Region

SANAA — Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi called on Saturday for a UN-brokered political settlement with Shiite rebels as some of the worst violence seen in the capital for years raged for a third day.

The fighting, which intensified on Thursday after weeks of protests and clashes, appeared to be the biggest challenge yet to a UN-backed transition to democracy launched after veteran ruler Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in 2012.

“The right choice is through the process taking place with [UN special envoy] Jamal Benomar,” Hadi was quoted as saying by the official Saba news agency. He described the Houthi advance into Sanaa as “inexcusable”.

Insecurity and political turmoil have grown in Yemen since Arab Spring protests ousted Saleh. The Houthi insurrection is one of several security challenges in Yemen, which borders oil exporter Saudi Arabia and is struggling with a secessionist movement in the south and the spread of an Al Qaeda insurgency.

The Houthis, who belong to the Zaydi sect of Shiite Islam, have been involved in a decade-long conflict with the Sunni-dominated government, fighting for more control and territory in the north.

Prominent figures from the mainly Sunni Muslim clan, one of the most powerful tribes in Yemen, hold senior positions in the armed forces and the government.

Shiite Houthi rebels clashed with the army on the outskirts of Sanaa on Thursday. The fighting escalated mainly between the Houthis and tribesmen allied with Al Ahmar clan.

Yemen’s state-run television building, which is near other vital state institutions, caught fire on Saturday after three days of mortar attacks by the Houthis.

Yemeni television broadcast a written message calling on national and international organisations to intervene to save its employees from the shelling.

In a neighbouring area close to the interior ministry where Houthis have been staging a sit-in, three mortars were fired, according to a Reuters witness. It was not immediately clear who was responsible for the shelling.

Residents and relatives of victims reported at least 16 people dead between Friday night and Saturday morning, ten of them from the same family who were trying to flee their home in Shamlan district in the north of the capital while their mini-bus was hit by mortar fire.

Medical sources also told Reuters 13 Houthis had died on Saturday in confrontations with the army in the capital.

Officials were not immediately available to confirm the death toll.

The ministry of education announced it would temporarily close schools from Sunday for the safety of students and teachers, Saba reported.

The University of Sanaa, the country’s biggest, was closed on Saturday after a mortar fell inside its grounds during clashes on Friday.

Late on Friday the UN’s Benomar, who held meetings with Houthi leader Abdulmalek Al Houthi in Saada province on Wednesday and Thursday released a statement in which he “expressed deep regrets regarding this development, including the use of violence, while utmost efforts were under way in order to reach a peaceful solution to the crisis”.

A source close to the mediation efforts said President Hadi would meet with politicians on Saturday to discuss suggestions from the Houthis on ending the conflict.

One Houthi rebel leader, Abdelmalik Al Ajri, told Reuters his group’s representatives could reach the capital from Saada later on Saturday or Sunday to sign a deal to end the crisis.

In recent weeks, Houthi protesters have blocked the main road to Sanaa’s airport and held sit-ins at ministries calling for the ousting of the government and the restoration of subsidies cut by the state in July as part of economic reforms.

UNITED NATIONS — With Iran refusing US demands that it gut its uranium enrichment programme, the two sides are now discussing a new proposal that would leave much of Tehran’s enriching machines in place but disconnected from feeds of uranium, diplomats told The Associated Press Saturday.

The talks have been stalled for months over Iran’s opposition to sharply reducing the size and output of centrifuges that can enrich uranium to levels needed for reactor fuel or weapons-grade material used in the core of nuclear warheads. Iran says its enrichment programme is only for peaceful purposes, but Washington fears it could be used to make a bomb.

Time is running out before a November 24 deadline and both sides are eager to break the impasse.

Ahead of the resumption of talks Friday, the New York Times reported that Washington was considering putting a new plan on the table that would focus on removing the piping connecting the centrifuges that enrich uranium, instead of demanding that Iran cut the number of centrifuge machines from 19,000 to no more than 1,500.

