Region

RAMALLAH — Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has threatened to break off a unity agreement with Hamas if the Islamist movement does not allow the government to operate properly in the Gaza Strip. 

And Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah told AFP a dispute with Hamas over the payment of salaries to thousands of its employees had become the main issue from preventing his government of national unity from operating inside Gaza.

Abbas' accusation that Hamas was effectively running a parallel administration in Gaza drew an angry reaction from the Islamist movement, which denounced his allegations as “baseless”.

But it raised fresh questions over the future of a fragile intra-Palestinian unity deal aimed at ending seven years of rival administrations in the West Bank and Gaza.

"We will not accept the situation with Hamas continuing as it is at the moment," Abbas said in remarks published by official Palestinian news agency WAFA.

"We won't accept a partnership with them if the situation continues like this in Gaza, where there is a shadow government... running the territory," he said.

"The national consensus government cannot do anything on the ground," he charged.

Later on Sunday, Abbas appeared on the verge of another public attack on Hamas in the opening of his address to the Arab League in Cairo.

Just 30 seconds into his speech, which referenced Hamas' forcible takeover of Gaza in 2007, Abbas was handed a note and abruptly stopped speaking as an official quickly ordered journalists out of the room.

The very public dispute erupted some two weeks after the end of a major 50-day confrontation between Israel and Hamas fighters in Gaza, which killed more than 2,100 Palestinians and 72 in Israel.

In Gaza, spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said Abbas' allegations that Hamas was hampering the operations of the national consensus government were "unjustified".

"It is untrue, baseless and unfair to our people," he said.

Shadow government in Gaza? 

Throughout the conflict, Hamas and Fateh put up a united front, working side-by-side to further indirect truce talks with Israel in Cairo, which resulted in an open-ended ceasefire that took effect on August 26.

But as the guns fell silent, their long-held divisions again came to the fore.

Under the terms of April agreement, Hamas agreed to work with its rivals in Abbas’ Fateh movement to form an interim consensus government of technocrats which would work towards long-delayed national elections.

The deal sought to end years of bitter and sometimes bloody rivalry between Hamas and Fateh, which dominates the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority.

The new Cabinet took office on June 2, with Gaza’s Hamas government officially stepping down the same day.

Despite the handover, Hamas has remained the de facto power in Gaza, with moves to implement the provisions of the unity deal put on hold in the face of the deadly offensive that Israel launched on July 8.

“This unity government should control both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip but there are many things blocking its work,” the prime minister told AFP in an interview.

First and foremost among the problems was the matter of salaries, which had left him caught between a rock and a hard place, he said.

On the one hand, the international community had threatened a suspension of aid if the wages were paid to employees of a group blacklisted as a “terror organisation” while on the other, Hamdallah himself had received “threats” if he were to visit Gaza without first resolving the salary crisis.

Since signing the agreement in April, Hamas has demanded the new government take responsibility for paying its 45,000 employees, 27,000 of whom are civil servants.

“Putting Hamas employees on the government payroll is the main problem which is preventing the government from working in the Gaza Strip,” said Hamdallah.

“The government and the banks operating in the Palestinian territories were warned that if they make these payments to former Hamas government employees in Gaza then the government and the people will be boycotted,” he said.

“If this happens, the Palestinian banking system will face a huge problem that will threaten the Palestinian situation in general.”

The Palestinians are heavily dependent on international aid with a boycott likely to have a devastating financial impact on its financial viability.

Hamdallah said an unidentified “third party” was working to solve the crisis by delivering the payments, with “positive indications” it would be resolved soon.

Qatar has agreed to cover the costs of the former Hamas employees, although the money has yet to be transferred.

BARWANA, Iraq — President Barack Obama has vowed to outline a long-awaited strategy against Islamic State jihadists on Wednesday, after Washington expanded its month-long air campaign to Iraq's Sunni Arab heartland.

The new strikes deepen Washington's involvement in the conflict and were a significant escalation for Obama, who made his political career opposing the war in Iraq and pulled out US troops in 2011.

Iraqi forces sought to capitalise on the strikes, which have largely been limited to the north since they began on August 8, launching an offensive against jihadists in the area and retaking the town of Barwana.

