Region

DUBAI — Saudi King Abdullah, in a Ramadan message on Saturday, vowed to crush Islamist militants threatening the kingdom, the state news agency reported, saying the world’s top oil exporter would not tolerate “a band of terrorists”.

The remarks came two days after the monarch ordered all necessary measures to protect the country against potential “terrorist threats” resulting from turmoil in neighbouring Iraq, where Sunni Islamist militants have captured some cities from the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.

“We will not let a band of terrorists who have taken religion as a disguise behind which they hide private interests to terrorise the protected Muslims, to touch our homeland or any of its sons or its protected residents,” King Abdullah said in a message at the start of the holy month of Ramadan.

Saudi Arabia crushed Al Qaeda after the Islamist militant group began a campaign of bombings and attacks on vital installations and expatriate compounds in the kingdom.

The US-allied kingdom has been rattled by a lightning advance through Iraq by Sunni militants spearheaded by the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant — aided by other Sunni Muslim militants, tribal leaders and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party — which seized swathes of the country this month.

Saudi Arabia shares an 800km  border with Iraq.

The birthplace of Islam, it sees itself as a champion of pure Sunni Muslim values and regards Shiite Iran as its main regional foe.

ADEN — Al Qaeda gunmen opened fire on an army position in Yemen’s southeast Saturday, sparking a clash that killed two soldiers and four attackers, a military official told AFP.

The dawn clash in Hadramawt province lasted an hour and left three more soldiers wounded.

The assault comes two days after suspected Al Qaeda gunmen briefly seized Sayun airport in Hadramawt in a deadly assault just as a civilian airliner was landing, before the airfield was retaken by the army.

The attack left eight soldiers, nine civilians and six jihadists dead.

Hadramawt’s rugged terrain provides hideouts for militants of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, considered by Washington as the jihadist network’s most dangerous affiliate.

Meanwhile, Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi said in a speech marking this weekend’s start of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, that his country is “fighting terrorism on behalf of the whole world” and that “our vast fight against terror will continue”.

The army launched a ground offensive against Al Qaeda in late April in two southern provinces further west — Abyan and Shabwa.

The operation aims to expel the militants from smaller towns and villages in the two provinces that escaped a previous sweep in 2012.

It has “foiled the terrorists’ project to create a global training camp for them in Yemen,” state news agency Saba quoted Hadi as saying.

Taking advantage of a collapse of central authority during a 2011 uprising that forced veteran strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh, from power, Al Qaeda seized swathes of the south and east.

Although government forces have captured several major towns, analysts say the army’s gains may have been the result of a tactical retreat by Al Qaeda in coordination with Yemen’s powerful tribes.

CAIRO — Egypt’s military said Saturday that devices it claimed it invented to detect and cure AIDS and Hepatitis C need six more months of testing.

The army had earlier promised to reveal the technology to the public this coming Monday after making what experts dismissed as an outlandish claim last February.

At a news conference then, the head of the army’s engineering agency said the military had produced an “astonishing, miraculous scientific invention” that could detect AIDS, hepatitis and other viruses without taking blood samples and also purify the blood of those suffering from the diseases.

The claim caused uproar among scientists and the public, with many pointing out that it had not been properly verified. It was also lampooned in a famous satirical programme that has now been taken off the air.

The claim hit a sensitive nerve in Egypt, where Hepatitis C is an epidemic. Some studies estimate that up to 10 per cent of 86 million Egyptians have it, making it the country with the highest prevalence in the world.

In a press conference held in a military hospital in Cairo Saturday, a military doctor said the devices needed further tests before they could be released to the public.

“Scientific integrity mandates that I delay the start of the public release until the experimentation period is over, to allow for a follow up with patients already using it,” Egypt’s state news agency MENA quoted Maj. Gen. Gamal Al Serafy, director of the Armed Forces Medical Department, as saying.

Serafy said doctors had already started testing one of the machines, the so-called “Complete Cure Device”, on 80 Hepatitis C patients who were also being treated with medication.

Saturday’s news conference notably dropped any mention of the devices as a cure for AIDS, only referring to hepatitis.

