Region

HONOLULU — A key role of the American troops in Iraq is assessing whether the country’s security forces can hold together and whether its leaders are confident they can do their jobs, a top US military official said Tuesday.

Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters after a speech that some of the 750 troops in Iraq are specifically there to help determine what the United States might do next to help Iraq fight an insurgency.

Some troops are manning a joint operations centre with Iraqi security forces to give a better picture of how the situation is evolving, while others are visiting Iraqi units to answer some basic questions, Dempsey said.

“Will they hold? What’s their makeup? Are they still a force that represents all Iraqis?” Dempsey said, adding that they are also asking whether Iraq’s leaders are confident they can do their jobs.

“When we have that assessment in hand... we’ll make some decisions about whether there’s other kinds of support that we can provide,” he said.

The other role of the US troop presence in Iraq is providing increased security at the US Embassy and elsewhere in Baghdad, including the Baghdad International Airport.

Iraq has been seeking US aid to help counter a threat posed by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, a Sunni-led insurgency in Iraq trying to create an Islamic state in the region. Baghdad’s top envoy to the United States said Tuesday that Iraq is turning to other governments like Russia, Iran and Syria for help because it can’t wait for more American military aid.

The US assessment is happening at the same time as Iraq’s political leaders try to form a government, Dempsey said.

AL KHAZAR, Iraq — Dozens of families who fled a Shiite Turkmen town in northern Iraq overrun by Sunni militants want to move south but are stuck in limbo between the Kurdish authorities and insurgents.

The families said they initially fled Tal Afar, part of a swathe of territory across five provinces which fell to jihadist-led fighters in an offensive that began June 9, for the nearby town of Sinjar.

They then moved to camps on the outskirts of Iraq’s autonomous three-province Kurdish region, they told AFP.

But land routes to the Shiite-dominated south, which is markedly more stable than the conflict-hit north and west, are controlled by militants led by the jihadist Islamic State (IS) group.

And Kurdish authorities have blocked those fleeing the conflict in northern Iraq from entering the autonomous region without a resident sponsor.

They have also barred them from the regional capital Erbil entirely, meaning they cannot get to the airport to fly south.

“When we arrived at the camp, they provided us with food, but we do not want to live in a camp,” said Murtada Qassem, who fled Tal Afar to Sinjar, and then later to a camp bordering the Kurdish region.

“We want to go to the south, to get jobs and better housing,” the father of seven said.

Kadhim Naqi, a 64-year-old with nine children, added that his family wanted to move south because “there is no war or dispute there... It is more stable”.

Around 1.2 million people have been displaced within Iraq by unrest this year, including hundreds of thousands who fled their homes following the militant offensive.

Many have sought refuge in hotels in Kurdistan as tourists, thereby evading the requirement for a local sponsor, but a large number have been prevented from entering the autonomous area because they have not found a resident to support their entry.

As a result, they have been forced to stay in camps near Al Khazar checkpoint, the main entry route from Arab areas of northern Iraq to Erbil.

“The situation is very difficult, and our policy now is to settle those refugees in the camps,” said Dindar Zebari, deputy chief of the Kurdish foreign relations department.

Zebari said those in the camps were free to leave, but without safe overland routes and with air transport inaccessible, they have little option but to stay.

The International Organisation for Migration has urged the establishment of safe routes to provide aid to the needy, amid worries of a worsening humanitarian crisis.

Amnesty International said Tuesday that the Islamic State was specifically targeting the region’s many minorities, which include Turkmen Shiites, Shabaks, Yazidis and Christians.

The London-based rights watchdog said it had “documented a string of abductions carried out by [IS] targeting minority communities”.

Among the worst affected were the Yazidis, a small group chronically referred to by IS militants as “devil-worshippers” for following a unique blend of Islam, Zoroastrianism and other religions.

BAGHDAD — Up to 45 people were killed in clashes between Iraqi security forces and followers of a radical cleric in the holy Shiite city of Karbala on Wednesday, security sources said, signalling divisions among Shiite factions as a Sunni insurgency rages.

The clashes erupted when police and army personnel tried to arrest Shiite cleric Mahmoud Al Sarkhi around midnight on Tuesday in the southern city of Karbala, an interior ministry intelligence officer and a police witness told Reuters.

Sarkhi and his armed followers have clashed in the past with US forces, Iraqi security forces and supporters of Grand Ayatollah Ali Al Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in Iraq.

