Region

ERBIL, Iraq — Quiet and bookish, Iraq’s president-elect Fuad Masum is different from jocular incumbent Jalal Talabani, but sharp political skills forged in the long battle for Kurdish self-determination are common to both.

Masum, an ethnic Kurd, fought a rebel war alongside childhood friend Talabani for a separate Kurdish homeland, and in 1992 became the first prime minister of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.

Something of a political pioneer, Masum was also the speaker of the first Iraqi parliament to be formed after the US-led invasion of 2003.

Yet diminutive and bespectacled Masum is not an obvious fighter or risk-taker.

“He’s quiet and a deep thinker, that’s his personality. He thinks before he speaks,” his brother Khodr Masum, head of Kurdistan’s Koysinjaq University, told AFP.

“He’s quiet during talks and negotiations. Courteous.”

Born in 1938 to a religious family in a village near the Kurdish town of Halabja, Masum would go onto to study Islamic Sciences at Cairo’s Al Azhar University, one of the world’s leading centres of Islamic learning.

Eventually gaining a doctorate, he came back to Iraq to teach at the University of Basra.

“He’s always reading. All different types, history, politics. He likes Arabic literature a lot,” Khodr Masum said.

Masum got his first taste of politics with the Iraqi Communist Party, before moving to join the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in 1964, then led by Mullah Mustafa Barzani, father of current Kurdistan president Massoud Barzani.

Between 1973 and 1975 he was the party’s representative in Cairo.

But eventually the KDP would split, after Masum’s friend Talabani fell out with Barzani — the start of a long and deadly internecine feud among Iraqi Kurds.

Talabani went on to form the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and in 1976 Masum joined him as a founding member.

The pair would wage an armed struggle in the northern mountains against Saddam Hussein’s forces, an unlikely path for a soft spoken academic.

Yet his ability to fight and think has served the married father of three daughters well. His supporters hope he can bring those skills to bear on Iraq’s dangerously divided political arena.

“He listens to the opinion of others, and doesn’t force his on you,” Khodr Masum said.

“I think he’ll be successful, because he has the ability and disposition.”

ALGIERS, Algeria — An Air Algerie flight carrying 116 people from Burkina Faso to Algeria’s capital disappeared from radar early Thursday over northern Mali during a rainstorm, officials said. France deployed fighter jets to search for wreckage and the country’s president said the plane most likely crashed.

The MD-83 vanished less than an hour after take-off from Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. Air Algerie Flight 5017 was operated by Spanish airline Swiftair, which owns the plane.

“Everything allows us to believe this plane crashed in Mali,” French President Francois Hollande said in a statement after an emergency meeting in Paris with senior officials, adding the crew changed its flight path because of “particularly difficult weather conditions”.

Earlier, French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius told reporters in Paris the plane “probably crashed” and no “trace of the aircraft has been found”.

Two French fighter jets are among aircraft scouring the rugged north of Mali for the plane, which was traveling from Burkina Faso’s capital, Ouagadougou, to Algiers, the Algerian capital.

Hollande said “all military means we have in Mali” were being activated for the search, through the night if needed. France has considerable military means in Mali, because of its intervention in the country in January 2013 to rout Islamic extremists who were controlling the north.

The UN peacekeeping mission in Mali, known as MINUSMA, was also helping in the search, UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

More than 50 French were onboard the plane along with 27 Burkina Faso nationals and passengers from a dozen other countries. The flight crew was Spanish.

Before vanishing, the pilots sent a final message to ask Niger air control to change its route because of heavy rain in the area, Burkina Faso Transport Minister Jean Bertin Ouedraogo said.

A resident who lives in a village in Mali about 80 kilometres southeast of the town of Gossi said he saw a plane coming down early Thursday, according to Gen. Gilbert Diendere, heading the crisis committee set up in Burkina Faso.

“We think that it is a reliable source because it corresponds to the latest radar images of the plane before it lost contact with air controllers,” Diendere said.

Radar images show the plane deviated from its route, Diendere said. Gossi is nearly 200 kilometres southwest of Gao. The vast deserts and mountains of northern Mali have been the scene of unrest by both Tuareg separatists and Islamist radicals.

The disappearance of the Air Algerie plane comes after a spate of aviation disasters. Fliers around the globe have been on edge ever since Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 disappeared in March on its way to Beijing. Searchers have yet to find a single piece of wreckage from the jet with 239 people on board.