The original claim in February raised concerns that the military’s offer of seemingly inconceivable future devices would draw Egypt back into a pattern of broken promises by successive rulers who would frequently announce grand initiatives that failed to meet expectations.

Generals working on the project and pro-military media adopted a defensive stance over the matter, insisting that the invention would be released to the public and that any criticism of it was part of a foreign plot to rob Egypt of a major scientific victory.

Serafy said the armed forces will set up a medical centre to treat the viruses in the Suez Canal province of Ismailiya to carry out the tests and declare results.

WASHINGTON — The suspected ringleader of a deadly 2012 attack on the American consulate in the Libyan city of Benghazi arrived in the United States on Saturday in the custody of US authorities.

Four Americans including US ambassador Christopher Stevens were killed on September 11, 2012, when gunmen stormed the US consulate, and set it on fire and a CIA outpost was also targeted, in an attack that shocked Washington and has become a highly charged political issue.

“Ahmed Abu Khatallah arrived in the District of Columbia [Washington] this morning to face prosecution for his alleged role in the September 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya,” Department of Justice spokesman William Miller said.

Khatallah was scheduled to appear in court later in the day, he added.

The US State Department has identified Khatallah as a senior leader of Ansar Al Sharia, a Libyan Islamist group it brands a “terrorist” organisation responsible for a spate of attacks and assassinations.

US commandos captured Khatallah — who could face the death penalty — earlier this month in a covert raid on Libyan soil and he was transferred to the United States after being interred on a US navy vessel.

Special forces, working with FBI agents, carried out the stealth operation to seize Khatallah — whom the US has accused of being the attack ringleader — under cover of darkness and withdrew without losses. Libya accused Washington of violating its sovereignty.

The raid two weeks ago represented a victory for President Barack Obama, who has faced intense criticism over his administration’s handling of the Benghazi assault and its aftermath.

Khatallah was flown to Washington by helicopter shortly after sunrise from the navy warship the New York, where he has been held since his high-profile capture, The New York Times reported, quoting US government officials.

The suspect was being held under tight security in a federal courthouse in the US capital, the Times said.

Several charges 

US federal prosecutors have charged Khatallah with murder, carrying a weapon and offering material support to “terrorism”, according to an indictment. The first charge potentially carries the death penalty.

The charges reflect accounts from Libyan officials and witnesses who have singled out Khatallah as allegedly taking part in the assault that day.

Khatallah had been seen in public often since and gave an interview to The New York Times last year, striking a defiant tone over a strawberry frappe at a cafe in a luxury hotel in Benghazi.

But US officials have dismissed suggestions that the suspect was “hiding in plain sight” or that the operation to capture him could have been conducted much sooner.

The Benghazi attack raised questions about security at US missions worldwide and has been the subject of fierce political debate. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton faced hostile questioning before lawmakers over the issue.

Republicans alleged that the White House failed to respond decisively and then tried to hide some facts in the grisly episode.

The Obama administration, in turn, has accused critics of politicising a tragic event and says that it has divulged all the details of the episode.

GAZA — Some 40,000 public servants hired by Hamas went on strike in Gaza on Thursday in a pay dispute that could test the resilience of the new Palestinian government, formed just weeks ago under the Islamist group’s unity pact with President Mahmoud Abbas.

All government offices in the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip were closed as a result of the one-day strike, but hospital emergency rooms remained open and police continued to patrol the streets.

The new government, based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, infuriated public workers on Hamas’ payroll by saying it would vet them before paying out salaries — a process that could take months.

The wage dispute has shown the fragility of the reconciliation agreement signed in April under which a government of technocrats was formed with the task of holding a national ballot within six months.

Earlier this month, Gaza’s public sector union suspended protests that lasted nearly a week, saying it would resume its action if its members were not promptly paid.

Hamas hired the employees after seizing the Gaza Strip from forces loyal to the Western-backed Abbas in 2007, a year after winning a Palestinian election.

“This strike is a first step and an initial warning to the unity government,” said Mohammed Seyam, the chairman of the Hamas-hired workers’ union in the Gaza Strip.

“We want to be recognised as employees of the Palestinian Authority and merged into the main salary list. If there was no response from the unity government we will escalate our protests,” he told Reuters.