Two diplomats told the AP that Tehran was initially non-committal at a bilateral meeting in August. But they say the proposal has now moved to being discussed at the talks Tehran is holding with the US and five other powers, and that the Islamic Republic is cautiously receptive.

Both diplomats demanded anonymity because their information is confidential.

While only a proposal, the plan would allow the Iranians to claim that they did not compromise on vows that they would never emasculate their enrichment capabilities, while keeping intact American demands that the programme be downgraded to a point where it could not be quickly turned to making bombs.

The talks bring Iran to the negotiating table with the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. That means US Secretary of State John Kerry and his counterparts will likely join in, adding their diplomatic muscle to the meeting.

.Ahead of the talks, chief US negotiator Wendy Sherman acknowledged that the sides “remain far apart” on the size and scope of Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity.

Iran’s demands that it be allowed to keep its programme at its present size and output are not acceptable and will not give Iran what it wants — an end to the nuclear-related sanctions choking its economy, she told reporters.

“We must be confident that any effort by Tehran to break out of its obligations will be so visible and time-consuming that the attempt would have no chance of success,” she said of Washington’s push for deep, long-lasting cuts.

Other contentious issues are what to do with an underground enrichment plant near the village of Fordo and with a reactor under construction near the city of Arak.

The US wants the Fordo facility converted to non-enrichment use because it’s heavily fortified against underground attack. And it wants the reactor converted to reduce to a minimum its production of plutonium, an alternate pathway to nuclear arms.

The deadline was extended to November 24 after the sides failed to reach agreement by the end of July.

ANKARA — Forty-nine Turks held hostage for months by Islamic State (IS) jihadists in northern Iraq were freed and returned to Turkey on Saturday, to emotional family reunions and a triumphant Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

Turkish diplomats and their children were seized along with special forces officers in their country’s consulate in the Iraqi city of Mosul on June 11 as IS militants overran whole swathes of northern Iraq.

Davutoglu announced their liberation early Saturday and cut short a visit to Azerbaijan to greet the ex-hostages. He gave no details of the circumstances of their release, though other officials and media reports spoke of a “secret operation”.

“Early in the morning our citizens were handed over to us and we brought them back into our country,” Davutoglu told reporters before leaving the Azerbaijani capital Baku.

Turkey’s intelligence agency, armed forces and police had worked to secure their freedom, Davutoglu said after meeting the ex-hostages in the Turkish city of Sanliurfa and flying on with them to the Turkish capital Ankara.

“There are unnamed heroes, like those who brought our citizens back to Turkey. They acted for the sake of our country, for the sake of our people. I salute them,” the prime minister told a cheering crowd of supporters waving Turkish flags as he stood atop a bus at Ankara’s airport.

He kissed one of the freed hostages, consul-general Ozturk Yilmaz, on the forehead, after saying the hostages had “stood strong” and unbowed during their captivity.

Yilmaz said: “I am proud of what I have gone through for my country.” He added that he “never lost hope” and was “very happy” to be back in Turkey.

 ‘Secret operation’ 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the Turkish authorities had carried out a “pre-planned, detailed and secret operation”.

“It continued all through the night and was successfully completed in the early morning. From the very first day, our intelligence agency has followed the issue with patience and determination and finally carried out a successful rescue operation.”

Although officials gave no details of the operation, private NTV television said Ankara had not paid any ransom and instead had negotiated with local authorities in Iraq.

No other countries were involved in the operation and there were no clashes with the IS militants, NTV said, citing anonymous security sources.

The hostages were taken to eight different locations during their captivity and the spy agency tracked their whereabouts by drones and other equipment.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told private Haberturk television that the hostages had been brought across the Syrian border.

“We have started the day with great news. I hope we will never experience something like this again.”

On his Twitter account, he thanked “all those who contributed to the release of the hostages”, especially the spy chief, Hakan Fidan.