Last week, a Malaysia Airlines flight was shot down by a surface-to-air missile while flying over a war-torn section of Ukraine. The back-to-back disasters involving Boeing 777s flown by the same airline were too much of a coincidence for many fliers.

Then this week, US and European airlines started cancelling flights to Tel Aviv after a rocket landed near the city’s airport. Finally, on Wednesday, a Taiwanese plane crashed during a storm, killing 48 people.

It’s easy to see why fliers are jittery, but air travel is relatively safe.

There have been two deaths for every 100 million passengers on commercial flights in the last decade, excluding acts of terrorism. Travelers are much more likely to die driving to the airport than stepping on a plane. There are more than 30,000 motor-vehicle deaths in the US each year, a mortality rate eight times greater than that in planes.

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on state television that 10 minutes before disappearing, it was in contact with air traffic controllers in Gao, a city under the control of the Malian government, though it has seen lingering separatist violence.

The plane had been missing for hours before the news was made public. It wasn’t immediately clear why airline or government officials didn’t release information earlier.

Ouagadougou is in a nearly straight line south of Algiers, passing over Mali.

Northern Mali fell under control of ethnic Tuareg separatists and then Al Qaeda-linked Islamic extremists following a military coup in 2012. A French-led intervention last year scattered the extremists, but the Tuaregs have pushed back against the authority of the Bamako-based government.

A senior French official said it seems unlikely that fighters in Mali had the kind of weaponry that could shoot down a plane.

The official, not authorised to speak publicly, said on condition of anonymity that they primarily have shoulder-fired weapons — not enough to hit a passenger plane flying at cruising altitude.

Swiftair, a private Spanish airline, said the plane was carrying 110 passengers and six crew, and left Burkina Faso for Algiers at 0117 GMT Thursday (9:17pm EDT Wednesday), but had not arrived at the scheduled time of 0510 GMT (1:10am EDT Thursday).

Swiftair said it has not been possible to make contact with the plane and was trying to ascertain what had happened. It said the crew included two pilots and four flight attendants.

Later, Swiftair said the plane was built in 1996 and has two Pratt & Whitney JT8D-219 PW engines. It can carry 165 passengers.

Swiftair took ownership of the plane on October 24, 2012, after it spent nearly 10 months unused in storage, according to Flightglobal’s Ascend Online Fleets, which sells and tracks information about aircraft. It has more than 37,800 hours of flight time and has made more than 32,100 take-offs and landings. The plane has had several owners over the years, including Avianca and Austral Lineas Aereas.

If confirmed as a crash, this would be the fifth one — and the second with fatalities — for Swiftair since its founding in 1986, according to the Flight Safety Foundation. The only other fatal crash for the airline came on July 28, 1998, when the two pilots died on a cargo flight to Barcelona.

Algerian aircraft were also overflying the region around Gao to try to locate wreckage, said Houaoui Zoheir, spokesman for the Algerian crisis centre. He provided no details on the type or number of aircraft.

“As long as we haven’t found the wreckage, we can’t talk of a crash,” he said. “We talk of loss of contact.”

The passengers include 51 French, 27 Burkina Faso nationals, eight Lebanese, six Algerians, five Canadians, four Germans, two Luxemburg nationals, one Swiss, one Belgium, one Egyptian, one Ukrainian, one Nigerian, one Cameroonian and one Malian, Ouedraogo said. The six crew members are Spanish, according to the Spanish pilots’ union.

The MD-83 is part of a series of jets built since the early 1980s by McDonnell Douglas, a US plane maker now owned by Boeing Co. The MD-80s are single-aisle planes that were a workhorse of the airline industry for short and medium-range flights for nearly two decades. As jet fuel prices spiked in recent years, airlines have rapidly being replacing the jets with newer, fuel-efficient models such as Boeing 737s and Airbus A320s.

There are 496 other MD-80s being flown by airlines around the world, according to Ascend.

“We’re aware of reports on Air Algerie Flight AH5017,” Boeing spokesman Wilson Chow said. “Our team is gathering more information.”

TUNIS — Tunisia has hit back at a deadly jihadist attack on troops by closing mosques and media outlets seen as sympathetic to extremists, raising fears of a return to the censorship of the old regime.