Obama, who has drawn flak for saying he did not have a strategy to combat Islamic State (IS) jihadists, announced that he will make a speech on Wednesday to lay out his "game plan" to deal with the group.

"I'm preparing the country to make sure that we deal with a threat from" IS, Obama said in an interview aired Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press".

He said he would not be announcing the return of US ground troops to Iraq and would focus instead on a "counter-terrorism campaign" similar to other efforts over the last few years.

"We are going to systematically degrade their capabilities. We're going to shrink the territory that they control. And ultimately we're going to defeat them," Obama said.

US warplanes bombed fighters from the IS jihadist group around a strategic dam on the Euphrates River in an area that the militants have repeatedly tried to capture from government troops and their Sunni militia allies.

"We conducted these strikes to prevent terrorists from further threatening the security of the dam, which remains under control of Iraqi security forces, with support from Sunni tribes," Pentagon spokesman Rear Admiral John Kirby said.

"The potential loss of control of the dam or a catastrophic failure of the dam — and the flooding that might result — would have threatened US personnel and facilities in and around Baghdad, as well as thousands of Iraqi citizens," he added.

Iraq moved Sunday to take advantage of the strikes, launching a drive against militants in the Haditha area and regaining ground.

"Joint forces backed by air support and tribesmen launched a wide attack to clear the areas surrounding the Haditha district," security spokesman Lieutenant General Qassem Atta told AFP.

The troops and militia retook the town of Barwana, east of Haditha, from the jihadists, who abandoned their weapons and vehicles in their retreat, an AFP correspondent reported.

They lowered the black IS banner from the town's main checkpoint and raised the Iraqi flag.

The victory was marred, however, when a mortar round slammed into the town, wounding Anbar Governor Ahmed Al Dulaimi as well as Abdulhakim Al Jughaifi, the administrative official responsible for Haditha, and seven soldiers.

A suicide bomber then struck the convoy carrying Dulaimi to a nearby hospital, killing a soldier and wounding six.

The only previous US strikes against IS outside of northern Iraq were carried out in support of an operation by the army, Shiite militia and Kurdish fighters to break a months-long siege of the Shiite Turkmen town of Amerli, north of Baghdad.

Dams have been a key target for the jihadists, and there has been major fighting around Iraq's largest dam, on the Tigris River north of militant-held second city Mosul, which has been a major focus of the US air campaign.

The Haditha and Mosul dams are important sources of both power and irrigation water for farmers.

Sustained US strikes could provide a major boost to pro-government forces in Anbar, where all of one city and chunks of another have been out of state control for over nine months, along with other areas seized by militants since June.

Kurdish forces in the north have been bolstered by American strikes and recently took control of Mount Zardak, a strategic site east of Mosul that provides a commanding view of the surrounding area, a senior officer said.

BEIRUT — A member of Lebanon's Hizbollah was killed when an Israeli listening device exploded in the south of the country, the Shiite group said on Saturday.

On Friday, the army said that a "suspicious device" had been found near the town of Adlun, and that "the Israeli enemy blew it up remotely, killing a civilian who was in the area".

Hizbollah confirmed that the man killed was in fact one of its own.

"With pride, the Islamic Resistance announces the death of the hero Hassan Haidar Ali, a native of the town of Ansariyeh in southern Lebanon," the group said in a statement.

It added that Haidar had discovered the device "placed in the communications network of the Resistance" and had been working to dismantle it.

Lebanon has frequently reported Israeli espionage devices being destroyed in the south of the country since Hizbollah and Israel fought a devastating war in 2006.

More than 100 people accused of spying for Israel have been arrested in Lebanon since April 2009, most of them army members or telecommunications employees.

CAIRO — Libya's former, Islamist-dominated parliament swore in a new government Saturday, a day before the country's recently elected parliament is due to swear in a new Cabinet.

The two parallel assemblies, each loosely allied with rival militias battling in Tripoli and elsewhere, are further fragmenting the vast, oil-rich country in the wake of the 2011 uprising that toppled longtime dictator Muammar Qadhafi.

The last four months have seen a renegade general battle Islamic militants in the eastern city of Benghazi — cradle of the 2011 uprising — and powerful regional militias fight for control of the international airport in Tripoli. Islamist-allied militias have seized virtually all of the capital.