The IS had also kidnapped 31 Turkish truck drivers in early June in Mosul and had released them a month later.

IS militants have seized a swathe of territory in Iraq and Syria, declaring an Islamic “caliphate”, committing widespread atrocities and instituting a brutal interpretation of Islamic law. They have recently beheaded three Western hostages, causing an international outcry.

Turkey, a NATO member and Washington’s key ally in the region, has been reluctant to take part in combat operations against IS militants, or allow a US-led coalition to use its airbases for strikes against the jihadists, citing its concern over for the safety of its hostages.

Ankara has rejected criticism that it indirectly encouraging the formation of IS through its support of Islamist elements within the Syrian rebellion against President Bashar Assad.

Under international pressure, Turkey in June put Al Nusra Front — Al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria — and the IS extremists on its list of terrorist organisations.

CAIRO — Egypt's President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi told The Associated Press on Saturday he is prepared to give whatever support is needed in the fight against the Islamic State group but called for a "comprehensive strategy" to tackle the roots of extremism across the region.

In his first interview with a foreign media outlet since taking office in June, Sisi sought to present himself and Egypt as being at the vanguard of confronting militancy, citing it as the reason for his ouster of Egypt's first freely elected president more than a year ago — a move that brought international criticism and strained ties with top ally the United States.

He told AP that Egyptians had realised the danger of "political Islam" and that if he had not acted, the Arab world's most populous nation would have faced "civil war", and bloodshed now seen in Iraq and Syria.

"I warned about the great danger a year ago," he said. "But it was not clear [to others] until the events in Iraq and the Islamic State's sweep" over much of that country.

Sisi did not elaborate on what support Egypt might give to the US-led coalition aimed at fighting the extremist group. When asked if Egypt might provide airspace access or logistical support for air strikes, he said, "We are completely committed to giving support. We will do whatever is required".

But he appeared to rule out sending troops, saying Iraq's military is strong enough to fight the militants and "it's not a matter of ground troops from abroad".

Speaking in a chamber in his Ittihadiya presidential palace, he said it was "very important" to stop foreign extremists from joining militant groups in Syria and Iraq, warning that they will return to their home nations, including in Europe. But he said a broader strategy is needed that also addresses poverty and improves education in the region.

In his previous post as head of the military, Sisi ousted President Mohammed Morsi in July 2013 and launched a heavy crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood movement. Since then, more than 1,000 have been killed and more than 20,000 imprisoned as police have crushed protests, and rounded up Brotherhood leaders.

Sisi said the Brotherhood "had a chance to rule Egypt" but that Egyptians turned against it — referring to the massive demonstrations in the summer of 2013 demanding Morsi's ouster.

Justifying the crackdown, he said the Brotherhood had "chosen confrontation". But he said followers of the group, which has been banned, could participate in politics in in the future if they renounce violence.

"To anyone who doesn't use violence, Egypt is very forgiving," he said. "The chance for participation is there."

He also said he cannot interfere with the judiciary in the case of three journalists from Al Jazeera English television who have been sentenced to seven years in prison over terrorism-related charges. Their trial was dismissed by human rights groups as a farce and their convictions brought heavy international criticism.

"If I had been in charge at the time, I never would have let the issue go so far. I would have deported them," he said of the three. But he said that if Egypt is to have an independent judiciary, "We can't accept criticism or comment" on court rulings.

He did not address whether he would pardon the three after the appeals process is finished.

The three journalists — Australian Peter Greste, Canadian-Egyptian Mohamed Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohammed — were convicted of promoting or belonging to the Brotherhood and of falsifying their coverage of protests by Morsi's supporters to hurt Egypt's security, and make it appear the country is sliding into civil war.

But the three said they were arrested for simply doing their job reporting and during the trial prosecutors presented no evidence any footage was falsified, simply presenting the news reports of protests as evidence.