In the wake of a July 16 attack which left 15 soldiers dead in Mount Chaambi near the Algerian border, the authorities have laid down a “red line” against criticism of the army and police.

The government announced the immediate closure of mosques which had fallen out of the control of the religious affairs ministry.

It has also decided to shut down unlicensed media outlets which had “turned into platforms for takfiris and jihad”, referring to apostasy charges against fellow Muslims.

Hailed as the poster boy of the Arab Spring — the wave of uprisings that swept the region from 2011 — the authoritarian regime of Tunisia’s longtime president Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali was toppled in a popular uprising that year.

But now with a growing challenge from jihadists, long repressed under Ben Ali, the government is facing a double challenge.

The authorities are working to restore the “prestige” and “authority” of a state weakened by the 2011 revolution.

They also aim to curb the Islamist rhetoric which has found an outlet in a media landscape that has exploded over the past three years, with many broadcasters operating unlicenced.

Rights groups are warning against curbs on liberties that were hard-won after years of Ben Ali’s dictatorship, urging a balance between anti-terror measures and freedom of information.

Reject ‘red line’ 

“The country is going through a very difficult time and politicians are under pressure,” said Rachida Ennaifer of Tunisia’s audiovisual regulatory body HAICA.

“But the fight against terrorism should not be arbitrary or populist. If we want a state of law, we must respect the law,” she told AFP, pointing to the dilemma faced by authorities.

Ennaifer said the government’s decision to close a pirate radio and a television station was not taken in consultation with HAICA, contrary to what the authorities said.

The head of Tunisia’s journalists’ union, the SNJT, Neji Bghouri, told AFP that he rejected “any red line”.

“What does this expression mean? If in the future a journalist wants to carry out an investigation into corruption in the police or army, what will happen?” he asked.

He proposed “self-regulation” of the media, something which he admitted would need time because Tunisia’s free media was in its infancy.

His union last week hosted a meeting of several media outlets to develop a “charter” on how to cover terrorism-linked events.

On the religious front, the closure of “outlaw” mosques has also divided opinion in the North African nation.

“The decision... is wrong because it’s going to increase popular support for the terrorists,” said Mohamed Ben Salem, a senior official in the moderate Islamist movement Ennahda, the main party in parliament.

“Change the imams operating outside the law, that’s the solution,” he said.

Religious Affairs Minister Mounir Tlili hit back, saying “it isn’t easy to recover a mosque” in the face of the often “violent” reaction of its users.

But Tlili vowed not to return to the practices of the Ben Ali regime.

Some in Tunisia, fearful of the jihadist threat, shrug off concerns over the possible erosion of civil liberties.

“Stop talking to me about human rights,” Ferid Al Beji, a popular imam, or prayer leader, said on private television station Nessma, a day after the Mount Chaambi attack.

“We are fighting for our lives. Whoever talks of human rights at this time is an accomplice in terrorism,” he said.

WASHINGTON — US Republican lawmakers on Wednesday called for greater say in any deal reached between the West and Iran over the Islamic republic’s controversial nuclear programme.

With negotiations to end Iran’s years-long nuclear stand-off with the United States and other Western powers recently extended for an additional four months, until November, five senators introduced legislation that would compel President Barack Obama to bring any final deal before Congress for its approval.

Many lawmakers have been dubious about the talks that began in late January and were supposed to have reached a deal by July 20.

The West believes Tehran is seeking to build an atomic bomb, but Iran insists its efforts are purely for civilian use.

“Any final agreement of a matter of this consequence should be reviewed by this body, should come before Congress and should have the ability of Congress to provide oversight over it,” Senator Marco Rubio told the chamber.

Failure to let US lawmakers vote on any final nuclear agreement would leave the United States vulnerable to “a terrible deal” that could put Americans in danger, Rubio said.

The legislation would prevent a further extension of negotiations, reimpose any eased sanctions if Iran showed it was cheating on its commitments under any future agreement and block the deal’s implementation if a veto-proof majority of Congress disapproves of it.

Fellow sponsor Senator Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a key architect of US sanctions on Iran that helped bring Tehran to the table, said he backed the negotiations and hopes they will ultimately bear fruit.

“But if and when they reach an agreement, let’s bring all the details out in the open,” Corker said.

“Let’s examine the agreement in its entirety and let’s determine that it’s in our national security interest.”

Senator Lindsey Graham said stopping Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon “is the most important foreign policy decision in generations”.