Security forces said they went to arrest Sarkhi after his supporters started blocking roads and manning checkpoints around his neighbourhood in the Shiite shrine city, home to the tomb of Imam Hussein, which millions of Shiite pilgrims flock to annually.

Sarkhi had published a letter on his website earlier this week criticising Sistani’s decree for Iraqis to fight alongside the security forces against Sunni militants.

Sistani issued his decree after the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant swept across parts of northern and western Iraq. The group, which rules swathes of territory in an arc from Aleppo in Syria to near the western edge of Baghdad in Iraq, has since shortened its name to Islamic State and declared a “caliphate” to rule over the world’s Muslims.

Police and troops reinforced by five helicopter gunships surrounded the house but were prevented from entering by Sarkhi’s armed followers, the sources said, adding five police officers and about 40 of Sarkhi’s supporters were killed.

The sources said that when security forces managed to break into the house after six hours of clashes, they found Sarkhi had escaped during the battle. Sarkhi’s supporters posted on the cleric’s website a picture of an Iraqi military Humvee vehicle they said they had destroyed in the battle.

CAIRO — An Egyptian criminal court convicted Wednesday the youngest son of the ousted Islamist president Mohamed Morsi on charges of drug possession and consumption, sentencing him and a friend to a year in prison, the state news agency reported.

Abdullah Morsi, 20, was not in court when Judge Abdel-Rahman Ayad issued the verdict. Morsi had been released on bail after his arrest in March. The two were also fined $1,400.

Morsi was arrested with a friend after police suspected they were smoking hashish cigarettes on the side of a road on the east edge of Cairo. He had denied the charges.

His family has dismissed the case as an attempt to tarnish their image and as part of a crackdown on Islamists.

His father has been jailed since he was ousted last year by the military following mass protests against him. He is also facing a number of trials on charges that include inciting murder and conspiring with foreign groups to destabilise Egypt.

At least 22,000 have been arrested since the government crackdown on Morsi supporters and Islamists, all pending trials, security officials said.

NICOSIA — For a man widely reported to be playing a key role in helping Iraq’s routed military recover lost ground, Qassem Suleimani, the commander of Iran’s feared Quds Force, remains invisible.

It is not a new strategy for Suleimani — the 57-year-old is rarely pictured, a trait that chimes with his apparent, although officially denied, presence in Baghdad in the past fortnight.

Having already helped Syrian President Bashar Assad reverse the gains of Sunni-led rebels in that country’s civil war, just when it looked like Assad was finished, Suleimani has cultivated a reputation as perhaps the most formidable security operative in the Middle East.

With multiple media outlets stating that the enigmatic general is now in Iraq, where Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki’s forces have as yet failed to repel a Sunni militant offensive, the political parallels are striking.

The jihadists laying siege to Maliki declared a “caliphate” — an Islamic system of government not seen since Ottoman times — on Monday.

Despite their limited numbers, they have led the occupation of Iraq’s second largest city Mosul and are fighting to hold Tikrit after a northern sweep shocking in both its speed and simplicity, with Iraqi troops melting away when confronted.

With the Iraqi military’s collapse all too visible, the presence of Sunni militants — now known as the Islamic State (IS) — near Iran’s border invokes fear in Tehran.

Bonded by Shiite Islam, Iran and Iraq have grown closer in the realms of government and security since the overthrow of Sunni leader Saddam Hussein in the US-led invasion of 2003.

Short in stature but feared on a grand scale, Suleimani joined Iran’s forces during the war Saddam launched against them in 1980, an eight-year conflict that left more than a million people dead.

Afterwards, he was sent to Iran’s eastern border to fight drug traffickers coming in from Afghanistan.

‘A living martyr’ 

He was named Quds commander in 1998 and in May 2005 was described by Iran’s ultimate authority, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamanei, as “a living martyr”.

The Quds Force, a branch of the Revolutionary Guard, is highly secretive and conducts sensitive security functions abroad, such as intelligence, special operations and political action deemed necessary to protect the Islamic republic.

On the rare occasions he has spoken publicly, Suleimani’s obvious zeal has lived up to the air of mystique that has built up around his persona.

The few pictures of him show a face whose intense stare and focus sits within a closely cropped and greying beard.

His words have confirmed Iran’s regional reach.

“Iran has a presence in southern Lebanon and Iraq. In fact, those areas are in a way influenced by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s ideology and conduct,” he said in a speech carried by Iranian media in January 2012.