Kidnappings add to pressure on unity

Apart from the salary row, the apparent abduction of three Jewish students in the West Bank, which Israel has blamed on Hamas, is also threatening the recent reconciliation between Palestinian rivals.

Officials loyal to Abbas have warned the unity deal could fail if Israeli charges against Hamas were authenticated. The group has neither confirmed nor denied involvement.

But Abbas is also facing growing resentment because his security services have been collaborating with their Israeli counterparts in the search to locate the three missing Israelis.

Activists rallied in Ramallah, the Palestinians’ political capital, demanding an end to security coordination and hurled stones at one police station.

Hamas-hired workers on strike are especially resentful because Abbas’ Palestinian Authority in Ramallah has been paying its own 70,000-strong workforce in Gaza, even though the majority of them no longer worked under Hamas rule.

Hamas itself has struggled to pay its staff in recent months due partly to a continued rigid blockade imposed on Gaza by both Israel and Egypt — one of the reasons why the group decided to sign the accord with Abbas.

At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, at least 40 patients gathered outside out-patient clinics closed by the strike.

“We support the rights of employees to receive their salaries but we also want to get medical treatment. Unless my daughter is treated the condition of her broken arm may worsen,” said Talal Awad.

TRIPOLI — A deadly attack on troops, the killing of a rights activist and low turnout marred a parliamentary election Libyan authorities hope will end the political turmoil rife since the ouster of Muammar Qadhafi.

Seven soldiers deployed to provide polling day security in second city Benghazi were killed, and 53 injured, in what security officials said was an attack on their convoy by Islamist militia.

Later lawyer and human rights activist Salwa Bugaighis was shot dead by unknown assailants at her home in Benghazi, hospital and security sources said.

Bugaighis, a former member of the National Transitional Council, the 2011 anti-Qadhafi rebellion’s political wing, was vice president of a preparatory committee for national dialogue in Libya.

The eastern city, which was the scene of a deadly 2012 attack on the US consulate, has been tense since a rogue former rebel commander launched an offensive against powerful Islamist groups late last month, drawing many regular army units to his side.

The electoral commission was also forced to close 18 polling stations in the western town of Al Jemil after unidentified gunmen attacked five of them and stole ballot boxes, a local security official said.

By the time polls closed at 1800 GMT on Wednesday, just 630,000 of the 1.5 million registered voters had cast their ballot, a 47 per cent turnout, according to preliminary estimates by the electoral commission.

The number of registered voters itself is a far cry from the more than 2.7 million who signed up two years ago for Libya’s first ever free election. Almost 3.5 million Libyans are eligible to vote.

A patchwork of militias 

In the past few weeks, Libya has been rocked by a crisis that sees two rival Cabinets jostling for power in a crippling showdown between Islamists and liberals, as violence raged in the east.

A patchwork of militias, including Islamic extremists, who helped overthrow Qadhafi in the 2011 NATO-backed uprising have been blamed for violence that has continued unabated since then.

“These are the last chance elections. We are placing much hope in the future parliament to restore the security and stability of our country,” said Amr Baiou, 32, as he emerged from a polling station in Tripoli.

No voting was held in the eastern town of Derna, a stronghold of jihadists, for fear of attacks on polling stations.

In the south, just five out 15 polling stations opened in the Kufra region for “security reasons”, the electoral commission said.

Interim Prime Minister Abdullah Al Thani said the election was “proceeding normally”.

“Regarding the organisation of voting in Derna, there will be measures to take this week,” he added without elaborating.

The heavily armed rebels who ousted and killed Qadhafi have carved out their own fiefdoms in the deeply tribal country, some even seizing oil terminals and crippling crude exports from a sector key to government revenues.

The General National Congress (GNC), or parliament, which has served as Libya’s highest political authority since the revolt, was elected in the free July 2012 polls.

But it has been mired in controversy and accused of hogging power, with successive governments complaining its role as both executive and legislative authority has tied their hands in taming militias.

First results Friday or Saturday

The crisis came to a head in February when the assembly, whose term had been due to expire, decided to prolong its mandate until December.

That sparked street protests and forced lawmakers to announce the election.