“Congress played a fundamental role in enacting sanctions against Iran and should have a say whether this agreement is strong enough to lift sanctions.”

CAIRO — Egypt said Thursday that foreign intelligence services were prime suspects in an attack last week that killed 22 soldiers near its border with restive Libya.

Unidentified militants firing rocket-propelled grenades and machineguns attacked a checkpoint in Egypt’s western desert last Saturday.

“Foreign intelligence services are likely to be behind the terrorist elements which carried out” the attack, interior ministry spokesman Hani Abdel Latif said, quoted by state news agency MENA, without naming any countries.

The attack followed repeated Egyptian warnings of a possible spillover of violence from Libya, which is awash with weapons and gripped by unrest since its 2011 uprising.

“The terrorist operations [in Egypt] are carried out by terrorist elements, mercenaries, trained in Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq, and recruited by foreign intelligence services,” Abdel Latif said.

He said Saturday’s attack was aimed at “shaking trust in [Egypt’s] security services and army.”

Since the army ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013, Egypt has been rocked by deadly bombings and shootings.

Most of the assaults have been claimed by jihadists amid a bloody crackdown by the authorities on Morsi’s supporters.

The police crackdown has left more than 1,400 dead in street clashes, upwards of 15,000 behind bars and around 200 people sentenced to death.

BAGHDAD — Kurdish politician Fouad Massoum was named Iraq's new president on Thursday hours after an attack on a prison convoy killed dozens of people, brutally underscoring the challenges faced by the country's leaders as they struggle to form a new government.

Massoum, 76, one of the founders of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party led by the previous president, Jalal Talabani, accepted the position after winning two-thirds of the votes, noting the "huge security, political and economic tasks" facing the government.

Last month's rapid advance of the Islamic State extremist group, which captured Iraq's second largest city of Mosul, has plunged the country into its worst crisis since the withdrawal of US troops in 2011 and inflamed already-existing tensions between sectarian and political rivals.

Hours before Massoum was elected, militants fired mortar shells at army bases where detainees facing terrorism charges were being held in Taji, some 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of the capital. Fearing a jailbreak, authorities evacuated the facilities, officials said.

But as the prisoners were being bussed through a remote area nearby militants attacked again, this time with roadside bombs, igniting a gunbattle that left 52 prisoners and eight soldiers dead, the officials said, adding that another eight soldiers and seven prisoners were wounded.

It was not immediately clear if the prisoners were killed by soldiers or militants, or if the Islamic State group was involved.

Islamic State militants have staged several jailbreaks, including a complex, military-style assault on two Baghdad-area prisons in July 2013 that freed more than 500 inmates.

The vote for president — a largely ceremonial post previously held by ailing Kurdish leader Talabani — is widely viewed as a step toward achieving consensus among political rivals, seen as necessary for tackling the deteriorating security crisis.

Massoum is considered a soft-spoken moderate, known for keeping good relations with Sunni and Shiite Arab politicians.

He was born in what is now the Kurdish regional capital of Irbil in 1938. He entered politics when he was 16 years old, taking part in Kurdish-organized demonstrations. He joined the Kurdistan Democratic Party in 1964.

From 1973 to 1975 he was the Cairo representative of Kurdish rebels battling the Arab-dominated government in Baghdad, then went on to establish the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan with six Kurdish politicians, including Talabani.

The next step in Iraq's political transition will be for Massoum, who has already officially assumed the title of president, to select a candidate for prime minister to try to form a new government.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's bloc won the most seats in April elections, but he has faced mounting pressure to step aside, with critics accusing him of monopolizing power and alienating the country's Sunni and Kurdish minorities, contributing to the latest unrest.

Al-Maliki has however vowed to remain in the post he has held since 2006.

U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon arrived in Baghdad earlier Thursday, urging lawmakers to "find a common ground" so they can address the crisis sparked by the rapid advance of the Islamic State extremist group and allied Sunni militants across much of northern and western Iraq last month.

At a press conference with al-Maliki, Ban said Iraq is facing an "existential threat," but one that could be overcome if it forms a "thoroughly inclusive government."

Under an unofficial agreement dating back to the 2003 US-led invasion, the presidency is held by a Kurd while the prime minister is Shiite and the parliament speaker is Sunni.

Speaking alongside the UN secretary-general, Al-Maliki said he is committed to quickly forming a government.