TUNIS — Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki announced Saturday he will stand for re-election in November, in a key vote almost four years after a revolt that sparked the Arab Spring uprisings.

The polls, along with parliamentary elections in October, are seen as the final step in Tunisia's transition after more than two decades under strongman Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali who was toppled in 2011.

The moderate Islamist party Ennahda won Tunisia's first post-Ben Ali election the same year.

Marzouki, a fierce opponent of Ben Ali and a secular ally of Ennahda, was chosen as president in December 2011 in a vote in the National Constituent Assembly.

The 69-year-old kicked off his re-election campaign with an attack on "dirty money" in politics.

"My candidacy is an example of transparency," he said. "We must not allow corruption in this first democratic experience," he said after registering for the November 23 vote.

Critics often accuse cronies of Ben Ali's former autocratic regime of seeking to derail the reform process.

Marzouki faces a number of rival candidates including National Assembly speaker Mustapha Ben Jaafar, a former central bank chief, and one-time premier Beji Caid Essebsi.

Essebsi, 87, earlier this month accused "infiltrators" in his party who oppose his candidacy of wanting to kill him, prompting an inquiry by prosecutors.

The north African nation, the cradle of the revolutions that shook the Arab world, is seen as a beacon of hope compared with other chaos-hit countries like Libya and Egypt.

But its transition to full democracy has been turbulent at times.

In the wake of the 2011 uprising, Tunisia was rocked by violence blamed on hardline Islamists who were suppressed under the former dictator, as well as social unrest over poor living conditions.

The authorities have struggled to root out militant groups, some of them Al Qaeda loyalists, who have killed dozens of police and troops since the revolution, particularly near the Algerian border.

One such group, Okba Ibn Nafaa, announced this week that it was throwing its support behind the Islamic State group, which has overrun chunks of Iraq and Syria.

Bete noire turned president 

In January, Marzouki and other leaders signed a new constitution — seen as one of the most modern in the Arab world — that took more than two years to draft.

Executive power is divided between Prime Minister Mehdi Jomaa, who has the dominant role, and the president, who retains important prerogatives, notably in defence and foreign affairs.

Marzouki, a French-trained doctor and veteran opposition rights activist, was Ben Ali's bete noire throughout his political career and was forced to live in exile in France for a decade.

His critics say presidential ambitions motivated him to form an alliance with Ennahda.

Marzouki has insisted that the coalition was the only way to ensure sustainable democracy.

His rise to power came almost a year after the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor sparked a protest movement that spread across much of the Arab world, sweeping away long-time dictators in Egypt and Libya.

Marzouki headed the Tunisian League for the Defence of Human Rights from 1989 until 1994 when he was forced out by Ben Ali supporters.

A prolific writer, he has penned several books in French and Arabic including one titled "Dictators on Watch: A Democratic Path for the Arab World".

DAMIETTA, Egypt — A twist of fate stopped Abu Fahd boarding a doomed migrant boat that sank off Malta with hundreds aboard, but the Syrian and his family are already plotting another perilous voyage.

Abu Fahd, his wife and five children were supposed to take a vessel from a beach on the outskirts of Egypt's Mediterranean city of Damietta but they missed it and were arrested by the military.

"We were crammed in a bus with more than 80 others. The smugglers had knives and pistols and they kept screaming at us," he said.

"We got out on a beach from where a waiting boat flashed laser beams as a signal. We tried to reach it but lagged behind as my wife was limping and then suddenly the army pounced on us."

The smugglers fled and the military handed Abu Fahd, his family and dozens of others to the police.

Four days later, the rickety boat was rammed and sunk by human traffickers after its passengers refused to change to an even smaller vessel.

About 500 people drowned in the disaster earlier this month in what has been called a "mass murder".

The worsening security situation in neighbouring Libya, another major departure point for migrants, has drawn growing numbers of people to Egypt in the hope of crossing the Mediterranean.