A United Nations report said the fighting in Tripoli and Benghazi has forced some 250,000 people to flee, including 100,000 who have been internally displaced.

On Saturday, the Islamist-dominated parliament in Tripoli swore in Prime Minister Omar Al Hassi and 10 of his ministers, including the foreign, justice and oil ministers. Nine ministers have yet to be named. The body was replaced in June elections but it still convenes and refuses to recognise the new parliament, now based in the eastern city of Tobruk.

The newly elected parliament is due to swear in a new government on Sunday. It is headed by the previous prime minister Abdullal Al Thinni.

CAIRO — Egypt charged ousted president Mohamed Morsi and nine others on Saturday with endangering national security by leaking state secrets and sensitive documents to Qatar, furthering a state crackdown on his outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.

Relations between Qatar, a Gulf Arab state, and Egypt have been icy since July 2013, when Egypt's then-army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi toppled Morsi after protests against his rule.

Qatar had supported Morsi, who is already in jail along with thousands of Brotherhood members, many of whom have been sentenced to death on separate charges.

Security sources had said last month that Egypt was investigating Morsi in connection with documents they said were leaked to Qatar and its satellite news channel Al Jazeera.

The Egyptian public prosecutor's office said on Saturday its secret investigation had unearthed enough evidence of espionage to charge Morsi and nine others in a criminal court. The maximum penalty if convicted is death.

"The inquiries... exposed humiliating facts and the extent of the largest conspiracy and treason carried out by the terrorist Brotherhood organisation against the nation through a network of spies," it said in a three-page statement.

The public prosecutor said Morsi's aides were involved in leaking to Qatari intelligence and Al Jazeera documents which exposed the location of weapons held by the Egyptian armed forces and detailed the country's foreign and domestic policies.

The Qatari foreign ministry in Doha did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the accusations. Al Jazeera, which has been banned from Egypt, has denied any bias in reporting events there or any role in aiding the Brotherhood.

The Brotherhood dismissed the charges as political.

“Today is the start of yet another kangaroo trial... Morsi’s trials are politically motivated cases with trumped up charges and a corrupt judiciary presiding over it,” Abdullah Al Haddad, a Brotherhood spokesman based in Britain, said by email.

Morsi faces trial in five other cases as well, on charges ranging from violence to insulting the judiciary.

While Sisi has gone on to election as president, Morsi and other Brotherhood leaders as well as the leading lights of the 2011 popular uprising that toppled autocrat Hosni Mubarak, many of them secular activists, now languish in jail.

Hopes of democratic change inspired by the revolt in the most populous Arab country have since faded.

Sisi promised during his election campaign that the Muslim Brotherhood would cease to exist under his rule.

Egyptian security forces killed hundreds of Brotherhood supporters during protests against Morsi’s ouster and thousands of others have since been jailed.

Egypt’s oldest Islamist movement, once among Egypt’s most formidable political forces, has been branded a terrorist group and its assets have been seized by the state. The Brotherhood formally renounced violence as a means of political change decades ago and has denied any role in more recent bloodshed.

The secretary, his daughter and the air steward

In a detailed statement, the prosecutor said his inquiry had found that Morsi’s secretary Amin Al Srifi abused his position to slip documents from Egypt’s security agencies to Jordanian Al Jazeera journalist Alaa Sabalan via his own daughter Karima and four other intermediaries.

It said Sabalan later flew to Doha and met with Al Jazeera news editor Ibrahim Hilal and a senior Qatari intelligence officer and a deal was reached for Morsi’s aides to hand over the documents in return for $1 million.

It added that part of that sum was paid after documents were handed over at Doha airport by an Egyptair steward who acted as a go-between. Subsequent interrogations had also linked Morsi and his office manager Ahmed Abdelattif to the case, it said.

Egypt’s public prosecutor charged Morsi and his two aides, Abdelattif and Srifi, as well as seven others including Sabalan and the air steward in the case. Three of the accused, including Sabalan and senior Jazeera editor Hilal, are at large and the prosecutor called for their arrest pending trial.

Egypt’s rulers are deeply suspicious of Qatar and anyone who supports the Brotherhood. Egyptian authorities have long since closed down Al Jazeera office in Cairo.