Two years later, he went further: “No force or country except for Iran is capable of leading the Muslim world today... due to Iran’s support for revolutionary and Islamic movements and fighters as well as its defence of Muslims against aggressors.”

Suleimani has history with Maliki 

A diplomatic source told AFP: “He knows Syria like he was born there and has very good knowledge of Iraq.

“He is utterly respected by the Quds Force members, thanks to his career.”

A similar mission to the one he carried out in Syria would explain Suleimani’s presence in Baghdad, which has been denied by the foreign ministry in Tehran.

Moreover, Suleimani has history with Maliki.

Amid the political deadlock of Iraq’s inconclusive 2010 general election, the Iranian general allegedly organised a meeting in the shrine city of Qom, a two-hour drive south of Tehran.

It was at that meeting that Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr — the one-time head of Iraq’s Mehdi Army militia turned political leader based in self-imposed exile in Iran at the time — agreed to support Maliki’s bid for the premiership.

The deal effectively completed Baghdad’s political power shift from Washington to Tehran, and was followed a year later by a complete exit of US troops from Iraq.

“All of the important people in Iraq go to see him,” Iraqi Deputy PM Saleh Al Mutlaq said of Suleimani in 2011.

The dark side of the Quds Force’s activities is never far from foreign headlines. Suleimani was accused by the US military in 2008 of training Iraqi hit squads. And Israel said he orchestrated attacks on Israeli tourists in the summer of 2012.

“He is indeed like Keyser Soze,” a senior US official told The Guardian newspaper in 2011, referring to the seemingly invisible character portrayed by Kevin Spacey in “The Usual Suspects”.

“Nobody knew who he was and this guy’s the same,” the official said of the Quds commander. “He is everywhere, but nowhere.”

BEIRUT — Lebanese lawmakers failed to elect a president on Wednesday, for the eighth time, to succeed Michel Sleiman whose term ended in May, prolonging a political vacuum as the country struggles with violence, economic decline and an influx of Syrian refugees.

The civil war in neighbouring Syria has aggravated long-standing rivalries in Lebanon, where political power is divided among religious communities — the presidency goes to a Maronite Christian, the parliament speaker is a Shiite Muslim and the prime minister a Sunni.

Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri said he would postpone a vote for a new president until July 23 because not enough parliamentarians turned up to the assembly on Wednesday. Political groups have boycotted sessions in recent weeks and blamed each other for the deadlock.

Some of Lebanon’s deepest political divisions come over the handling of the Syrian crisis, which has driven around 1 million refugees into Lebanon.

Politicians from the March 8 coalition, which includes Shiite Muslim group Hizbollah, support Syrian President Bashar Assad. The rival March 14 coalition backs Assad’s opponents.

The two blocs were formed after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005. March 14 accused Syria and Hizbollah of responsibility, a charge they deny.

Regional powerbrokers Saudi Arabia and Iran support March 14 and March 8 respectively, complicating efforts to agree on a presidential candidate.

The deadlock comes at a time of worsening security. Three suicide bomb attacks late last month targeted Beirut and a checkpoint on the road to Syria. The Syrian crisis and the political stalemate have also hit the Lebanese economy, prompting the central bank to introduce stimulus packages.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam’s government has taken over some presidential duties until a new president is chosen.

The presidency was once the leading political office in Lebanon, but that power was eroded under the agreement which ended the country’s civil war, handing greater influence to the government and prime minister.

BEIRUT — Rebels from northern and eastern Syria on Wednesday threatened to lay down their arms in a week if the country’s exiled opposition does not help them fight the jihadist Islamic State (IS).

“We, the leaders of the brigades and battalions... give the National Coalition, the [opposition] interim government, the [rebel] Supreme Military Council and all the leading bodies of the Syrian revolution a week to send reinforcements and complete aid,” the statement said.

“Should our call not be heard, we will lay down our weapons and pull out our fighters,” it added.

The statement comes three days after IS declared the establishment of a “caliphate” straddling Syria and Iraq, referring to an Islamic system of rule that was abolished nearly 100 years ago

“Our popular revolution [against Syrian President Bashar Assad]... is today under threat because of the [Islamic State], especially after it announced a caliphate,” said the statement.

The factions that signed the statement are local rebel groups based in Raqqa, Deir Ezzor and parts of Aleppo province where fighting against IS has been most intense, and which are now under IS control.

IS first appeared in Syria’s war in late spring 2013. It has since taken control of Raqqa in northern Syria, much of Deir Ezzor in the east, and parts of Aleppo province.