"Despite the fact that we have problems...we are moving at a confident pace to implement the mechanisms of the democratic work," al-Maliki said.

More than a million Iraqis have been displaced this year, many of them fleeing the latest wave of violence, according to the U.N.

Ban strongly condemned the persecution of religious and ethnic minority groups by jihadi militants in Mosul and elsewhere in Iraq, and offered continued UN support to the refugees fleeing the violence.

LONDON — A British lawmaker apologised Wednesday after tweeting that he would likely fire rockets into Israel if he lived in the Gaza Strip.

“The big question is — if I lived in Gaza would I fire a rocket? — probably yes,” Liberal Democrat member of parliament David Ward said on Twitter.

The Board of Deputies of British Jews called on Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, to suspend Ward once again from the junior party in Britain’s governing coalition.

Ward has previously been suspended from the centrist party following remarks about Israel and the Jews.

The Liberal Democrats condemned his tweet and said that given what it called a “categorical apology” from Ward, a meeting would be held between the chief whip and the MP.

The party will then decide if further disciplinary action should be taken.

Ward had followed up his initial tweet with another saying: “Ich bin ein Palestinian — the West must make up its mind — which side is it on?”

After facing criticism from across the political spectrum over his rockets tweet and telling the BBC he understood the mindset of people in the Gaza Strip, the MP issued a statement saying: “I utterly condemn the violence on both sides in Israel and Gaza.”

“I condemn the actions of Hamas and my comments were not in support of firing rockets into Israel. If they gave the opposite impression, I apologise.

“However, while I defend the right of Israel to exist and defend itself, I will continue to speak out for the rights of the Palestinian people who are facing untold suffering.

“I can understand their plight and desperation.”

The 16-day conflict has claimed the lives of more than 670 people in Gaza and more than 30 in Israel, which says it is acting to stop the Hamas Islamist movement firing rockets over the border.

WASHINGTON — More than 50 former Israeli soldiers have refused to serve in the nation’s reserve force, citing regret over their part in a military they said plays a central role in oppressing Palestinians, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

“We found that troops who operate in the occupied territories aren’t the only ones enforcing the mechanisms of control over Palestinian lives. In truth, the entire military is implicated. For that reason, we now refuse to participate in our reserve duties and we support all those who resist being called to service,” the soldiers wrote in a petition posted online and first reported by the newspaper.

While some Israelis have refused to serve in the Palestinian territories of the West Bank, the military’s structure is such that serving in any capacity forces one to play a role in the conflict, said the soldiers, most of whom are women who would have been exempted from combat.

“Many of us served in logistical and bureaucratic support roles; there, we found that the entire military helps implement the oppression of the Palestinians,” they said.

Their comments come as the conflict in Gaza continues to escalate, displacing thousands more Palestinians in the battered territory even as the United States presses both sides for an immediate ceasefire and longer-term peace plan.

Earlier this month, Israel said it was mobilising more reservists in anticipation of increased fighting.

In the petition, the soldiers pointed to the army’s structure and fundamental role in Israeli society as reasons for being unable to decouple any form of service from the fighting.

“The military plays a central role in every action plan and proposal discussed in the national conversation, which explains the absence of any real argument about non-military solutions to the conflicts Israel has been locked in with its neighbours,” the soldiers wrote.

“To us, the current military operation and the way militarisation affects Israeli society are inseparable.”

They said they opposed the Israeli Army and conscription law because of how women are limited to low-ranking secretarial positions and because of a screening system that discriminates against Jews whose families originate from Arab nations.

CAIRO — President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi on Wednesday defended Egypt’s role in trying to broker a Gaza truce between Israel and Hamas, which accuses him of proposing a ceasefire favourable to Israel.

Unlike his Islamist predecessor Mohamed Morsi whom he toppled and detained last year, ex-army chief Sisi has sought to isolate the Palestinian movement in the neighbouring Gaza Strip.

The Cairo government worked to contain the crisis even before it escalated into a full-blown conflict on July 8 that has killed more than 650 Palestinians and at least 31 Israelis, Sisi said.

“Egypt has sacrificed, for the Palestinian cause and the Palestinians, 100,000 martyrs,” he said in a televised address, referring to casualties in Egypt’s wars with Israel between 1948 and 1973, before Cairo signed a 1979 peace treaty.