Earlier this year, an Egyptian court jailed three Al Jazeera journalists for up to 10 years on charges of aiding “a terrorist group” by broadcasting misinformation that harmed national security. Al Jazeera has said the charges are baseless.

BEIRUT — The Lebanese army is investigating photographs purportedly showing a second soldier who had been beheaded by the Islamic State, a military source said Saturday.

An apparent IS supporter posted a photo on Twitter showing a masked man wearing black, holding the severed head of a bearded young man over his body.

The corpse is lying in a pool of blood and, in the background, a man is holding up the black IS flag.

“The army has received the images, but we cannot confirm or deny whether they are authentic,” said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The image emerged four days after DNA testing confirmed that the body of a man whom jihadists had said they beheaded was that of Lebanese soldier Ali Sayyed.

Sayyed had been captured by jihadists from the Al Qaeda affiliated Al Nusra Front and the IS, along with some 30 soldiers and police in the eastern town of Arsal last month.

They were seized during major fighting against jihadists who had flooded in from neighbouring Syria.

Earlier Saturday, the body of a Lebanese civilian kidnapped and killed by jihadists was handed over to his family in Arsal.

Kayed Ghadada was abducted last month after the battle, which killed 20 soldiers, dozens of jihadists and 16 civilians.

The fighting in Arsal was the most serious border incident since the Syrian conflict erupted in March 2011.

The militants have reportedly sought to negotiate the release of the hostages in exchange for Islamist prisoners held in Lebanese jails.

Lebanese officials have rejected holding talks on a possible prisoner swap, but have said Qatar is mediating negotiations on the issue.

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Saudi Arabia has inaugurated a multilayered fence along its northern borders, as part of efforts to secure the kingdom's vast desert frontiers against infiltrators and smugglers, state media said.

King Abdullah announced late Friday the launch of the first stage of a border security programme, covering 900 kilometres of the northern frontier, SPA state news agency reported.

SPA did not name Iraq, Saudi Arabia's neighbour to the north, referring only to the northern frontier, but the two countries' common border stretches over 800 kilometres.

The project includes five layers of fencing which will cut the "number of infiltrators, drug, arms and cattle smugglers to zero," SPA said.

It said surveillance would be reinforced by watch towers, night-vision cameras and 50 radars.

Control complexes have been built in areas stretching from Hafr Al Batin in the northeast to Turaif near the Jordanian border, SPA said.

Relations between Iraq and Saudi Arabia have been deeply strained.

Riyadh has accused outgoing Iraqi prime minister Nouri Al Maliki of creating the conditions for the jihadist insurgency in his country by marginalising its Sunni Arab minority.

Maliki in turn has accused the oil-rich kingdom of supporting "terrorism" in Shiite-majority Iraq.

In July 2009, Riyadh signed a deal with European aerospace and defence contractors EADS to build a high-tech security fence on 9,000 kilometres of the country's borders.

The original aim was to secure the Saudi border with Iraq with fencing and high-tech monitoring.

But with increased worries over infiltration by anti-government militants and Al Qaeda, the Saudi interior ministry expanded the scope of the programme to fence and electronically monitor all the country's borders.

MOGADISHU — A commander of Somalia's Islamic extremist rebels, Al Shabab, confirmed Saturday that the leader of the terror group was killed in a US air strike.

Abu Mohammed said the militants were meeting at an undisclosed location to pick the successor to Ahmed Abdi Godane.

A senior Somali intelligence officer, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorised to speak to the press, said Zakariya Ismael who has a $3 million bounty on his head, is one of the candidates to succeed Godane.

Godane and other Al Shabab officials were killed by a US air strike Monday hit the car in which he was travelling. The attack took place 170 kilometres south of Mogadishu, where Al Shabab trains its fighters.

President Barack Obama confirmed Friday that Godane was killed by the US air strike.

Godane was also known as Mukhtar Abu Zubeyr and was the spiritual leader of the Al Qaeda-linked group. The US had offered a reward of up to $7 million for information leading to his arrest. Godane had publicly claimed Al Shabab was responsible for the deadly Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, that left 67 people dead one year ago.

Somalia's government said Friday night that it has credible intelligence Al Shabab is planning attacks following the death of their leader.