Rebel groups from those areas have frequently complained of being poorly funded even though they are leading the fight against IS, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

The statement comes days after US President Barack Obama called on Congress to approve $500 million to train and equip the moderate Syrian opposition.

It also follows a visit late last week by Secretary of State John Kerry to Saudi Arabia, during which he said: “The moderate Syrian opposition... has the ability to be a very important player in pushing back against [the jihadists’] presence.”

Some Syrian rebels seeking Assad’s ouster initially welcomed the war-hardened IS fighters among their ranks.

But their systematic abuses and quest for hegemony in opposition-held areas eventually turned the rebels against them and their project.

IS has kidnapped thousands of Syrians, many of them political activists and rebels, and carries out summary executions in areas under its control.

The group has been bolstered in recent weeks by an offensive it spearheaded in neighbouring Iraq, capturing large swathes of territory as well as heavy weapons seized from fleeing Iraqi troops.

Syria’s war began as a popular revolt demanding Assad’s ouster, but morphed into a war after his regime unleashed a brutal crackdown against dissent.

Many months into the fighting, jihadists started to pour into Syria, and in January 2014, the country’s rebels including Islamists launched a major offensive against IS.

UNITED NATIONS — With nearly 11 million Syrians in need of humanitarian help, UN Security Council members are pushing Russia and China to support a compromise draft resolution to boost cross-border access, and threaten sanctions on those that stand in the way.

After more than a month of negotiations, during which Islamist fighters have taken swathes of Iraq and Syria, the June 27 draft obtained by Reuters on Tuesday tries to win over Moscow and Beijing with language similar to that used in a unanimously adopted resolution on Syria’s chemical weapons.

It does not reference Chapter 7 of the UN charter, which covers the council’s authority to enforce decisions with economic sanctions or military force, though the language is the same as what would normally be in a Chapter 7 resolution.

Russia says it would veto a Chapter 7 resolution that would allow cross-border aid deliveries without Syrian government consent. In a letter to the Security Council last month, Syria warned that such deliveries would amount to an attack, suggesting it would have the right to retaliate.

Russia, supported by China, has already vetoed four resolutions threatening any action against its ally, Syrian President Bashar Assad, amid a 3-year civil war that has killed at least 150,000 people.

Russian Deputy UN Ambassador Alexander Pankin declined to comment on whether Moscow would support the compromise draft.

Australia, Luxembourg and Jordan drafted the stronger text as a follow-up to their unanimously adopted February resolution that demanded rapid, safe and unhindered aid access in Syria, but has failed to make a difference.

The three countries are continuing negotiations with Russia and China on the draft resolution this week.

The draft says the council is “deeply disturbed by the continued, arbitrary and unjustified withholding of consent to relief operations, and the persistence of conditions that impede the delivery of humanitarian supplies to destinations within Syria, in particular to besieged and hard-to-reach areas”.

The United Nations says some 10.8 million people in Syria need help, of which 4.7 million are in hard-to-reach areas, while another 3 million have fled the conflict.

The draft resolution “decides that the United Nations humanitarian agencies and their implementing partners are authorised to use any and all routes, including across conflict lines and across borders, in particular the border crossings of Bab Al Salam, Bab Al Hawa, Al Yarubiyah and Tal Shihab, in order to ensure that humanitarian assistance, including medical and surgical supplies, reaches people in need throughout Syria”.

Al Yarubiyah is on the border with Iraq and Tal Shihab is on the border with Jordan. Bab Al Salam and Bab Al Hawa cross into Turkey, and have fallen into the hands of Islamist fighters.

Russia said last month the Syrian government agreed to open the four crossings named in the draft, but Australian UN Ambassador Gary Quinlan said that plan was “not good enough” because the Syrian government wanted to impose restrictive conditions on the UN humanitarian operations.

The draft resolution “decides to establish a monitoring mechanism, under the authority of the United Nations Secretary-General, to monitor, with the consent of the relevant neighbouring countries of Syria, the loading of all humanitarian relief consignments” to be delivered across those four points.

It “also decides that all Syrian parties to the conflict shall enable the immediate and unhindered delivery of humanitarian assistance directly to people throughout Syria” and “decides in the event non-compliance... by any Syrian party to impose measures directed against that party”.

This would mean that for any action to be taken on non-compliance, such as imposing sanctions, the 15-member Security Council would need to agree on a second resolution.

UN aid chief Valerie Amos last week appealed to the Security Council to take action on the “inhuman” obstruction of humanitarian relief. Syrian UN Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari described the UN estimate of people in need as “exaggerated”.