Voters are choosing from among 1,628 candidates, with 32 seats in the 200-strong GNC reserved for women and would-be MPs banned from belonging to any political party.

The first results are expected on Friday or Saturday.

The UN Security Council has expressed hopes that the vote can be a stepping stone out of the chaos.

“These elections are an important step in Libya’s transition towards stable democratic governance,” it said this week.

For analyst Salem Soltan, none of the candidates standing in the elections “carry the political or social weight” needed in the assembly.

The new parliament risks “being run by shadow MPs, who will act according to instructions from warlords and militias,” he said.

But some of those taking part in Wednesday’s poll disagreed.

“We are voting so as not to repeat the mistakes of the past,” said Salah Al Thabet.

“We voted in the first elections just to vote. This time I have really researched the candidates, and I voted for the right people,” added the 62-year-old pensioner, after casting his ballot in central Tripoli.

BEIRUT — A suicide bomber who blew himself up at a Beirut hotel and his accomplice, who survived the blast, are citizens of Saudi Arabia, Lebanese officials said Thursday.

The bomber detonated his explosives at Beirut’s Duroy Hotel during a security raid on Wednesday evening, and died in the blast. Another man was wounded and was being questioned by security agents at a Beirut hospital.

A security and a judicial official told The Associated Press that a preliminary probe shows the two attackers entered Lebanon with Saudi passports on June 11, and had paid for bookings in two other hotels besides the Duroy.

The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to talk to the media during an ongoing investigation. Security forces are pursuing other suspects and on Thursday, special forces in bullet-proof vests and accompanied by police dogs raided at least one hotel in Beirut.

The blast towards the end of Wednesday evening rush-hour took place inside the Duroy Hotel, located near the Saudi embassy in Raouche district, a posh neighbourhood of apartment towers and upscale hotels perched on cliffs overlooking the Mediterranean Sea.

The Saudi embassy condemned the blast in a statement Thursday, calling it a “terror act”.

The Lebanese Red Cross said 11 other people were wounded in the hotel explosion.

It was the third suicide bombing in Lebanon in less than a week and sparked fears of renewed violence in a country that has been deeply affected by the civil war in neighbouring Syria.

On Monday, a suicide bomber blew himself up near a checkpoint outside a café just after midnight in a primarily Shiite neighbourhood where the militant Hizbollah group has a strong presence. The bombing killed one person and wounded 20.

An Al Qaeda-linked group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, has warned that such attacks will continue as long as Hizbollah takes part in Syria’s civil war alongside President Bashar Assad’s troops.

Syria’s civil war has spilled into neighbouring Lebanon on numerous occasions and inflamed sectarian tensions. A series of car bombs have struck Shiite areas across Lebanon, killing dozens of people.

Regional tensions are also mounting over the events unfolding in Iraq, where Sunni insurgents — including the Al Qaeda breakaway Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant — have seized much of the country’s north as armed forces loyal to the Shiite-led government have melted away.

The string of security incidents over the past week has rattled Lebanon, and Beirut in particular, after what had been a calm and stable stretch of several months.

Another bombing in eastern Lebanon last week killed a police officer and wounded several others.

The bombings, coupled with the detention last Friday in Beirut of people accused of being part of alleged Sunni extremist sleeper cells, has given rise to concerns that Lebanon could see a new wave of violence linked to the Syrian conflict.

RIYADH — King Abdullah ordered all necessary measures to protect Saudi Arabia against potential “terrorist threats” after chairing a security meeting to discuss the fall-out from Iraq, the state news agency SPA said on Thursday.

The world’s top oil exporter shares an 800km border with Iraq, where the militant Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and other Sunni Muslim groups have seized towns and cities in a lightning advance this month.

Riyadh has long expressed fears of being targeted by jihadists, including some of its own citizens, who have taken part in conflicts in Iraq and Syria, and earlier this year decreed long jail terms for those who travel overseas to fight.

“Concerned for the national security of the kingdom of Saudi Arabia against any measures that terrorist organisations or any other groups might resort to..., [the king] has ordered all necessary measures to protect the gains of the homeland and its stability, and the security of the Saudi people,” SPA said.