In a televised speech, Gen. Khalif Ahmed Ereg, Somalia's national security minister, said possible targets include medical and educational institutions. Ereg said the government is vigilant and its armed forces are prepared to prevent such attacks.

The killing of Godane was a "delightful victory", said Ereg. He called on militants still fighting for the Al Qaeda-linked group to surrender to get a "brighter" life from the government.

The implications for Al Shabab following Godane's death are unclear. Some analysts predict a power struggle for the leadership that could splinter the group.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta Saturday thanked the US for killing Godane saying his death provides "a small measure of closure" for victims of the Westgate Mall attack. Kenyatta's nephew and his fiance died in that attack, a year ago this month.

Godane, who used a number of other aliases, led the planning and was responsible for the perpetration of the attack on Westgate, Kenyatta said.

"We owe the United States, and its soldiers, our heartfelt thanks for bringing an end to Godane's career of death and destruction; and finally allowing us to begin our healing," he said.

"His death is a stark reminder that those who live by the sword shall perish by the sword," Kenyatta said.

VIENNA — Iran said Saturday it never agreed to a deadline to provide answers on its controversial nuclear programme, after the UN atomic watchdog accused Tehran of failing to deliver on time.

"Iran had warned the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that because of the complexity of the issues, implementing all five points by August 25 was not possible," said Behrouz Kamalvandi, spokesman of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, quoted by state news agency IRNA.

"The IAEA was aware ot this," he said.

"We do not have any commitment on a date... But we have always said we will try to deliver all the clarifications as soon as possible."

The Vienna-based IAEA said Friday Iran had failed to meet an August 25 deadline to provide information on five points to allay concerns it was developing nuclear weapons, something it denies.

Not answering the long-standing questions over the allegations could harm the chances of a potentially historic deal between Iran and world powers focused on Tehran's current activities.

New talks between Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany are due to resume in New York on September 18 ahead of a November 24 deadline.

The mooted deal, after a decade of rising tensions, would kill off fears that Iran might use its nuclear facilities — which it says are for peaceful purposes — to develop atomic weapons.

To do this the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France and Germany want Iran to scale back its nuclear programme in exchange for relief from painful sanctions.

Vital to the deal is the IAEA's probe into what it calls the "possible military dimensions" of Iran's atomic programme — work on developing a nuclear weapon that the watchdog suspects took place before 2003 and possibly since.

In May, Tehran agreed to exchange information on large-scale tests of explosives that could be used in a nuclear bomb and calculations on the size of a nuclear explosion.

It is these two areas that Iran has so far failed to provide answers, with the IAEA saying Friday that the two sides had merely "begun discussions".

DUBAI — An Iranian official said on Saturday that an airliner carrying Americans from Afghanistan to Dubai had been forced to land in Iran because the crew had supplied "false information".

The chartered Fly Dubai plane, carrying about 100 Americans from the US airbase at Bagram, Afghanistan, landed in Dubai early on Saturday morning after being diverted to Bandar Abbas, just across the Strait of Hormuz.

"The crew used false information so the authorities became suspicious... Because the information provided was incorrect, we asked the airplane to land so we could gather more information," said Jassem Jaderi, governor of Hormozgan province in southern Iran, according to the official Mehr News Agency.

A US State Department official said the plane had failed to update its flight plan after leaving Bagram several hours late for Dubai, on a route that took it over Iran.

When Iranian civil aviation officials identified the plane, they could not find it in their system because it was supposed to have flown through hours earlier, the official said.

Iranian officials first told it to turn around but, when told it did not have enough fuel to return to Afghanistan, they asked it to land at Bandar Abbas, the official said.

US State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that, contrary to some media reports, "no Iranian jets were scrambled in this situation".

"We appreciate the efforts of all parties to help the passengers get safely to their destination," she added.

Jaderi, the first Iranian official to comment, said the passengers had been treated appropriately and offered the use of the airport lounge facilities, but had chosen not to accept.

Washington and Tehran have had an antagonistic relationship for decades. The United States cut diplomatic ties with Iran in April 1980, five months after Iranian students occupied the US Embassy in Tehran and took US citizens hostage. Fifty-two Americans were ultimately held for 444 days.

The two countries are now at odds over Iran's nuclear programme, which Washington suspects is aimed at building a bomb but which Iran says is for strictly civilian purposes.