WASHINGTON — Time is running short to reach a nuclear deal between world powers and Iran, and negotiations will not be extended merely as a foot-dragging ploy, top US diplomat John Kerry warned Tuesday.

On the eve of the most intensive round of talks yet, Kerry called on Iran to make the right choices and prove to the world its claims that its nuclear energy programme is peaceful by closing what he called “substantial gaps” in the negotiations.

“We have worked closely with Iran to design a pathway for a programme that meets all of the requirements for peaceful, civilian purposes,” Kerry wrote in an op-ed in The Washington Post.

“There remains a discrepancy, however, between Iran’s professed intent with respect to its nuclear programme and the actual content of that programme to date.”

Western nations have long accused Tehran of seeking to develop an atomic bomb — something the leaders of the Islamic republic have vehemently denied.

Talks between Iran and the so-called P5+1 group to strike a deal disabling any Iranian nuclear military programme will resume on Wednesday in Vienna and are set to last until July 20 — the deadline for reaching a full treaty.

Under an interim six-month deal struck in Geneva in November, cash-strapped Iran agreed to halt uranium enrichment and eliminate its stockpiles in return for limited sanctions relief.

The pact also contains a provision for a one-time six-month extension of the talks, if all sides agree. The P5+1 group includes the five permanent members of the UN — Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States — plus Germany.

“Our negotiators will be working constantly in Vienna between now and July 20,” Kerry vowed.

“There may be pressure to put more time on the clock. But no extension is possible unless all sides agree, and the United States and our partners will not consent to an extension merely to drag out negotiations,” he warned.

Substantial gaps 

“Now Iran must choose,” he said, adding that “time is running short”.

“What will Iran choose? Despite many months of discussion, we don’t know yet. We do know that substantial gaps still exist between what Iran’s negotiators say they are willing to do and what they must do to achieve a comprehensive agreement.”

The last round of talks in June were reportedly strained, and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has lashed out at world powers for making “excessive demands” on his country.

But Kerry countered that they had “proposed a series of reasonable, verifiable and easily achievable measures that would ensure Iran cannot obtain a nuclear weapon”, and in return the Islamic republic “would be granted phased relief from nuclear-related sanctions”.

“The world is simply asking Iran to demonstrate that its nuclear activities are what it claims them to be,” Kerry added.

He acknowledged that Iranian negotiators had been “serious” so far throughout the talks and that Iran had met obligations by working to eliminate its stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium, not installing additional centrifuges and allowing international inspections.

He argued there were not often chances to “make the world safer, ease regional tensions and enable greater prosperity”.

“We have such an opportunity and a historic breakthrough is possible. It’s a matter of political will and proving intentions, not of capacity. It’s a matter of choices. Let us all choose wisely.”

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah has appointed Prince Khaled Bin Bandar as head of intelligence three months after his predecessor, who was in charge of efforts to support Syrian rebels against President Bashar Assad, was sacked.

It was unclear from the royal decree issued late on Monday whether Prince Khaled will have a similar brief on Syria.

A former soldier, he served during the last year as both deputy defence minister and governor of Riyadh, one of the most prominent roles occupied by senior ruling family members in the absolute monarchy.

Saudi Arabia has watched with increasing alarm in recent weeks as Sunni militants in Iraq, who count Saudi citizens in their number, have seized swathes of territory and declared the creation of an Islamic caliphate in that country and in Syria.

Riyadh’s policy in Syria is to back rebel groups it sees as moderate in an effort to bring down Assad, a close ally of its main regional enemy Iran, whose tactics in bombing urban centres have been described by Saudi officials as “genocide”.

But as young Saudis have gone to Syria to join the fight and as militant factions among the rebels have gained in strength, it has also grown concerned about eventual radicalisation among its own citizens prompting domestic attacks.

Those fears have been sharpened in recent weeks after the Islamic State, previously known as ISIL, seized swathes of territory including major towns and cities in the kingdom’s neighbour Iraq, where it also operates.

Last week King Abdullah ordered “all measures” to be taken to protect the country against militants and put the army on a higher state of alert.

Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, who was removed from his post in April after months abroad for medical treatment and who faced intense criticism for his handling of the Syria crisis, was made a special adviser to the king and a special envoy in the decree.

He retains his post as the secretary general of the National Security Council, state news agency SPA reported.

It was not clear if his new appointment means he will return to playing an active role in Saudi security and foreign policy.