Iran, which has provided military support to his government during its civil war, now in its fourth year.

Syria's UN Ambassador Bashar Ja'afari told Reuters on Tuesday that he was personally informed by US Ambassador Samantha Power of imminent US and Arab air strikes against Islamic State targets on Syrian territory hours ahead of time.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the air strikes by the United States and Arab allies were targeting extremists in Syria who pose a serious threat to international peace and security — a standard legal justification for military force.

Rouhani also spoke about relations with Iran's regional rival Saudi Arabia.

"Our relationship with Saudi Arabia... deserves to be warmer," he said. "Saudi Arabia's positions are getting closer and closer to us."

Shiite Muslim Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia are enmeshed in a struggle for influence across the Middle East and have supported opposing sides in wars and political disputes in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Bahrain and Yemen.

TIKJDA, Algeria — Algerian troops scoured a mountainous eastern region Tuesday for a Frenchman kidnapped by militants linked to the Islamic State group who have threatened to execute him, a security source said.

Elite anti-terrorism soldiers were among those searching for Herve Pierre Gourdel, 55, a mountain guide who was seized on Sunday evening while trekking in the rugged, heavily forested Kabylie area, where Al Qaeda is active.

Jund Al Khilifa, or "Soldiers of the Caliphate", which has pledged allegiance to IS, which is fighting in Iraq and Syria, has claimed responsibility for the kidnapping.

In a video posted on YouTube Monday, it threatened to kill Gourdel within 24 hours unless France halted its air strikes against jihadist targets in Iraq.

The video showed the white-haired and bespectacled hostage squatting on the ground flanked by two hooded men clutching Kalashnikov assault rifles.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls vowed Tuesday there would be "no negotiation" with the kidnappers and said Paris would press ahead with air strikes against extremists.

More soldiers joined the search for Gourdel Tuesday, with some 20 truckloads of paratroopers brought to the edge of the Ait Ouabane forest, near where the kidnapping took place, a witness said.

They began combing a sector of 10 square kilometres in the area, where jihadists ambushed an army patrol in April and killed 10 soldiers.

At the same time, police have set up roadblocks along the highway that works its way through the mountains.

The threat against Gourdel followed a call by IS for Muslims to kill Westerners whose nations have joined a campaign to battle the jihadist group.

Last week, France conducted its first air raids in Iraq, but has ruled out joining military operations in Syria, where US-led strikes Tuesday opened a new front in the battle against IS militants.

The kidnapping of Gourdel was Jund Al Khilifa's first since it announced at the end of August that it was withdrawing from Al Qaeda because of the network's "deviance" and pledged loyalty to IS.

"If you have several armies in Iraq and an army in Syria, consider that you also have spears in Algeria that you can throw in any direction you want," it said in a statement directed to IS leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.

BEIRUT — Syria's opposition National Coalition on Tuesday welcomed US-led air strikes against the Islamic State (IS) group, but urged sustained pressure on President Bashar Assad's government.

Syria's Kurdish leadership also welcomed the strikes, as fighters on the ground tried to defend a key Kurdish town from a massive IS offensive.

"Tonight, the international community has joined our fight against ISIS in Syria," Coalition president Hadi Al Bahra said, using an alternative acronym for the jihadist group.

"We have called for air strikes such as those that commenced tonight with a heavy heart and deep concern... We insist that utmost care is taken to avoid civilian casualties," he added.

The comments came after a US-led coalition assembled to battle IS began air strikes against the jihadist group in eastern and northern Syria on Tuesday morning.

The opposition Coalition has backed strikes against IS, but also urged continued attention to Assad's regime.

"We are calling on all our partners to maintain pressure on the Assad regime," Bahra said.

"This war cannot be won by military means alone," he added.

"It requires a comprehensive strategy with political, economic and social components — a process that may be supported by the international community, but must be led and implemented by Syrians."

Separately, the leader of the key Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party, Salih Muslim, also welcomed the strikes.

"We are looking forward to cooperating with the [US-led] coalition in the fight against terrorism," said Muslim.