“So it is difficult for anyone to engage in one-upmanship, not just regarding [our role] with the Palestinian brothers but also the Arab region,” he said in a speech to mark the 1952 military overthrow of the monarchy in Egypt.

Since Morsi’s overthrow in July 2013, Egypt has been at odds with Turkey and Qatar, both of which back his Muslim Brotherhood and have been critical of Sisi’s stand on the Gaza conflict.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called Sisi a “tyrant” who could not be trusted to mediate a truce, while Hamas demands a role for Ankara and Doha, which hosts its political leadership, in any truce negotiations.

Morsi mediated a truce to end an eight-day conflict with Israel in 2012 that Hamas was able to represent as a “victory”.

Sisi said his truce proposal would give Hamas its key demand of an end to the eight-year blockade of Gaza once calm is restored.

Hamas, however, insists on a comprehensive agreement before it agrees to a ceasefire.

It also demands Egypt open its Rafah border crossing with Gaza, the only passage to the coastal enclave not controlled by Israel.

Hamas argues that Egypt’s proposal, which is backed by the United States, United Nations and Arab League, would allow Israel to dictate if and when to ease its blockade on Gaza.

TRIPOLI — The General National Congress (GNC), which has governed violence-wracked Libya since dictator Muammar Qadhafi’s overthrow, said Wednesday it will hand over legislative power to a newly elected parliament on August 4.

But hopes that the announcement would signal an end to fighting among rival factions were dashed as a more than week-long battle intensified for control of Tripoli airport.

“Monday, August 4 has been set as the date for the transfer of power... to the elected chamber,” the GNC said in a statement signed by its speaker, Nuri Abu Sahmein.

The handover is to take place within two weeks as specified in Monday’s publication of the election results.

Under a law passed by the GNC, the new assembly is to sit in the eastern city of Benghazi, which was the bastion of the 2011 uprising but has since epitomised the lawlessness of post-Qadhafi Libya.

In Tripoli, there was no sign of a ceasefire on Wednesday between rival factions fighting around the capital’s airport.

A fresh appeal from the transitional government for a humanitarian truce fell on deaf ears, as the leader of the interim ruling body, Abdullah Al Thani, again called for “an immediate end” to the fighting before it led the country to “a point of no return”.

Throughout the day, explosions could be heard from the centre of the capital and plumes of smoke were clearly visible.

“Rockets fell on several homes and many families have fled the fighting,” local resident Mohamed Farhat, whose house on the airport road was hit by a missile, told AFP.

The airport has been closed since July 13 because of clashes which have left at least 47 dead and 120 wounded, according to the health ministry.

The clashes, the most violent since Qadhafi’s overthrow, started with an assault on the airport by a coalition of armed groups, mainly Islamists, which has since been backed by factions from the eastern town of Misrata.

Reluctance 

The assailants are battling to flush out fellow former rebels from Zintan, southwest of the capital, who have controlled the airport for the past three years.

The battle has caused serious damage at the airport and at least a dozen aircraft have been destroyed or partly destroyed.

An airport spokesman has put the cost of the damage at “several hundred million dollars”.

Viewed by their opponents as the armed wing of Libya’s liberal movement, the Zintan brigades also hold several other strategic military and civil sites in the southern districts of Tripoli.

The battle is seen as part of a struggle for political and regional influence at a time when the new parliament, elected in a June 25 poll, prepares to take power.

The liberal factions have won the most seats in the new assembly, unlike in the previous Islamist-controlled GNC, according to political analysts, and the Islamists are now trying to reassert their influence by military means.

Many newly elected MPs have expressed reluctance about the proposed GNC move to Benghazi, with some refusing to take up their seats because of the city’s rampant security problems.

This week alone, violence in Benghazi has cost the lives of at least 43 people, according to medical and military sources.

 ‘Eradicate terrorism’ 

At least five soldiers were killed on Tuesday in a double suicide bombing on a special forces base under the command of Colonel Wanis Abu Khamada in the southeast of the city.

On Monday, an Islamist militia attacked a military barracks, leaving at least 16 dead.

A renegade general, Khalifa Haftar, backed by Abu Khamada, has since May led an operation “to eradicate terrorism in Benghazi” by targeting Islamists.

Islamist groups such as Ansar Al Sharia, classified as a terrorist organisation by Washington, have held sway in Benghazi since the fall of Qadhafi.