Sitting on his balcony at a hotel near Damietta, Abu Fahd said he would not let the brush with death deter him from trying to reach European soil.

"I will do it again and again," the bearded 51-year-old, dressed in a blue-striped shirt and shorts, told AFP.

Abu Fahd paid smugglers $3,000 (2,300 euros) to take him, his wife and children to Italy from Egypt, where they had been living illegally for years.

"I told my wife that the journey was dangerous and that I did not know whether we would reach the other shore with all our children alive," he said as his four-year-old son sat in his lap.

Abu Fahd, whose name has been changed for his security, and others like him say that despite the dangers they are determined to flee.

"My life has been a struggle and living illegally is hard too," Abu Fahd said, adding that his family's sole possessions are the clothes on their backs.

His passport expired years ago and he has been living in Cairo on borrowed money before coming to Damietta, about 295 kilometres north of the capital.

He paid the smugglers after selling his furniture.

 Traffickers on Facebook 

Gazia Abu Nabout's 18-year-old daughter Doaa was one of those aboard the ill-fated boat.

She was one of the few survivors and is now in Greece, but her fiance perished.

They had arranged the trip with smugglers through Facebook, said the 45-year-old mother.

The family, which relies on aid from the UN refugee agency, arrived in Egypt in 2012, fleeing the war in Syria.

They owe the smugglers $2,500 for the ill-fated voyage, which was the couple's second attempt to reach Europe.

"My daughter's fiance knew the dangers involved in the trip. But they wanted to go so they can help our families," said Doaa's father Shoukri Mohamed Zamel.

'Prowling gangs' 

Activists say the Egyptian cities of Alexandria, Behaira, Kafr El Sheikh, Dakahaliya and Damietta have become centres for trafficking illegal migrants.

The authorities blame organised criminal gangs of people traffickers operating on Egyptian territory for shipwrecks such as the one off Malta.

"There is a mafia of smugglers that work on smuggling illegal immigrants to Italy," interior ministry spokesman Hany Abdel Latif told AFP when asked about accusations that Egyptian traffickers were behind last week's shipwreck.

He said migrants such as Syrians and Palestinians were entering Egypt under false pretences before trying to travel on to Europe.

In 2011 and 2012, traffickers smuggled people through Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to Israel and then to Europe, said International Organisation of Migration's Egypt co-ordinator Amr Taha.

"This route later changed and they smuggled people through Libya to Europe. And since 2013, Egypt has [once again] become the route after security situation deteriorated in Libya," he said.

But Abu Nabout said traffickers were not entirely to blame.

"The ship was not sunk by smugglers, but by criminal gangs who prowl in these waters. We can't blame the smugglers because they are helping us find better lives."

CAIRO — Egypt has moved to curb one of the last bastions of Muslim Brotherhood dissent with sweeping new rules to curtail violent protest at Al Azhar University, among the world's most venerable centres of Islamic learning.

Egypt has banned the Muslim Brotherhood and jailed thousands of its supporters since July 2013, when then-army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi overthrew Mohamed Morsi, Egypt's first freely elected president and a senior member of the group.

As the noose tightened around the Brotherhood, Al Azhar emerged as a hotspot in its battle against Egypt's new rulers.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Mehleb said in a meeting on Thursday with the heads of several universities and some ministers that Egypt would not tolerate violence on any university campus, his office said in a statement.

An interior ministry official said security forces would carry out patrols around schools and universities during the academic year, the state news agency reported.

The grand mufti, Egypt's top religious authority, and the grand imam of Al Azhar, have long lent their prestige to those in power and issued religious edicts to back government policy.

But the Brotherhood enjoys strong support within the student body as well as among faculty members, many of whom oppose Sisi and his crackdown on Egypt's oldest Islamist movement.

With students preparing to return to their campuses this month after the long summer hiatus, the government on Wednesday amended the university rules to discourage renewed unrest.