King Abdullah acted a day before he was due to meet US Secretary of State John Kerry in Jeddah to discuss the crisis in Iraq and Syria, and a day after two Saudi men were involved in a suicide bombing in Lebanon.

The Saudi ambassador in Lebanon said on Thursday he was not able to rule out that Wednesday’s attack in a Beirut hotel, which killed one of the Saudis and injured three security guards, was intended to target the embassy, located nearby.

Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia has been one of the biggest supporters of mainly Sunni rebels in Lebanon’s neighbour Syria fighting against President Bashar Assad, who is backed by Riyadh’s main regional adversary, Shiite Muslim Iran.

However, it has shied away from arming rebel groups like ISIL that its fears are connected to Al Qaeda, which waged a campaign of attacks inside the kingdom a decade ago led by veterans of jihad in civil wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia’s envoy in Lebanon, Ali Awad Asiri, said it was important to find out who was behind Wednesday’s bombing in Beirut, in which local security forces said the Saudi bomber was killed and another Saudi wounded and then arrested at the scene.

“We want to know why a Saudi citizen was involved in such a criminal act,” Asiri told television channel Al Hadath. His comment that the attack may have been directed at the Saudi embassy came in a later interview broadcast on Al Arabiya channel.

“We need to know how they were lured into this, who finances them, why they were in that place to carry out this criminal act. We have special ties with the security forces in Lebanon and the Lebanese government,” he said.

CAIRO — An Al Jazeera journalist whose jailing triggered global outrage has donated 15,000 Egyptian pounds to a fund initiated by the president to boost Egypt’s ailing economy, his brother said on Thursday.

Egyptian-Canadian Mohamed Fadel Fahmy, who was sentenced to seven years in jail along with two other Al Jazeera journalists for allegedly aiding the blacklisted Muslim Brotherhood, made the donation to Tahya Misr (Long Live Egypt), an initiative of President Abdel Fattah Al Sisi.

“When we visited the prison yesterday [Wednesday], Mohamed told us to donate 15,000 pounds [about $2,000/1,670 euros] to this fund,” Adel Fadel Fahmy told AFP as he made the donation at a bank on Thursday.

“Mohamed has always been patriotic and feels that the Egyptian economy needs support.”

When asked whether the donation was aimed at securing a pardon from the president for his brother, Adel said: “It is not linked... He [Mohamed] wants to distinguish between his love for Egypt and his disappointment and anger over the verdict.”

“As a family, we don’t expect this small donation to secure a pardon for him. These are two separate issues.”

In a speech on Tuesday, Sisi said he himself would donate half his salary and half of what he owns to help rebuild the country’s shattered economy.

Egypt’s political turmoil that began with the ouster of longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak in 2011 has ruined its economy, affecting tourist revenues and investments in particular.

Fadel Fahmy and Australian Peter Greste were each sentenced to seven years, while their colleague producer Baher Mohamed was handed 10 years in a decision that drew international condemnation and sparked fears of growing media restrictions in Egypt.

Eleven other co-defendants were given 10-year sentences in absentia, including one Dutch journalist and two Britons.

ADEN — Six suspected Al Qaeda fighters, six soldiers and a civilian woman were killed in a series of militant attacks in the eastern Yemeni city of Seiyun on Thursday, local officials said.

A suicide bomber drove his explosives-laden car into the entrance of an army base, killing four soldiers in the city in Hadramawt province — a territory with some of the country’s dwindling oil reserves. Another militant was killed in clashes that followed.

At around the same time, four militants and two soldiers were killed in a raid on the city’s airport before forces regained control of the facility. A civilian woman was also killed in an attack at a nearby agricultural plant.

Washington and Gulf countries are worried that further instability in Yemen could allow Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), the Islamist group’s regional wing, to consolidate its position and launch attacks overseas.

AQAP and allied local Islamists have staged attacks on government forces across the country, including many assassinations and car bombs in Hadramawt.

The province and other parts of the former nation of South Yemen have also been rocked by mass protests by a separatist movement.

Seiyun’s airport only had two scheduled flights on Thursday, one to Yemen’s capital Sanaa and the other to Jeddah in Saudi Arabia, according to flightstats.com.