Since last week, IS jihadists have carried out a major offensive against Ain Al Arab, known as Kobane by the Kurds, forcing at least 130,000 people to flee the strategic town on the Turkish border.

ISTANBUL — Turkey could give military or logistical support to US-led air strikes against Islamic State insurgents in Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was quoted as saying on Tuesday.

"We will give the necessary support to the operation. The support could be military or logistics," Erdogan was quoted by Turkish broadcaster NTV as telling reporters in New York.

The United States and its Arab allies bombed Syria for the first time on Tuesday, killing scores of Islamic State fighters and members of a separate Al Qaeda-linked group, opening a new front against militants by joining Syria's three-year-old civil war.

NATO ally Turkey, which is alarmed by Islamic State but also worried about Kurdish fighters and opposed to any action that might help Syrian President Bashar Assad, had so far refused a military role in the coalition.

Turkey is home to a major US base in the southern town of Incirlik, which officials have said has not been used so far in any lethal strikes in Iraq or Syria.

Erdogan said Turkey viewed the US-led action positively and said it should continue.

Turkish officials has said its hands were tied while 46 of its citizens were held hostage by Islamic State militants in northern Iraq, including its consul general in Mosul, soldiers and diplomats' children.

On Saturday, Turkish intelligence agents brought the hostages back to Turkey after more than three months in captivity, in what Erdogan described as a covert rescue operation.

"Clearly, Turkey had an initial challenge with respect to its hostages and that being resolved, now Turkey is ready to conduct additional efforts along with the rest of us in order to guarantee success," US Secretary of State John Kerry said at a counter-terrorism forum.

Turkey had already indicated its support for the coalition but said it would play a largely humanitarian and logistical role, including trying to stem the flow of foreign fighters travelling through its territory to join the jihadists in Iraq and Syria.

Turkish authorities have drawn up a "no-entry" list of 6,000 people, some as young as 14, based largely on intelligence from Western agencies and have deported more than 500 suspected of seeking to join the extremists this year alone.

GENEVA — The United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday it was making contingency plans in case all 400,000 inhabitants of the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani fled into Turkey to escape advancing Islamic State militants.

Some 138,000 Syrian Kurdish refugees have entered southern Turkey in an exodus that began last week and two border crossing points remain open, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

"We are preparing for the potential of the whole population fleeing into Turkey. Anything could happen and that population of Kobani is 400,000," UNHCR chief spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told a news briefing in Geneva.

"We don't know if all of those people will flee, but we are preparing for that contingency," she said.

The United States and Arab allies bombed Syria for the first time on Tuesday, killing dozens of Islamic State fighters and members of a separate Al Qaeda-linked group, pursuing a campaign against militants into a war at the heart of the Middle East.

On Monday, Syrian Kurds battled to defend the key border town of Kobani from an Islamic State advance as Kurdish youths from Turkey rushed to their aid.

A first airlift of supplies for up to 200,000 people is due to arrive at Adana Airport from Amman, Jordan on Wednesday, to be followed by three more flights later in the week, Fleming said.

Rupert Colville, UN human rights spokesman, told the briefing on Tuesday: "Our biggest worry at the moment would be if Kobani itself, the town, fell."

At least 105 villages around Kobani have been captured by Islamic State forces since September 15, including at least 85 over the weekend, he said. The UN rights office had reports that an additional 100 villages had been abandoned or evacuated for fear of being captured, he said.

"We have received very alarming reports of deliberate killing of civilians, including women and children, the abduction of hundreds of Kurds by ISIL, and widespread looting and destruction of infrastructure and private property," he said, using another name for the Sunni militant group.

The Kobani region, which has some 440 villages, is also host to between 200,000 and 400,000 Syrians displaced from other parts of the country including Raqqa, Aleppo and Homs, he said.

"So potentially the population movement could be much greater than it's been already even though it's been very large and very fast," Colville said.

Turkish authorities are checking arriving Syrians to ensure they are not fighters, "to maintain the civilian character of asylum", Fleming said. Young Syrian children are also being checked for measles and polio vaccinations, she said.