The new rules state that any student or faculty member who incites, supports or joins in protests that disrupt learning or promote rioting or vandalism will be expelled or fired.

Students have sprayed graffiti on buildings, blocked college entrances and staged strikes, prompting Al Azhar to request police intervention. This in turn has fuelled anger among students and professors who say the campus is a sacred space.

Students loyal to the Brotherhood have repeatedly clashed with police inside the campus over the past year, setting fire to tyres and throwing rocks to counter teargas.

In May, a week before presidential polls that were won by Sisi, gunmen killed three policemen at Al Azhar.

"The amendments came as part of security measures aimed at frightening and clamping down on the Muslim Brotherhood and all related groups," said Hassan Nafaa, a political science professor at Cairo University.

"This is their aim and in my opinion security measures will not be enough to deal with the issue," he added

There was no immediate comment from Al Azhar officials.

Before the uprising that removed Hosni Mubarak from power in 2011, a special police force was dedicated to university campuses, clamping down on protest and monitoring dissent.

A court ruling shortly before the revolt banned police from entering campuses. But another ruling this year stated that police could enter if laws were being broken.

"There is a feeling on campuses in general of a loss of freedom and of growing oppression. These restrictions are being felt not just by Brotherhood supporters but by other groups, including leftists and liberals," Nafaa said.

As the state's crackdown on dissent has widened, street demonstrations have dwindled. Activists have been arrested for violating a law passed last year that bans public gatherings of more than 10 people without prior interior ministry permission.

The law means university campuses are among the last remaining spaces in Egypt where dissent can be expressed.

But fearing another year of unrest, some colleges are banning students from expressing partisan loyalties on campus.

"We always said: You must remove your party cloak at the university gate because it is a place of learning.  But regrettably, since the January 25 revolution it has been transformed into a space for political battles," the head of Cairo University, Jaber Nassar, told Al Masry Al Youm newspaper.

"But our decision will be imposed on those who oppose the authorities and those who support them, without exception."

BENGHAZI — Libya's elected parliament has rejected the new Cabinet of Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thinni, dealing a fresh blow to the acting premier whose government was forced to flee the capital Tripoli last month after it was taken over by militants.

Thinni, a former career soldier, has been acting prime minister since March. He stood down after June elections and the new parliament reappointed him at the start of this month.

His government has been unable to impose order and lost control of Tripoli after an armed group seized the capital in August and set up a rival Cabinet and parliament there. Thinni and the elected parliament have been working from the eastern city of Tobruk since then.

But even the rump state operating out of Tobruk is divided. Thinni spent two weeks choosing a new 16-strong Cabinet which he presented on Wednesday.

But lawmakers in the House of Representatives demanded Thinni submit a new Cabinet with no more than 10 ministers, parliamentary spokesperson Faraj Hashim said. "We have demanded that no minister will be nominated who has two passports," he added, without elaborating.

Only 103 lawmakers of the 200-strong assembly attended the session. Many elected deputies never went to Tobruk because the violence has made travel risky, while those close to the armed group controlling Tripoli declined to move.

The political haggling came as fighting between armed groups knocked out the country's biggest refinery and oil field. 

The 120,000 barrels a day Zawiya refinery west of Tripoli has been shut down after storage was damaged in fighting, said Ibrahim Al Awami, head of the inspection department at the oil ministry.

The El Sharara field feeding the refinery also remains closed, he said, adding that he did not know when the refinery and oil field would resume work.

Mohamed El Harari, spokesperson for state-run National Oil Corp. (NOC), denied El Sarara and the Zawiya refinery were completely closed but said it was hard to make forecasts. "With the current conditions in Libya it is difficult to predict what will happen in the oil sector," he said.

The closures are a big blow for the government because the refinery supplies Tripoli and the rest of western Libya with fuel products.

The field closure will bring Libya's oil production down to around 670,000 barrels a day, based on production of 870,000 bpd reported by state-run NOC on Sunday. No output update has been given since then.

Fighting hit the western town of Zawiya in the past few days with at least a rocket hitting a refinery storage tank connecting to the southwestern El Sharara field.

Libya's oil industry had revived in the past two months after major oil ports in the east reopened following the end of a blockage by a rebel group demanding regional autonomy.

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israel believes Syria has retained caches of combat-ready chemical weapons after giving up raw materials used to produce such munitions under pressure from foreign powers, a senior Israeli official said on Thursday.

Summarising Israeli intelligence estimates that were previously not disclosed to avoid undermining the Syrians' surrender of their declared chemical arsenal, the official said they had kept some missile warheads, air-dropped bombs and rocket-propelled grenades primed with toxins like sarin.

"There is, to my mind, still in the hands of Syria a significant residual capability... that could be used in certain circumstances and could be potentially very serious," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

While saying Israel had a "high degree of confidence" in its information, he declined to give figures for chemical weapons allegedly kept by Syria, citing secrecy concerns as well as the possibility some had been destroyed or used by President Bashar Assad's forces.

"What we are saying is that there are a number of questions here that still have to be clarified, still have to be looked at very closely" by international inspectors, the official said.

Israel's intelligence service was the first to accuse Assad's regime of using chemical weapons against areas held by Syrian rebels in the ongoing civil war.

Western powers soon echoed the charge and Washington threatened Damascus with air strikes.

Assad agreed to give up the chemical arsenal, which Damascus had previously not acknowledged having. However, he denied his forces had used them and accused rebels of such attacks.

International diplomats told Reuters this week that Syria had revealed a previously undeclared research and development facility, and a laboratory to produce the ricin poison.

Those disclosures appeared to support Western assertions in recent months that the Assad regime had not been fully transparent in detailing its chemical weapons programme.

The Israeli official said the 1,300 tonnes of mustard gas and precursors for sarin and VX surrendered by Syria largely matched Israeli assessments of its total stockpile of such materials. The shelf-life of any deployable munitions held back was limited given the chemicals' deterioration, he added.

When asked about the possibility that Islamic State insurgents in Syria and Iraq might get hold of Assad's remaining chemical weapons, the official said Israel had no indication that this had happened, indicating that Israeli intelligence knew where Assad's remaining chemical arms were kept and that these sites were still safe — something he declined to confirm or deny directly.

SANAA — Armed Shiite rebels pushed into Yemen's capital Sanaa after clashing with the army in the city's northwest outskirts on Thursday, security sources and residents said, in an escalation of weeks of fighting and protests.

Residents of the northwest Al Shamlan district told Reuters the Shiite Houthi gunmen were now advancing along Thalatheen Street, a major route into the western edge of the city.

The fighting has further destabilised an impoverished country also struggling to overcome a secessionist movement in its south, the spread of an Al Qaeda insurgency and other threats.

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

A military source said Houthi gunmen had also attacked an army camp on the southern entrance of the capital but soldiers repelled the assault.

The Houthis, who belong to the Zaydi sect of Shiite Islam, have been involved in a decade-long conflict with the Sunni-dominated government, fighting for more control and territory in the north.

In recent weeks, Houthi protesters have been blocking the main road to Sanaa's airport, and holding sit-ins at ministries calling for the ousting of the government and the restoration of subsidies cut by the state in July as part of economic reforms.

At least 42 people have also been killed in clashes involving Houthi fighters in different parts of the country since Tuesday.

Critics say the Houthis are trying to grab power and carve out a semi-independent state for themselves in the north — something they deny.

The United Nations' special envoy to Yemen meet Houthi leader Abdulmalek Al Houthi in Saada province on Wednesday to try and find a way out of the conflict. The three-hour meeting was "constructive and positive" Jamal Benomar was reported as saying.

The Houthis said on Monday they would no longer take part in negotiations with the Yemeni government about their grievances because of what they termed "foreign intervention" in the discussions.